by M. L. Briers
“Okay, Christmas cheerleader girl, crawl back into your happy place and ignore the fact that we are in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of a blizzard, and being pushed uphill by — who knows who,” Eliza offered back, raising the shrill-like quality to her voice just enough to make the others grimace.
“Maybe it’s the abominable snowman,” Nancy sneered.
“Maybe he wants to make snow-babies with you,” Eliza tossed back with equal amounts of sneering.
“The point is we’re going forward, not backward – it’s an improvement on Ashley’s driving,” Nancy snapped.
CHAPTER THREE
~
“Hey! Leave my driving out of this,” Ashley huffed. “I got us this far, didn’t I?”
“You mean the rolling backward down the hill part?” Nancy shrugged. “Sure. I was really enjoying the rush from that one.”
“Maybe one of you would like to drive next,” she offered back.
“You mean if we’re not pushed over a cliff to our premature deaths?” Nancy asked.
“Maybe you should hit the brake,” Eliza said, sounding nervous.
“Why? So that us and the truck can start rolling backward down the hill?” Ashley looked at her as if she’d grown another head.
“Okay, there is that,” Eliza grimaced.
“Can we just say that we’ve been rescued by a nice, friendly, type of the guy, and leave it at that?” Ashley offered.
“Sure, I like fairytales as much as the next girl,” she shrugged.
“Trying to concentrate here,” Ashley snapped back.
“It’s not as if you’re driving — you’re just kind of, not-steering,” Nancy offered back.
“Could you zap her for me, because she’s annoying me now?” Ashley groaned.
“Your wish is…”
“Not happening,” Nancy offered her friend a warning and Eliza didn’t carry through on her plan.
“I think the mountain’s leveling off,” Ashley said with a big dollop of hope in her voice.
“I hope that doesn’t mean we’re going down the other side,” Nancy grumbled as she grabbed hold of both back seats and grimaced at the thought.
“Hit the brake! Hit the brake!” Eliza shrieked her demands.
“Which one is the brake again?” Ashley tossed her a smug look as they ground to a halt.
“I hate you!” Eliza hissed back.
“You hate me so much that you wanted to take me to Bermuda with you,” Ashley chuckled.
“Oh, Bermuda,” Eliza sighed at the thought.
“Look on the bright side…” Nancy started and then fell silent.
“Go on?” Eliza urged.
“Nah, forget it — there is no bright side,” Nancy chuckled.
“I hate you as well,” Eliza bit out to the sound of her so-called friends chuckling.
“Okay, maybe you’ll find a really big, sexy, mountain man to spend the cold, snowy, night with…” Ashley offered.
“The abdominal snowman finds love on the snowy mountain,” Nancy giggled, but the witches shrieked at the unexpected sound of a hard wrap of knuckles against the driver’s window.
“I guess someone feels chatty,” Eliza bit out before she started to chew her inner cheek, nervous after Nancy’s teasing.
“Or maybe this is where he chops us up with an ax and tosses us off the mountain,” Nancy said, and as Eliza tossed a death glare back over her shoulder, her friend offered a wide beaming grin back in return.
“Think happy thoughts!” Ashley offered as she cracked the window open just a touch and the icy air blasted in.
“I was sent to meet you at the Inn, but they said you’d already left.” The deep tones rattled the windows and filled the inside of the car with bass. “It beggars belief that you’ve decided to use the death slide road instead of the cut through — but I’m just glad I managed to find you.”
“Does anybody else want to go back to the inn and killed the receptionist?” Nancy grumbled.
“You’ll need to leave your car here, grab your staff, and come with me,” he informed them.
“Does anybody else feel like staying in the car?” Eliza muttered.
“That car’s not going to handle these mountain roads in the snow,” he informed them.
“We’ll be right there,” Ashley said as she rolled up the window and turned towards the others. “We don’t have much choice — think of our special gifts — we’ll be fine.” She assured them.
“If his voice is anything to go by that guy is huge, like barn-sized,” Eliza said.
“The bigger they are…” Ashley started, but Nancy finished it off.
“The harder you zap them.”
“Exactly!” Ashley nodded in agreement.
~
~
~
Drake hadn’t been too pleased to be sent on a wild goose chase down the mountain only to find that the women had already left. But it was what it was, and now that he’d found them, all he needed to do was deliver them to the cabin, and go back to watching his sports.
That was easier said than done. When the three women exited their car, and with small shrieks and squeals against the weather, yanked their suitcases out the boot, he could feel the magic in the air.
Drake resisted the urge to sniff. His beast was willing, but he knew better. You didn’t sniff a witch.
‘Brother, we have a problem.’ He used the mental link between the pack members to warn the alpha of impending doom, and in his mind; witches were always impending doom.
‘Did you lose them?’ The alpha asked.
‘I wish.’
‘You have them?’
‘I do. But I don’t want them.’
‘Well, isn’t it lucky that you don’t have to keep them? Take them to the cabin and stop pouting.’
‘Well okay, but on your head be it.’
‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’
‘They’ll be cooking up toads and puppy dog tails in no time…’
‘Witches!’
