Realms and Rebels: A Paranormal and Fantasy Reverse Harem Collection

by C. M. Stunich

  Tom’s nails dug deeper into my skin and his biting grew stronger, his hands running over me as if he couldn’t touch enough of my body at once. His nails raked my skin and the pain melded with pleasure nearly bringing me over the edge.

  The pulsing between my legs grew as a clever tongue slid lower, parting the soft folds of my skin and penetrating deep within me. I could feel myself growing wet from his touch, the firmness of his tongue eliciting a deep growl from my chest as he flicked the most sensitive spot inside of me. Just as I felt my body began to get so desperately close, quivering with anticipation at what was to come, he pulled away, leaving me empty and breathless and hungry for more.

  I wanted to scream, to call out his name, but still it wouldn’t come to me. I needed his mouth against me, his tongue inside of me, his lips against my… I gasped, my eyes opening wide. I remembered his name. “P-”

  But just as I was about to scream it in frustration, Finn’s strong hand grasped hold of my inner thigh and with a swift fierce thrust, slid himself inside of me from behind. I screamed, my teeth clamping onto his lower lip as the sensation of him filling me made my body shake with the deepest pleasure. His movements were slow at first, riding the rhythms of my convulsing body, but quickly they built, deeper and stronger with every press of his hips.

  I pulled my lips from his, my head falling back as I sucked in ragged gasps of air. My eyes fell to a mop of tousled sandy hair that lay next to my stomach, his lips soft as they kissed the skin around my belly button, his hand slinking down to where I grew swollen with need, his fingers slowly circling me deep below as Finn’s thrusts grew stronger still from behind me.

  Tom slunk up on the bed, taking my lips onto his own, working his mouth against mine as if I were his last meal on this earth. My body was consumed, my mind overwhelmed. Waves of pleasure worked their way from my head to my toes, my moaning growing louder and louder.

  Please don’t wake up, was all I could manage to think before the three hot bodies around me worked fiercely against me, pulling that building pleasure from deep within me up to the surface. I gasped and cried out as it built nearly to the point of explosion.

  “It’s time,” Finn whispered in my ear, his hot breath sending shivers down my neck. I shook my head, desperate to stay here with them in this unbelievable fantasy. I didn’t want it to end, I was so desperate to stay, to never leave this bed. But I couldn’t fight it any longer, the pleasure had grown so consuming, so strong, the pain of stopping nearly killed me.

  Tom’s lips were pressed against my own, expert fingers rubbing hard against me, and with final thrust that filled me so deeply, so perfectly, it brought me over the edge. I succumbed to the pleasure, calling out in perfect agony as my climax pulsed through my entire body, convulsing as the three of them slowly rode it out, their eagerness easing until my body collapsed unto itself in exhausted bliss and the room grew dark as my consciousness pulled me from the dream and back into waking life.

  The End

  Thank you so much for reading. To find out more about Price and the guys, be sure to check out the Cats, Ghosts and Avocado Toast series online.

  Thanks for reading!

  About L.C. Hibbett

  L.C. Hibbett is an author from Ireland who is obsessed with reading, writing, romance, mystery, and magic. Since she began publishing, L.C.'s husband has begun to find it difficult to differentiate between her pajamas and her outside clothes and her children have decided to forgo clothes entirely. Except for underwear--L.C. is steadfast in her insistence that everyone wear knickers on the trampoline. I think that tells you everything you need to know...

  If you would like sneak peeks of L.C.'s upcoming books and notifications of her super-secret release day sales for her loyal readers, head to lchibbett.com and sign-up to receive her Newsletter updates.

  Find L.C. Hibbett online:

  http://www.lchibbett.com

  About N.M. Howell

  N.M. Howell is an author, publisher, and all-around nerd from the West Coast of Canada. She has an obsession with coffee, spicy food, and the rain, and she absolutely hates sleeves. (Seriously, they’re like little fabric prisons!) When not working on her latest book - or latest ten books, more realistically - she spends her time wandering the world and fighting with her micro-wolf pup over who gets the best spot on the couch. Hint: the dog wins.

