by M. L. Briers
Kiera couldn’t help but notice that everyone in the room was staring at them, or mainly her, and that most of them looked gobsmacked. There wasn’t really any other way to describe it, it was as if she’d peeled off her human skin to reveal a three foot grey alien with big shiny black eyes…No more sci-fi for you…Did nobody say no to the guy? Was she the first to ever turn him down? Had she entered Stephen King’s Twilight Zone, scary thought, and was now in the midst of insanity? Everything felt so surreal at that moment that she might well have…
“We need to get home.”Caren ground out between clenched teeth as she held open the door to the outside world. The blast of icy cold air that hit Kiera was a welcome wake up call to her senses, even if she wasn’t wearing the jacket that she had a death grip on, even if her teeth started the chatter immediately, even if her legs felt the need to turn her around and go back inside the bar…That was just self preservation against the harshness of the weather…wasn’t it?
“Not that that’s going to help…”Teri was still pushing and shoving Kiera in the back, manhandling her further away from the bar.
“He does know where we live…”Caren offered back and Kiera tried to shake her brain free from the fog that had consumed it.
“He’s not going to turn up on your doorstep…”Kiera couldn’t help but feel that her friends knew something that they weren’t sharing, but the look of apprehension that passed between the two of them made her dig her heels into the snow and come to a grinding halt. “Is he?” She demanded.
There was another long look that passed between Teri and Caren. She knew that look. It was like a little debate between them of how much to share. It was a look she didn’t much care for.
“W-e-l-l…”Teri started. There was a grimace and then a pause and Kiera felt the rush of heat that swept through her body, panic perhaps?
“What the hell is going on?”She demanded of her friends, looking back and forth between them, but both seemed tight lipped. “Who is that guy?” Mafia? The local nut job? The wicked wizard of the west? Maybe the axe wielding, cutting off heads and banging them on the roof of a car, psycho…?
“It’s a long story…”Teri assured her and she felt the nudge to her back as her friend forced her feet to move in the slippery snow.
“And one you need to hear…”Caren offered, looping her arm around Kiera’s and half pulling, half dragging her onwards.
“Just not here.”Teri finished. Looping her other arm and the two were practically dragging her off down the street.
“And the Alpha gets shot down in flames.”The deep melodic tones made Callum’s whole body clench with anger. It wasn’t as if the damn Vampire wasn’t already a thorn in his side, this was just so much more. Denied by his mate in front of the damn walking corpse was enough to make him want to put a stake between the dead guy’s ribs, maybe even though his heart. Although, the latter he would probably regret in a day or two.
Callum had regained enough of himself to be able to pull himself up to his full height, a few inches taller than the vampire, and without even needing to look in his direction, the alphas fist shot out and connected with the vampires jaw. In that one, long moment of pure satisfaction, as the vampire flew backwards through the air and connected with the tables and chairs that buckled and snapped under the force of the contact, Callum felt a sense of peace wash through him. But it was short lived as his mind told him that the vampire could have easily side stepped the blow. Nothing said annoyance like a vampire willing to take one for the team.
“Feel better, old friend?”Cyrus was back at his side in an instant. He’d shaken off the blow, but was rubbing his jaw accordingly as the world went on around them.
“Not when you don’t even try…”Callum admitted. “Although it was deserved.” Callum growled out, reaching down to gather up the mint green woollen scarf that lay on the floor. He could scent her on it already, but he brought it to his nose and drank deeply from the imprint she had left on it. Every inch of his body hardened in response to that simple action.
‘Mine.’ The beast in him roared.
“Hmm, she’s your mate.”Cyrus saw the Alpha’s black eyes flick to his in the mirror and he groaned out his inability to hide anything from the bloodsucker. They’d known each other too long for that. “I bet you’re happier about those little witches being in town now, aren’t you?” The amusement was evident. Too evident, it annoyed him even further.
“She’s not one of them.” A human mate, not what he had been expecting, but still… His mate.
