by M. L. Briers
“Well, he needs to put me down.”
“Well, she needs to behave like a normal person,” Jeff growled.
“Define normal,” The vampire and Nancy said in unison.
“Exactly!” Nancy spat out a chuckle of disbelief that her mate couldn’t understand that.
“Not … you,” Jeff grumbled back.
“Oh, that’s … hmm … helpful.” Arthur snorted a chuckle.
“She wants to go out in a damn blizzard!” Jeff growled at the thought of it, at the vampire for just being there, and at his mate’s stupidity as his wolf growled at him.
“Well, that’s dumb,” Arthur tossed back.
“Exactly, thank you,” Jeff grumbled another growl.
“The vampire’s stirring the pot,” the alpha announced as he strolled on by them.
“Well, why don’t you just go tell everybody and limit my fun!” Arthur tossed up his hands, and when the beta dropped his chin to his chest and eyed him from beneath a dark scowl, Arthur sighed and walked away.
“Damn … vampire,” Jeff grumbled.
“Hey, genius.” Nancy zapped his backside just in case she hadn’t fully gained his attention. He jumped in place and groaned. “Put me the hell down now!”
“Not just yet,” Jeff muttered as he started up the hallway again, still carrying her over his shoulder, and even more determined to figure out what – it – was.
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~
“Oh look,” Eliza chuckled as she whipped out the fake sprig of mistletoe and waved it in her mate’s face. Drake pulled back in horror at the toxic plant in his mate’s clutches.
There were easier ways to kill him, and some were a lot more humane in his reckoning.
“Are you insane?” He took a few steps back away from her as his wolf growled a warning to him like he didn’t already know.
“It’s not poisonous; it’s plastic.” She chuckled.
“Oh … but still,” Drake grumbled, feeling more than stupid.
He hadn’t even dared sniff the toxic offering, but now that his heart had stopped racing, and his hands were only slightly clammy, he could see it wasn’t real.
“Mistletoe and shifters,” she grimaced. “What a way to go.”
“Are you threatening me?” Drake offered her a suspicious look.
“What?” She scrunched up her face at him. “Seriously? Talk about paranoid.” She bit out.
“I’m not para … yeah, maybe a little, but you are…”
“What?” she snapped, narrowing her eyes on him, and he reconsidered his words. “Go on, say it – Mr. Paranoid.”
“Fine. You are a witch.”
“And you’re a butthead, your point?” She grumbled.
“You can be devious, mischievous, downright mean…”
“Oh really?” Her eyes flashed with annoyance. “And to think I was the witch that voted to stay. What a muppet…” she muttered and grumbled a few choice words under her breath, but a heartbeat later, she squealed in surprise as he locked a hand around her arm and spun her towards him.
“You what?” he demanded.
“You heard me, you big oaf! One voted to leave, one voted to kill, and I voted to…”
“Stay…”
“Yes…”
“With me?”
“Well, der.”
“As my mate?”
“No, chief cook and bottle washer, as my old Gran would say…”
“Why?” Drake couldn’t quite grasp what she was telling him.
Sure, he liked what he was hearing, but could she just be setting him up for a fall?
Was this some devious ploy?
Was she going to stick him with the evil eye when his back was turned? Or maybe some mistletoe.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
~
“I truly have no damn clue,” Eliza said and topped it off with a small sigh and a little shake of her head.
“You really want me as a mate?” Drake asked, his voice was dripping with disbelief.
“Not right now, I don’t,” she said, her voice cracking slightly as disbelief hit her just as hard.
“My mate?”
“Deeeerrrr,” she offered back.
“It’s just…” Drake didn’t know what it was. Unbelievable wasn’t a strong enough word.
“Did I run?” she asked.
“Yeeesss,” he offered back slowly, and she tossed up a hand and shook her head.
“No, like… really run?” Eliza said.
“You were too drunk and wearing high heels in the snow…”
“Okay, that’s all true.” She dismissed that with another wave of her hand in front of his face that almost caught his nose. “But … oh! Didn’t I say I didn’t know why I was running?”
“Yes, you did…”
“See…”
“But you were drunk…”
“Boy, do you have a problem with alcohol?”
“I wouldn’t say that it was me that had the problem,” Drake snorted a chuckle.
“Well, if my alcohol intake is such a problem to you, then you wouldn’t want me as your mate, would you?” Eliza went to pull away, but Drake was about to let her go.
“Now, let’s not be rash,” Drake offered back.
“Oh, rash, is it?” Eliza snorted her contempt for him.
“You said you voted to stay…”
“I changed my mind.” She looked anywhere but at him.
“You can’t change your mind,” he offered back with a frown.
“Oh, can’t I?” She lifted her chin in defiance. “A girl can always change her mind.”
“You’re not a girl.”
“Seriously? Were you born with your bloody paw in your mouth?” Eliza hissed up at him.
“I’d say two paws,” Arthur said as he strolled by the doorway and snorted a chuckle at the beta.
“Two paws in his big mouth and a stick up his butt; if his irrational dislike of alcohol is anything to go by.”
