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

  In the beat of silence after that grim declaration, something clatters beneath us in the basement.

  We all freeze, and my skin prickles with unease.

  A howl rises up, the sound unearthly and terrifying. Then more clattering and several heavy thuds, accompanied by angry grunts.

  My stomach clenches, all four of the Pop-Tarts I just ate threatening to make a reappearance.

  Frost is awake. And he’s clearly not in a good mood.

  Frost

  The shadows have teeth.

  They have teeth, and they rip and tear.

  I throw my weight against the rusted chains holding me in place. I don’t know this room. How did I become chained? The heavy pipe above groans under the force of my weight, but it doesn’t give.

  I’m in slivers. In tatters. Nothing but pieces.

  There’s blood on my skin, dripping down my arms and torso.

  No, it’s not blood.

  It’s shadows.

  Shadows with teeth.

  I need to get out. Out of this dank, dark room. Out of my mind.

  The shadows twist and roil inside me. Everywhere they touch, they flash black against my skin and agony lances through me. I’m unsettled. I’m dying.

  The pain is…

  The pain just is.

  I try to yank my hands downward. Metal cuts into my wrists. I howl when something in my chest burns like a knife blade. Pain throbs behind my eyes. My head is going to split open any moment, I’m sure of it. It’s too full. Too full of too many things.

  Shadows.

  Pain.

  Fury.

  Violence.

  A lock tumbles, the soft sound reaching my ears like a crack of thunder, louder than it should be in my mind. A door opens.

  I cringe away from the light that falls through the open door, snarling as it burns my already aching eyes. The giant structure next to me is cold on my bare skin, but it gives me just enough room to hide.

  “Frost?”

  A light voice. Musical. What is it saying?

  The shadows scream in my head.

  Another voice speaks. “I don’t think he’s in his right mind.”

  “Yeah. I think you’re right,” the first voice agrees.

  I don’t… I don’t understand the words. It’s just noise. Sounds that make no sense. The quiet voices make even less sense than the shadows. The shadows dart across my skin in agitation, twisting around my bones and thrashing in my soul.

  Kill them.

  Fury overrides every other emotion inside me. I lunge from behind the metal cylinder and leap for the three figures standing over me. I almost reach them, but the heavy metal chains wrapped around my wrists stops my momentum, and I’m thrown off my feet. I’m yanked back and land hard on a stone floor, but everything else hurts so much that I don’t even feel the impact.

  I am pain.

  I am shadows.

  I’m nothing else.

  The smallest of the three figures stares at me, her big green eyes shining. Why do I know those eyes? Why do I want to drown in them?

  “He’s not even human,” she says, her voice choked.

  “He’s only shadow,” the largest figure agrees.

  What are they saying?

  Destroy. Destroy. Destroy.

  I haul my body backward to reduce the strain on my arms. My feet slip out from beneath me and get tangled up in something soft and warm on the floor. I kick at it, snarling. Is it attacking me?

  Destroy.

  “We have to break him out of this,” someone says. I don’t know which one.

  I can’t even focus on their faces. But I know them. I think I know them.

  Enemies.

  Lovers.

  Friends.

  Who is it?

  Who am I?

  “Can we even do that? Can we get him back from this?”

  There’s a short, deep laugh. “We’ve been stuck with the shadows our whole lives. I don’t see a way out of this for him.”

  “There has to be…” A pause.

  I snarl and lunge, trying to reach them. I want meat in my teeth. I want flesh. I want blood.

  This time, they don’t react. The small one continues talking. “You know, he told me once that when he’s around me, I help the pain go away. Maybe if I could just get close to him… Maybe the bond will—”

  She stops talking abruptly.

  The bond will...

  The bond.

  Those words are strangely familiar. What do they mean?

  It doesn’t matter. Destroy.

  Pulling hard against the chains, I rattle the pipes overhead and roar my fury.

  The tall figure with dark hair and a hard expression shakes his head. “No way. There’s not a chance in fucking hell I’m letting you near him when he’s like this.”

