by M. L. Briers
“Oh no…” Nestor allowed the slow, pent up rumble of a growl to roll out of him.
“Oh yes.”
Nestor could hear the absolute glee in the vampire’s tone, and he wasn’t impressed. When he caught up to his mate; he was going to kill her.
“Go away!” Nestor growled.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m damn sure. I’m damn certainly sure.” Nestor’s growl was getting deeper by the moment.
“Yeah — no. If you think about it…”
“I don’t need to think about it — damn it!” Nestor’s growl was designed as a warning, and if the vampire carried on then, he would damn well sink his fangs into the man’s behind as his Wolf salivated at the thought. “Go away — go away and don’t come back!”
“I think your pride is overriding your brain.” There was a teasing, sing-song quality to Koren’s voice that annoyed the elder all the more.
“Well, I think you’re stupid is overriding your brain. So why don’t we say we’re even and you can bug out?”
“I think you need me…”
“Like I need a hole in the damn head,” Nestor growled.
“Think about it…”
“I don’t need to damn well think about it – go the hell away!”
The vampire may have been right about Nestor’s pride, but right then and there — it was the last thing that the elder cared about. His mate was walking off to goodness knows where and he was stuck in place like someone had glued his feet ground.
His beast wanted to tear free and chase down their mate, and that was never a good thing. The last thing that he needed was the vampire enjoying his misery.
“Bug out. Bug off, or I’ll…”
“What? Stand there and wave your hands around like you’re a windmill?” Koren chuckled, and that sound stomped all over Nestor’s last nerve.
“Now look here…”
Nestor bit of his words in stunned silence at the sound of the very feminine scream. His blood ran cold at the realization that his mate was in trouble.
“Too late to let you put the pieces of the witch’s puzzle together,” Koren said as he dropped down in front of the elder, but Nestor wasn’t looking at him. The elder was staring off into the woods.
“Aggie…” Nestor growled. His heart raced, his blood pumped, and his temper raged.
“Look at me!” Koren demanded. “Looking at the dead will release you from the spell.”
The vampire’s words were like a triumphant punch upside Nestor’s head. The elder’s gaze snapped towards his friend, and he felt the instant release of his mate’s magic rush through him.
“Move those feet old man – your witch is in trouble…” Koren shouted back over his shoulder as he took off into the woods with the elder hard on his heels.
~
~
~
“No — that’s wooing!” Lewis growled hard as he drew back ever so slightly from his mate after kissing her beyond all reason. He thought he’d answered her question in the best way possible.
Mia wanted to answer, she really did, but there seemed to be something of a disconnect between her brain and her mouth. He’d kissed her, oh boy, had he!
There was kissing, and then there was kissing — and then there was Lewis. She didn’t feel like she’d just been kissed — she felt as if her whole being had been wrapped up inside of his.
Talk about a connection; she’d never felt the like of it before. But the biggest problem that she had with that was that she wanted to feel it again. And again. And again.
“Oh look — speechless — and you a snazzy, sassy, badass witch and all.”
The alpha had a crooked smile upon his lips that called to her to take a look. She did, and she found that she wasn’t too keen to look away despite his taunting words.
“Do you want me to hurt you?” Mia hissed out the words, but it was the last thing on her mind.
She found that she’d much rather be kissing him again. Even if that did pull, and tug on her annoyance gene.
“A witch has got to do what a witch has got to do, but no, I’d much rather be kissing you,” Lewis said as the hungry growl rumbled through his chest.
That makes two of us. Mia thought that he might just have read her mind.
I could do the hungry growl right about now.
Well, I couldn’t — or maybe I could — but I won’t. But I want to.
Boy, do I want to!
The man’s got that… I don’t know — stick like glue — sexy as hell — animal magnetism — animal magnetism? Maybe, scrap that one!
I need a brain.
I need some willpower.
I need for him to be kissing me again.
No — definitely scrub the last one. Go back to willpower — a big dose of it.
Yeah — no! I think I’m will-powered out.
If I can’t even resist chocolate cake then how the heck am I supposed to get enough power to resist him?
What’s a girl to do?
“And what if I don’t want to be kissed?” Mia frowned so hard that two little ridges formed between her eyebrows, and Lewis found it adorable. He wanted to reach out and gently rub over those ridges with his fingertip, but he resisted that urge.
“I don’t think that’s a problem that we are going to have to face, do you?”
His words were more than a little challenging. If it had been the other way around then, Lewis might have had to react to that challenge, and maybe, if it had been anyone else issuing a challenge then Mia might have felt the need to rise to the occasion. But as it was, her body and mind were pretty much mushed out.
“You are so…” She searched her brain for the right word, but Lewis jumped in before she’d found it.
“Irresistible?”
There was a small smirk on his lips, but luckily for him, the amusement that was etched on his face and in his eyes saved his backside from getting zapped.
