by M. L. Briers
“He wanted to know-”
Joss the traitor started and I gave her a nudge in the back. I’d like to have zapped her a good one, but what with her being with pup and all…
“I know,” I bit out.
“Then why ask?” she tossed back over her shoulder with a glint of mischief in her eyes and a grin on her lips.
“Just…” I bit down on my need to scream. I could have done it and deafened every last supernatural being in the room… but that would have been harsh. “Give me a minute.”
I was trying to think. Trying, being the operative word. It was all so damn sudden that I would much rather have curled up in a ball in the corner of the room under a table and stayed there for a week or two like a vegetable; letting my brain rest and my pride heal.
“Minute’s up,” Syd offered with glee and I didn’t hold back from zapping her. She wasn’t pregnant- not a chance in hell, and so I really let her have it. Her squeal was enough to make everyone- even me- flinch.
I can’t say that I felt better- I didn’t. But neither did I feel any worse and zapping my sister was a bonus.
“Oh look, dead body!” I pointed towards the corpse on the floor and a few people averted their eyes as I went to take off on fast feet, but I didn’t get more than two steps when Joss zapped me in place… cement feet! Damn, I hated that spell.
“Not on my watch,” Joss informed me.
Damn her meddling ways! My escape- my last chance to run for my car and head out of town… how I hated my sisters.
“You will not run from me,” Cane growled out and snagged my attention.
“State the bloody obvious.” I motioned to my feet. I was going nowhere fast or even slow for that matter.
“Joss, don’t interfere in your sister’s love life.” Mother berated her, but I still felt betrayed.
“My love life.” I snorted my contempt for that phrase, even as I pointed down to my feet, “err, hello?”
I felt Joss release me from her magic and whooshty! Did I feel lighter. I made a mental note to try that spell the next time I felt the need to go on a diet. Cheating was always good.
“Fine, let her run from her mate and see what happens next.” Joss took that superior stance; the one where she turned her nose up at us lower mortals.
“I’m not going to run from my mate,” I tried to make light of it to put Cane’s mind at ease. I didn’t need him watching me every second of every minute of every long, long, day.
“Sure, you’re not.” Sydney chimed up and I glared at her.
“Only because I booted you,” Joss added her two pence. “Otherwise you would have been off like Sydney when she catches the scent of fried chicken on the air.”
“That’s uncalled for,” Sydney shot back.
“But so true,” Joss tossed her a smirk.
“Speaking of a nice fried chicken leg…” Sydney taunted back and I could see Joss practically salivating at the thought. She did suddenly like her chicken legs, fried or roasted. I had to thank the Goddess that it wasn’t raw meat that she craved.
“Can we get back to me?” I spat out, annoyed that they always made everything about them in life… and then I realised what I’d done as all eyes turned on me.
Damn it! Taunted into stupidity again.
“Let’s.” Cane growled; taking a step that made me flinch, but I held my ground. Then he took another one and I flinched again- I so wanted to back up, just a little, just two steps for every one that he took. Then he took a third and I was back behind my sister again…
“Zap him, Joss,” I hissed in her ear.
“For what?” she chuckled and that sound really grated on my nerves.
“For…” damn it, I had nothing. “Stress relief,” I offered. “You know it’ll make your baby hormones feel better, right?” I teased her and she smiled, looking somewhat caught up in that moment. Then she shook her head and I knew I’d lost her again.
“Do your own dirty work,” she hissed back at me.
“Fine,” I did. I zapped him into stopping. Still didn’t feel good, but hey? “There, are you happy?” I put the blame on her.
“Oh bloody ecstatic.” She rolled her eyes.
Cane just growled as shifters did. Long, deep, and velvety good in a way that washed over my senses. It might have been a growl of miffed off unhappiness, but it still felt like a damn caress.
“Make it stop,” I hissed at Joss again and she chuckled.
“Feels good, right?” she teased and I groaned. I wasn’t going to admit to that- not with the Hound of the Baskervilles in the room.
