Orphan Entangled: Spellbound Shifters

By Keira Blackwood and Liza Street

The law of the jungle doesn't say anything about how many mates a woman can take.

 

Raised by wolf shifters, I want nothing more than to fit in, despite being human.

 

When two new shifters—a panther and a bear—arrive to tell me that a tiger shifter is bent on destroying me, I have to remain strong.

 

I will not bend. I will not break under stress.

 

As the pack comes together to create a plan for my protection, I battle an unseen foe--my attraction to three men.

 

You think you know my story? You don't. I'm the orphan in the jungle, raised by a pack of wolves, but I'm going to write my own laws.

 

USA Today bestselling authors Keira Blackwood and Liza Street deliver a hot, romantic reimagining of The Jungle Book in this #whychoose tale! If you're looking for a fast-burn, RH read with swoon-worthy heroes, buy your copy of Orphan Entangled and transport yourself into a lush, steamy story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Liza Street
• Release date: Sep 23, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393330318

Book preview

Chapter 1

Rhet walked ahead of me, silent on bare feet. The thick trees and vines surrounding us created a dark hollow, perfect for finding the sweet gin berries favored by the pack. My footsteps were louder than Rhet’s—partly due to my human nature, partly due to the fact that I had to wear shoes, and partly due to the fact that I couldn’t tear my eyes off of him and watch the ground. My feet tangled in grasses and crunched twigs and damp leaves, and Rhet turned around, his bright brown eyes catching a faint beam of sunlight coming through the canopy.

Shh, Nadia, he whispered.

What, I said with a scowl, it’s not like the gin berries are going to run from us.

Practice, he said, sounding almost like his father—my adoptive father, all stern and grim. You should always practice moving silently through the jungle.

He turned and walked ahead, and I made an effort to look not only around us, but at the ground. He was right—I needed to be more aware of my own surroundings. But it didn’t take long before I looked at Rhet again, at the way his brown shirt clung to his shoulders and tapered down at the waist. He was twenty-three this year, three years older than me, and his muscles seemed to have exploded in the past few months alone.

I wasn’t supposed to notice, but I did.

I wasn’t supposed to want him, but I did.

It was a quiet, secret want. The kind that I could usually ignore during the day. The kind that came up in the darkness at night, filling my mind with forbidden images of the two of us together, his muscles bunching as he held me tightly in his arms and did...what? What would he do? I knew there was something—I’d seen wild animals doing things in the jungle and I knew men and women lay together in similar fashion. But what I wanted to do looked nothing like what the beasts did.

Rhet could never know—I was like a little sister to him. And I couldn’t even tell my best friend, Tahira, because she was his actual sister.

So the images plagued my mind, delighting me, shaming me.

Nadia, you’re still too loud, he said, his voice a growl that did something to my insides.

I shoved the feelings away and looked up.

His gaze—did it linger on my lips? He blinked quickly and said, I found some berries.

I rushed to his side, forgetting to be quiet.

Look where you’re going, he said, sounding irritated. What if one of our traps was right there?

We’re not that close to the perimeter, I said. The traps along the edges of the pack’s territory were deep and wide, and well-hidden, intended to thwart intruders.

It’s not that far, actually, he said.

That was Rhet, always needing the last word. Not as bad as his brother in that regard, but still exasperating.

I held up my basket and reached for the vines. A small snake scurried away from my hand, shy creature. It reminded me to look for other snakes or insects that might not be so shy, creatures that might defend their territory. The way looked clear. Rhet, next to me, already had a handful of gin berries, and he popped one in his mouth before making a face.

Shit! They’re too tart, he said.

We’ll add some of the sweet nuts you like, I said absently, my mind already working on what kind of meal I could fix for him. I could bake the gin berries over nuts.

Smiling to myself, I began filling the basket. Rhet tossed in the occasional berry, but just as many went straight into his mouth. He made a face each time.

I kicked him. He shot me a warning glance, so I kicked him again. He reached down, quicker than my eyes could track, and had my ankle in his grasp. He lifted high, higher, and I shrieked as I started to lose my balance.

You’re going to make me fall, I said.

Aw, princess, he said, I wouldn’t do that.

You so would, I said, "and stop calling me princess."

He just gave me an impish grin and let go of my foot, then tossed another berry into his mouth. Can’t. You’re the favored one of us.

I shook my head. I did just as many chores as the wolf shifters in the pack, and I was respectful of the alpha just like they were. My place in the pack had been decided when I was so young, I didn’t even remember coming here. When the alpha and his mate had taken me in, I’d been a tiny human girl with mud on her skin, torn clothes, tangled and wild black hair, and frightened eyes. To this day, he liked to recount the story of my arrival over the campfire some nights, and I always warmed under the affectionate, fatherly look in his eyes.

