by M. L. Briers
Meredith snapped her body up straight at the disapproving look from her mother, and the innocent look on her face wasn’t fooling anyone, least of all Caroline.
“I was just getting your suitcase …” Meredith offered back, with a glare towards her daughter, as she quick footed it towards the front door.
Not quick footed enough; her mother reached out with her magic to zap her in mid stride.
Witch!
CHAPTER THREE
~
“I hate you, you could have tried to get me out of this,” Jasmine whispered across the front seats to her mother; who was behind the wheel, while Caroline sat in the back.
“Hey, I tried to get me out of this and that didn’t work. It’s every witch for herself where your grandmother is concerned.” Meredith hissed back. “And don’t let Gran fool you, she’s not sleeping, she’s doing recon for things that she can use against you later.”
Jasmine shot a look into the backseat at her grandmother. The woman’s eyes were closed, her nose twitched slightly, and she looked somewhat serene.
There was no way that woman was awake…
“Gran looks like an angel, there’s no way she could pull that look off if she was awake and her brain was engaged!” Jasmine hissed back, turning back towards the road.
“Ha! That’s what she wants you to think,” Meredith shot back, tapping her temple and then her nose, before she gave a nod of her head.
“Oh my Goddess, you’re losing it! I think you might be having a senior moment of your own!” Jazz shot back, and her mother scowled back at her…
“Take that back!” Meredith hissed at her daughter.
“Will not,” Jasmine sniggered.
“I am not going to lose my marbles before she does – because that wouldn’t be fair!” Meredith hissed.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jazz hissed back.
“It means that your Gran would have won. She would have sent me insane … batty, loopy loo – over the edge batshit crazy, and I’d rather die.” Meredith hissed back.
“Aren’t you supposed to be driving?” Jasmine hissed back.
“I am driving!” Meredith hissed louder this time.
“Then watch the damn road!” Jasmine hissed back.
Meredith snapped her head back around to look out of the windscreen; just in time to see the headlights of the pickup truck coming right at her…
“Move over!” Meredith screeched out…
“You’re on his side of the road!” Jasmine screeched back…
Meredith yanked on the steering wheel without a thought to what would happen next. The SUV swerved across the lane and out of the way of the oncoming truck, but she never corrected in time, and the front wheels bit into the off road dirt and spun beneath them as they churned up the muddy track…
Bumps, dips, mounds, and large gouged out potholes greeted the vehicle as it bounced and jumped them up and down, side to side, and forwards and backwards in their seats along the uneven terrain…
Three witches squealed out like three little piggy’s, until the car came to an unceremonious stop with its nose downwards in a ditch.
“Mum?” Meredith twisted in her seat to look back at her wide eyed mother in the back seat.
“Not quite dead yet,” Caroline bit out, and Meredith released a loud sigh as she turned back in her seat and deflated. “Although not for your lack of trying.”
“I told you she was awake!” Meredith hissed.
“Are you kidding me? That’s all you have to say for yourself?” Jasmine hissed back.
“I’m not dead and not deaf, so stop with the snake impersonations.” Caroline bit out.
Two large palms hit the side glass of Meredith’s window and all three witches jumped in place … Then the door was wrenched open and there he stood, big, broad shoulders, and looking as mad as hell…
“If that’s what passes for driving where you’re from then I’m glad I live here …” Wade bit out. There was a low underlying growl of miffed off man in his voice, and each witch picked up on it…
“You were driving like a madman …” Meredith shot back on a sneer of defiance and a whole lot of defence, but she’d had the sense to wrap her magic around her at the sight and sound of him.
“Witches …” he bit out, like that was a curse word in his vocabulary, and Meredith narrowed her eyes on the man and muttered a few choice words herself. “Why am I not surprised?” He grumbled.
“Perhaps, because your two remaining brain cells don’t talk to each other?” Caroline offered loftily from the back seat and Meredith groaned inwardly.
There was another low growl of annoyance that rumbled towards them like thunder, and Wade bit down on more choice words…
“I don’t think you’re in any position to be rude, lady…” he grumbled back.
“Would you prefer it if I were standing up?” She offered back in a caustic tone that could have burned through steel, and Meredith felt the need to plant her face in her hands…
“Mother!” Meredith bit out.
He was right. They were definitely at a disadvantage…
“Tell him, Gran!” Jasmine chuckled at the feisty matriarch in the back seat – she was her cheerleader on this one!
“Don’t encourage her,” Meredith hissed at her daughter.
“Yeah, don’t encourage her,” Wade bit out.
“I’m not a mutt, I don’t do tricks and need no encouragement,” Caroline offered back loftily, and there was another long growl, this time it was a warning.
“Lady…!” He grumbled and growled and made that one word sound like a caustic curse.
