by M. L. Briers
“My family is no picnic,” Abi chuckled.
“I should have taken you on a picnic,” Luke berated himself.
“It’s a little late now,” Abi sniggered, “maybe next time.”
“Abigail, really!” Celine sighed. “You just agreed to see the man again.”
“Yeah, I guess I did.” Abi look pretty pleased with herself, but Luke looked like the wolf that had gotten the bunny.
“Well, I guess mum is smitten,” Sarah chuckled.
“Really? Sarah, smitten?” Celine scoffed.
“Now I’ve had enough of this,” Richard grumbled. “You and I…” He lifted a thick sausage like finger and pointed it at the matriarch, “are going to have words.”
“Oh, really? I’m amazed you can string a sentence together,” Celine shot back.
“Oh, trust me, I can do a lot more than that,” Richard growled.
“Go ahead, do your worst,” Celine tossed back at him.
Richard bit down on his annoyance. He grumbled … He growled … Then he took a deep breath and stalked towards the annoying woman…
Celine waited. When the elder didn’t readily speak, she tossed her hands onto her hips, tipped her head to one side, and gave him an expectant look.
Richard looked her right in the eye, rumbled off another growl, and took a deep breath in.
“Mine.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
~
“I beg your pardon!” Celine almost choked on her own tongue.
Aside from the sound of gasps that went up among those present … You could have heard a pin drop. Jaws had certainly dropped around the group, and eyes practically bulged in people’s heads as their brains denied what their ears had heard.
“Yeah, do you wanna say that again?” Scott growled in disbelief.
“That’s my mother!” Abi bit out.
“I didn’t think it was your daughter,” Richard grumbled.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Celine hissed back at him.
The woman had snapped her head back on her neck and was offering him a very convincing version of the evil eye.
“Now don’t get your panties in a twist, woman,” Richard growled.
“Oh,” Jessica chuckled behind her hand, “this is gonna be good!”
“Yeah, zap him Gran,” Rory scowled.
“Zap him? I’d swing for him!” Sarah said.
“Your Gran isn’t going to swing for him … she’d hurt her fist on his face,” Abi said, “and mum, please don’t zap him, he’s old.”
“I’m old!” She snapped out, “he’s senile!” Celine practically shrieked.
“You’d be amazed how not senile I am,” Richard said.
“See…!” Celine tossed up her hands towards him in frustration. “Everything about that statement says senile.”
“Pah! You just don’t want to face up to the fact that you’re my mate,” Richard snorted.
“Aren’t you a little old to find your mate?” Celine raised just one eyebrow and snorted her contempt for the man, his statement, and for the claim that he wasn’t senile.
“Yep,” Richard gave a thoughtful nod of his head, scowled at the matriarch, and then winced. “And a darn witch to boot.”
“Old man, you are cruisin’ for a bruisin’!” Celine’s top lip twitched in annoyance. She was just about ready to roll up her sleeves and do exactly what her granddaughter had said … Swing for the old buzzard.
“Old! Pot … Kettle … Black … Ha!” Richard snorted back.
“Five witches … Five mates … And there was me, when I woke up this morning, thinking today was going to be the same old – same old.” Tobias grinned.
“Maybe this isn’t the best place to do this,” Abi said.
“Maybe this isn’t the best time to do this,” Luke growled.
“Well, I’m running out of time rather rapidly here myself,” Richard grumbled as he eyed his mate.
“You can say that again!” Celine scoffed.
“Do we have to do this pot - kettle thing every time you say something?” Richard grumbled to another frosty glare from his mate.
“Maybe we should take this inside?” Luke looked to Scott, and the alpha practically rolled his eyes back in his head.
“I hope you don’t have carpets … Blood can be so messy,” Celine offered towards her mate, and Richard grumbled a growl back to no one in particular. Although, Celine was quick to jump all over that. “Don’t you growl at me!”
“Woman, when I growl at you … Trust me, you’ll know it,” Richard huffed.
Hell! I’m too damn long in the tooth to have to act like some love sick pup… Richard grumbled to himself.
How many damn years have I waited for my mate?
And what did Fate send me?
A witch!
A witch! If I still had a sense of humour I suppose that would be damn funny.
A witch of all things … Bah humbug!
Boy am I not impressed with you … Fate … you can kiss my furry little butt cheeks…
No way, no how … that woman is not just cantankerous … She’s … She’s … Ah the hell if I know what she is … There are no damn words to describe that woman!
“Woman?” Both of Celine’s eyebrows reached for the sky, “is that how you talk to you mate?”
“That’s how I talk to you!” Richard grumbled.
“I thought I was your mate?” Celine sneered back.
“You are,” Richard sighed, sounding somewhat resigned to his fate.
“Then that’s how you talked to your mate!” Celine gave him an expectant look.
“I guess it is,” Richard tossed up his hands in frustration.
He was done. Just five minutes of talking to the woman and he already wanted to head-butt a tree. He could only imagine spending the rest of, the little life that he had left, in torturous hell with the witch.
Oh, but not just any witch … That witch.
They were both too old to hyper each other into that kind of a frenzy.