‘Bingo!’
Drake waited while his brother grumbled and growled. He eyed the three witches as they dragged their suitcases through the snow toward the back of his truck. The dippy trio weren’t even dressed for the bad weather.
He felt kind of guilty at not helping, but he was still waiting for his brother to make up his mind what to do next.
Could he really leave them out in the snow?
‘I can leave them here,’ he grimaced at the thought.
Drake guessed that if his brother denied them entry to pack land, then he could, maybe, sneak them into his cabin and leave them there alone.
It wasn’t that he wanted to go against whatever his alpha decided, and perhaps he shouldn’t have told his brother that they were witches before they were inside the guest cabin — but he didn’t really think that he could leave them out on the mountain in a middle of a blizzard.
‘Take them to the cabin — everyone needs to give the place a wide berth,’ the alpha growled.
Drake breathed a sigh of relief at the alpha’s decision. His brother was normally a hardass — but where females were concerned, even he had a soft spot for a damsel in distress.
Even if they were witches.
“You know what, muscles?” Nancy eyed the large looming figure of the mountain man that she couldn’t quite make out through the snow. “Don’t trouble yourself — we’ve got it.”
“Leave him alone,” Eliza huffed. “He’s probably had a hard day cutting down… Christmas trees,” she whispered the last part as she drew alongside Nancy at the back of the truck and readied herself to lift her suitcase into the back.
“Can you feel…?” Ashley started to reach out with her magic, but the sound of Eliza’s hearty shriek when Drake swept her suitcase out of her hand and tossed it into the back of the truck gave her pause for thought.
“That’s…” Eliza was cut short by Nancy’s aggravated tone.
“Oh no, yo
u don’t!” Nancy was holding onto her suitcase with both hands while Drake was trying to yank it away from her so that he could throw it in the back of the truck with the other one. “Let go!”
“What are you…?” Eliza shook her head in dismay at her friend.
“Shifter!” Ashley shrieked out as the supernatural ping that she’d sent out hit her shields.
Everyone suddenly stopped what they were doing and froze in place. Even Drake froze.
CHAPTER FOUR
~
“Where?” Eliza demanded.
“There!” Ashley lifted her hand and pointed at Drake.
“Mine!” Nancy shrieked out as she zapped the shifter so hard that he let go of the suitcase just as she was yanking it back toward her. Nancy went flying backward in the snow, and she ended up on her backside, with the suitcase on top of her, and her legs in the air.
“Run!” Eliza shrieked out as turned away.
Ashley reached for her to pull her back, but her fingers slipped off the wet material of her light jacket. Rather than watch her friend run into a blizzard; Ashley had no choice but to use her magic to take her feet out from under her.
Eliza shrieked again as she went down face first into a snow drift.
“Whoops!” Ashley grimaced.
Eliza palmed the snow and pushed her upper body out of her impromptu facemask. She sputtered and tried shaking off the excess snow, as she turned a death glare up to Ashley.
“What did you do that for?” Eliza bit out, but the sound of the shifter’s deep chuckles annoyed her even more than her friend’s hasty decision.
“Run? Seriously? It’s a blizzard!” Ashley tossed up her hands in dismay. Her friends were insane.
“You’re the one that shrieked shifter!” Eliza tossed back at her.
“I didn’t know it would start silly season among my friends,” Ashley tossed back.
“Now, that’s funny!” Drake chuckled long and hard at the two witches on the ground.
“I have no qualms about zapping you,” Ashley warned him.
“I have no qualms about leaving you three in the middle of a blizzard,” he lied.
“Sounds about right for a shifter,” Nancy grumbled as she tossed the suitcase from her body and sat up.
“I’d say; let me help you, but you know?” Drake chuckled as he folded his arms across his broad chest and made his silhouette even wider.
“I’d say’ bite me, but, you know?” Nancy hissed back like a rattlesnake that was ready to strike out at him.
“I’d say; be careful what you wish for, but…”
“Oh, I’d say; can we just grow up, but, you know?” Ashley groaned. “It’s snowing — not just any kind of snowing — we’re standing here arguing in a bloody blizzard.”
“You were the one that screamed shifter!” Eliza grumbled as she picked herself up and dusted herself down as best she could, but the snow still clung to her clothes.
“My bad!” Ashley tossed up her hands in frustration. “Can we just get out of here?”
“I’m game if you are,” Drake said.
“You might want to rephrase that,” Nancy bit out as she picked herself up from the ground and dusted herself down.
Drake started towards her. He noted the way that she straightened and paid total attention to him as he got closer. The untrusting little witch that she was.
He thought it would be fun to offer her a little growl, and he could see her top lip twitch just fine, even through the veil of snow.
“What?” Nancy asked.
She would have taken a step back, but she knew better than to show weakness to a shifter. She held in place, even tipped her chin up in defiance a little.
“Relax — you’re not my type. I’m here for your suitcase,” Drake growled. It wasn’t like he was the big, bad wolf or anything, but he guessed that she didn’t know that so he gave her a pass, but she wouldn’t get many more from him.
