by M. L. Briers
Now another one of her witches had zapped a shifter, a rather good-looking and very naked, shifter, and was off like a Greyhound after a Hare. What was an elder to do?
Should she intervene and save the witch’s bacon? Should she just walk away and let whatever would be - be?
Choices-choices and she was getting fed up with blooming choices!
Delta eyed the shifter on the ground. The man was rolling and rocking back and forth in his misery, trying to pull his body up onto his hands and knees, and he wasn’t doing a bad job … but he still wasn’t going to be fast enough to catch that little wicked witch – that little Gazelle had spotted his big bad Wolf and was running as if her life depended on it. Did it?
It would have been helpful if she’d known what had brought about the zap-and-run in the first place, but everything in life was a judgement call.
Delta knew the witches in her care, and not one of them was going to back down and run from trouble – but they’d all hightail it for a very good reason – and that reason was probably due to the fact that Nancy had to be another mate. Delta bit down on a curse and kicked at a clump of grass.
“Well, hubble-bubble, more darn trouble,” she grumbled. But how much more trouble would there be if that witch escaped the clutches of her mate?
That man could go rogue wolf, and that would mean big trouble for the town of Knowing, human and supernatural alike. “The good of the many…”
~
Sister Mary pulled a face and grimaced at the sight of the runaway witch as she flew through the air and landed face down in the dirt. “Oooowwwwie – ooochie,” she said, flinching and twisting her face in dismay as Nancy rolled and sort of bounced a little. “Oooch-ouch-ooowie!”
Sister Mary held onto the last grimace as Nancy came to rest, flat on her back looking up at the autumn sky. “That had to hurt,” she said, scowling and turning away from the scene.
She really needed to get back to church before she was missed – even if she did want to stay and see how this whole witch-wolf thing played out.
She’d been curious enough for one day; she told herself as she lifted her skirt and started back along the path she’d walked. Time was a-ticking, and she had prayers to get to before doing the rest of her chores.
~
“You can’t run from me,” Jorge bit out, fighting the need inside him for more time to shake off the witch’s magic as he dragged himself across the landscape towards where his mate was laying.
Nancy rolled her eyes and grumbled a curse beneath her breath. She’d love to have said that it was her two left feet that had brought her down like a wounded warrior, but she’d felt the magic in the air just before she’d felt something grip her ankle and toss her to the ground. There was definitely a hand of magic in her downfall – but whose?
Payback was a bitch, and so was she when someone messed where they shouldn’t. When she figured out whose hand had helped fate, oh boy, was there going to be hell to pay? You betcha.
“I can’t run from you right noooow,” she said, angry for the intervention when she’d been doing quite well in not falling boobs-over-heels under her own steam, but that didn’t mean she was going to take things lying down – which meant she needed to kick her pride into gear and get the heck up.
That sounded great in theory. But winded from her run, and with her lungs begging for air and her muscles begging to die, she was having a hard time convincing her body of the merits of raising her head to glare at the shifter, let alone drag her whole body to a standing position.
“Hit and run,” Jorge bit out in annoyance. “How like a witch.”
Nancy grumbled a groan and yanked her upper body into a somewhat slumped sitting position to glare at the incoming naked man-beast. It wasn’t exactly a bad view – although, the dark glaring eyes and man-pout could have been better. “Pick on someone you think is weaker than you, how like a bully!”
“I was not picking on … I am not a bully,” he changed tact as her words kicked him up the backside and made the beast within him growl a warning at him. his own wolf was even on her side, how messed up was that?
“Oh no?” she said, motioning to his whole presence. “The big bad stompy feet, the fisted hands, the angry look, the death glare … yeah, I can see how I misunderstood,” she sneered.
Jorge misplaced a step as her words sunk in. He guessed he did look a sight heading toward her like that. “I’m still in pain from your magic,” he grumbled, trying to shake loose his muscles and unclench his hands, but he did slow his advance in the hope that every moment would loosen his body a little more and might make her less cautious of him.
“Oh,” she said, brushing that aside. “Well, get too close, and you’ll be in even more pain,” she said, not backing down for one moment.
No surrender – she wasn’t hoisting the white flag and waving it. Her plan of escape had been thwarted, and from what she could tell there was a wicked, meddling witch involved in that somewhere that she’d need to deal with at another time. Right then, she needed a new plan.
Jorge got as close to her as he deemed necessary. He could reach her before she got too far away as his body healed from her deviousness, and yet, he hoped he didn’t seem enough of a threat to her that she would zap him once more.
“You’re not a nice person, are you?” He narrowed his eyes on her and contemplated what life would be with her as his forever mate. It might be too soon to tell, but he thought the nine circles of hell was a good place to start.
Nancy took a moment to think about it. “I’m not-not a nice person…”
“What does that mean?” Jorge said, scowling.
“I’m … complicated,” she said, lifting her chin and looking anywhere but at him.
“You’re a witch that likes to zap, nothing complicated about that,” he grumbled.
