Mating Heat by Jenika Snow
Publisher: Evernight Publishing
Genre: Contemporary, Paranormal
Length: Short Story (46 pgs)
Other: M/F/M, Menage, Spanking, Anal Play
Rating: 3 stars
Reviewed by Fern

Every shifter female goes through their mating heat, a time when they are most fertile, irresistible to the opposite sex, and unable to control their desires. It is a twenty-four hour period of intense need, and uncontrollable sexual appetites.

And I was that wolf-shifting female that just came into her mating heat.

But the two males I wanted to help ease me from this arousal-induced delirium, had never given me a second glance. Chase and Xavier, bear shifters, and leaders of our community’s security detail, are powerful and influential, and the ones I want…servicing me.

When they offer to help me out in the way I desperately need, I don’t know if it’s because I’m irresistible during this time, or because they want me for the female I am…the one that’s been in love with them since before I knew what the emotion was.

When Ophelia wakes up in her mating heat, she knows she’s in for a very rough twenty-four hours. Although having non-stop, unprotected sex with any male shifter would satisfy the lust overwhelming her, Ophelia only wants two men – Xavier and Chase. While Xavier, Chase and Ophelia had known each other for years, Ophelia is a wolf and both Xavier and Chase were were-bears. Can the three of them make it through Ophelia’s mating heat with their friendship – and maybe a new relationship – intact?

This is a super short but very sexy read. Although the two men are bear-shifters and Ophelia a werewolf, they all live together in a multi-shifter community that’s quite open and accepting. Obviously, the main thrust of the plot surrounds Ophelia going through her first mating heat – a twenty four hour period where she’s completely irresistible to all shifter men and where her heat can only be eased by the seed of her lover(s). Although I didn’t personally find the plot-device of her heat itself very sexy (it felt a little too close to metaphysically forcing the sex into the plot and onto practically any shifter male) the characters of Ophelia, Chase and Xavier were interesting and well written, and as they became intimate their chemistry and connection helped make the situation feel a lot sexier to me.

Some of the conversation felt a little stilted to me, I think because of the shifter-style of speech. Like how the guys sometimes called Ophelia “female” (for example: “Come here, female”), this didn’t feel or read as sexy to me. While I can understand the different pattern of speech could very well just be their style when in lust – it felt a little dispassionate to me; as if it didn’t matter that it was Ophelia herself the boys were having sex with, but any “female” in heat would have been just as good. It also read a little weird to me just how much Xavier and Chase did together at the same time, in multiple places they’d speak in unison, or do the exact same thing simultaneously. It made me feel a little like they were the one person in two bodies and that there was a special link or bond between them (and if this was so – why wasn’t this story written as a M/M instead?). While none of these issues individually detracted from the story, all rolled together it meant that there were a number of times while I read that I had to pause, either to remind myself that the different speech could be seen as shifter-ish or just take a breath to get back into the story. These things made the read a bit jolting to my experience and I usually prefer simply inhaling a wonderful shifter story, not being taken out of the moment by small twinges like this.

I really enjoyed the ménage relationship that built between Ophelia, Xavier and Chase. After “the talk” and they were all on the same page the love and lust binding the three of them together was lovely to read about and it was a pleasure to see their relationship bloom and grow. A steamy double penetration sex scene just rounded the story out wonderfully.

A hot and sexy ménage story that was good fun to read.