“I’ve got it,” Nancy said, and immediately dipped at the waist.
Her head-butted Drake’s as he did the same, but despite the moment’s pain, she grumbled and muttered curse words, but her fingers still wrapped around the handle just as he tried snatching it away.
Drake had both hands on the body of the case, and he yanked her forward toward him. She was grateful that the suitcase was separating them because she didn’t want to get too close.
Nancy got her first real look at the man. Under his hood, she could see the mop of unruly strawberry blonde hair sticking out in every direction. Unkept, she thought, it was not a surprise to her.
The man had at least a few days stubble that clung to his jaw and stretched up his cheeks to his hairline. His eyes looked dark — but that might just have been the lack of light around them.
She felt a spark of something ignite within her — the man was as sexy as hell — and so she made a concerted effort to jump up and down and stomp all over that spark.
Shifters and witches didn’t mix — shouldn’t mix — only when they were mates, and if she was ever a mate to a shifter, well, she thought she just check herself into a facility where they still performed lobotomies.
“I’ve got it!” Nancy bit out in a low hiss that should have warned him to let go.
“Me too,” he growled back, not wanting to back down in the face of such stupidity.
The beta couldn’t understand her problem. Aside from the fact that she was a witch, he was only doing what any man would do and toss the bag onto the back of the truck for her.
Drake thought she was taking feminism to a bit of an extreme. Hell, if a hulk of a guy wanted to offer him a hand with something heavy then he wasn’t going to say no, or maybe he would, but he was a beta.
“Let go!” Her eyebrows drew down and almost pinched together as she scowled at him. He mirrored that look.
“Just give me the damn case,” he growled back.
“Didn’t we just do this?” Eliza asked as she started to jump and down on the spot. She was freezing, and in her book, Nancy was being unreasonable.
“And it worked out so well for her the last time,” Drake growled, but she did note the way that the corners of his lips turned up with a smug smile.
“I seem to remember somebody getting zapped,” Nancy tossed back at him, as she twisted her head on her neck and lifted her chin slightly in triumph, but more so in defiance.
“I seem to remember somebody ending up on their backside,” Ashley warned her.
“Exactly!” Drake said with a certain amount of amusement that annoyed Nancy even more.
“I can do it myself,” Nancy gave a small yank on the suitcase, but he didn’t let go.
“What are the odds?” He tossed back at her, yanking the case slightly toward him and noting the way that her feet slid on the snow. She wasn’t even wearing proper boots, how stupid were witches?
“Bloomin’ well let go and we’ll find out,” Nancy grumbled back, as she yanked at the case again.
“Fine,” Drake let go of the case, and she stumbled a few steps back. She was still on her feet and proud of it.
“Dweeb,” Nancy said as she dragged her case toward the back of his truck.
Then she planted her feet in the snow, swung her case back through the air, and launched it forward toward the truck. The suitcase flew through the air as intended, and she shrieked as her feet skidded against the snow, going in two different directions, and she ended up on her backside once more.
To add insult to injury — and she was sure to be bruised on more than just her pride — the beta tossed his head back on his neck and roared with laughter.
“I hate shifters,” Nancy muttered as she tried to pull herself to her feet once more, but she’d made a nice icy patch.
She had no choice but to turn onto her hands and knees on the ground, and she offered the chuckling shifter a death glare to rival any that she had given before.
“It’s like that you went out of your way to prove my point,” Drake chuckled, but h
e bit that chuckle off when something big and hard smacked him on the back of the head and disintegrated around his shoulders.
Drake growled at the feel of the snow that melted against his warm skin around the collar. He turned a steely eye toward the direction of the assault — there she was, one of the other witches standing there as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. The fact that the witch couldn’t look at him told him everything he needed to know.
CHAPTER FIVE
~
“I like that you use your big, thick head for stopping snowballs,” Nancy offered back as she scrambled to her feet. Her tone was dripping with sarcasm and he didn’t appreciate it.
“Get in the damn truck, or I’m leaving you here,” he growled.
“How like a shifter to not be able to take a joke,” Nancy offered back. Her pride still hurt as much as her backside.
“How like a witch to not follow orders,” he grumbled back.
“Orders?” Nancy tipped her head to the side and snorted her contempt for him.
“We don’t do orders,” Eliza added her two cents.
“We are witches,” Ashley said as if that was a given and shrugged her shoulders.
“And that’s what I said.” He stalked towards Ashley, and as she readjusted her stance against the snow in preparation for anything that he might decide to throw at her.
The big beta eyed her with suspicion and slowly reached down for her suitcase. He didn’t want to get zapped again for no good reason. His beast was already on edge.
Drake snatched up the case, turned, took a few long strides toward his truck and tossed it into the back. Job done. Unlike the other witch, that one was smarter; she didn’t have a bee in her witchy bonnet about letting him help her.
“Get in,” he demanded, but he didn’t wait for them to comply. Instead, he climbed into the truck, slammed his door closed, and started the engine. He was going with or without them – maybe.
All three witches looked at each other to see what the other thought they should do next.