Mate Cruise: Amelia book 3 🌶️ 🌶️ 🌶️

This is Book 3 in the Mate Cruise short story series but can be enjoyed as a standalone novel.

Content Warning: 🌶️🌶️🌶️
This book contains explicit spice and sexual content. Readers should be aware that the story includes frequent and detailed intimate scenes and cheating.

Please read at your own discretion. If you prefer lower-spice romance, this book may not be for you.

Chapter 1

“Runaway Brides”

POV Amelia

I stand at my twin sister’s wedding as her bridesmaid, waiting for her to crack.

We’re known as the runaway brides in our pack.

Many have bets on how far my sister will make it before she bolts.

I think my parents might have drugged her this time.

Just as the minister asks if anyone objects to the wedding, my younger brother stands up.

The wedding party hushes.

“Sit down, son, don’t you dare ruin this for Abigail!” Father barks.

“Abigail, did you ask Keith how many kids he wants? He mentioned something to me about five or six last night. I just wanted to make sure you were aware.” My brother, Jax, chuckles.

I notice my sister’s hands tremble, but she’s holding on.

I’m really shocked. She must really like this one.

She might even, I dare say… get married?

The room goes silent.

The minister starts to finish his line. “I now pronounce you…”

“I’m still in love with Keith…” a woman screams out.

Then the chaos begins.

I recognize the woman as Amy from our pack. She broke up with Keith when they were engaged six months ago, then he met my sister.

Everyone thinks Keith was just dating Abigail to get Amy back.

Abigail rips off her veil, tosses her ring at the groom, and throws her flowers, which everyone avoids catching because of bad luck.

I dive, knocking a few wedding guests over, catching them as my sister bolts for the exit, trampling Amy in the process.

Jax throws his confetti at my sister on her way out, and all the kids join in.

Keith chases after Abigail, not even stopping to help poor Amy.

“Abigail, I love you!” Keith screams.

My brother chases after them.

I try to stand up after hitting my head on a chair from catching her bouquet.

“Seize her!” My father yells.

The guards hold me down while another shoves a needle in my arm, and everything goes dark.

I wake up feeling groggy and disoriented in a huge room that looks like a fancy hotel, and I get the strange feeling the hotel is moving.

“Are we on a boat?” I ask Sphinx, my dragon.

‘Yes,’ she says.

My sister suddenly bursts into the room.

“I wanted to marry Keith. Why didn’t you stop me from running?” she snaps.

“First of all, the whole conversation we had the night before your wedding was planning your getaway.”

“I was drunk,” she mutters.

“Second of all, name one time when you’ve asked me to save your wedding?”

“That’s not the point!”

“What is then?” I ask.

“You were supposed to be right behind me!” she yells.

“I tried to catch the bouquet for bad luck, hoping I would never have to find a mate or get locked down to someone.”

“And?” She stands there with her arms crossed.

“I hit my head on a chair and almost knocked myself out, but I caught it.”

“And?”

“Oh, Dad had guards ready to stab me with a needle. Do you know why?”

“Yes, and so should you. He threatened us enough with making us come here,” Abigail chuckles.

I’m in a fancy room, and Sphinx says we’re on a boat.

Then it hits me.

“Fuck no! The Mate Cruise! We need to get off this boat!” I panic.

I run out of the room in my nightgown, down a hallway, out a door, and onto a deck, slamming into a man drinking his coffee who already looks pissed, and I keep going.

I jump up on the rails, ready to jump.

“Amelia, don’t leave me! Don’t you dare jump!” My sister yells, trying to help the man I slammed into up.

“Don’t fucking touch me. Nobody touches me,” I hear the man she’s trying to help up yell.

Then I hear my sister land on her ass, and I snap.

“No one touches my baby sister!”

I leap off the railing and slam the man I assumed pushed her into the wall, and punch him in the face.

Another man named Baden gets between us.

“Please don’t beat up my boss. He would never hit a girl, but he’ll take it out on me afterward.”

“He pushed my sister!” I rage.

“I didn’t touch her. She tripped near the beware of wet deck sign.” The man rolls his eyes.

“Is he telling the truth, sis?” I ask her, a little out of breath.

“Ow, I think I twisted my ankle. Fuck, like today couldn’t get any worse,” she hisses.

I help my sister up, ignoring the man and his friend, and bring her to the dining room where we’re apparently having an early dinner.

I find our name tags in the back corner and help Abigail sit down, then grab us some coffee.

“Abigail?” a familiar voice calls across the room. “Are you okay, love?”

“Keith! I slipped. I think I sprained my ankle.”

Keith runs over to her with a medical kit that just appears from thin air like he tripped her himself and immediately wraps her ankle.

“I’ll take you to the nurse after dinner, love. We’re not allowed to shift, but they have healing potions.”

“What are you doing here?” Abigail asks Keith.

“Your father told me where he was sending you two. That you can’t come back until you have a mate. I registered for the Mate Cruise right away,” Keith says.

“You should go put something on besides a nightgown, Amelia, and don’t even think about leaving me on this cruise alone,” Abigail hisses.

“You have Keith!”

“Amelia!” she yells.

I take my time going back to my room and change into a boring pink dress and sit with my sister for dinner.

Everyone at our table is dead quiet except my sister and me.

I follow their line of sight, and it lands on the man I punched earlier.

I never noticed he was impossibly tall, dark, and handsome. His hazel eyes are breathtaking, and his dark hair is wild. He has broad shoulders with tattoos poking out from his neck and wrists.

He’s wearing a green button shirt and tight black pants that….

Crap, he’s glaring at me.

‘Good luck ever getting near the likes of him,’ Sphinx laughs in my head.

“I’ll take a hard pass. He may be nice to look at, but he’s an asshole.”

“You slammed into him and then beat him up when your sister slipped on a wet deck,” Sphinx says. “And he’s the asshole?”

“Well, it’s not like he tried to stop her from falling. What kind of man lets a girl fall?” I hiss at my dragon.

She goes silent. No point in arguing with me.

The man I bumped into is apparently Armond, and his beta is Baden.

Baden does all the announcements, and I ignore him as I dig into the fresh sliced, warm sourdough bread.

“Centuries ago, humans nearly wiped out wolves, dragons, and countless other species,” he rambles on, and I do my best to suppress a yawn.

“Fated mates became rare, and most don’t even recognize them when they meet them. The Mate Cruise was made to help us find our chosen mates.”

Armond walks up and grabs the mic from Baden and looks directly at me.

“I’m not here to find a mate. I’m here for my new beta. If I’m interested in spending a night with you, you already know who you are.”

Seriously? He’s not here to mate but to fuck random women.

“Pig,” I mumble under my breath.

Which isn’t really that quiet.

“Excuse me, Amelia, is there something you or your sister would like to add?” Armond addresses me during his speech.

“Don’t even think about it,” my sister growls at me.