by M. L. Briers
“She’s not one of our mates, which means we can kill her…”He offered with Beta logic to his Alpha, who shrugged his large shoulders.
“Bloody well heard that too!” Lacy snarled out. And Evan growled longer and harder.
“She’s one of them. They might get pissed…”Aidan offered with a half smirk, and Evan shook his head.
“Females.”He growled out. He’d had just about enough of this. Tanya was his mate and she damn well knew it, he’d come here to claim her back, take her home, and found so much more. A pup. Damn, he was going to be a father. That little revelation had knocked hit for six. But there it was, life was sure to kick you in the groin at every opportunity as a wakeup call. “Just when you think you have everything under control…”He hissed out between clenched teeth.
Aidan felt for his Beta. Losing his mate had been hard enough, especially with the mating urge still fired up inside him. He’d claimed her that night, Aidan had seen the marks within her shoulder, but then she’d just vanished in the breeze, and the man had been demented for days. Tracing Dee to this address had given Evan the hope he needed to hold it all together.
Now he found he had a pup. That was enough to make any man lose his sense of rationality when his mate was being awkward. But Aidan had to give Tanya some leeway here. She’d obviously been too drunk to know he was her mate. Too caught up in her hormones to notice the signs of missing him, and now she was fresh off the- guess what, you’re pregnant- train to be able to think clearly.
It was time someone did it for her, and as her Alpha, he guessed he should step up to the plate.
“Find her bedroom and pack her things.”Aidan told Evan. The Beta just stood there frowning at him. It didn’t even look as if Aidan’s words had registered in his addled brain.
“Huh?” Evan offered, looking and sounding like the village idiot his mate already thought him to be.
“Her bedroom. Get packing.”Aidan tried again and his Beta half shook his head.
“You want her to kill me?”Evan shot back. His alpha certainly didn’t seem to give much of a thought to his personal wellbeing considering what he told him to do.
“It’s always an option.”Aidan offered in all sincerity. There was a wicked gleam in his eye that didn’t go unnoticed by his Beta.
“Thanks, brother.”Evan growled out. He didn’t make a move to go anywhere. Trying to think through his best options, when all he could really think about was his mate being in the next room and how much he wanted her in his arms.
“We’re taking them back with us.”Aidan informed him with the clarity that came from not having already mated with his own mate yet.
“You really expect them to just leave?”Evan felt a small amount of hysterics at the worst case scenario. Him and the Alpha with their mates slung over their shoulders, carrying them off like cavemen, and shook his head to rid his mind of the image.
“No.”Aidan assured him on a slow shake of his head. And then Evan was staring at the alphas back as he walked out of the door, another shake of his head, this time to get a grip on reality and tell himself that he wasn’t dreaming, because right now, it sure felt like one kick arse, screwed up nightmare of epic proportions.
Evan found himself alone in the bedroom and pushed off to join the others in the living room.
“We can do this the hard way or the easy way, but either way, you’re both coming back with us.”Aidan announced to the two mates that were huddled together on the sofa. They sat so close to each other that they could have easily been mistaken for Siamese twins, joined down one side from shoulder to knee.
“I’d like to see the hard way, just for the fun of it.”Lacy announced from the armchair across the way.
Aidan turned to look down at her. “You’re really not helping.”He offered with a slight edge to his voice, it was part growl-part frustration, and she could have helped the gleam of pure wickedness in her eyes, she just chose not to.
“What makes you think I would even want to?”
“Sorry, I mistook you for a human being…”Aidan saw the flash of shock and anger that swept over her face.
“Luckily I didn’t make the same mistake with you.” Lacy sat forward in the chair and rested her elbows on the armrests that would give her leverage to get up quickly if she needed it. “I’m not about to throw my friends to the wolves.”
“There are no wolves here, only mate’s, only men…”Aidan might have been talking to her, but he was also trying to reassure the mate’s. Neither of them seemed particularly receptive to his request for them to go back with him.
