Page 3 of Renaissance Bear

The last thing Jon needed was an argument with the bear. That could distract him from the last bout of the fight, and it would be embarrassing to go back to Laurie a loser after making all that fuss about fighting. He conceded,Bear-like,and the bear, satisfied and even smug, went back to being enthusiastic about knocking somebody around.

The other guy was on the far side of their fighting ring now, both of them heaving for breath but ready to go for the winning blow. Knowing it would appeal to the crowd, Jon let out a shout and ran toward his opponent, dragging his sword through the dust like he was some kind of anime character. People laughed and cheered while his opponent sneered.

It didlookvery vulnerable, Jon knew that. That was the idea. But he was strong, even without the bear strength, and bringing the blade up and around for a killer blow was incredibly theatrical. The audience liked theatrics even more than they liked the actual win.

But we wanna win!his bear shouted.

Jon, who happened to agree, swung the sword up, kicking dust along with it. He spun, hearing the crowd's cheer rising toward a crescendo. He shot a quick glance over his shoulder, half to see where his opponent was, half to see a flash of grins and raised fists from the gathering, so he could really appreciate how much they were about to love him.

A vividly green gaze met his. Just a glimpse, in the middle of his dramatic athletics. A vividly green gaze in a heart-shaped face, with black curls piled up around her head. A strong nose, a full mouth, wide bladed cheekbones, a flush of pink on golden skin. A long slender neck with an emerald jewel at her throat, and wonderful collarbones displayed by the elegant square-cut neckline of a gown that proclaimed her a lady of rank in the Faire. She was utterly, fabulously gorgeous.

Ourmate,his bear gasped, and Jon, enthralled by her jade eyes, completely forgot he was in a fight. He missed his opponent entirely, and took a hit to the ribs so hard that he collapsed into the dust, heaving for air and trying not to barf as the audience screamed their appreciation of his defeat.

Chapter 2

The littler guy in the sword fight, Alissandra thought, was the mostgorgeousman she'd ever seen. Even sweaty and half-hidden beneath a metal helmet, he was one hundred percent fullyhot. Long, dark blonde hair tied back in a braid that fell between his shoulder blades, deep dark brown eyes, great cheekbones highlighted by the shadows of the helmet, a full mouth pulled into a beautiful smile…he was absolute perfection. And 'littler' was a laugh, too: the other guy was positively huge, because Mr Gorgeous there had to be solidly over six feet in height.

Or he was up until he caught a sword to the belly so hard he doubled over. Alissandra's last glimpse of him was through the milling crowd as he lay on the ground, clutching his gut, grey-faced and wheezing.

Handsome, but not the hero she was looking for. Definitely not one she would be facing in battle, incognito, later. Not if he lost in the qualifying rounds of the unarmored fights. Which was too bad. Alis wouldn't half mind crossing swords with Mr Gorgeous, in both a very literal sense and a highly metaphoricalone. But as things stood, she would have to offer her favors elsewhere.

Literally. Not in an eyebrow-waggling way, or adoing somebody a favorway. Any time her sister was up for it, Alis played two parts at the faires they attended: the Black Knight, and a lady of the court. Otherwise Alis only played the Black Knight, because the quick changes between armor and fancy, Renaissance-style 'garb' were too difficult.

But Jasmine was up for it this time, so for the next week, Alis would be alternating between playing the role of a lady of the court and armoring up for the lists. 'Lady Alessandra' was a member of the Red Court whose primary duty was bestowing chivalric favors upon her favorite knights. When Alis had to be at the lists, fighting, Jasmine would take over the role of 'Lady Alessandra,' but otherwise, Alis's story for the Faire was to choose a knight, be wooed, and as part of the huge final weekend, participate in a theatrical production of a wedding with the knight she'd chosen.

Sadly, Mr Gorgeous clearly wasn't going to make the cut, which was a shame. It would have been nice to have an actually hot and sexy Faire boyfriend. Alis gave a dramatic sigh that ended in a giggle at herself as she worked her way out of the sword-fight-watching crowd. As the Black Knight, she didn't have to participate in the early elimination rounds. In fact, she onlyhadto show up for the semi-finals.

That, though, wasn't any fun at all.

She broke free of the crowd unexpectedly, almost tripping over her own feet when there were suddenly no more people to push through. For a small-town faire, the attendance was spectacular, but Alis guessed that was what they got for hosting a Renaissance fair in a towncalledRenaissance. Not only did the name beg for the faire, but the setting was staggeringly pretty. The kind of place a person would like to tuck up under the coversin, and call home. Which Alis felt was a crazy thing for a big-city girl to think, but it turned out small-town Colorado really was stunning.

