by M. L. Briers
“The other Marley,” Luke said, keeping a close look at her to watch the mirco expressions on her face … and there it was – she’d flinched slightly – her eyes had flicked to the side and back again, only just, but it was all there written on her face where he expected to find it.
“There is no other Marley at this house.”
It wasn’t a lie in her book because technically, there wasn’t.
“Fine,” Luke growled a little in annoyance.
His nerves were already jangling from having the witch take off on him like that – he needed to keep his beast even – keep the wolf from the door – literally.
“The woman who drives that car.” He snapped his arm up and pointed to Sage’s pink-mobile without his eyes leaving Marley’s face.
Marley’s jaw worked overtime and she had a sour look on her face like she was sucking on the bitterest lemon. Her eyes narrowed as she considered her next move…
“What did she do?” Marley gave a half sigh.
She thought the jig was definitely up. Now it was time to lay the bare bones on the table and discover the truth of it.
Perhaps she could find a way to make amends … perhaps she could kill her friend for bringing a shifter to her door…
“She ran out on her mate,” Luke growled back.
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“Say what now?” Marley craned her head on her neck and twisted it to the side – sure that she must have misheard him, but Geri’s whoop of laughter from behind her assured her that she hadn’t – that and the look on his face – the man was definitely deadly serious.
“Mate!” Geri splattered laughter like a flower girl tossed petals at a wedding.
“What she said,” Luke lifted his hand and absently pointed over her shoulder into the room behind.
Marley lifted her hand and rubbed the throbbing vein in her forehead as she groaned inwardly. Another whoop of laughter from Geri and Marley let the groan out that had been echoing inside of her mind.
A mate.
A shifter … no damn wonder the witch is in my pantry eating chocolate as if was that time of the damn month … Marley grumbled.
Only Sage could be so stupid…
Only Sage could be that reckless…
Now what?
I have the wolf at the door, a cackling witch, and a chocolate munching mate claiming sanctuary in my pantry…
So much for a quiet Sunday…
So much for balancing the books and a quiet lunch…
This isn’t something that I can fix.
“Cat got your tongue?” Luke asked, snapping her back from her musings and causing her to groan again.
“I’m guessing that mate would be …?” She pointed a finger at him and he gave a slow nod of his head, but his eyes never left hers.
“Me,” he confirmed.
Marley sighed. There didn’t seem much chance of salvaging this mess.
Sage had surely done it now. The witch was done for.
“Could you give me a…?” Marley nudged the door against his boot, but he never moved that foot from the doorway.
“I guess I don’t trust you either,” Luke offered back and she frowned.
“I’m a good person,” she snapped back with indignity at his aspersions.
“Coincidence, me too,” Luke offered with a small sneer as he folded two big muscled arms across his big muscled chest and seemed to make himself even larger, broader in her doorway, until he was blotting out the outside world rather nicely.
“Fine,” Marley bit out, wrinkling her nose in annoyance.
Then she flicked her eyes over his left shoulder, gasped at the sight of nothing at all, raised a hand and started to point …
Luke spun on his heels, ready and willing to take on whatever it was that had the witch scared … he growled at thin air as his eyes took in the empty garden …
The sound of the door slamming shut made him roll his eyes back in his head, and he growled long and hard a being duped …
So much for trust!
He spun back around and glared at her through the window.
Marley tried to give him an innocent smile, but she had the feeling that it had gotten lost in the smirk on her lips. She clicked her fingers and snapped on the locks, just as he’d lifted his hand towards the handle.
His eyes snapped back to hers and she heard a rumble of a growl. She lifted her hand, index finger upwards and wagged it from side to side.
“I wouldn’t,” she warned him, and watched his eyes flick down to the handle, back up to hers, before they narrowed in suspicion.
“You can’t keep my mate from me,” Luke growled, annoyed on so many levels with the witch, and Marley drew in a deep breath and sighed.
“Don’t I bloody well know it.”
She clicked her fingers and the blind snapped downwards, blocking out the sight of him and his accusing eyes and making her feel just a little less guilty.
“Sage, I’ve got a really big bone to pick with you,” Marley bit out and immediately heard the groan that came from behind the pantry door.
“I told you it wasn’t my fault,” Sage whispered as Marley stalked towards the cupboard.
“Whoops, peeping Tom at the window!” Geri exclaimed.
Marley snapped her head around to see the man glaring in through the glass. His eyes were blazing with annoyance as he searched the room for sight of the mate that he was looking for…
Marley clicked her fingers and dropped that blind too. Geri snorted another chuckle.
“Who knew Mr sexy would turn into Mr ball and chain?” Geri declared, feeling somewhat triumphant that her friend had finally come a cropper from her wicked ways.
Sage groaned long and hard at the thought of being a mate and her friend’s utter enjoyment of her pain.
Marley wrapped her hand around the handle of the pantry door and yanked … this was a conversation that she needed to have without a lump of wood in between them, but it didn’t move, not on bit…
“Take the magic back from the door,” Marley bit out.
