by M. L. Briers
“Unless one of us kills the other first,” Jorge said, catching onto her game and deciding to play it, or rather, play a game of his own. Heck, what was good for the goose… blah-blah-blah. “Or maybe I’ll just turn into Shrek, and we can bicker and snarl each other into insanity.”
Nancy groaned inwardly. Now that she could see happening.
It wasn’t as if she was lucky enough to go out and be run over by a bus, hit by a meteorite, or abducted by aliens – nope, fate had a plan for her, and she needed to thwart it all on her own.
“I need a drink,” she muttered, turning on her heels and stalking away from him.
“A drinking habit too? Boy, this just gets better and better,” he said and caught the death glare that she lobbed back in his direction.
Jorge chuckled to himself. Maybe this wooing thing was going to be fun after all.
CHAPTER EIGHT
~
Sebastian stepped out in front of the car coming down the road and noted the look of surprise and horror on the old priest’s face as he hit the brakes and said a quick prayer that he was going to stop in time before hitting the vampire. Luckily, he had good breaks, but that didn’t stop the priest from cursing under his breath.
Sebastian was at the driver’s window before the priest had managed to blink. “Such language, and from a man of the cloth no less,” he berated him, grinning.
Father Wolf rolled down his window on a muttered curse. “I could have hit you … you…”
“Newsflash, I would have survived,” he said with a devilish grin that was designed to rile the priest up some more. A man caught off guard might be more likely to spill the beans – he hoped.
“But you would have dented my car,” the priest grumbled. He really wished that he’d missed the break, and God forgive him, but the vampire did test his nerves in more ways than one at times.
“How very … Christian of you, Father,” Sebastian said, raising his eyebrows and berating the priest with just a look.
“You’ll forgive me if I don’t ask God’s forgiveness – I’m sure he understands,” Father Wolf tossed back, and covered himself with a quick look skywards and a few consolatory words for his lack of grace.
Sebastian made a show of grimacing. “Wow, first the grumps last night, and now with the out-and-out, devilishly bad-boy attitude today – is it a midlife crisis, Father?”
“Midlife?”
“Well, you always were a late bloomer. I’m guessing it’s that whole celibacy thing, but don’t take my word for it,” he said, shrugging. “Oh look, your ears are practically steaming, is that normal?”
Father Wolf bit down on a few more uncharitable words and thoughts that crossed his mind, and he eyed the vampire with contempt. Sebastian sighed. “Not playing the game today?” he sighed again. “Perhaps there’s a little nun who wants to cross swords with the evil vampire…”
“Stay away from the nuns,” the priest warned him, scowling at the man’s attempt to bait him, and his need to rise to it.
Sebastian grimaced again. “But they’re just so cute, and when it snows – penguins on parade…”
“What do you want, Sebastian?” Father Wolf grumbled.
“Right down to business? You are in a funk today, Father. Did someone swap the wine for vinegar again?”
“Could you just…?” Father Wolf snapped a look at the man. “Was that you?”
“Me?” Sebastian frowned. “I wouldn’t be caught dead in the church.”
“That’s…” He grunted when the vampire chuckled.
“Did you speak to the powers that be?” Sebastian asked, rolling his eyes.
“God?” Father Wolf asked, confused.
“Ugh!” he said, rolling his eyes back down to the priest. “In this case the earthly ones.”
“You mean the church.”
“I thought you were the church…”
“We both know what we both mean, so stop being a pain in my …” he bit down on his words and pouted in annoyance.
“You’re no fun,” Sebastian grumbled.
“Try looking in the mirror,” Father Wolf grumbled, and then he brightened a little. “Oh, that’s right – you can’t – no reflection.”
“Lies, myth, and a nasty rumour started by the church I might add,” he tossed back.
“The church is still deciding what to do,” Father Wolf said, and he knew he wasn’t lying that time. After all, it was exactly what the vampire had said himself – he was the church, and he was still mulling it over.
“Hmm,” Sebastian eyed the priest, but the man wasn’t giving anything away. “Well, I take it that I’ll be the first to know when something happens?”
“Oh, trust me, you’ll be the first,” Father Wolf said as the vampire stepped back from the window. “I’ll be sure to stake you before doing anything else.” The priest tossed out the window before he sped off.
“I’ll bet you would,” Sebastian said to himself, chuckling.
~
“Don’t stalk me,” Nancy said, stomping through the woods like each leaf underfoot had offended her in some way.
“It’s called walking…”
“Not when a shifter does it,” she bit back over her shoulder.
Jorge chuckled. “Are we going to drop this wolf shifter-witch thing any time soon?”
“Did you find that new personality yet?”
“Nope, not yet,” Jorge said.
Nancy tossed up her hand and let it slap against her thigh. “There you go then, genius,” she said, spotting her cat from a distance as it sat on Olivia’s garden fence like butter wouldn’t melt in its mouth.
Oh, how she wanted to kill that kitty for the trouble it had caused her. A quick zap and Tiddles would have been history.
She could have been halfway to … wherever it was, she hadn’t planned on going – by now if it hadn’t of been for her cat taking off. The mingy little moggy. She certainly wouldn’t have met her mate.