  Find N.M. Howell online:

  http://www.nmhowell.com

  Twisted: A Fairy Tale Mash-up

  Young Witch Series Book 1

  Lena Mae Hill

  Twisted: A Fairy Tale Mash-Up

  Young Witch Series Book 1

  On the way to finding her granny, she might just lose her heart.

  Cayenne Golden lives a peaceful little life in her idyllic coven tucked away in the mountains. She obeys her parents, practices healing magic, and helps her granny with chores. And she’s bored out of her freaking mind.

  When Cayenne stumbles upon Efrain, a shifter who claims that werewolves have kidnapped her beloved granny, she panics. Her parents have forbidden her to cross into the neighboring valleys where wolves and shifters are locked in a decades-long turf war. But with her granny’s life on the line, what choice does she have?

  Cayenne enlists the help of Efrain and his wild boar brothers to sneak her into the wolf valley to rescue her granny. As they race from one brother’s house to the next, staying one step ahead of the wolves, she realizes just how much she’s been missing. A whole world of danger, adventure, and love waits just outside her valley.

  But in this dark and twisted tale, who is the big bad wolf?

  Little Red Riding Hood meets the Three Little Pigs in this YA RH suitable for ages 16+.

  1

  Already anticipating my visit to my granny, I was tempted to throw her apples into the basket and rush out the door. But Granny Golden would tell me to take my time, that care could be taken with every task, no matter how small. Stilling my impatience, I arranged the apples in my basket, shining each one before nestling it into place with the others.

  “Red delicious,” said one of my dads, leaning over to snag one. “My mother’s favorite.”

  “Wash your own apples.” I slapped his hand away, rolling my eyes when he hopped around shaking his fingers like I’d broken them. “These are for Granny.”

  “You’re not missing out,” Malik said to Dad. “Haven’t you ever wondered why Cayenne’s apples are shinier than anyone else’s? The secret’s in the spit.”

  “Caye’s apples?” said one of my sisters, popping her curly ginger head into the room. Like me, my sisters had all inherited Mom’s redheaded gene.

  “Ah, the old spit shine,” Dad said. “A classic.”

  “Y’all are gross,” I said as I surveyed my tidy basket to make sure it would meet Granny’s standards. “I would never spit on Granny’s Golden’s food.”

  “Be careful,” Mom warned, swinging my red cloak around my shoulders.

  “Mom, I’m fine,” I said, trying to pull away. “No one is going to kidnap me and steal my magic.”

  “And she’ll kick their ass with her superior magic if they try,” Malik said, hopping down from the stool at the counter and grabbing an unpolished apple from the box. As my intended, he knew better than to steal my apples. He tossed apples to my two hovering sisters before biting into his own.

  Grabbing the handle of the basket, he slid an arm around me. “I’ll walk you up the mountain.”

  I rolled my eyes, but I didn’t pull away from his familiar embrace. “As if you could protect me,” I said. “I could suck up your magic in one gulp.”

  “Like a frog snapping up a fly,” Malik agreed with an easy grin, sticking out his tongue to demonstrate.

  “Don’t even joke about that,” Mom said with a frown.

  “Don’t be such a worrywart, Mom,” I said lightly, stepping over to give her a quick kiss on the cheek. “I can protect myself from anything out there. Dark witches, werewolves, and goblins included.”
>
  Despite their worry, I’d never known anything but our peaceful little coven in the First Valley. Sure, sometimes parents argued, sisters punched each other, and friends hurt each other’s feelings. But that was just part of life. For the most part, we all got along whether we were witches, faeries, elves, or dwarves. We grew our food and tended our gardens, learned magic, and cared for our animal familiars. We helped our neighbors, obeyed our parents, and were patient with our younger siblings.

  Frankly, it was really freaking boring.

