Fated Mates: Paranormal Romance Series Starters Boxset

by Hariharan, Laxmi

  I walk to the bed and place her on it.

  She hasn’t flicked a muscle since I teleported out.

  Her features are ashen. I look at her arm and see the twisted flesh. It’s burned all the way down the side. Then I notice that the cloth is stuck to her chest and singed in places. I place a finger below her nose—there’s no sign of breath.

  Sweat drips down my spine. “No,” I swear aloud. “I will not let you die. I cannot let you go, not like this.”

  I scoop up her body in my arms and hold her close to my chest. I am not aware of the tears running down my cheeks, not until one of them plops on her forehead.

  I know now what I have to do. I don’t even hesitate. I drop into myself, into that core of me that every Fae has. Some call it magic, others simply say it’s our connection to the shared consciousness that unites all the Fae. A portal to the other world, perhaps, or simply a parallel reality that exists with the one we live in. I drop into it and search for her spirit. The silver-green pool that shimmers and which feels just like her.

  I reach out to it and draw her essence through me, twining it with my soul.

  A part of me warns that if I do this, there is no going back; we will be mated for life. I accept it, then push it aside. I’d known she was my mate from the moment I’d laid eyes on her, felt her, scented her, wanted her. I can’t live without her. I will not let her die. I need her. Will do anything to keep her anchored to this plane. I open myself up, body, mind, and soul. Her silver-green mixes with my blood. I let her essence fill me, drawing what she needs from me. Letting her spirit take what is needed to heal her flesh. All my past, my experiences, my hopes and dreams, that part of me I’ve never shown the world, never shown anyone else, I let her spirit invade that and take of that simple goodness.

  It’s as if her soul knows exactly what it needs to restore her back to health.

  It pulls from me, merges with me, draws on everything I am inside, and I let it. Then the silver-green essence, now streaked with blue, draws back, right back into her. I sense the energy fill her veins, flowing exactly to where it is needed. Filling in the holes, repairing her flesh.

  Sweat pops on my forehead, streaks my skin. My T-shirt sticks to my back. My head spins. The energy drains from me and flows straight into her. Still, I don’t let go of her.

  Sinking back onto the bed, I hold her close, folding my body around her as if trying to shield her from the elements while her corporeal body restores itself.

  My last thought is that if I survive this, I will have changed, and so will she.

  11

  Gia

  I awake to the sense of heat surrounding me.

  Yet I still feel cold. A shiver racks my body. There is a ball of sensation lodged against my rib cage. It twinges, squeezing down on my lungs. I take in a breath, and my throat burns.

  Every part of my body aches.

  My shoulder throbs, and my stomach rolls. I try to move my arm and almost scream as pain mangles my nerves. Sparks explode in my head, and I gasp.

  Arms come around me, pulling me close to a hard chest.

  His scent fills my senses. The scent of the first rain spiked with that dangerous edge of dark chocolate. Forbidden, carnal, and so familiar. My insides quake. My thighs clench.

  I reach for the source of that warmth and that life-affirming essence, even though a part of me already knows it’s him.

  The man with the blue eyes I’d met at the bar. He’d appeared again at the swearing-in ceremony. He’d shot me, and he’s Fae.

  My arm twitches in remembrance. Another surge of white pain tightens my skin. I try to moan but find my throat is dry. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. “Water,” I gasp out.

  Then I am being raised with an arm around my shoulders.

  The feel of cool glass against my lips makes me open my mouth. I drink of the water, letting it pour down my throat.

  He eases me back against the cool sheets and straightens as if to leave. My throat closes.

  “Stay with me.” I reach out my uninjured hand and close my fingers around firm flesh. I sense his muscles coil under his skin, feel him hesitate.

  “Please,” I croak out. “I need you.” Tears prick the backs of my eyes. I feel so weak like my bones have been broken and put back together. Like I am weighed down and I can barely move, can’t even carry the weight of my own body.

