Page 42 of The Unwanted Mate of the Lycan Kings (Unwanted #1)

“What do I do?” I ask, and his fingers mold around my hand. He moves my hand up and down his hard length, and he groans. He then lets my hand go, and I mimic the movements, feeling him twitch in my hand.

“Fuck, your hands are so small,” he groans.

“I don’t think it’s my hands that are small. This thing is huge,” I tell him.

He laughs. “They’re small compared to mine,” he tells me when I feel his body tense, and his voice grows deeper. “Zirah, either you have to stop or talk to me,” he growls out through clenched teeth, and as Gnash jump to his feet, my hand stops hesitantly.

Not wanting to stop, I try to think of something to say when I wriggle, sitting up slightly and pressing my lips to his softly. His eyes snap open. He watches me warily for a second, and I lean down to kiss him again. He remains so still that I begin to hesitate.

When I move to pull away, he grips the back of my neck, forcing my lips down on his. My tongue brushes his, and he groans, thrusting into my hand, making me gasp when I feel his hips move against my hand movements.

“Can I taste—”

“No, Zirah, maybe next time, not this time. I am barely holding it together,” he whispers, and I nod, glancing over my shoulder, but Gnash sits down.

“Next time?” I ask him.

“If you want.”

I nod my head before realizing there won’t be a next time because I won’t be here tomorrow, but that is quickly forgotten when he rolls into me, his lips crashing against mine hungrily. My hand loses its grip on him, and he rocks his hips against me.

“I want to fuck you!” He growls, and I freeze, feeling his cock against my thigh. He rocks his hips against me, and my heart races in my chest. “But I won’t. I don’t want to hurt you,” he murmurs as his lips trail across my jaw.

His hand moves between our bodies, and he fists his cock, running it between my folds, making me groan, then he turns awkwardly.

His lips latch onto my nipple, and he tugs on it, sucking on the hardened bud. I rock my hips against him without meaning to, and he growls, biting down on it and making me hiss.

“Don’t tempt me, stay still, Z,” he growls, and I grip his shoulder while he strokes himself against me, still teasing me with his tongue.

My hand grips his hair tighter with each drag across my over sensitive flesh.

The next second, he pries my fingers from his hair and pins my wrist to the bed.

His lips crash down on mine. His tongue forces its way past my lips as he kisses me deeply and groans into my mouth.

A second later, he curses, pulling away and dropping his head onto my shoulder.

Something warm and wet coats my stomach.

His hand moves slowly as his body trembles above me, and his breath fans my neck when pain slithers up my arm, searing into my flesh.

Regan lets out a shaky breath then sniffs the air.

His head lifts abruptly, and he looks at me in panic.

“What is it?” I ask when he sits up. He lets go of my wrist that is pinned above my head to the bed, and his eyes zero in on it. Glancing up, I see my flannel shirt sleeve is soaked with blood. I try to figure out what happened when Regan snatches my wrist.

My eyes widen when he moves to rip the sleeve up. “I’m sorry. I’ll heal it.” he murmurs.

“No!” I jerk my arm away, clutching it to my chest.

“Z, you’re bleeding, and badly! My claws got you.”

“I’m fine. I’ll bandage it!” I tell him, and he ignores me, reaching for my wrist.

“No!” I scream, jerking away. His eyes darken and narrow, watching me like a predator stalking its prey. He clenches his jaw before climbing off me.

“I’ll get you a towel to clean up and send for something to wrap your wrist,” he says, storming away from me.

When he returns, he tosses a towel at me, and I snatch it, wipe his semen off my stomach, and sit up. Reaching for my pants that have claw holes in them, Regan snatches them off the ground and pushes me back on the bed. He kneels next to me and slips them over my feet.

I grip his shoulder with my good hand and lift my butt, letting him pull them up.

No sooner than he does, Amy, the same servant from yesterday, rushes in with a first aid kit.

Regan moves away from me, and she moves closer.

She immediately stops in her tracks when she spots me, my shirt torn open and blood drenching the sleeve.

Her eyes nervously dart around the room, stopping on Regan, who moves aside and watches her.

“Issue?” he demands, glaring at her.

Her mouth opens and closes as she sputters under his furious gaze. She drops her eyes to the floor. “No, sir,” she stutters.

“I’m fine, Amy, he didn’t do anything.” She looks at me, and her eyes trail over my state of undress like she doesn’t believe me, her eyes turning glassy.

Her fingers fumble to open the small first aid kit, and I grab her hands. “Amy, I’m fine. He didn’t hurt me intentionally. It was an accident.”

“But he—” Her lips quivers.

“I let him,” I tell her, and she looks at me with her big blue doe eyes, the shock evident on her face. With her right in front of me, I can tell she is around my age. “I asked him to,” I whisper, my face heating at admitting that.

My eyes move to Regan standing behind her, and he nods once, moving toward his office.

“You let him?” She questions, and I can see the question in her eyes. She wants to know why I would let him touch me. It is clear she knows about his curse.

“I’m okay. He didn’t hurt me,” I repeat, and she moves to push my sleeve up, but I stop her.

“You can go. I can wrap it myself,” I tell her, and her brows furrow.

“Hurry. Zeke will be looking for me soon. I have to swap brothers,” I tell her, and her eyes widen.

