Cursed Mate: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (Feral Shifters Book 3) Read online

  Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

  A twig cracks beneath my bare foot, and Kian shoves away from the tree, whirling on me with both fists clenched.

  He looks wild. Almost as wild as Frost looked in the throes of his vicious attack. Fear snakes up my spine, but I straighten my shoulders and stare him down, waiting for him to get ahold of himself. Frost had a reason to be feral, since he’s so full of shadow magic that it’s nearly bursting out of him. Kian doesn’t.

  After a moment, his fingers uncurl and his shoulders slump forward.

  We eye each other in a loaded silence. There’s a tightness around his eyes that tells me whatever emotions he’s dealing with are still crowding his mind.

  “Malix says Frost seems okay physically,” I tell him, careful to keep my voice calm and even, like I’m speaking to a wounded animal. “Just a bump on the head.”

  It’s an attempt to reassure him. To make that worry around his eyes go away. But the truth is, maybe Frost will be all right. Physically, anyway. Mentally, though? There’s a big difference between being okay physically and being… okay.

  If he never comes back from the wild, dark place he was in when he woke up, how is that okay?

  It’s not.

  It never can be.

  Unfortunately, my lame attempt at soothing the beast fails spectacularly.

  Kian snarls, a gut-wrenching, horrific sound that’s more pain than anger. Before I can move to stop him, he twists around and punches the tree again. Over and over, each time opening his wounds wider, spattering blood on the ridged bark.

  I wince with every thud, my stomach clenching. Should I wait it out? Let him get that aggression out of his system?

  If I try to intervene, there’s no guarantee he won’t accidentally punch me in his blind fury. So I hover behind him on the balls of my feet, trying to force a decision that feels impossible in this particular moment.

  When I hear a popping sound that’s a little too close to bones cracking, my decision is made for me. I leap forward and grab his arm with a sharp, “Hey!”

  Yanking with my whole weight, I force him away from the tree.

  “Stop it. You’re hurting yourself,” I grit out, digging my fingers into his skin.

  “Don’t touch me!” he snarls.

  His eyes are wild and unfocused, and he rips his arm from my grasp as if I’ve burned him. With an inarticulate sound, he whirls around and shoves both hands through his hair. Blood smears over the tanned skin at his temple like war paint, and he stalks away from me, breathing so hard it’s a miracle that fire doesn’t emanate from his lungs.

  “I fucking failed!” he growls, dropping his bloody hands to his sides. He turns back to face me, rage tightening every line of his rugged features. “What the fuck did I do? Quinton threatened my brother, and what the fuck did I do? I stood by and let it happen. I let Frost sacrifice himself.”

  “You couldn’t have known—”

  “I should have!”

  “—what Quinton was going to do,” I finish doggedly, forcing myself to face his rage head on.

  He’s terrifying like this, almost otherworldly in his wrath. But he isn’t directing the violence toward me. If this is what he needs—to rant and rage and scream—well, I can fucking relate to that. And I can be here for him as he does it.

  Kian jabs his thumb into his chest. “It’s my job to protect them. Mine. This whole shitty situation is my fault. It’s on me.”

  “It’s not,” I say firmly.

  “Frost died today,” Kian roars, advancing on me with a wild glint in his eye. “I should have been the one who died.”

  “Frost is alive because of you,” I point out. Surely he isn’t too far gone for facts and logic.

  My heart stops beating as Kian strides toward me suddenly, bearing down on me like a runaway train. His hands grip my shoulders hard, and he pins me against the tree with stiff, unyielding arms as he snarls, “I never should have allowed this to happen!”

  My heart flutters as his words echo in the air around us, finally fading away to a devastating silence. Our gazes lock, and my throat tightens as I fall into the depths of his gold-ringed brown eyes, lost in the painful void of our phantom mate bond.

  Beneath the fury, I see something else. Something… lost and sad. Something almost like longing, the way a man might look at a woman he knows he can’t have.