“Wolf in sheep’s clothing then. Same thing, don’t you think?”Lacy wasn’t challenging his wolf. His beast wasn’t best pleased with her, but he wasn’t about to shift and rip her throat out either. No, she was challenging the man to prove himself, a far more difficult task.
“Obviously more rationally than you.”Aidan responded.
Both mate’s sat there watching the serve and volley from each side of the room. Their heads were sweeping back and forth like spectators at a tennis match. Evan watched the mates carefully. He was assessing their reaction to each side. Right now they just looked confused.
“Don’t you have a tail to chase?”Lacy shot back and watched the slow burn of a smile across his lips.
“Don’t you have a pot to stir?”Aidan hit his forehead with the palm of his hand. “Oh wait, you’re doing that already.”
“Enough!” Dee jumped to her feet and took a long step between them. “I don’t know about Fae and Lycan- you’re both acting like sprites.”
“I actually take offence to that…”Aidan offered and Lacy snorted her contempt.
“Me too.” She ground out. Folding her arms across her chest and throwing her body back into the cushions.
“Good. Maybe the pair of you can pout quietly while the adults among us have a conversation.”Dee walked straight over to her bedroom and slammed the door behind her.
“What happened to the conversation?”Aidan called after her and her muffled voice snapped back from the other side of the door.
“I have nothing to say.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Aidan turned his glare onto Lacy who shrugged a shoulder back at him, but she didn’t add anything either. Evan walked over to the sofa where Tanya was still sitting and motioned to the seat beside her.
“Can I sit?” He asked politely. He neither wanted to spook or anger her.
“You have an arse don’t you?”Tanya snapped back, but she still seemed somewhat subdued after her outburst earlier.
Evan took a breath and sighed it back out. He felt unsure of himself for the first time in a very long time. Did that mean he could sit? He moved into place and slowly lowered his backside down into the soft cushions next to her, careful not to touch her.
“I’m sorry.”Evan offered. It felt like a strange thing to say because he wasn’t sorry, not for most of it. He wasn’t sorry he’d found his mate, and he damn well wasn’t sorry that he was going to be a father.
“Go on…”She shrugged back at him.
“I’m sorry that I didn’t take better care of you.”
“Accepted.”Tanya shrugged again.
“I promise I will from this moment onwards.”Evan offered, wondering if that was the right thing to say or if it was going to go down like a lead balloon as well.
“Given the chance.”She reminded him that she still hadn’t accepted him as her mate yet, and he nodded solemnly.
“I’d really like that chance.”Evan admitted. He didn’t do flowers and romance. Pretty words and poems weren’t his thing, he could only speak from the heart now, and he’d crawl over hot coals if she’d give him that damned chance.
“I know.”Tanya wasn’t going to commit to anything. But she could feel the mating pull on her body and she knew that already having mated with him left both of them open to only one probable outcome.
“Will you come back with me?”
His words hung in t
he air between them.
“Tell me why we are doing this again.”Dee let the words slip quietly out the side of her mouth as she stood on the kerb watching Aidan and Evan stash the rest of their suitcases within the boot of her car.
She was a little irked that they thought neither female could manage to carry their own things down the damn stairs. Apparently it was the male thing to do, well whoopee. Her arms were now redundant. There was no need for her body to have any muscles at all really, except she guessed there was the cooking and cleaning, womanly things…
“I’m doing it because I mated with him inadvertently, got knocked up in a pickup truck, three sheets to the wind, and now I’m having a pup…”Tanya had little patience for anything right now. She could have carried her own damn suitcase. She had arms, and hands, and legs to get her down the damn stairs, but that apparently wasn’t good enough for her mate. The Butthead.
Dee turned her head towards her and she held up just the one finger of doom to silence her before she started. “And you’re doing it because you said we’d do this together.”Tanya reminded her with a sickly sweet look on her face that said- Don’t even think about backing out.