She quickly nods, yet saying that while in this state sounds very inappropriate.

Amy gives me the first aid kit and rushes out the door.

I let out a breath of relief, and Regan wanders back out.

He leans against his office doorframe, folding his arms across his chest.

“You admitted to letting me touch you,” he states.

“Because it’s the truth.”

“Most paint me as a monster, you could have.” He shrugs.

“Only because no one lives to say otherwise,” I tell him, and he tilts his head to the side. He nods slowly. “I suppose you have a point.”

“When was the last time you were with a woman, I mean like slept with one?”

He shrugs. “A few years. I got sick of being used as a way to get to Lyon, and I got sick of living with the guilt of killing them too.”

“Why Lyon?”

“Well, most aren’t suicidal enough to go for Zeke. That’s a sure death because he cares so little for others,” he states.

“But some still do?”

He nods. “And he kills them, just like me. He can’t help it,” Regan states.

“The same as you?” I question.

“Kind of. Me marking them kills them. It poisons them. Lyon’s pride and greed kills the women he’s with. The last one died because his paranoia got the best of him. He thought she was trying to steal his throne.”

“And Zeke?” I ask.

“He can’t stop. Sex becomes so addictive, one woman even starved to death, though most die from exhaustion. Envy and gluttony.” My brows furrow in confusion at his last words.

“The seven cardinal sins?” I murmur to myself, trying to make sense of it. “So what are you?” I murmur.

“Wrath and lust.” He states, and I swallow.

“So part of your curse is the seven cardinal sins?” I ask, trying to wrap my head around what he is saying.

“Yes, and only the seven virtues can release us of our curse, only she can.” Regan mutters, and my eyes move over his tattoos.

Finally, I notice the full picture of what they mean.

The runes I can now tell are separate from the pictures etched into his skin.

It now makes sense why Zeke’s was a snake biting an apple, the skulls representing death, the snake envy, and the apple gluttony.

Yet wrath is a lion? I glance at Regan’s tattoos as he moves closer.

“Why not a lion?” I ask.

“Well, it would look funny given I’m a lycan not a cat shifter.” I nod my head. “So the burning woman is lust?”

“The woman, lust—and fire is how she died. We all have something that represents Litha,”

“Zeke’s is the fire?”

Regan nods and my brow furrow as I think over what he’s told me.

“Wait! You said only she can save you ALL from the curse?”

“Yes, we are cursed to share the same mate. Now you know why even if we found her, we’d never be able to break it. We’d kill her or try to kill each other.”

“But your father?”

“Why do you think he’s forcing you to keep Zeke,” he says slowly, letting his words sink in.

“He wasn’t giving me a choice at all,” I whisper as that clarity washes over me like a tidal wave.

“No, my father is a crafty old fool. The choice was never yours, Z. He’s trying to make us choose to rule together! He doesn’t care if we kill you, but he’ll use your death as a way to make us comply by threatening our thrones.”

“So, if you kill me, he’ll take your thrones?” I ask.

“Yes, he’s trying to find a way to control us.

You’re just a means to do so, but I think Zeke has figured that out.

He knows he can’t openly kill you, but he also knows that we will never rule alongside each other.

If we can’t get along, my father will have no choice but to choose between us.

” “He knows we are competitive and that our instincts will overrule all logic. He knows we’ll fight for the spot, but what I don’t get is what he’ll gain by having us at each other’s throats.

Using our thrones and kingdoms against us will only start another war.

He’ll have to choose in the end anyway. He knows we won’t all rule together, and Zeke?

Zeke can never get his hands on that throne. ”

“But you have the blood tie?”

Regan nods slowly moving closer. “Which means if one dies, we all do.”

“So that is what Zeke meant when he said you won’t kill him unless you’re suicidal.”

“But how can you find your mate if there are no lycan females?”

“That’s the point. We can’t find her because she doesn’t exist. Well, that is what Zeke and Lyon believe anyway.”

“You believe she does?” I ask him.

“Yes.. .” He pauses, watching me for a second, then answers, “I know she does.”

“How?” I question.

“Because I saved her,” he tells me, and my brows furrow in confusion.

“So there is another female lycan?” I gasp.

“Yes, I just need to find the oracle. If I find her, I will find our mate,” he tells me.

“And she’ll break the curse?”

Regan sighs. “I don’t know. The only thing I know is our mate is also cursed, Litha cursed her to be the seven virtues. She’ll either be our salvation or our condemnation.”

“Condemnation?” So to punish them, she also punished their mate?

“Yes, she has the power to break the blood tie or use it against us, to take everything we’ve worked for and pit us against each other.

If she can do that, then she holds the power.

One dies, we all die, freeing humanity of the lycans, but it’s a double-edged sword.

If we find her, every lycan will come for her because she is the last female of our kind.

They all came for my mother the same way. ” Regan’s eyes darken.

“That’s how your mother died?”

He nods solemnly. “She came with me one night, even though she was forbidden to leave the castle. I tried telling them for years there is a way to break the curse, but my father and brothers wouldn’t believe me.

They wanted to know how I was so sure, but I couldn’t give that information up.

The only one who believed me was my mother, and she knew because she helped me,” Regan tells me.

“Helped you what?” I ask.

“Save Litha’s daughter from death.”

She’s alive? I gasp. “She cursed her own daughter?”