Destined in Forbidden: A Shifter Paranormal Romance (Alphas & Alchemy: Fierce Mates Book 7) Read online

  Destined in Forbidden

  Alphas & Alchemy: Fierce Mates Book Seven

  Keira Blackwood

  Liza Street

  Contents

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  The Future of Forbidden

  Also by Keira Blackwood and Liza Street

  About the Authors

  Copyright © 2020 Keira Blackwood & Liza Street

  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.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any actual persons, places, or events is coincidental. All characters in this story are at least 18 years of age or older.

  The cover utilizes stock images licensed by the author. The model(s) depicted have no connection to this work or any other work by the author.

  Introduction

  Forbidden, Kentucky—where mates meet, and monsters make mayhem.

  Alphas & Alchemy: Fierce Mates combines the worlds of Keira’s Alphas & Alchemy and Liza’s Fierce Mates.

  Chapter 1

  Natalie

  With a yawn, I flopped onto my back and nestled into the sweater I’d recently requisitioned. Honey badgers are supposed to live in tunnels. Been there, done that. We’re also supposed to make beds of grass and leaves.

  Ever snuggled up in a pile of poison ivy? One guess how that works out. And no thank you.

  Starting a new life in a new town, I was done with everything I was supposed to do. Technically, I was a refugee, a lady badger on the run. But curled up in my secret hiding spot behind the chest freezer in my bestie’s garage, I wasn’t stressing.

  The truth was, so long as I never shifted back to my human form, the spell I’d purchased from my tribe’s witch would never wear off. Which meant I’d never be found. And never be forced to take that weasel as a mate.

  He was a literal weasel. There was a pact between his tribe and mine.

  Again, no thank you.

  At first, moving to a new town was a bit lonely, especially since I couldn’t walk around on human feet to interact with people or signal in any way that there were more layers to me than a deep-fried onion. Not even when I met other shifters.

  Forbidden seemed to be full of the predatory types, nothing like the fluffy, less scary shifters I knew back home. I figured that meant both my tribe and the weasels would never come here looking for me. Yay for that, but not so much for the no one to talk to thing.

  Luckily, I hadn’t been lonely since I met Moira O’Malley.

  Her weird brother had snatched me from the forest, at which point I knew I was in a pickle. Getting out of trouble was a bit of a specialty, not just for me, but for all of my kind, shifter and animal alike. Brody O’Malley, though, he was a force to be reckoned with. He should have been born a honey badger.

  But Moira was the one who’d taken to me, not as a scare tactic prop, but as a friend. She gave me tacos. That’s the stuff friendships are made of right there.

  “Frito!” my bestie called out from the tiny yard in front of her townhouse. As row homes in small towns went, Moira’s neighborhood was pretty swanky. The houses were big with a nice bit of grass and garden space, their own garages, and the kind of architectural and fixture details that suggested no expense was spared.

  “Frito!” she called again.

  It was an adorable moniker that she’d chosen for me, if I did say so myself.

  I unfurled myself from my cozy spot and crawled down through the tunnel I’d made from the garage to under the back porch. It wasn’t like I could ask Moira if I could crash at her place, and I’d seen enough of her mate to realize he wouldn’t approve of me being in the house.

  The tunnel was a little tighter than I remembered it being. Perhaps a steady diet of tacos was taking its toll in the form of a few extra pounds. Well, the added weight was all the better to keep my badger ass warm.

  From under the wooden boards, I made my way to the yard.

  “Good morning.” Moira sat in the grass and set a breakfast burrito on the ground beside her.

  I happily dug in, scarfing down every morsel of egg and bacon goodness.

  Yep, I was definitely eating better than I ever had. And by better, I mean tastier.

  “What have you been up to?” Moira asked, knowing full well I wouldn’t answer.

  If I could, I would have simply told her I was living the badger life. Eating. Sleeping. Confiscating things I wanted from her garage to adorn the little nest I’d been making for myself behind the freezer.

  “You know how I told you that work has been steady?” Moira leaned back on her hands. “Word’s gotten out in Redemption about us since the silo renovation. All of a sudden, I have more job offers than brothers to do the work. I might have to take on a couple more guys.”

  That sounded like a good thing, but Moira didn’t seem so sure.

  “It’s good,” she said, as if reading my mind. “But I’m still considering turning down some of the jobs. I like having an O’Malley on site to oversee, keep the work at a caliber I’m comfortable with.”

  Then that’s what you should do, silly.

  “Maybe that’s what I should do.”

  We were so on the same wavelength, it made it feel like we were having real conversations. Given these shared meals were the only positive interaction I’d found so far in Forbidden, they meant even more to me.

  Footsteps sounded on the tiny porch, preceding Caleb’s voice. “You should really give that thing back to Brody.”

