by M. L. Briers
He knew his brother, and the man had little to no sense of humor where witches were concerned. But, right then, he could see that Samuel was in no mood to get into a screaming match with a witch.
“He’s sorry, you’re sorry,” Nathan said, and both of them spoke at once, talking over the top of each other.
“I’m not sorry…” they both said, scowling like someone had stolen their favorite toy.
“She blasted me off a ladder…” Samuel growled, pointing an accusing finger at the witch.
“He ogled me naked like a pup in heat…” she shot back.
“It’s gonna be a long day,” Nathan groaned, and he knew that it was about to get longer.
“Shame on you,” Dorothy announced storming across the grass towards them with Angela and Pamela coming up close behind.
“Oh God, just apologize and…” Nathan bit out the side of his mouth on a low mutter that was loud enough that only the supernatural among them could pick up.
“Hell no!” Samuel growled back.
“That’s your final word?” Nathan grumbled.
“It is,” Samuel said with an emphatic nod of his head – the same head that snapped to the right when his brother landed a punch against his cheek and sent him reeling backward.
“Had to be done,” Nathan grumbled, flicking out the pain in his hand.
The alpha liked to think that he was a fair man, but, hellfire, those elder witches seemed to be on the warpath, and he was sure that his brother would rather have been busted in the chops by him than to be blasted, zapped, and crocodile snapped with lectures by the elders.
At least, he thought that his brother might see it that way. He did.
“What the hell was that for?” Samuel growled out, as he lifted one large hand and tested his jaw. “What, I didn’t get injured enough when Broom-Hilda decided to parade naked in front of the damn window?”
“Broom-Hilda?” Summer questioned his sanity. “You know what? I’m going to turn you into a…”
“Now, now, now, Summer,” her grandmother berated her. “We only use our magic when it’s absolutely necessary…”
“Oh, trust me, Gran – it’s necessary, and it’ll be so rewarding,” Summer bit out.
“A wronged witch should always seek revenge,” Chloe announced with glee.
As a vampire, she missed her magic and wished that she could just zap someone once more.
Summer nodded in agreement.
“Chloe,” Monty warned.
“What? I’d hit him at least once – maybe twice – definitely go for thrice – just so he remembers it and doesn’t try it again on some other poor, defenceless female that happens by.” Chloe’s eyes were alive with mischief, and Monty saw the young witch that he remembered alive and well inside of her.
“It’s not like he doesn’t deserve it,” Dorothy grumbled.
“Don’t encourage her,” Pamela shook her head.
Samuel took one long step towards her. His big hands fisted at his sides, and his eyes burned into hers as he stared down at her. His beast grumbled a growl.
“Give it your best sh…” he might have started, but he never managed to finish – she was already zapping him to the point where every muscle within his body was locked up tightly.
“See what happens when you encourage?” Pamela sighed.
“Well, I think she’s in the right,” Dorothy said as she turned her nose up at the criticism.
“The very young do not always do what they are advised,” Angela shrugged, “Unless there’s a meddlesome vampire on the loose.”
“Loose?” Chloe snorted. “You make it sound as if I’m running around like a wolf.”
“Don’t start with me, Chloe,” Nathan growled.
“I was just saying,” Chloe shot back.
“O-u-c-h…” Samuel pressed out the words on a gurgled growl.
“Maybe he’s all sorry now?” Monty offered, feeling a sense of déjà vu for the beta’s situation, and a lot guilty for his mate’s part in it.
“Doubt it,” Summer said, but she snapped off her magic anyway and allowed the man’s muscles to unclench all in one go.
Samuel dropped to the ground like a marionette that had its strings cut.
“Oh, Geez…” Nathan grumbled. “Get up; you’re making a show of yourself.”
“Are you damn well kidding me?” Samuel growled out, waiting to reclaim his body back so that he could push back up to his feet and knock his brother’s head clean off his shoulders.
“Come near me, or my window again, and I’ll make you eat dirt,” Summer announced before she spun on her heels and stomped back across the grass towards the Inn… “From six feet down…” she shot back over her shoulder and heard the beta’s growl reach out for her from somewhere behind.
Luckily, the man was still trying to find his feet. But, she meant every damn word.
~
~
~
“Really?” Sarah scowled at Samuel as he stalked into the kitchen and headed for the sink to get a glass of water.
“I did nothing,” Samuel said with a rumble like thunder that underpinned every word and carried on going long after he’d finished speaking.
“You scared the heck out of her, and you saw her naked,” Sarah said.
Samuel slapped his palms down against the cold enamel of the bucket sink and twisted his head on his neck as he stared out of the window in front of him at the group of elders that were still gathered, chattering away, possibly plotting his demise.
“That was not my fault,” Samuel pressed the words home with another rumble of a growl.
“Fault or not. Imagine how she felt to turn around and see you drooling…”
“I was not drooling…” Samuel grumbled.
“Licking the window?” Sarah teased, and the beta spun on the balls of his feet, only to find her standing there holding out an ice-cold beer.
“I get your point…” Samuel tossed up a hand. “I should, at least, apologize.” He grumbled, and Sarah nodded towards the bottle of beer.
