1182 I'D KNOW HIM ANYWHERE

Bell leaned in and suddenly I felt his lips pressed on mine. It was only lightly, but long enough for me to feel the warmth of his mouth. He pulled back and smirked at the growling wolves around me, "My payment. A maiden's first kiss."

"But it's not." I blurted out.

There was a pause, just long enough for me to realize that it would have been infinitely better if I didn't always blurt out stuff like this.

Me and my big mouth.

While it could have been my imagination that the room darkened around us, the fact that our feet sunk deeper into the black liquid marble floor was undeniable.

"What did you say?" Bell fumed.

I wisely discerned that he didn't actually mean for me to repeat myself.

Bell's frown deepened and his curse fumes whipped up around him.

Maybe his fumes were just stretching. Yeah, the way maybe he was just doing face exercises.

"When?" Bell growled, and then his voice deepened, "WHO?"

He spoke the words as quietly as a breath, his last question growly in alpha demand, but everyone heard it since the rest of the room had stopped breathing. They weren't dead, they just instinctively held their breaths as if it would make the threat pass them by.

"Our engagement!" I managed to squeak out. I felt very relieved and pointed directly to the darkening visage of my mate. That's who!

Did he not remember? It felt like a lifetime ago, but Laura had the photos to prove it! That kiss by the balcony of the library in the presence of the full moon and both our families... And then I realized that WAS a lifetime ago...two lifetimes to be exact. Opps.

Bell's frown did not intensify despite my error. He seemed to be trying to remember. Was I unreasonable to feel insulted that my mate could not remember when he first kissed me?

Thankfully the floor seemed to have solidified again somewhat. Bell's power was... I frowned feeling quite sure there was something shady behind it.

At this moment, Bell seemed to remember something. He shrugged, "I hardly think that would count as a kiss."

Wait, we kissed? When? How? Now it was my turn to try to remember.

Right, during our betrothal, the adults thought it would be cute to get a picture of the Lorent puppy prince planting a sweet innocent kiss on his puppy princess. The moment I recalled it, my face burned at the memory.

Little Bell had outright refused to do the honors, "No!"

"Just a peck on the cheek." The adults cajoled, "Don't worry, she won't bite."

Then they laughed and looked at each other to affirm how witty they were.

Little Bell crossed his arms and glared. He was really just a pup then too... Nothing like the curse spewing, floor dissolving tyger before us, so his anger wasn't particularly threatening in any way.

Little Sam didn't want to kiss him either, but it didn't look like the adults weren't going to give up on the idea so I did what any alpha would do. I stepped up to do the deed. I mean, the sooner we were done with this, the sooner I could get out of this scratchy dress and play with Savy.

But Little Bell was a rebel even back. "No!" He yelled at me and tried to push me away. I got mad and bit him. On his cheek.

He got so mad he howled - not wolf howled, just little puppy meltdown howled, "I don't want to mate a puppy!"

And I got even madder and yelled back, "I don't want to mate a crybaby!"

To which he stopped howling to yell, "I'm not a crybaby!... You... You're the crybaby!"

And from that day forth, Bell would make sure to cement that title whenever he addressed me.

No matter how many lives I had lived, it seemed that Little Sam stories would follow me into adulthood.

"I'm not a crybaby!" I flared, because now that I remembered exactly how I got that nickname, it felt unjustified on all counts, "You're the crybaby!"

But I wasn't a pup having a shouting match with another pup anymore. Neither of us were pups anymore. And to everyone else in the room, the Alpha Princess had gone mad.

We were trapped in the Tyger's domain, and the Alpha Princess had taken to flaring out her blue hair and pointing at the Tyger to accuse him of being a crybaby. 

Bell smirked and reached out for the lock of blue hair closest to himself. My traitorous hair dropped limp in his hand. He brought it to his lips, his black curse unfurling a door for him, "If this is all you had summoned me to say..."

That's right. I summoned him. Wait, what? I summoned a Tyger to tell him he was a crybaby? Perhaps I was mad.

My heart skipped a beat when his lips touched my hair. He was leaving.

Given at the terror he had struck among the other wolves, I suppose it was for the best.

"Whichever way, your first kiss is mine." Bell said in parting.

I opened my mouth to argue with that - since I kissed him first (a bite is a hard kiss), technically his first kiss was mine.

But Bell turned, just as he stepped into his black portal, "No matter when or where you go. You are mine."

And then he was gone, and suddenly the lights and sounds of a regular day flooded the space we were in.

"Is it over?" Somebody asked from behind me.

"Sam?" Ben looked concerned, but I realized he was only mirroring my own expression, "Are you okay?"

"That was Bell." I said even as I realized it.

"Yeah." Ben said.

"No, Ben." I said, "I think that was really Bell."

"What?" Ben showed a rare moment of confusion.

There was only one Bell who would kiss my hair in parting like that. I'd know him anywhere.