Entwined Destinies (BBW Shifter Romance): Sorcery & Shifters Book 2 Read online

  Entwined Destinies

  Sorcery & Shifters

  Book 2

  Robin Briar

  Copyright © 2015 by Robin Briar

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews, fan-made graphics, and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Robin Briar

  ENTWINED DESTINIES

  Sorcery & Shifters

  Book 2

  Description: Jess and Mason's relationship faces a threat from outside forces, but she still can't open up about her secret.

  When Jess shuts Mason out to protect her heart, he leaves, and she's devastated. To bring her Alpha shifter lover back, she casts a summoning spell on him by accident.

  Jess realizes that her magic is more powerful than she ever suspected. A fact which has been kept from her by the coven.

  When Mason returns, the two find out they have more in common than they've ever dreamed, but now Jess is starting to have new visions.

  Visions of blood and treachery.

  Visions that bode ill for the future and dig deep into Mason's past.

  If the pair can work together, challenging their loyalties to family and friends, perhaps their love can survive.

  Category: Paranormal erotic romance.

  ENTWINED DESTINIES is the second book in the SORCERY & SHIFTERS series. The books of this series should be read in order.

  1. Double Standard Be Damned

  “I don’t suppose you could have told me that a little sooner?” I say, stomping into the living room. Mason follows me out of the kitchen.

  “I’m sorry, Jess, but look at it from my point of view. Sylvia and I have been brother and sister our whole lives. It barely crosses our minds anymore.”

  I turn on my heels and face him angrily. Mason stops in his tracks.

  “Lots of brothers and sisters spend their whole lives together! They still manage to do that without being intimate with each other!”

  “It’s not like we can help the connection! It just happened. We’re not even sure when exactly. The awareness was always there, but it wasn’t until we were much older that Sylvia and I realized it wasn’t normal.”

  “You know it’s not normal now, right?”

  “Of course we know, but that it doesn’t stop it from happening.”

  Oh gods. It’s still happening. Not only that, but it seems perfectly normal to them. I’ve been such a fool. I place a hand over my forehead and take a breath.

  “When was the last time it happened?”

  “Today, after you got home, while we were having sex in the kitchen.”

  “Wait? What are we talking about?” I ask.

  “The bond that Sylvia and I have. What are you talking about?”

  Something just happened and I missed it. That’s either bad or good. If it means Manson and his sister aren’t having sex, it’s good. If it means they are having sex, it’s bad.

  “The bond between you and your twin sister… how does it work, exactly?”

  “Well, near as we can tell, Sylvia feels everything I do, and vice versa.”

  “Everything?” I ask.

  Mason opens his mouth, but then bites his tongue, second-guessing himself. There’s a part of me that doesn’t want to know the answer, but it’s too late now. We’re both committed. Mason comes clean.

  “Everything,” he says.

  I’m not sure if this has just gone from bad to worse, but I certainly wasn’t expecting that.

  I pick up a blank canvas, toss it onto my easel, and start mixing paints. Furiously. I don’t know why I’m angry, but I am. Maybe it’s the situation I’ve found myself in all of a sudden.

  I was just beginning to understand what it means to be in a relationship for the first time in my life. It felt good. It even felt a little forbidden, especially if my coven found out, but it was all mine. Now it’s complicated. Perhaps not incest complicated, but more than I was prepared to deal with today.

  I can handle shifter complicated. I can even turn the fact that Mason is a werewolf into something simple. I’m good at rationalizing. But a werewolf with a twin and a shared bond? I’m not coming back from this extreme of complicated any time soon.

  I can’t wait to hear what he has to say next. I’m sure it only gets better.

  “Please. Tell me more about this bond,” I throw back at him as I start to aggressively paint. ”Can I assume that when one twin has an orgasm, the other does as well? That’s a part of it, right? The bond you share?”

  Mason doesn’t say anything, which means I’m right.

  “Great. That’s just great. I can only imagine how close you two must be. I’m starting to get a pretty good idea.”

  Mason walks around the easel to see my face, but I don’t look at him. I’m not ready to look at his face, not yet. I do notice that he’s wearing the silver pendant again. He must have grabbed it off the hook when he followed me out of the kitchen.

  “Don’t hold back for my sake,” I tell him. “If there’s even more going on here than I realize, better to have it all out now.”

  “Jess,” he pleads, “it’s not what you think. Or maybe it is. I don’t know. You could be thinking anything right now. Sylvia and I, we feel things at the same time. Not every moment of the day, but definitely when I’m a wolf. Like just now, for instance. When we were—”

  “I get it. You don’t have to spell out every detail.”

  That’s just swell. Not only do I get to have sex with Mason, but his sister will be along for the ride too. That’s better than incest, but how much better? I mash my brush into the paint. Slather it on the canvas in broad, irritated strokes. I want him to know how much this bothers me.