The fairgrounds were set at the foot of the Rockies, and wound around clumps of sharp-scented pine trees and aspens that somebody'd had the foresight not to clear away entirely. It meant shade on hot sunny days. Alis was sure vendors would like to be set up beneath those trees, but instead, picnic tables and other seating were provided beneath them. That made sense to her: the tents and kiosks were hot, but at least provided their own shade. Having places where people could rest out of the sun was a great idea. Alis had been to way too many faires where there hadn't been any shade at all.

The other thing all the shady places offered was a place to pitch her own changing rooms. This was one of the few things Alis requested, as the Black Knight: somewhere private to don her armor. Some places couldn't accommodate that at all, so she had to reluctantly refuse to attend those faires, because keeping the secret was still half the fun. Eventually she'd have to come clean, and finally get to go to the faires which only used group changing rooms, but for the moment, she only fought at faires who could protect her anonymity.

And the organizers here had offered her a space just behind the arena, more or less beneath the bleachers and backing up to a thick strip of aspen forest. It was perfect, from Alis's point of view. A lot of construction stuff was stored there, boards and planks and a cement mixer, for heaven's sake, as well as huge rolls of canvas protected by tarpaulin wraps, in case any of the booths or tents in the faire were damaged and needed quick repair. Basically, it all looked like a storage area, and nobody was very likely to come looking for a knight's changing booth amidst all the…well, it wasn't really rubble, but that was the word that leaped to Alis's mind, anyway.

She and Jasmine had set up the tentveryearly in the morning on the first day, long before most faire workers arrived. They'd dressed identically, and only one of them at a time had ever been on the fairgrounds, so the fact that there were two of them had almost certainly gone unnoticed. Their little changing space was surprisingly comfortable, which was important, since Jasmine spent a lot of time there, mostly doing her computer programming day job.Digital nomad,that was what she called herself. Basically it meant she could work from anywhere, and did.

Alis knocked on a strut next to the tent, announcing herself before she pushed the door flap open. The back side of the tent had a big, fabric-screened window: good for letting air in, bad for seeing through. Jasmine had a water cooler set up along with her computer and a neatly-stacked pile of armor and food. She held a finger up as Alis entered, went back to typing, and worked in silence for another minute or three before closing the computer with aclick!and smiling brightly at her twin. "How's the faire?"

"Full of beautiful men. Or at least one really pretty one. Lousy fighter, though." Alis had already unzipped her gown and hung it on the small clothes rack by the time Jasmine finished work, and was pulling on the padding that went beneath her armor.

Jasmine laughed and stood to help Alis tie some of the padding in place. She was already dressed in an identical gown to the one Alis had just removed: deep red, with gold trim on the square neckline, and long belled sleeves that almost dragged on the ground. "Not going to win your heart, then?"

"I don't know, he's hot enough that I might forgive him as long as he's got other sword skills, if you know what I mean. You sure you're good in here?"

"I always am." Jasmine had worked out of the RV yesterday, sticking with the air-conditioning while Alis only had the role ofLady Alessandra to play. Today, though, Alis had to armor up, so Jasmine was on site, alternating between her actual day job and playing Alessandra. "Dying for some lemonade, though."

"Well, you can get some as soon as you finish becoming Alessandra." Alis pinned her hair tightly to her head as Jasmine started strapping pieces of armor in place. They had this down to a fine science, one that made the quick-change fun. Jasmine took her necklace off her as Alis finished her hair, and put it around her own neck, basically completing her transformation into Lady Alessandra. It took another few minutes to finish changing Alis into the Black Knight, but as almost always happened, they were giggling with delight as they finished up. Jasmine fished her phone out of one of the dress's non-regulation pockets and they took a selfie, two identical faces beaming back at them from the phone screen.

"Someday," Jasmine said, tucking the phone away again, "someday I'm going to get to post all these pictures and people's head will explode when they finally realize how you've been getting away with it all these years."

Alis snickered. "It helps that it's never occurred to them that 'Lord Edward' might be a woman."

"Or that 'Lady Alessandra' might be two women," Jasmine said cheerfully. "You know you could get your ass handed to you, right?"

This was practically ritual: Jasmine always asked, and Alis always nodded solemnly in return and said, "Not that it matters. The Black Knight is invited to be part of the semi-finals anyway."

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