“Well, I’d tease you some more about it, but I’m guessing having your balls handed to you by your mate is punishment enough for your ego to take tonight?” Callum turned his whole body towards the vampire. His black eyes bore into the man’s soul. He knew that a wolf finding his mate was a sense of merriment around packs, but for the vampire to start in on him, well, he wasn’t about to stand for that.
“It was an accident…”Callum growled out and Cyrus held up his hands in mock surrender. An innocent look, that didn’t quite meet the amusement in his eyes, played on his face.
“Look, most right thinking people don’t believe that there are such things as ‘accidents’ where the subconscious mind is concerned…” Callum growled again, deeper this time, as he narrowed his eyes into tiny black slits in his face. “But by the sound of it that’s what you want to believe, so I’m not going to shred your faith in your ability to woo your mate, who dislikes you sooo much she attacked your manhood with a stool.”Cyrus took a long step backwards as Callum’s growl didn’t seem to be subsiding. “Kudos, Callum, really…”
When Callum’s chin almost hit his chest and his top lip curled in a sneer, Cyrus couldn’t help the sinful chuckle that rushed through him. He’d spent years trying to get under Callum’s skin and now he’d found the perfect way in. How could he not enjoy it?
“You’re saying I can’t woo my mate…”The deep chesty growl that rolled through every word made Cyrus pause for thought. He really should be too old for all of this… But in for a penny…He grinned.
“I’m saying the female is probably just a little too much for you to handle, Alpha.” Cyrus spread his hands and shrugged his shoulders in mock innocence. This could go one of two ways, and Cyrus was sure to enjoy both of them.
“That’s your challenge, that I can’t woo my mate?”Callum wanted to rip Cyrus’s head off and stuff it up his five hundred years old backside, but he was going to enjoy making the vampire eat his words.
“It is. Oh, and you have two days.”Cyrus now knew which way this was going to go. The beast in the man was taking it as a challenge. His mate would be wooed, and well wooed. Whether his mate would enjoy the wooing was another matter, but it was certain to provide entertainment for his viewing pleasure. Especially as the mate in question was a human who obviously had no idea what lurked in the corners of polite society.
“I accept your challenge.”Callum sneered at his challenger. For one long moment he envisioned taking the vampire by the scruff of the neck and drowning him head first in a casket of scotch, with the damn man’s legs and feet left sticking out for all to see…But that would be a waste of good scotch, and he wouldn’t be able to rub winning the challenge under the bloodsuckers nose when he got his mate.
“Perhaps, as you are so confident, we could wager that little package of land against my two acres, just for the sport of it?” Cyrus shrugged innocently, but Callum wasn’t stupid, it was still a risk, but how could he back down now? He’d been challenged and had accepted.
“Done.” Callum growled at him, certain he would win, both his mate and the land.
“Well, off you go then, fetch.”Cyrus made a dramatic sweep of his arms towards the pub’s exit, and Callum growled again. He was torn between ripping the vampire’s arms off and beating him to death with them and going after his mate…Lucky for the vampire the thought of wooing his mate won out.
“I think we have a tail…”Teri hissed out over Kiera’
s head with a nod backwards of her own head. Caren shot a quick look behind her and saw the Alpha taking what was a slow walk for him, as he followed them up the street.
“A tail with a tail. One thing’s for sure; we aren’t going to lose him, not with his nose.”Caren hissed back.
“Am I supposed to be deaf? Who’s following us?” Kiera went to twist her body to look over her shoulder but her friends yanked her onwards. There was no opportunity to look back, not if she wanted to keep her footing and not end up face down in the snow.
“Perhaps one of us should speak with him?”Teri nodded her head back towards him again and Caren gawked at her.
“You want to have that conversation, because I don’t?”Caren hissed back and Kiera yanked back on her arms, halting the forward momentum and bringing everyone to a sudden stop, skidding feet over the frosty ground ensued as they all tried to find their footing.
