Shameless: A Reverse Harem Fantasy Romance (The Carnal Court Book 3)
Shameless
A Reverse Harem Fantasy Romance
Devyn Sinclair
Contents
1. Chapter One
2. Chapter Two
3. Chapter Three
4. Chapter Four
5. Chapter Five
6. Chapter Six
7. Chapter Seven
8. Chapter Eight
9. Chapter Nine
10. Chapter Ten
11. Chapter Eleven
12. Chapter Twelve
13. Chapter Thirteen
14. Chapter Fourteen
15. Chapter Fifteen
16. Chapter Sixteen
17. Chapter Seventeen
18. Chapter Eighteen
19. Chapter Nineteen
20. Chapter Twenty
21. Chapter Twenty-one
22. Keep in touch!
About the Author
Copyright © 2019 Devyn Sinclair
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover Design by Charlee Hoffman
Created with Vellum
CHAPTER ONE
________
KARI
I’m currently trying not to move, breathe, or give any indication that I am awake.
Lying on my side, I’m pressed between two men—men who somehow manage to achieve the impossible combination of sleeping deeply and lightly at once. For all the world, it always seems like they’re passed out, but the second I give any sign that I’m awake, they’re awake.
Constantly on the lookout for danger, even in sleep.
Thankfully, I feel a little better about that now. The magic that I’ve been learning to control wraps around us like a blanket, forming a shield that I can trust, even while unconscious. I’m hoping that gives my mates some peace of mind as well.
Two of my mates are currently sharing my bed. Urien is behind me, arm slung over my hip, and the warmth of his chest pressed against my back. Verys is in front of me, equally close. His silver hair has slipped down over his face, and I’m reminded of when I first saw him in my state of dizzy pain. I thought he was some sort of angel.
But I like the way they’re holding me so near, solid heat and casual affection in their touch. And I don’t want that to stop. These little moments of normalcy and intimacy are what I’ve come to crave the most. I love all of it—the fun and the sex and the way I’m slowly getting to know each of them for the men that they are. But at times like this—in the stillness—I can stop and realize that it’s all real. This is my life now, and as crazy as that is, it’s true.
Not that I imagine there will be much time for normalcy. Another reason I don’t want to wake up. I’m pretending that everything outside of my bedroom simply does not exist. There’s no one trying to kill me and steal my magic. There are no questions about what her bigger plan is. There’s no worrying about the mate that no one else knows about. There’s simply me, resting skin-to-skin with two of the men that I love.
And I do love them. I’m so in love them with them that if Odette and Emma actually knew they’d probably laugh and then pretend to vomit from the cuteness. I wouldn’t even blame them for it.
The last few days have been great, especially the field trip I begged them to take to New York—only for an hour—to visit one of the sex toy stores there. After Brae made the suggestion I couldn’t get it out of my head, and it was well worth the amount of decoy portals that we had to create to get there. We haven’t even had a chance to use some of the things they bought. Hell, I’m not even sure that I know all the things that they brought back with them.
Looking at Verys again, I can’t help myself—I reach out very slowly and brush the hair out of his eyes. He opens them in response, just like I knew he would, but he closes them again, smiling softly. “Took you long enough.”
“I didn’t want to wake you.”
“I was already awake.”
I roll my eyes. “How?”
“Your breathing changes,” he says softly.
“I was trying really hard to keep it steady,” I sigh.
“It was a good attempt,” Urien says, pressing his lips to the side of my neck. “But we can tell.”
“One of these days I’m going to figure out how to get you guys to sleep in without being injured and unconscious.”
Verys chuckles. “Sleep is overrated.”
“No,” I say. “It’s not. Sleep is amazing. And just laying here with you keeping me warm is fucking brilliant.” Moving my fingers again, I brush the little bit of hair I missed away from Verys’s eyes.
Urien moves away from me, and I miss the warmth. He pulls me onto my back so I’m still nestled against him, but now he’s looking down at me. Golden eyes flecked with silver hover above mine, bright in contrast to his dark navy skin. “I think I could prove that sleep is overrated.”
He doesn’t wait for me to answer, instead lowering his lips to my skin. The kiss is slow and sensual. Not immediately leading anywhere, just slow and pure enjoyment. No matter the speed, heat pools inside me, gathering deep as magic like night-kissed wind brushes across my skin.
Urien is a deliberate lover, every brush of his lips dripping with intention. And the slowness with which he moves his mouth and his magic across my collarbone is maddening, and delicious.
Verys presses his own kiss to my temple, and he laughs at my moan. But I can’t help it—I love the way they make me feel. Even if it’s something as simple as a kiss. I lean into his mouth, now caught between the two. There’s no telling where is will go from here.
Urien moves his head lower, pushing aside the fabric of my nightgown. He has a plan, but I know that he won’t tell me what it is.