“Not really,” I only half lied. It felt not good by feeling good… still, not admitting to anything.
“Liar, liar, bra’s on fire,” Sydney called from across the dead body.
“Can we get back to what’s important here?” I deflected as I pointed to the dead guy.
“How quickly your mate can woo you?” Sydney piped up with glee.
“Warren, start a book!” Joss snapped the barman to attention and he nodded enthusiastically, then frowned.
“Could someone get the dead guy out of here, though?” he asked with a shrug.
“Consider it done,” Joss beamed him a smile.
“Don’t we have a ghost to catch?” Hawk asked and Joss tossed him a look over her shoulder.
“We’re not Ghostbusters- we vanquish ghosts, not catch them,” she informed him with the kind of look on her face that had me wondering just how dumb her mate was.
“We should use Doug as bait- it worked so well the last time,” Scott offered and people sniggered. Poor Doug, you had to feel sorry for the guy- or maybe not. He wasn’t even in the room and people were picking on him.
“It did attack my pack,” Syrus said, “I’ll volunteer.” Was this going to start a rush on testosterone and who had a bigger…
“None of that,” my mother waved her magic wand, hand. “Doug will do just fine.”
“Geez, why does everyone have to pick on the bear?” I couldn’t help myself.
“You’re new in town,” Scott made it sound like he excused my stupidity.
“You have to know Doug to… err, love him.” Joss chuckled.
“And he did so well with the Banshee,” Hawk grinned.
“What bloody Banshee? Did I miss something?” Everyone looked at me then. I guessed I had.
“I need to scent you,” Cane snatched my attention back towards him. Not that it had really gone anywhere. I was painfully aware of him at all times.
“From right there is fine,” I hissed.
“Up close and personal’s way better,” Sydney chuckled and I wanted to turn her into a s’more- crispy on the outside and gooey on the inside. It was tempting.
“Indeed,” Cane started towards me and I thrust my sister at him. It wasn’t like I propelled her or anything- she was pregnant- I just gave her a little… push.
That was when all hell broke loose…
CHAPTER FIVE
~
JOSS
One moment I was standing there enjoying the fact that my sister had found a shifter mate and all that implied, and the next- Lucifer had thrust me towards an unsuspecting Cane.
Well, his hands came up as a natural reaction to someone flying at him, and that’s when my ever expanding boobs decided to jump right into his palms. I’m sure I heard every hair on Hawk’s body stand to attention as a rallying cry to what came next.
Cane practically wailed out in surprise- Hawk roared in anger- I almost peed my panties- My mother groaned in disbelief- Scott practically howled with laughter before almost rolling on the floor in hysterics- Sydney made some subtle comment- and Lucifer, well, she was unrepentant as usual…
“Whoops,” she muttered- just as Hawk’s arm came around me and he lifted and placed me behind his back as his other arm swung and his fist connected with Cane’s face…
It was all very slow motion and surreal…
“Ok, calm down, accidents happen,” I was
shouting in Hawk’s ear as I practically climbed up on his back with my arms wrapped around his neck trying to hold him back… He gaged a little as I inadvertently choked him…
Cane growled like a mad man as he drew his fist back and held in place, his eyes darting between me and Hawk…
“I can’t hit you with your mate riding your damn back like you’re a horse!” Cane growled out.
Hawk was still gaging and spluttering for breath, but I wasn’t letting go…I knew that if I did then world war three was coming.
“Joss…” Hawk growled out, gasping for a breath as he tried to unwind me from his body.
“Not until you calm the hell down,” I growled back at him. Cane looked confused and angry in one go. He really wanted to punch Hawk, but that wasn’t happening on my watch, all because of my… hey? Where’d she go?
“You missing something?” I demanded of Cane, nodding my head towards the back door.
His head snapped around, his mouth fell open in surprise, and then Hawk was forgotten as he shot across the room after his mate.
