Mated_A Reverse Harem Urban Fantasy Read online

  WARNING

  Moonlight Inn is reverse harem, which means Lyra doesn’t have to choose between her many lovers. This book contains sexual scenes.

  This book was written, produced, and edited in the UK where some spelling, grammar and word usage will vary from US English.

  Copyright © Leigh Kelsey 2018

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without the prior written permission of the author

  The right of Leigh Kelsey to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

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  Cover by LSK Designs

  MATED

  LYRA

  I felt the pulse, like a ripple through the world, when the church ruins imploded. I bolted upright in bed with a hiss of a filthy word, my heart pumping panic-fast blood through my veins. Shoving black hair out of my eyes, I stared out the lace curtain over my window at the flare of red light and swore again. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from, but I knew deep in my bones that it was bad news. Very bad news.

  I grabbed the throwing knife from under my pillow.

  “What the actual hell—” My door flew open, followed by the body the cursing mouth belonged to. Tall, rangy, shaggy dark hair and luminous hazel eyes. Face to die for, all hollow angles and beauty, even if the rest of him looked like he’d never eaten a decent meal in his life. “Did you feel that?”

  “No,” I dead-panned, already heading into the hallway to converge with everyone else, grateful I slept in a ratty old band shirt and not naked. “I missed the ominous pulse of power and the devil-red light in the sky. The fuck do you think, Gray?”

  I rushed forward down the hall, my heart rate spiking at the sight of my alpha, silver light catching on his pale hair, his broad shoulders and wide chest blocking out the moonlight sifting in through the kitchen curtains. The power of the moon skated along my arms, raising hairs, and I shuddered as it settled deep in my gut, energising me. Whenever the moonlight hit our skin, it enhanced our strength, our senses, and heightened the pack bond.

  It also had the unhelpful side effect of ramping my anxiety into frantic panic, my blood pounding unnaturally fast, my breathing shallow.

  Jack was already there—the other wolf in our pack, a quiet, serious black man with close-cropped hair, worry-creased eyes, and bare arms so bulging that I didn’t know where to look—but I barged past him and breathed, “Cas, what is that?”

  “Nothing that will touch us, Lyra, don’t worry,” Casimir responded, his Polish accent strong. He hooked a strong arm around my neck and drew me close. It was like being hugged by a polar bear, muscular but warm and soft. Normally that might have reassured me, but the moon’s power was making me jumpy and that red light was so close. It was no more than a few minutes away, if that, and coming from the heart of Whitby.

  There was enough ancient power and mythical nasties in the centre to make me worried. Like it or not, we’d be drawn into whatever the hell was going down. It had happened before, a millennium ago. Shifters and vampires had gone to war, and we—werewolves—had been hauled in too, siding with a pack of fox shifters. No wolves had come out of that alive; all my pack’s family lines originated outside Whitby.

  Glancing around at my family, as much as they pissed me off, I couldn’t stand the thought of losing them. I’d lost so much already. Too much for me to handle some days. My chest squeezed so tight at the thought of losing my new family too. And despite Cas’s words, I didn’t believe him. I thought that red sweep of power had already touched us, and it was only a matter of time before we were sucked into whatever shit had caused it.

  LYRA

  By morning, the sky was back to normal, so I put it out of my head, shoving my anxieties into a mental closet as dark and scary as the wardrobe to Narnia. Well, if Narnia was full of snarling wolves, jaws dripping blood, and my parents ripped to shreds. Fun memories that made Ice Bitch or whatever the witch’s name was look like Elsa from Frozen.

  I was halfway through a shower when the door to our cottage’s only bathroom opened, Cas barging his way into my personal space. Not that personal space stood for much around wolves. I’d seen some werewolf lore that said the magic that cursed—or gifted—us with the ability to shift could also keep our clothes in stasis until we shifted back, but if that was real I’d never seen it. I’d seen plenty of other things, including but not limited to Gray’s flat arse, the weird cloud-shaped birthmark on Jack’s back, and Cas’s … well, everything. And there was a lot of everything to see. If there was a special brand of magic to protect our dignity, I’d yet to find it.

