by M. L. Briers
That touch alone caused the rumble of a growl within his chest to lodge in his throat, and it sounded decidedly hungry. She didn’t know what was more enticing, his lips, the feel of his skin beneath her fingertips as they explored his back, or that damn growl.
What Piper did know, however, was that neither her body, or mind was willing to give up the quest to find out.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
~
Carson got closer, close enough that she could feel the warmth that was emanating from his body reaching out and touching her skin. The man was imposing, as sexy as hell, and she’d seen another side of him that she’d not expected to find.
Lulu hadn’t been sure what to expect from her mate, but what she did know was that she hadn’t expected to like him as a person. He was a shifter, they were big, brawny, and usually dogmatic and domineering with their personality.
Carson wasn’t like that, at least, not with her. Sure, the man probably knew that everything she’d told him about not being attracted to men was a lie, but still, even if he knew the truth, then he’d still played along. At least he had a sense of humor.
Those dark eyes of his were eating into her very soul, and the closer that he got, the more her body jumped to high alert, and the more her mind was torn between baying him on and calling him on it.
“Perhaps, our life together won’t be so bad,” Carson said. His little witch was a good liar, but still, he’d sniffed out the truth.
Now she looked at him as if she was debating whether to have another slice of chocolate cake or not. He liked that look.
He’d played her game for the long enough, his beast was getting antsy within him, and that was nothing compared to his own need to claim her lips and taste her on his tongue.
Mine…
“Says you…”
“Says me.” He shrugged just one shoulder and growled deep within his chest at the sight of the tip of her pink tongue racing across her bottom lip as she considered her options.
“I…” Lulu got no further as he let out a loud, manly yelp and slammed the palms of his hands over his ears as he crumbled forward in pain.
Lulu was at a loss. That wasn’t her — although, she could feel the magic in the air.
~
~
Piper wasn’t sure what the hell was going on — one moment she was being devoured by the alpha’s kisses — and the next the man was rolling on his back on the floor with his hand slammed over his ears, and the magic was thick in the air around her.
Darlene!
Piper grumbled in annoyance as she scooted up onto her knees, yanked a blanket from the bed, and wrapped it around her body. There was nothing that she could do for the alpha for the moment; she needed to find the source of his pain and stop it.
~
~
One, two, three of her friends spilled out of the house and headed toward her as Darlene stood by one of the trucks ready to make their escape. She’d directed all of her magic at the house to cause as much confusion as possible for the male, supernatural occupants inside, and it had worked.
“Why are you naked and wrapped in a blanket?” Lulu demanded as Piper was about to yell at Darlene to stop her attack.
“Not important right now,” Piper snapped back at Lulu. The knowing smile on Lulu’s lips and the amusement in her eyes was annoying, to say the least.
“What the hell happened to Slade?” Karen demanded as she tossed a hand back toward the house, confused as to why he was rolling around on the floor in pain.
“Let’s get out of here,” Darlene said, as she pulled her magic back inside of her and dropped her hands to her sides.
“We’re leaving?” Karen said, she should have been happy with the new development, but she wasn’t sure if she was.
“You want to stay?” Darlene looked surprised by that turn of event.
“I…” She paused for thought, and in that space of time, Lulu decided to challenge Piper again.
“So, how did he kiss?” Lulu smug smile annoyed Piper no end.
“Who said I was kissing him?” Piper shot back with a sneer for her friend’s assumption and the tapping of guilt in the back of her mind.
“Naked — wrapped in a blanket — and your lips are a little swollen,” Lulu said, watching her friend squirm on the spot as she pointed to the clues that back up her line of thought.
“Look, if we are going we need to go now,” Darlene demanded. Although, she made no move toward the driver’s door of the truck.
All four of them looked at each other. It was as if they were all waiting for somebody else to make the first move.
“We are going, right?” Karen asked and followed it up with a small grimace at the thought of it.
“Piper is smitten,” Lulu chuckled.
“Who says smitten?” Piper shot back glaring at her in annoyance.
“I do, and I see you aren’t denying it…”
“Why do I need to deny it? Why do I need to answer your stupid…?” Piper stumbled over her words and waved her hand as she searched for something to say.
Maybe she was smitten, maybe Lulu had hit the nail right on the head — she had no clue as to what she was doing — naked, wrapped in a blanket, and she was barefooted and standing outside in the dark. Life had somehow become surreal.
“Piper and the alpha, sitting in a tree…” Lulu’s singsong tone annoyed Piper no end. She reached out with her magic and zapped her friend. Lulu screeched at the feel of the bee sting to her backside. “Truth hurts.” She hissed.
“Not as much as magic,” Piper bit out the warning and Lulu huffed back at her.
“Can we focus?” Darlene bit out.
“Are we leaving?” Karen demanded again. She knew that when Lulu and Piper went head to head like that nothing else mattered to them.
“Are you?” Nick’s deep tone made Darlene grimace and she rolled her eyes to the sky and groaned inwardly.