The cat meowed at the sight of her and drew Jorge’s attention towards it. “Yours?” he asked. The cat scented the air as they drew closer to it, went full puffball with its fur standing on end like it had licked an electrical socket, hissed at Jorge, and took off like a bat outta hell. “It’s yours.”
“And how do you figure that out?” she bit out, annoyed that her cat had taken off yet again.
“You share the same personality,” he said, chuckling.
Nancy raised just the one eyebrow at him. “Where you’re concerned we do, and with little surprise.” She eyed him from head to toe, and the view was still good, clothed or naked. Damn it!
“You just can’t stop undressing me with your eyes, can you?” he asked, offering her a devilish grin.
“Yeah, you’re a real catch,” she bit back, sullen that the man always seemed to know just what she was thinking.
She’d only been undressing him a little – maybe more than a little – hell, who was she kidding? In her mind’s eye she hadn’t even left his socks on.
“Finally, we agree on something,” he said, grinning.
“Ugh!” she bit out, turning away from him. “My cat’s thrown up better-looking specimens than you.”
“It must be so tiring,” he tossed out there and left it as bait for her, and she snapped it up.
“What?”
“Being that mean all the time,” he said, shrugging.
“Gee, I get by,” she said, stopping at the low hedge and eyeing it with disdain.
Then she practically tossed herself over it. She didn’t land on her feet, and to be honest, she didn’t for one moment think that she would. Why have grace when you can land on your face? She bounced right back up again and noted the look of horror that met disbelief on his face. “I get lots of refreshing sleep.” She said, ignoring the look he gave her.
Jorge didn’t like the hedge between them. Not that it was a worthy barrier, hell, he could jump it in a heartbeat, but he leant in over the top of it. “How are you still alive
?” he asked in all seriousness. “How have you not broken every bone in your body?”
Nancy shrugged a shoulder. “When you fall over as much as I do, you kind of learn how to land.”
“Unbelievable,” he said, shaking his head.
“Thanks, I try,” she sniped back, shrugging again as she turned on her heels and strolled off.
Jorge cleared the hedge in one bound, landing on his feet, and he started after his mate still mystified how she could be so clumsy and still be in one piece.
CHAPTER NINE
~
“Oh no,” Nancy said, placing one hand on her hip and wagging the witching finger of the other up at her mate as he stood just inside the threshold of her cottage. “This is not how this goes.”
“I think you’ll find that this is exactly how this goes,” Jorge said with a cheeky half-smile, folding his large arms across his broad chest as if he was the mountain that couldn’t be moved. But they both knew that all she needed was a little magic to move that man-mountain.
Normally, both man and beast would have prickled at the challenge that the witch represented to them, but Jorge’s beast had settled a little within him. Right now, the wolf was practically rolling around on its back in hysterics at the fact that it wasn’t the one who had to woo their mate and had managed to have quite a few Scooby Doo moments so far since meeting her.
“You think?” she sniped.
“On occasion I do. But let’s be honest, it’s not my greatest quality,” he offered with self-deprecating humour and a slight wince of an apology.
“You said it before I could, right?”
Jorge nodded, and that cocky smile was back. “Something like that.”
“I’ve got your number…”
“But, good news, I’m standing right here, so you don’t have to use it – you can just talk to me in person,” he said, a teasing smile on his lips and laughter in his eyes.
How could a girl resist such charms? Nancy mentally slapped herself around the back of the head – Gibbs style. She was going to have to do better than getting lost in that smile – in those eyes – or she’d be toast.
Nancy folded her arms and considered his words for a moment. “You know, I kind of like the idea of talking to you on the phone.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Whispering sweet nothings…”
“Oooo, that sounds good…”
“Of course, they’d be sweet to me, they’d be the sound of silence to you,” she said, lifting her chin in defiance.
“And then there’s the added advantage of being able to cut me off whenever you wanted.”
“Double bonus,” she said with a bright grin, shrugging before she shooed him back towards the open door.
Jorge shot a quick look behind him before offering her an apologetic look. “Sorry,” he said and tossed the door closed. “Wouldn’t want to let all the bought air out,” he said, grinning, and boy could she see that wolf in him.
“You really don’t get it, do you?”
“Oh no, I get it, but I don’t want it, am going to ignore it, and keep on keeping on until I get what I want – you. One mate.”
“On a plate,” she muttered.
“If you’d like to serve yourself up to me that way, who am I to refuse?”
“I can see how you have a hard time saying no to anything,” she bit out, trying to think two steps ahead and getting nothing but brain fog back for her trouble.
“That’s not true. Here, watch,” he said, narrowing his eyes like he was thinking about it, and yet she knew that mind of his was already three steps ahead – and it wasn’t fair. “No, I’m not leaving – no, I’m not going to let you make a run for it, and no, I’m not stopping in my quest to woo you until you…”
“Run headlong into the nearest wall to give myself a full frontal lobotomy, and you suddenly become tempting in my eyes?” she said sweetly, but there was a look in her eyes that said she wanted to kill something – Jorge thought it was probably him, but couldn’t be certain just yet.
