by M. L. Briers
“Dream on, Vamp.”She hissed out. Turning on her heels and slamming her shoulder into his as she sped out the door.
“Oh you can be assured that I will be dreaming of you…”He called after her, although quietly in human terms.
“Damn it to hell, now what?”Rudd growled out, still with a lot more of his damned wolf in his voice than he would have liked.
“So you spilt your hot coffee down yourself, so what?”Link waved it away, dismissing this as some kind of tragedy and embracing the years of lying that he had come to rely on to get him out of some tight spots.
A light bulb almost clicked on over Rudd’s head and his eyes lit up with glee at the vampire’s quick thinking.
“Somebody grab me some damn clothes I have a mate to woo.”He growled out expectantly.
Macy stood in the kitchen and looked down at the stool that was still lying on the floor like a wounded soldier. She actually sympathised with that damn stool, because she felt as if someone had run right over the top of her like a steamroller, leaving her flat as a pancake against the tarmac ready for one of those cartoon characters to come along, roll her into a rug and carry her off under their arm.
She wouldn’t mind a little carrying off from the big guy, she thought on a wicked smile, and then palmed her hand against her forehead in a slap that sounded louder than it stung her in the silence of the kitchen.
At best the guy was an exhibitionist, at worst he was a raving lunatic that threw off his clothes and had orgies with like minded people… She could imagine Link being up for that sort of thing, the man couldn’t keep it in his pants if someone was to super glue it there…
Firstly, she reminded herself on a little wake up recap of the events as she saw them, the man growled, that had to be a wakeup call to sanity within itself, didn’t it? Secondly, she continued with her list on pros and cons, which were really just cons, the man was stripped naked and ready for action in a room full of people… Hello? Thirdly, she reasoned, the size of that man’s penis was against nature… well, not if he was a horse, but he wasn’t a damn horse, he was a man, a big man, a big, big man, in more ways than one, and how the hell would he even get that thing inside a woman…?
Ok, that was an unreasonable assumption… the man couldn’t have gone through life without having sex, he was just too… Macy sighed. This wasn’t a conversation she should be having with herself. Hell, it certainly wasn’t a conversation she wanted to be having with anyone else, and yet, it seemed that his penis was all she could really focus on.
Yes, he was large, she told herself, but then again, he wasn’t disproportionally large for his frame, after all, it wasn’t swinging around his ankles or anything… She grunted her amusement as the image hit her mind… it wasn’t even down to his knees, well actually it had been pointed upwards, so that would be up to his chin…
Oh God, that would just be so wrong! She pulled back from that image in horror. That really would be tickling her tonsils… well, not hers, because she had no intention of being anywhere near him… not with his life choices, orgies? Really?
What was it her grandmother used to say? If one man wasn’t enough then ten wouldn’t be too many. Yep, that was an orgy, and even though there weren’t ten men in that room, there were three… Hmm, three of Rudd…? Damn she snapped out inside her mind, one of Rudd would be more than enough, would be… a very, very tight fit.
How could she not wonder what that would feel like, she reasoned as she reached down and yanked the stool back up onto its feet, just as her eyes came up and found Rudd standing there, dressed, thank God, or maybe not, she was undecided on that point as she eyed him suspiciously. If he was going to issue her with an invite, then he could go and shove his head right up his own ar…
“Have fun?”He raised one dark eyebrow and gave her a look of disapproval and she felt the heat rise in her cheeks.
“If that’s your idea of fun…”He tossed back at her and saw her balk at it. Her eyes widened in horror.
“M-my idea of fun?”She stammered, spitting out the words and feeling the urge to make him eat the damn stool.
“Well what am I supposed to think? You’re mind is obviously residing somewhere in the gutter…”He let her have it, with both barrels, it was the only way to salvage his reputation with her, or that was the plan.
