by M. L. Briers
It was stupid, really, the stuff of childhood fantasies. He gazed into her eyes, and she was lost, but there it was – she’d been bewitched – and the irony wasn’t lost on her.
“Don’t say anything, and do not gloat,” she managed to force out of her parched lips, annnddd even past the myriad of thoughts beating each other over the head with sledgehammers as they tried to get her attention.
“What – no thank you?” he asked, and there was a glint of amusement in his eyes that dazzled her.
“I can think of a few things that ends in the word you if you’d like me to repeat them,” she offered with a dose of her usual sarcastic tone, hoping to rile him up enough to get back in his bad books.
“I think I can guess…”
“I think you should let me go now.” A small frown played on his brow, and it took Claudia a moment to catch on. “Once you put me on my feet again,” she rushed out. If it had been her, who had heard that demand, then she’d have let go already and watched him go splat, but luckily for her, Cain didn’t move a muscle.
“I think I have the upper hand here, and it’s the perfect way to get you to talk to me.” Cain didn’t think that would work. From what he’d manage to piece together about his mate, she didn’t seem the type to take things lying down, or even tipped in mid-air.
When she offered him the kind of wicked smile that made his manhood sit up and pay attention, he knew he was right.
“You know that I’m not above cutting my own nose off to spite my face, right?” she asked with a glint of wicked intention in her eyes that matched her smile.
Cain’s eyes narrowed and his eyebrows danced, and once again, he had her attention. She couldn’t have been more focused on the man if he was dripping in diamonds and doing a naked tango. “That thought had occurred to me.”
“So, let me up, Scoob, before I do something we’re both going to regret, at least in the short term.” When she patted his arm as a friend would, she noted the muscles, how could she not? But she also noted the look of defeat on his face.
Yes, she’d won, and he was tipping her world view back to normal. Strange then that she felt as if she’d lost that first battle between them – not to him, but perhaps to fate.
~
Marilyn listened to the quiet of the house as she sat in the corner of the sofa. She’d pulled her legs up, and her feet were tucked beneath her. She cupped the glass of whiskey that Neal had provided in her hands as she watched the dancing flames of the open fire – another thing that Neal had provided – now wasn’t the time in her life to become dependent on anyone.
“Let’s face it, I’m indispensable,” he whispered from the other end of the sofa, and she blew out a chuckle before she turned to look at him.
“Stop reading my thoughts, and by the way; that ego of yours must weigh you down,” she said, good-naturedly, and he slowly turned to look at her across the small divide.
Marilyn watched as he dragged out his reply by making a show of considering it. “No, I’m good,” he said, and she chuckled again.
“It’s just me!” Louann voice carried through the house like a smoke alarm going off.
Neal leant in a little, so he could whisper. “Would you hate me if I jumped out and scared the hell out of your mother?”
“Be nice, she did help get the ghost out of you,” Marilyn scolded him. “In here, mother,” she called back, but she had a feeling that her mother knew exactly where she was and had probably been spying through the windows or something equally as Miss Marple-ish.
Neal blew out a sigh. “True, and now she’s checking up on you, me, us…”
“Not us,” Marilyn got out just before her mother breezed into the room with a steely gaze for Neal, and a made-up look of surprise.
“Oh, you’re still here,” Louann announced like she’d just discovered an awful smell under her nose.
Neal twisted in the seat to look up at her. “I am, aren’t I? Well, who knew?”
The level of sarcasm in his voice had been taken up a notch, and Marilyn could hardly contain the snicker or the grin when her mother pulled back her head and looked down her nose at him. “Well, not me, I only came over for ground nutmeg,” she said.
It was such an obvious lie and delivered with very little conviction that Marilyn didn’t waste her time pulling her mother up on it. “Kitchen cupboard,” she said and pointed.
It was easier at times like these to let the little things slide – otherwise, her mother could use it as an excuse to start an argument, and Marilyn was too tired to argue.
“Thank you,” Louann said and turned on her heels for the door. “It’s nice someone is being helpful,” she tossed back over her shoulder.
“I’m sorry that I don’t know where the spices are kept, but I’d say it was a good bet they were in the kitchen,” Neal called after her.
“Shhh,” Marilyn scolded him, and he turned a curious look on her. “Do not feed the troll and give her cause to stay longer than necessary.”
Marilyn could see that reasoning had sunk in when he nodded in agreement, but Louann flounced back in carrying the little jar of spicy goodness, and offered him a glare this time. “Rudeness is not becoming,” she informed him, and Marilyn could see he was biting his tongue; she only hoped he could hold out.
“And yet,” he said and held up his index finger. Marilyn groaned inside. All he was doing was throwing fuel on the Louann bonfire and expecting not to get burned. “You’ve turned it into an art form.”
Marilyn lifted the glass to her lips and took a big swig. It burned all the way down, and that was just how she liked it. She could see that her mother was winding herself up for another swing, and she jumped in. “What are you making, mother?”
Louann looked blankly back at her daughter until Marilyn pointed to the jar of nutmeg that she was strangling in her clenched fist. “Oh, a nice rice pudding,” she lied.
