Rapunzel And The Billionaire Bear: A BBW Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance Novella (The Shifter Princes Book 4) Read online

  Rapunzel And The Billionaire Bear: A BBW Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance Novella

  The Shifter Princes, Volume 4

  Sable Sylvan

  Published by Sable Sylvan, 2015.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  RAPUNZEL AND THE BILLIONAIRE BEAR: A BBW BEAR SHIFTER PARANORMAL ROMANCE NOVELLA

  First edition. August 14, 2015.

  Copyright © 2015 Sable Sylvan.

  Written by Sable Sylvan.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Epilogue

  Sneak Peek: Rumpled Bear Skin

  About The Author

  Chapter One

  Zelda looked out the window at the bright lights of the city that she’d never been allowed to explore. Seattle was glorious in the winter, covered in layers of thick white snow...but in recent years, she’d only ever touched the snow when it blanketed her balcony or she could reach out the window and feel its icy coldness.

  Zelda pulled from the window as she heard a ringing sound. It was the sound of her penthouse doorbell. She walked over to the panel and pressed a button. “Hello?” she said meekly.

  “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair,” said a woman’s voice. Zelda pressed the button that allowed people in the elevator to come up to the penthouse and waited for a knocking sound, taking a seat by the front door while she waited for her ward’s arrival.

  It was the same routine every time, or at least, it had been for years. When Zelda had first met her adoptive mother, Lorelei Woods, she had been impressed by the lifestyle that Lorelei had afforded her. Going from sharing a room with her siblings in a shack in Appalachia (at least, according to what Lorelei had told her: truth be told, Zelda didn’t remember much of her life before the first grade) to living the highlife was any girl’s dream, and Zelda had gone to the finest schools...until she got sick.

  At least, until the doctor told her she was sick, one fateful day close to Zelda’s sixteenth birthday. It had started with a cough that Lorelei insisted Zelda have checked out, and Lorelei had told Zelda that it was important that Zelda get weekly blood tests and start taking pills for her sickness until she got better.

  While Lorelei had paid for tutors to attend to Zelda, and signed Zelda up for correspondence classes, Zelda wasn’t allowed to go outside due to her poor health...but she missed going out and walking among the people. Lorelei had brought Zelda to Seattle to see a specialist, but aside from Lorelei, her doctor, and a bevy of tutors and assorted staff, Zelda had nobody to talk to, and her visits from Lorelei were frequent but not frequent enough to keep her satisfied. As Zelda had come of age, Lorelei had taken more business trips, and she was constantly away from the apartment, leaving Zelda on her own.

  Contamination was an issue: that’s what Lorelei had told Zelda, at least. So, she was only to let up people who knew the secret passcode. If someone didn’t say the words, “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair”, Zelda was not to let them in.

  Lorelei walked in the door with packages in her hands. “Darling, aren’t you glad to see me?” asked Lorelei. She was wearing her standard black pant suit, with pinstripe details, as well as high platform heels which made her look even taller and thinner than she already was.

  Zelda followed Lorelei to the living room. “It’s great to see you, Mom,” said Zelda as Lorelei put the packages down on the coffee table.

  “Paris was just as snowy,” said Lorelei. “But I brought this for you... I know they’re your favorite.” Lorelei passed Zelda a pale robin’s egg blue box with gold trim and a golden grosgrain ribbon.

  Zelda pulled the ribbon and lifted the lid to the box. Inside were her favorite pastries in literally the entire world: macarons from her favorite bakery, one she’d visited with Lorelei before she’d gotten sick. She hadn’t had them since Lorelei came back from her last trip to Paris. Zelda offered one to Lorelei. Lorelei made a gesture of refusal. “Can’t. I have to watch my waistline.”

  “Why don’t I have to watch mine?” asked Zelda, looking down at her own waistline. She couldn’t look more different from her adoptive mother: while Lorelei was tall, with an icy cold complexion and raven black straight hair cut short into a severe businesswoman’s hair cut, Zelda had long blonde wavy hair and a naturally pinkish complexion.