There’s a feeling then, someone drifting fingers across my cheek and a pulse of deep blue magic across my skin. I open my eyes to nothing. “Wait,” I gasp. Urien looks up from where he’s tracing the line of my ribs with his mouth. I manage to find the words “Wait. I felt something.”
Verys smirks. “I would hope so.”
“No,” I shake my head. “Not you. Kiaran’s magic.”
They both freeze for a second, and then they’re moving. Off the bed and pulling on clothes in a matter of moments. “Where?” Urgent asks.
I shake my head again. “It was just magic. He may not even be here.”
Verys’s expression is hard. “The wards around this place are incredibly specific about what kind of magic is allowed through. None of his magic should be allowed through. No magic of any kind should be able to except yours, and ours.”
Guilt gnaws at my stomach. By ‘ours,’ he means my fae mates. I need to tell them the truth about Kiaran, and why the wards are working exactly as they should. Hostile magic that he possesses—the kind that’s driven by Ariana—can never reach me here. But that touch, and the dreams, those aren’t the same. Those are just fragments of my mate reaching for me, and I want so badly to reach back.
But I’m afraid that if I do that I’ll open a door that I can’t close, and Ariana will be able to come through. It’s not just me at risk if that happens, it’s all of us. Maybe more. The Goddess didn’t give me magic to hold and to wield for nothing.
“What’s going on?” Kent stands in the doorway to my bedroom, holding what looks like a giant breakfast burrito. He takes in Urien and Verys at the ready, and I see him come alert.
“Nothing,” I say, springing off the bed and twisting away from Verys’s outstretched hands. “But that looks good, and I could use one.”
I’m already halfway down the stairs before I hear their voices behind me, both Verys and Urien no doubt sharing with Kent what I would not. I’m choosing in this moment to still live in that happy little bubble that I woke up in—warm and happy.
Sure enough, the magic of the house has produced a whole platter of breakfast burritos that smell amazing. Egg and sausage and cheese. It’s a perfect blend of flavors, and I silently thank the magic for giving me what I didn’t even know that I needed. It nearly always manages to do that, and it’s amazing.
I’m curled up in my favorite spot on the couch, absolutely stuffing my face when they all come down the stairs together like my own private army. Brae looks like he’s still half-asleep, but jumped up when the rest of them told him there was danger. He could have slept. Aeric is laced with weapons and the barest sheen of sweat, like he’s been training. Automatically, he stands in the doorway that leads to the rest of the house, ever the soldier.
“I’m sure everything is fine,” I say. “There haven’t been any more attempts on the wards, right?”
“For now,” Verys says. “Although I think we might treat this like one.”
“It wasn’t,” I say probably too quickly.
Brae’s eyebrows raise and he scrubs the exhaustion from his face. “How do you know?”
I take a bite of burrito in order to give myself a moment. “I don’t know how to explain it…the magic just didn’t feel malicious.”
They exchange looks that I pretend to ignore.
“What reason would he have to not be malicious?” Kent wonders out loud.
This is the moment where I should tell them the truth about Kiaran, but I can’t. Anxiety churns in my gut. I don’t know what they’ll do. I trust them with my life, but Kiaran has already endangered mine more than once—even if it wasn’t his choice. That’s not an easy thing for anybody to get over. Especially the men who have dedicated themselves to keeping me alive. They’re still a little battered from our last encounter, the last of the bruises fading on the fae, and Kent’s are still colorful reminders of that battle.
The way they’re looking at me right now, it’s like I can feel them staring right through my soul and knowing that I’m keeping something from them. It might be good that all our bonds are not sealed yet. But I haven’t even told that I want to yet, and I should.
Quickly, I finish the breakfast burrito, once again silently thanking the magic of the house for giving me a perfect meal. “There’s something that I wanted to talk to you guys about. I’ve been ignoring it, same way I’ve been ignoring everything for the past few days.”
I like watching them array themselves across the space for this. Brae sits across from me, leaning his elbows on his knees, utterly focused. Aeric maintains his protective position and Kent has a similar stance, arms crossed, eyes moving like he’s expecting Kiaran to jump out at any moment. Urien is relaxed and at ease, sitting with arms draped across the sofa, and Verys quietly sits nearby, steady as a rock.
I take a deep breath, a different kind of nerves jumping in my stomach now. Pulling my knees up to my chest, I wrap my arms around them. “When I was in that house with Kiaran, he figured out that you guys were close enough to hear me, and he told me that it didn’t matter. That you’d been taken care of. And I decided that I never wanted to feel like that again.”
Brae tilts his head, studying me with genuine curiosity. “What do you mean?”
The emotion that I felt in that moment comes flooding back, and I fight it back, even though the world blurs with unshed tears. “I mean that I didn’t know if you were safe or hurt or dead, and that it was the same in reverse. There was no way for you to know that things weren’t going the way we had imagined.” I take a breath and swallow. “But I realized, that if I had sealed my bonds with you, that it wouldn’t have been like that.”
