by M. L. Briers
~
It wasn’t that Luke didn’t trust his mate — but, he didn’t trust his mate’s unthinking need to put a little distance between them. She was probably in shock; he knew he was, finding a mate like that — that Christmas fairy had a lot to answer for.
He supposed he should be grateful to the man, and yet, he still felt the urge to rip his head off and hand it back to him for kidnapping his mate. He was caught between a rock and a hard place. If the Christmas fairy had not of done what he’d done, then he wouldn’t have his mate.
But, what the hell was the fairy godmother thinking making someone like George the Christmas fairy in the first place? Luke shook his head in dismay at that one.
He stood with his feet planted firmly on the ground. His eyes were locked and loaded on the bathroom window, and he was waiting for his mate’s appearance.
On the other hand, if he was wrong about her, then he would hear the internal lock of the bathroom door turn, and he could make it back inside in no time at all.
There, in the window, was the silhouette of his mate. She raised her hand, lifted the handle, and pushed the window all the way open.
She might have been in darkness, with the internal light behind her giving her a halo, but the alpha could still see her face perfectly well, and his mate was no Saint. He’d been right – she’d planned to run.
Her eyes locked on him and widened in surprise. Her lips parted, and she wheezed a little breath out like a deflating balloon.
“Just felt the need to get some air?” Luke asked. His deep voice snapped Angelique to attention.
“Yep,” she bit out, and her top lip twitched in annoyance.
Then she slammed the window closed again, and the alpha grumbled and growled ay her deviousness.
He’d been right about her. She was planning an escape, but it didn’t make him want to pat himself on the back for being right. Now, he was going to have to watch out like a hawk. Not that he hadn’t planned on doing it anyway.
She was a witch. They were sneaky. Enough said.
~
~
~
“Just out for a stroll?” George’s mocking tones and wide grin annoyed the alpha.
“Thought I’d come out to kick your butt,” Luke growled and was rewarded when George’s smile dropped like a stone.
“Does nobody have a sense of humor anymore?” George grumbled.
‘Every time I look at your face, I crack up,’ Jessica said.
“Well, you’re just a little ray of sunshine, aren’t you?” George offered what was obviously a fake smile.
‘Oh, does nobody have a sense of humor anymore?’ Jessica mimicked him.
Luke booted open the front door and stalked inside, slamming it behind him, and rattling the windows in the frames. He eyed Angelique as she stepped out from the hallway into the living room, and he noted a small grimace that shot across her face before it was gone. He had hope that she’d learned her lesson.
Then she lifted her chin in defiance and crushed that hope into the dirt. Witches!
“Really?” The low rumble of a growl within his chest told Angelique everything that she needed to know. The man was expecting her to say something – maybe even sorry.
She raised her chin a little higher. He’d be waiting a while.
“It’s so stuffy in here.” She gave a small shrug of her shoulders and challenged him to call her out.
“Isn’t escaping out of the bathroom window just a little beneath you?” Luke asked as he crossed his arms and tipped his head to one side to offer her a look that was mixed with disbelief. He had no problem with playing her game.
“I have no idea what you mean,” she lied.
“Sure — you don’t.” Luke wasn’t buying it, and they both knew it.
“Well, you can’t expect me to be over the moon, happy-happy, my life is complete, what joy, at the situation. Now can you?” Angelique mirrored his stance.
“I think I’m quite the catch,” Luke couldn’t keep the corners of his lips turning upward into a small smile.
“I’m sure you do — and I’m sure you are — for a she-wolf,” Angelique offered back, giving him that much.
It wasn’t as if the man looked like something the cat dragged in — he didn’t. If anything, he was out of her league, not that she had a league, she preferred not to fish in the sea — however many fish there might have been — she was fed up with throwing them back.
Now, she had a mate. There was no chance of throwing him back. Unfortunately.
“Well, unfortunately, fate didn’t make you a she-wolf,” Luke said, smiling to himself.
“Well, unfortunately, fate didn’t make you a…” Angelique waved her hand in the air absently. She knew there was a word out there somewhere for her; it was just a shame that she couldn’t find it.
“Warlock?” Luke offered back.
“Oh, Goddess, no!” She even gave a small shake of her head at the thought of it.
If she’d had the choice — which obviously she didn’t because fate had decided for her — she would have chosen a shifter over a warlock any day of the week.
“Purebred human?”
“Look, it’s not even because you’re a shifter — sort of — it’s more to do with the fact that I wasn’t expecting a mate. I didn’t ask for a mate. That stupid Christmas fairy…” She waved her hand absently in the air again as a stream of curse words flashed into her mind, and she couldn’t get past it.
“Kidnapped you…” Luke growled at the thought.
“Exactly!” Angelique snapped her fingers and pointed at the alpha, but there was no magic behind that index finger. “And then there was you…”
“Tall, dark, handsome — me,” Luke was smiling again, but it wasn’t a smug smile that she felt she could zap him for.
“That’s not really the point, is it?” Angelique huffed back.