  “Because you’re not me,” said Lorelei. “Eat up. I didn’t haul them in my carryon for nothing.”

  Zelda picked out a macaron. The sandwich cookie was made of two almond flour biscuits glued together with various fillings that matched the flavors of the biscuit. The macaron Zelda picked out was coffee flavored. The coffee flavor was very rich and full-bodied, even baked into a small, fluffy cookie. However, the macaron tasted bittersweet, and not just due to its flavoring.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Lorelei. “You usually love your macarons.”

  “It’s just...when will I be able to leave this apartment?” asked Zelda.

  “Why would you want to leave the penthouse, darling?” asked Lorelei, furrowing her brow. “Aren’t you happy here? You can do whatever you want and have whatever you want.”

  “I am happy here...usually. I just get lonely sometimes,” said Zelda softly. “Never mind. It’s stupid.”

  The buzzer at the door went off and Lorelei gave Zelda a soft smile. “Well, speak of the devil, and he shall appear. I actually have another surprise for you,” said Lorelei. She got up from the door and pressed the button that allowed for entry to the apartment.

  “What is it?” asked Zelda.

  “I think the better question is, who is it?” said Lorelei with a sly smile. There was a knock at the door and Lorelei opened it.

  At the door was a man wearing a suit, the first man Zelda’s own age that she’d seen in years, outside of service workers who rarely spoke to her, performing only their assigned tasks. This man, however, had his eyes on Zelda, looking over Lorelei’s shoulder to the curvalicious woman sitting on the fancy white tufted couch in the open floor plan penthouse’s living room...and he was eating her up just as much as she was eating him up.

  The man looked back to the older woman. “Lorelei,” he said simply, extending his hand.

  Lorelei took his hand and shook it, exposing the black paw pads on her hands to her fellow bear. “Lance, I’m so glad you could come over. I have somebody I want you to meet.”

  Zelda started to rise to greet the visitor. “Please, don’t rise on my account,” said the handsome man as he walked over to the couch. The man had short blonde hair, and from his big brawny build, Zelda could tell he was some kind of a shifter. The white paw marks on his hand gave away the fact that he was a polar bear shifter. “My name is Lance.”

  “Hello Lance, I’m Zelda,” said Zelda, taking the man’s hand and shaking it from her seated position. She looked up at his face: he was tall and intimidating given that he was above her. “Are you a friend of my mom’s?”

  “You could say that,” said Lance, turning to Lorelei. “She said you might want some company, and I’m in town for the next few weeks, and am looking to make a friend.”

  �
�Mom, what’s your schedule like?” asked Zelda. While Zelda talked to her mother, Lance took the time to admire the curvy beauty. As a shifter, and a man who spent most of his time in the rural no man’s lands of Alaska, he rarely saw women like Zelda, who were young, curvy, and soft, unhardened by the land that had tried to turn Lance’s heart into stone, or at least, into ice. His heart was warmed by the bright golden tone of Zelda’s hair. Although Lance was a blonde, he was a platinum blonde, not a golden blonde, so his hair had cool tones that were almost grey or blue in certain lights, the same greyish blue as his eyes, whereas Zelda’s hair glimmered as brightly as her hazel eyes.

  “Oh, honey, I forgot to tell you...I’ll be at my condo downtown,” said Lorelei as she tapped at her smartphone.

  Zelda’s heart fell: her mom had been gone for weeks and was about to be gone again? “Mom, why don’t you just stay here?” asked Zelda.

  “Baby, sugar, doll face, I’d love to stay, but I have business downtown, and lots of late meetings, and working at odd hours, and taking phone calls all the time,” said Lorelei, looking up from her phone for a second. “It would be bad for your health; it would negatively affect your sleep.”

  “Alright,” said Zelda, dropping the topic as they had company...for the first time in a long time. Zelda used to go to some of her mom’s business events, the events held in the penthouse, but they’d come to a standstill last year, when she was twenty, as her mother had been away on business so often.