“You’re right. I said that…”Dee turned back to watch the cavemen nodding their satisfaction to each other for a job well done… Tanya slowly lowered that one finger along with her hand. “But having reassessed the situation with hindsight…”Tanya’s hand flew back up and Dee snapped her mouth closed.
“Don’t. I think my hormones have teeth and you’re arse is a fair sized target.”Tanya hissed out.
Dee spun on her heels as her mouth fell open in shock. “I don’t believe you just…”
“All done.”Aiden’s deep tones sent Dee spinning the other way, towards him with an involuntary step backwards. She figured it was an internal protection device, kind of like an early warning system, maybe even the same one that had sent her out of the bar that night when she spotted him. She had no interest in mating a Lycan…
“Don’t do that…”Dee ground out. Annoyed that he could just seem to randomly appear without her even sensing him coming.
“Speak?”He asked. His eyes narrowing on her slightly and she felt that little tiny irk gene grow a little bigger inside her.
“That would be good too, but no. Don’t sneak up on me.”Dee snapped back and watched him consider her for a long moment.
“You have your shields up, if you didn’t you would have felt me coming. Until we spend more time together or until we mate…”Aidan saw her eyes flash a sure sign of panic. So it was like that. His mate had no intention of easing the mating process along…
“Can I have my keys back?”Her hand shot out in front of her, palm upwards, and he could sense the anxiety within her.
“You. Drive.”He offered the two words blandly and without any emotion whatsoever, but Dee certainly had some emotion swelling within her. One of them was annoyance. This guy was like fertiliser to her irk gene.
“No, I bloody levitate the car around. I used to use a broomstick but I found there was no boot space for shopping.”The sarcasm dripped from her voice as her eyes flashed more than annoyance at him. Tanya snorted a chuckle beside her, but even that didn’t feel like she’d scored a point against him, especially when all he did was just lift one of those sexy dark eyebrows and stare back at her.
She wasn’t sure why that raised brow did the things it did to her, but she was sure she would have to do something about it at her earliest opportunity. Maybe she could catch him when he was sleeping and shave them off? Dee almost swallowed her tongue, what the hell was she thinking? This man was just sooo… She huffed.
“Your one’s meaner than mine.”Evan offered quietly beside Aidan’s ear as he folded his arms across his chest and regarded Dee with caution. “She looks like she could spit fire out of those eyes…”He added and Aidan took a long breath to calm his annoyance as his upper body twisted around, and his head snapped around on his neck to glare at Evan with a dark stare.
Evan took a step back and unfolded his arms. Holding up his hands, he chuckled to himself as he shook his head in amusement. “Don’t shoot the messenger, Boss.”
The low menacing growl that rolled through Aidan made Evan take another step back and rub a hand over the light brown stubble on his chin. “Let’s get going.” Aidan announced. He gave Evan one more hard stare before he turned his body and his eyes back towards his mate. Her hand was still out and she had an expectant look on her face. “No, seriously. I’ll drive…”Aidan informed her and she snorted her contempt.
“Over my dead body.”She bit out and Evan grinned.
“Put those two together and you have a reasonable request…”Aidan snapped back around towards his beta again. Evan shrugged his shoulders and motioned towards Dee. “She wants you to drive over her dead body. Where’s the harm?”Evan gave him an innocent smirk. A second later it was gone as the Alpha planted his fist in his Beta’s face and knocked him to his backside on the pavement.
“Could you be anymore caveman?”Dee bit out and Aidan turned on a shrug.
“I’m Lycan, what were you expecting, Prince Charming?”He growled out, a little more of his beast within his tone than he meant to show her.
“Right now I’d settle for the damn frog.”Dee snapped back.
“Toad.”Tanya offered and Dee’s head spun around towards her. The look in her eyes was questioning. “Toad, it was a toad.”Tanya offered on a shrug.