Around me, the air in the room goes still. It’s like that moment before lightning strikes when the world feels like it’s holding its breath until unleashing its power. In the same way, the men in front of me now are holding their breath together. “So I told myself if I made it out, that I would choose you. All of you. Whenever the time right for each of us, to do that.”
There’s a moment of silence before Urien breaks it. “Really?” His voice is a whisper full of hope.
I nod, tucking my face into my knees. “Yes.”
Arms come around me, and a hand guides my head back up and suddenly I’m kissing Verys and laughing because he steps aside for Urien and then Brae, all of them touching me in some way. I can feel the joy radiating from their hands and eyes, and I’m dizzy with magic and rightness that sinks down to my bones.
Until I look past them and see Aeric. He hasn’t moved, and is staring straight at me, face hard. The tension rolling off him is obvious, like he’s keeping himself in check. I can’t decipher his expression. Pain and anger and something close to devastation.
One by one the other men see where my gaze has landed and they look too. Brae makes a connection that I must not understand, because he stands away from me. “Aeric—”
That’s all he gets out. Aeric spins on his heel and goes up the stairs. Something is wrong. Up until now, everything he’s told me and shown me made me think that this is what he wanted. Brae steps forward like he’s about to go after him. “No,” I tell him. “I think this is between him and me.”
Kent rubs my back, hugging me close before I leave the couch. “He’ll be fine.”
“I thought this is what he wanted?” I’m not asking anyone in particular.
Brae nods. “It is. But there’s…more to it than that.”
“Okay.” This time I’m addressing all of them. “I love you.”
“Good luck,” Kent says.
CHAPTER TWO
________
KARI
Following Aeric, I climb the stairs. We haven’t spent much time in his bedroom, but that’s the first place I go now, and I find him pacing. Not a casual pacing—it’s a fervent stalking back and forth, and what feels like barely contained emotion simmering beneath the surface. But whatever it is, it’s not directed at me.
Softly, I close the door behind me. Aeric’s room is a deep burgundy, furnished with dark woods and rich leather. On one wall is an impressive array of weapons, and a workbench where it looks like he’s in the process of making more. But the central feature of the room is the bed. It dominates the space with stark lines and four posts and speaks of dark and delicious things that could happen.
“Aeric.” I speak because he hasn’t stopped moving, and has barely seemed to acknowledge me. My first instinct is to ask him what’s wrong, but I stop my words before they come out. The words that he spoke to me the first time we were in the crystal court appear in my mind as if they were called out of memory. This is not the way I would have chosen. But I want you like I’ve wanted no other woman. And I have finished ignoring fate.
This isn’t something he can talk about. Not like this. Magic wells up from that place inside me, and with sudden clarity I know that it’s the Goddess that called the memory to me. Aeric acts first. That’s who he is. He’s a fighter and right now he has nothing to fight. I don’t know what he needs. He has to be the one to show me.
As he spins back towards me, I step directly in front of him so he stops short. It’s like he’s seeing me for the first time, and he freezes. Those gorgeous green eyes are full of turmoil that I don’t understand, but it doesn’t frighten me. “Take what you need, Aeric.”
I’m against the wall in a second, his lips crashing down on mine. It’s been forever since we were alone, and I realize with a shock that it’s been him. He’s been reluctant to touch me with the others. He’s been separate, only touching me alone and then letting me go to the others. How did I not see it happening?
The thin nightgown that I’m wearing shr
eds under his hands so he can explore me, fingers finding my clit with bold determination. Mint green and aromatic spices flow over me with his magic, doing what he does so well and teasing me from the inside out. My nipples are already hard and pleasure is flowing up and out and I’m half-way to coming already.
Aeric places an arm across my chest, pressing me into the wall. I can feel the incredible strength that he holds, and that this time he’s letting himself go further than he has before. One finger dips inside me, and I shiver. “More,” I breathe.
His gaze flicks to mine, eyes dark with lust and power. “You don’t have permission to speak unless you’re asking to come.”
Shock rolls over me, followed by a wave of white-hot arousal. Fingers work my clit in deliberate strokes, playing my body like an instrument. He presses harder against my chest, completely immobilizing me while he circles my clit, magic licking inside in time with his hand.
I close my eyes, unable to fight the rising tide of my orgasm, and I’m already gasping. Aeric is very good at what he does, already setting me on the edge of climax. “Please?” It’s the only word I can form right now.
“Yes.” His voice more of a growl than anything right now, but the roughness of it grates against my skin, adding to every sensation and sending me spiraling into pleasure. The orgasm hits me like a wall—fierce and furious and breathless. It spins downward through me too quickly, leaving me gasping in Aeric’s grasp.
But he doesn’t stop, barely pausing to grab my shredded nightgown from the ground as he pulls me to the bed. The energy rolling off of Aeric is different than I’ve seen before, and I’m not upset about it. It’s a facet of him that I didn’t know existed. But I want to know every facet of all my mates. I don’t ever want them to hold back with me.