Cinder's Wolf: A Shifter Retelling of Cinderella (A BBW Shifter Fairy Tale Retelling Book 2) (10 page)

N
othing
.

Rex stared at the screen of his phone. The link in his text message from Rose was a final purple. He had called every single number and, of the ones who answered, none was his mate.

Details beyond that were beginning to get murky. Crimson walls swam around him, the fleur-de-lis pattern of his wallpaper blurring into streaks of silver. His whole body throbbed, except for his ankle, where he couldn’t feel anything at all.

Rex lurched upward, one hand reaching out to the wall for balance. But he stumbled when his hand fell through the hole he had punched an hour ago.

Had it only been an hour?

A fresh wave of hurt and anger fizzled through his body. This time, he didn’t fight it.

Samson, his brother, had lasted a full week without his mate. Yes, he had lost some of his strength, but he had been nothing like this. His brother was a real wolf. Strong. His brother didn’t need to play with humans and stock markets to feel like he was an alpha. Command was in his blood.

Rex’s wolf growled at this poisonous thought. His wolf was tired of its gilded cage. It wanted to tear. To hunt. To feel the fresh softness of soil instead of silk, to taste the tang of air untainted by smoke.

After everything, Rex wanted it too.

What had all this bullshit gotten him? All this control?

She still ran.

Rex shivered, groaned, and closed his eyes. His nails, once cleanly manicured, lengthened and hardened into claws. The pain washing across his body receded as he gave into the calm of pure instinct.

Crack.

His spine broke, but it didn’t hurt. A second later, it twisted and reformed.

When Rex opened his eyes, he was on four legs, and his matemark had dissolved into the rest of his downy brown pelt. Emotions were faraway human things. Rex’s wolf found them strange, much like the rest of the room.

Everything was so tall. Rex sniffed. And smelled terrible. Artificial, chemical. In particular, the strange, black square of glass fascinated Rex. He pushed at it with his wet nose, and it began to buzz.

Symbols flashed across its screen, along with a picture of a scruffy man in flannel.

The phone tickled his nose as it vibrated, and Rex wheeled backward. It was his brother. His hind legs collided with the bed. He found himself snarling at the contained space, and his claws dug into the hardwood floor.

Enough.

Rex dove toward the black object, took it between his teeth, and crushed it.
Easy
. The broken shards didn’t even hurt his tough tongue. When Rex spat the phone back out it had stopped buzzing. He sniffed—pleased, but not satisfied.

This was only the beginning.

He didn’t need any of this. He only needed her. Now he would find her.

C
ynthia was careful
.

She snuck into her room through the back door basement entrance with a cat burglar’s grace. Okay, a cat burglar with a limp, maybe. But nothing squeaked or screeched as she slipped into her room.

Once safe inside, she allowed herself only one second to let out a breath before heading to the adjoining bathroom and getting to work. Her first and most important task was to make sure that there was absolutely no trace of her nighttime adventure. FBI levels of diligence were required because Lucille had almost as good an eye for messes as Cynthia did.

She began with her dress, slipping out of it and trying to get as much of the mud out of the hem as possible with a washcloth. Although it was hard because she was sensitive to the almost waterfall-like roar of the sink as she turned it on.

After the dress went the single other shoe, and the purse. She placed them as far back into her well-organized, if over-stuffed, closet as possible. Only once that was finished did she don her usual late-night ensemble of silky pajama pants. Normally, she liked the slippery smoothness of the fabric, but now, they felt like sandpaper.

Cynthia exhaled, trying to steady herself. The adrenaline from throwing the shoe and sneaking into the house having worn off, she was left feeling as sick as if she had already woken up hung over.

What if he gave you an STD, you idiot? You didn’t use protection.

Cynthia fell more than sat into her old, overstuffed office chair. That was right—they hadn’t used a condom. What had she been thinking? She never behaved so irresponsibly.

At least I have an IUD, so I’m not pregnant.

With that cheery thought, Cynthia booted up her five-year-old computer and stared at her emails.

Someone knocked at the door.

Cynthia started in her chair and swallowed. The action didn’t ease the sting of her dry throat or her pounding headache, and, most importantly, it didn’t stop the knocking.

What if it’s him?

The knocking got louder.

Cynthia spun in her chair to face the door, which rattled in its white wooden frame. “Hello?” she croaked.

“Hello?” a feminine, nasal voice called from the other side of the door. Lucille. “Cynthia?”

Cynthia slunk down into her chair, the fake leather making her silky pajama top ride up her spine, along with another bolt of pain. It wasn’t him. Shouldn’t she have been relieved at that fact? Normal men didn’t stalk you down when you disappeared.

But you like that he’s not normal.

“I’m coming in.” Lucille opened the door, but she didn’t move over the threshold. Instead, she wrinkled her nose, peering into Cynthia’s dim room, lit only by the blue glow of her computer screen.

“Hello,” Cynthia said again, not knowing what else to say.

