Fated Mates: Paranormal Romance Series Starters Boxset

by Hariharan, Laxmi

  I hear the keening need in it, and that turns me on further. “Hurry.” My breath comes out in puffs. My chest rises and falls.

  I want to lie back and shut my eyes, then fall into that black, yearning mass of need that is me. And yet a part of me cannot take my gaze away from the complete picture of maleness that is unfolding in front of me.

  He slides the pants down and steps out of them.

  Every part of me snaps to attention. My palms and feet tingle. I’ve seen him naked before, and yet the sheer poetry of those angles and planes of his body hits me anew. Heat flushes my skin. Every pore in my body is focused on him.

  His wide back narrows to tight flanks that contract as he turns to face me.

  I’ve sensed his strength, and yet the force of his dominance takes me by surprise.

  He’s so very male, every inch of him. My fingers twitch to grip his muscles and feel the unleashed power that hums under his skin.

  His thighs are already taut with need, and between them his arousal which is large and veined. Saliva pools in my mouth. The size of him, the smell of his arousal, how he'd filled me earlier and pumped into me. The warmth of his cum filling my channel, his tongue thrusting into my mouth...the images flicker across my mind, speeding up. My breath comes in quick gasps. Sweat beads my palm. I know I am staring and I can’t stop. Not even when he circles his shaft and runs his hand up the length. The slit glistens with beads of precum.

  I lick my lips, wanting to taste him again.

  I open my mouth to tell him, but all that emerges is a moan.

  It seems to galvanize him into action, for he strides to the bed, leans above me, and rubs the liquid over my lips. “Tell me you want me.”

  I stare but can’t stop myself from flicking out my tongue and slurping up the moisture.

  His gaze grows lighter, and those irises of his turn almost colorless. “Say it. I’ll give you what you need. All I need is to hear you say it now.”

  “No,” I growl.

  He holds my gaze.

  And that connection is so hot, so unnerving that my hips seem to jerk forward of their own accord. I raise my pelvis, and scissor my legs around his waist so my core meets his cock. The swollen head of his shaft nudges the entrance of my wet channel, then he plunges inside.

  23

  Zeus

  I plunge inside her.

  Hot. Moist. Sensations spiral out from my groin. Warmth fills my chest. All my nerve endings seem to fire at once and I grit my teeth. The feeling is so different, so intimate. My muscles bunch, my throat closes, and…this can’t be right.

  It can’t feel so good to be inside her, to have her pussy clamp around me and milk me. The need to pound into her is so strong, and yet, overriding it is this need to protect. All emotions I have never experienced before, least of all for this omega whom I hadn’t known until a few days ago.

  My thigh muscles lock, and my biceps tremble as my arms support my body weight.

  She digs her heels into my back. “What are you waiting for?” She bares her teeth.

  And, really, she is only a tiny thing, less than half my size. And I am leaning over her, my muscles far stronger. It would take only one flick of my wrist to overpower her. The sheer audacity of her approach has me in thrall. I slide my fingers around her neck and grip it tightly.

  If I wanted to, I could kill her right now.

  Her gaze widens. The black pupils expand, not with fear…but arousal. A fresh pool of slick spurts out of her and coils around my cock. I grow bigger and fill her up inside, until my hardening flesh brushes against the walls of her womb. She groans. So do I.

  She flings back her head, her neck arches, and she bites down on her lips. And that sends me over the edge. I pull out of her and stay poised at the entrance to her wet channel.

  I know I am going to hurt her and yet I can’t stop myself. Her gaze widens. She mewls, scrunching up her face, and her cheeks flush…with anger? With desire. She peels back her lips and digs her fingernails into the back of my shoulder.

  “Don’t you stop now, Alpha. Or else—”

  “Or else?” I growl and more moisture gushes from her.

  Her eyes roll back, and she moans. “Or else, I’ll never spread my legs for you again, not willingly.”

  I almost laugh aloud. Oh, the irony! She is throwing my words back at me.

  Her chest heaves, and her breasts rise and fall, the nipples hard enough to scratch a furrow down my skin.

