The Fury Queen’s Harem: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance (The Cursed Dragon Queen and Her Mates Book 1) Read online

  He cupped my breast, squeezed it gently, and massaged it before his thumb kneaded my taut nipple. I moaned.

  He chuckled, but his lust was thicker than his amusement. “You’re so ripe, babe.”

  More than he knew.

  The fire between my thighs leaped. I needed him. I needed his cock to fill me now. I wouldn’t be denied. I’d have my pleasure after centuries of forced celibacy. In my mind’s eye, I could see him thrusting into me. The thrill of anticipation made me shiver.

  My hand squeezed into his trousers and grasped the steel rod. It was silky and hard, its heat burning my palm.

  His fire would expel the coldness and age-old fury in me, and ignite the flame that had been dormant in me for far too long.

  He gasped at my touch and cursed. “Sorry, lass, didn’t mean that. It’s just… you make me feel like no one else could ever make me feel. You smell so fine and familiar, but I’ve never met you.” He dipped his head and assaulted my mouth again before he wrenched his lips from mine. “My wild beauty.”

  His rough, powerful hand moved down and palmed my slick pussy.

  “You’re so ready for me, babe,” he gasped, his voice approving and slurring with lust.

  His thumb brushed over my sensitive nub teasingly, then without warning, he thrust a finger into the heat of my core. A deep moan vibrated through my throat as my mind clouded over with sex and my body melted into him.

  The scent of our mixed arousal was like a divine song singing in our blood. The cannibal plant provided such a perfect place for mating.

  I needed his cock inside me now, and desperately, I gave it a few hard pumps.

  A beastly sound grumbled in his chest. His dragon wanted to play.

  Why couldn’t he shift? I would get to it after I sated my burning lust.

  But first …

  “Would you mind taking off your mask?” I asked.

  It had been alluring to kiss a masked man, but now the metal mask was in the way. I wanted to see his entire face before I fucked him.

  “I–I can’t,” he said, sharp torment replacing the sweetness in his voice.

  I hadn’t expected that the sunny, golden dragon boy had so much grief.

  I frowned. “What do you mean you can’t?”

  He hesitated as if suddenly realizing I was a stranger he couldn’t trust. To solve the dilemma, he slanted his mouth over mine again and let the heat between us take care of everything.

  Fine, I could manage a fuck first. I needed it desperately, more than he did.

  Just then, I felt a scale appear on my left ankle.

  Damn it, I was running out of time.

  The scales would cover me within a minute, and then I’d turn into the three Furies.

  But lust wouldn’t release its grip on me as aching need pulsed in my depth. My pussy was wet. Blaze’s tongue lashing against mine only added fuel to my fire. While the unquenchable desire addled my head, I still had an ounce of self-preservation left.

  I couldn’t let him see me change. I couldn’t let him find out about my identity, or else I’d have to eliminate him.

  Panic rose to my throat, scorching it dry. I commanded the cannibal plant to open up. It was glad to let me leave but reluctant to let Blaze go. It wanted to retain him.

  This one’s mine, I ordered sternly. Don’t touch him.

  By my sheer will, I broke the hot kiss, and pushed the prince out of plant with force. The strong dragon didn’t stumble, but he stared at me, deep sexual frustration in his amber-fire eyes that mirrored my own.

  “Don’t come near this cannibal plant when I’m not around.” I stepped out of the plant after him in a hurry, feeling another scale showing up beneath my belly-button.

  “I have to go.”

  I bolted.

  “Is it because of the mask?” he shouted behind me. “Is that it? I didn’t mean to turn you off. I have no choice!”

  I kept running as fast as I could.

  He gave chase. “Wait! Don’t leave. Let’s talk about it.”

  My two-headed hound cut between us with snarls.

  “You haven’t given me your name!” Blaze’s complaint was lost in the space as he fended Henry off.

  “Don’t hurt my hound!” I called as I disappeared behind a tree.

  My jungle came alive with the bellows of the beasts and eerie chirpings of the birds.

