by M. L. Briers
“Unlike you, I have a perfectly good memory!” She chose not to answer the question, preferring to sidestep it completely.
She was kind of hoping that he’d forget about it too and move on…
“So much so that you can’t answer the question,” he offered back and she huffed.
The man was like a dog with a bone.
“I screwed up. I’ll pay for the damage to both trucks…”
Even if she had to stack the cost onto her credit cards it would be a small price to pay for him to drop it.
“The pack will deal with it, because you are part of the pack now … but that’s not the point…”
“Wait …” she held up her hand to silence him. “I’m not part of the pack now…” Sage frowned as she looked anywhere but in those mesmerising eyes of his.
“Can you honestly deny yourself a lifetime of happiness with me?” He grinned hard when she shot him a sideways glance … that grin was just as mesmerising as his damn eyes, and she had to drag her gaze away or get sucked into the black hole of Luke-i-ness!
“Can you honestly say you won’t kill me?” She sniped back.
“Yes.”
She heard that deep chuckle that rumbled towards her and it was almost as potent as his growl. That irked her.
The man was just one big sex toy wrapped up in a hard body and a handsome face … at least, that was her excuse.
“Well … I didn’t mean to kill your truck…” She gave a small pathetic shrug of her shoulders and pouted a little, “or maybe I did…” Her eyebrows tried to reach her hairline. “I was drunk…” she shrugged again on a small nod…
“Yeah, I noticed,” Luke offered back, and she shot him a look to see if he was all Mr Judgy, but he just had those dark eyebrows raised as if he was waiting for something…
“Sorry,” she bit out.
“Eat your food.” Luke motioned towards her plate, and she sighed.
“I prefer a liquid dinner,” she said and shot him a look – those eyebrows were down again and his lips were parted in surprise… “Ha! Gotcha.” She chuckled.
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J.C could smell the fur in the air. If he was a betting man then he’d wager that the alpha had sent a couple of the pack along to make sure that he got to where he was going with no bloodthirsty incidents along the way.
He understood the alpha’s protective nature for his pack, and he got that the man didn’t know him, and he wouldn’t be doing his job in protecting his people if he wasn’t over cautious, and yet, he still couldn’t help but feel a little insulted.
It had been decades since he’d lost control of his bloodlust and fed on someone who was less than agreeable. That wasn’t to say that it would never happen again – he just hoped that it wouldn’t. He hoped that he had enough control on the monster within to be able to stave off that lust.
He rounded the lake and took in the sights. Night time was no barrier for his vision.
The sound of a twig snapping behind him made him roll his eyes back into his head and grumble about vampire’s being a lot stealthier than wolves …
And that was when they attacked. Two beasts, coming fast, and they were looking a lot less playful or guard like than he would have hoped for.
J.C didn’t wait around for an invitation to the barbecue. He flicked down his claws and allowed his fangs to elongate … he sidestepped the first wolf that attacked, and made damn sure that he knew where the other one was at all times.
This was now a game of cat and mouse and he was supposed to be the mouse. Silly wolves and their wishful thinking. He was faster, stronger, and a lot harder to kill.
He would love to have proved that point, but he was more than mindful of what that meant for his friendship with Marley and the others. If he took a pack life then they would banish him, if they didn’t hunt him down as a pack and try their very best to kill him first.
No, he’d have to play this one straight. After all, it could have been a misunderstanding or a warning from the alpha to leave. Oh how he hated playing politics and not being able to go in for the kill…
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
~
Josh opened the door to his bedroom and offered her to go in before him…
“Come in and see my etchings?” Marley grinned as she wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.
He’d like nothing better, but he was trying to play it cool. Win her. Woo her, and pouncing or being underhanded wasn’t going to get them off to the best start. Besides, he didn’t want her to feel anxious around him, like she was always waiting for the other shoe to drop…
He reached up and scratched his head as his eyebrows did a dance of their own over those soulful puppy dog eyes.
“Actually, more like … come in and see the view, but, if you’d like it to be something more…” he teased and took a playful step towards her, and somewhat predictably; she sidestepped him and strolled into the room.
It was a big bedroom, and it needed to be considering that it had a really big bed in it. She guessed with the size of him he needed that, and it did look really comfortable – if this was a hotel room then she would have made a beeline for that bed and tried it out … but this was his room and that was his bed, and she needed to remember who he was. Her mate…
Jumping up and down on that damn bed might just send out the wrong signals, not that she imagined for one moment that those thoughts weren’t already going around in his mind. They certainly were in hers…
“Don’t females like views?” Josh looked a little confused. He was sure that he’d read that somewhere…
“I live one town over… I pretty much have this view…” she grinned.
“Not this view, you don’t. Pack land is special…” he motioned towards the window and she shot him a curious look, but still she walked across the room and looked out at the dead of night.
“I hate to remind you of the fact that I have crappy human vision compared to you…” Marley chuckled.