“Zap him!” Karen screeched as she lifted an accusing finger and pointed it at the beta.
“Again?” Lulu said, tossing up her hand at the human and shaking her head in dismay. “You just have a thing for zapping people, don’t you?”
“No!” Karen hotly denied the accusation.
“So, what now?” Nick demanded.
“There’s a question I’d like an answer to,” Slade said as he stalked toward the group, and watched his mate rush to panic.
“Zap him!” Karen said turning her accusing finger on her mate.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
~
“It’s really lucky that you don’t have magic,” Piper said. “There would be so many crispy critters lying about that we could fill a bloody stadium with them.”
“That’s not true,” Karen rushed out, feeling a sense of guilt, and very, very confused by what was happening. “I’m not that bad.”
“You’re a bloodthirsty wench,” Slade said.
“Well suited to becoming a vampire,” Lulu chuckled.
“Don’t give him ideas!” Karen hissed back.
“Trust me, the ideas about you that that man has got has nothing to do with turning you into a vampire,” Piper sniggered.
“That’s…” Karen bit off her words as she turned her attention back toward Slade. The man offered her a suggestive wiggle of his eyebrows and Karen didn’t know whether to laugh or cry because that look sparked more than just interest within her.
“Who the hell did that?” The alpha demanded as he stalked from the house toward them. His chin was angled down at his chest, his eyes were dark with anger, and the growl that rumbled through the air said that he was more than miffed off.
“That’s right,” Nick said, “you haven’t met my mate yet.” He folded his large arms across his chest and berated her with just a look.
“Welcome to the pack,” Den tossed back. “The next time you use your magic…”
“Blah — blah – blah,” Darlene sighed as she rolled her eyes back in her head before
turning her attention back to her friends. “Congratulations — it looks like you missed your window of opportunity — again.”
“It isn’t like I was exactly dressed for an escape,” Piper snapped back.
“Yes, let’s get back to you being naked,” Lulu chuckled and got a dark glare from her friend as Piper bit down on a curse or two.
“I was changing,” Piper said with enough venom in her voice to make any snake proud.
“Into a mate?” Lulu chuckled, enjoying the moment and Piper’s obvious embarrassment.
“You’re all mates,” Den said.
“And the sooner you realize that, the better,” Carson said stalking up to the group and eyeing his mate with an accusing look.
“That was not me,” Lulu said, lifting her hand and pointing at Darlene.
“I did it — what are you going to do about it?” Darlene said, tipping her chin up in the air and challenging him with just a look.
The sound of a low, deep growl that emanated from her mate’s direction made her turn to look at him.
“Another challenge?” she asked in all innocence.
“Something like that,” Nick said, dropping his hands to his sides and starting toward her.
“Now just you hold on,” she warned him, lifting her hand and wagging her index finger in his direction.
Nick wasn’t about to stop. Someone had attacked him in the woods and she’d taken off, and that was a good enough reason for him to be miffed at her.
The fact that she’d used magic against the pack and tried to rescue her friends, well, that was just the icing on the cake.
“I wouldn’t do anything that I’d regret if I were you,” Darlene said.
She tried to pull on her magic and found it lacking. The amount of energy that she’d used to attack the house meant that her reserves were low.
“Well, I guess it’s lucky that you’re not me then, isn’t it?” Nick growled back.
He was done playing Mr nice guy, giving her space and time, and trying to talk her around to his point of view. Actions spoke louder than words, especially in her book, and although he wasn’t about to attack her; he considered it past due that he became proactive in their relationship.
One moment Darlene was deciding whether to back up away from him or not and the next the man had reached down and tossed her over his broad shoulder. As her brain tried to play catch up, she stared at the ground and weighed up her options — which were limited.
“You got me into this, Lulu, Piper, get me out of it now,” she hissed out, but the view did take some of her attention away from her annoyance. The man had a better backside than she did.
“Wait,” Piper said, holding up her hands in front of her, and then she felt the blanket start to slip, and she snatched at it to keep it in place. Being naked in front of her mate was one thing, but being naked in front of everybody was something completely different.
“For what?” Nick demanded, half expecting to be zapped for his trouble, but it never came.
“I don’t know,” Piper admitted.
“I do!” Karen piped up “Zap him!” She said, not understanding why Piper all Lulu weren’t doing anything to help.
“Again with the zapping?” Lulu said in disbelief.
“Well…” Karen gave a helpless shrug. It was all that she could think of, and she didn’t think that made her a bloodthirsty wench at all.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Darlene demanded as she kicked out her feet in a bid to escape his shoulder — not that she thought that would end well, but still, she had to try for her own sense of pride.
“We need to talk,” Nick growled.
“We have talked!” Darlene hissed back.
“You’re right — we need to do other things,” Nick liked that idea.
“Talking sounds fine,” Darlene offered back, not sure what the man had in mind, but the fact that she didn’t have her magic at that moment meant that she was already on the back foot.