“And you’d do well to remember that,” Caroline scowled back at him. The shifter looked somewhat confused…
“What?” Wade scowled…
“That you’re talking to a lady and not one of your kind…”
“Oh Geez,” Meredith rolled her eyes back in her head…
CHAPTER FOUR
~
“Now listen here …” Wade growled …
He’d stopped to help them when they went off the road thinking that the car contained normal humans, not damn witches … If he’d known then what he knew now … Yeah, he probably still would have stopped, but he would have done it under protest and wouldn’t have liked it.
“Need a hand?” The deeper, slightly more gravelly tones came from off road somewhere, and Wade sighed to himself…
“No, I’ve got this …” he called back.
He didn’t need an elder getting in the mix … not with Grandma the Viper Queen using her tongue as a whipping tool … he’d prefer to only have one cantankerous elder to deal with at a time.
“Sure you can manage?” Came the shout back, and Wade groaned…
“Yeah, thanks. It’s in hand … just a few …” he stared at Caroline in the back seat and the she-demon glared back at him. If she’d put a little magic behind that stare then he was sure his backside would have been toasted right about then. “Problems to sort out.”
“He’s a bit of a silver fox, don’t you think?” Jasmine leaned in towards her mother and whispered.
Meredith’s head whipped around on her neck so that she could give her daughter a glare of disbelief … She heard the sound of a snap somewhere in her neck and her hand shot to grab it as a twinge of pain went through her…
“He’s got those big ears, like the fairytale…” Meredith bit out with a now constant glare.
“You’re hurt…” Wade grumbled a growl.
He didn’t like witches, but he didn’t like it when females were hurt either. Meredith was slow to turn her head back towards him, just in case it snapped again.
“I’m fine,” she offered back, still glaring, and he scowled back at her until she remembered what she was doing and who it was that she was doing it to and snapped it off. “Thanks.” She also remembered her manners.
“Didn’t sound like it to me,” Wade grumbled.
“Oh yeah, big ears!” Jasmine chuckled
and Meredith rolled her eyes back into her head and groaned inwardly.
“More pain?” Wade asked, concerned for the woman, and not having a damn clue why.
“Yes, two of them,” she bit back.
“It’s taking a while, sure you don’t need help?” That gravelly shout came again and Meredith saw her life mirrored right there on his face…
“Nope, we’re all good,” Wade shouted back.
“Could you not shout?” Caroline snapped out, and Wade looked even more pained.
“I could try sign language but he’s eyes aren’t what they used to be…” Wade offered, and then he shot a look around at the trees. “Smoke signals won’t do it either, this timber is likely to go up…”
Meredith couldn’t help but chuckle…
“Don’t encourage him, Meredith,” Caroline berated her.
“Oh, I don’t think he needs any encouragement, mum,” Meredith offered back, and for just a second, as her eyes met Wades, there was an unspoken camaraderie between them.
Then Wade heard the muffled sounds of the elder’s footsteps as they thudded through the undergrowth, and the man came towards them. He bit out a curse under his breath and rolled his head on his neck and his eyes away from the witch towards the man…
“Said it was fine, Jared,” Wade offered in clipped tones that sounded like one miffed off alpha, if she wasn’t mistaken, and from the look in his eye she didn’t think that she was.
“So you did, and I’m just coming for a little look,” Jared offered back, as he moved towards the passenger door and bent forwards to gaze in at Jasmine…
“Wow, silver fox times two,” Jasmine bit out on a giggle of amusement.
“Silver wolf …” Caroline noted with a huff in her voice, “at the door.” She added dryly.
“And a gaggle of witches caught between a rock and a hard place,” Jared offered back as he raised one bushy grey eyebrow back at the woman.
Jared stretched upright, even if his back did protest just a little at the movement, and he placed his forearms on top of the car and scowled across at the alpha…
“That puts you in a little bit of a dilemma, Alpha,” Jared said as if he appreciated those words no end, and the man probably did, because they’d been having an uneasy truce of late over some of Wade’s ideas for modernising the way things were done in the pack.
Wade grumbled to himself as his eyes took a slow turn down towards the woman in the front seat.
A witch! A fine looking woman like that and she had to be a witch … shame.
Now what?
Well, Jared is going to have a damn field day with this one … but I can’t leave them out here.
Maybe I could … call for help and a tow when I get back to … ahh, damn it! That just goes against the grain…
Leaving three helpless … well, not helpless … they’re witches for spirit’s sake … but women … leaving three women stuck out in the middle of nowhere.
Car doesn’t work. Well, it probably does, but it ain’t going anywhere…
Geez, why me?
Why now … today … with Jared here?
He sort of wished that he could walk over to the nearest tree and head-butt it full on. It would have been a lot more preferable than dealing with Jared and his snarky comments and beady eyed look over his shoulder every five minutes…
It certainly would have been more preferable than having to deal with one witch, let alone three of them…
I … Damn!
What’s an alpha to do?
Leave them out here with night drawing in and a full moon on the cards…?
It’s not a total non starter …
Yeah, it damn well is.