  Does she really believe that she has a choice in how she’ll submit to me? That she could hint at that should bother me, but it doesn’t. Not as much as the sheer possessiveness that grips me. I lean in close and pinch her chin, forcing her head down. She cracks her eyes open, the green a ring around the darkness of her pupils almost filling her entire eyes.

  “Whenever I want, however I want, I’ll fuck you, and you’ll take it all.”

  She pauses; her breath hitches.

  I lower my voice. “And you’ll ask for more.”

  Her eyes dilate until the green completely vanishes. The color fades from her cheeks. The honeyed scent of her arousal deepens, laced with the acrid scent of fear. And I want to soothe her and tell her I’ll never hurt her.

  Even as a part of me is pleased that she is still afraid of me. She should be, for she has no idea how close I am to binding her to me and never letting her go.

  It would serve her right if I did.

  I should.

  Bind her. Knot her to me. So she can never belong to anyone else. “No one but me,” I snarl. My voice slices through the haze in my head. “Do you understand?”

  She nods.

  “Tell me.” Why is it so important that I hear her acknowledge my dominance? I am not sure. Except that possessive part of me, the one that demands her complete subjugation, wants her to say it aloud. Craves it with a fierceness I can’t fathom. But I can’t fight it either—I don’t want to fight it.

  “Yes” she snaps, tears glittering in her eyes.

  “Yes, what?”

  “Yes, Alpha.” She hisses through lips bitten from my ministrations.

  A part of me registers the anger and the frustration that emanates from her. But I ignore it all.

  “My name. Say my name.”

  She grits her teeth and sets her chin. Her eyes glow with that light of stubbornness that both frustrates and also excites me.

  “Say it.” I harden my jaw, knowing I am dangerously gone in my passion, in my anger; knowing that I am on the verge of hurting her in the middle of my lust, and yet I know there is no turning back. Not now.

  She clenches the walls of her pussy around my dick.

  A fierce surge of desire tugs my groin. Lust flows down my spine, filling my balls until I am hurting. Until I know I can’t hold back.

  I growl loudly and her stomach muscles cramp. Her body responds to my every nuance. I know I am taking advantage of the fact that I have pinned her in place. That I can control her body as easily as I can control my own. Too bad I can’t tame her mind or her spirit. Yet a part of me rejoices at the challenge. Knowing there can be no other mate for me.

  Mate?

  Yes, she is, and no, it doesn’t mean anything.

  It’s the most convenient way of keeping her with me.

  My lips twist in derision at myself. At the sorry man I have become. One reduced to trying to subdue the one thing that has come into my life and has sparked the urge to fight again, for myself, for her. For everything I hold dear. I feel more alive than I ever have before.

  As alive as the day I killed my father and took revenge for my mother’s death.

  “Say. It.” I growl once more and deepen my purr.

  This time I feel the slick gather at the base of her core. Feel the hunger that rips through her so her back arches and her breasts thrust up. Her nipples tighten. Her hips tremble. The scent of her arousal flows over me. Crashes over me, tightening my need. Stretching it until I am sure I am going to snap. I can’t hold back. I
can’t. And yet… “Please.” The word dribbles out; my voice breaks.

  “Zeus,” she whispers on a breath.

  The sound of my name from her lips sends a pulse of desire tearing down my spine. The blood thunders at my temples, my shoulders bunch, and every muscle in my body tenses in preparation. I will invade her, take her, fucking own her. I must. Liquid lust rams through my blood demanding that she scream when I do so. Knowing she will throw her head back, kick her heels into my back, dig her nails into my neck, and tear grooves down my skin when I rut her, and all of it sends me over the edge.