  The mattress dips. He crawls in and fits his body to the back of mine. Heat bleeds into my skin, warming my bones again. He snakes an arm around my waist, the other under my neck, pillowing it. I sense a soft touch ruffle my hair, but I can’t be sure.

  “Sleep,” he whispers.

  I come to again to the sound of steady breathing.

  I simply lie there and listen to it. It’s somehow calming and reassuring. A sign of life, a sense of affirmation that I am still alive? Maybe. I find my breathing adjusts to the rhythm, in-out-in. Realization sinks in. I am with the Fae male. He brought me here from the stage. What does he intend to do with me? He’s taken care of me; I know that by how my body feels. Rested. Almost relaxed. How strange is that?

  I am in bed with a stranger, but I don’t feel threatened. Well, not a complete stranger, he’d had his hands all over me. He’d shoved his fingers inside me.

  My belly tightens.

  I try to move, but a weight pins me in place.

  I look down and see his arm is around my waist. I can’t change position without waking him up, and strangely, I don’t want to leave the safety of his embrace.

  Not until I’ve had a chance to figure out my thoughts.

  Why did he bring me here? He’d tried to kill the new leader of Moscow.

  “Amara.”

  I hear the sound of my own voice in my ears and only then do I realize that I have spoken aloud.

  The rhythm of his breathing quickens.

  “She’s alive and no doubt being fussed over by her team. Your Chief of the Bureau especially seems to be quite taken with her.”

  His voice rumbles against my back.

  The planes of his chest flex as he moves. My shoulders go rigid. I stay quiet and keep my eyes closed.

  “I know you are awake.”

  My muscles go solid, and my pulse pounds.

  I turn my head then raise my eyelids to meet his gaze. Brilliant blue eyes stare at me. There are shadows under his eyes as if he hasn’t slept for a while, yet his gaze is clear.

  “You’re an assassin.” O-kay. Hadn’t meant for that to come out quite that way, but hell, I could be forgiven, right? After all, it’s not every day that I am made to climax by a stranger before being fired at by him.

  “Not only, and yes.” He tilts his head.

  I frown. “You tried to kill her.”

  “I saved your life.” His gaze flows over my features, down to my arm.

  I follow the direction of his gaze and stare at the unbroken skin. “I could have sworn that’s where you shot me.”

  “I did. And it was pure energy, not bullets that hit you.”

  “How do you do that?” I try to focus my thoughts. I am asking too many questions. I sound more curious than I should be, but how else do I try to make sense of what happened to me?

  “The telekinetic energy is part of what I am.” He doesn’t even blink as he says it.

  “Hold on, back up a second.” I swallow. “You teleported in, tried to shoot the leader of Moscow, then instead wounded me and teleported us out of there?”

  A furrow appears between his eyebrows. “That would be about it.”

  “How can you be so calm?” My pulse thuds.

  “You’re alive, that’s what matters.” He sets his jaw.

  “You tried to kill a woman,” I say the words aloud, needing to make sense of everything that has transpired.

  “I was only doing what my clan asked of me.” A nerve throbs at his temple.

  “Is that all you have to say in your defense?” I try to pull away from him.

  He doesn’t
budge. His hold tightens on me.

  “There is no right or wrong here. I was simply following orders.”

  His low growl shivers over my skin.

  “So was I.”

  “You put your life at risk to save hers.” His lips thin. Those blue eyes darken as if he’s grappling with some internal emotion that he’s not quite sure of.

  “What do you care?” I set my jaw.

  It’s a strange conversation to be having when you are lying in bed with a stranger…okay…except he doesn’t feel like one. He feels familiar like I’ve met him before. Like I’ve known him forever, and now my instincts are simply getting ahead of me. I push at his arm, and he draws it back, then eases his other hand from under my neck as well and moves away.

  Cold air rushes between us. It’s like he’s sucked up every single smidgen of heat in the space.

  He rolls up to stand on his feet, then trains that blue gaze on me again.

