by M. L. Briers
“Don’t need to take it back because I didn’t say it…”
“Say what?”
“Witches!”
“You just did — again…”
“No, you’re putting words in my mouth…”
“Lady, I have perfect hearing and a really good memory…”
“Obviously not.”
He was done arguing with her, but he was going to have to keep this little human female on pack land until those meddling witches arrived. He was also going to need the help of the vampire, because once he got what he wanted, the witches, then he was going to have to erase the human’s memory of all things wolf related.
~
~
“You know, I don’t think life is like a bowl of cherries,” Lulu said as she picked over the uneven ground, fallen branches, and whatever was under those decaying leaves.
“Where did that come from?” Piper shot back over her shoulder as she held the small torch that she’d retrieved from the car to light her way and help her find a path through the woods.
“I think it was Forrest Gump…”
“I know the damn movie; I was talking about you referencing it.” Piper sighed.
The woods were the last place that she needed to be. Especially as those woods were on pack land – now, that was the last place she needed to be, or ever thought that she would voluntarily walk onto.
It was akin to putting your head in the lion’s mouth, and she certainly wasn’t fond of that idea either.
“Oh, it just came to mind — I think life is like the stones — some people suck them clean, and then some people spit them out with the fleshy part still on,” Lulu said.
“Seriously? We’re in wolf country, and you want to talk about spitting things out with the fleshy parts still on — do you know what that brings to mind?”
“That you watch too many horror movies?” Lulu chuckled.
“While that’s true — it’s not the point. No, it brings to mind the insanity of being here. If they’ve caught her already, then they’re about to pat her on the head and send her home.”
“Well, her car’s still here, and while her car’s still here, she is still here, and while she is still here, we are going to be here…”
“I’m guessing by all of those here’s — here is where you want to be,” Piper tossed back with a sneer, and she heard Lulu take a breath to offer another shot of rationalization to an already bad day, but she’d heard a noise ahead, and something was starting to make her shields itch.
She lifted her hand and made a fist as she stopped in her tracks, but Lulu still managed to run into the back of her.
“Give a girl some warning…” Lulu muttered.
“Hush, and I did,” she whispered back over her shoulder.
“I didn’t hear you say…”
“I lifted my hand like they do in the war movies…”
“Kind of hard to see your hand when I’m looking down at the ground, don’t you think?” Lulu tossed back.
“What part of hush don’t you get?” Piper hissed back in annoyance over her shoulder.
“Sorry,” Lulu sneered.
“Do you feel that?”
“I thought we were being quiet? How come you get to talk and I…”
“Shut up,” Piper hissed.
“One rule for you…” Lulu bit out in a singsong tone that annoyed Piper even more.
She knew her friend could have verbal diarrhea most of the time, but her shields were tingling instead of itching now, and she had a bad feeling that doom was right around the corner. Then she saw him, big as an ox, moving through the tree line ahead of her.
“There!” Piper lifted her hand and pointed into the darkness.
“Where?” Lulu craned her head forward and rested her chin on Piper’s shoulder, looking down her arm as if it was the sight on a rifle.
“Big guy — ahead” Piper bit back with a tone that screamed pure disbelief. It wasn’t like you could miss a moving outhouse.
“So it is, hmm,” Lulu said. “Maybe we should ask him if he’s seen Karen around here.”
“Seriously?”
“Sure, why not? It’d save a whole lot of time, not to mention my boots…” Lulu hissed back.
CHAPTER THREE
~
“B-oots?” Piper almost choked on the word. She knew that Lulu could be reckless, but that just took the bloody biscuit.
“Just get it over with…” Lulu carried on talking.
“You’re nuts!” Piper hissed.
“Yeah, sometimes – maybe…” Lulu offered her a small grimace as she played it straight.
“You seriously want to go face-to-face with that?” Piper lifted her finger and jabbed the air with it. She didn’t care where it was pointed, her friend just needed to see reason before they both ended up as chow for the hungry wolves.
“No,” Lulu said with a teasing shrug, as glee flashed in her dark eyes, and made piper’s blood pressure soar.
“W-h..?” Piper tossed her hands up, brought her shoulders up around her ears, and whined a little. She wanted to kill something, anything, maybe even her friend.
“Was funny though…”
“Not,” Piper bit out.
“Party-pooper,” Lulu chuckled. “But, we are going to follow him, in our super stealthy witchy way.”
“No, we’re bloody well not!”
“Ok, you stay here and I’ll…”
“What? I’m not staying here alone…” Piper hissed in disbelief.
“Great, problem solved, glad you’re aboard, let’s go,” Lulu said, moving off to the left in pursuit of the big guy.
“That’s not what I…” Piper bit out a curse word in annoyance. “This is a bad idea. It’s so bad that it gives really bad ideas a bad name.”
~
~
“The witches have arrived,” Nick said with just a little too much glee for Piper’s liking as he stepped out from behind a large tree trunk and stood to block their way.
“The Wolfman is…” Lulu tossed up a hand and motioned to him, “here.” She was kind of lost for insults as she tried to still her racing heart and mentally peel it from her ribs as it tried to take off in fright.
