Hybrid Reborn, page 1
Hybrid Reborn
Hate to Love Fae Book 3
J.L. Wilder
Copyright © 2022 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. ART
2. ZARA
3. ELLIOT
4. CHAN
5. LUCIEN
6. ART
7. ELLIOT
8. ZARA
9. LUCIEN
10. ZARA
11. ZARA
12. CHAN
13. ART
14. ZARA
15. ELLIOT
16. LEO
17. LUCIEN
18. ZARA
19. ZARA
20. CHAN
21. ART
22. ZARA
23. ELLIOT
24. LUCIEN
25. CHAN
26. ZARA
27. ELLIOT
28. ART
29. LUCIEN
30. CHAN
31. ZARA
32. ZARA
33. ELLIOT
34. ART
35. ZARA
36. CHAN
37. LUCIEN
38. ZARA
39. ZARA
40. LEO
41. LEO
42. ZARA
43. ELLIOT
44. ZARA
45. CHAN
46. LUCIEN
47. CHAN
48. ZARA
49. ART
50. ART
51. ELLIOT
52. ZARA
53. LUCIEN
54. ZARA
55. ZARA
56. ELLIOT
57. ART
58. ZARA
59. LUCIEN
60. CHAN
1
ART
“Do you want some of this?” I ask Mari, holding up the coffee pot.
She shakes her head. “I can’t get used to seeing you like this,” she says. “All domesticated.”
I laugh. “Just because I’m living in a house? I always lived in a house, Mari.”
“You know why it’s different,” she says. “In Shifter Town, you three lived in a house that you’d built yourselves. It was a mess to look at, but it had character. It was you all over. This place, though…”
“What’s wrong with it?”
She makes a face. “You can tell other humans have lived here,” she says. “Even if I couldn’t smell them, which I can, every minute I’m in here, you can just tell. The whole place is designed with humans in mind, right down to that thing you’re holding.”
“Don’t act like you don’t know what a coffee pot is.” I have to laugh at that. “You’ve had coffee before.” I pour some into a mug and put it in front of her.
“Yeah, but when we have coffee, we heat the water over an open fire and pour it over grounds.”
“Which is exactly what I did! I just used a stove instead of a campfire.”
“Totally domesticated.”
I know she’s just ragging on me—she’s my older sister, and she and I have always had this relationship—so I’m not annoyed with her. “Drink your coffee,” I tell her. “It tastes better than what we get when we’re in Shifter Town.”
It does, too. It’s made from a bag of really good quality beans that Lucien swiped from a franchise coffee shop on the other side of town. We try to do most of our stealing from big stores that can afford to take the loss because we’re not horrible, and to the extent we can manage it, we keep it out of our immediate neighborhood so no one will put together a pattern of local thefts. The human police wouldn’t make anything useful out of that pattern, but there are plenty of non-humans looking for us who would understand the significance.
Mari takes a sip of her coffee. “It is pretty good,” she admits grudgingly.
“Humans know what they’re doing when it comes to a lot of things,” I tell her. “I wouldn’t want to live in their world for the rest of my life or anything, but when it comes to creature comforts, they’re miles ahead of us. I mean, hot showers? That’s a whole new level of bliss.”
She laughs. “This is my bear brother. I don’t know what Aidan would say if he could see you right now.”
It sobers me up pretty quickly. After a moment, Mari’s smile drops too.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“It’s all right,” I tell her. “I’m thinking about him pretty much all the time too.”
“Are you guys going to attack him? Try to remove him from power?”
“No, of course we’re not.” I blink. “Is that what he thinks?”
“He doesn’t know what to think. You abandoned Shifter Town to run with a fae girl.”
“We fell in love with her, Mari. You know that’s real, don’t you? You’ve been with us long enough now to get it.”
“Yeah, I know,” Mari says. “I did think she was probably enchanting you somehow at first. Aidan still worries about that. But I’ve been with you enough to see that you’re still yourself. Zara isn’t playing you for fools. You’re all here because you want to be.”
“So you must know that I’m not going to attack Aidan.”
“Well, you have to admit that it’s still hard to understand, even if I do believe it’s real,” Mari said.
“You don’t like Zara?”
“It’s nothing to do with Zara personally. She’s fine. But she’s still fae. They’ve been our enemies for generations. Since way back before you and I were born. And now you’re in love with one of them and acting like there’s nothing weird about that. You should at least acknowledge that it’s weird.”
“All right,” I agree. “It’s weird. It’s weird for me too. And at first, it was hard for the three of us to trust her because we know what the fae are capable of. But she’s proved herself to us plenty of times now. We love her, and we know that we can trust her. What she is just doesn’t feel that strange anymore—no stranger than what Elliot is, for example.”
“Elliot’s just a shifter, same as you and me.”