Oh, how she wished she was on either foot. Being carried like a sack of coal annoyed her so.
“I’m going to take my mate to the cabin where she can do less damage,” Nick announced to the alpha as he started to stalk away from the group.
“Except that it could burn down,” Lulu chuckled.
“Why is she wearing a wedding dress?” Den asked.
“Pre-emptive strike?” Carson chuckled. “Check her pockets perhaps she has the ring for you, Nick.”
The hard growl of a warning that was tossed back over Nick’s shoulder told Carson that he had hit his mark.
“Bite me,” Darlene tossed back at the beta.
“Trust me, I’m not going to rise to the bait,” Nick warned her.
“Well, you can’t blame a girl for trying,” Darlene said as she gave up trying to brace her hands against his back so that she could glare at her friends as he carried her away. It wasn’t worth her time and energy, she’d do better to save her strength and build her magic back up.
“Sure I can,” Nick growled back.
“Considering the fact that she came to help us, shouldn’t we be helping her right back?” Lulu whispered towards Piper.
“You’ve got troubles of your own,” Carson warned her, and without meaning to, Lulu felt a sense excitement at his words.
It didn’t occur to her to even wonder why that sounded so good a proposition.
“If you pick me up and toss me over your shoulder I will kill you,” Lulu warned him, and she would — she hated heights, and her mate wasn’t exactly a small guy.
“Then I suggest you come back into the house under your own steam,” Carson offered her a way out.
“We should all go back inside,” Den said, eyeing his mate still wrapped in a blanket, and remembering the fact of just how they’d been disturbed doing what came naturally.
He’d like to reclaim that moment in time and take it further. The look that she gave him offered him hope that it wasn’t just one-sided.
“So, we’re not escaping?” Karen said, lifting her hands, shrugging her shoulders, and dropping her hands back to her sides once more.
“Not this side of forever,” Slade informed her as he motioned for her to walk ahead of him.
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
~
Lulu reached out, fisted Karen’s sweater, and yanked her into the living room with her. Once clear of the door, Lulu blocked the path for Carson and Slade to enter behind them.
“Girls only,” she said, offering them a drop dead gorgeous grin, and a wicked gleam in her eyes.
“But…” Carson lifted his index finger to protest, but she slammed the door closed in their faces.
“But?” The vampire mocked him and Carson grunted in annoyance. “It’s not like you don’t have ears.”
“I’d rather be up close and personal in there than listening at the damn door with you out here.”
“Boo-hoo.”
“Get over yourself.” Carson growled, taking a step forward and pressing his ear to the door.
Slade sniggered and the beta drew back to glare at him.
“Would you like me to see if I can find a glass for you to use?”
“No, just find me something wooden and pointy, and I’ll be good to go,” Carson growled.
“Has your mate seen this attractive side to your personality?”
“I’m warning you, Slade…” he growled back, but the vampire was grinning like a damn idiot, and Carson was in no mood to go ten rounds with the man when he had a mate to woo.
“Point taken,” Slade chuckled.
“It will be if you keep on being an asshole.”
~
~
“Are we going out the window?” Karen hissed out a whisper so close to Lulu’s ear that the witch shivered at the feel of it.
“Don’t do that,” she grumbled, turning to her friend and berating her with a dark glare. “No, we’re not going out the damn window.”
“So, we’re
not escaping? I mean, I think it’s too late for Piper, I think you’re right, she’s all alpha loved up, but we aren’t, right?” Karen hissed, although, that time she kept a better distance.
“Well, I’m not … yet,” Lulu grimaced.
She could feel the mating pull working on her, and it had to be that because she’d only just met Carson, and yet, she was more than just attracted to the damn man.
“Yet?” Karen looked lost again.
“The mating pull,” Lulu waved a dismissive hand, but it wasn’t enough to ward Karen off.
“Do I have that? Is it bad?” Her eyebrows pinched together.
“Yes, and yes … no, well…”
“Make up your mind. I could be dying here,” Karen hissed.
“You’re not dying – not unless I kill you – the mating pull is just fate’s way of backing up its agenda, the same as attraction. I mean, the longer you spend with anyone you’re attracted to the more you get attracted, right?”
“I have no idea what you’re saying, but does the ending of your story have us escaping to a happy ending?”
“They’ll be a happy ending,” Lulu winced.
“Why am I sensing a but?”
“It might not be the one you’re hoping for right now,” Lulu offered her a small grimace.
“I’m stuck with the damn vampire for life, aren’t I?” Karen said, tossing up her hand and grumbling with annoyance.
“Like a puppy at Christmas…”
“Just not as cute and benign,” Karen bit back.
“Like super glue, two peas in a pod…”
“Stop now!” Karen hissed.
“It’s really not that bad…”
“You didn’t get a vampire!”
“At least your mate doesn’t shed fur everywhere and sniffs his own backside,” Lulu shrugged.
“Do werewolves drink blood?” Karen asked, folding her arms and arching one eyebrow.