Sure, he was all those things, and if she’d seen him across a crowded bar then she may have drooled into her wineglass, but that wasn’t really the point either. They weren’t in a bar where she would have had the choice to ignore him. No, she’d been snatched up, kidnapped, and delivered to her — fate-mate.
A lack of choices came to mind. Didn’t she have the right to choose?
“So, my appearance doesn’t offend you?” Luke’s smile spread a little bit wider, and Angelique groaned inwardly.
“Fishing for compliments?” She tossed back.
“Not at all. I’m just trying to find some common ground between us that we can build on,” Luke offered back.
“And you think that common ground could be declaring how Mr. wonderful you are, do you?”
“Am I?”
“Get over your ego.”
If he was to stand any chance of wooing his mate, then he needed to understand her mindset. Right then, what she seemed to be objecting to was the speed and shock of finding out that she was a mate. He could work with that.
“Common ground – build a bridge from either side that meets in the middle…”
“One wrong move and there’s a gaping canyon of painful death below just waiting…”
“How did humans ever populate the planet with that kind of an attitude?” Luke growled.
“As opposed to the – let’s sniff each other’s butt and then shag like crazy?”
“The fact remains,” he growled just a little more. “We need to build on our…”
“And if I don’t want to build? What if I just want to go home, crawl under my duvet, and stay there until after New Year?”
“Well, you don’t have to climb out of the bathroom window to do that.” Luke shrugged his shoulders.
She wasn’t a prisoner. She was his mate.
He couldn’t exactly keep her there if she wanted to leave. For one thing; she probably wouldn’t stop zapping him.
That didn’t mean that he wanted her to go. He’d found his mate, even, if it had been by way of the Christmas fairy.
He only had one shot, one mate, and he didn’t want to lose his chance at love, family, and everything that a shifter held dear within, but neither could he keep her against her will.
“You mean I’m free to leave?” Angelique narrowed her eyes at him with suspicion.
“Yes.”
“Then why were you standing outside the bathroom window?” Angelique demanded, raising her hand and dropping it again in frustration and futility. Men!
“Because we have a door,” Luke tossed back.
Angelique’s whole body straightened at that remark. She even gave a small grimace, and she had to admit that climbing out of the bathroom window did seem a little extreme.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
~
“Okay, I want to go home,” Angelique tipped her chin up in defiance once more.
She’d take him at his word and stand her ground.
“Technically, this is your home now,” Luke offered back. That smile was back on his lips again.
“Are you trying to be annoying?” Angelique asked.
“I think it’s just a happy by-product of my nature,” Luke did grin that time. It was a slow to boil smile that stretched his lips and kept her spellbound until it was done.
Then she mentally slapped herself around the back of the head and snapped herself out of it. Damn, he had one heck of a sexy smile.
“Well.” She took one step toward the front door.
“You’re right! I forgot the alcohol,” Luke said and cut her intention to be going off at the pass.
It was a play for time, and she knew it. But she had asked, and he had offered, and it was alcohol.
“Well…” She started to search for a way out of it.
“And let’s not forget that someone is getting your car from where you left it, so you have a little time,” Luke lied.
He’d completely forgotten about her, but then so had she.
“I did not leave my car…”
“Right. Kidnapped by the Christmas fairy. How did you let that happen, again?”
“You know, I’ve been asking myself the exact same question. Fairies are just so…” She searched for the right word.
“Devious?”
“Yeah…”
“Mischievous?”
“Oh, yeah!”
“Like they’d sneaked out of the bathroom window when you weren’t looking?”
“I guess one drink couldn’t hurt — much.” She gave an awkward shrug, but that was all that the alpha needed to raise his arm and motion toward the sofa.
He’d got her there. They said witches were devious; she guessed nobody had met the alpha yet.
How did you make small talk with an alpha? Angelique guessed she was about to find out.
~
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~
Luke was playing for time. He knew that fate had an inbuilt system that brought mates closer together. They called it the mating pull.
The more time that they spent together, the stronger the pull would become. It was like having his wooing work done for him, and he liked that idea because he had no idea how to woo a witch.
He supposed that wooing a witch was like wooing anybody else — deviousness and zapping aside — but still, she was his mate and he only had one shot at it. If he messed up, he could go rogue, and going rogue meant that there was going to be fangs and claws, and chewing — lots of chewing.
The way that his mate was eyeing him over the top of wine glass, you would have thought that there had already been some chewing going on. He needed something to break the ice; easier said than done.
“Why is there a damn fairy outside the front door?” Leo grumbled as he stalked in through the back door and let it slam shut behind him.
The alpha groaned at the sound of the elder rifling through the refrigerator in the kitchen looking for something to eat. Now wasn’t exactly the right time to introduce her to the cantankerous old buzzard.
“And a male fairy to boot,” Leo snorted contempt for that. “I thought they kept their males of the lock and key.” He chuckled to himself.
“Apparently they made that one the Christmas fairy,” Luke offered back, but he got no further as Leo roared with laughter.
