by M. L. Briers
“I know what Mother Nature is…”
“Do you know what the birds and the bees are?” Martha tossed back. “Do you need me to give you the down low on that as well?”
“Oh, witch slapped,” Bree chuckled.
“Can we just get on with it; I have a mate to woo?” Mason grumbled.
“Ha!” Kelly bit out on a snort of contempt for his words.
“Yes, and she seems thrilled by the prospect,” Martha tossed back.
“Face it, alpha,” the vampire said. “She’s just not that into you.”
“I’m running a book on who the alpha was going to kill next,” Bree announced and brought all eyes back to her. “What?”
Maxi leaned in toward her friend. “I’m betting it’s you — depending on the spell.”
Bree didn’t look too happy at the prospect. “Fine, the spell was a simple spell to mess with the witch’s wards.” She shrugged. “I just wanted to see if the spell was still active.”
“Why would you do that?” Kelly bit out.
“Yes, why would you do that?” Mason growled, but when Kelly shot him a glare, he stopped talking and growling.
“I could see you’re as happy about us being mates as I am,” Kelly bit out with a tone that could cut glass.
“I never…” Mason was cut off in a timely fashion by Martha, and he made a mental note to thank the elder for it later.
“So,” Martha announced like she was Miss Marple in a mystery novel. “The first spell that Bree performed must have carried on the wind and brought the new witch here. The second spell dropped her shields and enabled the alpha to scent his mate more easily — end of the mystery.”
“It wasn’t a mystery to me,” Bree shrugged.
“Well,” Kelly turned a hard glare down on Bree. “Here is me wishing you the same in return.”
Bree gasped in a breath, and her lower jaw slid down toward her chest. “I can’t believe you said that.”
“You mean you fear getting what you deserve?” Kelly tossed back.
“Take it back!” Bree hissed out as she pushed up to her feet.
“Will not!” Kelly tossed her little fists onto her hips, craned her neck towards Bree, and grunted in annoyance. “I wish for you to find your mate!”
“Witch!” Bree hissed out as she zapped the witch.
Kelly zapped her back.
“Oh, not again!” Mason growled and rolled his eyes.
His beast rose up within him. It wanted to defend its mate, but neither man nor beast wanted to get in between two witches when they were zapping each other. He might have been male, but he wasn’t stupid.
“Ooooo,” the vampire looked on with glee. “Witch fight!”
Mason shot the vampire a hard glare of annoyance. “Can you not encourage them?”
“Hey, doesn’t look like they need any encouragement from me,” the vampire shrugged. “But, I could make a suggestion — how about taking it outside and adding some mud.”
Mason couldn’t help where his mind went next — X-rated thoughts – well, he was only male.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
~
“You two give witches a bad name,” Martha announced as she zapped the squabbling witches to get their attention, and they rounded on her with fierce glares. “Oh, please, do give it your best shots,” she warned them.
“She hexed me!” Bree bit out.
“Just gave as good as I got,” Kelly shrugged.
“And around here that seems to be fitting,” Martha tossed back.
“At least you know your witch can hold her own in a witch-cat-fight,” Jai chuckled at the sour look on the alpha’s face.
“He should be thanking me,” Bree said and waved a dismissive hand towards Mason. “I did just find him his mate.”
“Thanks,” Mason bit out, his tone dripping with sarcasm.
“Yes, Bree,” Martha said. “But it’s the way you go about it.” She berated the woman with a look.
“Kelly will come around to the idea,” Maxi announced and got a snort of contempt for it from the witch herself.
“Counting bloody chickens and hatching comes to mind,” Kelly grumbled with a dark look tossed at Bree for her troubles.
“Having a shifter mate is way better than expected,” Maxi assured her.
“Couldn’t be any worse,” Kelly tossed back.
“It could be the vampire,” Jon said.
“I resent that,” Jai tossed back.
“Go ahead,” Jon shrugged.
“Yes, but…” Bree turned a curious look at her friend. “You’ve only had a mate for a day and a half. Shouldn’t you wait at least two whole days before declaring how wonderful it is?”
“Not the point,” Maxi shot back.
“So is the point,” Bree said and rolled her eyes. “That’s like selling your soul to the Devil and saying it was worth it before the eternal pain and suffering kicks in.”
Mason growled again. “Does there have to be so much infighting?”
“Says the alpha,” Bree tossed back.
“I don’t go around starting fights with people for no damn reason,” Mason growled.
“You did with me,” Bree said raising her hand.
“Me too,” Maxi shrugged.
“And me,” Kelly said, and she folded her arms, tipped her head to one side, and dared him to deny it.
“They got you there,” the vampire tossed back.
“Out!” Mason growled as he lifted a hand and pointed the way just in case the vampire was unclear.
“Again?” Jai grumbled. “Geez just install a revolving door.”
“Well, you keep coming back like a bad smell,” Mason growled.
“But, then I’m going to miss all the fun…”
“Fun?” Mason growled again.
“Well, you wooing your mate has to be worth a few broken bones and a fried behind,” Jai shrugged.
“Seriously – leave,” Mason growled.