“Gutter?”She squealed out. Affronted on so many levels that she didn’t think she’d be able to count them all. Who the hell did this guy think he was? Flaunting his hard, muscled body and generous helping of what God, Buddha, or any other deity had bestowed on him to the world… or three occupants of it at least, four if she was counted, although she hadn’t been invited, but then he never tried to cover his assets, she sneered to herself, nodding knowingly in her mind.
About to engage in some wild action, of three men and a lady, although the word lady could be argued in such circumstances, she thought, even though Jack seemed like a very… nice… sociopath…
She clenched every muscle in her body in annoyance as she glared back at him in disbelief, because here he was accusing her of being a guttersnipe, and yet he was a practicing one! Ha!
“Well, how else would you describe somebody who walked into a perfectly harmless scenario and assumed the worst…?”He demanded, looking affronted and wounded at the same time, and her head spun.
What the fuc…? Ping-ponged against the walls of her brain, back and forth, back and forth…
“Perfectly harmless scenario… Are you kidding me?”She sneered, placing her hands on her hips and giving him the look that was somewhere between, ‘oh-please and give it your best shot’.
“Do you know how much hot coffee against skin burns?”He demanded, taking one long step towards her as if that step was challenging her for an answer right in that minute, but he continued anyway. “Was I supposed to rip my clothes off in front of a guest in my kitchen?”He demanded, his brow drawing down lower over his eyes as he stepped towards her.
Rudd watched her face lose some of its pallor and grinned inwardly as her hands dropped from her hips, her challenge all but over as his words sunk into her mind.
“I know you enjoyed the show, taking in my nakedness…” He accused on a deep, dark, velvety tone that set the hairs on her body on end and the guilt rising inside of her. “But my friends, who you accused of planning debauchery, rushed to help me, unconcerned that I was naked, not noticing…”
Damn, she felt like a heel. What was she thinking? How had she rushed to judgement and got it so badly wrong? Oh my God, but she was a horrible person… She berated herself…
“I’m so sorry.”She rushed out. Horrified with herself for thinking the worst, and not just of him, but of everyone…
“No, I’m sorry that I’ve obviously made that kind of impression on you that you would think the worst of me…”He knew he was laying it on thick now, but in for a penny…
“No, you didn’t, you haven’t.”She rushed to his defence. Obviously it wasn’t him, it was her, she thought, he was right, her mind was in the gutter and she should be thoroughly ashamed of herself.
“Can we start again? You seem to have this impression of me, and that’s not who I am.”He grinned inwardly. “If you got to know me a little better, you’d see that I’m really not like you imagine me at all.”He played it downcast, hoping for the sympathy vote. Keeping her close would ensure his endeavours to woo her, and if his wolf stayed out of the damn picture…?
“Yes.”She nodded emphatically, only too willing to make up for her mistakes. First she had sprayed the poor guy with pepper spray, and then she’d accosted him with her eyes like he was a piece of meat, and to top it all off she’d accused him of… Oh Lord, was she having a bad day. Not even a whole day, it had been only a few hours since she’d met the man. What must he think of her?
“Great.” Was it too soon to say ‘let me show you to your bedroom?’ He wondered, and dutifully dismissed that idea.
“Look I…”She started and he placed a
hand up between them to silence her.
“Nope. We’re starting again. Fresh start from this moment on.”He assured her and she seemed to relax a little under his scrutiny. Rudd wanted to pat himself on the back, and the vampire for giving him the idea. Although he’d been the one to put it into words that had stopped her questioning his nakedness and proximity to others, gotten her to think kindly of him, and made her relax a little more in his company and give him another chance to woo his mate.
Maybe slapping himself on the back wasn’t such a good idea. He didn’t need her to think he was insane. Not after everything else that had happened. Still it didn’t stop him from breathing a sigh of relief that they wouldn’t have to get to the explanations of what he was just yet…
Jack grinned to herself as she turned away from listening to her Alpha’s triumphant comeback with his mate. There was hope for him yet, but not for the human, she was a goner to the mating pull that would see her never leaving pack land to live anywhere else again. She was one of them now and Jack would protect her with her own life.