  I plunge into her, sinking all the way inside her melting channel. I tilt my hips, and grind myself in to the hilt. The blood rushes to my groin. The bulbous knot at the base of my shaft swells. I thrust forward that last millimeter and hook behind her pelvic bone, locking her to me. Her body bucks and her pussy clamps onto my turgid flesh, drawing me in even closer. Tight. Hot. Succulent. Mine. The feel of it, the complete rightness of it floods me, filling every last cell in my body and overflowing. My balls draw up, my thigh muscles spasm and I want to come inside her, mark her, claim her and yet something makes me wait. Wait. Leaning down, I take her lips, thrust my tongue inside her sweet mouth, and rake my fingers through her hair.

  Her little body goes stiff, and then I feel her climax shudder up from her toes, sweeping over her thighs, pinning her waist to the bed, her chest vibrating, then her throat ripples, and she screams, and I absorb it all. Only then do I let the hot streams of cum gush forth as I empty myself inside her.

  24

  Lucy

  When I come to it is to the thud of his heart under my cheek. I slide my fingers over warm skin. Turn my face and bury my nose in the light smattering of hair on his chest.

  The scent of his sweat and musk of his arousal turns me on, and it also strangely soothes me. I feel protected and cherished, and the still thinking part of my mind warns me I am falling into a place from which there is no return. I try to move only to find there is a heavy weight around my waist. It’s his arm, which is massive enough to hold me down.

  It feels so right that I know it’s wrong.

  Not like this.

  All my life I’ve spent fighting that core inside me, the part that was intrinsically omega that needed to be tamed, subdued, knotted, and bred. And in one stroke he…this alpha, the most monstrous of all in the city, has done just that. And I had encouraged him. The faint recollection of giving him what he wanted, of calling him by his name tumbles over me.

  My cheeks flush.

  That is more intimate than anything else we’ve done.

  And it shouldn’t be.

  I’d called him by his name, that’s all. We all have one. Then why does it feel like I have broken a pact with myself? That I have gone back on the promise made to my clan, that I have betrayed myself by doing that?

  I wriggle against the massive chest of the alpha, and he doesn’t let go. Big surprise.

  He folds his other arm around me and purrs. The sound is low, and soft, and flows over my skin. Its soothing in a way it shouldn’t be. He rubs my back as if trying to pacify me. He rests his chin on my head, and I have this insane need to bury myself in his chest, to surround myself with his warmth and his heat, to draw that shroud of protectiveness over me and let it consume me. I squeeze my eyes shut, not sure why I feel the need to cry. It’s only my life that will never be the same. A sob catches in my throat. My shoulders shudder as I try to bite my lips, try to consume every last depressing emotion that wells up. What is happening to me?

  The giant purrs once more, and the sound instantly sinks into my blood.

  The tension drips out of me, and my shoulders sag. No, no. I don’t want that to happen.

  I don’t want him to be able to manipulate me such that even my grief is something that is not my own.

  I want to rage at him and tell him that.

  Instead, I let the tears flow down my cheeks. The warmth pools on his chest, and he must feel it, for he firms his hold on me.

  “You are upset at how you responded to me.” His breath raises the hair on my head. “Don’t be.”

  He runs his palm from the nape of my neck down to my hips and back up again. The moment is soothing, and soft…tender. “You are the most passionate woman I have ever met.”

  He praises me.

  And it’s all wrong. He’s not meant to soothe me or take care of me. He’s meant to overwhelm and threaten and force himself on me. Truth is, he didn’t do anything I didn’t want. Even now, caught up in the throes of the end of my heat cycle, with my mind half hazy with the need for him, with my body already signaling that I need the alpha to fuck me again, the rational part of my brain insists that I can’t put all the blame on him.

  Perhaps I had been stupid to walk into his lair and let myself be caught by him, and yes, he had taken me, but everything that had happened after that, I had wanted it.

  I can’t blame myself for getting caught, for as soon as I had seen him, had sniffed his luscious alpha scent, I’d known it was him. Only I had been denying it to myself so far.

  The thought quiets me…my muscles relax, my toes uncurl. I let my body sag against him.

  Zeus seems satisfied by the response, but he doesn’t stop his purring. His large palm continues to soothe me. He drags his fingers through my hair, scraping his fingernails across my scalp. Ripples of pleasure undulate down my spine. A moan dribbles out of me.