“Can’t hurt,” she shrugged. “Much.”
Samuel reached for the bottle and fisted it. He flicked off the top with his thumb nail and caught the cap in his other hand as it spun in the air.
“She’s going to zap me again, isn’t she?” Samuel grumbled, and his wolf growled.
“Take it like a man…” Sarah offered him a cheeky grin as he grunted.
CHAPTER SIX
~
“I suppose I should go and see how Summer is doing…” Pamela said with a sigh. Perhaps the trip to the Inn was a very bad idea, to begin with.
“Oh, she’ll be fine. She’s young, and if I had a pound for every man that saw me naked,” Dorothy said with a shake of her head.
“Yes, but you wanted them too,” Angela bit out in a dry tone, and her friend scowled back at her.
“I just wanted to make sure that she’s alright. I feel guilty now, dragging her out here,” Pamela fussed.
“I think she did well in working it out,” Dorothy chuckled at the thought of what the beta had gone through.
“Yes, she just needs to stroke her pride a little,” Angela said. “Why don’t we have a nice cup of tea?”
“Ah, tea, the answer for everything in my mother’s house,” Pamela said, and Dorothy nodded.
“I hear that,” she chuckled. “My brother broke his leg – must be time for a pot of tea.”
“My father lost his job – put the kettle on…” Angela grinned.
“I burned down my mother’s house with a spell that went terribly wrong,” Pamela admitted. “We went to the neighbors for a nice cup of tea.” She grinned.
“I feel a nice pot coming on,” Dorothy said.
“Let’s do it with the tea leaves, and then we can read them,” Pamela said.
“I give good readings,” Chloe piped up, and Dorothy shot her a frown.
“You’re not a witch anymore, Chloe,” Angela reminded her, and t
he vampire folded her arms across her chest and chewed on an imaginary wasp.
“I wondered why I had a taste for elder blood on my tongue,” she shot back.
“See. It’s stuff like that which means you don’t get invited,” Dorothy snapped back.
“You weren’t going invite me anyway,” Chloe snorted.
“Would you like to come for tea?” Pamela asked, and Chloe shot her a look of pure suspicion.
“Can’t,” she shot back, and looked anywhere but at the witches.
“Why?” Pamela asked.
“She can’t cross the threshold yet,” Dorothy informed the newcomer.
“She’s not house trained,” Angela said.
“She’s not blood trained,” Dorothy sighed.
“We can take tea on the porch, like ladies that lunch in the sunshine,” Pamela announced, and Chloe shot a look towards Monty.
Her mate shrugged his shoulders.
“Have at it,” he offered back. “I have all the time in the world.” He grinned.
“Would you like tea, Mr…?” Pamela enquired.
“Monty,” the vampire said, and he appeared at her side in a heartbeat. “At your eternal service.” He offered with a devilish grin.
He liked the elder. She was kind and generous, and she’d put a smile in his mate’s eyes.
She was a keeper.
~
~
~
Samuel paced the hallway outside the witch’s room. He’d lifted his large fist to knock quite a few times, but, as yet, he hadn’t quite gotten up the courage to do so.
He’d seen her naked. And now that he’d come to think about it – he wondered if he hadn’t of been drooling – just a little – maybe, more than a little.
She was something to behold, and he’d be lying if he tried to claim that he wasn’t attracted to her, but that was just testosterone, hell, when a naked woman parades around in front of a man – who wouldn’t be interested?
His beast growled within him. He wasn’t sure why his wolf seemed to have some kind vested interest in his apologising to witch, but he did, and it was unsettling.
Apologize – just do it.
It’s not hard to knock on the door, say I’m sorry and be on my way.
Job done.
End of drama.
Witches and their drama.
It’s not my fault that she flounced into the damn room and decided to get as naked as the day is long.
Not my fault that I found her attractive either.
I mean, if it had been Dorothy.
Damn, that’s a thought I don’t want ever to have again…
But still.
No, wrong, on so many levels, wrong.
I shamed the woman.
I shamed myself.
I should have looked away.
I should have been a gentleman and made out that I hadn’t seen a damn thing, then given her time to high-tail it out of there, but nooo!
Muppet.
Now, I have to apologize.
How hard can it be?
Love is, never having to say you’re sorry, but, this isn’t love, this is stupidity and not looking away fast enough, is all.
I’m a jerk.
The door to the room was wrenched open, and Summer stopped before she had even started to take the first step outside.
Her eyes narrowed on Samuel like she’d seen the Devil standing right there in the doorway, and she probably would have growled, if she thought that she’d been able to.
“I’m a jerk,” Samuel said, just as she tossed the door closed in his face.
Samuel rolled his eyes up to the ceiling and sighed inwardly, but at the sound of the door being pulled open again, and the rush of air that got dragged away from all around him, he brought his eyes back down to hers.
“Say that again…” Summer frowned.
“I’m a jerk,” Samuel repeated, and his wolf growled at him.
“Yes, yes you are,” Summer agreed with a small nod of her head. “And I shouldn’t have…” she pursed her lips…considering her words carefully.