“Oh good, I’ll have some for breakfast,” Marilyn lied. Now Louann looked stuck as if she didn’t quite know what to do with herself.
“Right, I’ll get on and do that then,” Louann announced, and Marilyn could have punched the air in triumph. Now her mother would need to make the rice pudding, and it was already way after midnight.
“I’ll see you bright and early for breakfast,” Marilyn said, encouraging her mother to go faster as she made her way out of the room.
“Bright and early, yes,” Louann called behind her, and a moment later the sound of the backdoor closing made Marilyn breathe easy once more.
“Good move,” Neal said with a winning smile.
Marilyn turned a slow look on him and cocked just the left eyebrow. “You were no help whatsoever.”
“But in my defence, she makes the shot too easy to turn down,” he offered back and winked.
It was the wink that made Marilyn chuckle. It was true, Louann was an open goal and an easy target sometimes, but she did it to herself, and she wasn’t averse to dishing it out whenever she could, even if she didn’t like to get it back.
“I should be going,” Neal said and turned to leave the room.
Strangely, Marilyn felt a sense of disappointment in that statement. The house was empty, and if he left, then she’d be alone again. She had to wonder if that was the only reason it felt weird watching him walk away. “Could you use the front door and not the back, I’d like to keep my mother guessing.”
Neal stopped at the doorway and turned a devilish smile back over his shoulder. “Now, there’s the girl I used to know back in the day, some things never change.”
Then he was gone and Marilyn turned her attention back to the dancing flames once more. Maybe the whole men-on-pause had been a bad idea. When Neal was around, she felt a lot younger than her years, and that was a good thing – maybe.
Sometimes she wished that she could age backward, but only knowing what she knew now; she’d hate to go through that whole angst-ridden awkward schoolgirl phase again without a heads up from her wiser sel
f. In the whole picture of life, it really didn’t matter one little bit what Eileen Clark said about you to the mean girls, because life was all about the choices you make, and not how others saw you.
It helped a lot that Eileen Clark’s biggest achievement to date was working her way through the men in town and the nicest thing about her was her choice of tattoos.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
~
“Oh, don’t make me hurt you,” Claudia warned Cain as he chuckled at her expense. She was tired of falling over her own feet, but every time the man opened his mouth, he managed to come out with something else that made her stumble like a drunken teenager.
Sure, she’d had a bit to drink, but she wasn’t drunk. It would take a lot more booze than she had consumed to make her falling down drunk, and their sobering conversation about mates and fate had pretty much chased the alcohol out of her system. No, this was just a lack of coordination between her brain and her body that happened when he said something that took her attention from what she was supposed to be doing and flummoxed her.
Claudia came to the conclusion that now would not be the ideal time for her to be operating any kind of machinery. With the constant distraction he posed to her mind and body she’d likely come a cropper, and boy, did her body know he was around? Every time he got a little too close, she felt it to her very bones and other, feminine parts of her.
“They do say that pain is close to pleasure…”
“Yes, I remember the song by Queen…”
“Now, you’re showing your age.” He chuckled, but not for long, the glare that she offered was just a little too real. “I’m joking…”
Claudia’s eyebrows arched perfectly. “It was dead funny, emphasis on the dead part.”
“I understand,” Cain said, picking out his path through the woods as the trees became closer together and made it impossible for him to walk beside her. “A woman gets to a certain age and…”
“And that’s where you end the conversation,” she said.
Claudia suddenly realised that they were in the thick of the woods, the heart of the area, and she felt a little claustrophobic. Funny, she’d never felt that way before, but then she didn’t have a big, bad shifter tagging along with her, and it was the middle of the night.
She changed course, knowing that if she kept going the woods would stretch on for what felt like forever, but if she headed toward the moon’s light to the left, then she’d come out down the road from Neal’s house.
“But I was just…”
Claudia raised her hand to silence him, and to give him his due; he stopped talking. Up ahead she could hear voices, they were deep and low, and she wondered if she should detour and go another way. But she was just too nosy a person not to take advantage of the situation and carried on regardless.
~
“Times up,” the shifter said, leaving Jake in no doubt that it was now or never. He had to try.
“I told you, I’m moving on, he’s not here,” Jake said, pitching one last shot at it before he had to go somewhere he didn’t want to be – the dark side.
“You know I can scent a lie?”
Jake heard the crack of a stick and pushed out his magic into the darkness of the woods around them to see who was there and how far away they were. He didn’t need any surprises, but he got one when he found the essence of magic that he knew so well come back at him.
“I have news of where he could be,” he said, trying to keep the shifter distracted. It worked; the man’s sole attention was on him.
Jake lifted his hand as if he was going to offer up the goods, and with his magic, he snapped the shifter’s neck. It was clean, fast, and painless. “But, it’s not something you need to hear,” he said as the man’s lifeless body dropped to the ground right at the feet of the witch as she stepped out into the clearing.
