by M. L. Briers
Kent was the first the return to his human form – closely, and somewhat reluctantly followed by Liam…
Vicky pulled her magic back into her body…
“I will kill you…” Liam growled at the bear shifter…
“Whatever man…” Kent tossed back.
“Good come back line – do you practice those?” Connor asked smugly, and Kent grumbled a growl towards him.
“Kent wasn’t trying to kill me…” Agatha berated her mate…
“No, he was just playing…” Liam growled, eyeing the other shifter and not his mate.
“Calling me a liar?” Agatha’s tone made the man snap his eyes towards her…
“No … I’m just…” Liam was as short on words as he was on clothes …
“Sucking on that foot in your mouth?” Kent offered.
“Call me insane, but I kind of like this guy…” Connor shrugged, Liam growled, and Vicky chuckled.
“Me too…” Vicky offered.
“Me three.” Agatha directed her words at her mate.
Liam narrowed his eyes on her and tried to stop the swirling of anger and annoyance within his mind. His instinct said kill the bear – his mate’s eyes said differently. Jealously tapped on the door of his subconscious and only made him want to kill the bear more.
But … that wouldn’t help him woo his mate.
“Fine…” Liam growled. “For now.”
“Don’t do me any favours, wolf.” Kent growled back.
“Stop it,” Agatha berated Kent and the shifter rolled his eyes. “And the pair of you … get some damn clothes on.”
“Really?” Vicky frowned. “I thought them naked was just bonus points, but each to their own.”
“Shocking…” Connor teased his mate.
“Well, if that shocks you – what I’m going to do to you later is going to make your damn hair stand on end.” Vicky promised with her eyes, and the grin that formed on Connor’s lips made him look like a total idiot.
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~
“Towel…” Agatha snapped out as she tossed the towel at Liam across the room and the man caught it with one hand.
He wrapped the fabric around his waist and held his hands out to the side, inviting her inspection.
“Better?” There was still that deep rumble within his chest that underlined his words. His wolf was still up front and centre inside of him.
“Not much, no…” she admitted.
Her eyes had flicked towards him in a meaningless glance and been held hostage by the hard muscles that covered the rest of his naked torso. The red welts and dark bruises that covered his skin from his fight with Marco drew on her instinct to make things better – not that she’d ever been much of a Florence Nightingale – but, for him, it seemed her sympathy and caring buttons had both been pushed.
“Well, you want me to take it off?” Liam growled back.
“Not really, no…” she offered back with as bland a tone to her voice as she could conjure up.
“I know that you’re female and there’s no winning with you, but…?”
“Go, get dressed!” She tossed up a hand towards the connecting door that led to his bedroom.
“Fine…” his exasperated tone made her sneer back at him. “Do not leave this damn room…”
He’d already sealed off the door to the tunnels. Putting a dresser in front of it, added a chair, her suitcase, and something that resembled a footstool… at least he’d hear a crash if the bear shifter tried to get in that way…
Not that he was leaving her side, except to get dressed, because the woman was his mate, and she was in danger.
He was stuck like glue until that bear, Marco, was dead and buried – whether she liked it or not, and he thought that her answer to that would probably be not … but, he wasn’t about to ask.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
~
Liam stalked towards the connecting door, wrapped his hand around the handle and yanked … nothing … he wasn’t the only one sticking like glue. He reached down, twisted the key in the lock and yanked again … nothing…
“Magic? Really?” He growled.
“A girl likes to feel safe…” Agatha offered back, sarcasm dripping from her voice as she raised her hands and got rid of her wards… “Abracadabra…” she offered, and when he snatched the door open on a huff, he almost head-butted it.
Liam grunted and snatched a look back over his shoulder at her before he took just one step and stopped…
“You’re not planning anything … deceitful, are you?” He offered and got a butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth look back from her. That look sent something trampling all over his last nerve…
“Me…?” she placed her hands on her chest and tried to look innocent, but innocent didn’t suit her. Not when her eyes were flashing with mischief and humour.
“Oh, yeah … you!” Liam growled back.
“Perish the thought.” She snapped out with a shrug off her shoulders…
“Now, see … that doesn’t make me want to rush to trust you…”
“That’s your shortcomings not mine.”
“Sweetheart, there’s nothing short on me…”
“Except your temper?”
“I think I’ve done pretty well … considering…”
“Give that man a round of applause…” she tossed back with another small sneer. “You still attacked an innocent man for no good reason…”
“Except that he had you hostage…”
“Did not…”
“Yes, he…”
“Did bloody well not!” Her hands went to her hips and Liam turned to take a step back towards her. If she wanted to challenge him then he was all up for it.
His wolf growled at him, a warning to be easy in his step with their mate. Liam sighed … he hated it when his beast was right…
“I thought he had…” He offered back.