“Overreacted?” Samuel offered and saw her rush to anger once more.
“You think I overreacted?”
“Noooo,” he shook his head. “Nope, just tossing the word out there – not sure why…” he cleared his throat.
“Maybe, I did,” she shrugged.
Samuel relaxed a little, but his wolf was still antsy. He took in a deep calming breath in through his nose, and every inch of him tingled – his muscles tensed for no other reason than having her scent – and his body came to life as his wolf growled long and hard at him.
The man finally understood what the beast probably already knew.
Mine…
CHAPTER SEVEN
~
“Well, I wasn’t doing it for my damn health,” Randy grumbled at the two men beside him as they stalked towards the Inn for the refreshments that he’d been promised.
He was classed as an elder by the pack because his damn hair was turning silver at his temples and over his ears, but compared to Lark and Hank, he wasn’t that damn old yet, and he hated the comparison of the company that he was keeping.
There was life in his old wolf yet, a lot of it, and he wasn’t about to be put out to pasture by the young ones in the pack. He was still useful – he could still fight – and he was a hit with the ladies when he could be bothered to be separated from the sports channels and take a drive into town.
Life was still good, and he might have been feeling a little worse for wear doing the same tasks that he did twenty, hell, even ten years ago, but his body still recovered in good time.
He considered himself the classic silver-wolf, much better than a silver fox, and with a thousand times more energy than the normal human male his age.
Hell, if sixty was the new forty in human terms – then sixty-five in shifter years must have been the new twenties, at least, he thought so.
“You sounds like a human female,” Lark ribbed him and got a rumble of a growl in response. In the elder’s book that made it worthwhile.
“You’d know all about those, having Angela for a mate,” Randy snorted back.
He didn’t begrudge the two elders finding their mates at such a good age. He’d never had the luck or the privilege of finding his own. That didn’t mean he’d stopped looking.
A nice thirty-year-old with pert breasts and legs that went up to there would have been good … but, in all truth, he didn’t have a wish list for a mate. He just hoped that he’d meet her before he was too old to be able to bond, or before he died, would be a bonus.
“She’s a Fae,” Lark snapped back. “Not the same thing…”
“She’s still human,” Randy tossed back, taking a dig at the man where he could because it amused him so to see the old buzzard rattled.
“Not in so many words,” Lark growled.
“How many?” Randy shot back. He sensed that he had the old man on the ropes and he was going in for the kill.
“How many what?” Lark snapped back, not following the man’s chain of thought.
“Words?”
“What words?” Lark grumbled a growl. He didn’t think himself senile until some young one confused the hell out of him…not that Randy was young, just…younger.
“You need to sit down, old timer?” Randy chuckled, and Lark growled harder, longer, and deeper.
“You’re not exactly a pup there yourself, sport,” Hank offered.
“I got ten – fifteen years on your guys though, right?” Randy grinned back.
“It’s not the years; it’s what you do with them,” Lark growled.
“I’m doing just fine,” Randy assured the man.
“No mate…” Hank pointed out.
“Not yet,” Randy shrugged his shoulders, but in truth – that comment cut him deeply.
“No mate – no matter,” Lark grumbled back.
“It does matter,” Hank growled, shooting a quizzical
look at his friend around Randy’s large frame.
“Not what I meant,” Lark grumbled. “I meant – you can be a pup, but if you haven’t found your mate then what’s the point?”
“Gee, I’m grateful to know that the last sixty-five years of my life has been a waste of time and energy,” Randy grumbled.
“Sucks – right?” Lark shot back, feeling no need to comfort the man after his sideways swipe at his mate’s heritage.
“Does now…” Randy muttered.
“Cheer up, sourpuss, you’ve still got a few years to find her,” Hank chuckled to himself.
“I’ll hold my breath in anticipation,” Randy grumbled, snorting in a breath and grunting it back out.
Then he came to a complete stop. His body frozen like a statue in the midst of the garden, and the two elders gave his sudden absence a double take and stopped in their tracks to shoot looks back over their shoulders.
“Brain fart stopped your legs from working?” Lark chuckled.
“Maybe he needs an oil change and some bran in his diet…” Hank chuckled.
“Mine…” Randy growled out on a mutter of disbelief.
“What’s that?” Lark wasn’t deaf by any sense of the word, but he did have to question if he’d heard right.
“Mine…” Randy bit out, louder, and with a lot more clarity – even if it was said in total disbelief.
“Good one, junior…” Hank chuckled, but there was something about the look on the man’s face and the fact that every ounce of blood appeared to be leaving his head.
“Say, I think he’s serious.” Lark frowned, twisting his head on his neck and watching as his friend swallowed hard against the sandpaper of his tongue.
“That’s not…” Randy looked from Hank to Lark, and back again.
“He’s deadly serious,” Hank scowled.
All three elders sniffed the air.
“New witch,” Lark growled.
“Fresh blood in the pack,” Hank nodded.
“Mine…” Randy growled again, pushing off with his back foot, faster this time, and with a pure purpose in mind.
He was tracking that scent, and he was going to have his damn mate if it killed him – and judging by the Fae essence in the air – it just might.