  “Want me to walk you all the way?” Malik asked as we huddled together against the stinging wind.

  “I think I know the way to Grandma Golden’s,” I said, shaking my head.

  “I know you do,” Malik said. “I just wanted an excuse to spend more time cuddled up with you.”

  “Aww, you don’t need an excuse for that,” I said. “My parents are practically begging me to officially add you to my collective.”

  “You did choose me as your intended a year ago,” Malik reminded me.

  “I know,” I said, drawing away from him a bit. I didn’t know exactly why I hadn’t gone through with making it official. Witches could add as many people to their collective as they wanted, so it wasn’t like I could never add another man. And either of us could end the arrangement if it wasn’t working anymore. There was literally no reason to stall the ceremony.

  As we walked, Malik waved at the other witches we passed and greeted them all by name like the perfect boy that he was. Sometimes he made me feel…really crappy, actually. I just wasn’t naturally as good as Malik. I wanted things I couldn’t have. I wanted more than the Winslow Coven and the First Valley. I’d never even set foot in the Second Valley, where the werewolves lived. And even though my aunt lived in the Third Valley with the shifters, I rarely went there, and when I did, it was straight to her house—with my whole family. The First Valley was the only place I could wander alone, and that was because I knew every single person who lived there.

  “Where are you off to this evening?” asked Yvonne, a busy-body who everyone our age tried to avoid. She was always butting into our conversations, acting like she belonged with our generation instead of our parents. It was super awkward. She even used beautifying spells to make herself look young like us and wore the same clothes as us. Of course Malik was the one person who had a kind word and a smile for even the coven’s least popular member. If we’d ignored her, she probably would have walked off in a huff, but Malik greeted her as he did everyone else.

  “So where are you going this late?” she asked again, fluffing her blonde hair as if to make sure we noticed its unnaturally glossy shine.

  “Just visiting Grandma Golden,” I said, holding up the basket of apples as an explanation. My familiar, a robin named Robin—because what else would he be named?—nestled among the fruit.

  “Oh, how’s she doing?” Yvonne asked, joining us on the path.

  I rolled my eyes over Yvonne’s head. Our moms always told us to be kind to her, so we humored her, but I wished she’d just go away.

  “She’s been a little slow this winter,” I said. “I try to visit every week to help her with chores.”

  “They say her mind comes and goes,” Yvonne said, biting at her plump red lips. “Such a shame.”

  “Yeah, I really better get to her house,” I said. “In case she needs me.”

  “Be careful,” Yvonne called out, stopping at the well and letting us continue on without her. “It’s getting late, and you never know what’s lurking in the dark.”

  “What a weirdo,” I muttered as we hurried out of Yvonne’s earshot.

  When we got to our parting place, Malik pulled me close, and I lay my head on his shoulder and held him for a moment. He’d always looked out for me, he had a strong capacity for magic, and he’d die for me if it ever came to that. Overall, he was a logical choice for my collective. There had never been any doubt in my mind—or the mind of literally anyone in the coven—that he would be the first I added.

  That was probably the real reason I hadn’t. I loved Malik, and rationally, I knew he’d be a great husband. But for once, I wanted something unexpected to happen, something as exciting as Granny’s stories about breaking tradition and marrying a fae, or being kidnapped by pirates. She had an endless supply of stories from her youth, stories full of passion, adventure, and danger. I had none of that, so I contented myself with listening to her stories while putting off my safe, logical marriage and waiting for something exciting to happen in my life.

  2

  I followed the trail up the mountain until I came to the old rock wall that separated wolf territory from our territory. Mom had warned me time and again not to cross into wolf territory. They were in a bloody turf war with the shifter clan in the Third Valley. Thankfully, neither side had come to us seeking magical interference...yet.

  I needed willow bark for Grandma Golden’s various aches and pains. Unfortunately, the willow tree was on the very top of the mountain next to the lighthouse, and though I didn’t have to step into wolf territory, I had to follow the border wall to find it.