  Under my order, Henry wouldn’t maul Blaze. While the dragon prince was distracted, I’d stayed thirty or so yards ahead of him, merging into the shadows.

  I could no longer hold back my change. Scales covered my body, and a beast burst from me. My bones cracked as two more Furies burst through me, and searing agony shattered me.

  Three of me surged up and broke through the thick canopy with shrieks, away from the subject of my lust—the first man I’d been close to fucking after nine centuries of celibacy.

  Unfulfilled lust burned in my veins and cursed rage fogged my beast heads.

  As I lost the control of my monsters, hell broke loose in my jungle.

  Beneath me, shouts, howls, and screams broke out amid the sounds of machine guns and blasters.

  And all I could do was flee higher into the sky, an utter failure in my trembling.

  CHAPTER 5

  I wasn’t a coward, but I wouldn’t fight with my Furies’ brutal force in the frontline while my heads were the prize. The slayers had advanced weapons, so I wouldn’t face them head-on unless it was absolutely necessary.

  But I could fight dirty.

  Right now, my monsters were fighting the war for me and defending the jungle.

  I peeked into Sybil’s mind, who dashed between trees with one wing and ducked light beams and bullets. Two groups opened fire blindly on each other. One group was the dragon men, and the other was from the other ship I had yet to find out about.

  My monsters focused on attacking the other party, partly because I’d restrained them from assaulting the dragons; partly because they could sense the beast inside the dragons and somehow felt kinship. The other team, unfortunately, was utterly alien to them, and thus they considered them to be prey and meat.

  Sybil went for details with fascination. Through her eyes, I saw a string of bullets pop out of a machine gun and tear into a dragon soldier. He crashed into a thorny bush at the impact and didn’t get up again.

  A masked warrior—the lightning prince—roared and tossed a dagger toward the gun man, and the blade pierced the man’s chest.

  Blood sent my monsters into a frenzy and they charged whoever was in their range now.

  Worry spiked in me. What if my true loves were among the warriors and being cut down?

  I sighed dishearteningly. If that was my bitter fate, there was nothing I could do. I could only do what I could control. With my head cooled and the war raging in the jungle to distract all parties, I should go spy on the other two ships and gather more information.

  I slipped out of Sybil’s mind, slowed down my sail as dizziness rushed through my head—which always happened when I got into any of my subjects’ minds through our magical bond.

  I turned my gaze toward the half-burned City of Nine beneath me.

  Looking down from a bird’s eye in the air, one wouldn’t find the skyscraper Witch Tower as tall as when you stared up at it from the ground, but still it dwarfed the surrounding buildings from the high sky.

  A squad of fully-armored, horned beings patrolled the perimeter of the ship Mistress near the tower. They were of the same species, except for a hornless tall man among them. He wore a gray cloak instead of armor. He had such stillness that emitted power and grace. He would stand out in any crowd without any effort.

  He had to be the warlock the dragon princes had mentioned in an unflattering manner, which meant his horned companions must be his demon army.

  They stared in the direction of the far jungle, unfazed and unconcerned by the raging war inside. While I had checked the battle through Sybil’s eyes, I hadn’t spotted a single demon
in the war zone.

  As I studied them quietly, I had a foreboding sense that they were my worst enemy. They hadn’t rushed to act, unlike the hunters from the other ships.

  This lot held back and waited, and I knew when they struck, it would be lethal.

  Why had the Dragon King sent not only one, but three ships full of hunters of all kinds of species to slay me? If I hadn’t the mind to preserve my true loves for my own good, I’d dive down and consume all the hunters with my black fire. Perhaps I’d rip one or two of the prey apart first.

  I pricked my ears, trying to catch their conversation, but the demon group remained silent.

  “Lord Elvey—” the biggest, armored demon—he was probably eight feet tall—finally opened his mouth, confirming what I’d suspected. That outstanding man was indeed the warlock.

  The big, green-skinned demon looked like the ringleader of the demons, judging from how he posed himself arrogantly, but I was certain he didn’t outrank the warlock.