A man did not like to admit his mistakes, and this admission was to his mate of all people. He shouldn’t have been making mistakes, but he was only human…ish.
“There you go then. We all know what thought-thought, don’t we?” She cocked her head and challenged him to continue with his self-denial of the facts.
Liam grumbled another growl. Eating humble pie wasn’t exactly his favourite dish of the day.
“You were wrong too…” he tossed back, trying to deflect his own mistake back onto hers.
“Oh, do tell?”
“You went in the tunnels…”
“I did. I didn’t know I had to check my every move with you first.”
Liam opened his mouth to speak and paused … that sounded like a trap if ever he’d heard one.
What was he supposed to say to that?
He certainly wasn’t her keeper…
He certainly wasn’t going to chain her to the kitchen sink, barefoot and pregnant, although that thought kind of appealed to him right then. Especially, after she’d said she wouldn’t run off and she had done just that…
The woman was mischief personified, and she’d laid a damn trap for him with her words…
“You don’t …” he took a few steps towards her and she watched him like a hawk. “Unless you’re in danger, and then you’re damn straight I need to know where you are every moment of every day.”
“That’s…” she hesitated – chewed on an imaginary wasp for a moment – and then shrugged her shoulders.
“Oh look, we agree on something,” Liam tossed up a hand in her direction.
“I’d say more … the path of least resistance,” she offered back.
“It’s nice to see that you can, at least, be reasonable…”
“How unlike a woman…” she said rolling her eyes…
“Ah-ha!” he exclaimed, taking a few more steps. “I knew you were trying to trick me into saying something…”
“Male chauvinistic or misogynistic…?”
“Exactly!”
“And you did�
��”
“Didn’t…”
“Mean to do it?” She cocked her head to one side and narrowed her eyes on him.
“You are…” he pressed his lips together and started to count to ten … he got to three and a grunt, before he reached out, wrapped an arm around her waist and hauled her body up against his.
It felt damn good – soft and curvy in all the right places…
Mine…
“Do not…” she started, but there was a wolfish grin that spread across his lips and caught her entirely off guard…
So did the kiss…
His warm lips came crashing down on hers and made her stomach flip and her head spin – and that was only the start of her troubles.
Her body responded to his kiss and there was something of a denial of service where her mind was concerned.
She wanted not to like it.
She wanted not to be aroused by his hard body pressed against hers, by his hands as they roamed, by his kisses as they deepened and took her along with them…
It was just that nobody was telling her whole body that, because her mind had already rebelled and gone to the dark side…
His mate … she certainly knew it, body, mind, and soul…
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
~
“Oh, you did not just kiss me…” Agatha tried to still her racing heart and get a grip on every other part of her that had abandoned all sense of rhyme and reason where he was concerned…
“Well, it wasn’t Casper the friendly ghost, sweetheart,” Liam offered back.
He might as well have been preening himself – the smug look on his face was doing a number on her last nerve…
“Give me a damn reason not to zap you where you stand,” she didn’t want to give in to any thoughts of temptation, and he was temptation all wrapped up in sex on a damn stick…
“You kissed me right back,” he offered.
“Such a bloody gentleman,” she huffed.
She knew that she’d kissed him back – she certainly didn’t need it pointing out to her, and by him. Not when she was floundering in a sea of uncertainty … and drowning in self-doubt.
“I never said I was a gentleman – I said I was your mate.”
“If this was a hundred years ago, I’d slap you…” she bit out, and then frowned hard…
Oh, what the hell…
Agatha lifted her hand and she hit him across the cheek with her palm – a palm that ended up throbbing and stinging…
Liam grinned harder. His eyes flashed with amusement and mischief…
“I like a woman with fire…”
“That fire can set your fluffy little backside alight, and don’t you forget it!”
“I won’t.” Liam offered back – his eyes twinkled sexily from the glow of the lights – humour resided there, and that annoyed her even more… “Just don’t you forget who the man of the house is…”
“I…”
What could she say to that?
She was a woman – she couldn’t very well deny that fact, now could she?
Out of the two of them, he would certainly have been the man…
“Speechless – about time.” Liam pushed his luck just a little too far and she let the spark of her magic loose, just enough to send a quick shot – like an electric mosquito bite – through his body…
“Out,” she raised a hand and pointed to the connecting door between their rooms.
“Or…?” Liam had every intention of leaving, and he had every intention of getting dressed, even if neither of those things appealed much to him, but he also wanted to see just how far he could go with her before she tried to flatten him…
“Trust me – it won’t be pretty, but it will be painful,” she promised with the tone of her voice, and her one free hand went to her hip and he got the message.
He believed in give and take, and he’d taken enough for then – a little at a time was better than overwhelming her all in one go.
He’d work on her.