“Yeah — I wouldn’t go that far…”
“Moreish then?” That good humor still danced within his eyes.
“I was thinking more along the lines of up your own backside — but, whatever makes you feel better about yourself.” She gave a small shrug of her shoulders and a big triumphant grin.
“You do.”
“Do what?”
“Make me feel better about myself.” He gave a small shrug that matched hers.
“Wow, that’s a good line…”
“It’s not a line.” Lewis offered, and she didn’t just hear the sincerity in his voice, it was written all over his face.
“Maybe.”
Lewis had to wonder if he’d missed a step or two. He thought he’d been doing a good job of following the conversation along, considering that his little brain was still trying to override his big brain, but maybe not.
“Maybe what?” He hated to ask because he didn’t want her to feel that he wasn’t listening to her.
“Maybe I’ll mate with you,” she said. There was a teasing look within her eyes, and amusement, a whole big dollop of amusement, but there was so much more than that.
“There’s no maybe about it.” Lewis couldn’t contain the hungry growl that rolled through him. “I think we both know where this is going to end up, Mia.”
“Oh, we do, do we?”
“I don’t see any other way. I don’t think you could walk away from me if your life depended on it.” He teased.
Mia bit down on the amusement that rolled through her, but she couldn’t hide the smile. She took a step back from him, and he let her go. Then she turned on her heels and looked back at him over her shoulder.
“I’ll let you watch my backside as I’m walking away,” she said, and she was as good as her word as she started for the door.
There was a long, low, deep, hungry growl that followed her, and she turned her head once more to look back at him.
“Well, you did give me permission.” Lewis chuckled.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
~
Jules faced off against the annoying, frustrating beta. Her scowl alone could probably have turned him to stone if she’d put a little magic behind it, and she was tempted.
“You need to stop miffing me off!” She hissed at him.
“I know!” Daniel tossed back.
He figured that one or the other of his feet had been lodged firmly in his mouth from the moment that he’d encountered his mate. That didn’t bode well for wooing her.
Jules questioned him with just a look, and he tossed up his hands in pure frustration. He couldn’t seem to say the right thing if his life depended on it — but it wasn’t his life that depended on it — or maybe it kind of was — because if he failed to woo his mate, then there would be no life for him. No future without her.
“Then why are you trying your hardest to do it?”
“I just can’t seem to stop myself!” He rolled his eyes and tossed up his hands again.
“Maybe, you should just stop talking altogether.”
“Yeah — that sounds like a plan. But then I’d probably still find some other way to miff you off.” He looked more than a little perplexed.
Jules mulled it over for a moment or two. The man was being brutally honest, and she found that endearing.
So he couldn’t help coming out with stupid stuff — well, she’d been there herself. Maybe she could give him a little leeway. After all, it wasn’t as if this whole thing was an everyday occurrence for either of them.
Jules guessed that finding his mate had probably thrown him for just as big a loop as it had thrown her.
“Probably,” she offered, eyeing him with suspicion and wondering if he was now telling her exactly what she wanted to hear.
Daniel lifted his arms and expanded his hands as he gave a helpless shrug. Now he was taking endearing to a whole new adorable level.
“Well, say something!” She demanded.
“I thought that we just agreed it was probably best that I didn’t?” Daniel offered back.
“So, you’re taking a vow of silence for the rest of your life?” A small chuckle caught in her throat and her eyes lit up with amusement.
“Maybe just until I’ve wooed you.” He offered back with the kind of look in his eyes that a sad puppy might offer his human after he’d been admonished for pooping in her shoe.
“Seriously?” She chuckled again, but this time she tipped her head to the side like a curious beast as she stared back at him.
“Sure. What? Wait, don’t tell me you’re having another stop the pigeon moment again, right?” He grumbled.
“Actually — no.”
“Another gorilla-orangutan moment?”
“More of a Bambi…”
“Bambi! Are you kidding me?”
“Well, maybe Simba?” She said as she lifted her hand and tapped a fingertip against her lips in contemplation.
“Like when he was the king of beasts?”
“No.”
“Well, hey, why don’t you just insult me?” He tossed up his hands again to the sound of another chuckle that came from her lips.
“Okay, I’m thinking puppy…”
“I know I said insult me, but, come on.” A small growl rumbled in his chest as his wolf took offense.
“You know, if you don’t want to hear the truth, then you shouldn’t ask the question.” The smile on her lips expanded until she was beaming him really big grin.
“Bambi?” His eyebrows did the mating dance, and even that was adorable. “What is it with you and cartoon characters?”
“What can I say? I guess I’m still young at heart.”
“Can’t I just buy you a coloring book and some crayons and you can stop with the insults?”
“Yeah — it doesn’t work like that.” She shrugged.
“How convenient.” He sighed inwardly.
~
~
~
Aggie fought against the sleep that had taken her. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew that something was wrong, and that feeling set her whole body on guard to defend herself against whatever was coming.