“What in hell’s name is going on with you two, and who is following us?”She turned on her heels and scoured the road behind them…nothing.
“We should get home before we freeze to death…”Caren offered as she motioned to Teri for her to go back and talk to the alpha. Looping her arm back around Kiera’s, she tugged her friend forward, shooting an encouraging look over her shoulder at her friend. Teri on the other hand wasn’t impressed and offered her own variation on using subtle signals to converse with her. Flipping her the middle finger and sneering her contempt as they started to put a little distance between them.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are…”The fact that he was by her side in an instant didn’t fill her with joy, and she managed to take a step backwards away from him. “Hey, back off, I’m not your mate…”She warned him and watched his eyes narrow on her.
“And with each day that passes I will thank the God’s for that, witch.”Only out of a courtesy to the Fae council themselves did he allow Fae in his town. He didn’t have to like their presence, and as long as they didn’t cause too much mischief for his pack they could stay. But still, he’d rather not be in bed with one, in any sense of the word.
“That’s Ms. Witch to you, Lycan.”Teri snorted her contempt for him. He hadn’t exactly put out the welcome mat for them, but then he hadn’t run them out of town either. It was a standoffish kind of relationship that they had and she’d expected to keep it that way, and now the mutt was sniffing around after Kiera…
“I take it she’s staying with you?” He ignored her attitude. It wouldn’t do him much good to rile up his mate’s friends.
“She is. I take it she’s your mate and not just a leg over?” Teri didn’t have a doubt in her mind that Kiera was the Alpha’s mate, but she couldn’t let the opportunity to rile him go unused. The long, low warning growl that drifted through the frosty air towards her confirmed that to her and she put her mitten covered hands on her shapely hips and tilted her head to one side as she regarded him with contempt.
“Don’t push me, witch.”He growled down the warning. The fact that he was a good foot and a half taller than her didn’t faze her, nor did the continual warning growl or even his dark eyes, that completely their journey into total blackness in his face. She was Fae and she could do things to him that would make his fur curl, literally, if she zapped him hard enough…
“Don’t tempt me, wolf.”
Callum considered the woman in front of him. She was his mate’s friend, which meant he was going to have to go easy on her for his mate’s sake. She was also a Fae, which wasn’t her fault, but he only trusted her as far as he could throw her…tempting, he thought for the briefest of moments and then dismissed it, because she might also be the key to wooing his mate…
“Look, you have her, I want her. We need to come to some sort of arrangement…”He could see the slow drop of the witches jaw and wondered at it. Teri stood for a long moment and just stared up at him. There were a million words all vying for prominence within her mind, but only one popped out of her mouth.
“Butthole.” He looked a little taken aback for a moment. Not sure if he’d actually heard her correctly, because she’d said it on sort of a squeak. In truth he couldn’t even peg what emotion was behind that one word, and yet when her cheeks flushed to a deep crimson colour and her eyes widened in incredulity, he pretty much knew he’d said something wrong somewhere.
Callum was expecting a mouthful from the little firebrand, and yet she gave a sort of huff, turned on her heels and stalked away as best she could over the snowy path. Her feet slipped and slid over the fast icing snow, but she wanted to be away from him as fast as she could before she did something that they might both regret. Although she doubted very much if she’d regret it at that moment in time…
“Hold up…”It was more of a command than a request, and she huffed and snorted her way through a bank of snow and down the other side, as he appeared at her side on a long sigh. “I told you to wait.” He growled out and heard her snort her contempt for him again.
“Are you my master and I your servant, I think not.” Teri didn’t even bother to look at him. His attitude was everything that was wrong with Lycans. They seemed to think themselves superior to most normal people, and where the Fae were concerned, well, they looked down their noses way too much for her liking. And Alphas…She groaned in sympathy for her friend. Who’d want to be mated to a bossy, dominant, domineering, egotistical, male chauvinistic…?