“There’s no fun in that,” he tossed back, swiping a big hand in the air, dismissing her idea.
“This is fun to you?” Nancy asked, angling her chin down toward her chest and eyeing him from beneath her long lashes.
Jorge took a long moment to consider it. Then he offered her a slow, teasing smile that had her transfixed. “Yeah, this is fun to me.”
“Wonderful,” she said, tossing up her hands in dismay. “You people are weirder than I thought.”
“Now don’t go rushing to judgement on a whole species based on little old me,” he said, teasing.
“Little?” she asked, curling her top lip. There wasn’t anything little about the man – everything was built to scale.
“Well, I don’t like to brag,” he said, dropping his gaze down his body and like a moth to the flame, hers followed his, and when he snuck a look at her to see if she’d been tempted, he couldn’t help but growl a little at where she was looking. “My eyes are up here, sweetheart,” he said, unable to resist, and getting his just rewards when she snapped her gaze right back to his and her cheeks coloured a nice crimson hue.
Jorge leant in just a little toward her. “Busted.”
Nancy’s mouth flapped open and closed as if she had so much to say and so little time to say it in. Flustered, mortified at being caught, and annoyed to Hades that he’d be so uncouth as to actually call her on it. “Jerk head!” she snapped, turning on her heels and stalking away from him.
Jorge grinned from ear-to-ear. Not only did he have his mate on the back foot, but she hadn’t noticed that he was still inside the cottage, and she’d lost that round.
Oh, the times they were a-changing!
~
Father Wolf turned the corner onto the small high street and almost ran into Delta, who’d seen the priest’s car enter the little parking lot and had made a beeline for the man. It was better to ‘accidentally’ run into the priest on the street, rather than have to pay him another after-dark visit to find out what she wanted to know.
“Oh, I’m…” Father Wolf bit off his apology as the elder witch glared up at him. He’d seen that look before, in a stray dog before it had taken a chunk out of him.
“Well?” Delta bit out, eager to hear what the church had said about one of her witches being a mate to a wolf shifter.
“Very, thank you, and you?” Father Wolf said with the kind of smirk that should have been reserved for the vampire.
“Don’t bust my chops, or make me bust yours,” Delta said in not such a vague warning to the priest. Subtle, she wasn’t, because that wasted time, and at her age, time was at a premium.
Father Wolf sighed inwardly. He could see the way the day was going, and it wasn’t in a good direction.
A visit from the alpha, the vampire, and now the head witch – all he needed was for Satan himself to pop up in the flesh, and he’d have the perfect buzz kill to what had promised to be an easy day in his schedule. “This isn’t really the time or…”
Delta grunted. “Maybe if you didn’t hide out in church.”
“I do not hide out…”
Delta snorted a chuckle. “Says you. But fine, if you’d prefer another two AM private chat…”
“That’s not…” the priest stopped and sighed inwardly. She was just trying to rile him, now that he should have been used to.
Father Wolf rallied on the spot. He was getting mighty annoyed with all of the supernatural interference in his handling of matters. They may be the town council of Knowing – sort of – but that didn’t mean that they had a right to all the happenings in the church. “Do I look like the information centre to you?”
Delta pulled her head back and regarded him with something that resembled the evil eye. “You know, priests can slip in the shower too…” she warned.
“Stay out of my shower!” he snapped and got a strange look from one of the human inhabitants of the town that was happening by. Father Wolf bit down o
n a curse.
“I wouldn’t come near your shower with a ten-foot bargepole and someone else’s eyes. There isn’t enough brain bleach around to wash out that image,” she hissed.
Then she folded her arms and made sure by the look on her face that he knew she was waiting for answers. She even tapped the toe of her pointy little boot on the ground.
Father Wolf rolled his eyes. “As I told the others…”
“What others?” Delta snapped. She didn’t like the sound of that.
Was she the last to know? She hated to be the last to know anything.
“Oh yes,” Father Wolf said with glee and a sparkle of amusement in his eyes. “You’re not the first to speak with me today.”
“Those wormy little toads,” she muttered, mentally making it a priority that she sought the priest out first thing every morning just to get the feel for the day ahead and to beat the others to it. “Well, you’d better tell me what the damage is.”
“Damage?” Father Wolf was quite enjoying the fact that he had caught the witch on the back foot. It happened so rarely that when it did, he took some small comfort in it.
“The pound of flesh,” Delta said like she was chewing on a sour lemon. “What do they want this time?”
“Who?” Father Wolf was playing it dumb, and it had served him well over the years.
“The church, your bosses, the cartel of God squad employees in the good graces of the man upstairs,” she bit out, getting more agitated by the minute.
“Oh,” Father Wolf said, as if he’d just cottoned on to what she was asking and not just pulling her chain and pressing her buttons – heaven forgive him, but he was enjoying the moment. “It’s fine, for now,” he lied, well, not exactly lied – he liked to think of it more as bending the truth a little.
“Is it?” she asked, narrowing her eyes and regarding him with suspicion.
“It is,” he said, raising his chin just a little as he looked down his nose at her.