“He’s a dragon, Mari. You know I love Elliot, and I trust him with my life, but we can’t pretend that’s exactly the same. There was a time not so long ago when dragons weren’t really welcome in the shifter community. Even now, everybody knows how volatile they can be. Even Elliot can be hard to manage sometimes. But he’s one of us, and we trust him. It’s the same way with Zara. We’re not about to team up with the fae as a whole, but individually, she’s proven herself.”
Mari nods slowly. “I can see that,” she said. “It’s just a little hard to internalize it, I guess.
“And Aidan doesn’t believe it?”
“Aidan doesn’t know what he believes,” Mari says. “I don’t think he’s going to attack you now that you’ve just saved him from the monsters. I think you can count on a truce there, at least for now.”
“He won’t attack while you’re with us anyway,” I point out.
“You shouldn’t be too sure of that,” she cautions. “He might.”
“You think?”
“Maybe. If he still thinks Zara’s enforcing her will on all of you, he might think I’m being played too. If he had to take me out, if he really thought I was a threat to Shifter Town, he would. The one thing you can rely on is that Aidan will always put the best interests of Shifter Town first. No matter what, he’ll never allow it to come to harm while he’s alive.”
2
ZARA
“Do you have any fucking idea how much I love watching this?” Art asks.
I have no idea who he’s talking to, but if it’s me, he shouldn’t expect to get an answer. I’m currently in the process of being fucked out of my mind, so questions like that are beyond me. I couldn’t have told him my own name.
My mates have figured out exactly what the best way to work my body is, and they’re reveling in it.
Elliot’s holding me in his arms. The bare skin of his chest is hot against my back, the dragon blood surging through him and making my temperature rise. We used to worry about this, about the contact fever I get off of him. Now we’ve all got enough experience to know that it just makes things wilder and more arousing when I’m a little out of my head, and Elliot likes knowing he’s the one who can do that to me. I can feel his erection pressing against the small of my back, and even though we’re not actually fucking, to judge by the throb of him, I think he’s probably going to be able to come just from the role he’s playing.
Lucien is the one inside me. We haven’t been together long enough for me to have gotten used to his massive monster cock. The first time my other mates saw him naked, I worried they might be intimidated. I mean, they’ve got nothing to worry about—they’re all packing plenty of heat, and there’s more to great sex than size anyway, but men can be sensitive about certain things.
It was never an issue, though. They laughed, clapped him on the back, and immediately asked to see whether or not I could take it.
I can. Barely.
It’s hard to move on him, and he’s always slow and careful to avoid hurting me. I feel so full with him inside me that I can’t even think straight, and my senses are completely overwhelmed. My body doesn’t know what to do with all the things I’m feeling, and it seems to me that sensory input is being randomly fired off to bizarre and unusual—though not unwelcome—places. My fingertips are aroused. My eyes are watering. It feels like my hair is s
“You good, Zara?” Chan asks me gently.
I try to answer, but what comes out is an inarticulate sort of groan.
Everyone around me laughs gently—including Lucien. It makes his whole body move in surprising ways and I feel my legs start to shake.
Helpless, hungry, and desperate for anything, I turn my head toward Chan. He’s naked, and I’ve been resting my cheek against his thigh when I need breaks from the intensity of leaning into Elliot’s hot neck. His cock is against my cheek now, and I take him into my mouth, loving the sensation of two men using my body at once.
Chan groans in pleasure as I slide my tongue down the length of him, and I love that too. The pleasure within me is building more quickly now. I feel myself barreling toward the point of no return.
“Her nipples could cut glass, Art,” Elliot says. “I don’t want to heat her up any more than I already am. Come over here.”
Art, who is usually the least likely to take an order from his younger brother, falls to his knees beside the two of us, looking mesmerized. “Fuck,” he groans. “You’re right. I’m sorry, Zara. I can’t believe we’ve neglected you like this.”
The idea that I’m being neglected is hilarious given the way three men are already working on me, but I’m not in a state of mind to find anything funny. I was fine a moment ago—not completely fine, but certainly riding these waves without a sense of anything lacking. Now all I can think about is my poor, unstimulated nipples, craving touch and getting nothing. All I can think about is how good Art’s thick fingers are going to feel when he brushes across them.
“Fuck,” Lucien rumbles. “She’s going to come soon. I can feel it. You can’t imagine how tight she is right now.”
“Art,” I plead, releasing Chan’s cock for just a moment. I want all four of them touching me. I want all four of them to make me come. It won’t feel complete otherwise.
And he knows it, too. He’s grinning at me. He’s teasing me.
Maybe it’s the fever, but I feel like I’ve been waiting forever for his touch. If he makes me wait one more moment, I’m going to touch myself. He won’t like it if I do. They never like it when I do that unless they’ve specifically invited me to.
But it would serve him right for making me wait.
I’ve just about reached my breaking point when he raises his hands between me and Lucien, cups my breasts, and begins to trace soft circles around my nipples with his thumbs.