  “But if there’s a chance—”

  “No.”

  Yes, come closer. Let me eat you.

  I can imagine the meat ripping between my teeth. Like a deer in the forest, blood cooling on my tongue after the life leaves its eyes...

  “You can’t stop me.”

  “You’re out of your fucking mind if you think I won’t chain you to the washing machine.”

  “Kian,” the other man warns, running a hand over his short, tightly curled dark hair.

  Kian.

  That name.

  I know that name.

  But the knowledge of what it means is just out of reach. Frustrated, I growl and throw myself against the chains again. The pipes move, jarred loose from their brackets, but they don’t give.

  There’s a scuffle, and I whip my head up to see the lithe dark-haired woman shove the taller man away.

  “Fuck off,” she snaps. “This isn’t a fucking dictatorship, hard as that might be for you to believe. You can’t tell me what to do.”

  The woman comes toward me, moving slowly. The other two men attempt to grab her again, but she slaps their hands away and gives them a glare that sends a burst of adrenaline surging through me.

  Violence.

  Anger.

  I want it all.

  Give it to me.

  I pull against my bonds, my arms stretched behind my body as the chains hold them tight, my chest and head straining forward as my feet brace against the floor. I want to reach her. I can imagine her skin tearing between my teeth. The shadows scream for her blood.

  “Frost, it’s me,” she says softly, stopping only inches away. “It’s Amora.”

  I can’t understand her. Do I even know this language? All I know is shadows. Darkness. Agony.

  She tentatively holds out her hand, keeping it just out of my reach.

  I eye her fingers, confused by a sudden stirring of emotions beneath the shadows. Affection? What is that?

  A memory flashes over me.

  Those fingertips.

  My skin.

  Pleasure.

  I stop straining against the chains and lift my gaze to meet hers.

  Kill.

  Maim.

  Destroy.

  No…

  She isn’t the enemy.

  My breaths slow and turn shallow as she reaches farther, closing the small distance she left between us at first.

  Then she’s touching my face.

  Relief washes over me like a cold rain, chasing away the darkness. Warmth spreads beneath the very tips of her fingers, and I lean into it, my gaze locked on hers.

  I know you.

  The overwhelming fog, the screams of the shadows in my head… all of it eases just enough for me to remember one very important word. “Amora.”

  A smile breaks over her face, and she slides her palm against my cheek. “Yes. It’s me. There you are.”

  The more of her skin that touches mine, the more clear-headed I feel.

  Mine.

  This is mine.

  “Come back to us,” Amora begs softly. “Please, Frost. Stay with me. Don’t give in to the shadows.”

  The shadows.

  Pain tears through me as if the shadows filling my body are trying to rip me apart from the inside.

  No mercy.

  No kindness.

  No peace.

  Kill.

  Kill.

  Kill.

  I lose focus on her beautiful face. I lose her name. I lose that momentary connection that reminded me I’m more than a monster made of shadows.

  Falling back beneath the weight of the darkness boiling over inside me, I scream.

  Then I attack.

  Amora

  My heart lurches, and I leap away, but not before Frost’s teeth manage to bite at my finger.

  Searing pain zings up my hand. I stick the broken skin in my mouth as I take several more steps backward, tears burning my eyes as I suck away the coppery blood. Malix and Kian jump between me and Frost, grabbing him by his arms as they haul him back into the corner behind the water heater.

  With my throbbing finger in my mouth, I watch as they check his bonds. He snarls and lashes out at them, but his energy seems to be waning, which is good. If he had more strength, he’d probably be trying to shift, and I’m not sure if the chains could hold him in his terrifyingly huge shadow form.

  Releasing Frost, Kian reaches up and leans on the metal pipes, testing their hold.

  “Think we should knock him out?” Malix says in a low voice. His fingers dig into Frost’s neck as he holds him in place and ignores the vicious growls coming from his brother. “He’s still weak. Which means when he gets his shit together, he’ll rip those pipes right out of the wall.”