  An answering ache throbs in my own chest, and goosebumps spread across my skin as a cool breeze brushes over my body.

  Speaking as softly as I can, I murmur, “You should never have allowed this to happen? Which ‘this’ do you mean, Kian? Quinton hurting Frost? Or the three of you mating with me and then discarding me?”

  He doesn’t even hesitate. “All of it.”

  A sharp slice of agony cuts me to my core, but I ignore it. This isn’t about me or the fact that he wanted the bond to fail forever when he snuck that potion into the antidote for the shadow poison.

  Ignoring the unspoken words that fill the space between us like a soundless scream, I reach up to rest my hands over his on my shoulders. “What happened to Frost isn’t your fault, and you know it. All three of you look out for one another, and I know all three of you would die for each other. If Frost were in your position right now and you were in his, he’d be just as fucked up. He’d wish it were him, just like you wish it was you now. He wouldn’t want you to blame yourself for what happened.”

  Kian stares at me, his jaw tight. His features are still hard as stone, full of fury and guilt. Full of so many emotions that I can’t even begin to identify them all.

  Then, in the space of a single heartbeat, the stone cracks.

  A new emotion rushes up to replace all the others, and his eyes spark with intensity as he yanks me against his body, crushing his lips to mine.

  Amora

  Maybe I should be used to the way Kian kisses by now, but I’m not. I don’t think I ever will be, honestly.

  His lips move against mine with bruising intensity, his tongue swiping over my lower lip before pressing into my mouth, demanding entry. I open to him, and he angles his head to take it deeper, plunging his tongue into my mouth like he’s trying to lay some kind of claim on me.

  One large hand splays across my back, the other wandering down to palm at my ass as he presses me harder against the tree he was just punching. The rough bark scrapes against my skin, and I’m probably getting his blood smeared on my shoulder, but I don’t care about that.

  I don’t care about anything.

  I can’t think about anything except the whiskey and woodsmoke of Kian’s scent and the low growls he makes in his throat as he devours me.

  Kissing Kian has never been a gentle experience, but now it’s something else entirely. It’s like being swept up in a hurricane, my feet dragged off the ground and my body tossed about by the brutal winds. Like being carried away, unsure where I’m going to land and if I’ll still be in one piece when I do.

  Heat and something almost like a survival instinct rise up in me at the same time, and I push against Kian’s grip as I slide my tongue into his mouth, battling with his as if I’m trying to fight against a force of nature.

  I’m making little noises too, grunts and pants and soft mewling noises that are swallowed up by Kian’s mouth.

  When he drags his lips away from mine, I suck in a breath like I haven’t filled my lungs in days.

  “Fuck, you taste good,” he mutters, his words barely intelligible as he trails his mouth over my jaw, then down the column of my throat. He drops his head lower, dragging his tongue over the bare skin of my breast before latching his lips around my nipple.

  His front teeth bite down hard on the stiff bud as his hand comes up to palm my other breast, rolling that nipple between his fingers. The twin bolts of pleasure and pain make my mouth drop open, a startled cry falling from my lips as a gush of wetness seeps from my pussy.

  Kian goes still for a moment, angling his head just a little to look up
at my face through his dark lashes. Then he bites down again, even harder this time, at the same moment he pinches my nipple between two of his knuckles, tugging on it almost viciously.

  The spark of pain is more pronounced this time, sharp and immediate… and the rush of pleasure afterward is even more intense.

  “Fuck… Kian…”

  I let out a sobbing moan, and he snarls, pulling back and straightening his spine to stare down at me. His pupils are so wide that they’ve overtaken nearly all of his irises, leaving just a hint of dark brown and the gold rings that burn at the edges.

  Fire and darkness.

  Just like the man himself.

  His nostrils flare as he hooks an arm around my lower back, dragging me closer. At the same time, one of his feet kicks mine wider apart, and he wedges his muscled thigh between my legs as he pins me against his broad body.