  “So, Zelda, your mother tells me you’re quite the artist,” said Lance, looking over Zelda. As soon as he said artist, she started to fidget with her long braid, which fell over one of her shoulders, revealing more of her hair to Lance. The braid was soft and messy, rather than severe like Lorelei’s haircut, and the hair was practically begging for Lance’s touch.

  Zelda was surprised that Lorelei had shared her interests with Lance. Usually, Zelda was expected to make nice with whatever banker or finance guy her mother brought over, talking about world events or the news, and occasionally culture, but she had never met somebody who wanted to talk about her and her interests. “Me? No, my art’s nothing,” said Zelda.

  “Zelda, dear, why don’t you go and fetch your sketches to show Lance?” insisted Lorelei.

  “Mom, that’s so embarrassing,” said Zelda. “But okay. If you insist.” Zelda got up from the couch and headed to her bedroom, which was close by. She opened the door to her resplendent room and walked over to her desk, picking up her trusty sketchbook. It was the second one she’d gone through in the past year, since she’d started sketching.

  She walked back out to the living room. “Here,” she said, passing the sketchbook to Lance. As Lance took the sketchbook from her, their hands touched, and for a second, it was like Zelda was shocked by an electrical wave.

  Lance opened the sketchbook carefully. He looked at the first drawing. “That’s old,” said Zelda.

  Lance flipped to the next page. “I can tell.” He looked at a few more pages. “Your drawings have improved at an impressive and steady rate, Zelda.”

  “Really?” asked Zelda.

  “Yeah, really,” said Lance gently. “Your cityscapes are impressive. Have you thought of branching out though, and doing studies of other things? Maybe nature studies?”

  “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” interjected Lorelei. “Zelda’s constitution, you see, is too delicate for the outdoors.”

  “Well, she could draw different things indoors,” said Lance. “Just to practice honing different skills and techniques, of course. You could do still lifes.”

  “Still lifes? No thanks,” said Zelda. “They’re so...flat and boring.”

  “Flat and boring? Do explain,” said Lance. His eyes were focused entirely on Zelda’s.

  Zelda had never met someone with such an intense stare. The only things brighter than Lance’s ice-white blonde hair were his eyes. Pale and blue, she swore she’d seen them flash...something only shifters could do. When Lorelei’s eyes flashed, they seemed to turn darker, as if lit by a Miltonian light, but Lance’s eyes...when they lit up, it was like she was a ship on the sea, and her eyes were the beacons in a lighthouse, guiding her home. “Well...they just don’t seem alive,” said Zelda.

  “Neither are buildings,” said Lance with a small smile.

  “But...buildings are full of life,” said Zelda. “They’re filled with people. There’s thousands of people in this building alone. Each of those buildings is like a hive full of bees. Sure, a hive itself isn’t alive...but it’s made by the things that live in it. It’s a home. And those buildings...they’re home, to other people like me, and not just buildings. Homes...well, they just feel alive to me. I know I must sound stupid...”

  “Not at all,” said Lance softly. “I never thought of it that way. If you’re interested in drawing things that are alive, your mother could arrange for models to come for you to sketch. Hopefully, individuals would be interesting enough for you to observe.”

  Zelda couldn’t believe that Lance hadn’t shot her down for explaining how she saw the world. Her mom would have in a second. “That would be cool,” said Zelda. “But...where would my mom find a model she approves of?”

  “I could model for you,” said Lance. “I did some modeling in college, actually. I posed for nudes for the art department.”

  Zelda turned beet red as she thought about the hunky man in front of her stark naked in front of a classroom of girls just like her. “No frikkin’ way. You, a nude model?” said Zelda.

  “If you’re sure it really wouldn’t be too much trouble, I don’t see why not to allow it,” said Lorelei. “But no nude modeling. That’s where I draw the line.”

  “Thank you so much,” said Zelda as Lance passed her sketchbook back to her. “This means so much to me.”