  Kian grunts. “No. We aren’t going to knock him out. He’s been through too much already, and I worry about doing permanent damage. But we need to figure out something else. Soon.”

  O
nce they’re suitably sure that Frost isn’t going to Hulk his way out of the metal pipes in the immediate future, they leave him crumpled in the corner growling like an abused dog, and we lock up the room before climbing back upstairs.

  My shoulders feel heavy, and my heart even heavier. I veer off from the basement door, crossing the threshold into the living room where I sink wearily onto the overstuffed couch.

  The pillows cradle me like arms. I rest my head on the back of the cushion and close my eyes, drifting behind darkness while my finger continues to ache.

  A few moments later, the couch shifts as Malix sits beside me. I know it’s him from his fresh, sunshine scent. His warm fingers wrap around my hand, and he drags my injured finger into his lap.

  Opening one eye, I glance down to see that he’s got a dusty bottle of peroxide and a crumpled tube of antibiotic ointment resting on his knee.

  “We’ve got enough to deal with without adding an infection on top of it all,” he explains, draping a folded dish towel on his thigh. He upends the peroxide over my finger, and I wince at the sting.

  I vaguely recall saying something similar to Kian the day he gave Erik the witch a hunk of skin from his body. The fact that Malix is caring for me the way I did for Kian sends a wave of affection through me before I can harden my heart against it.

  Kian is sitting in the rocking chair to our left, his legs spread and his feet planted on the floor. It’s such a strangely domestic thing to watch him rock back and forth in the wooden chair. Not something I ever expected to see from the big, broody man.

  “You need to stay away from Frost,” he tells me grimly. “Next time, it could be your neck instead of your finger.”

  I shake my head, my lips pulling back in a grimace as Malix dumps more peroxide on the wound. “No. I got through to him.”

  “We’ll find another w—”

  “No,” I cut him off. “I got through to him. I can do it again. I can bring him back.”

  “Over my dead body.”

  “I can arrange that,” I snarl, surging to my feet with clenched fists.

  Kian launches to his feet in return, his expression twisted into something hard. Cold.

  Malix sighs and sets the peroxide on the scratched coffee table. “Fucking hell. Can we not do this?”

  Even though the plaintive note in his usually lighthearted voice sends a pang through me, I ignore him and stalk past the coffee table to go toe to toe with Kian.

  “I’m not going to let you bully me,” I say. “You can pull this ‘I’m in charge’ bullshit all you want, but it’s not going to change anything. You may be the de facto leader of your brothers, but you’re not in charge of me. I’m my own goddamn leader.”

  Kian’s expression darkens, the angles of his face seeming to grow even harder somehow. “You threw yourself into my world. By doing so, you put yourself under my protection, whether you like it or not. And I’m telling you, you will not be attempting to get through to Frost again like that. End of story.”

  All the earlier softness I felt between us is long gone now. I glare up at him, my fingers shaking from how badly they want to curl into fists. “I dare you to try to stop me.”

  His hands lash out, wrapping around my biceps in a tight grip. “Don’t ask for something you don’t want.”

  Despite my fury, his touch sends a frisson of awareness skittering through me. I shove away my attraction to him, the way my body responds to his touch and the way my wolf perks up inside me.

  “What makes you think I don’t want to fucking fight you?” I bite out.

  Instead of answering, Kian tightens his fingers painfully, lifts me off the floor, and throws me on the couch.

  I slam into the cushions, all the air expelling from me with an audible oof. He doesn’t release me, still leaning over me, lording his weight and size over mine.

  The helpless pain that’s been eating away at my heart since Frost bit me downstairs explodes out of me, making me react before I can think. Wrenching one arm out of his grasp, I deck him in the side of his head.

  Kian lets out a pained grunt as his other hand loosens, but he recovers quickly. His right hand slides up to my jaw and shoves me deeper into the couch cushions, his hand wrapped around my throat—not tight enough to cut off my air supply, but enough that I’m sure he can feel the throb of my pulse against his palm.

