[The Shifters Committee 05.0] Sensual Hero

by Rebecca Foxx

  “Hello? Are you lot open?”

  “We are. That’s why we’re in here. Can I help you?”

  That, that tone, that was also something he wasn’t used to. He was one hundred percent sure that nobody had ever spoken to him and he knew that many people would be beyond offended by it; he couldn’t have felt further from offended. It was nice to have someone speak to him with anything that sounded remotely genuine. He couldn’t have cared less what was said just so long as it was real.

  He knew that before long his keeper would track him down and he would be chastised and then implored to come back to the hotel where he belonged. He understood it, at least to a certain extent. There were certain expectations out of a man like Edward and the people who surrounded him were meant to make sure those expectations held up.

  He didn’t fault them. He just needed to be allowed to be a human being every once in awhile instead of merely a symbol of something greater. In his own mind that wasn’t so very much to ask, but it seemed that those around him felt quite differently. It was a rather unfortunate thing not to see eye to eye on.

  Edward Wright was a man that few people would see any cause to feel sorry for. For starters, there was the most obvious reason (in that it only took being in the same general vicinity as him to be able to see it). He was devastatingly handsome. The kind of handsome that the majority of the population would only ever see up on the silver screen.

  He was several inches above six feet with a naturally athletic build that people paid thousands of dollars to personal trainers to not quite achieve. It was a build that his hobbies only helped to support. He was an avid swimmer, did it every chance he was presented with. There was something about gliding through the water where there was no sound except the reverberations of his own movements against the far off plaster walls that felt like total, euphoric freedom to him.

  It was his greatest solace; it was just a coincidence that it also happened to make his shoulders look completely killer. He was also blessed with a head full of thick sandy hair and striking green eyes like a full field of rich green. He had the strong jaw of the dashing men from the old and glamorous days and a smile full of perfectly straight and blinding white teeth. Women, when they were allowed the opportunity of seeing him, just about fell down at the sight of him.

  Then there was the other reason; the reason he knew was the most important to everyone around him but him. He was not the normal man one would see walking down the street. He was very rarely caught anywhere without there being some express reason, some kind of business or appearance he didn’t really want to be there for.

  No, Edward wasn’t your typical man. Edward was royalty, a prince to be exact, and his life was in many ways not his own at all. Most of the time he didn’t mind it but every now and then he needed to get away. Unfortunately that wasn’t something that the people close to him understood and so he was forced to take matters into his own hands, much to the disapproval of his family.

  This morning had been one of those such times. It hadn’t been all that difficult, not in the end. What was it he had been attending? Sometimes everything seemed to blend together so, one appearance after another with absolutely no end in sight. But this morning. This morning had been the opening of an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was a museum that he loved but it had been so crowded.

  Everyone had come there to see him, at least that was what he was told. Funny then that it was so easy for him to slip by the masses of people and onto the street where he easily disappeared like he was just any other (although rather more than usually handsome) pedestrian or tourist on the street. So he had walked. He had walked and when it had begun to rain he had walked some more feeling like a boy again to feel the drops falling lightly on his face.

  He had walked for almost the entire day without food or drink until he was no longer sure where exactly he was. What he did know was that he could use a seat and a good stiff drink while he enjoyed whatever was left of his anonymity so he picked the most unassuming place he could find and walked down the steps, which had led him to the spot he now stood in.

  With that less than friendly bartender giving him a disdainful look and two women staring at him with expressions that he couldn’t quite understand. One of them nudged the other repeatedly, apparently trying to egg her on about some conversation they had been having.

  “There you go. Don’t make me tell you twice, Sandra. Seriously. You can’t back down. We had an agreement.”

  “No, we didn’t. You had a plan which you then decided that I should be a part of. That’s not quite the same as an agreement.”

  “Whatever. That’s just semantics. Just go do it already. I don’t know what you’re complaining about. You pretty much hit the jackpot, if you ask me. Look at him. He’s completely gorgeous.”

  Edward looked behind him and then from side to side, but there was nobody else there. So they were talking about him then, although he had zero idea why. The one who was protesting but clearly losing drank the alarmingly pink contents of her little shot glass and then stood on rather unsteady feet and began to walk toward him.

  He couldn’t say why she was approaching him but he didn’t exactly mind it. Good lord, she was a beautiful creature. He had never seen a woman quite like her before, all hair and hips and breasts he very much hoped he wasn’t outright staring at. This whole endeavor was getting stranger by the second and he was enjoying it mightily.

  When she got close enough to extend an arm she thrust a full beer at him, spilling it sloppily out of one side. Her face turned a pretty shade of pink when she saw what she had done and Edward, being the chivalrous man that he was, came to her rescue, determined to keep her from feeling so bad.