“I’m a witch that will defend herself,” she said, drawing on her limited strength to scramble to her feet and face him with a glare of annoyance.
It wasn’t as if she hadn’t had a reason to zap his barenaked backside, she had. It wasn’t like she’d done it for the fun of it, she hadn’t. It had been done out of need, and he could sneer and pout all he wanted, but she thought herself in the right.
“Against your mate?” Jorge bit out with a big dollop of disbelief for her lame excuses. Every witch knew that a mate was no danger to their other half, so he wasn’t buying her little Miss Innocent act for one second.
“Stop saying that,” she hissed back, wrinkling her nose at the thought of it. A mate? That wasn’t how she’s seen the day going that was for sure.
“The truth?” Jorge asked, shrugging his broad shoulders and distracting her thoughts for a long moment as his muscles flexed. “Yeah, I can see how that would be inconvenient for you.”
“Truth or not…”
“It’s a fact…”
“And that’s the ‘or not’ part,” she snapped back. “The fact remains…”
“That you’re my mate.”
Nancy clenched her fists and stomped her foot in annoyance. “What part of stop saying that don’t you get?”
“I’m sorry if speaking the truth offends you…”
“It’s not the truth that offends me, it’s …” she bit down on her words, raising a hand and motioned to him. “It’s you, you big dweeby-head.”
“How have I offended you?” Jorge grumbled a low growl as his beast told him what for. They were supposed to be wooing their mate, not miffing her off, but Jorge needed to get a few things straight before he went in for the kill – so to speak.
“By being you,” Nancy snapped back.
“Well,” Jorge said, offering her a smug-smirky look that bordered on a sneer. “I can’t change who I am, can I?”
“No, but you can leave and never…”
“Not a chance in hell,” Jorge sneered, tightening the lock of his large arms that were folded across the broad muscled chest, making his muscles practically twice the size, and giv
ing her brain another reason to fart as she tried to think two steps ahead of him.
That really wasn’t working out for her – but maybe if he wasn’t so much eye candy on a platter, she might have stood a chance. “Do you actually have something to wear?” she bit out in annoyance.
“Does my naked body offend you too?” he asked, rolling his eyes.
“As it happens, yes,” she lied. It really didn’t – but it was as distracting as all hell and she’d much rather he be clothed, preferably head to toe in a giant girlie-pink snowsuit so that her brain could mock him instead of drooling over his naked form and hard man-boobs that she thought just might be bigger than hers. They were certainly perkier.
“Fine,” Jorge bit out, pointing towards the tree line. “My clothes are on the ridge by that old oak…”
“Go get them,” she said, folding her arms and tilting her chin up in defiance before he’d even finished explaining. “I’ll wait right here.”
Jorge went to take a step, and his brain kicked his backside into gear. He froze in place, turned a suspicious look upon her, and eyed her like she was the devil in the flesh. “What are the odds?”
CHAPTER FIVE
~
Nancy bit down on a curse – so close and yet so far. She really had thought he was going to fall for that one. “Are you calling me a liar, because that’s rude, especially when you don’t even know me,” she said, and felt no shame in her little white lie, or defending it.
“I’m saying I can see your nose growing from here,” Jorge tossed back, watching her with the expectation that she might just zap him again for the fun of it, especially when she snapped to attention and fidgeted on her feet.
Nancy had started to raise her hand to her nose to see if it was growing but caught herself in the act of stupidity just in time. “Trust is a wonderful thing,” she said as if she was the injured party, and he was being unreasonable. “Fine, Mr Judgemental, I’ll come with you.”
“Oh, and you say it as if butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth,” Jorge bit out on a low grumble. Sure, he felt a little guilty for doubting her, but he had a good reason. He didn’t trust his mate as far as he could throw her – and being his mate, he couldn’t bring himself to throw her at all. “Maybe you could charm the birds while you’re at it, Snow White.”
“As opposed to them flying away in fear for their poor little, helpless lives when you’re around, sure, why not?” she snapped.
Jorge couldn’t counter that one, so he pointed to the ridge. “That way, Princess,” he said, getting a sneer back in return. “If the wind changes…”
“What are you, my mother?” she hissed in exasperation and annoyance. But she put one foot in front of the other and started off in the direction that he’d indicated, determined to find a way out of the mess that her cat, and fate, had landed her in.
“From the sound of it, I’m your worst nightmare…”
“You got that right,” she snapped over her shoulder.
The sound of a low grow rumbled in the air around her, and she snorted her contempt for him. The man really was a beast.
~
Delta could sense the supernatural in the air. She was old enough and wise enough to know exactly what supernatural being had pinged against the witchy shields that were woven around her body and set the alarm bells ringing. “What are you doing out of your coffin?”
“Just out for my daily constitutional,” Sebastian said, miffed that he could never seem to sneak up on Delta, no matter how many times he’d tried. The woman had super-radar like a bat on steroids, and over the years he’d tried everything he could think of to get around it, but to no avail.