  My clit drags against his thick thigh, and I shudder involuntarily, my lips slightly parted as I stare up at him. Unable to help myself, I roll my hips against him, getting more friction on my clit and making my lower body throb.

  “Look at you,” he rasps in a low voice, breathing hard. His free hand moves up to grip my jaw in a tight hold, tilting my head up toward his. “You’re so fucking hungry for me, so desperate. You’d make yourself come just by humping my leg, wouldn’t you?”

  Anger and blazing heat rip through me at his words.

  I hate that he can see through me so well.

  I fucking hate that he’s right.

  “Do it,” he commands, his arm banding against me even tighter, keeping me pinned in place. “Make yourself come.”

  My body goes stiff for a moment. I’m tempted to resist, to deny him just to prove that I still can.

  But the thing is, Kian’s not as in control of this moment as he’d like to think. He’s dragged me so close to his body that I can feel his cock throbbing against my lower belly, and as we stay frozen in place for a few long seconds, it pulses against me, droplets of precum smearing over my skin.

  He knows how much I want him in this moment, but he can’t fucking deny that he wants me too.

  So I hold his gaze almost defiantly and roll my hips again, dragging my clit over his hard thigh as a soft moan falls from my lips. I do it again, shifting my stance a little to get the exact angle that sends pleasure spiraling through my core.

  It’s messy and animalistic, no finesse or romance to be found anywhere as I ride his thigh shamelessly, humping his leg just like he said I would. He’s got me pinned so tightly that I don’t have that much range of motion, but I have enough to get what I need.

  And I take it.

  My breathing gets faster, and I stare up into his burning, unblinking eyes as I push myself closer and closer to the edge. I can feel myself leaving a smear of arousal on his thigh, but I don’t care. All I care about is the desperate need to break the tension building inside me, the need to feel pleasure pour through me like liquid fire.

  “No one else can make you feel this way, can they?” Kian growls, his voice tinged with an edge of the same desperation I feel.

  I don’t even bother trying to respond—not by speaking or even shaking my head. His grip on me is so tight that I probably couldn’t move my head anyway, and I don’t want to say the truth out loud.

  No.

  No one has ever made me feel this way, and no one ever could.

  Frost and Malix both make me feel so many things, each of those two men affecting me in ways no one else does too. All three of the feral shifters have their own unique way of getting under my skin, of tearing down my walls even when I try not to let them.

  And this?

  This right here is Kian’s way. Something that could only ever exist between the two of us. A potent, overwhelming mix of anger and pain and love and hate that makes me want to tear him to pieces just so I can get closer to the heart of who he is. Just so I can dig out his soul and wrap myself in it like a blanket.

  Kian’s lips press together as he realizes I’m not going to speak, but rather than demanding an answer, he just uses his grip on me to rock me more forcefully against his thigh, grinding his cock against my stomach as he does.

  And finally, it hits.

  My legs tighten around his, my toes curling into the dirt as white heat bursts through my body like a supernova.

  “Oh god! Oh shit! Fuck. Fuck!”

  I lose my rhythm, but Kian takes over, guiding me up and down as my soaked pussy slides over his leg. The orgasm rolls through me in waves, making me shudder and shake with each new spasm of pleasure.

  My heartbeat seems to speed up and slow down all at once, thudding heavily in my chest as I blink dazedly.

  Kian’s hold on me finally loosens, and I sink back against the tree as a few inches of space open up between us. He’s breathing harder too, even though he’s not the one who just came, and he slides his hand over my hip before delving his fingers between my legs.

  Before I’m ready for it, two thick digits slide into me, and my pussy clenches tight around the intrusion.

  “You’re soaked,” he comments in a rough voice. “Your thighs are wet with it. My thigh is wet with it. I can feel you fluttering around my fingers, trying to pull me in deeper. That’s what you want, isn’t it, baby? More? You’re still so fucking hungry.”