  Not that I was searching very hard. Weird butts aside, changing every full moon did have its perks. Mainly seeing Cas stark naked. And watching him walk back to our cottage, the view from behind particularly appealing. I savoured those walks like a wine enthusiast savours a rare vintage. Now, though, I just barked out a creative insult and told him to get out. I was half-asleep and showering and already late. Not even Cas could perk up my mood this morning.

  I held onto my bitter mood as I dried and dressed and shoved my black hair into a sad attempt at a ponytail, but when Gray appeared holding the world’s largest mug of coffee, I could have kissed him. Could have and did, because I was that desperate for my caffeine intake this morning.

  “Ugh,” he spat, wiping his face free of the slobber my big, loud kiss had left on his cheek. “Thanks, Lyra.”

  “You’re welcome.” I spotted Cas through the doorway into our living room and marched after him, plopping onto a ratty grey sofa Gray’s mum had leant us. “So what’s going on?”

  Cas made a show of putting on the TV and watching the news thoroughly. “Nothing. I told you, do not worry.”

  “Cute, but I actually want answers. Tell me what you know.”

  “Nothing yet.”

  I grinned. “Yet. Wherever you’re going, I’m coming with.”

  “No, you’re not.” He finally looked at me, if only to glare me into submission. I shrunk into the cushions but didn’t back down from his gaze, though this was a fine line to walk. He was my alpha, and while I couldn’t outright refuse, I could do a hell of a lot of questioning. It was a right I exercised frequently. “And I’m going nowhere. We are staying out of it, whatever it is.”

  “But it’s so close—”

  “Exactly why we need to stay away.”

  I groaned in frustration, taking a long drag of coffee before it went cold. “I know. I don’t want to go anywhere near whatever the hell that light was. I just want to know it’s not going to come for us.”

  Cas’s gruffness melted then, showing the complete softie that hid beneath his alpha exterior. “I won’t let anything happen to us, Lyra.” He leant across the gap between his chair and my sofa, his hand outstretched. I fell over myself to get to that hand, holding onto his dry fingers tight. Unlike last night, the contact eased my muscles, dimmed my worries.

  Like natural wolves, we lived in packs, and our bonds ran deep. Physical contact was a way of reinforcing those bonds, especially with our alpha. And the bond between Cas and me … I knew it would be more. Or at least that’s what I told myself when I got so low with hopelessness over loving him. He was my alpha, my friend, and he owned every square inch of my heart.

  I pulled my hand back, shaky, and downed the rest of the coffee. “Alright, I’m leaving.
You’re coming to relieve me later, right?”

  He nodded, a strange look in his eye that I couldn’t interpret. “Be safe. And do not go near the abbey or the church.”

  I paused on the threshold. “The abbey? That’s where the pulse came from? Shit.”

  Cas nodded, watching me carefully now. Possibly because when I got pissed off or scared, I tended to lash out and kick nearby things such as doors, washing machines, cars. That was the wild animal in me.

  “Vampires?” I asked, though I didn’t really need the confirmation. “Why is it always fucking vampires with this town?”

  Cas laughed, a deep rumbling laugh that made me want to jump him and not in a violent way—in a I want to ride him like the Big One at Blackpool Pleasure Beach way. I had to look away to remember the pulse and the light and the involvement of vampires was freaking me out. “Wait.” I snapped my focus back to him. “How do you know this? I thought you weren’t getting involved.”

  “I’m not. Gray went out this morning—he told me.”

  “Gray,” I repeated slowly, squeezing the mug in my hands tighter. I swung around the door frame and yelled down the hall. “You treasonous bastard! I thought this was friend coffee, not bribe coffee!”