Lucille flipped on the light. “We need to talk.”

Cynthia put her arm up over her eyes to stop from being blinded, but it didn’t help. Her eyes were especially sensitive for some reason. Every part of her was. She felt like she had fallen from the top of the Empire State Building.

“About what?” she asked.

“Come sit over here.”

Tentatively, Cynthia lowered her arm and blinked away the stinging in her eyes from the sudden change of light.

Lucille was sitting on her bed, legs primly crossed at the ankles, staring at Cynthia with the same wide-eyed pity she had after her father had died.

An echo of the rage Cynthia felt then bubbled up in her. She couldn’t even bother to fight back the scowl.

Lucille didn’t comment on Cynthia’s surly expression. Usually, she loved to nitpick any little problem.

“What’s wrong?” Cynthia asked.

“Sit down,” Lucille said.

Smoothing down her pajamas, she stepped over to her bed and sat down on the edge as far away from Lucille as possible. But it was still close enough for her to be able to take in Lucille’s appearance. Which looked startlingly… normal.

Usually, this early, she was in curlers and a full facemask—a habit Lucille still hadn’t shed from her time working in a hair salon in Jersey. But this morning, her face was naked, washed of all makeup, and she wore a velveteen red robe instead of her usual too-short chemise.

“I got an interesting call an hour ago,” Lucille said.

Oh no.

“Oh?” Cynthia said. “That’s early for a phone call.”
Please don’t let it be him.

“It was Rex West.”

Great.

“Do you know him?” Lucille asked.

“N-no,” Cynthia lied, but it was obvious even to her. Her breath hitched just hearing his name.

“Really?”

“Well, I mean, yes, I know
of
him. Any entrepreneur born in the twenty-first century knows of him. Not to mention that you, Reagan, and Christine went to his party last night.” Cynthia forced herself to meet Lucille’s point-blank stare. “But no, I’ve never met him.”

Liar.
Rex’s voice echoed in her mind with such force, Cynthia had to keep from turning around to see if he were right behind her.
Again
.

Lucille’s eyes were so much smaller without the fortification of mascara and her wrinkles so much deeper without concealer. “He seems to know you. He said that he had met a girl named Cynthia at the ball. That she had left his apartment without giving him his number, so he was calling every number on the guest list.”

“Must have been a mistake.” Cynthia’s heart pounded so loudly, she was afraid Lucille would hear it and know. “My name’s not exactly rare.”

“I thought so too. Since I had expressly told you not to go the party. And, since I’m being so generous letting you stay here rent free, I assumed you wouldn’t be stupid enough to make me angry. Again.” Lucille’s voice was getting higher and higher.

“Right,” Cynthia said. That was all she could manage. She pressed her ankle against the cool bronze leg of the bed frame.

“Except…” Lucille rotated herself on the bed, so even though they were sitting side by side, she was able to look her right in the eye. Well, she would’ve been able to if Cynthia wasn’t staring intensely at the carpet. “When I knocked on your door half an hour ago, you weren’t here.”

“I took a walk.”

“Why?”

“To clear my head?” Cynthia said, hiding her improvisation in sarcasm.

Lucille’s small eyes narrowed. “Where?”

“Central Park.” Cynthia’s pulse slowed as, by some miracle, her lies began to dovetail with the truth. She put her palms behind her and leaned back onto the bed.

“Then what’s this?” Lucille bent over and snatched something from the floor.

When Cynthia saw what it was, her palm slipped on the bed cover and she almost fell down.

The mask. She must’ve dropped it in her haste to clean up.

Lucille turned over the wolf’s mask in her hand, and it sparkled as if a noonday sunbeam had it instead of the warm, dim lights from Cynthia’s hanging lamps. Lucille handled it with just as much care as Cynthia had, maybe more.

Her stepmother might be a lot of things, but she never lost her inner wonder for the world of wealth she had stumbled into. She’d never have guessed that this was a stolen prop from the ballet and not a custom-made mask from the Fantas-whatever. Because there really was little difference between the two, except for price.

Cynthia almost felt sorry for Lucille in that moment. She had one of the swankiest apartments in Manhattan and enough money to buy her way into the right charities and country clubs, but in some ways, she’d always be an outsider. She’d always think it was the money that mattered most.

It wasn’t the money that mattered. It was what you did to earn it. Every coin, every diamond, every piece of property… it wasn’t what made them get up in the morning. No, it was the desire to build something. To change the world. To
be
somebody.

Lucille set the mask down. Her hands were shaking. “This was supposed to be Christine’s. And you stole it and snuck into the party. She wasn’t there at all.”

“No,” Cynthia said, her throat closing up. It hurt to swallow. It shouldn’t have. How many times had Lucille thought the worst of her in the past two years that she had been living at home?

“Just like you stole Reagan’s boyfriend.”