  Goosebumps rise on my skin. I shiver and draw in a breath. The smell of my charred clothes assails me. My stomach heaves. “I… I need to get out of these clothes.”

  His nostrils flare, and his eyes gleam.

  “Not like that.” My voice hitches.

  “Not like what?” He looks down at me from his superior height.

  “That…whatever you were thinking, it’s not what I want.”

  “You don’t know what I was thinking.” His lips twist.

  Those dark pupils of his deepen, in a way that reminds me that he is dangerous. Lethal. Soulless.

  I throw up my hands in frustration, then flinch when a dull sliver of pain bites my arm.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” I try to sit up, only for him to bend and scoop me up in his arms.

  It feels good to be so near him again.

  Instantly, my heartbeat calms. That unsettled feeling in my stomach subsides. How strange. I’ve never had such a visceral reaction to being away from someone like this before.

  He crosses the floor, still holding me.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “You wanted a shower and to be rid of the clothes you’re wearing?”

  I nod then place my palm on his chest to push him away. Instead, my fingers dig into his T-shirt. I splay out my fingers, over the outline of the hard planes that stretch the fabric. I will not lay my cheek over the fabric and rub my skin against the textures that envelop me. The sensation of him is all around me, the feel of his protection cocoons me.

  I shake my head and only end up bumping my forehead on his chest.

  “You all right?” His voice rumbles up those hard planes.

  The sound of his heartbeat echoes in my ear.

  “I don’t know.” I am surprised by my candor. Not that I lie, but I don’t always go around revealing my innermost thoughts to strangers. But he’s not a stranger, I’ve already established that. Yet I have no idea who he is or why he’s brought me here, and what’s worse, I am not afraid of him. And I should be. The thoughts pulse around in my head. My muscles stiffen.

  “I am not going to hurt you.”

  12

  Dante

  I hear my own words and am surprised.

  I am not given to emotions, yet here with this woman trembling my arms, my heart squeezes with fear.

  Fear rolls off her; uncertainty clings to her. Her features tighten.

  I sense her hesitate in the way she cowers into me as if she’s trying to hide away from me or is using my body to shield herself from my gaze. There’s a ball of heat in my throat. My chest feels like it’s going to burst.

  I school my features into as neutral an expression as I can muster.

  I don’t want her to know just how worried I’ve been. And scared that I’d hurt her permanently, or worse. I can’t even bring myself to think that she could have died…and that’s another surprise. I am no stranger to death.

  All the time I’ve served with the Fae Corps, I have seen my enemies die. Seen friends injured or fall for no rhyme or reason. It’s why I can’t let her go. I need her. Only she doesn’t know it yet.

  I don’t plan on telling her anytime soon either.

  “I believe you.” Her voice is muffled against my chest.

  I pause just inside the bathroom. “You do?”

  She nods. “You brought me here. It’s clear you don’t want to kill me. If you did, you’d have simply followed up your first hit with another, or else just left me to die.”

  I cross to the shower closet, then shoulder aside the door and make to step in.

  “You can let me down.”

  Her voice is prim.

  I hesitate.

  “I am not undressing in front of you and I'm certainly not going to allow you to get in here with me…”

  “Not yet—” I purse my lips.

  Her breath hitches. “Not ever.” Her lips firm, but her voice wavers.

  “We’ll see.” I decide not to press the point further. Instead, I lower her, until her feet touch the floor.

  Her knees wobble, and she sways.

  My stomach flip-flops. What the hell? I can’t even bear the thought of this woman hurting herself again in any way. Yet it was me who’d almost killed her. It’s my mistake that she’s ended up so weak. My thigh muscles go solid. My throat closes. I curve my arm around her waist and steady her.

  “I am fine,” she huffs out on a breath.

  “Yeah, I can see that.”

  “I meant it when I said that you could leave me.” She huffs out a breath.

  “Nope.”

  Her mouth falls open. “What?”

