More Blazing Bedtime Stories: Once Upon a Mattress by Julie Leto, Leslie Kelly Read Free Book Online Page B

Lucas Wolf had looked almost feral. The long, wild hair. But the strangest thought of all? That she wasn’t afraid. Not for herself, anyway.
    Lucas’s rage seemed to ease as he let the stranger go and hunched down beside her. “Are you all right?” he asked, his tone gruff, yet laced with concern.
    Penny simply stared.
    “Princess?”
    “Jeez, would you lay off the Princess stuff? Call me Penny, okay?” Realizing she sounded like a flaming bitch, not exactly the appropriate reaction to someone who’d probably saved her from a serious assault, she closed her eyes and shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’m a little shaken up.”
    He didn’t give her a moment’s warning before he scooped her up into his arms, rising to his feet and cradling her against his chest. He acted as though she weighed no more than a baby.
    “Hey, what are you…”
    “The hospital or your house?”
    She stared up at that rugged face, but couldn’t see him well in the darkness. She wanted to glimpse the gold in those brown eyes, and a ghost of a smile on his sensual mouth. But the eyes shone black in the night and his mouth was compressed and hard. Despite the care he was taking of her, anger still enveloped the man.
    “Penny? Do you need me to take you to the hospital?”
    Finally realizing he was waiting for her to make a decision, she shook her head once.
    “What about your head?”
    “It’s okay,” she mumbled, lifting a hand to touch the small lump already rising behind her ear. Her fingers came away flecked with a small amount of moisture. Blood. Oh God.
    Her head started to spin. She hated the sight of blood. Hated the smell of it. The feel of it. Hated anything to do with it. It was her one weakness.
    And suddenly, like some vapid heroine in an old movie, her eyes drifted closed and she felt herself sag heavier in his arms. She came within a breath of fainting, but somehow, when he clutched her even tighter and she felt the strong, steady, reassuring beat of his heart, she didn’t do it.
    “Hospital,” he snapped.
    “No, it’s fine,” she insisted. “I’m not badly hurt. Just a little stunned.” The fact that she hadn’t eaten a thing today didn’t help.
    Nor did the thought that she’d seen this man’s eyes glowing red a few minutes ago.
    She swallowed. “The truth is, I get really woozy at the sight of blood.”
    “Then you’d better close your eyes again,” he muttered.
    But he didn’t say it soon enough. The moon peeked out from behind a cloud, and she suddenly got a better look at the man holding her so carefully in his massive arms. At the abrasions on one cheek. At the trail of blood dripping freely from the cheekbone down, likely nicked by broken glass.
    This time, there was no stopping it. Darkness clouded her vision and that sense of dizziness she’d been fighting washed over her completely. It took away thought and fear and reason.
    And consciousness.

4
    O NE OF THE FIRST things he was going to do once Princess Penelope regained consciousness was lecture her about her security. Even with her in his arms, his single kick had busted the flimsy lock on her front door. Prowling around the house—after he’d lain her on her bed—he’d found the window in the bathroom unlocked. Not that her window locks were of much use, anyway.
    She didn’t have a single weapon, as far as he could tell. If she had to defend herself, the best she could do was to grab one of the dusty, unused frying pans from the kitchen.
    “Do you have any sense of self-preservation?” he asked her still form.
    Lucas glanced toward the bed, then back into her bathroom mirror as he scraped a flimsy plastic razor over his cheek. It wouldn’t do for long, given the full moon, but he didn’t want to scare the woman to death the minute she opened her eyes and noticed that his beard had grown a couple of inches from this morning. A half inch of that since he’d rescued her.
    Adrenaline, the chase, the fight…they sped things