“Are you kidding?” Sage hissed. “I’ve got food – I’ve got juice – I can wait him out.”
“Wait him out?” Marley balked. “He’s your mate. He’s not going anywhere. It’s not like he’s going to get the damn message that you’re not interested and move on.”
“Maybe he’ll go rogue,” Geri gasped at the thought.
“If he goes rogue then I kind of think that he’s getting in that cupboard, and he won’t be using the handle to open the damn door, will he?.” Marley bit back.
“I’m not coming out,” Sage hissed. “I don’t want a mate.” She whined.
“Serves you right for gazumping him,” Geri folded her arms under her breasts and snorted her contempt for her friend’s actions.
There was a certain amount of satisfaction inside her for the fact that after all of those years, and all of those men that she’d gazumped, something had finally come back to bite her on the backside … literally.
“I think we both know it wouldn’t have worked out between you and the shifter,” Marley said as she tuned and stared at the witch. Geri shrugged. “And then you would have been in the rather dubious position of having slept with Sage’s mate.”
“That would make for lively conversation around the dinner table,” Geri shrugged.
“Can you not?” Marley hissed at Geri and the witch shrugged once more, she wanted to get her digs in while she had the chance.
“Sage, come out of the damn cupboard,” Marley hissed in annoyance. None of this was getting them anywhere.
“Yes, come out of the cupboard,” Luke said – that deep voice of his practically boomed out above the radio and echoed off the walls, as Marley and Geri both spun around to find the man stalking into the room through the internal door from the hallway…
CHAPTER THREE
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“How the…?” Geri bit out in surprise.
“You really should lock your front door if you don’t want people just walking in,” Luke said, and he scowled at the thought of the witches being so damn careless with their safety. He could have been anybody breaking into the house.
“Most people knock,” Marley hissed back.
“I’m not most people,” Luke growled.
“Obviously,” Marley scowled.
“She’s in there?” Luke asked as he raised his hand and pointed to the pantry door.
Marley snorted her contempt for that question. She looked at him as if he’d grown another head.
“No,” she lied.
Geri was slowing nodding her head as she looked anywhere but at him. Luke growled at Marley in annoyance.
“Move out of the way,” he warned her as he started across the room.
Marley scowled back at him, she was unsure how to handle the situation now that the man was inside the house.
“I don’t think you want to…”
“What? Pick a fight with a witch? Not really. But I want my mate, and you better not be buying her time to escape out of another window.”
He stopped in mid stride and eyed the female. Then he growled inwardly at the memory of breaking down the bathroom door and finding his mate gone.
He wouldn’t make that mistake again.
“Window?” Geri bit out.
Then she scoffed at the thought of Sage playing a backwards cat burglar and wiggling that backside of hers out of a window like a thief escaping into the night. She would have paid good money to see that.
“Fine.” Marley sidestepped the door. “Go ahead, knock yourself out.”
Luke didn’t wait to be asked again. He stalked across the room, long legs eating up the short distance to where he knew his mate to be.
He couldn’t scent her essence because they’d been cooking up a storm and that smell hung thick in the air … bacon … his stomach rumbled, but food was the least of his worries now. His disappearing mate was top of the agenda, and he wasn’t about to let her vanish once more.
He reached out and wrapped his hand around the door handle, meaning to yank it backwards, but forewarned was forearmed, and Marley had definitely warned Sage of his intentions.
A moment later and the man bit down on the pain that blasted through his hand, up his arm, and spread to every muscle, sinew, and nerve ending in his entire body.
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The air turned blue with the stream of bitten off curse words that came from between the man’s lips, and it seemed that he knew a lot of them. He ground his teeth together against the pain.
Luke’s eyes were locked and loaded on Marley as she stood there glued to the spot. She watched the big shifter fall to his knees when his muscles refused to hold his weight up a moment longer.
She had the good grace to wince and look somewhat remorseful as he battled with his own body against the pain. There might even have been a tinge of guilt upon her face…
“Let go,” Marley bit out.
“If … only,” he bit back, screwing up his face in disbelief.
“Enough,” Marley yelled out towards the closed door, unable to watch the man suffering for a moment longer. It wasn’t the same thing, mainly due to his size and all … but it kind of amounted to kicking a puppy.
He growled, grunted, and grumbled more curse words out the moment that the magic stopped and he was able to rip his hand from the handle. His palms hit the floor in front of him and he looked a lot like his beast as he panted and growled some more…
Marley had to wonder if the wolf was going to burst from within…
“Overkill,” Geri sung out and Marley scowled down at the man.
“Well, it’s not like she can see through doors.” Marley winced again as she made an excuse for her friend, but she had to agree, it was a little over the damn top…
Then the sound of another, meatier vehicle came up the driveway and Marley rolled her eyes to the ceiling. She clicked her fingers and the blinds snapped upwards.