  The surprise on her face is almost comical.

  Well, it would be were it not for the fact that her hips are angled toward me, her scent is all around me. The feel of her waist against my arm is sheer torture. She feels small, helpless, and anger grips me for the pain that I caused her.

  “You didn’t just say that.” She jabs a finger into my chest.

  I flex my other arm at my side, more to stop myself from pushing back the lock of hair that has fallen over her face.

  “You heard me. I am not going anywhere. You are too damn weak to care of yourself.”

  “And whose fault is that?” She glowers.

  Heat fills my chest. There is pounding in my ears. “You think I don’t know that? You think I can ever forgive myself for what I did to you?” A fine rage at all the wrongs I’ve committed, not just against her but at every single person I’ve had to take down, fills me.

  So this is what regret tastes like? Sour. Choking my throat. A sense of loss for the life I’d chosen, to become the most lethal fighter among the Faes, all of it crashes over me. “I am a trained warrior and part of the Fae Corps. Know what that means?” I raise my arm.

  Her shoulders hunch and the color leaches from her face.

  “I am not allowed to show mercy. Not even to myself.” I curl my fingers into a fist, then smash it into the wall near the shower door, next to her face.

  Tiles scatter to the floor. A big crack rips up the wall and to the ceiling, and bits of brick and plaster pour over us like rain.

  Every muscle in her stiffens and seems to mirror the frustration that churns my stomach. But she doesn’t scream out or push me away. None of the normal reactions I’d expect from a female.

  But then, she’s not a helpless woman. She’s a trained soldier herself. It’s why she was on stage with Amara as her bodyguard.

  And none of that forgives what I’ve done to her.

  “Okay.” She jerks her chin.

  “What?” I struggle to clear my head. Then bring all my attention back to her. Apparently, having her close is as bad as not having her with me.

  I simply can’t make up my mind about what I want from her. My guts twist and my emotions are all over the place. What the hell is happening to me?

  “Clearly you are upset at having hurt me. I appreciate the thought…and while I don’t really like the idea of your being in here with me, if that’s th
e only way I can take a shower, then so be it.”

  She twists her shoulders and I let her go.

  Reaching for her shirt, she yanks it off.

  All my muscles go rock-hard. No, correction. One particular muscle—the one between my legs—is particularly hard and aching and far more aroused than the rest of me. My balls go hard. My crotch feels too tight for my pants. A growl rumbles up, and I don’t bother to hide the sound.

  She tosses her hair and shoots me a glance from under hooded eyelids. “Don’t get too comfortable, big boy.”

  Holding my gaze, she glides her pants down her legs and kicks them off along with her underwear.

  The space is suddenly full of her scent.

  That musky essence of her skin laced with the sweeter spoor of her arousal flows over me.

  I can’t take my eyes off the creamy skin over her shoulders, the swollen breasts, the pink of her areolae, how her waist pinches in before flaring out to meet her voluptuous hips.

  My tongue feels like it's stuck to the roof of my mouth. My palms go damp. Get out of here. Leave. Now. But my limbs feel like they are weighed down.

  She raises her arms and tugs off the band that restrains her hair. Those dark locks cascade over her shoulders, reaching almost to her waist.

  The woman is teasing me—of course, she knows how much I want her. I’d made her climax and almost taken her at our first meeting, and now she is mine…and…I can’t do this. Can’t watch her bare her flesh knowing I’d hurt her, then managed to put her back together. Huh? What is this? An attack of conscience? Or something else? Something deeper, more insidious, something that jolted to life as soon as I saw her.

  My throat closes.

  My chest hurts.

  I hate the feelings she incites in me. To protect, take care…to fucking wreck her.

  I reach out a finger and run it over her arm where the skin had been badly burned off. “I hurt you.”

  Goosebumps pop over her skin. Her very soft, completely healed skin. “Yet here I am, whole again.” She frowns. The skin around her eyes wrinkles. “Are you going to tell me how you did that?”