“Sure, throw your sister to the wolves,” my mother snorted.
“Oh, that sounds good,” I offered back, trying to sooth Hawk’s ego. “Hey, it’s me that got the ripeness test.” I growled at him.
“They’re mine,” he growled back. I squirmed against his back and stared down at him over one big shoulder.
“Oh, reaaaalllly?” I offered with the look that seemed to make the big man stop and put his brain into gear. He did just that, frowning hard as his eyes darted about like he was reading a large book.
“We share,” he shrugged, coming down from his testosterone rush.
“I can live with that.” I grinned at him.
I was enjoying the sound of Lucifer’s squeal as Cane wrapped an arm around her and hoisted her backwards against his body. She looked bereft- the poor dear.
“That’s not-” Lucy bit out, but a moment later she was in stunned silence when Cane nuzzled against her neck and took her scent. She winced, she grimaced, she flinched, but her eyes still practically rolled up in her head…
“Mine!” Cane growled, and boy did I have to laugh at the sight of her face. She looked like she’d seen a… enough said.
“Yes, she is, and the family are more than happy for you to take her away,” I offered and mother groaned again.
“I second that emotion,” Sydney piped up, “and may I suggest keeping her chained barefoot and pregnant to the kitchen sink?”
“That’s always been a fantasy of hers,” I added- happy to add to our sister’s misery.
“I hate you two!” Lucifer hissed like a she- demon- of the serpent kind.
Sydney and I just sniggered.
“Is this any way to conduct your mating?” My mother announced; sounding more than up her own behind.
“Says the women who was drooling on her own chin not so long ago,” I muttered loud enough for everyone to hear.
Mother shot me the kind of glare that would have had me double timing it to my bedroom as a child. Shame for her I was now fully grown.
“I hope your pup gives you half as much fun as I’ve had over the years from you three little…”
“Witches.” Syrus put in.
“Exactly!” My mother nodded in agreement. We all knew exactly what she meant. Bless her…
“A little help?” Lucifer announced and I snorted.
“He’s your mate, deal with it.” I told her in no uncertain terms.
“And above all,” Sydney offered, “don’t say; bite me until you really mean it.” She chuckled.
“Did everyone forget about the dead guy on the floor… and the ghost?” Lucifer practically growled out, trying to brush Cane off of her, but not getting far.
Wolf shifter, or octopus? It was hard to tell.
“We were having so much fun at your expense,” Sydney shrugged.
“Can we move him now?” Syrus brought mother’s attention back to the body in question.
“He looks dormant enough, but let me do a binding spell to tie up any loose ends, so to speak,” she offered and I learned something new. I didn’t know that you could bind dead people…
“That would be helpful, thank you…?” Syrus had his game on again, and mother certainly wasn’t short sighted when it came to noticing- she brightened, a lot.
“Nora,” she flashed her teeth and flapped her lashes.
“And back to vomit status again.” I hissed to Hawk as I climbed down his back.
“We need to talk about you getting in harm’s way,” he growled in annoyance as he turned and looked down at me. It was at times like these that I wished I was six foot four so I could look him directly in the eye.
“We need to talk about your temper,” I deflected by scolding him right back.
He growled, he glared, he scowled, and then he grunted, but the most important thing was that he stayed silent- argument averted. Job done.
“Mother, hurry up with the spell. I think we all have some mating to be getting on with,” I wiggled my eyebrows at Hawk and he grinned like the wolf that got the bunny. I heard mother’s sharp intake of breath as Syrus gave a hungry growl.
I snapped my body one side and peered around Hawk’s girth at Syrus, and noted that he and my mother were making gooey eyes at each other. Eww!
“Not you two!” I snapped. Both of them tried to look as damn innocent as possible- it was never going to happen…
~
~
~
It wasn’t that I begrudged my mother finding happiness, I didn’t. It was just that I begrudged her finding happiness in the town where I lived.