“I’m the alpha and this is my town…”The deep warning growl in his tone let her know that he wasn’t playing.
Teri stopped in her tracks and spun towards him. It took him a second to realise that she had stopped and he did the same, matching her moves. He stared down at her with a scowl and an attitude of self importance that annoyed her so…
“Firstly…”She offered up to him with a wag of her index finger. “Get over yourself. Secondly…”She wagged that finger back and forth until he wanted to reach out and still it. “Kiera is human. Not Lycan, and not Fae, h-u-m-a-n…”She spelt it out for him very slowly so his brain could take in the significance of it. “If you want to win her as your mate, you’d better lose the attitude and learn to be more…” She bit down on what felt like a torrent of swearwords all vying to spill from her lips…
“Human?” He tipped his head to one side and regarded her with a quizzical look of a man seeking answers. For one long moment his scowl faded and was replaced with a softer frown. His eyes gave her a sight pleading look and his whole body seemed to be asking her for what…? Help?
“That would be a start.”Teri snapped back at him. He was back to being the scowling face of the pack that she had come to know the last few months. Cyrus had said that the Alpha didn’t trust the Fae, in fact the vampire had been more than helpful with them getting their bearings around the who’s-who and the what’s-what of town life. The bloodsucker was after something and she wasn’t sure what, yet…
“I can no more be human than Kiera can be Lycan, but she is my mate…”He growled down. Teri pouted her lips and shrugged her shoulders.
“Well, you won’t win her with your chest beating and your sunny disposition. So get over yourself or no mate for you.”Teri turned on her heels so quickly that his mind missed it. Her words were echoing inside his brain and his heart was thumping within his chest. He couldn’t not have his mate…
“Now wait a minute, witch…” it only took a few long strides of his legs to reach her and when he did, he wrapped his long fingers about her wrist and turned her back to face him with one hard yank. Teri’s feet decided to go in two different directions, one went north and the other south east. She tried to summon her magic to balance her equilibrium from being spun about so fast that her head spun, but all she managed to do was shoot a powerful burst of energy through her body and into the alpha…
The roar of pain that tore through his lips shook her very bones and bounced around her brain, until she wasn’t sure if she should cover her ears or correct her footing as his hand let go of her. When he dropped to one knee o
n the ground in front of her, every muscle within his body taut with the powerful convulsion that surged through him, she noted his head had dropped forward as he steeled his body against the pain.
CHAPTER THREE
Teri’s feet gave up even trying to find purchase on the snow beneath her and she started to slide into the splits. Oh this is gonna hurt…She bit out into her own mind, a second before she felt two strong hands clamp on her hips and her body being stabilised from behind. Not the Alpha, so who the hell…?
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you that zapping an alpha is dangerous for your health?”The melodic tones sung out against her cheek and made her shiver from head to toe. She hated damn vampires, and from the way her body reacted to him every time he got close to her, she would have thought he’d realise that by now and stayed back…
The long, deep, throaty growl of the Alpha pierced the air before she had a chance to answer Mr-Touchy-Feely-Hands. When Callum’s head snapped back on his neck and he glared up at her as if she was supper, she was sort of glad of the vampire’s steadying hands that bit into her hips. Teri went to open her mouth but the vampire cut her off.
“I think your mate will find you eating her friend slightly distasteful, don’t you, Callum?” Cyrus was enjoying this, she could tell. He had a playful nature that seemed to come alive in mischievous ways. In that respect he was much like the Fae… Only with fangs and a need to suck the life blood out of anything that took his fancy…
“I think I can smooth it over…”Callum pushed up from his knee and took to his full height.
“Sorry, the witch is off the menu.”Cyrus said over his shoulder. He’d already wrapped an arm around her waist, clamped her back to his side, and was carrying her off at a speed that made her head spin. The roar of annoyance that echoed through the night came from the alpha they left behind, and for once she was glad that this vampire never seemed that far away.