The Look: Alpha Male, Feisty Female Romance by Blair Aaron

walked around the house, screaming for our parents, but they were gone. There was an old man who came through the front door, as he had been fishing all night and it was early morning. I screamed and cried when I saw him, afraid he would kidnap us, but Dorien put his hand over my mouth and dragged me out of the house. Later Dorien told me that we had spent much longer in the Forest than we thought. To us, from our perspective, it felt like a couple hours. But over 10 years had passed. We were just children, didn't know better. And we didn't know how to find our parents, either. So we just went back into the forest, to raise ourselves.
    “The longer Dorien and I stayed there, the more we changed. We became hard and mean, more like animals and less like children. Eventually we actually became animals too.
    “I became a lion.
    “He became a dragon.
    “The Forest brought the worst in us, gave us a physical animal form for our worst traits, I guess. It destroyed our innocence, all the love we had for each other, made us fight and hate everything we remembered about our old life. There's really nothing I would not give to get back what we lost. We could have been good people, normal people, led normal lives.”
    “You are a good person, Theo. You know that, right?”
    “No you don't understand. The Forest made us evil. Permanently bad. We messed up big time that night when we went into the woods, Elsa. I should never have followed my brother, but--I couldn't just let him go.” Theo grunted and punched the frame of the bed, drooping his head. Elsa put her hand on the back of his head, feeling his soft blond hair.
    “If the Forbidden Forest made you so evil,” Elsa said, “then why did you leave?”
    Theo looked up. “I saw how it was changing us for the worse, how the changes kept coming without end, knowing there was nothing I could do about it. Then I just decided if I was doomed, there was nothing I could lose by not giving one last fight, even if I couldn't undo the damage that had been done, even if I couldn't change back to my old self.”
    “Oh honey,” Elsa said. She thought about all the suffering Theo had been through with his brother, losing his family, then it occurred to her that if two hours spent in the woods were actually 10 years, how old exactly were Theo and his brother? “Theo,” Elsa started, “just how old are you?”
    “Ha, you don't want to know.”
    “I do. Tell me.”
    “Centuries old. At least six hundred years old.”
    “Oh my,” Elsa said, covering her mouth. “That means your family--”
    “Gone. Dead. Buried.”
    “Why did your brother place a hex on you?”
    “He didn't want me to leave the Forbidden Forest. When we first got there, he told me it was useless to leave. But as time went on, and we changed into our animal forms, he started telling me that this is who we were and it wasn't something to be ashamed of. Leaving the forest meant betraying ourselves, he thought. But I just couldn't take it anymore. I had to do something. I couldn't continue on down the same path of death and destruction. Maybe I will never be the same, but maybe I can get some of my old self back.”
    “You can. I'm going to help you.”
    There was a moment of silence before a loud knock shook the front door of Theo's cabin. Elsa stole a glance at her lover, whose eyes were glowing with the golden spirit of a lion. Theo opened the door of Elsa's cabin, shirtless but with pants on. The yellow glow from the fire created a sheen on his dark hair and tanned skin. But the blue cold from outside drowned half his image in shadow. He stood by the door, tall against the chill east wind. From Elsa's perspective, she could see only a few feet outside her cabin onto the porch. There was nothing but silence, a pregnant pause someone might experience before a volcano explodes or tornado strikes. Scanning the snowy area before the tree line, Theo smelled the air for signs of his brother but came up with