“Well…” Celine frowned. She was kind of at a loss for words, and that very seldom happened to her.
Richard jumped in place the moment that he felt the hard sting of the magical zap. His eyes narrowed on his mate…
“Hey!” Richard gave a low rumble of a growl. “No zapping!”
“I did no such thing!” Celine looked offended. “When I zap you … Trust me, you’ll know about it.” She tossed his words right back at him.
It was then Abi that noticed the way that Rory was looking everywhere but at the two elderly mates. It didn’t take a genius to put two and two together and figure out just who the culprit was.
When Rory’s eyes finally met her mother’s she frowned, lifted one eyebrow, and shrugged her shoulders; questioning why her mother was staring at her so intently. Abi raised her own eyebrows, tipped her head to one side, and gave her an expectant look.
“Fine, it was me,” Rory shrugged again … Personally she couldn’t see the problem with it. “I don’t care who he is … Nobody disrespects my gran.”
“Caveat, but me,” Sarah chuckled.
“Well, that’s nice dear, but I think I’m old enough to take care of myself,” Celine sighed.
“You just can’t do right for doing wrong,” Sarah leaned in and whispered to her sister.
“Tell me about it,” Rory sighed.
“Weren’t we taking this inside?” Luke asked the alpha.
“Oh, come on!” Tobias groaned. “We’ve got a few hours until there’s anything even resembling entertainment on TV.”
“We’ll go to the main house,” Scott said.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the food is up for grabs,” Luke announced.
“Grab it and growl,” Sarah whispered to Rory, and a sister rolled her eyes.
“Will you two behave?” Jessica sighed.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
~
“Now that I have you alone what am I going to do with you?”
Paul gave Sarah a wickedly sexy grin, and Sarah looked back at him as if he’d just grown another head.
“You’ve got a funny definition of alone,” Sarah offered back with a look over her shoulder at her two siblings, sitting side-by-side on the sofa, their arms were folded, and each sister had just the one eyebrow raised as they regarded him in much the same way they would the village idiot.
“Well at least it’s not the whole pack watching,” Paul wiggled his eyebrows at her, and that sexy grin wasn’t going anywhere fast.
“Has anybody ever told you just how weird you are?”
“It’s not his fault … he’s been that way since birth,” Dane offered as he sauntered into the room carrying a tray containing steaming hot mugs of coffee, and placed it down on the small table in front of the sofa.
Rory eyed the beta with suspicion and something approaching contempt, much as she would a slug in the garden that was headed for the lettuce patch, but when he raised his head, and his eyes locked on hers, she felt the need to look away … The only problem was she just couldn’t seem to do it.
The man was annoyingly moreish. Yes, he had something approaching movie star good looks. Yes, he had the kind of muscled body that all of those poor macho wannabe saps spent hours in the gym to achieve. But Rory had a feeling that it was more to do with the mating pull - Fates little kick in the pants than anything else.
“Look, at least your mate is useful,” Sarah said.
Teasing her mate with her eyes and her words, and she managed to elicit a low growl of annoyance from him towards his brother.
“Suck up,” Paul mumbled on a low growl, and Dane gave him a satisfied grin back.
“Hey, I can’t help being the favourite,” Dane chuckled, more than pleased with himself. But when his eyes went back to his mate, he saw only a stony glare aimed at him.
“Define favourite,” Rory sneered.
“Well you might not like me,” Dane said, and he lifted his hand and pointed a finger at Sarah, “but she does.”
“Whatever gave you that idea?” Sarah shot back. “All I said was that you were useful.”
“Brother, do you ever get the feeling that you can’t win?” Paul chuckled.
“All the damn time,” Dane grumbled.
“How are we all getting on in here?” Abi asked as she breezed into the room. She hesitated in her stride as she noted just how thick the air was with tension.
Luke was double timing it behind her, and he had to pull up short when she hesitated in her step, it was that or steamroll right over the top of her. Not that he’d mind taking her down to the floor beneath him, but that was an altogether different scenario, and he wouldn’t want an audience when he did that.
Celine’s voice rang out through the downstairs of the house, and there wasn’t one of the witches that didn’t let out a groan.
“Isn’t it time for your nap?” Celine tossed back over her shoulder at the elder as he followed her into the room.
“You wanna come with me? Oh God, what the hell am I saying? Alpha,” Richard looked around as the alpha strolled into the room. Scott looked at him expectantly, and the old man put his palms together and gave a pleading look, “please … Kill me now. I think I’ve finally lost my mind.”
“This is wooing?” Scott demanded of the man, and Richard scowled back at him.
“Would you want to woo her?” The elder demanded on a scowl as he tossed a nod in Celine’s direction.
The alpha looked mighty uncomfortable as he shot a look over the old man’s shoulder to where Celine was standing.
For one long moment the alpha had the urge to either run for the hills or to check that she hadn’t already turned him to stone. He leaned in towards Richard…
“I value my balls too much to answer that question,” Scott practically whispered back.
“Well there, now you see … I always thought that an alpha was up to any challenge,” Celine scoffed.
“What does she have, Eagle ears?” Scott grumbled.
“Just a stab in the dark, akin to throwing darts at a board blindfolded and hoping one hits,” Abi assured him.