  “She’s not a thing,” Moira said. “Frito is a she. Besides, Brody would like it if I gave her back to him, and I thought you were against Brody getting anything he wanted.”

  Caleb smiled in that charming, self-confident way of his. Moira smiled back at him, encouraging him. Gross.

  “I guess you got me there.” He yanked her up and into his arms to shove his tongue down her throat, his favorite hobby.

  I was all for kissing. And Caleb was hot enough, so go Moira for that. But I preferred my kissing to happen with a guy who was more than a pretty face. Not that I was getting any action since the whole perma-badger thing. Or ever.

  Still, Moira seemed to genuinely love the guy, and he was pretty hot, after all. And I could tell he genuinely loved her back. Hashtag mate goals, y’all.

  While the two of them had their kinky yard sex, I made my way back inside, not wanting to be rude and stare. Tummy full and eyelids heavy, I refluffed the nest I had made with what was once Caleb’s cashmere.

  Just when I was about to lie down for a long day’s nap, I heard something scratchy. It was like metal scraping metal. Curious, I peeked out from behind the freezer to where Caleb’s truck was parked.

  There was a flash of movement behind one of the tires, and the sound o
f tiny footsteps scurrying. Suddenly I wasn’t sleepy at all, but wide awake. My overfull stomach tightened into a hard ball that threatened to worm its way up my badger throat.

  Eyes unblinking, heart racing, I watched.

  Who was it? Who had found me?

  The weasel who wanted to mate me? My alpha? Whoever it was, I wasn’t going back.

  Claws ready for eye gouging, I waited.

  The critter emerged from under the truck. It wasn’t a weasel. It wasn’t a badger. It was small and fluffy, though. It had canary yellow fur and big ears like a rabbit that went out to the sides instead of up over its head. It even had a fluffy little bunny tail, but it walked on two stubby legs. Given I couldn’t ask his name, and if I could, he probably couldn’t answer, I decided he looked like a Lemons.

  I watched as it circled around one of the tires, and turned.

  Its face was dominated by a set of gigantic eyes that added to its adorable factor. Until it smiled. The big eyes were dwarfed by a sprawling grin of needle-like teeth.

  Okay, maybe not so cute.

  The little yellow guy pulled its little yellow hand from behind its back, revealing a knife as long as its body. Lemons stabbed the blade into the tire with a twisted laugh that sounded a bit like a nightmare, and a bit like a child.

  With a hiss, the air blew out of the tire.

  Lemons ran the blade up over its head, slicing and dicing the bottom of the truck. Vehicle juices sprayed everywhere, pooling on the cement floor. What exactly was that blade made of? And where could I get one?

  The giggling stopped just as the garage door opened.

  I hurried back behind the freezer and completely out of sight, before pushing my way back through my escape tunnel.

  Behind me, I didn’t miss a single one of Caleb’s curses.

  But the weirdest thing he said was, “Brody O’Malley, I will kill you!”

  I guessed he didn’t see Lemons. But more importantly, my tribe hadn’t found me, and I was safe. At least for now.

  Chapter 2

  Grant

  After taking forever to fall asleep last night, I woke up early and couldn’t settle back down. Other than the brief while when I’d slept as a vulture in the old asylum, I’d spent every night of the last ten or so years outside. In a tree.

  Because I’d been a vulture.

  I was a tiger shifter, but I’d been trapped as a carrion bird. It was all shades of fucked up, and the worst part was that the whole time, I hadn’t had a clue why I’d been cursed. Pearl, my ex-girlfriend and a truly exceptional witch, had explained it all. Some grudge another witch had held against my dad.

  My dad, who was currently gone without a trace. A part of me knew he would never come back. If he’d been spelled into a vulture, he would’ve found me and we’d have flown around eating disgusting dead things together, maybe stealing apple pies and sharing them with each other. The fact he hadn’t been around told me one thing: he was dead.

  My mom knew, too. We’d talked it over soon after my return and she cried a little as she told me she knew in her heart that he was gone.

  There was no mystery left, only a slow mourning process.

  “Hey, Grant?” my mom called from the other room. “Are you awake?”

  She was a tiger shifter like me. Of course I was awake—she could probably hear me moving around.

  “Yeah, Mom, I’m up.”

  “Oh good. I need a second opinion on this composition.”

  I cringed. She was getting battier every day. During my vulture years, I’d watched over her as much as possible, flying by the house. Since my dad’s and my disappearances, she’d started a business painting portraits of women in town.

  But these weren’t portraits of the women’s faces.

  I called back out to her, “You know I’m not so great at the whole art thing.”

  “You haven’t steered me wrong yet. Get dressed and get out here, or I’m withholding French toast.”

