Destroyed by Fire (Hate to Love Shifters Book 3) Read online

  Destroyed By Fire

  Hate to Love Shifters Book 3

  J.L. Wilder

  Copyright © 2021 by J.L. Wilder

  All rights reserved.

  No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

  Contents

  1. LACEY

  2. LACEY

  3. LACEY

  4. KANE

  5. BERN

  6. DOV

  7. JEAN

  8. LACEY

  9. KANE

  10. BERN

  11. DOV

  12. JEAN

  13. LACEY

  14. KANE

  15. LACEY

  16. XANDER

  17. XANDER

  18. XANDER

  19. JEAN

  20. LACEY

  21. DOV

  22. LACEY

  23. LACEY

  24. BERN

  25. BERN

  26. KANE

  27. XANDER

  28. XANDER

  29. JEAN

  30. DOV

  31. XANDER

  32. XANDER

  33. XANDER

  34. XANDER

  35. BERN

  36. JEAN

  37. LACEY

  38. DOV

  39. DOV

  40. KANE

  41. BERN

  42. XANDER

  43. XANDER

  44. XANDER

  45. LACEY

  46. LACEY

  47. LACEY

  48. BERN

  49. DOV

  50. LACEY

  51. JEAN

  52. LACEY

  53. LACEY

  54. XANDER

  55. XANDER

  1

  LACEY

  Lacey woke feeling warm and blissful.

  It was difficult to leave the dream she’d just been having. In it, she’d been cradling her baby—the baby that was only beginning to grow inside her—in her arms. She had been surrounded by her three mates, their bodies keeping her and her baby warm.

  At least one thing about the dream had come with her when she’d awoken. She was warm—warm to the point of overheating.

  Bern, her bear mate, was splayed out flat on his back, snoring. On her other side, his brother Dov was twitching as if in a dream. Lacey was sandwiched between their bodies. It had been pleasant when she had fallen asleep—it was still pleasant, really—but she needed some fresh air.

  She sat up.

  Kane, her third mate and the only tiger, was sitting across the room from the three of them. He was staring out the window looking wistful.

  She frowned. Kane had moved in with the bears after imprinting on Lacey, but he had never really seemed comfortable there. She could understand that, she supposed. After all, Bern and Dov were brothers. They had always lived their lives together. And Lacey was their mate, so they had welcomed her easily.

  Kane, though…he was an outsider.

  The moonlight caught his eyes, and Lacey was taken aback all over again by how handsome he was. Even lying here between her bear mates, she couldn’t look away from him. It wasn’t that he was better looking—the bears, with their dark hair and eyes and their broad, thick builds, were just as intoxicating. But Kane was so different from them. He was longer and leaner, his hair much lighter, his eyes bright in the moonlight.

  He must have sensed her looking because he turned to meet her gaze.

  She beckoned him over.

  He shook his head.

  Lacey got up, extricating herself carefully from the pile of bears, and went to him. She slid the window open and cocked her head toward the woods.

  Kane raised his eyebrows.

  Lacey nodded.

  The sound of the window hadn’t disturbed either of the bears. Not that it would have mattered, of course—they were perfectly aware that Kane had imprinted. They had invited him into the house. He was a part of the family now.

  Still, it would be awkward if she had to talk to her bear mates about the fact that she was about to go into the woods with him.

  Lacey exhaled slowly, climbed through the open window, and lowered herself carefully onto the ground below. Kane followed her.

  They reached the woods quickly, and he wasted no time in grabbing her and kissing her. His mouth was fierce against hers, as if he was trying to tell her things that he couldn’t put into words. Lacey felt her body begin to surrender to his. Kane was the wildest of her mates, in many ways—the most independent, certainly—and she loved that about him.

  He pulled back and searched her eyes. “It’s so tense in there.”

  “It’s just you,” she said soothingly.

  “They don’t want me around, Lacey.”

  “They don’t mind. They accepted each other when they found out they had both imprinted on me.”

  “That’s different,” he said. “You know that’s different. They’re brothers. And they’re both bears. And I’m…”

  “You’re my mate,” she said. “That’s all that matters.”

  “I know,” he said, but he still looked a little downcast.

  She sighed. “I don’t like this either, you know. The sooner you three come together and accept that you’re all going to be part of my life, the happier we’ll all be.”

  “I’ve accepted it,” he said.

  “I don’t know if you have,” she countered. “You’re reasonable enough around them some of the time, but then at other times it seems like you’re trying to get the upper hand against them. You’re too competitive.”

  “I don’t know what you expect. Do you want me to stand down?”

  “Not stand down. Honestly, I want you to see them as brothers.”

  “But they’re not my brothers,” Kane said. “They’re each other’s brothers. I’m never going to be part of that in the same way, and you know it.”

  “You’re all going to be fathers to my baby together,” she pointed out. “You’re all my mates equally.”

