Wild Things (BBW Paranormal Shifter Romance): Shifter Lovers Romance by Catherine Vale

woman’s brown eyes. Senna backtracked. 
    “Anacelia.
What is it?”
    “Nothing.
Or…everything.”
    Anacelia
looked up, letting the tears fall. “I don’t know how to say good-bye to you. I
don’t want to. I want to just close the door and pretend you’re in the garden,
or with your father…”
    Senna
dropped the sunshade, and pulled the woman into her arms. “I know…I feel the
same. There is so much here…everything that matters to me. I don’t want to go…I
don’t want to leave you.”
    They
were both crying now and Senna thought it would be so easy to just push Anacelia
inside, lock them both in her room and ignore anyone who came looking for them.
They had capons and wine and date cake…
    “Senna!
Daughter. What are you doing, still here? I’ve been waiting at your carriage.”
    Anacelia
pulled out of Senna’s arms, stepping back into Senna’s room. Senna turned to
face her father, pulling herself up, straightening her shoulders. Her father
hated what he called weak posture. Now he took a step forward, bent down and
picked up the sunshade. He looked at it in puzzlement, then handed it to Senna.
    “Thank
you. I was just…coming down. I…I forgot my sunshade.” Short of brandishing it
like a sword, she held it out for her father to see.
    Her
father’s puzzlement grew, but he held out his arm. Senna took it and he
escorted her down the hall. Escort was what it might look like to everyone
standing in the hall or on the wide stairs, but to Senna it felt like the grip
of steel cuffs, a foreshadowing of her life with the Ottway. She walked past
the palace luminaries, the staff in the background—the dark looming figure of
the Prime Minister – without glancing at any of them.
    But
she held her head high, and in a swirl of silks she let her father escort her
out of the palace onto the wide terrace. Beyond, the sun was shining brightly
and she gently disengaged her arm from her father’s. He scowled, but she waved
the sunshade, then opened it.
    She
took the first steps down toward her carriage, leaving her father behind. There
were people watching from behind railings, but she ignored them, focusing on
her carriage, on the footman waiting with the little embroidered stool. The man
glanced up, then looked down, set the stool on the ground and stepped back,
waiting.
    Then
the whole scene blurred in a film of tears. Among all the people assembled, ,
the one face she wanted to see was not there. Not among the shifters, not
masquerading as her footman, not the man wearing shiny goggles, ready to drive
her carriage. Gabriel was nowhere to be seen.
    “Your
Highness.” The footman bowed, held out his arm. She set her hand on his sleeve
and stepped up into the carriage. And it was empty. She struggled for a moment
with the sunshade, wishing suddenly to just throw it under the carriage and
have done with it. But she’d carry it, if for no other reason than Anacelia had
pressed it into her hands.
    The
footman closed the door, then disappeared. A moment later she felt the rock of
the carriage as he climbed on the back. The driver got into his compartment,
and there was the ritual of starting the engine. With a hiss of steam, the
engine came to life. The driver adjusted his goggles and they lurched through
the gates of the palace.
    She
tried to watch out the window, looking for a red sash or beret in the crowd,
but they were moving too fast. Sitting back, she tried to push away the sadness
and loss she felt. It was hard, but she’d be damned if she’d arrive at the
Ottway’s dominion tear-stained and pining for home, and what she’d left behind. Or who.
    The
carriage thumped over the grate and then picked up speed on the way to the
station. Dust swirled around the car, obscuring most of the view. Not that
there was anything to see. Aliens had come closer and closer to the palace, and
now there were these huge, ugly walls she hated. The road to the rail station,
once lined with date palms and fruit sellers