But she was standing her ground because you didn’t show weakness to a wolf. Now that they’d been busted, she also had little choice.
“So much for super stealthy witchy mode. Don’t antagonise him,” Piper hissed from somewhere over her left shoulder.
“Why?” Lulu shrugged, full of bravado as he narrowed his eyes on her like she was a tasty snack.
“Geez, let me think – Oh! Fangs, claws, wolf…” Piper bit down on her annoyance.
When Lulu got a bee in her bonnet, she could be a real … witch. She didn’t think that kind of attitude would work well with an alpha dominant male. He certainly didn’t look impressed.
He looked – big. Big and mean-ish, but with nice eyes. She slapped that thought down, rapid dogs could have nice eyes too, it didn’t mean he wasn’t going to go all fur and fangs on them.
“And?” Lulu shot back.
“And we’re not looking to adopt a puppy; he’s a…” Piper heard the low, deep rumble of a growl and snapped her words off. She hadn’t even meant to insult him; it was the first thing that came to mind after seeing his eyes – puppy dog eyes.
“Didn’t you say not to antagonize him?” Lulu shot her a smirk, and she rolled her head on her neck and grumbled something under her breath.
“This isn’t a joke…” Piper hissed back.
“I never said it was a joke, but you said not to antagonize him, and now you’re antagonizing him.” Lulu shrugged her shoulders. “Which one is it? Are we antagonizing or not antagonizing?”
“You know which one it is,” Piper shot back.
“Well, I know which one you think you’d like it to be, but then you go and do the opposite…”
“Hello,” Nick growled, and he’d thought the human was insane. He should hav
e known that things were only going to get worse once the witches turned up.
“Can we help you?” Lulu turned her attention back toward him, and Piper followed suit.
Witches were crazy. The alpha was going to just love the two of them – not, Nick thought, as they both stared back at him like he was a curiosity. He couldn’t wait to watch his alpha’s head implode.
“You’re on my land…” Nick growled.
“Your land?” Lulu asked, raising her eyebrows toward her hairline, and folding her arms just under her breasts, pushing them up little — not that he looked.
“Pack land,” Nick said.
His wolf was edgy. Even though the beast had known that the witches were about to arrive, it didn’t stop it from pressing forward, ready and willing to take action if it needed to.
“Oh, pack land,” Lulu turned to look at Piper. “It’s pack land.”
“Oh, pack land,” Piper offered back, and Nick rolled his shoulders, drew in a breath, and waited for the show to be over.
“But then you knew that didn’t you?” he growled.
He didn’t like having his chain yanked by witches, and he knew that his wolf didn't appreciate it either.
“We did?” Lulu asked Piper, and Piper turned her attention toward him.
“We did.” She admitted, but it still felt to him like there was a punchline behind it.
“Normally, we wouldn’t be caught dead on pack land,” Lulu said.
“Perhaps the wrong choice of words?” Nick growled back.
“No need to be like that,” Piper berated him.
“But you have something that belongs to us,” Lulu said.
“The human,” Nick offered back.
“Well, would you look at that,” Lulu tossed another look at Piper. “He knew just what we were talking about.”
“And who said shifters were dumb?” Piper shot back. Another rumble of a deep growl rolled through the air.
“So, I guess we are antagonizing him?” Lulu asked Piper.
“I guess we are,” Piper said with a small, innocent shrug.
“Oh,” Nick growled. “You are.”
“Whoops,” Lulu shrugged.
“I like oops,” Piper said.
“You do?” Lulu shot back, and then feigned considering it, she even gave a little hum.
“Ok, the fun’s over,” Nick growled.
“This is fun?” Lulu asked.
“He probably doesn’t get out much. He certainly doesn’t know good hygiene,” Piper whispered back.
Then she lifted her hands and wafted it under her nose. Lulu sniffed the air and pulled a face.
“You two are just a scream,” Nick bit out.
“We’re a scream,” Lulu informed Piper.
“Funny, I heard that somewhere,” Piper shot back.
“Let’s see who’s screaming when the alpha gets here,” Nick offered with a satisfied smirk.
“Here?” Lulu pointed to the ground.
“Here,” Nick assured her.
“Anytime soon?” Piper asked.
“Real soon,” he growled again.
“In that case,” Lulu said, raising her hands, and with a pull on her magic she blasted the man backward through the air away from them. “We gotta go!”
CHAPTER FOUR
~
“We’re running?” Piper hissed as she followed Lulu’s lead, and her friend had already set off in a different direction from when Nick had hit the hard ground.
“I’m sorry, you wanted to chat with the big man with the bad attitude and breasts bigger than mine?”
“Not really, no,” Piper bit out, as annoyance flared inside of her at trying to keep her footing over the uneven ground. “I just wish I had a damn broom to fly.”
“We know they have Karen,” Lulu tossed back over her shoulder. “Now we just need to find her.”
“Makes – sense. I suppose.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Gee, welcome.” Piper snapped back. “But we knew they had her anyway. I mean, she’s human, and therefore basically defenseless against these butt…”
“Going somewhere?”