And it’s enough.
It’s like a dam breaks inside me. I lose complete control over my body. I lose track of which of them is where. I’m aware of being surrounded by my lovers, by hands touching me and supporting me, but the pleasure cascading through me is so intense that I can’t focus on the details. All I know is that I’m coming like I’ve never come before.
I love sex with each of my mates. It’s always amazing, and I wouldn’t give up our one-on-one sessions for anything. But when they all take me on together this way…
I feel like time has stopped.
By the time I calm down enough to notice what’s going on around me, I’m lying wrapped in Lucien’s arms. Elliot’s moved a few feet away to let my temperature come down, and I can hear the others talking just out of view.
I close my eyes and drift off, feeling immensely satisfied.
3
ELLIOT
I wake up to an empty bedroom and the sound of voices in our apartment’s kitchen.
It’s not unusual for me to be the last out of bed. Art says it’s because I’m the youngest. Chan says it’s because I’m a dragon. Personally, I don’t care what the reasoning behind it is. The part I care about is that I’ve got these few extra minutes when this bed, which is usually piled full of bodies, is all mine, and I can stretch out and roll around for a bit. The human world is weird in a lot of ways, but I love what they’ve done with pillow-top mattresses.
Eventually, I get to my feet and go into the kitchen. Everyone’s sitting around the table—everyone except Lucien, who doesn’t really fit comfortably in the chairs that came with this apartment and has picked up a tendency to either sit on floors or lean against walls, which is what he’s doing now.
“Bacon and eggs,” Chan says by way of greeting.
I go to the stove and serve myself up a plate. They’ve left plenty for me. “Are we going to need to go shopping today?” I ask as I take the last seat at the table. “That had to be the last of the eggs, right?”
“It was,” Zara says. “But does anyone have any money?”
“We could get money,” Lucien suggests.
“You’re the worst pickpocket in the world,” Zara tells him. “So unless you’re considering contract work in construction, I don’t know how you’re going to get us any money.”
“There are other ways to take money off of people than picking their pockets.”
“No,” Art says firmly. He’s always been the boss of our little clan, going back to when it was just the three of us brothers growing up in Shifter Town. When Zara joined us, she challenged him in new ways—she’s less accustomed to being led—but most of the time, she lets him take the lead. What’s been most impressive to me is the way Art has been able to hold on to his dominant position even with Lucien in our group. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it for myself—but it’s what’s happened.
Lucien raises his eyebrows—he still doesn’t love being told what to do—but he doesn’t push back.
“We’re not going to bully people or beat them up,” Art says. “We’re not going to scare anyone into handing over their wallets. That’s not who we are, Lucien. That’s what monster gangs do, but it’s not what we do.”
“I wasn’t in a gang,” Lucien reminds him.
“Because you didn’t want to be like them,” Zara says. “And you’re not like them. You’re better than they are. Art is right. We’re not going to threaten people. Picking pockets is one thing, but that’s where we draw the line.”
“Chan’s a good pickpocket,” Mari says. “So am I.”
“Zara’s even better than I am,” Chan says. “Better than anything you or I have ever seen, Mari.”
“So that’s settled, then,” Art says. “You three can spend the morning getting us some funds, and then in the afternoon, Lucien and Elliot and I will split up the take and go do some shopping.”
“That sounds good to me,” Zara says.
“What are you three going to do all morning?” Mari asks.
“I don’t know about these two,” I say. “But personally, I’m going back to bed.”
Lucien laughs. “You just got out of bed. All you ever want to do is sleep.”
“I mean, you’d sleep a lot too if your blood was as hot as mine,” I say—not because I know this to be scientifically accurate, but because I like the sound of it. “It wears me out, burning so hot all the time. I need my dragon rest.”
“You can at least take care of the dishes before you go back to bed,” Art says firmly.
Dishes. That’s a fucking new one. We didn’t really do dishes back in Shifter Town. Most meals were prepared as a community and served to everyone at once. Not too many dishes were involved since we ate with our fingers instead of silverware and off of leaves and stones instead of plates. What few dishes we did possess as a community would be washed later that evening by whoever was on dishwashing duty—and because I was part of the muscle of the community and usually had guard duty, dishes were never my job.
It’s different now. We have doors that lock, and everyone here is a fighter. Someone’s got to do the dishes, and I guess it might as well be me.
I start to get to my feet and head over to the sink, figuring that I’ll knock this chore out quickly so I can go get back to my napping before the sunny spot leaves the bedroom.
But as I rise, Zara lets out a hiss.
I look over at her. It sounded as if she was in pain. “What is it?” I ask urgently. “Are you okay?”
“Is it the baby?” Art asks.
“No,” she says. “It’s the fae.”
“What?”
“They’re here. In Bozeman.”
“How can you tell?” Art demands.
“I cursed the city,” she says matter-of-factly, like cursing a city is a normal thing to do.
