Beauty and the Beast (Not Quite the Fairy Tale #3) Read Free Page A

all heavens, didn’t match the face. Rather than the sweet, high, musical pitch he’d imagined, it was broken, low, harsh and hoarse. While these qualities made some parts of him react to it in an entirely inappropriate fashion, it also served to remind him that she was flesh; not some sort of angelic illusion.
    “For you? I don’t think so. Let’s not pretend that I popped by for a visit of courtesy.”
    She crossed the room, her hips discretely swaying from side to side with each step, and bent down to drop a worn piece of paper on the low table.
    Holy freaking hell. Eyes up, asshole.
    She was a DD, easy. Of course she was.
    Aiden wondered what she’d paid for it. Not the breast – they were natural, damn her! – but the whole package.
    Clocks was right: there was magic involved. She wasn’t the sort of thing that nature came up with. Her eyes were proof of it: they were those of a freaking tiger. He wasn’t talking about the stone, but the actual living feline. Red-brown at the rim, yellow inside, and gold with sparkles of green near her irises. That just wasn’t normal. The hair wasn’t much better: most of it was hidden under her hood, but a few strands fell in soft dark waves, reflecting red in the morning light.
    Aiden swallowed, hard.
    Then, unquestionably proving his point, Adler left his flank without being bidden to do so, for the very first time since the completion of his training over twelve years ago.
    He sniffed the woman and carefully approached her hand, propping it with his head, demanding a scratch.
    What. The. Fuck.
    Adler was a royal hound; a very well trained one. He didn’t take food, cuddles, even water without permission. Never had, in any case.
    Aiden shook his head, wondering if it would wake him up. No such luck.
    “So, your brother sent you.”
    The guy deserved to be killed for it. Actually, Aiden was all for volunteering his services.
    If he’d had that for a sister, he would have locked her up under key to protect her until his dying breath.
    The woman, fay, witch or thing, just laughed.
    “You don’t know a thing about a family like ours, if you can believe that. No, I’m here of my own volition. I believe clause two of your little contract did specify that Ben’s debt could be erased if one of his sisters showed up, correct?”
    “So, that’s what you’re here for? Repay his debt?”
    He didn’t mean to take the next four steps, but he did. She didn’t back off, not even when he was completely invading her space.
    Fuck. Aiden didn’t force himself on women, but if she was offering? A hundred thousand was a steep fee, but he’d pay twice that for her.
    Inhaling his next breath, he took in the spices that had tormented him from the instant he’d woken up. Scratch that. Ten times. She would be a million mark screw if there was ever one.
    “Just to let you know, touch me and my knee is going to collide with your balls,” she informed him and he frowned at the unexpected wave of recognizable pain.
    It had been a while since he’d felt it – that shame.
    The truth of the matter is: physical appearance is something people grow used to, regardless of how pleasing or repulsive it is.
    It had taken a while, but he had accepted his reflection. Acceptance had liberated him: he’d been able to live relatively normally after realizing that there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about his face, his height or the color of his skin.
    He’d hidden in his home the first year; then, while he’d ventured out, he’d constantly worn a cape and a mask. It had only been two years ago that he’d come out of the proverbial closet, after meeting Stella.
     
    Stella had been desperate for a job and when Aiden had interviewed her for a shitty position at the bar, she’d offered to suck him to guarantee to be chosen. Crass, but the fact that someone had actually wanted to offer some sort of intercourse despite what he looked like had completely blown his mind – as well as other