“Wait for it…” he said, and in his mind he hurried the cloud along in the sky before she thought him totally insane…
Marley shrugged. She had a smile on her lips that kept wavering as she stared out into the darkness, and then as the clouds drew back and exposed the moonlight to the land, she saw exactly what he meant.
All across the landscape the moonlight was reflecting, sparkling in patches that looked like it was hitting polished ice…
“There are little lakes dotted along the land. In the daylight, and especially in summer it’s majestic, the water looks ice blue, but I like it better at night because it…”
“Makes the land sparkle…” she was impressed.
“Told you it was a great view and tomorrow morning…”
The sound of a howl of pain went up from somewhere in the distance. His first instinct was to scan the area to see what he could see – his second instinct was to get the hell outside and defend his pack…
“Vampire…!” Josh bit out in anger. He turned and headed towards the bedroom door. “Stay here!” He growled back over his shoulder…
“Wait!” Marley started after him. “If that’s J.C doing then…”
“I’ll kill him for attacking one of my pack.” Josh yelled back up the stairs. He’d taken off on fast feet and she had no hope of keeping up with him, certainly no hope of catching the man, even if she did take the stairs fast and dropped down the last few.
“What the hell?” Geri demanded as she raced out into the hallway. “Chance just took off…” she shrugged.
“I think J.C is in trouble…” Marley bit down on the need to be where he was.
“He can take care of himself…” Geri said as she placed her hand on Marley’s arm and gave a small, comforting squeeze.
“Yeah, but at what cost?” Marley offered back as she scowled at the open front door.
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“I can do this all night…” J.C assu
red them as they came for him again and again and he batted them away like really big baseballs.
He was mindful of where he hit them, accidentally breaking their necks would be the same as if he’d ripped out their throats to the pack, but still he had to defend himself.
That wasn’t to say that they hadn’t got in a few strikes of their own. They had. But the man was a vampire and he healed faster than they could slice and dice him, and there was no way, Marley or not, that he was letting them get close with their jaws.
He could hear the sound of heavy thuds on the ground that were getting louder as they came towards him, and he knew that there were reinforcements headed his way.
What he didn’t know was if he was going to have to take on all of them…
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Luke had been in two minds about whether to leave Sage and join the hunt or not, but his alpha had called on him and he’d headed out anyway. His wolf raced across the landscape with half a mind on their mate and half on the fight ahead.
Josh had said that he’d thought it was the vampire, and as nobody was answering the packs calls to identify themselves as injured and where they were then they had to assume that the injuries were bad.
Now the pack were hunting. Starting out from the route that the vampire would have taken and spreading outwards in all directions to pick up the scent of blood in the air … but they found the vampire exactly where he should have been on the path towards the cabin, and only one downed wolf in sight.
‘What’s he doing?’ Chance growled out into the link at the sight of the vampire, standing there with his hands at his chest in surrender as the three of them drew closer to him…
‘Lulling us into a false sense of security…’ Luke offered back, even though it didn’t much look like it to him; the vampire was just too cool and calm.
“Did somebody forget to tell their guard dogs that I was coming?” J.C’s voice held way too much sarcasm and he berated the wolves with just a look…
‘Do you trust him, yet?’ Chance asked the alpha and Josh growled in annoyance.
‘He’s a vampire…’ he offered back with a level of disbelief that said it all.
‘Josh, that’s Clancy – that wolf is kin to Dram … and I scent Dram in the air.’ Luke said, leaving the meaning in his words quite plain and clear within Josh’s mind.
The alpha shifted back into his human form and J.C raised just the left eyebrow as he eyed the man.
“What happened?” Josh growled.
His wolf was up front and centre within his voice and the fur was just under the man’s skin as he took long strides towards J.C.
“I was attacked without warning or provocation,” J.C offered back. “As you can see he’s still alive. It could have been a different outcome.”
“Why didn’t you kill him?” Josh’s eyes narrowed on the man, but vampires be damned, they always seemed to manage to house a blank, unreadable stare on their face.
“At first I thought that it was a welcoming committee from you – a message to get out of town,” J.C offered back. “But it didn’t seem to matter how many times I bounced them they kept coming back for more. So I figured you wanted me dead … and yet … Marley would have been disappointed if I’d snapped their necks or ripped their throats out.”
“I didn’t send them,” Josh admitted.
“I get that now, could have been helpful to know about ten minutes ago…” J.C grumbled.
Josh turned back towards his brothers.
“Don’t use the pack link, and go wake him up!” He growled at them. Then he turned back to face J.C. “If you’re lying…”
“Please, why would I lie …? If I wanted to eat them they’d be drained already.” J.C grumbled…
And then the sound of a very female scream went up into the night…
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
~
Three wolves and a vampire raced through the night. J.C was faster, but when Luke caught the scent of Sage’s blood in the air; he ran like the wind to keep up with the man.