Before I knew it, my basket was full. Rhet reached over to take one of the berries from me, but I slapped his hand away.

I could take that entire basket if I wanted to, he said.

I’d like to see you try.

His grin got even bigger, and his voice went deep and dark. The wolf in the jungle. Maybe you should run, princess.

My heart tripped in my chest and began pounding harder. A chase. He had no idea that whenever he suggested one, it did strange things to my insides. These were the things I thought of late at night, alone in my hut. I imagined the chase, and I imagined him catching me, and somehow, in my imaginings, we were always naked.

He expected me to go toward the village; I’d spent enough time with him and the others to see he was already mapping out the possibilities. There was one direction he didn’t expect, one direction that would give me a chance to prolong the chase.

Away.

I sent my gaze toward the village, but then spun around and leaped past the gin berry vines.

With a growl, he came after me. I could hear him crash through the brush—not so silent now, was he, the great hunter? The one thing I had going in my favor was my speed. I’d always had to work harder, work faster than the others because I was human.

Nadia, wait! he called.

Um, no. I was running—he wanted to play, and if there was one thing I liked doing with Rhet, it was playing. I always had liked it, always would.

The trees behind me grew silent. Had he stopped chasing? Oh gods, he was stalking me now. I would be able to think on this in the night for weeks and weeks, fuel for my feverish imaginings, all heat and darkness and slick skin.

I turned around to look behind me, seeking his glowing, yellow-brown wolf eyes in the shadows. If he’d shifted into his wolf, it wouldn’t surprise me.

Be careful, he said from somewhere beyond me.

Not in his wolf form, then, not yet.

Nice try, I said, just as my ankle hooked on a vine. I felt myself falling. I dropped the basket and tried to catch my fall.

My hands met air. The thick canopy of branches and leaves got farther away, and I realized where I was—I was falling into one of our traps. I shrieked, twisted, scrambled but found nothing to hold onto. The ledge wasn’t far. Twisting again, I grasped and found a root jutting from the side of the pit. Clasping it with both hands, I tried to pull myself up, but it was all I could do to just hang on.

I’ve got you. Rhet’s voice was worried, but full of determination. Come on, reach up for my hand.

The top of the pit was only a few feet away, and Rhet’s hand was right there. I trusted him absolutely. I let go of the root with one hand and reached for him. He grabbed my hand, then my wrist, and slowly pulled me out of the pit. My stomach and chest slid against the muddy sides, and I felt a pang that my dress, of all things, might be ruined.

I wanted to laugh—here I was worried about a dress, when I might have broken my leg or worse if I’d fallen to the floor of the pit.

Rhet dragged me up over the edge and kept pulling. As soon as I was free, he fell back, and I toppled against him.

You could’ve been hurt, he said in an accusatory voice. What are you smiling about?

I looked down at him, at his square jaw and perfect nose, those long lashes on his eyes giving me peeks of light brown irises. I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to touch his face in a way that was soft and slow, not the frequent pokes and jabs we usually gave each other. I was always kicking, poking, shoving him, I realized, as an excuse to touch him, to feel his skin on mine.

I knew by now that my smile had disappeared. I was worried about my dress, was all, I said quietly. And I thought it was a funny thing to worry about.

He glanced down between us. I was suddenly extremely aware of the heat of his body and mine pressing together, his hard thigh against my legs, one of his arms cradling me.

Then he laughed and sat up, dislodging me. The dress is ruined, he said, unless you have any strength left for scrubbing.

My face felt hot with shame. What was I doing, thinking these things about the boy who had been raised with me as a brother? From the way he was acting, all he felt were brotherly feelings. I needed to be a sister to him, nothing more.

I scrambled away from him and began putting the fallen gin berries back into my basket. Wordlessly, he helped me, and he didn’t even steal any to eat early.

As I stepped through the gates, the village was quiet, save for the music of Tahira’s flute. She must have finished her chores early. The tune she played was low and melancholy, and I wondered if she was thinking of Mother. Five years since Mother had passed to the skies, and we all missed her every day.

Tahira sat near the community fire at the center of the village. The huts—an individual hut for every person who had come of age at twenty, and shared huts for mates with litters of their own—were scattered around the community fire. The alpha’s was closest to the center. Mine was at the edge, near Tahira’s and Rhet’s huts.

Our pack consisted of three families, including the alpha’s, although the other two families had younger children. The only people close to my age were Rhet and his siblings, Tahira and Malik.

Rhet went immediately to Tahira when we reached the beaten dirt surrounding the village, so I hurried to my hut to change out of my dress and into something clean. A bath in the nearby stream would have