Wade grumbled another growl inwardly and sighed outwardly. His eyes caught the glaring amusement in the old man’s eyes that taunted him…
If you weren’t a damn elder…
“Are any of you injured?” Wade bent to look back inside the car once more. He was grateful that he wasn’t staring his pack elder in the eye, but one look at the woman in the back seat and her Medusa impression, and he sort of missed the old man’s glare…
“No,” Meredith offered back.
The man was a wolf shifter that much she knew. She’d also guessed long before the old man had said anything that the man was an alpha. It was in the way that he carried himself and that sense of authority; the dominant strength that he had about him.
She was a little uneasy about being stuck out in the middle of nowhere with the men. Witches and wolves didn’t necessarily mix well in the real world, and she’d tried to stay away from the supernatural realm as much as possible – there certainly weren’t any where they came from.
I had to say yes to my mother!
I had to give in to her manipulative ways and come on this trip … and too the mountains no less … at spring time when all manner of beasts were out from their lairs…
What did I expect to find here…?
If it wasn’t wolves it probably would have been bear shifters …
Geez, I’m an idiot!
A mountain range and shifters went hand in hand together.
I should have checked … I could have called the witches circle … not that they were any easier to deal with than wolves or my mother!
“What about your neck?” Wade asked on a frown that made his eyebrows pitch and roll, and she was caught off guard for a moment by that sight.
Her stomach did the same thing within her at the sight of him. She might as well have been on a rollercoaster ride.
It wasn’t like she hadn’t noticed that the man was attractive … she wasn’t blind … she just tried extra hard not to notice that sort of thing or be swayed by it.
It wasn’t like she could date with her mother living with her … not that she’d consider dating a wolf shifter anyway … that was a whole other no-no that she didn’t want to think about…
“Your neck?” Wade asked again, prompting her back to him and away from her thoughts, and sounding even more concerned now that she’d flaked out on him.
“It’s fine,” she protested, more to herself than to him…
Geez, get it together woman, the man is going to think you’re fifty shades of stupid!
Damn, why’d I have to think about fifty shades of anything … that certainly took my mind into unchartered territory!
I wanna go home!
I want my mother to admit that she was wrong about this trip ...
I want it not to be spring…
I want him not to be as sexy as all hell … yeah, that’s what I want…
CHAPTER FIVE
~
“Okay, lady, don’t shoot the messenger,” Wade grumbled back. He leaned further down and eyed the younger of the three witches in the passenger seat, “How about you?”
“I’m good. Mum only tends to kill off technology rather than people.” She offered back with a smile that Wade knew wasn’t fake or forced. At least one witch seemed friendly – he supposed that was a start.
“And…” His eyes roamed into the back seat and that withering glare that was still in the elder witch’s eyes.
“I’ll live,” Caroline ground out.
Though for how long with the wolves at the door … who knows?
If Meredith hadn’t of been driving erratically!
Two wolves, and one of them an old man … I can take them if I have too, after all, that’s what magic is for … p-r-o-t-e-c-t-i-o-n… she offered; just in case the spirits were listening…
“Let’s get them out,” Jared sighed. “Can’t leave them in there all night, now can we?”
Wade felt his annoyance prickle inside of him at the tone of the elder’s voice. It sounded like an accusation, like it always did, like he didn’t think Wade was doing the right thing … as if he’d considered leaving them in there all night and walking away! Which … he had, but that wasn’t the damn point!
“We don’t need your help,” Caroline bit out from the back se
at.
“I’d say you do because your door is wedged shut by the ridge of the land…” Jared offered back, and Wade looked down to find the same thing had happened on his side of the car. It was as if the ground was trying to claim the vehicle… “Front door passenger side too.”
“And here, both doors,” Wade sighed to himself.
Nothing was ever easy.
“Well…” Jared flicked out his claws and gave the alpha a big grin. “Time to open the tin can.” He offered with glee and Wade groaned.
“I hope you’re not fond of this car,” Wade growled down at Meredith and she screwed up her face in a grimace.
“It’s a rental,” she didn’t think that her mother would be getting her security deposit back anytime soon, and that thought kind of brightened her day a little.
“Be less personally painful for you then,” Wade offered with a small grin as amusement filed his chocolate brown eyes, and boy was she hooked at that smile … her stomach was back on that rollercoaster ride once more and she scowled back up at him, before she snatched her gaze away.
I’m really going to kill my mother…
The Witch!
~
~
~
Caroline had sat in the back of her car and counter every last penny of her deposit down as the two shifters used their claws to get a good grip on the doors and peeled them backwards on the frames. She felt the screeching, protesting metal grating across her last nerve, but the absolute last straw had come when that elder had winked at her before he held out his hands to offer her help to leave the mangled wreck…
She seethed inwardly at the thought of it, and grumbled ungratefully as she considered her options. She’d watched her daughter and granddaughter climb out of the car, and it was neither a pretty sight, with their backsides waving in the air, or an easy thing to do…
Oh, how I hate getting older!
My mind is still twenty, why can’t my body just follow suit?
Why would Mother Nature design our bodies to grow old but our minds still be so active?