  I sense the change in him at that. Feel the hardness that nudges against my hip.

  He rakes his fingers over my nape, over my spine, cupping the curve of my hips before sliding his hand into the space between my legs. I can’t stop the groan that wells up. My thigh muscles clench, locking his fingers in place.

  Moisture pools inside my core and trickles down my thigh. I know this time it’s not his purring or his cajoling that has drawn out the slickness from me. It’s me enjoying his body, his nearness, his presence. It’s the way he’s tried to claim me, tried to draw the uncertainty from me.

  And I feel grateful. There. I’ve acknowledged it to myself. I am grateful that he found me in the middle of my heat cycle, that I had gone into my heat cycle right there in his presence, that he had taken me and helped me through it, that it is him who broke me and knotted me. My clan… The thought of them waiting crashes through my head, and I push it away. I need to get to them, and I will get to them. But I need to use this to my advantage. Clearly, he wants me, he finds me attractive, he claimed me, and the only thing I can do is use this to help my clan. Barter my submission for them. Pretend an acquiescence I don’t really feel, to draw him into his comfort zone, until he lets his guard down, and then… My muscles tense.

  A growl rumbles up from him. His hands grip my waist and, lifting me up, he slides me down the thick girth of his shaft.

  Just like that, he fills me, the hard, engorged flesh dragging against my softer inner walls, sending a pulse of desire up my spine. Little bursts of flame explode behind my eyes. I moan at the feeling of being completely full, and the sound of his growl twines with mine.

  He raises and lowers me on his shaft, and again. Desire thrums my nerves, liquid heat pools in my core, and I clench my inner walls around him. I can’t stop, not even if I wanted to. I am rewarded with another snarl from the alpha.

  “Look at me.”

  I open my eyes and am caught in the swirling depths of his silver gaze. Flickers of gold spark in their depths. It captures me, holds me in thrall. When he slides his hand up to grip my nape and brings my face forward, I don’t resist.

  Not even when he holds me there, poised over him, staring down into his face, my position that of mock dominance, but I am not fooled. He controls me, his anger holds me in check, the feeling of unleashed power that hums under his skin binds me to him, and the low hum of the mating cord under my rib cage tells me I am his as much as he is mine.

  He lowers me down his shaft until my hips slide over his. I grip the sides of his waist wit
h my knees and squeeze my inner walls. The burst of gold in his eyes glows brighter, and it feels…so good that I can give him pleasure. I squeeze again. A groan rumbles up his massive chest, color burning high on his cheeks.

  Just like that, the sexual tension ratchets up. His nostrils flare, his eyes narrow and his gaze falls to my breasts. He flips me over so I am under him and without pulling out of me,he leans down and bites my nipple. Flares of need sizzle over my skin, leaving little sparks of fire in their wake. My eyelids flutter down.

  “No.”

  The command in his voice whips through my mind, and my eyelids snap open. My gaze is caught in his.

  “Mine,” he growls.

  I swallow. Something stretched tight inside me dissolves.

  He hooks his hands under my knees, yanking my legs up and over his shoulders, so I am spread wide. I thrust my hips up, and the angle means he slides in deep. Deeper than he’s ever been before. It feels like he is piercing me in half. He seems to touch the very secret core in me where no one has, where no one else will ever be, no one but him. Why does it feel like he’s ripped off every single mask I’ve worn to the world and made me his?

  Something seems to change in him, too, for he lowers his head and slants his lips over mine. He thrusts his tongue into my mouth, and his cock expands inside.

  The knot snaps into place.

  Like it was meant to happen. I know then that everything that has happened in my life has brought me up to this point: to submit to him, to give him pleasure, even as I take from him.

  My soft core tightens around him, milking him, and the climax slithers out from my center, flooding me, embracing me as the thick juice of his cum bathes my channel. His big body shudders; the muscles of his back clench.

  He kisses the edge of my mouth, the gesture almost tender, then he rests his forehead on mine. A bead of sweat drizzles down his temple. I flick my tongue out to lick it up.