  As Lance watched Zelda’s face light up, he didn’t have the heart to tell her that it’d mean much, much more to him. “I’ve actually got a business meeting I have to get to,” said Lance apologetically. “But tomorrow, I can come over for a few hours.”

  “I’ll be looking forward to it,” said Zelda, standing as she walked Lance to the door. Standing next to Lance, she felt teeny: the big bear shifter towered over her by over a foot and he was strong and barrel chested. Lance brushed against her on accident, but the feeling of his heat through his suit jacket’s fabric turned Zelda on.

  “Well...goodbye,” said Zelda when Lance was at the doorway.

  “Goodbye...until tomorrow,” said Lance with a wink. “See you around, princess.”

  Princess...? What had Lance meant by that? There was no frikkin’ way that he had meant to say that. It had to be a pet name he used with his cat or something, or with a wife...although Zelda hadn’t seen a ring on his finger.

  “Zelda, dear, I’ve got to get going too,” said Lorelei, getting up from the couch. “I’ll see you soon, though, I promise.”

  “Really?” asked Zelda. “Because you say that every time.”

  “I’ve got to go, honey,” said Lorelei, walking towards the exit.

  “But mom...” said Zelda, reaching out to touch her adoptive mother.

  Lorelei turned, and swiped at Zelda’s face, hard. The slap stung, turning Zelda’s cheek bright red...but there was no way that it wasn’t going to bruise by the next morning, Zelda’s flesh as soft as that of a peach.

  In an instant, Lorelei went from busy corporate mom to abusive. “I’ve got to go, and you need to grow up and learn to live on your own,” said Lorelei angrily. Zelda was scared: her mother had shifted in front of her on a few rare occasions that she’d lost her temper entirely, and her shift was a force to be reckoned with. “I’m sorry I hit you...but you just make me so angry sometimes. I worry about you, Zelda, and I love you a lot. Get some sleep. It’s getting late: you’ve got company tomorrow, that’ll be nice, won’t it?”

  “Yeah,” said Lorelei. Her cheek still stung from the hard slap. It didn’t hurt nearly as much as the time that
Lorelei had accidentally chipped her tooth though. As Zelda left, Lorelei headed back to her room, not knowing that the next day would be the first day of an entirely different life.

  Chapter Two

  That night, Zelda's imagination went wild as it replayed the scene of Zelda meeting Lance for the first time, every detail as crystal clear as it had been when she'd first touched his hand to when she'd last felt the grazing of his arm against hers.

  The scene replayed again, and halfway through, Zelda noticed that Lorelei wasn't in the scene. It was just her and Lance...and at the end of their meeting, he didn't get off the couch to leave. He moved to sit next to her.

  "May I?" asked Lance, gesturing to Zelda's lap. In her lap was her sketchbook, covered by her folded hands.

  "Of course," said Zelda, passing Lance the sketchbook...but he put the sketchbook down on the coffee table, instead, taking Zelda's own hands into his and turning them over. Lance examined the lines of Zelda's hands using the tips of his fingers. His finger prints rough, the pads of his shifter paws located further away from the base of his fingers than normal, and the rough pads scratched against Zelda's soft skin. The scratches didn't hurt: they enticed Zelda even more. In her soft, cozy world, full of cashmere throw blankets and shearling rugs, something that was rough and felt real was exactly what she'd needed the entire time.

  "You have very interesting hands," said Lance softly, whispering into Zelda's ears. His hot breath made her start to feel wetter. "They don't have many lines, like most women's do."

  As Zelda started to become aroused in her dream, she became aroused in her own ornate bed. Usually a deep sleeper who didn't move around much, Zelda started to twitch a bit...and the space between her legs became wetter, as it had in her dream.

  "That's because I don't work, probably," said Zelda. "Or go out."

  "Which is why your skin is just...so perfect," said Lance, holding Zelda's hand in his while he pressed a finger along the nape of her neck, tracing a trail down her shoulder and around to the front to caress the soft dip of her clavicles. "Your skin's like the finest suede." Lance inhaled the scent of Zelda's natural musk.