  “Please, miss, don’t feel bad. Is this for me?”

  “It was, until I spilled it all over the place. I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry, it’s a lovely gesture. Are you alright?”

  “Um, yes. I think so. I mean, mostly. Aside from being embarrassed.”

  “Over spilt beer? It isn’t a cause for such upset. Really, I very much appreciate the beverage.”

  “Your welcome. But it’s-”

  “It’s what?”

  “It’s not only this. The beer, I mean.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “It’s just my friend over there. She wants me to do something. Something that I think I might pass out if I actually tried to do.”

  “Is that so?” Edward said with a laugh, finding this odd girl to be strangely endearing and more so with each passing moment, “And what is it your friend wants you to do?”

  “She thinks I don’t know how to have enough fun. She thinks I need to let loose some and so she told me that I’m supposed to, to kiss the first guy that walks through that door. Which happens to be you. And now I’ve blown it by telling you, which kind of puts a damper on the whole seduction thing, and I’m pretty much wishing that I could melt into the floor right about now.”

  “Is that all? Well, I’m sure I can help you out with that in some way. Payment for the beer perhaps?”

  “Oh god, you don’t have to do that. I can’t believe I even said anything. i must have had one too many drinks. I don’t drink all that often, I guess I let it get to my head.”

  “Well not drinking all that often can only be considered a good thing. At least by me.”

  “Thanks, that’s sweet of you to say. Is she looking, by the way? My friend, Delia? Is she watching me talk to you?”

  “She is, I’m afraid, with an intensity I find rather alarming. We should probably do this so that she is placated. What do you say?”

  He wasn’t sure if it was her pretty face or the charmingly awkward demeanor but the normally reserved Edward had decided that he was going to help this girl out in her rouse of seduction. He had even gone so far as to begin to lean in when an exasperated gasp from behind him sounded the inevitable arrival of his discovery.

  “There you are, your majesty. I
have been looking for you absolutely everywhere. You simply must stop wandering off this way. It is frightfully dangerous and you have obligations. We must leave, and the sooner the better.”

  Edward looked back to the strange girl and saw that her mouth had dropped wide open. It must have been the ‘your majesty’ that did it. He should have just let her go and gone back to his duty but something in him made it impossible. He had had more fun in the last two minutes playing this strange game of words with her than he could remember over the past several years and he wasn’t ready to let it go; not just yet. But he did have to go, he knew that much, and so he leaned forward, grasping her upper arms urgently and making the surprised look on her face even more acute.

  “I must go.”

  “It sounds like it. Your-Your majesty.”

  “Meet me. Tomorrow, meet me in Central Park.”

  “But where? It’s a pretty big place.”

  “By the Alice in Wonderland statue. Meet me there.”

  Then he turned, nodded to his poor, put out valet and left the bar. Despite all that he was, despite being an honest to god prince, he was nervous. He honestly couldn’t say whether she would show up to meet him or not.

  Chapter Three

  “Ok. Ok, ok, ok. Emergency time. We’ve got to talk strategy. Like, right now. This is big. This is really big. This is the biggest thing that has ever happened to either of us in our whole, entire lives.”

  “Slooow down, Delia. I think you’re overreacting.”

  “Overreacting?! I think you’re underreacting. Did you hear that? Did you hear what they guy called him? He said ‘your majesty.’ That means royalty, Sandra. You just gave a mostly spilled beer to royalty and now he wants you to meet him again. That’s huge!”

  “I guess.”

  “Nope, no guessing. It just is.”

  Sandra felt her stomach do an uncomfortable little flip. She hadn’t liked this whole plan from the very start and that was just when it involved her having to lock lips with some stranger. Now the level of terrifying was in a whole new league, a league entirely of its own.

  It was just so confusing. Was it some kind of a code? Was it one of those things where he had a guy lined up to get him out of a situation he never wanted to be in to begin with? There was no way he could really be royalty, was there? I mean, things like that didn’t actually happen. Not to normal people, not to people like her.

  But even though things like this didn’t happen to people like her, it appeared that it was happening. She sat down heavily on the edge of her bed, looking distractedly out of the window of her crappy little apartment. This was not the apartment of a girl who had a tentative date with a prince the next day.

  This was the apartment of a girl who worked two shitty jobs and still struggled to make ends meet. None of this was even possible and yet there was Delia, scrambling around the bedroom like a chicken with her head cut off. It was starting to feel like a little too much to take in.

  “Sandra? Earth to Sandra? Are you even listening to me? We have to figure out what you’re going to wear!”

  “I can’t really see how it matters. He can’t really be a prince, can he? That would be insane.”