He’d woo her.
He’d make her his…
Mine…
But she had to win a battle or two as well…
He turned and headed for the door. When he got one step on the other side; he turned back – almost certain of what she’d do next…
As the door slammed shut in his face, he tossed his head back on his neck and roared with laughter.
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~
“I didn’t think it would be that damn easy…” Connor sighed as he followed the scent of Marco’s blood that hung in the air of the tunnels. He’d been hoping to find the man dead from the wounds that Liam had landed with his claws …
He should have known better.
“He’ll heal and come back for her again. Especially if Raul has sanctioned it.” Kent informed him.
“Do you think he did?”
“I don’t know. Raul is…” he sighed.
More than ever the thought of Raul being the alpha of the clan made him uneasy and his bear antsy.
The clan had lived a good, easy life under Zane. The man had been a fair and decent alpha, but Raul…?
He couldn’t say how that was going to go down with the rest of them let alone how he felt about it.
“Maybe you should find out,” Connor handed him his mobile phone and saw the man wince…
“You’re probably right, but I still can’t help feeling like that’s a damn bad idea.” Kent bit down on the feeling that was clawing inside of him – like his beast wanted out, but didn’t know why…
Trouble. He expected trouble, just not right then…
It was a damned annoying state of flux.
“Do you think Marco has it in him to act without his alpha’s say-so?”
“He’s a hothead. The man barely has control over his beast at the best of times. Zane could keep him in check, but Raul? And when the cat’s away…” he shrugged. “You’re right. Better to know what I’m dealing with than walk into something blindly, either here or back home.”
He didn’t want it to be true.
He didn’t want to hear the kill order come from Raul on Agatha…
He didn’t want to think that the new alpha of their clan was that damn stupid.
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Agatha climbed in between the fresh sheets of her bed and dropped her head back against the pillow. She took a long deep breath in and let it out again on a sigh of contentment…
Marco might have been trying to kill her…
She might have found herself with a big wolf shifter mate…
The world as she knew it might just be coming to an end or going to hell in a handbasket…
And yet … clean sheets and a comfortable bed … the little wicked goodie in life that always made her feel better … that … and chocolate…
The sound of a door opening sent her up on her elbows in the bed. Her magic was more than ready to zap, and yet, she knew exactly who it was.
The bedroom door was locked by magic.
The tunnel entrance had been boarded up by Liam and his show of overkill with the bedroom furniture...
Who else could it be?
“Yes?” Agatha knew the answer to that question before she’d even asked it, but not asking it would send the wrong kind of signal, like she was just going to accept his presence without question, and as much as she’d enjoyed his kisses earlier – she wasn’t about to mate with the man … yet…
“Me. Floor. Don’t even bother protesting.” Liam offered back, and she pressed her lips together to save the smile forming…
“You Tarzan – me poor weakling female in need of protection from a man…” she tried to deepen her voice, but she’d never reach his level of bass even with a heavy dose of flu…
“Sounds about right.” He offered back. Snatching up the spare blanket that sat over the footboard of her bed and flicking it out onto the floor.
Agatha snorted her contempt for
his answer, before dropping back down into the pillows – funnily, or not – they didn’t seem as comfortingly soft anymore…
“Butthead.” She muttered.
Liam shrugged.
“Well, this butthead is sworn to protect his mate, and that’s you, just in case you forgot.” He said, lowering his body to the floorboards and wrapping himself up in the blanket…
“Go to sleep,” she bit back.
She didn’t even want to admit just how much his words thrilled her. Because those words also warned her of exactly what she didn’t want to face up to.
Her mate – forever.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
~
“You’re not asleep.” Liam offered into the silence of the bedroom from his makeshift bed on the floor. Not that he intended to sleep. Not until the danger to his mate was gone.
“You’re snoring,” Agatha offered back the lie.
“I’m not sleeping either.”
“Then you’re growling…”
Liam frowned. He hadn’t noticed himself doing it, but his wolf was on alert within him, and it was possible that he could have let out the odd growl or two…
“Sorry.”
Liam’s apology made her grimace. If he’d been growling then she hadn’t noticed, but what was she going to say to him…?
I can’t sleep because I keep picturing you naked, because I keep replaying that kiss over and over within my mind? That wouldn’t exactly send out the right signals.
Or maybe it would…
Maybe she should just jump in with both feet – and the rest of her body – and embrace the fact that there was no getting around fate’s evil little plan to have them as mates.
He was her mate. It was as simple as that, and she could kick, scream, and fight against it tooth and nail, but there it was – right in her face – the rest of her life was all mapped out for her…
Him…
Pups…
And a happily ever after, of sorts.
It kind of took the uncertainty out of life for her.
It sort of answered the age old question of whether she would ever find the one. She already had…