“I’ve come to the conclusion that my best days are behind me,” she announced as she made the tea with her usual flair of wafting around the kitchen banging everything that she could lay her hands on.
“You don’t say,” I muttered into my cornflakes as I felt the woman turn and give me the evil eye.
“Not that I’m not still attractive to men- I think we proved that last night,” she crowed and I tensed away the shiver that memory brought me. My mother and Syrus doing the nasty? Eww.
“Do you have a point?” Lucifer asked as she drummed her fingernails on the table top and waited for her morning brew. Her eyes flicked nervously back and forth to the man that had been pacing in my garden since he’d allowed her to come home- my home, not hers, never hers or Scott’s house for that matter…
I shot a look through the window at Cane and grinned- Lucifer caught me and I got the second evil eye of the morning- I was doing well.
“My point is this, Miss impatient,” my mother scolded her and that was all good too. “I need to seriously consider where my priorities lie. Perhaps look to the future and my golden days spent with someone who can take care of me…” she sighed and I groaned inwardly…
My mother had a habit of talking herself into falling head over heels, or bum over boobs, in love with random men that she met. It wasn’t terminal, she usually realised her mistake after a few months and dropped them like hotcakes, but I had the nasty feeling that Syrus might be her next victim.
Oh, woe is me.
“You know Syrus never found his soulmate, right?” I’d heard talk of King’s mother being an arranged union of two prides. “So, if he hasn’t found his mate yet then she might still be out there.”
“Or on the bright side, dead.” My mother was never one to mince words or tread lightly. Both Lucifer and I just stared at her for a long moment, and then she waved an absent hand in the air, “you know what I mean.”
“Clearly,” I berated her, but mother was mother, and she waved that away too.
“Anyway, what are you girls up to today?” she went for bright and breezy and totally oblivious to our scorn.
“It looks like I have no choice but to stay at home,” Lucifer shot a look outside at Cane again. The thought of spending more time with my sister revolted me…
“Cane!” I shouted, and the man was at
the back door in a heartbeat, a hopeful look in his eyes as he totally ignored the rest of us and set his sights on his mate, practically drooling…
“Bitch,” Lucy bit out on something of a hissed whisper.
“Come on in, take a load off,” I grinned at her misery, “chat to your mate, get to know her better,” I was on a roll, “My house is your house as long as she’s here.. enjoy, have fun, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
Lucy’s face was a picture of pure disbelief mixed with outright hatred for me, and I loved every single second of it. She lifted her hand and pointed a loaded finger at me, but I lifted my own and warned her off…
“I swear I will-”
“Not zap a pregnant woman,” mother warned her, and her shoulders slumped as her upper lip twitched in annoyance.
“I wish for you a very fertile life with your mate,” she bit out and I gasped in disbelief, bringing a smirk to her lips.
“Well, I wish for you-” I started and saw a look of panic on her face.
“Don’t say it!” she rushed out, not knowing what it was, but not wanting to hear it anyway.
CHAPTER SIX
~
“A very fast bonding to your mate.” There, I’d done it, and the look that she gave me was priceless.
As if on cue, Cane growled long and hard, and Lucy’s head snapped around on her neck to look at him so fast- that I’m sure she realigned some vertebrae. It was Cane’s turn to get the finger of doom pointed in his direction.
“Don’t get any ideas,” she hissed at him and I had to chuckle at that one.
“Boy, do you not know shifters,” I bit out before scooping a large spoonful of crispy flakes into my mouth and munching happily as she glared at me again.
“I hate you,” she hissed across the table at me, and I shrugged my shoulders in defiance. I couldn’t care less what she said- I was just happy to know that her days would be filled with keeping Cane at bay.
“Stop growling and sit down, you’re making the place untidy,” my mother snapped at him. “Prowling around outside all night like a damn mutt,” she muttered and Cane opened his mouth to say something, but I cleared my throat and brought his attention to me. With a shake of my head; he bit back his words, and strolled towards the table- muted and somewhat docile.