Drake brought his lips down on hers. He was digging himself into a hole that he didn’t think he’d be able to get out of. He needed a little time; a moment’s thought to find some clarity.
Kissing her seemed the only option to get that moment of clarity. Of course, it didn’t work.
Not only did his beast rise up within him at the prospect of claiming their mate — but, his little brain took over from his big brain, and there was little chance of clarity after that.
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~
“Oh, for the love of the Goddess, will you just put me down?” Nancy demanded. She’d given up trying to push upward from his back; it was too much like exercise for her liking. He seemed to be taking his own sweet time in getting wherever they were going. “Or are you still trying to work out what it is?”
“I don’t appreciate your tone of voice,” Jeff tossed back over his shoulder.
He still didn’t know what it was — so he was biding his time and deflecting her question as best he could.
“I don’t appreciate being carried like a shoulder bag,” she snapped back in annoyance.
“Pretty damn heavy to be a shoulder bag,” he muttered as he strolled through the doorway into his bedroom.
Jeff heard the hard breath that she pulled in, he felt her weight shift on his shoulder, and then his whole body was being yanked backward. He lost his footing on the floor and scrambled to stay upright.
Nancy had something if a death grip going on with the door frame, and was holding on with everything that she had. She could feel the hard pull on her body as he’d carried on walking, but above all else, she was determined to hold on.
The loud squeal that came from his mate’s lips almost deafened him as he fell backward to the floor. He landed flat on his back, and his mate slammed down on top of him a heartbeat later.
Jeff grumbled a growl of annoyance, only made worse by the fact that her pointy little elbow slammed down between his ribs as she tried to scampe
r up. He wasn’t having any of that — she’d bought this on herself — and he locked on around her body and kept her in place.
Nancy flicked her head back on her neck and glared at her mate. There were a few choice words that she grumbled in the back of her throat as she braced her hands, one against the floor and one against his chest, and tried to push up.
The trouble was that it wasn’t working for her.
“So, as good ideas go — that really wasn’t one of them, was it?” Jeff growled.
“It put you on your backside, didn’t it?” Nancy grumbled back.
He was right, it had been a bad idea because now her body was pressed against his, and she could feel those damn tingles again. Not to mention other things, like his hard muscles, his hard…
There was a small element of satisfaction in knocking him on his butt, but that wouldn’t last long if she couldn’t make her escape. But, on the plus side, now that they were alone, she had him right where she wanted him, and she could unleash her dastardly plan to kill him if she needed to.
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~
Ashley had come to the sudden realization that she’d been put in his bedroom as if she was a naughty child. Up to that point she’d been enjoying the solitude, and nosing around his possessions, as you did when left unattended, but when realization had hit her; it hit her like a slap around the back of her head.
“Un-bloody-believable!” she muttered as she headed to the door and yanked it open, seething inside.
There he stood; leaning one shoulder against the door frame. His arms were folded over his broad muscled chest, his chin was tipped down, and he looked at her from beneath his dark brows.
Damn, but he looked as sexy as hell, even with, or maybe because, he had a teasing smile on his lips and laughter in his eyes.
“It took you longer than I thought…”
“To realize you are a jerk?” She snapped back.
“But, I guess nosing around my stuff was distracting for you,” his voice was just as teasing as his smile.
Ashley felt the ping of guilt shoot through her. Her cheeks might have glowed bright red at being busted by him, but she set her stance, narrowed her eyes, and rallied her cause.
“I was not nosing — I was looking for something to hit you with,” she offered back, lying through her damn teeth, and hoping that he didn’t pick up on it.
“Your magic isn’t enough?” He teased once more.
Ashley knew that she had been busted and should just give up, but it was that smile, the laughter in his eyes, and the fact that he’d put her in that room in the first place that made her not want to give an inch.
Let alone admit that she was as nosy as all hell.
“You mean … this magic?”
“Don’t…” By the time that he got the first word out; she’d snapped her fingers, and he was feeling the sting.
He grumbled a groan against the fleeting pain, pushed away from the door frame, and dropped his arms to his sides. His sexy dark eyes narrowed on her.
“I think we need to set some boundaries…”
“Oh, do you?” Now she had laughter in her eyes, and it felt pretty good to turn the tables on him.
“Some rules…”
“Witches don’t play by the rules.”
“About your magic…”
“Isn’t it a wonderful thing?” She knew she sounded like she was in the cast of the sound of music, but she didn’t care.
She wasn’t about to let go of the upper hand now.
“And how, and when you can use it.” He finally got to the end of the sentence, even with all of her interruptions, but now his eyebrows were pinched into a frown, his eyes were jet black, and he was staring back into her smiling eyes.
“Thank you,” Ashley said as she motioned for him to move out of the way. He sidestepped to let her pass and then followed her down the hallway like a stray. “But, I think I know how to use my magic, and I definitely know when to use my magic.”
“That’s not…”
“Oh look,” Ashley noted his sisters at the bottom of the staircase. “Wait up ladies!”