  “Those things are different. I love you,” Kane said. “And I even love that baby, strange as it is to admit. But Bern and Dov…they’re obstacles, Lacey.”

  “They are not. Don’t talk about them like that. They’re my mates.”

  “If they’re not obstacles, why do we need to sneak out in the middle of the night to be together?” Kane asked.

  “You’re the one who wouldn’t join us in bed,” Lacey said with amusement in her voice.

  “I’m not going to sleep in a pile with those two.”

  “But you could. No one is making you sneak out of the house. And for that matter, we’re not really sneaking. It’s not as if they don’t know that we do this. And if we wanted to, we could have sex in the house.”

  “Right in front of them?”

  “When they’re not around. They go out all the time.”

  “I don’t want to have sex with you in their house.”

  “It’s your house too,” Lacey said. “And I’m just saying, don’t act like they’re the ones making us go into the woods. You like sneaking into the woods. You like the fact that we’re covert about this. Don’t lie.”

  “Okay, fine, so I like it,” he said with a wicked grin. There was a shine in his eyes that let Lacey know that, even now, he was enjoying the dynamic between them. “What if I want to get my own place to live?”

  “You wouldn’t do that,” she said. “You’ve imprinted on me. You can’t just stop being with me. You couldn’t give me up any more than you could give up food or sleep. Any more than I could give you up.”

  “We wouldn’t be giving each other u
p. We’d just be getting rid of some of the tension,” he said. “It would be easier if we didn’t all live together.”

  There was something dark and possessive in his eyes, something she felt powerless to resist.

  “If you say that,” she said quietly, “then that’s what we’ll do.”

  He looked at her for a long moment, pondering, and Lacey wondered whether he was going to push the matter further.

  And then he grabbed her and kissed her again. It was clear that all was forgotten.

  2

  LACEY

  How could she think of anything but Kane while he was kissing her like this?

  It was impossible to worry about the conflict between her mates. It was impossible to think about anything but overwhelming attraction she had felt toward him, almost from the moment they’d met. It was almost as if they had been made for each other.

  I can’t believe I fell in love with a tiger!

  But her life had always been a contradiction. Her mother had been a wolf and her father a bear. They shouldn’t have been able to produce a child at all. Lacey had grown up hearing that she was an abomination, that she was against nature. Even her mother had thought so, having assumed that her tryst with a bear could never cause her to become pregnant.

  Half-breed shifters were rare. Almost unheard of.

  When Lacey shifted, her innermost animal self was a wolf, but the baby she carried was likely to be a bear.

  What was a little tiger blood thrown into the mix, after all that?

  Kane wasted no time. He never did. He grabbed at the fabric of her shirt and tore it over her head so fast that she was surprised it didn’t rip.

  He took a moment—just a heartbeat—to look at her in the moonlight. “You’re starting to show,” he murmured.

  Her hands went to her belly. “I’m just gaining back the weight I lost when I was with the wolves,” she murmured. “This isn’t the pregnancy yet.”

  He shrugged. “You look fucking amazing, either way.”

  He was hard. She could see him straining against his pants. She felt her breathing accelerate, knowing what was to come. But she waited. Kane liked to be in control of things, and she trusted him to get them where she wanted them to go.

  He closed the distance between them again and slid his hands down her shorts, bracketing her hips, squeezing gently for a moment before dropping the shorts into the dirt. “Get rid of those.”

  She kicked them away, aware that she was now naked in the moonlight while he was still fully clothed.

  His pupils were dilated and his breathing was accelerated. She could feel how much he wanted her. It filled the air between them, making the night feel thick and electric.

  “I want to fuck your mouth,” he said.

  She wet her lips. It wasn’t what she wanted most—she ached to feel him inside her—but he would take care of her. He always did. And until that moment came, she would give him whatever he wanted.

  She sank to her knees in the dirt.

  He came and stood before her and she wrapped her arms around him, resting her cheek against his cock and feeling him throb against her face. She tugged down his sweatpants so that she could be skin to skin with him. God, she loved it when he wore sweatpants.

  He twitched against her. She knew what he wanted and also, that he wouldn’t ask twice.

  She wrapped her hand around him and took him into her mouth.

  He groaned and held very still, allowing her to swallow him as deeply as she could, being careful not to push it. She could take a lot, they had both learned from hours of pleasant experience, if she was allowed to set the pace.

  The heat of him was intoxicating, to say nothing of the scent. Her body responded, desire flaring within her.

  “Touch yourself,” he said.

  It was all the invitation she needed. She pressed her whole hand between her legs, sending shocks of pleasure through her entire body. She sucked him harder, and he groaned. “You’re too good at this.”

  She stroked him with her hand, falling into an easy rhythm—one hand working herself, one hand working him in tandem with her mouth. His hips began to rock. He wouldn’t last long if they kept this up.

  He must have been thinking the same thing because he pulled her to her feet. “Do you know how good you look?” he growled in her ear. “Do you know how hard it is to just watch you do that?”