“Do you want me to put him out like an unwanted cat?” Jon asked. He’d been enjoying the spectacle until now. The alpha finding a witch mate was priceless, and payback was a bitch, or in this case – a witch.
“You smell strong — don’t make me bounce you off a wall,” Jai tossed back.
“Give it your…” Jon didn’t get any further as the alpha growled a hearty warning at the pair of them.
“Can I just woo my mate in peace?” Mason growled out.
“I’d say that’s unlikely,” Martha tossed back. “But don’t mind me.” She folded her arms and offered him a smirk. “Seen as you dragged me all the way out here, I think I deserve to witness the fun.”
“Look,” Mason growled, but his mate jumped in with both feet.
“No, you look — you’re a big, not unattractive guy, you might growl a little too much, have a short fuse, and shift into a wolf on occasion — but, nobody is wooing anybody, least of all when that anybody is me.” Kelly tossed her balled up fists onto her hips, stomped her foot on the floor, and glared at the alpha. “Get it? Got it? Good.”
“She’s a mean one,” Bree sniggered.
“And look who got them together?” Maxi grinned, and Bree winced.
“Okay,” Mason growled. “Anybody who isn’t a mate — leave. Anybody who is already mated — go mate some more.”
“That sounds like a good idea,” Jon offered his mate a big beaming smile.
“I’d like to protest,” the vampire said, but when Mason snapped his head around toward him and offered him a deep, low, warning growl that rumbled in his chest and the air — Jai held up his hands in front of his chest. “Fine, being outside on the porch is good too – I have perfect hearing.”
“Am I done here?” Martha demanded.
“Yes,” Mason shot back.
“Fine, well then if I can’t witness the festivities I’m going home,” Martha said, tossing up her hand and turning on her heels toward the doorway.
“Finally, someone who knows when they are
not wanted,” Mason growled, but when the elder ground to a halt and made a slow turn back towards him — he winced once more.
“I’m gonna change my telephone number — don’t come crying to me the next time you have a witch problem,” Martha grumbled. “And with Bree around, boy, are you gonna have a witch problem.” Martha snorted a chuckle that sounded like a bad omen to the alpha’s ears. “Infestation comes to mind.”
Mason lifted his hand and rubbed it over his face as he groaned. He had hadn’t meant it the way it had sounded. He quite liked Martha, but he wanted some peace.
There was no way in hell that he was going to stop her from leaving by apologizing — once he’d wooed his mate, that would be the time to apologize and make amends.
“Picking on elders,” Bree snorted in contempt as she started for the door.
“Shame on you, alpha,” Maxi said, as she pushed up to her feet and made her way toward her mate.
“Badly done,” the vampire said with a shake of his head at the alpha to make his point, and he turned to follow Martha outside.
When Mason looked at Nathanial and Jon, they were both shaking their heads as the vampire had, and were looking anywhere but at him. He got the message. Apologise now.
Mason rolled his eyes as he started across the room toward the door. “Martha,” he called after the elder, and she turned at the front door to look back at him. “I…”
“I know, and I won’t take it personally, this time,” Martha said, as she pulled open the front door and disappeared outside.
“I just want to woo my mate in peace,” Mason grumbled.
“She’s a witch,” Bree leaned in and whispered as she walked by him. “How peaceful do you think it’s going to be around here?” She chuckled as she continued out the front door.
Nathaniel slapped the alpha on the back and Mason grumbled a growl. He’d really like to plant his fist in someone’s face, and Nathanial might just do. “Good luck, alpha.” The enforcer said, as if Mason was about to go into battle for his very life — maybe he was.
After all, his mate was a witch.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
~
When Mason stalked back into the living room, there was his mate standing at the window, and she pulled in a big breath, held it, and let it out on something of a sigh. At first, he thought that she was going to try and escape through the window again — but, she didn’t make a move to do that. Perhaps that was progress.
If looks could kill then the vampire standing outside the window would be ashes. Kelly hated that bloodsucker with a vengeance.
She’d been set to escape out the window once more while the alpha was busy ushering everybody out the front door. It would have been perfect — almost — she still would have needed to escape pack land, but at least she would have had another bite at the cherry.
And there was Mr. Smirky and smarmy, vampire extraordinaire, standing there on the other side of the glass, so close, and yet, so far from being dead. Oh, how she wanted to enact her vengeance on him.
If it hadn’t been for him then she would never have crashed her car, never met Bree, never have been on pack land, and never have known that she was a mate — oh, happy days. Not.
On a sigh, she caught sight of the alpha out of the corner of her eye as he stalked into the room. She gave the vampire one last death glare and turned away.
When her gaze met Mason’s; he swallowed down hard. Now that the screeching, zapping, sarcasm, bickering, and general madness was over — Mason realize that he actually needed to woo his mate now.
That was a tall order if that look was anything to go by — but he was an alpha, and he could rise to the challenge.
“I should feed you,” Mason said, and he couldn’t quite keep the beast from his voice as it rumbled beneath his words.
“Like a pet?” Kelly said, and she thought she should be annoyed, but she couldn’t seem to manage to quash the amusement that image invoked in her mind.