  As if to show me how true his words are, he drags his fingers out of me and brings them to his lips. I can see the way light glints off the slick arousal that coats them, all the way past the second knuckle. He sticks both fingers in his mouth and sucks on them, and my stomach clenches as a fire stokes low in my belly.

  “Maybe I am hungry,” I murmur, a challenge in my tone.

  Reaching down, I wrap my hand around his cock, taking almost vicious pleasure in the way his body jerks at my touch, the chiseled muscles of his stomach flexing. His shaft is already slick, coated with precum from when he was grinding against my stomach, and I squeeze tightly as I glide my hand up and down in a deliberate movement.

  Then I release him and bring my fingers to my own mouth, holding his gaze as I draw my tongue up the length of each one.

  Kian freezes as he watches me, his body going as still and tense as a predator’s.

  Then something in him seems to snap.

  With a noise that’s barely even human, he lifts me by my legs, slamming my back against the tree again as he holds my thighs open and drives into me, burying himself to the hilt in one hard thrust.

  He wasn’t lying about how fucking wet I am, but my body still has to stretch to accommodate his thick girth, and the sudden feeling of fullness forces the air from my lungs. My head tips back, hitting the tree trunk with a dull thunk that I would probably feel if all my nerve endings weren’t so attuned to the man fucking me.

  Without giving me any time to adjust, he draws out and thrusts back inside, grunting like an animal as he fucks me into the rough bark of the tree. He does it again and again, pulling out so far that my body feels empty and bereft before slamming back inside and filling me to the brink again.

  My arms wrap around his shoulders, my legs hooking around his waist as pleasure flares inside me again. My clit is still pulsing from the aftershocks of my first orgasm, but my body seems to care as little as Kian does that I just came.

  Even though I’m so oversensitive that each brush against my clit is a mixture of pleasure and pain, I’m going to come again. It’s not going to take all that long either.

  My eyelids droop, and I start to bury my face in Kian’s neck as I try to ride out the torrent of sensations. But he lifts one hand away from my leg, keeping me pinned between his massive body and the tree as he grabs a fistful of my hair, wrapping it around his hand.

  “Don’t you dare fucking hide from me,” he grunts, driving into me again and hitting a spot inside me that makes me gasp. “Let me see you. Look at me.”

  I don’t want to look at him. I don’t want to let him see all the things inside me that our rough fuck has laid bare, and I
don’t want to see those things in him either. But as our gazes lock, I find that I can’t look away from his dark eyes. I’m falling into their depths, lost in the fierce, possessive need that burns deep within them.

  And I don’t know if it’s the look on his face or the way he drives in so deep that I feel like he might shatter me, but the orgasm that’s been building in me finally explodes.

  I yank against his tight grip on my hair as my body convulses in his arms, and Kian’s thrusts become harder and more erratic, his pelvis slapping against mine as he fucks me like an animal.

  The muscles in his neck stand out, straining under his tanned skin as he lets out a guttural cry. His cock thickens and swells, and I clamp down harder around him, the ripples of my own release milking him of his.

  “Fuck. So goddamn tight,” he grunts, thrusting into me again as another jet of hot cum fills my pussy. “So. Fucking. Good.”

  He thrusts two more times, forcing himself deeper inside me even as my core squeezes him like a vise. I cling to his shoulders as he finally goes still, breathing hard as we both come down from the rush of our climaxes.

  With his cock still buried inside me, Kian finally releases his grip on my hair. He nuzzles his face into the crook of my neck, his arms tightening around my waist until our sweat-soaked bodies can’t possibly get any closer. I press feather-light kisses along his hairline and temple, my fingertips swirling over his upper back, over the clenched muscles in his shoulders. I caress every part of him that I can reach, a reminder that I’m still here as he tries to chase his inner demons away.

  I don’t want to let him go. Not yet. There’s a kind of vulnerability to him right now that calls to some deeply buried part of me. He doesn’t let this side of himself out, like, ever, which isn’t a healthy way to live. The longer he bottles this shit up, the more he’s going to explode like he did on that poor evergreen tree.