  Her French toast was epic. But what I really wanted was apple pie. I’d stolen some of James O’Malley’s a couple of times, and I don’t know what Anna’s grandma put in that stuff, but it was addictive as hell.

  I threw on a pair of jeans and a new fire station sweatshirt, since my old one had been destroyed at some point after I’d been cursed. When I looked in the mirror, I still didn’t recognize myself. I was older. I was filling out again, at least, thanks to my mom spoiling me in the week since I’d returned to my human form.

  “You don’t have any clients over today, do you?” I asked, pausing before I opened my bedroom door.

  She made a noncommittal sound, probably already distracted with french toast batter.

  I listened carefully, just to be sure, but I didn’t detect any extra heartbeats. Trust me, it was best to be absolutely certain. Cracking open my door, I peeked outside, then stuck my head out. All clear.

  Well, all clear except for the literal hundreds of canvases hanging on the walls, each of them showcasing a different woman’s vagina.

  I mean, I loved pussy just as much as the next heterosexual guy. But having it literally plastered everywhere in the house where I was living was a bit much. I’d even heard Brody refer to my mom’s house as “the Pussy Palace.”

  Not cool.

  Worse was walking in on a portrait painting session and seeing a random woman from town sitting splayed out on the couch while my mother slapped oils together on a wooden palette and muttered about finding, “just the exact right shade of rosy brown.”

  It was a little much.

  Mom came up and gave me a hug. “Good morning, son.”

  She was so pleased to have me home again. And I was glad to be here, truly. And grateful to have a place to live.

  But I had to get out.

  “Sit right here,” she said, pushing me to a chair that pointed directly at one of her easels.

  The canvas secured to the easel was, like all the other canvases in the house, decorated with a giant vagina. The owner of this vagina had golden skin and dark hair. I tried to avoid the details and focused instead on the blue background.

  “What color is that you used?” I asked. “Cerulean?”

  “You know very well it is, but Grant, I’m wondering about the composition itself. I’m not sure I made the right call angling the vagina up toward the left. See how the clitoris is here, and the perineum there?”

  “Mom. Please stop. I think it looks great, like all your paintings do.”

  She narrowed her earthy gold eyes at me. “You aren’t embarrassed about my work, are you?”

  She was a shifter like me—she’d sense a lie if I told one.

  “I’m very proud of you, Mom. You’ve done amazing work and it’s great you’re getting so many clients.” Those were all true things.

  She opened her mouth like she was going to press the issue, but then her gaze went past the canvas to the window and the street outside her house. “Is that James O’Malley?”

  I swore under my breath, earning a smack to the shoulder from my mom. Sure enough, that was James’s truck. He was leaning against the side door, a plate and fork in his hand. He was eating something…

  I didn’t have to open the window and inhale the crisp November air to know what he was doing. The fucker was eating apple pie in front of me. Sighing, I pulled the curtains shut. I supposed I deserved that prank, after stealing his pies, but seriously. What a douche.

  On the bright side, James’s interruption steered me clear of any difficult conversations I needed to have with my mom about her work. But I did need to get my own place.

  Mom and I chatted while we ate breakfast. She had another subject coming in today, so I vowed to myself to steer clear of the house. I’d go hang out at the fire station. Chief had said I could have my position back as soon as I was ready.

  I was ready. It would mean less time spent here at my mom’s place, and the money would help me get on my feet and find my own apartment in town.

  I grabbed
the keys to my new truck and called over my shoulder, “Bye, Mom, thanks for breakfast. I’ll clean up when I get back! Love you!”

  “Sure thing, hon,” she called back. “Love you, too!”

  I’d say I love you to her every time, no matter what, because the woman had been through enough after my dad and I disappeared. Neither of us had been given a chance to say goodbye.

  The fire chief shook my hand and invited me back to his office. “You’re sure you’re ready?” he asked. “That curse must’ve done a number on you.”

  It was good to see a familiar face outside of my mom’s house. Chief hadn’t aged much over the years, there was just a bit more gray in his bushy mustache and deeper smile lines than I remembered.

  He was a wolf shifter, so he knew the truth of where I’d been the past few years. Everyone else thought I’d been backpacking around Europe. I’d wished for a cover story a little more dangerous and heroic, but backpacking was easy enough to remember, and most people didn’t want to ask for details for fear I’d make them look at photos on my phone. Although I had a cover story for that, just in case someone actually did want to look at photos—I’d just say I had dropped the device in the Seine.

  “I’m definitely ready to come back to work,” I said. “I was wondering if I could live here all the time, though? I know it’s a lot to ask, but…”

  “If we had an extra bed, I’d let you,” he said, “but we don’t, so I can’t. Are things tough living with your mom?”

  “You know she’s great. But her business…”