“He wasn’t her boyfriend. They had only met that night—”

“I’ve heard enough, Cynthia.” Lucille held up a hand. Her blood-red nails were the only thing Lucille still liked do for herself. “You are an adult now. You need to start acting like one. Clearly, that can’t happen under my roof.”

“What?” Cynthia rasped. “You can’t kick me out. This is my house.”

Lucille’s smile was almost sad. “It’s really not, honey.”

Cynthia stood up from the bed so quickly the springs whined in protest. She glared at the mask, wishing she could put it under feet and grind it into a powder. “The only reason it’s not is because you
stole
it.”

Lucille’s eyes narrowed and her hand dropped. “Oh, I stole it now. Tell me how your father leaving it to me in his will is stealing?”

“Because I’m
his
daughter.” Cynthia slammed her chest with her hand, enjoying the percussive feel on her skin. “He wanted me to go to Pratt for fashion design. He wanted me to be something great. He
never
would’ve wanted me to be homeless.”

“I know,” Lucille said, shaking her head, even as her eyes never left Cynthia’s. “Think of how disappointed he’d be at how you’ve turned out. A slut with a company slowly going bankrupt, living in her stepmother’s basement, stealing from her stepdaughters because she’s too proud to work like a normal person or, heaven forbid, date like a normal person.”

“Fuck you.”

“Cynthia,” Lucille hissed.

“Fuck…” Cynthia gathered spit in her cheeks and then expelled it out of her mouth, hurling right toward her stepmother’s pathetic face. “…you.”

Lucille didn’t move, only let the spit trickle down her cheek. Her eyes were closed, and the line of her shoulders underneath her oversized red robe was dead straight. Cynthia realized why the robe was familiar now. It used to be her father’s.

That fact should’ve made her angrier, but instead, it made Cynthia stumble backward into the chair. If she had forgotten how much every single one of her bones ached, landing reminded her

With the back of her hand, Lucille wiped away the spit from her face and opened her eyes. They weren’t angry anymore, or if they were, it was such a cold, quiet kind of fury that Cynthia was more afraid than if Lucille had been screaming.

“You have no idea, you spoiled little bitch, what your father wanted.”

Cynthia opened her mouth, but she didn’t have words. She wished she had just left when Lucille told her to.

“Ever since he died, I’ve seen the way you look at me. Like I don’t deserve to still be here. Like I put cyanide in his coffee and rewrote the will myself.” Lucille pressed her red-nailed fingers to her temple, as if she was finally acknowledging a decade-old migraine. “The fit you threw when I pulled you out of Pratt…” She shook her head.

“You took the money that was supposed to be in my college fund and used it for yourself.”

“Your college fund money?” Lucille laughed, and it sounded a lot like the wind through the November trees when there weren’t any leaves left to blow down. “Oh honey, there was no money left for your college fund.”

“What?”

“Your father was up to his eyeballs in debt when he died. Do you think I went around selling everything because I wanted to?”

“No.”

“Yes, you did.” Lucille’s eyes narrowed.

Cynthia crossed her arms. “Then why are we still here? How can you afford the cooks or the clothes—let alone this house?”

“Because I worked smart,” Lucille said, her voice gravelly, but also sounding somehow twenty years younger. “I got in contact with all the best investors and learned how to manage what we had to pay off what we didn’t. His cellar was worth a pretty penny too.” Even with her dyed-blonde hair limp around her face she looked tough. “I got shit done, Cynthia.”

It was almost a romantic story
, Cynthia thought. Except it was a total lie. There was no way her father had been in debt. Even if he were, Lucille wouldn’t have hidden it from her for the past ten years. Lucille didn’t care about her that much.
Right?

“I’ve been tough on you,” Lucille said, “because I don’t want you to end up like him. Working yourself to death for some business that is going nowhere but down. Sleeping with anything dumber, prettier, and poorer than you.”

“Dad never—”

“Oh please, honey, wake up. Your dad was millionaire more than a hundred times over the moment his father died. I’m an ex-hairdresser from Jersey. Of course he slept around. That’s what rich men do.”

Cynthia wanted to throw up. In fact, she was pretty sure she was going to. Her stomach roiled and churned. The room spun.
She couldn’t even feel her ankle anymore, although if she tried to move it, it pinged with pain. It made a sick kind of sense. She knew her father hadn’t been doing well before he died, but they had always had so much. ‘Not well’ usually just meant a pony instead of a thoroughbred for her birthday.

She closed her eyes. For some reason, she was brought back to that stupid ballet recital again. She was wearing her pink tutu, and the stage lights had been so hot that it had made her heavy makeup run. But she hadn’t been able to stop smiling, even though she had just lost her front tooth.

Until the bows came. She had looked out in the audience and couldn’t find her dad. Instead, there had been his young, pretty girlfriend with a funny accent and bad manners. But Cynthia had loved her anyway. Because she had been there.

“But I’m tired, Cynthia, I really am. I don’t know what else to do to get through to you. To get you to quit your stupid company and get a real job. I thought if I let you stay here, I’d at least be able to help. “