Cursed Mate (Feral Shifters 3)

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.”

Once 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.