J.C got to Sage first. The witch was just pushing up from the ground, blood covering her face and her neck, as her eyes registered the shock inside of her and she searched the area for the wolf that had attacked her.
“Sage…” J.C dropped down to one knee on the ground beside her and fisted her upper arms within his hands as he helped her to sit up. He cupped her chin in the palm of his hand and tipped her head to one side, flinching at the sight of the deep cuts in her flesh…
“He came out of nowhere…” she muttered. “I never had time to gather my magic…”
The roar of Luke’s wolf as it tore into the clearing startled her and she drew back and zapped him with everything that she had. As the wolf flew through the air, paws flaying… the alpha and Chance ground to a sudden halt at the sight of their brother flying…
‘Well, there’s something you don’t see every day!’ Chance laughed hard within his own mind, because his wolf just couldn’t do it for him.
“Yeah, Sage … I think that was your mate…” J.C gave a small chuckle of his own, and Sage nodded absently…
“Oooo!” She suddenly realised what it was that the vampire was telling her, but the beast had already landed in a bush and was growling as he tried to right himself… “That’s a talking point for another time…” She went to lift her hand to her face and the cuts there, but J.C stopped her.
“You’re already healing from having my blood inside of you,” he assured her.
Josh shifted back into his human form and Sage was momentarily distracted by his nakedness. When Chance shifted too, she couldn’t help but say something…
“I see the resemblance…” She started to grin but her face hurt, and she went to reach for the cuts again.
“Stop touching and let it heal,” J.C berated her and she snorted her contempt for the man.
“Hey, you’re used to this regenerative thing, give me a break…” Sage bit out, and her attention snapped back to Luke as his wolf finally fell from the bush onto its side on the ground. He immediately pushed up onto his paws with a warning growl for the vampire as he stalked towards his mate.
“Gotta go,” J.C bit out as he pushed up and made a fast move to get out of the beta’s way.
“I can scent that damn man in the air…” Josh growled out.
“What do you want to do about it?” Chance asked.
“Kill him,” Luke growled without a second’s hesitation.
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“She’s covered in blood!” Geri gasped out at the sight of Sage as the four men walked back through the front door with her.
“I’d love to say it’s not mine…” Sage said.
She’d already healed, thanks to J.C’s blood being in her veins from the car accident, but that didn’t wash away the blood that she’d lost.
“Smells…” J.C started as he tipped his nose in the air and drew in a big breath. The sound of Luke’s growl amused him. “Like witch.” He finished with a smug grin for the beta.
“What happened this time?” Marley demanded as she stalked towards Sage, but Josh was quick to act as he wrapped an arm around her waist and hoisted her backwards through the air towards him as Luke growled once more… “Oh, can you not do that?” Marley hissed at the beta.
“No.” He snapped back.
“Try!” She snapped back at him, and Josh couldn’t help but chuckle.
“It’ll be better once he’s mated.” Josh assured her.
“Hey!” Sage scowled at the alpha. “If he’s mated!”
“Baby, you’re a trouble magnet. I figure you’re better off with me than on your own,” Luke teased her and she snapped her head around and scowled up at him.
“Only since I met you,” she hissed out.
“That’s not entirely … accurate,” Geri said as she looked anywhere but at Sage.
“Ok, fine!” Sage snapped back. “I get i
nto a little trouble every so often…”
“Every damn week,” Geri muttered and Sage snorted in annoyance.
“Less than that!” She hissed back.
“Looks like you’re making up for it today, doesn’t it?” Marley shot back.
“It … he,” she corrected as she tossed up a hand, “the wolf, attacked me. I was just coming here to you guys…”
“I told you to stay in the cabin,” Luke growled in annoyance.
“And you thought I was going to listen…?” Sage shot him a look of disbelief.
“No, I was just talking to myself,” he growled back.
“Wishful thinking…” Geri snorted.
“Hey, I’m the one who got played Tic-Tac-Toed on here…” Sage grumbled.
“I’m going to kill that man…” Luke growled as the need rose to the surface inside him once again. His wolf wanted nothing more than that either…
“I wished I’d said that…” J.C grinned. “He sounded very He-Man, don’t you think?”
“You can get in line,” Sage muttered…
“Why didn’t you?” Marley asked.
“Sneak attack, blindsided. I never had my magic ready to go,” Sage muttered, this time because she felt stupid for not being action ready…
“Seriously? What have I repeatedly told you?” Marley berated.
“Sorry, Mum!” Sage tossed up her hands. “I thought we were pretty safe here…”
“Obviously not,” Geri scowled, and her tone was more than accusing.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
~
“You’re safe,” Chance growled out as he took a step towards his mate and she balked at the fact that he was naked…
“And you’re naked!” Geri spat out.
Not that she had any real objection to seeing him like that. In fact, she wouldn’t mind sitting down and ogling him for a while, but just not in company…
“You noticed,” Chance grinned. It was the kind of cocky grin that made her want to wipe that smile right off his face.