“Frog.”Dee snapped back. “It’s called the frog prince for a reason.”She added when Tanya went to open her mouth.
Tanya snapped her jaw closed and thought long and hard. “Then who kissed the Toad?”Tanya mused.
“You did. That’s why we’re in this damn mess.”Dee ground out between clenched teeth as she whirled around towards her mate and tried to snatch the keys from his hand, but he was too fast and she came up with plain old air.
Evan pulled himself up to his full height and rubbed a large hand over the pain in his jaw. “I resent that.”
“Noted and dismissed.”Dee informed him and Tanya sighed on the roll of her eyes.
“Can we get going or go back upstairs?”She felt Evan at her elbow in an instant. His large hand cupped her skin gently as he started to steer her towards his pickup truck, the feeling that washed over her skin and through her body was pure lust, and she didn’t really notice what he was doing.
“I thought you were riding with me?”Dee shot out and Tanya twisted her head on her neck and gave her a half shrug. “Great…”
“I’m going to keep you company all the way home. We can get to know each other a little better.”The sex in his voice was unmistakable. It crept over her skin like a lover’s touch and wormed its way inside her, and Dee mentally slapped herself around the head several times to break the spell that he’d weaved.
“Great. Why don’t I just climb on your lap and we can have sex driving down the damn road…”Dee managed to put as much sarcasm in her tone as venom, but it didn’t matter, his eyes were already darkening with the desire he felt as the image she had woven within his mind made him rock hard and more than needy for her. He was practically salivating.
“Down boy.”Dee growled. Going for the keys and hooking them in her fingers, she patted herself on the back for the distraction she had caused him. Now she knew how to get what she wanted he would be putty in her hands. He might have been a big Alpha male, but there was an emphasis on the male.
“Hold it…”Aidan managed to shake the lust, the desire, and the need from his brain for long enough to realise that she now had the keys and was walking off towards her car.
Dee didn’t even turn to look at him. She just kept walking. The keys that were her prize jangled in her hand as she swayed her hips a little wilder with each step and heard him growl out from behind her.
You just keep looking at my arse until I’m in the driver’s seat, she put that thought out there into the universe and hoped it would grant her that wish.
“Keys. Please.”He added the please as an afterthought. It seemed only fair as she’d gone to so much trouble to get them in the first place. He didn’t want her to be a sore loser.
Dee snorted. “Maybe I’ll swallow them.”Like she could get the whole damn bunch in her mouth in one go, let alone down her throat.
“Maybe I’ll just put my hand down your throat and yank them back up again.”Aidan growled into to silence of the car. He could hear the thunder of her heart, and knew it would sound that way while he was bringing her pleasure, and that fired up his desire even more.
“Why can’t I drive?”Dee snapped at him.
“Because you’re a female, we all know females make the worst drivers, and I’d like to get there in one piece…”Aidan grinned inwardly. Hell, she’d set herself up for that one and the way she was acting he thought she deserved it.
“Pig. Male chauvinistic, egotistical, arrogant…”
“I know my good points, but thanks for the list. Now give me the keys, Dee.”Aidan turned in his seat and leaned closer to her.
Dee looked at the hulk as he came towards her and she froze in her seat. The sheer size of him should have intimidated her, but it wasn’t fear. It was like she had a warm glow within.
There was a feeling that started in the pit of her stomach, or maybe lower, and rushed through her whole body. Her damn toes tried to curl inside her shoes, but there was no room. Her fingers did curl around the keys, and around the edge of the seat that she found herself holding onto for stability. She felt as if she’d just run the dip on a rollercoaster and that wasn’t a good thing…
Or maybe it was… No, it was bad, she decided in an instant. Throwing the keys in his lap, she turned to yank the seatbelt from its anchor. She tugged and it locked. Damn… Tugged again and it wouldn’t move… Third time’s a charm, she told herself, a moment before his warm fingers covered hers and she froze in place again. The rollercoaster was becoming annoying now.