  “Jess, you only just found out that I’m a shifter. I told you about Sylvia right after that. I thought if you were okay with the fact that I’m a werewolf, you would be okay with this as well.”

  “You only told me about Sylvia because I asked!” I throw back at him.

  Mason can’t deny it. “That’s true, because it’s a lot to take. Maybe too much. Especially considering how you’re feeling right now. And I don’t blame you. I mean, how much bizarre can a person take on all at once? Most people don’t even know themselves well enough to answer that question.”

  Mason is genuinely concerned. Maybe he thinks I’m on the verge of a breakdown, or of leaving him.

  The mysticism of a brother-sister bond doesn’t bother me in the least. It’s that Sylvia has been feeling all of his orgasms, our orgasms, which I thought were private. Well, mostly private. For two weeks, at least.

  Except they weren’t. Sylvia has been privy to his arousal the whole time. My boss. With whom I just had an in-depth conversation about how Mason can be a gentleman… to a point.

  She can speak to that point with authority. She knows exactly what her brother is feeling. She’s not only aware of his every sexual impulse, she probably feels them as well!

  No wonder she looked so out of sorts this morning, right after Mason and I had sex in the shower. I can only imagine what she looks like now, after the sex we just ha
d in the kitchen.

  And to think, Sylvia coached me this morning about how to manipulate her brother into sticking around.

  How much of a thrill does she get from her brother’s orgasms, anyway? How close are Mason and Sylvia as twins?

  “Can she sense that we’re having an argument?” I say, pointing at him with my brush.

  “No. The moment I put on the pendant, Sylvia feels nothing. I can’t feel her and she can’t feel me. We’re cut off from each other, which is actually strange for us. It’s like severing a limb, but without the pain. You have to understand, her senses and mine have been entwined our whole lives. It’s not strange for us. It’s more of an extra sense that we take it for granted now, until it’s gone. We’re still getting used to the pedant, ever since the Romanian woman gave it to me and tattooed my chest.”

  I go back to painting, covering the entire canvas in broad strokes of blue.

  “What about distance? Does it matter?” I ask, caring more than I care to admit.

  “No.”

  “Can she hear us? See through your eyes?”

  “No, nothing like that. And believe me, we’ve tried. Sylvia and I have tested this ability in every way imaginable.”

  Mason is being so forthcoming. It’s hard to even look at him right now. The worst part is that I know I’m being unreasonable. Candice and Saffron can feel all the orgasms he gives me when I’m connected to the quicksilver pool.

  So yes, I’m being a hypocrite, but I don’t care. Mason doesn’t know Candice or Saffron. I do know Sylvia, and now she knows what it’s like to have sex with me by proxy. Even more so since he became a werewolf today, which raises another question.

  “Tell me if I got this right. You and Sylvia can always feel what the other is going through, except when you’re wearing that pendant. So what about when you become a werewolf? How does that feel on her end?”

  Mason takes a breath, utterly calm. An effect I realize now comes from wearing the pendant against his Norse tattoo.

  “It’s overwhelming for her. I can only imagine. I just know what it feels like for me.”

  “So let me guess, Sylvia is holed up somewhere, having not only experienced what it feels like to become a werewolf, but to be a werewolf having sex with me?”

  Mason nods.

  “So does she have lady-gasms like me, or man-gasms like you? Wait. You know what? I don’t want to know. Forget I asked.”

  “We don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to, Jess.”

  “Fat chance of that happening. It’s all I can think about now.”

  I want to scream out loud that this changes everything, but stop myself. This does change everything, but I can’t bring myself to say the words. It’s one of those overly dramatic things people say for effect, not realizing how much damage it does. It becomes one of those things you can’t take back. And I don’t want to be that destructive.

  At least, that’s what my gut tells me. Oh, Mason. How did you manage to claw your way into my heart so quickly?

  No matter what, this is going to take some time.

  Maybe I can wrap my head around it. Mason and Sylvia are twins. They both feel what the other is feeling. That bond becomes even stronger when he’s a wolf, until Mason wears the pendant. Then they’re cut off from each other, but Mason is also cut off from his emotions, like sexual arousal.

  So on the one hand, it keeps the wolf at bay, but on the other hand, it keeps the wolf at bay. And, gods help me, I like the wolf.

  My arms fall to my side. I can’t bring myself to keep painting. It feels like my situation is hopeless, and just when it was starting to get good. I look at the canvas that I started working on. See what I’ve done. Not even realizing it, I’ve started painting The Vision of Endymion.

  Mason walks around behind me and stokes both sides of my arms, trying to reassure me. Trying to make everything better. It doesn’t work. I want his touch, but I also don’t want his touch right now, so I don’t move. I don’t even flinch.

  Suddenly the brush and easel are too heavy in my hands. They slip out of my fingers and fall to the floor. I feel heavy too. The entire room is filled with an oppressive weight, like Mason and I both know what’s going to happen next, but can’t say the words.