  Blinking away the blow to his temple, he growls, “Stop fighting, and I’ll let you up.”

  Wrong thing to say, motherfucker.

  I buck against the cushions and manage to free one leg enough to knee him in the groin.

  “Son of a bitch!” Kian snarls, then throws his entire body on top of mine.

  Before I can get another blow in, Malix appears. He somehow wedges himself between us, pulling Kian’s hand away from my throat as he covers my body with his. His muscular weight squeezes me into the couch and forms a barrier between me and Kian, who’s kneeling over us both now.

  “Time out,” Malix commands, an unusual note of authority in his tone. “I’m serious. Cut it the fuck out. We all need some damn rest, okay? It’s been a shitty couple of days. Let’s get some sleep, then we’ll figure out a plan later.”

  Some kind of silent communication seems to pass between Malix and Kian. For a moment, I think Kian’s going to throw him off me and keep fighting. But then the tall, dark-haired shifter deflates. He sighs deeply, his shoulders sagging, and his hard expression falls away, replaced by one of exhaustion.

  “Yeah. Yeah. You’re right.” Straightening, he climbs off the couch. He winces a little as he steps away, adjusting his groin and shooting me an irritated look.

  I don’t say anything. All the fight has gone out of me too. I don’t want to argue with Kian. I don’t want any of this.

  I just want Frost back.

  Kian stalks out of the living room to the foyer, then his stomping footsteps disappear up the stairs to the second floor.

  Malix crawls off me and offers me a hand up, blowing out a breath as he does. “Damn, kitty. Why you gotta poke the bear?”

  “I don’t know. It’s a character flaw,” I reply, unfolding from the couch and giving my neck a roll.

  “Not sure about that,” Malix says, flashing me the playful smile I’ve been missing since we arrived here. “It might be a character strength. Whatever it is though, it’s hella entertaining. Usually.”

  “Glad to be of service.”

  He touches my chin with his thumb, his gaze sweeping over my face. “Go get some sleep, kitty. You’ll feel better.” Then he presses a light kiss on my forehead before he turns and walks away, toward the kitchen.

  “Where are you going?” I call after him. The warmth from his lips on my skin makes me want to ask him to come upstairs with me. I want the peace and comfort of his arms around me.

  “I’m going to take some food and water to Frost,” he calls back without turning around. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

  I nod even though he’s not looking at me, then trudge upstairs. Alone.

  The hallway is dim, since there’s only one window at the end of the corridor to let in the morning sunlight. Weeks’ or maybe months’ worth of dust swirl around in the beam of light as I bypass the one closed door, where I imagine Kian is sulking. I choose the bedroom at the far end of the hall, putting as much distance as I can between the two of us.

  A guest room, it looks like. I close the door and venture into the gloom. Ambient light filters in around the edges of the heavy drapes. The queen bed is covered in a floral duvet and about fifty-two throw pillows. In the corner, an ironing board and an old sewing machine crouch next to one another, both covered in a layer of ghostly dust. Against one wall, a large chest of drawers still holds a few belongings—a mother of pearl handled brush, a crystal perfume decanter, a pair of delicate golden bifocals. Even stranger is the scarf draped over the mirror, concealing it entirely.

  The place feels like a room outside of time.

  I collapse onto the duvet, resting my upper body on the bed and letting my legs dangle off the side of the mattress. Staring up at the ceiling, I take a few deep breaths and let the adrenaline of the past few hours fade away. Between my argument with Kian and nearly being attacked by Frost, my nerves feel like live wires sparking under my skin.

  Frost recognized me.

  He said my name.

  For the briefest moment, I had him back, right there in my grasp. The change, though? When the momentary softness disappeared into savagery almost instantaneously? Reliving it in my mind hurts almost as much as seeing it in real time. My stomach churns at the memory of his blue gaze latching on to mine, his pupils dilating, his eyes shining as he recognized me.