She knew she needed to wake up, and yet she knew that pain was chasing her heels. It would be so much easier to stay asleep.
As she slipped back into the reality of the moment; pain throbbed in her head, and she pulled her magic deep within herself in the certain knowledge that she would need it. Her body tingled with the reality of the supernatural that was close by.
“And there she is — the Queen of meddlesome witches.” That voice couldn’t belong to anything other than a vampire.
Aggie knew that the game was up and that he’d sensed her waking. She forced her eyelids upwards and tried to focus through the blurry vision on her abductor.
“Well, I’m not dead so…”
“Yet. You’re not dead yet.” Cassius thought it best that he let the witch know exactly where she stood.
“Which means you want something from me,” Aggie reasoned as her eyes finally started to clear and she saw the vampire that had snatched her from the woods.
“Ever heard the saying; don’t count your chickens…?”
“I prefer the one that goes; a bird in the hand…”
“I can see how you would. In your position, I might as well.”
The man was as big as any bear shifter that she’d come across. Tall, broad, and brawny. Vampire or not, it would certainly take something special to put him down.
“Sympathising with your victim?” Aggie shot back.
“Now when have you ever known a vampire to do that?”
The smugness of his tone annoyed her. She had the urge to hit him with her magic, but with her hands tied firmly behind her back there seemed little chance to do much damage with the spells that she could create.
“Never, but you took me for a reason.”
“Maybe I just wanted to savor the moment.” His jet black eyes held no humor and his gaze was as hard as steel.
“I’m guessing, and stop me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think I am — but we’re both too old to be playing possum.”
“Agreed.”
“And as I don’t have the luxury of not aging — I’d kind of like to get to the point before senility kicks in.” Aggie sneered at him.
“Well, aren’t you just as feisty as they say?” Cassius didn’t sound impressed.
“I don’t suppose you want to tell me who they are?” She was fishing for information, trying to find a reason for her situation.
“People talk.”
“That’s so — overflowing with information,” Aggie said. “What say we just cut to the chase?”
“You stuck your nose in where it didn’t belong.”
“That doesn’t sound like me,” Aggie took a second to think about it. “No, wait — yes, it does.”
“Remember, witch, feisty only gets you so far, and then it gets you killed.”
That didn’t sound like an empty threat in her book.
“Well, I’ve had a good life,” Aggie gave a small shrug of her shoulders. “It could have been better. It could have been longer, but that’s the breaks, I guess.”
“It would have been so much easier just to have killed you where you stood,” he groaned.
“With regret comes enlightenment,” she chuckled.
Aggie had very rarely backed down from a fight, and even circumstances like the one that she was in had sparked a knee-jerk reaction within her to fight and not cower.
“Then you regret meddling in my business?” Cassius demanded.
“You know, I’d have to say — probably not. Not that I know who the hell you are, or what business of yours I appear to have meddled in, but take it from me — if I did it then I had a good reason.” Aggie shrugged again.
“Let’s see how feisty you are when I’m draining your lifeblood,” Cassius took one long step towards her.
“Now, let’s not be rash here. You took me for a reason. Are you going to spoil the surp
rise now?”
Aggie’s argument caused the vampire to stop in place. He gave a slight tilt of his head as he considered her words, and then bit down on the annoyance of the witch’s presence.
“You’re right. Of course, I could do things differently, and not have to put up with you. But still, I did have a plan,” Cassius admitted, and it was the first confirmation that she had that she was, in some way, valuable.
“A man with a plan. How could it go wrong?”
It was a rhetorical question. In Aggie’s mind, whatever could go wrong, she planned to make happen.
Now, all that she needed to do was to play along with the vampire and live long enough to see that to fruition. The only problem with that was that she’d never been good at singing someone else’s tune, and keeping her mouth shut was like trying to tell a bee not to do what bees do.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
~
Jake had managed to salvage enough of his brain to get them up off the floor in the hallway and as far as the nearest wall, but no further. He was kissing his mate as if his life depended on it.
He couldn’t get enough of her. Her scent, her touch, her kisses, and he just couldn’t seem to get close enough.
He loved that she was kissing him back, but he wanted so much more than that. He desperately needed to be buried deep within her.
His beast was clawing just beneath the surface of his skin. It was taking every ounce of willpower that he had not to allow the beast to get a foothold and push forward.
Mine…
Man and beast were in unison about bonding with her. But Jake would be damned if he didn’t show her the respect that she was due and tried to mate with her in a damn hallway.
‘Aggie’s been taken. There’s a vampire on pack land.’ Nestor’s call to the pack echoed within his mind.
Jake’s beast had something else to think about other than claiming his mate. He found the willpower to pull back from her on a growl of frustrated annoyance that was mixed with the anger for the elder’s words.
“That was…” Debbie’s brain couldn’t quite compute what was happening, but when she managed to focus on Jake’s face, her mind sobered to the point of panic.