  “I shouldn’t have asked. I didn’t want to know, but I couldn’t help myself. Dammit, Mason, why can’t you be a better liar?”

  “I could have lied, Jess. I considered it. I could have kept the bond Sylvia and I share to myself, but that didn’t feel right. Not with you. My connection to her is an integral part of who I am, and I want to share everything with you.”

  If only Mason knew, if only he had even the smallest inkling what I really am. A dyed-in-the-wool witch. I keep it from him every single day and it doesn’t affect how I feel about him in the least. It’s separate.

  Why can’t men understand that division? Why do they feel so compelled to share everything about themselves and strip away all the mystery? Like doing any less somehow weakens the intensity of their love? As if a secret—that has nothing to do with you as a couple—somehow diminishes what you share together?

  I turn around and look up at Mason. I have to say this to his face.

  “Mason, we all have secrets. Dark secrets. Harmless secrets. Despite what you might think, they don’t define who we are as people. We are not our secrets. You and me? We are who we become when we’re together. That’s all that matters.”

  “So you keep secrets from me?”

  “Of course I keep secrets from you! That’s my point. Those secrets don’t change how I feel about you. The need to share everything, to expel all our secrets in one grand outpouring of full disclosure, that’s something children do.”

  “I’m not a child, Jess. I must be a decade older than you.”

  I place a hand on the side of Mason’s face. I know it looks that way to him, but he’s still so young by comparison to me.

  “This is my fault, Mason. I’m old enough to know that I shouldn’t ask a question if I’m not prepared to hear the answer.”

  “I would have told you anyway.”

  I let out a deep sigh. “I know you would have. Maybe it would have been easier to hear later on, maybe not. But you definitely accelerated the process.”

  “Why are you taking this so hard? Sylvia is my sister. So what if she can feel what I can feel? Why does that change so much for you?”

  It changes a lot, most of which I can’t tell him. Especially as it concerns the conversation Sylvia and I had about him today.

  My whole body shrugs.

  “Mason, you’re used to her being there. She’s been there your whole life. I get it. Well, I just found out that you’re a shifter. I took it really well, don’t you think? Not just that, but I like it. It’s exciting for me. Heck, it’s exciting for us both.

  “Except now you tell me that there’s an observer in the room. Somebody who’s always been there. Somebody who knows what you’re feeling before I do. Probably even better than I do. A woman. Your twin sister. Somebody who also happens to be my boss.

  “Mason, what you need to do right now is cut me some slack!”

  That last part came out angrier than I intended. Oh well. No point in holding back now.

  “If that’s what you want, fine. I can do that.”

  Mason says it calmly, like everything else he’s said since putting his silver pendant back on. His eyes, however, are hurt. I can see it, plain as day. Still, I can’t help how he feels, can I? That’s what I tell myself, at least.

  It’s a lie, of course. I want to make the pain in his eyes go away, but what am I supposed to do? Pretend like this doesn’t bother me? I can’t do that.

  Mason crosses to the door, puts on his jacket, and pulls on his shoes. It feels like I’m watching him leave in slow motion. Every action is calculated and deliberate. He checks his pocket for car keys, finds them, and then looks up at me, pausing in the doorway.

  I haven’t moved from where he l
eft me at the easel. My brain is screaming, telling me to comfort him, to stroke his troubled brow, to love to him no matter what.

  It’s telling me to assure Mason that everything will be okay, that I don’t want him to go, that I want him to stay. It’s telling me that this is what it means to be in a relationship.

  It’s telling me a lot of things, but if I gave in to these feelings, who would I be asking to stay? Mason the magically placated houseguest? Or Mason with a twin sister ride-along? I don’t know the answer, and that’s unfair to us both.

  So I let him go.

  2. Hindsight with a Twist

  “You stupid doe-eyed idiot.”

  It’s the same thought I’ve been repeating it to myself for days, and for good reason. I keep making the same mistake every time I wake up in the apartment, or come home from working at the studio.

  It’s always the same. I expect to find Mason here, waiting for me, lying in bed next to me, opening the door before I get a chance to use my key. No, Mason’s not here. He left.

  Then, after that initial rush of expectation, it’s so much worse, when I remember that he’s gone, that I let him go. Then I’m in a daze again, drifting through my day, going through the motions of the same boring rituals. Thinking about what I might have said to Mason, what I might have done, but didn’t.

  I could have gone after him. I could have reassured him. I could have told him that there wasn’t anything we couldn’t figure out. None of the above. I just let him walk out the door. And why? Because I lack imagination. Me! Of all people! Because I couldn’t imagine Mason and I being together, knowing that his twin sister can feel everything he feels the moment he feels it.

  That makes me a fool of the highest order, especially considering all the times Candice and Saffron piggybacked on what I was feeling with a guy, which is any time I’ve siphoned the lust of a man into our quicksilver pool.