  “You don’t have to just watch,” she whispered.

  “Damn right.” He turned her in his arms so that her back was to him and grabbed her thighs, urging them apart. She gave in to what he wanted immediately. She didn’t want to resist this.

  He thrust into her slowly, carefully, making sure that the angle was right. Lacey let out a sob of pleasure at finally being filled. He had made her wait, but it felt so good that she couldn’t even complain. She would wait ten times longer for this.

  And now his fingers were rubbing against her. She was grinding on his hand while he fucked her, and it was exquisite. It was perfect. She felt more than human. The animal side of her was big and present in this moment, even though she still inhabited her human body. The wolf was feeling this every bit as much as she was—loving this every bit as much as she was.

  “Lacey,” Kane growled. “Lacey, fuck, yeah don’t stop—”

  She wasn’t even self-aware enough to know exactly what he didn’t want her to stop doing. She was writhing on him, moving as though determined to feel every inch of him inside every inch of her, her hips rocking in every possible direction. He fucked her faster, taking her deeper, and his hand pressed harder so that the friction grew more intense as she moved.

  She felt her orgasm building. She felt the moment of no return come and go, the moment when she would no longer be able to stop herself from coming. If he let go of her and walked away right now, she would still come, crying out alone and untouched in the middle of the woods.

  But he didn’t let go of her. She knew he would never do that.

  “Oh, God, Lacey, I can feel it,” he said as it built inside her. “Come for me, baby.”

  She couldn’t have resisted after that. She broke apart in his arms and he let out a hoarse cry that let her know that he was right there with her.

  They sank to the ground, both exhausted, and rolled onto their backs side by side to stare up at the night sky overhead through the trees. After a moment, Lacey felt Kane’s hand in hers, and she gripped his back.

  “Damn,” Kane murmured. “That was something.”

  “Worth the trouble?” she asked, turning to grin at him.

  “You’ve always been worth the trouble,” he said. “Even though you are an unusual amount of trouble.”

  She laughed. “How dare you!”

  “I did have to rescue you from a pack of wolves.”

  “You made it look easy,” Lacey said. “I have a hard time believing that it was any trouble for you at all.”

  He grinned. “I guess I had an easier time of it than your bears would have,” he admitted. “They’re so slow.”

  “You don’t need to be arrogant,” she said. “You may be faster than Bern and Dov, but they have strengths you don’t have too.” She ran her thumb over the inside of Kane’s wrist. “The baby and I are lucky to have all three of you.This is going to be the safest, most well-protected child in the world. Having three strong mates is even better than being able to raise my baby in a pack.”

  “Oh, you wouldn’t want to raise your baby in a pack anyway,” Kane said dismissively. “Packs are overrated.”

  Lacey nodded. “I’m beginning to think you might be right about that,” she said.

  “What good did that wolf pack ever do you?”

  “No good.”

  “Exactly.”

  She knew what he must be thinking. His streak—the group of tigers to which he had belonged—had run him out a long time ago for being a threat to the alpha. It had been so bad that he had been forced to leave the continent, which was what had brought him to Am
erica in the first place. Tigers weren’t common here.

  “If you hadn’t come here,” she said, “and if I hadn’t left the pack, you and I would never have met.”

  “In a way, it almost feels like it had to happen,” Kane said. “Like we never had a choice.”

  “I hope that’s a good thing.”

  “You know it is. Best thing that ever happened to me.”

  She rolled over and kissed him, wrapping her arms around him, indulging for one more long moment in the nearness of his body.

  He inhaled deeply, crushed her against him for a moment, and then let her go.

  “We should get back,” he said. “It’s about an hour until dawn.”

  She grinned. “You’re in a much better mood.”

  “Well, I’m always in a better mood after I fuck you.”

  Lacey chuckled and jumped to her feet. She gathered her clothes and began to pull them on.

  3

  LACEY

  “Do you think they’re going to be awake?” Kane asked.

  “Probably not,” Lacey said. “And let’s try not to wake them up. They never seem to get enough sleep.”

  Kane frowned. “If they’re going to get mad at someone, I want it to be me,” he said. “I don’t want them taking anything out on you.”

  “They’re not going to get mad at anybody,” Lacey said.

  “You don’t think so?”

  “It’s not like they don’t know about us, Kane. I just want a break from all the tension. I know you don’t enjoy it either. I don’t want to rub their noses in it.”

  He smirked. “I wouldn’t mind rubbing their noses in it.”

  “Yes, I know you wouldn’t,” she said, exasperated. “But we could all use a peaceful day, Kane. So can you please just try to be cool?”

  “Don’t worry,” Kane said. “I’m not going to do anything to provoke them. But if I get any sign that they’re yelling at you, or giving you a hard time for sneaking out—”

  “You won’t. They wouldn’t do that. When have they ever done that after you and I have been together?”