Now all she had to do was kill her own mate and things would be ok… She turned right into his smug little face as he suddenly appeared in front of her. She knew he hadn’t been standing close, she would have scented him, and she would have sensed him there. But she still wanted to kick herself for not expecting his arrival.
“Miss me?”He teased on a grin that revealed a little more fang than she would have liked.
Jack repelled the urge to roar as her beast and allow her fangs and claws to drop. One for fear she would upset the human, and two because she knew she would probably use them on him right there inside the house, and how the hell would she explain that kind of mess to the human should she see it?
“Look, corpse. Fate might have deemed to put us together, but that was before life happened, and now I have no time and certainly no love to give to someone like you. So back off, because you’re never going to get what you want from me.” Jack didn’t wait for a reply. She used her full weight and shoulder to batter past him. Disappearing out of the front door faster than he anticipated her to move, and he made it to the door in time to see her shed shreds of her clothing from her wolf form as she sprinted on four paws into the darkness.
“That went well.”He mused, biting back the annoyance that rolled through him. His gut twisted in the knowledge that his mate was denying him, and he needed to know why. Lycan females very rarely shied away from the mating process, even with vampires, so there had to be a damn good reason, even if she just valued her boyish status.
“I could say it’s not you it’s her.”Rick offered. He watched the tension slip into the vampire’s body as the man steeled himself to turn around. The guy was already tense, it gave a new meaning to the word stiff. “But in a way it’s both.”Rick admitted and watched as Link took a deep breath that he didn’t need into his lungs and sighed it back out again.
With a nod of his head, Link indicated that he was ready to listen and he cocked an eyebrow as Rick motioned for them to go into the living room.
“Let’s do this over a drink.”Rick offered and from the look on his face, Link got the distinct impression that he was going to need one.
“Or three.”Link agreed as he started off, dreading the worst and not even hoping for a silver lining in this tale. The only thing in his favour was Fate. Fate had deemed them mates and he had waited a long time for his mate to come along, surely the mating pull on her mind and body wouldn’t allow her to deny him forever, but did he really want a mate that couldn’t stomach vampires and was only drawn to him because of the pull?
Link dropped down into the oversized chair and let the cushions envelop him in their warmth. He needed some kind of comfort right now. He was losing his best friend to the Alpha and his mate was denying his existence, or worse, plotting his immediate death…
Rick had poured them both a stiff drink and turned towards him, offering the fiery beverage as a sort of consolation prize for the bad news he was about to heap on him.
“Let’s get this over with. Just rip the plaster right off the festering wound. I’m vampire enough to take it.”The sarcasm dripped from his tongue, but he wasn’t feeling so cock sure of himself right now. And for him, that had to be a first, but then having your own mate, the one who had been made just for you, deny you, was bound to dent anyone’s armour.
“Jack’s sister was killed by a vampire…”Rick announced, and for a long moment a strange kind of relief washed over Link. It was bad, but not that bad that it couldn’t be overcome if he…
“There’s more, right?”Link could see it in his eyes and that moment’s relief was swept away.
“Right. Her brother and two uncles went out after the vampire, revenge, you understand.”Rick offered and Link nodded, he wasn’t going to argue the vampires side of things.
“Let me guess…”Link offered and Rick nodded his head solemnly.
“Yep, the bastard got all three of them.”Rick tipped the glass to his lips and swallowed down the whole drink as if it were a mere shot, it wasn’t, and that sight didn’t fill Link with much hope that the story had ended or that it got any better.
“Next.”Link bit out.
CHAPTER SIX
“So the vampire decided to head off any future retaliation by either Jack’s family or the pack…”Link tipped his glass back and swallowed down every last drop in his glass. He considered licking the damn thing as well, but decided against it. “Wiped out every last one of them. It was a small pack, not more than twenty four…”
“For Christ sake…”Link tossed his glass over his shoulder and the dull thud as it hit the carpet never bothered him as he stretched out and snagged the whole damn bottle from the side.