Claudia stopped dead in her tracks, and her heart stopped beating when the shifter landed in front of her. She let out the kind of squeal that would send all of the woodland creatures running in the opposite direction. She was about to let out a scream to follow it up; when a strong arm wrapped around her waist, and she was hoisted in the air, spun around Cain’s muscled body and found herself staring at his broad back.
If that didn’t just take the damn biscuit, then she didn’t know what did. He-Man had taken it upon himself to rush to her rescue – again, and quite frankly, it was already getting old.
The long, hard warning rumble of a growl snapped her back to her senses, and she slapped a hand against Cain muscled arm, and peeked around his body. Jake stared back. “Did you have to throw the dead guy at me?” she hissed in annoyance.
“Everyone seems to be doing it these days,” Neal said, stalking out from the woods on the other side and into the clearing. “Maybe it’s time to ask yourself; is it me?”
Claudia felt Cain’s stance ease just a little, and she went to step around him when he lifted his arm and blocked her way. She looked down at the impressive barrier and up to the man’s face. Then she cocked her left eyebrow at him. “Do not make me hurt you.”
“I’m responsible for you,” Cain informed her, and she was just about to give him a piece of her mind when Neal’s laughter rang out and knocked those words right out of her mind.
“I’ll remember you said that the next time she’s up to no good,” the vampire offered.
“That’s not what I meant…”
“Then say what you mean and mean what you say,” Claudia scolded him as she tried to push his arm away but found, even with two hands and digging her heels into the mud that she couldn’t move it. “Seriously?” she hissed.
“I need to assess the danger level,” Cain informed her.
Neal stepped up. “One dead shifter and Scott’s father – I’d say we were doing just fine.”
“What he said,” Claudia grumbled and pushed against Cain’s arm again, but it still didn’t move. “Move the arm or lose the arm,” she warned him, and he turned a little in place to stare down at her.
“I think she means it,” Neal chuckled.
“I know she does,” Cain said.
Claudia twisted her head to one side and narrowed her eyes on her mate. “And yet, you still mess with me.”
“Well, in the grand scheme of things, you are still Bambi,” Neal said and motioned around him. “With all of us big, strong…”
Claudia let him have a blast of her magic before he’d finished that sentence. He doubled over when the force hit him right in the balls. He deserved it, and he was taking one for a teammate, but still, he’d make Cain pay for that at a later date. “Feel better?” he breathed out against the pain.
“Not until Jake tells me why he threw a dead guy at me,” Claudia said, pushing against Cain’s arm once more and finding little resistance that time – she guessed the warning shot to the vampire’s balls had given her mate a sense of clarity.
“I didn’t throw him at you; you were just in the way when he landed,” Jake said. He was actually glad for the intrusion and the mayhem that had followed, he didn’t like what he’d had to do, but he’d done it anyway.
Claudia tossed her hands onto her hips and glared at the warlock. “So, it’s my fault that you murdered someone and threw their lifeless corpse at my feet, is it?”
“Aren’t all corpses lifeless?” Jake tossed back.
Claudia thrust her head forward and her arms out towards Neal. “Hello, d-er.”
“Well, when you put it like that,” Jake grumbled.
“I won’t take that personally,” Neal said.
Claudia ignored him. “I’m waiting for an apology,” she said, and Jake scowled.
“I think she means it. I had to apologise when I did it,” Neal said.
Jake turned a look of disbelief on the vampire. “What?”
Neal shrugged. “Never mind.” Then he looked to Cain. “One down, more to follow?”
“Looks that way,” Cain said.
“Well, don’t bloody w
ell throw them at me,” Claudia said and started for the road. “I’m going home.”
Neal rolled his head on his neck and sighed. Then he reached into his pocket and took out the keys to his car. “Here,” he said, tossing them through the air at the shifter. “Take her home.”
Cain caught them and kept on moving after his mate. He grumbled his thanks back over his shoulder, but Neal paid him no mind as he turned his attention on Jake. “Hey, Lucy, you’ve got some explaining to do.”
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
~
Claudia had only agreed to be driven home because when she’d finally hit the roadside, Neal’s car was just up ahead. She didn’t feel much like walking the couple of miles back to Marilyn’s – especially with Cain hot on her heels like a stray puppy that had latched on to kindness and wouldn’t let go, and the heels that she hadn’t planned on walking more than a few feet in, let alone a mini-marathon.
It would be five minutes in a car with her so-called mate, or who knew how long a walk in the darkness of night with her legs a little shaky from having yet another dead man at her feet. The decision was relatively easy, and it only took her swallowing her pride to do it.
“Are you warm enough?” Cain asked, and the sound of his deep, gravelly voice seemed to wrap around her in the confines of the car.
“Yes.”
“Can I do anything?”
“No.”
“Are you all right?”
“Fine.”
“That’s three one-word answers, you’re not fine,” Cain said. “In my experience, woman take every opportunity to pad out their conversation.”
“Sorry to disappoint,” Claudia tossed back. She kept her eyes on the road, and concentrated on his voice to anchor her to the here and now—that way, she didn’t need to think on what had just taken place.