“We haven’t finished our discussion…” The alpha stepped out in front of her.
“I have.” She shrugged happily.
Kiel opened his mouth to speak, but surprise registered on his face instead, and a moment later — without warning — the alpha was somersaulting down the stairs, head over toes.
He landed flat on his face on the floor with the sound of his sisters giggling ringing in his ears. It would have been an understatement to say that he was miffed.
“She got you there!” Jackie chuckled.
“One out of ten for both form and grace,” Amy chuckled.
“There was just no style…” Jackie shrugged.
“No structure…” Amy added.
“Just…” Jackie paused for thought.
“Like he’d just thrown himself into it?” Amy offered.
“Exactly.”
“Should have practiced more to impress.”
The alpha slapped his palms down on the wooden flooring and pushed up, stretching to his full height, he twisted his head on his neck and stared up at his mate with a hard glare.
“Believe it or not, that — wasn’t — me,” Ashley said as she eyed the area for signs of trouble.
CHAPTER TWENTY
~
“What do you mean that wasn’t you?” The alpha growled. “I felt the magic…”
“Yep, you might have — but, it wasn’t my magic that you felt,” Ashley offered back.
Kiel wasn’t sensing any deception from his mate, and she didn’t look like she was lying. She looked like she was looking for something — and he scented the air in search of anything out of the ordinary.
“Nancy? Eliza?” he asked.
The scent of the witches was in the air all around him, but from what he could hear; neither of those witches was close by. That left his mate. The sneaky, devious little…
“I don’t think so,” Ashley said as she started a slow walk down the stairs to towards him.
Something wasn’t right — maybe, something was very, very wrong.
“Evil ghostly spirit that suddenly hates you?” Amy asked. Her brother shot her a hard glare.
“You know that old saying that goes; if you can’t say something smart…?” The alpha grumbled.
Amy offered him a sneer back.
“If that were the case then all of my brothers would be under a constant and irreversible vow of silence,” she grumbled as she folded her arms and huffed.
“Can you sense the magic?” The alpha asked his mate.
“Oh, now someone’s taken a tumble down the stairs they want my magic to help them,” Ashley offered back.
She was already searching for that magic in the air, she didn’t need him to ask her, but she didn’t mind rubbing salt in the wounds of his alpha stupidity.
“Yes.” The alpha growled on a scowl of annoyance for whatever mischievous and deviousness was at play. Even if it was his mate. “Please.” He added.
If it wasn’t her, then he needed to know about it. His sisters were in the house, and there were three humans if something dangerous were afoot then he needed to kill it.
“Well, as you said please,” Ashley offered back, and her mate grumbled a groan in the back of his throat.
Ashley was already following the magic trail, and the alpha was following her. When she stopped just short of the living room doorway and reached out with her magic to find that the trail led inside, the alpha was back in front of her again.
He was in full protection mode.
“In here?” Kiel asked, but before she could answer, his eyes widened in surprise again as he was hurled into the room, his feet hardly touching the floor as he went, and he was headed straight toward that damn Christmas tree.
Drake pulled back from kissing Eliza just in time to witness his brother sailing across the room as if he w
as skating on ice.
The alpha let out a yelp of surprise as he noted where he was headed and he stretched his arms out in front of him as if he was going to offer the tree a hug.
Kiel hit the tree full on like a runaway skier. Eliza shrieked in dismay as the tree toppled backward with the big alpha on top of it.
“That’s just wrong!” Eliza announced, and if she hadn’t of still been in Drake’s arms, then she might even have stomped her foot in dismay for all her hard work that was now wasted.
“That’s just funny,” Drake chuckled, but it didn’t last long. He bit that chuckle off the moment that the alpha offered a low, deep growl of warning to his sibling.
Ashley stalked into the room, and over to where the alpha was still lying on top of the Christmas tree, and when he snapped his attention up to her, she snapped a big, beaming smile across her face.
“Tell me, alpha, do you still think that you can handle a couple of faeries?” She asked, as she folded her arms across her chest and enjoyed the moment.
“Damn it to…” The rest of what the alpha spat out was low, mumbled, and hard to make out. But everyone present got the idea.
Kiel wrestled his body away from the Christmas tree and pulled up to his full height, slipping on a strand of tinsel and cursing once more. He grumbled a growl as he scoped the area for signs of faeries.
“I was just wondering because they seem to have kicked your backside – twice.” Ashley couldn’t help but rub it in. It was just too good of an opportunity to miss out on.
“When I get my hands on those … damn faeries…” The alpha growled out every word.
“I hate to say that I warned you about the Christmas tree,” Ashley shrugged her shoulders, looked off into the distance, and thought about that for a moment. “Actually, scrub that — I told you so.” She shrugged again before she turned on her heels and stalked out of the room, leaving her mate seething behind her.
“Whoops!” Eliza grimaced.
“Faeries — that’s not good,” Drake growled.
“Say something not damn obvious,” the alpha growled out as he started after his mate, slipping on tinsel once more, and almost pitching sideways before he recovered.