“Yes, dear, but it’s served me well over the years.” Celine threw scorn on what she considered was her daughter siding with the strangers over her.
“Well, now you give the game away.” Rory huffed, “I always thought that Gran used magic.”
“As nobody has had dinner,” Scott started, trying to change the subject and get back to what he’d walked into the room for, “we need to sort out something to eat,” Scott said.
“Girls, kitchen … let’s go,” Abi said, and it was the only time in her memory that not one of them grumbled.
“We can cook,” Luke said by way of an offering to help.
“It’s fine. Take a load off,” Abi grinned.
~
~
~
“So we get to cook?” Jessica said as she stood in the kitchen and sighed dramatically.
“If we were back at the holiday rental we would have been doing it anyway, so stop your yapping, and get on with it,” Rory said as she shot a look at her mother across the way.
“I thought you might like time away from your mates to think about what you’re going to do next,” Abi said. Right then it was Jessica that she was worried about the most.
“Cook … apparently,” Sarah offered with something of a smug look.
“I think we should be looking for a way out this mess,” Jessica said.
“And what about your mate?” Abi said. “Have you thought about the fact that it’s more than likely he will go rogue if you leave?”
“Maybe,” Jessica shrugged. A little pang of guilt shot off inside of her.
“That’s a no then,” Rory said over her shoulder as she set about the task at hand.
“Look, I didn’t ask for fate to screw up my life,” Jessica was already on the defensive.
“Well, fates just kind of helpful that way,” Rory offered back. She noted the worried look on her mother’s face, and she didn’t like it.
“He’s an alpha,” Jessica said with a little shriek in her voice as she tried to reason with the others as to why she wanted out. “The man is like… a seventeenth century Lord of the Manor.”
“I don’t think the Lord of the Manor would have the kind of muscles that your mate has,” Sarah sniggered back.
“Muscles sch-muscles, I don’t care what’s going on under his close, it’s his whole attitude that worries me more. Come on, admit it, these guys are Neanderthals.” Jessica grumbled. There was no way that any of them could argue that point.
“Some people like that,” Sarah said.
“Do you?” Jessica demanded.
“Me? No!” Sarah’s cheeks grew red hot under the scrutiny of her sisters.
She knew what was coming… What always came next…
“Sarah and Paul sitting in a tree … K-i-s-s-i-n...” Rory teased.
“Leave her alone,” Abi said, resisting the urge to chuckle along with the rest of them.
“Gee, get some new material,” Sarah hissed back at Rory.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
~
“That was a great meal,” Scott said as he sat back in his chair and looked around the dinner table at the other nine members of his new family.
“Well don’t think we’re doing the washing up,” Jessica offered back to her mate.
Scott knew that the women was rallying against him, against his authority, and against the new world that she’d found herself in. He got that, he understood it, he’d pretty much done the same thing when he had first become alpha and realised the responsibility that he’d taken on.
The difference here was that he had wanted to be the alpha and he’d knuckled down to the job pretty damn quickly. She hadn’t asked to be a mate. His mate…
Witches and Wolves were different entities. A witch had her own code, her own moral compass, and a creed that she lived by. An alpha too had his own code, his hon
our, and his life was dedicated to his pack.
He could see how it would be hard for any witch to even consider fitting into a pack. They hadn’t even spoken about magic, spells, and pack rules yet, but the individualism of a witch wasn’t always compatible with pack life.
Throughout the meal Scott had watched her. The way that she’d interacted with her sisters. The way that she’d sneaked a glance towards him when she’d thought that he wasn’t looking. The way that she’d quickly looked away when he’d caught her doing it.
It wasn’t that she wasn’t interested in him, she was. The key to winning his mate, to wooing her, was to bring her sisters on board. For that to happen he needed to rely on his brothers ability to woo their mates.
Luke seem to be doing a fine job with Abi, but Richard wouldn’t even entertain the idea of looking at Celine. The matriarch of the family was a cantankerous, formidable, she-Demon of a woman, and Richard was a stubborn, equally cantankerous, set in his ways man … Unless they both gave into the meeting pull then there seemed little hope of him wooing, and winning his mate.
“I think we know how to load the dishwasher,” Paul said.
“You just stack the plates in a big pile and the machine does the rest, right?” Dane grinned at his brother and Paul nodded appropriately.
“Get to it then,” Rory offered back to her mate like a challenge to his manhood, and the big beta pushed up to his feet and started to collect the plates.
“I’ll juggle them while I’m at it,” Dane wiggled his eyebrows at her, and Rory couldn’t help that tingly feeling that started in her stomach and worked outwards through her body.
“We’ll help,” Abi said.
“You ladies cooked,” Luke said. “Go take a load off.” He offered the words that she’d given him back to her with something of a cocky grin.
“I like my new step daddy,” Rory said.
Dane shot a look at Luke, and if looks could kill then Luke was in trouble. It annoyed the hell out of him that his mate seemed to like everyone but him.
He knew that she was being obstinate, deliberately trying to rile him up, and that he was being irrational … And yet, his Wolf still wanted to sink its fangs into Luke’s backside.