  “Well, there’s only one way to figure it out for sure, right?”

  “Wait, what? How? I don’t want to figure it out. At this point I pretty much just want to go to sleep.”

  “Too bad, sister. It’s time to rally. Now where’s your computer?”

  “My computer?”

  “Yes! Computer! As in laptop, as in internet. I need it right now. I need it like, yesterday.”

  It was pretty much impossible to argue with Delia when she was like this and so, reluctantly, the laptop landed in her hands. Her hands moved lightening fast and in no time flat she was screeching at the top of her lungs. Sandra would have been worried about disturbing the neighbors if they had been the type of neighbors to be bothered by noise, but seeing as they spent a good portion of each night yelling at each other, there wasn’t a whole lot to be concerned about.

  “Oh. My. God. It’s true. He’s a flipping prince, Sandra. He’s the prince of Monaco. You’re going to be like Grace Kelly!”

  “Hold on,” Sandra laughed, unable to stay serious in the face of her friend’s complete jubilation, “don’t you think you’re getting a little bit ahead of yourself?”

  “No, no I don’t. Now closet. Go. Now.”

  “Why am I here? What the hell am I doing this? This is completely insane. Somebody has got to be filming this or something.”

  Great. Now, not only was Sandra on an ill-begotten mission to meet a prince by the statue of Alice in Wonderland, but she was also talking to herself. This was not a good start. Not a good start at all. And the worst part was, she was actually focusing most of her energy on staying calm, which meant she was alarmingly close to a complete, full-on panic.

  That was certainly not going to help matters, she knew enough to know that. She just needed to tackle this thing differently. “One step at a time” she whispered to herself, “one foot in front of the other, just like walking to any other place.” Luckily that seemed to be helping some, the whole not confronting the magnitude of going to meet a prince thing, and before she knew it she could see the statue she was looking for.

  It was funny that Edward had chosen this particular statue. She had always loved it, as well as the story it depicted, but that wasn’t the part that struck her as funny. It was just that she herself felt very much like Alice at the moment; this was her falling down the rabbit hole and she had no idea where it was she would wind up when she finally landed.

  Normally that not knowing would be enough to keep her from coming to the park at all, but something was different this time. And it wasn’t only the fact that Delia would have killed her if she hadn’t gone, either. No, it was also the fact that she wanted to go. She was intrigued, kept seeing his lovely, charming smile.

  If she was being one hundred percent honest with herself, she had a little crush that was on its way to becoming a major crush. How like her, to develop her first crush in years on a guy who was actual royalty. Leave it to her to pick a man she had zero chance of actually getting.

  She wasn’t even sure why he wanted to meet her today. Was it some kind of bizarre sympathy thing? I mean it had to be, right? What other kind of explanation for it was there?

  “Or else he just won’t show up. That would make a wonderful dear diary moment.”

  “Well that would make him the worst kind of beast, this man you’re meeting. How well do you know him? Do you think he’s capable of such terrible behavior?”

  “Oh goodness! You startled me. I didn’t even see you there.”

  “I know, that was the point.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because, you looked so cute watching your feet on the pavement as you walked, muttering to yourself every few steps. I didn’t want to interrupt. It looked as if you were working something out.”

  Oh dear god. Sandra was torn between two feelings, one of them being complete and utter mortification over a legitimate prince having watched her talk to herself out in broad daylight. The other feeling, though, that was a feeling of giddiness she hadn’t known a person could have once they were out of childhood. Cute. He had said that she was cute, and even if it was only because she was acting like a crazy person, it was beyond flattering to hear. She didn’t even have words to speak. She was really and truly speechless.

  “So, Sandra, what do you say?”

  “What do I say to what?”

  “Would you like to go for a walk? See where the day takes us?”

  Seeing as she had no words, Sandra could only nod her head, but she did so with such vigour that she almost strained her neck. She was about to go for a walk. With a prince.

  Chapter Four

  “So, New York City. Are you one of those people born and bred here who would never think of leaving in a million years?”

  “Me?” Sandra said with
a pretty little laugh that made it impossible for Edward not to smile right along with her, “No, not at all.”

  “Well then tell me.”

  “Tell you what?”

  “About yourself, of course. If not a natural born New Yorker, then what? Where did you move here from?”

  “It’s really not all that interesting, I promise you. Especially not compared to you.”

  “Why to me?”

  “Because! You’re a prince. That’s a whole lot more interesting than a girl from a little Texas town.”

  “Ha! So I’ve ferreted it out of you, haven’t I?”

  “I guess you have,” she laughed again, her face turning the most radiant shade of pink, “I would make the worst kind of spy. I would give up all of my information if a person just asked me nicely enough! Not the most stealthy of girls.”