“What is it – open season?” She grumbled. “I wish I had this much traffic through my shop.”
She stalked towards the window and eyed the pickup truck that made a stationary convoy on the driveway, adding to the number of cars, and giving it that cluttered effect…
“It’s getting mighty full out there,” Geri said at her right shoulder, making her jump in place in surprise, and give the woman a double dose of a scathing look … “Maybe you should start charging for parking.”
“Fine, maybe I’ll start with you,” Marley shot back.
“Harsh, very harsh,” Geri grinned back, before she turned her attention back towards the pickup truck and the two, large, muscled men that were climbing out of it… “Oh.”
Marley shot her another look, this one of disbelief, and Geri balked. With a shrug off her shoulders; she motioned at the newcomers.
“What? The view just got a whole lot better,” she said as she gave her a sinfully wicked grin, and Marley snorted the contempt for her that she felt deep within her bones at that moment in time.
“What are the odds that those are church people coming to offer me the way to the light out of the darkness?” Marley groaned.
“Oh, they pay peoples electricity bills now?” Geri nodded absently, ninety nine point nine percent of her attention was on the two men that were stalking towards the house.
“I don’t believe you sometimes.” Marley shook her head as if to make her point.
“I’m a one of a kind,” Geri grinned back.
“Witches…” Luke growled on a long push back up to his feet.
Now that his muscles weren’t on fire and quivering like a teenage girl on prom night – he had a need to rip someone’s head off. Unfortunately, that someone was never going to be his mate…
“Yes?” Marley and Geri offered in their sweetest voices, and then the pair fell into fits of the giggles … that was until one of those goons started banging on the back door with their fist.
“There had better not be any magic on this door,” Luke growled out as he stalked towards the back door, reached for the handle with a certain amount of trepidation after the last time, and tried to wrench it open.
It didn’t move. Locked tight.
His eyes snapped towards Marley and he watched the woman sigh in defeat…
“Don’t make them walk around the front,” Luke said with a little bit of satisfaction in his tone. Three to three, witches verses shifters and he kind of liked those new odds.
Marley pouted for a long moment as she considered her stance. Knowing that the cause was all but lost, she lifted her hand and used her magic to unlock the door.
Luke kept his eyes on hers as he yanked open the door. He didn’t trust the witches as far as he could throw them.
Satisfied that she wasn’t up to no good; he turned towards the two men that blocked out everything behind them as they stood shoulder to shoulder at the doorway.
There they were … his brothers … the best of the pack. One alpha and one beta, and together the three of them were the top echelon in the pecking order of the pack.
They’d responded to his call to arms when his mate had gone missing, and he’d kept them apprised of his journey to the house from clues that had been in his mate’s handbag. He guessed she’d not figured on that when she’d escaped out of his bathroom window.
“Oh my,” Geri hissed out at Marley’s ear and the witch jabbed a backwards elbow in her ribs.
Geri caught her breath as the pain rushed through her.
“I take it that you found her,” Josh bit out as his eyes ignored his brother and travelled around the inside of Marley’s kitchen, taking it all in, calculating any sign of trouble or danger, before locking gazes with the auburn haired woman with the piercing green eyes …
He was more than aware that his length hardened just from having her damn eyes meet his. He kind of hoped that was not his brother’s mate that was eliciting that
kind of response from his body.
That would be … awkward.
“Which one…?” Chance scowled at both women, knowing one of them was about to become his new pack sister. “Ha! Witch one, get it?”
His mood lightened considerably until Josh shot an elbow into his midriff and he caved in on himself on a long, pained groan.
“Not me.” Marley wrinkled her nose and looked at him as if he was something offensive that she’d just stepped in.
“A witch with attitude. Why am I not surprised?” Josh grunted in annoyance.
He was more than grateful that this was his brother’s mess to deal with. The man had a witch mate – good for him. If she started mischief within the pack then and only then would he need to get involved.
Still, it might be enjoyable to hang around for a while and watch the wooing fireworks. Especially if he got to look at the redhead.
He felt his hard length twitch when she brought her eyes to his again. His wolf raised its head, and he was just about to take in the scent of the house, and those two witches inside, when a sudden movement from behind caught his attention…
A heartbeat later and he was seeing stars as his forehead was bounced off the side of the house.
His world shifted around him. Clarity rushed away, and his knees caved beneath his weight – he was vaguely aware of his brother falling down beside him, and then the lights went out.
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Everything inside of Luke said to rush into the fight and take on the vampire that had appeared from nowhere, as if by magic, and taken both of his brother’s down – but he was acting on pure instinct when he threw his body in front of the two witches to protect them.
His fangs elongated. His claws came down, and he snarled a warning at the bloodsucker not to try to enter the house.
There was a long groan that came from one of the witches behind him and somewhere within his mind he questioned that sound. He had to wonder why there wasn’t more screaming.
“J.C, can you not?” Marley bit out.