  “I love you,” he shouted from his room at the end of our one-storey cottage. “Don’t hurt me. There’s friend cookies and a friend bacon sandwich in foil on the table for you.”

  I harrumphed but he presented a thorough argument. I dumped the now-empty mug in the sink and bit into my sandwich. Salty, smoky deliciousness. “Forgiven,” I yelled at him.

  His laughter, and Cas’s, followed me out of the house.

  LYRA

  The Moonlight Inn was a squat, dingy hole-in-the-wall between a butcher’s shop and the pawn shop full of katanas, daggers, and vintage crap where I indulged my love of throwing knives whenever possible. The pub had seen better days, its hanging sign in need of a repaint and the windows thick and warped, the lintel sagging around the door. It had a distinct air around it, as if the old building was hissing, families not welcome, this place is full of criminals and beasts.

  I fucking loved this place.

  We’d bought it two years ago when I finally got my inheritance, the others pooling their savings with mine so we could afford it. It wasn’t much to look at but it was a safe space for us and other supernaturals, and it was ours. I would say it was a shame about the flat upstairs still belonging to the previous owners—a couple who liked heavy metal and wore spiked chokers despite being in their seventies, and who came down every weekend with home-made pork pies for the locals and all our pack—but it wasn’t. At all. It was bad enough sharing a space-deficit three-bedroom cottage with three male wolves; I did not want to imagine all of us squashed into a one-bed flat.

  I let myself in around the back of the pub and hung up my jacket.

  “You’re late,” Jack said, looking disapproving and grave as ever, his black eyebrows thick over sharp brown eyes and his wide mouth pressed into a thin line. I gave him the finger but set about hooking up one of the barrels that needed changing to the beer tap. Jack was alright. My bond with him was shallow compared to Gray and Cas but I still liked him. He was serious and moody but at least he wasn’t a prick. A lot of wolves could be controlling, violent assholes.

  “Take it out of my wages,” I joked. We didn’t do wages here. We all chipped in to keep the place running so we could keep up rent on the cottage. And if we had a decent week, at the end of it we’d gorge on Chinese food and lager. “What needs doing?”

  Jack reeled off a list of tasks and I got to work. I felt at home here, in the dim room with its scarred tables, the peeling banquette seating, and the floor my shoes stuck to because the various spills over the decades had combined into one master-spill that never quite dried. At the first breath of that musty-beer smell into my lungs, I could cast off the worries I’d been dragging around.

  This was my sanctuary, where not even my own memories could touch me, and certainly no outside threat could lay a finger on me. The Moonlight had never once posed even a hint of danger to me, to any of us—at least not until the doors opened, the regulars assumed their daily positions and nursed their pints, and around noon, a stranger in a snug forest green jumper sauntered in.

  Alarm bells blared in my head and I shot a look at Jack on the other side of the pub; he’d paused with his rag halfway to wiping a table. The newcomer looked between us, clearly reading in us what we sensed from him: wolf. And the feeling I got from him … he had no allegiances, no pack.

  A lone wolf in our territory? My heart pounded hard as I froze, the stranger’s eyes locking on mine. I didn’t know if we’d get him out of the Moonlight without injury to me, Jack, or both of us. I didn’t know what to do.

  LYRA

  Three things crossed my mind as the lone wolf stared at me across the bar, his eyes hard and intent and his nostrils flaring.

  One, I was glad as hell I was human right now, because as a wolf I’d have been overpowered by the alpha sense coming off him. All rogues had the same sense, even if they lacked the strength of a full pack. And they were brutal. They wouldn’t stop until they got what they wanted, whether that was food, territory, or females; without the balance of a pack, something in them went wild. They’d kill and keep killing until everyone else submitted. Or there was no one left breathing.

  Two, I was as glad to be with Jack as I wished he wasn’t here. My parents’ deaths had left me with a teeny tiny complex about the people I cared for getting hurt. I’d do just about anything to keep Jack unharmed, as long as that anything didn’t involve being dragged away by the lone wolf.