  Elvey raised his hand and silenced the demon leader.

  “What?” the demon leader demanded after allowing his companion a few seconds of silence.

  Elvey tore his gaze away from the direction of the jungle, shrugged, and strolled back into the ship. The demon leader gave Elvey’s retreating figure a furious look, waved irritatingly at the demons around him, and followed the warlock into Mistress.

  The demon patrol team spread further.

  I switched my gaze toward the Falling Star, the dark silver ship that had first fired on me.

  It rested in the clearing of the old grandiose coliseum, next to a spaceship Virgin, now a piece of junk, just like hundreds of other wrecked spaceships and expedited shuttles that lay there. The arena had been built by the first race on Pandemonium. They were long gone now. All that were left were exiled aliens and criminals from different galaxies, cannibals, vampires, and me, who had nowhere to escape. Few of us held hope for the future.

  But today, neither the vampires nor any of the other clans had come to the arena to claim the new ship.

  The thugs had seen Falling Star sending rockets my way. They knew they wouldn’t be able to overcome the newcomers, who had advanced weapons, but it didn’t mean they wouldn’t bide their time to assimilate the hunters or destroy them.

  To my surprise, there were no guards outside the Falling Star. I narrowed my eyes. Probably most of its hunters were battling the dragon shifters and my monsters inside the jungle.

  I took a sharp breath, muffling a shriek, and swooped down.

  All three my beast forms alighted atop the ship near the open door, stealthily and quietly.

  “Captain, the men in the jungle are requesting reinforcement,” a man’s booming voice drifted out of the door. “They said they were under fire. Should we go?”

  A radio buzzed, and a man shouted over it frantically, “The fucking dragons opened fire on us! There’re many monsters in this goddamned place, and we haven’t even seen the Furies!” The radio sound cut out in the middle of the man’s cursing.

  “Captain?” the crew member asked.

  “They’re on their own, as is every bounty hunter on the ship,” the captain said. “My job is to fly the Falling Star. As my crew member, you’ll only mind the ship’s business, unless you want a piece of the old Dragon Realm, like those fools. Declare it, and you’ll be dismissed from my service.”

  “I’m not a fool, Captain,” the crew member said. “They’ll fight until the last man stands with the Furies’ big, fat heads. I’m turning off all the communication devices. If they return and ask, I’ll say all radio is malfunctioning.”

  “Good excuse,” said the captain.

  They weren’t a united front. I could play them against each other by using their divisions and the competition between them. I just need to come up with a good strategy and put it to use.

  Since the slayers on this ship had no reliable backup and weren’t working with each other, I labeled it as the least threatening, though I wouldn’t underestimate any of my foes, who carried rockets and other high-powered weapons.

  An impulsive thought slammed into my skull.

  I would turn defense into offense and throw the hornets to my most formidable enemies.

  I surged back up into the desolate sky, aimed the angle, and dove toward the demon soldiers.

  Though scaled, I wore a beautiful human face. When I attacked, it instantly transformed to a monster’s façade with vast mouth, hard jaws, and jagged lethal fangs.

  Two of my forms swatted away the weapons in the soldier’s hands and our mighty claws grabbed two demons before any of them could react and fire.

  We shot toward the Vampire Tower like three red flashes with victorious, vicious shrieks. We wanted our enemies to realize exactly where we were heading.

  A blast of bullets and beams whooshed by us, missing their targets.

  Over my shoulder, I spotted Elvey sprinting down the ramp of the ship, the giant demon leader on his heel.

  “Cease fire!” The wind sent the warlock’s shout, even as it grew faint in the distance.

  We shrieked in laughter.

  An urban wasteland, half in ruin, blurred beneath us as we dove and twirled through columns of smoke in the mid-city.

  Goons poured out of the Falling Star, weapons trained on me, and watched where I headed, just as I’d planned.

  The black Vampire Tower loomed ahead.

  I was misleading my enemies. It was best if they thought the tower was my lair.