“Oh, that’s a good one — a male Christmas fairy!” Leo chuckled harder as he ripped off the leg from a cooked chicken and stalked up to the doorway of the living room.
Leo had the chicken leg almost to his lips when he froze in the doorway and his eyes locked on Angelique.
“That better not be a female fairy,” Leo grumbled.
“What’s better than a fairy?” Luke asked.
“A witch. I’d say only slightly, and I do not endorse the idea of having one of those around either,” Leo grumbled.
His salt and pepper eyebrows rose and fell as he talked. The deep-set wrinkles around his eyes grew deeper as he eyed her with a whole big dollop of suspicion.
“Too bad,” Luke growled a warning at the old man.
“What the hell do we need a witch for?” Leo demanded. “We don’t have much trouble around here. Why invite some in?”
“You’re saying that all witches are trouble?” Angelique asked. She didn’t think she liked this elder already and she’d only just met him.
“Yep.” Leo wasn’t about to sugarcoat his words.
“Well, if I’m not wanted around here…” Angelique started to push up from her seat.
“She’s my mate,” Luke offered a death glare toward the elder.
That chicken leg was stuck in the man’s mouth, and Luke was kind of hoping that it stayed there. But Leo clenched his jaws in surprise at the alpha’s declaration, and on hearing the bone snap, he opened his jaws and dropped into his hand.
The elder spluttered laughter.
“Oh, that’s a good one — you nearly had me there. Let’s give the elder a heart attack. Got it.” Leo wasn’t smiling.
“Angelique meet Leo, Leo meet my mate,” Luke growled another warning for the old fart to be civil.
“I’d rather not!” They both said at the same time.
Then they eyed each other for a long moment, both snorted with contempt, before they looked away.
“Well, that proves that you’re both as cantankerous as each other,” Luke chuckled to himself. “This should go well.”
“A witch mate…?” Leo grumbled a growl in his chest underlining his words as he considered it. “Bummer — for you, Alpha.” Leo turned on his heels chuckling as he walked back into the kitchen.
“What a great guy!” Angelique snorted her contempt. “Tell me, do you have any more relics in your family tree that you’d like to share with me?”
“I heard that!” Leo growled from the kitchen.
“Good,” Angelique tossed back.
Luke grumbled a growl as he rolled his eyes within his head and sighed inwardly. He knew that nothing in life that was worth having was ever going to be easy — but, did wooing his mate have to be so damn hard?
CHAPTER TWELVE
~
“What are you doing, now?” Jett growled as George took a few, small sideways steps toward the window of the alpha’s cabin like the beta wasn’t going to notice.
“Checking … on the joinery at this window,” he lied. “Great… craftsman…ship.”
“Move on, fluffy haired winged boy,” Jett growled.
“Fluffy-haired winged boy?” George’s eyebrows reached up his forehead. “Would you address a female Christmas fairy in this manner?”
“No.”
“Exactly…!”
“I’d call her a fluffy-haired winged girl,” Jett shot back. He looked quite pleased with himself. “Stay away from the window.”
“I was just checking to see if there was any progress — some of us have a home to go to, you know?” George offered a dramatic sigh.
“I have a home — and a mate, do you have a mate?” Jett demanded.
“No, I’m glad to say there is no little woman at my home…”
�
��Except for your mother…’
“Let’s not bring my mother into this.”
‘Does she still tuck you in at night?’ Jessica babied him.
“No, my mother does not tuck me in at night,” George grumbled, and then he grumbled harder again when Jett roared with laughter.
“Still live with mummy?” Jett chuckled.
“Yes, I still reside with my mother — problem?” George scowled at the beta.
“Mummy’s boy,” Jett chuckled.
It wasn’t the sound of the beta’s chuckling that annoyed him; it was the sound of Jessica’s high-pitched chuckles that danced upon his last nerve, and for some reason made him want to punch the beta right on the nose.
‘Maybe that’s why the fairy godmother made you the Christmas fairy this year — she wanted you to go out on your own and be a man,’ Jessica chuckled. ‘She can only hope.’
“But I’m not on my damn own, unfortunately, am I?” George snapped back.
‘Temper – temper.’
“I don’t have a temper. At least, I didn’t until I started spending time in your company,” George offered the fairy a death glare.
“Would you two like a room?” Jett asked.
“I’d like a lobotomy,” George grumbled.
‘Funny — you act like you’ve already had one.’
“You know what? Make yourself useful, in that cabin and find out what’s going on before I die of old age,” George grumbled.
“Hey!” Jett shuffled his weight on his feet, but he had no idea where the little, female fairy was and could do nothing to stop her in her tracks until he did. “Stay out of there.”
He caught sight of a flash of electric blue to his left and snapped out a hand. His fingers brushed against the fairy’s wings, and he heard a high-pitched squeal that he assumed came from the female.
The next moment, something else came from the female, a hard gut clenching sting that hit his body and traveled through every inch, making his muscles seize up, and Jett dropped to the ground.
“Whoops! Too late,” George grinned from ear to ear as the beta was incapacitated and Jessica found a gap in the woodwork small enough to fly through.