  Three, by the way he was staring at me, nostrils flaring as he inhales my scent, his body rigid and his face set in a stony expression, he had one thing on his mind. It was pretty rare to find a female like me in this part of the UK. In London, Birmingham, and Glasgow, there were plenty of all sexes, but in Yorkshire? A handful. In Whitby? I had the dubious honour of being the only female. And this lone wolf had fixated on me, despite Jack being as big a threat as I was. Bigger, with those muscles and his quiet intensity. Which meant the wolf had come here for a mate, following my scent specifically.

  Awesome.

  This had better not be because of the red pulse of light, but the timing of this was too much of a coincidence. Without looking away from him, I took my phone out of my pocket and held down the first button, sighing in relief when Cas answered instantly. The rogue stiffened at the sight of the phone as I held it to my ear and said, “There’s a lone wolf in the Moonlight. I’m pretty sure he’s here … for me.”

  “Put the phone down,” the wolf in question said in a voice as rough as broken glass. I tensed, hairs rising all over my body, my heart racing. I went so still my chest barely moved with my breaths.

  “Cas,” I breathed.

  “Where’s Jack?”

  I tried to answer but I couldn’t draw enough air to speak anymore and I was going dizzy with fear. My eyes had yet to be released from the stranger’s possessive stare. I’d be shaking with pure and unfiltered terror if I was brave enough to move even one muscle.

  “Here,” Jack answered for me, slipping the phone from my clenched fingers. “What should I do, alpha?”

  I couldn’t hear Cas’s response but I jumped as Jack’s solid hand settled on my lower back, though it did make me feel a bit safer. I wasn’t alone here.

  The rogue sidled a step closer—and every patron, every regular, every customer in the place stood as one. I almost sobbed but I couldn’t afford even that. Still my lungs demanded air and I was forced to suck in a shallow stream, even that tiny movement hammering on my instincts, telling me to freeze, stay still, play dead.

  He would hurt me, hurt Jack, like those wolves had had my parents. I would lose him, too. This wolf was a predator and I was powerless. I was prey.

  I flinched as the lone wolf moved, a sudden motion that jarred my fight or flight instinct and sent me scurrying
back into Jack, slamming him against bottles of vodka and boxes of crisps. “Easy,” he said in that steady voice of his. “Easy, Lyra.” But I kept scrambling back even as his arms banded around me, my phone falling to the floor as he held me in place, murmuring comforting words in my ear.

  I was thrown back into my memories, to quivering in fear, every breath a wrecked gasp as three wolves of a rival pack held me down, forcing me to watch as their alpha male strode through our forest to where my parents were being made to kneel.

  “Let her go,” Mum said in her whip-hard voice. “Kill us but let her run.”

  The alpha laughed, a sound I hadn’t been able to get out of my head since. “An eight-year-old wolf, alone in the wild? Fine, I’ll let her live. She’ll die within days.”

  I’d screwed my eyes shut, ducking my head, but the sounds kept coming. His gloating, their pleading and bargaining, and finally the fleshy thuds of an ancient Wolf Bone Sword carving through both their necks.

  “Lyra.” Jack jostled me, bringing me back. The rogue’s savage green eyes were still fixed on me, and while I’d zoned out, a group of our regulars—three witches and a hag—had been knocked out cold on the floor. I watched as, without breaking his fixated stare on me, the wolf took out seven shifters, a kitsune, and a faerie. He kept fighting, kept coming. Only the bar protected me and Jack, whose solid grip has turned to an attempt at comfort as his hand rubbed circles on my belly. It didn’t work. My breathing ran wild, shallow enough that dizziness swirled through my head again, tipping me back.

  “Shit,” Jack breathed. He never swore—and this was enough to kick me into action. Or as much action as I could manage, which was nothing more than wrangling my wits and shoving them back in my head until I could think straight. My memories got locked back in their dark Narnia, along with my fears of being taken by this rogue.