Delta snorted. “You must be going senile you’ve forgotten which century you’re in again…”
“Daily walk to stretch the legs, better?” he asked, amused by her constant sniping at him every time they met. He liked his encounters with her; she certainly livened up the day which wasn’t hard around the uneventful little town.
“As opposed to you being ashes where you belong? Nope.”
“You know this wicked witch act is getting old, like you?” Delta turned a hard stare on him, and he pulled back in mock horror. “There’s a sight to wake up to in the morning.”
“Don’t mistake the fact that I haven’t staked you through the heart, yet, as an act,” she said, part warning in her meaning but telling it how it was.
The vampire was part and parcel of the town, and he’d been there long before she’d arrived. He truly was the town elder, not that the humans were aware of that. For that fact, and as he appeared benign to her witches and the humans of Knowing, she had accepted his place there.
But she still wasn’t going to take his meddling and devilish ways without challenging him on it. He’d think she’d gone soft in her twilight years.
Sebastian offered her a mocking look. “I’ll take that as a sign of affection,” he said, teasing her and getting a look of disgust back in return.
“Senile and delusional, my condolences,” she grumbled. “Stay away from my witches,” she said, starting to turn away from him.
“Someone might need to protect them from the powers that be if this whole thing goes belly up,” Sebastian said, bringing her attention right back to him.
Delta scowled. “What have you heard?”
“Not a thing, yet,” he said, with a mocking chuckle. “I’m just saying…”
“Well, when you have something concrete to base your bluster on, get back to me, and we’ll talk…”
“I do know that Father Wolf hasn’t rushed to tell the church about the mates…”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” she bit back. If the vampire thought that he could hold some sort of bargaining chip over her, then he was sadly mistaken. She knew Father Wolf well enough to know the man was hiding something.
“You have a secret soft spot for me that lurks …”
“The only thing lurking around here is you,” Delta snapped back. “And why are you here?”
“I followed you,” Sebastian said, shrugging.
“Really?” Delta eyed the vampire as if he’d just crawled out of the swamp and slithered over her favourite shoes, folding her arms, she narrowed her gaze on him.
“No,” Sebastian said with a big, beaming, mocking grin that annoyed her right to down to her toes.
Delta sighed, unfolding her arms and turning away from him, she tossed a glare back over her shoulder. “Go back to your coffin bed and let the grown-ups handle life.”
“I think after a few hundred years I’ve earned the right to be called a grown-up,” he called after her.
“You’d think, but sadly no,” Delta muttered, knowing full well that he could hear her just fine without having to raise her voice.
“There’s that soft spot,” he called and felt a fleeting brush of her magic across his body. “We only hurt the ones we…” he bit down on the harder sting of her magic. “My point exactly.”
“Go boil your big head,” Delta grumbled, a small twisted smile gracing her lips as she kept walking away.
“Sweet talk, soft spot,” he called and heard her huff.
~
Nancy was mumbling and grumbling the whole way up the ridge, and Jorge could hear some of it, but the rest he just had to join the dots. That wasn’t hard, he had a pretty good idea of what was stuck in her craw, and it wasn’t without its amusement for him.
The little wicked witch didn’t want a big old bad wolf mate – shocker – not. She’d get over it when he wooed her good and loved her long, of that he was sure.
The view from behind her as she stomped up the mountain was a mighty fine one. She had curvy hips, and he was mesmerised by the way that they swayed – so damn mesmerised that every time she tossed a death glare back over her shoulder at him, he had to snap his gaze to hers and lose the goofy grin on his face.
“I can so feel your eyes on my backside,” Nancy grumbled.
She’d not only felt hi
s beady little glare on her, but she’d caught him looking numerous times. It irked her, but she’d let it slide – until now. Now she was tired and huffy, and she wanted the man-mountain – who wasn’t even breaking a sweat – to feel her pain too. Misery loves company, and she didn’t see why she should be the only one to suffer when it was all his fault.
“Can’t really miss it,” Jorge said, silently laughing behind her back until she snapped her head around on her neck like a hungry crocodile and he snapped that look right off before she snapped at him.
“Excuse me…?” Nancy ground out the words, but her foot caught on something unseen, and she pitched sideways and forward.
That was bad, she was going down, and she knew it was going to hurt, so she flung her arms out and reached for something to save her fall.
Jorge saw her trip, saw her eyes widen and her mouth open with a squeal that caught in the back of her throat as she turned to see where she would land. He was at her side in a heartbeat. His large hands closed around her body, and he felt the grip of her hand around his manhood. “Whoooooaaaa!” He felt the hard tug.
“Let go you pervert!” Nancy bit out.
For one long moment, Jorge couldn’t even grasp what the heck she was complaining about – until he realised that he’d cupped her ample breasts rather nicely in his big hot hands.
“I’m a pervert?” Jorge said, holding her in place. “Lady, do you know what you’ve got a death grip on?”
Nancy’s brain kicked into gear, and she was mortified. Her mouth opened again, and this time a long squeal rolled out from between her lips.
She was frozen in place as her mind rushed in a million different directions and then kicked her up the backside again. “Ewwwiiieee! Yuck!”