  When I reached the clearing around the sealed lighthouse that topped the mountain, I scanned the surrounding woods. Soon I spotted the willow that grew at the edge of the clearing. I peeled off a few strips of bark and tucked them into my basket with the apples, nestling them around Robin.

  Turning to go, I peered up at the lighthouse, an odd addition to an Ozark mountaintop. Though I didn’t believe most of the stories about it, the building always gave me the creeps. It stood sentinel over the valleys, a blank white tower that reminded me of an unseeing eye. As I turned back to look at it, hands clamped down on my shoulders. With a cry of surprise, I turned to face forward. I’d walked right into a freaking giant!

  “Better watch where you’re going, little girl,” his gravelly voice chided. “You might fall and hurt yourself.”

  He wasn’t a literal giant, but he may as well have been. He stood a good two heads taller than me, with shoulders at least twice as wide, and washboard abs that tapered to narrow hips. I could see his muscles right through his thin white T-shirt. A teasing smile played across his lips. For a moment, I was captivated by his eyes, a warm green sprinkled with flecks of gold.

  “Oh, I don’t think that’s going to happen,” I said, recovering myself and lifting my chin to meet his eyes. “I have a knack for working with my surroundings.”

  “You’re a witch.”

  “And you’re in our territory.”

  He hesitated, then nodded. “I guess I am.”

  I pulled my gaze from his. The intensity of his eyes unnerved me, which was something that didn’t happen often. My thoughts turned to Malik, and I felt guilty somehow, as if I’d insulted him by thinking he couldn’t unnerve me.

  But he never had.

  This guy, however, kept studying me, drinking me in with his eyes as if memorizing every freckle on my nose, every curl in my cayenne-colored hair. His own hair was a mess of dark, wild tufts, and his arms were covered with tattoos from the back of his hands to where they disappeared under the straining sleeves of his T-shirt.

  “And…what did you come here for?” I asked. “Can I help you?”

  “I came here for you, naturally,” he said, a smile twisting the very corners of his lips again.

  “Me?” I took a step back, instantly defensive.

  “Yes you, Little Red,” the man said, giving me a haughty look.

  “What do you need from me?”

  “It’s more what you need from me.” His face turned serious, his eyes sympathetic. “I’m afraid I come bearing some bad news.”

  I tried to quell my impatience, putting my hand on one hip. “Well? What is it?”

  “It’s your grandmother.”

  Something inside my chest lurched. “Granny Golden?”

  He didn’t have to answer. The sympathy in his eyes said it all.

  “I’m just going to see her now,” I sai
d, as if that fact alone would protect my grandmother.

  “I’m sorry,” the man said.

  “What happened?” I said, transferring the basket from one hand to the other.

  “She’s been taken by the wolves.”

  “What? Why?”

  The man shrugged.

  “I have to go,” I said, stepping off the path, onto the leaves. “I have to see for myself.”

  “I’m really sorry,” he said, following me as I hurried along the path. “If there’s anything I can do…”

  “You’ve done enough,” I snapped. It wasn’t fair to shoot the messenger, but I wished he’d just go away. I rushed along the path, all the way along the ridgeline and through the barren trees, until I reached the rock wall that marked the boundary. When I turned around at last, the man was still there, walking ten paces behind me with his hands shoved into his pockets.

  I had to cross the entire First Valley to get to Granny’s small, secluded cottage. It was full dark before I turned down the path that led there. The wind shrieked through the bare branches, and I pulled my cloak shut around myself. Somewhere behind me, a branch snapped, and I spun around, my heart pounding.

  You’re being ridiculous, I scolded herself. Are you going to be afraid of the dark next?

  Still, I held out my hand, palm up, and called forth a small flame. I could make out nothing unusual on the shadowy path behind me. The sky remained a deep, navy blue in the west, but all I could see were the skeletal fingers of tree branches reaching for it. It was the snapping limb on the ground that had me spooked.