Mason stumbled over his words for a moment. “Like a mate,” he offered back with a look that questioned her sanity.
Kelly couldn’t help but notice the way he stood there. His muscles were braced, his hands were slightly fisted at his sides, and he looked strained. Well, what else did she have to do while she was trapped in a house with the big bad Wolf but question his values? “Mates need to be fed?”
“It’s the job of a male to provide for his mate…”
“You can’t be that much of a caveman,” Kelly tossed back.
“I don’t understand…”
“Did the sexual revolution just pass the shifter world by?”
“What’s the sexual revolution?” Mason said, and of course, he knew what it was, but she didn’t need to know that.
“Wowzies!” She muttered as she forced her gaze away from him and to something more generic instead.
She’d kind of wished that he was hard to look at — but he wasn’t. She kind of wished that fate didn’t have that little extra nudge up its sleeve called the mating pull — but it did. She really wished that he’d stop fisting his hands and flexing the muscles in his arms, because that looked really, really as sexy as hell — but he seemed destined to keep doing it.
There was nothing for it — she was going to have to kill him. That was the only answer to her prayers — not that she had prayed — but she could wish for it all the same.
The explosion of the thought happened in the back of her mind and blasted to the forefront. She had made a wish — of all the stupid things — a witch making a wish without even thinking of the consequences.
Could this be all her fault? No, she blamed Bree.
It didn’t matter that she’d stood at her car and wished for a new life. It didn’t matter that she’d wished to find a small town where she could fit in and be accepted for who she was. Now, none of that mattered.
It didn’t matter that she’d wished for a family. It didn’t even matter that she’d wished for a sexy guy with big strong arms to wrap around her and tell her that she was wanted – loved. None of that mattered a jot.
It didn’t matter that she should have known better. A witch making a wish — and how many wishes had she made without thinking?
Oh, she was a bad, terrible, silly, sorry excuse for a witch.
But it was all Bree’s fault!
Mason stood there clouded by uncertainty. It wasn’t that he was unsure that she was his mate — she was. He wasn’t uncertain that he needed to woo her — he did.
No, what he was uncertain about was the slideshow of emotions that were flicking on and off over her facial expressions at such a speed that he could barely keep up. If she’d been a she-wolf, then he would have thought that she was holding a conversation through the pack’s link with another she-wolf and dishing the gossip — but she wasn’t. That could only mean one thing — she was talking to herself.
Well, he already knew that witches were crazy — that just proved his point.
Still, crazy or not, witch or not, she was still his soulmate, and he was determined to woo her.
“When you’ve finished, you know…” Mason offered a sympathetic look to his mate.
Kelly cocked her head to one side and frowned back at him. “I know?”
Mason lifted his hand and tapped his temple. “Talking to yourself…”
“What’s with the tapping your head?” She lifted a hand and mirrored it back to him. Then he noted the way she snapped to attention. “Are you saying I’m a crazy person?”
“Crazy?” Mason snapped to attention. “Not — crazy — exactly…”
“Do you want to get exact, before I punch your lights out?”
“A little cuckoo, not that it’s bad thing…”
“I’m a little cuckoo?” She snorted a chuckle as she folded her arms and questioned his sanity with the rise of her eyebrows that shot up toward her hairline.
“It’s nice that you can admit it…”
“I didn’t…”
&nb
sp; “You did…”
“I did not.”
“You said; I’m a little cuckoo…”
“You’re a little cuckoo.” She tossed back, and Mason took a moment to think that over.
“I’m not cuckoo — I’m a Wolf…”
“So you have a split personality – multiple personalities — there’s human you, the wolf, and a cuckoo. It must be crowded in there. Tell me, Alpha, are there any more?”
Kelly tried really hard not to let the smile touched her lips — it didn’t work. It was the constipated look on the alpha’s face that did her in. She splattered a chuckle as she tried to keep it at bay.
“I need a drink!” Mason growled.
“Now that I can get behind,” Kelly chuckled. “It’s the best thing you’ve said all day.”
Mason pulled himself to his full height and stuck out his chest. Finally, he’d hit on something that is she appreciated — even if it was only that she needed alcohol to spend any time with him. He could still take that as a damn win.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
~
“A steamroller,” Kelly said, just before she erupted with laughter at the thought of it.
The deep, gravelly chuckle that rolled from the alpha made her ears prick up to listen to that sexy sound once again. She might have been two glasses of Scotch better off, and Scotch made her giggly, but that sound still enticed her to listen hard.
Kelly had a feeling that nature designed it that way. His growl was just as sexy as his laughter. In fact, the more time that she spent in his company, the more the man was growing on her.
That was the mating pull. That was fate’s underhanded design to bring mates together. Stupid fate.
“I have the image of the vampire in my mind looking like Wiley Coyote with you sitting on top of a steamroller with a big smile on your lips,” Mason chuckled.
“Well, I could just peel him off the ground, as flat as a pancake, slap him up against the barn, and play pin the wooden tail on the vampire.” She liked that idea.
“Why not just shoot wooden arrows at him?” The alpha offered back. She lifted her glass and clinked it against his.