Read Cinder's Wolf: A Shifter Retelling of Cinderella (A BBW Shifter Fairy Tale Retelling Book 2) for Free Online Page B

same flute of champagne Rex had been reaching for.
    “A polite one.” Rex flinched. His damned wolf demanded revenge for the stolen glass, but Rex ignored it, picking up another flute and pivoting to lean against the table, facing Bane.
    “Polite?” Bane narrowed his dark brown eyes. Where Rex was broad-shouldered and classically handsome, Bane was all sharp cheekbones and shadows. “Well, that sounds boring and impossible.”
    Rex tilted his head, his mouth sharpening into a victorious smile of his own, but said nothing. Bane’s accent may have been upper-crust Londoner, but his surname was Germanic, and there was something more than a little Indian in the panther shifter’s blunt nose and pitch-black hair. No one, not even Rex, knew where the panther shifter had come from, or what he ever really wanted. This wasn’t that uncommon for werebeasts in the upper echelons of human society. It took a serious strength of will to not only survive among their prey, but also to thrive. It took the ability to keep a secret.
    “The theme of animals… do you think your true mate will decide to come as a wolf? I assume that’s who you’re looking for in all this.” Looking too innocent, Bane fiddled with one of his gleaming gold cufflinks in the shape of his company’s logo, a spinning wheel. “What if she came as a cat?”
    Hearing the words cat and his mate in the same sentence made Rex’s wolf fully alert for the first time since his matemark dreams had strengthened six months ago. He fought the ragged pounding of his heartbeat. “Faces are distractions. Unlike you, I can smell.”
    “Unlike you, I can shift.” Bane inclined his head before sipping at his gently bubbling Veuve Clicquot.
    “Keep fishing for rumors, Cat.” Rex kept his face carefully blank, even under his mask.
    “Funny thing is, rumors have a beautiful little habit of finding me.” Bane set down the glass and pointed lazily at a girl dressed in gold, wearing a mask made out of feathers. She was heading right toward them. Leaning in conspiratorially, Bane whispered, “What doyou think she wants ?”
    Rex frowned, trying not to imagine what sort of scheme Bane was going to use to ensnare the poor young woman, but before he could ask, Bane had already taken off. Rex decided against following. No matter how innocent the girl might’ve looked, no one who had a problem Bane Stilskin could solve was ever completely clean.
    Pressing his hands to his temples, Rex sighed. More people had filtered in during his conversation with Bane. Like most wolves, Rex never cared for crowds, but unlike most wolves, he was able to control his claustrophobia. Control was Rex’s specialty. He had only ever lost it once.
     Twelve years ago, he had met his mate, a girl who couldn’t have been more than nineteen to his twenty. Blonde hair, blue eyes, a lost princess in the dark woods, he meant to rescue her. Instead, his wolf, long ignored because of his designation as family “human liaison” and “business whiz” had frightened her away by growling at her.
    It had been tempting to stalk her down and explain, but Rex wasn’t a monster. He didn’t kidnap girls. They came with him. For him. Because they wanted to. Even at the tender age of twenty.
    Anyway, he had been sure that once the matemark asserted itself a few days after their initial meeting, she’d be drawn to his side where she belonged. But she hadn’t returned, and the tight control Rex maintained over his inner wolf kept him from following her scent across streams, let alone state lines. Shifting wasn’t an option. Rex would never do that again.
    As a human Rex could, however, track his prey within a room, and so when his matemark dreams had become more vivid after he came back from Michigan six months ago, Rex began throwing parties in the hope that his lost princess was near and would attend. Every week he chose a different theme. As Bane had noted, he had already burned through most of the Upper