Lulu hit the brakes at the sight of another he-man that had stepped out into the open in front of them as if by magic, and it was Piper’s turn to slam into her back.
If this wolfman wasn’t bigger than the last, Lulu thought she would eat her hat.
“Can we stop doing that,” Lulu tossed back at Piper.
“Not really, no!” Piper snapped back.
“My brother was right. You two are real – peaches,” Den growled.
“Oh, you can kiss my…” Lulu bit out.
“Are we antagonizing this one?” Piper asked, panting from running like an idiot only to get caught once more.
“I think so,” Lulu sneered at the alpha, and boy, could she tell that he was an alpha because every inch of him screamed it. If the fact that he was bigger, meaner looking, and with muscles that had muscles wasn’t clue enough, this man just embodied strength and leadership.
“Ok, cool,” Piper said, blowing the hair out of her face and rolling her eyes.
“You’ll find it harder to get a rise out of me than it was with my brother because I’m…”
“That sounds like a challenge to me,” Lulu said, turning amused and mischievous eyes on Piper, and the witch offered a low chuckle back.
“Challenge – definitely,” Piper agreed as they nodded to each other and turned back to the alpha together.
“Challenge accepted,” they said as one, and Den groaned inwardly.
His dark eyes were already narrowed on them, and he started to lift his hand to issue a warning, when suddenly the alpha found that he was being lifted from the ground by magic.
He startled, trying to make his body feel stable even though it was anything but. How could it be stable when he was being levitated without so much as a wire or harness to keep him secure.
“I’m warning…” Den growled, but he had to wonder if that was the way to go as he whooped at being spun upside down in mid-air.
“Don’t you hate being warned by big, strong, bullying males who like nothing better than to pick on the smarter, fairer sex?” Piper said.
“Positively loathe it,” Lulu shot back.
“Now listen…” Den growled out, miffed to be taken for a fool and held at such a disadvantage. His wolf wasn’t best pleased either.
“Did you hear something?” Piper asked, and she would have loved to have cupped her ear like her grandma used to do, but she needed her hands to keep him where he was, one little slip-up and…
“That’s enough.” The deep, gravelly voice that barked out the order from behind them made Piper jump in place.
She turned to glare at the third man mountain that she’d met that night … and splat! The sound of the alpha hitting the ground hard caused her to grimace.
“Butterfingers,” Lulu said.
“That was not my fault,” Piper snapped back. “It was his fault.” She shot a glare at man mountain number three, and the man positively oozed malice back at her.
“It’s like a conveyor belt of barn-sized muscle men out here,” Lulu grumbled.
“Normally, I wouldn’t say that was a bad thing, but I don’t think we have enough kibble,” Piper sighed.
“Watch them,” Den bit out, shaking off the thump to his head and shoulders, as stretching out his aching back as he pushed to his feet.
“Oh, this one has beady little eyes,” Lulu said, motioning to the newest member of their fan club.
“I do not.” Carson curled his top lip.
“Don’t engage with them,” Den growled out, as Nick came limping towards the group.
“We want the human,” Piper said.
“What she said,” Lulu agreed.
“We want to know why the hell you’re telling humans about us,” Nick growled back.
“A drunken slip of the tongue,” Piper said and turned to look at Carson. “Don’t t
ell me you’ve never had one of those.” She offered him a dazzling smile.
“Well, now, I can’t truly say that…”
“What part of don’t engage with them didn’t you get?” Den growled at his beta.
His beast was scratching an itch that it had to get out, and he’d bet it had something to do with teaching these witches a lesson on who was the boss on pack land. Making demands, using magic and disrupting the peaceful flow of things, typical witches.
He thought maybe he should let his wolf have some damn fun with them, but they were females, and so he pushed that beast right back in its cage once more.
“Question,” Carson said, and his brother offered him a sideways glare. The alpha only offered a grunt in response. “If we don’t engage with them then how are we going to question them?”
“That’s…”
“Good point,” Piper said, playing one brother off against the other and taking satisfaction in her stride when the alpha growled again.
“Stupid question,” Den said, biting down on the urge to smack his beta upside the head.
“I liked it,” Lulu said.
“Me too,” Piper chimed in.
“Now see what you did?” Den growled.
The alpha wasn’t entirely sure why he couldn’t seem to keep his attention solely on his brother; it kept snapping back to the witch that was playing up to his sibling, but try as he may, that was the crux of it.
She had a certain charm, a style all her own. He wasn’t entirely sure that it would have been his choice to dye her long hair pink, but it seemed to work for her. It certainly highlighted what looked to be a warm violet color of her eyes, but that could have been the moonlight playing tricks on him.
One thing was for sure; she had sweetheart lips, the kind that definitely needed kissing – he snapped to attention – not by him they didn’t, she didn’t – he wouldn’t.
She was a Fae, and the further that she was from pack land the better in his book. No damn witches – it was a rule for a reason.
“No,” Carson said, answering the alpha’s question and snapping him back to reality.
“That makes you an idiot,” Den bit back.
“Seconded,” Nick grumbled.