  The Vampire Tower didn’t just look formidable; it was a supernatural prison to non-vampires. Once anyone stepped in, they never got out. Except me, of course.

  The Wickedest Witch and her Archangel were probably the only ones who had ever fled the tower, though the credit should go to her former guard Kaara Nightshades, the Wolf Queen. Kaara had bled every drop of her blood to purchase freedom for all of them.

  Anyway, now that my enemies knew where I was going, they were welcome to chase me into the forever prison.

  One of me, who held a demon’s midriff between her teeth, touched down before the gate of the tower and eyed the red-eyed vampire guards warily as they snarled at her.

  They were smart enough to keep a wide berth and not initiate an attack. But there was no need for that—Vampire Lord Desdemona and I had no feud with each other.

  The double-door to the tower flung open, but before any house vampires charged out, my Fury pulled the demon out of her mouth with her claws and tossed him into the foyer through the door. The demon crashed into a vampire, and they both flew further inside hall.

  “Your snack, courtesy of the gracious Furies,” my Fury said.

  The demon soldier jumped up, posing in a battle stance. The vampire, who had been entangled with him, also shot up and lunged at the demon with blade-like claws.

  The demon rammed his horns into the vampire’s chest, and then dozens more vampires appeared, swarming around their newest food.

  My Fury didn’t linger to watch the end of the fight. She leaped up and joined the rest of us as I smashed into the window to Vampire Princess Jasmine’s old suite, dragging my captive with me.

  I dropped the demon at my feet.

  The shattered glass returned to its place, and the window became whole again.

  The green-faced demon widened his black eyes, his horn darkening in fear, bouncing against the white marble floor.

  While my other Furies remained hard-jawed, my face morphed back to the human one.

  I grabbed the demon with my claws and yanked him closer, my scaled lips pressing to his black, rough, hard mouth, in order to root out the true love.

  Repulsion crawled up my skin. Demons really weren’t my type.

  I was glad to have this guarantee that there was no way my mate could ever be among the demon species.

  He cringed in disgust. Evidently, I wasn’t his type either.

  Just before he could thrust his horn into me with the nasty purpose of maiming me, I j
umped back swiftly. Then my two other Furies lunged and pinned him down.

  I flashed him a diabolical smile that fit well with my beast form, and an inhuman, hoarse voice came out of my Fury mouth. “Talk, demon, and you’ll probably live.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Thorny trees surrounded us. Their large, black flowers billowed in the wind, welcoming my return.

  I’d left the demon I’d interrogated to the device of the vampires.

  He was a low-ranking demon solider, who knew nothing about his master’s dark scheme.

  “We came to get rid of the freaks like you. That’s all,” he’d said.

  Even a green demon with ugly horns thought I was a freak.

  In the end, after I had spat black fire toward his sensitive horns, all I got was the name of the warlock, Elvey, and the demon captain, Fomorian. When I’d demanded to know if the Dragon King had sent him on this hunt, he’d raged at the insult.

  The demons despised dragons.

  But who had sent the demons for my heads if my grandfather hadn’t commissioned them?

  I should have gotten more information from Blaze, but my mind had been too addled by lust to concentrate on anything else. I’d for sure gather more intel first the next time I saw him—if there was a next time—before we went further.

  My lips still tingled from his delicious kiss.

  I needed to find a way to bring him to me. I hoped my last kiss was hot enough to make him crave more and drive him to come to me again, alone.

  We flew through the jungle in a straight file, careful not to bump into any trees or get stuck in the bushes. Thanks to my former master, Akem, there were expansive spaces between all the large, tall trees, which afforded me enough room to maneuver my Fury forms through.

  The jungle was noisy and alive with the yowls of wild animals, the excited chirps of birds, and groans of pain from the prisoners.

  The war had ceased a while ago.

  Most of the dragons, who had entered, had fought out—a free pass I’d allowed. My army had not insisted on pursuing them. However, there were casualties, despite my orders that the invaders be kept alive. I couldn’t blame them, though. In the heat of battle, all you got was mess and chaos.