“Jack survived because she was visiting another pack in another town…”Link shook his head in dismay and put the bottle to his lips, swigging greedily as he tried not to listen to the rest. “But when she came back and found her pack, she went almost rogue. Hunted down and slaughtered, and I mean slaughtered that damned vampire…”Rick bit out on a snort of disbelief mixed with respect for her actions. He suddenly stopped and regarded the vampire, still chugging down the booze.
“No offence.”He offered and Link waved his hand to dismiss it, not even bothering to stop drinking. “She was taken in by another pack, given a home and a chance to become part of a pack again.”He raised his eyebrows and sighed deeply. “It was touch and go if she would become rogue at that point.”
Rick clapped his hands together and the subsequent boom made Link relinquish the bottle and return what was left of it to an upright position on his knee, as he stared at the Beta expectantly.
“Good news, she didn’t go rogue. Bad news she hates you with a vengeance because you’re a vamp.”Rick had given it to him just as he asked, fast and to the point, but it didn’t make him feel any better for it. The booze however, kind of dulled the pain of both knowing that one of his had slaughtered her pack, and that his mate wasn’t likely to ever see him as anything more than the object of her hate.
“Great. Thanks for the clarity. Perhaps I should just cut my own head off and save her the trouble.”Link burped loud and uncaring.
Rick shook his head and held up just one finger of hope; although Link was probably past all hope at that stage, he still paid attention.
“Thing about Jack, she’s a pretty fair and open minded person, not that you’d get that right now. We’ve got a pretty big screw up around here, but she’s taken him under her wing and has given him another chance to prove himself.”Rick waited for Link to respond, when he said nothing he prompted him. “Get my point?”
“No.”Link answered dryly and Rick rolled his eyes, snatching the bottle from the vampires hand and slamming it down onto the side.
“Prove yourself to the female.”Rick growled out.
“You want I should go hunt down a few vampires and bring back their heads like an offering, I can do that.”Link shrugged, uncaring.
>
“Not what I had in mind, but if the need takes you, be my guest.”Rick readily agreed and Link sighed in annoyance.
“Then how can I prove myself to my vampire hating mate? I can’t exactly turn into a human again, or become Lycan…”
“But you can fight beside her. And I know Jack, she’s going to want revenge on that Werewolf that decided to try to gut her…”Rick offered and in an instant Link was up out of his chair.
“You think she’s out there now hunting him?”Link demanded. The need to protect his mate was overriding his rationality as he headed for the door with Rick hot on his heels.
“Don’t kill the damn Were, she’ll never forgive you, give her the kill…”He shouted as loud as he dare, mindful that there was a human in the house.
Macy sat at the kitchen table in disbelief. He’d asked her if she was hungry and she had made the mistake of saying yes. And it was a big mistake, she thought as he continued to bring out plate after plate of cut meats from the refrigerator, to add to the bowls and pallets of other goodies that he’d put out in front of her until the table was full to overflowing with an array of food that she didn’t think all of them together would be able to sample, let alone finish off.
“You guys must throw away a lot of food.”She mused, kind of shocked that anybody would store this much in their house in one go.
Rudd’s hand stopped just before he reached for another plate of cut chicken and winced at his mistake, his mouth moved in a silent curse as he remembered that he wasn’t making an offering to a Lycan female, but a human one. There was no way that Macy would appreciate the gesture of such a thing as a Lycan would, let alone be able to eat the way a Lycan could.
“Not really, we have a rather large community here and neighbours are always popping by for a snack or dinner…”
“How are you guys not the size of a barn?”She mused again as her eyes swept over the plates. Too many choices, how was she ever to choose something out of so many wonderful looking and smelling temptations, and she couldn’t even sample a little piece of everything, it would still take her until morning to chug that lot down.