by M. L. Briers
We want to do it … whatever the ‘it’ is, but a busted hip and fragile bones won’t let us.
Why can’t we start old and grow young … it would be so much better … all that world wisdom … a waste at my age!
Look at him, Grandpa Shifty, the man looks about my age and yet he’s peeling back car doors like he was slicing a warm knife through better…
Now he wants to help me out … me … Pah!
I’ve a good mind to tell him where to shove his gallantry.
Bet he doesn’t have to eat those cardboard bran flakes every morning!
I want pancakes. I want to kick up my heels and dance. I want … not this.
Sex … there I said it. What’s wrong with wanting to have sex …? Apart from the fact that my back is shot and my hips pop like a party popper!
Sex would be good. A man’s strong arms wrapped around me, holding me close like I mean something to someone again…
Just … not that old buzzard’s arms.
The man has shifty eyes … ha! Shifty eyes…
Actually he has nice eyes … no damn cataracts there!
Maybe I should have been born a shifter … no, bite your tongue, you’ll probably come back as a cat!
“Waiting here and not getting any younger…” Jared offered down to her.
He could see that she was uppity, and that she looked at him as if he was some kind of mass murdering abomination, and her a witch … He couldn’t say he liked the way that she gave him the evil eye, and yet, the woman was still attractive … for her age.
For her age!
I keep forgetting that I’m no spring chick myself. Chased plenty of them in my time though … and women … not witches… those broads be crazy!
“By the looks of you there isn’t much of that left,” Caroline offered back to him.
“Just take my hand…”
“Does it come off?” She snapped back.
She bit the bullet and reached up her arms and felt the warmth of his hands against her skin as her jacket slipped up her wrists … there was the strangest sensation like a deep tingle that travelled up her arms and over her body, and it didn’t stop anywhere until it had done the rounds.
It felt strange. It felt oddly nice, and yet … weirdly sexual … and she balked at the feel of it.
She tried to pull her arms back from him, but the man wouldn’t let go, and he was still strong enough to carefully haul her out of the car, even if he was making some kind of rumbled growl like he was straining a little.
Jared didn’t want to do it but he didn’t see how he had much of a choice about it. He’d felt that sensation as his skin had met hers … he knew well enough what that likely meant, and he’d waited so long for that to happen … how could he turn his back on it now?
“What’s he doing?” Caroline’s eyes widened as the elder dipped his head to her neck and took her scent in…
“He’s …” Wade frowned hard at the sight of it. “Scenting …”
“Why?” Caroline rushed to panic.
She had the strong urge to unleash her magic and make him stop, and yet there was a part of her that had fired up with the kind of excitement that she hadn’t felt in a very long time.
“I hate to imagine…” Wade offered with a small grimace.
“Should we …?” Jasmine sided up to her mother. “Do…?”
“I …?” Meredith shook her head and brought her shoulders practically up to meet her ears. “He’s not biting.” She offered back…
The sound of a low, deep, gravelly growl grumbled through the air, and Caroline craned her head back away from him and inadvertently opened up her neck more for him … offering him everything that he wanted.
Jared wolf all but howled with delight within him. The beast knew it too, of course he did, the animal had waited as long as he had.
Wade turned a quick glance at Meredith and the woman noted the movement. She turned her head so that she could scowl back at him…
“Don’t get any ideas,” she hissed out.
“I never sniff … humans,” he offered back with a small sneer, and she snorted back at him.
Jared slowly pulled his head back on his neck and growled long and hard in happy disbelief.
“Mine!” He growled out, making Caroline’s lower jaw snap down in surprise.
Son of a witch!
CHAPTER SIX
~
“Whoa, now you hold onto your false teeth there, Sparky,” Meredith scowled at the elder as he turned his head and grunted in disbelief.
“I don’t have false damn teeth,” he snorted with contempt at the woman’s stupidity. “What, you think I have a second set for my wolf?”
“You probably store them both in the glass on your bedside table,” Caroline sneered back.
“Well, you’ll be able to witness that for yourself, won’t you?” He offered with a glint of something in his eye that she hadn’t witnessed in a very long time.
“I’m sure you’d like to think so. I’m not sure if that makes you stupid or just senile. I’ll go with senile … As you do look a little confused.” Caroline huffed.
“Oh, I’m not confused …”
“Should he really be out at all?” Caroline directed her question to the alpha, and Wade had to admit, even if only to himself, that he was immensely enjoying the digs at the thorn in his side.
“Well, I could say the same thing about you, running around in the woods where you have no place being at your age.” Jared offered back to her with a look of cool disbelief on his face.
“At my age!” Caroline’s somewhat shrill voice let him know the depths of her displeasure.
“Oh, you can dish it out but you can’t take it!” Jared had a deep, gruff chuckle that rolled through his chest, and his eyes said that he thought he’d scored a victory.
“Take this!” Caroline announced as she lifted just one hand and flicked it towards him on her wrist, allowing her magic to snap at him like a whip.
Jared jumped slightly in place, he grunted at the sting in his rear end, and that victory look in his eyes was suddenly hidden by his grey bushy eyebrows as they came down in a scowl.
“Did you see what she did?” He turned a look of disbelief towards the alpha, and Wade shrugged his shoulders … He wasn’t about to get involved in a dispute between mates and wooing. “Back in my day…”
“See!” Caroline announced her own victory towards Meredith. “He’s living in the past, how is that not senile?”
“Oh, for the love of the spirits…” Jared growled out. “If we’re talking senile… Maybe we shouldn’t be looking any further than Mrs fancy pants here.”
“Isn’t it time you changed your incontinence pad?” Caroline offered back to him as she sniffed the air around her. “You’re smelling a little ripe there wolfman.”
The look on Jared’s face was priceless to Wade. It might have been someone else offering him payback for all of those jibes that he’d been handing out over the years since Wade had become alpha, but it still felt damn good to watch the man squirm just a little, suffer … just a little.
“I think we should be going…” Meredith said.
“Our truck is back up on the road, as we like to keep our vehicle from doing suicidal cross-country runs,” Wade gave her a small teasing grin and she graciously offered him her middle finger. He grunted. “I think the three of you can squeeze in the back quite nicely.”
“Maybe you can just call a tow, and we’ll wait right here,” Meredith offered with hopeful anticipation that he would agree, but deep inside her, and after what the elder had said that hope was taking something of a pounding.
“Oh, no,” Jared shook his head on his neck and grumbled a growl. “That won’t do … That won’t do at all.”
“Oh, don’t you even think it,” Caroline hissed at the man.
“Oh, I am thinking it!” Jared grinned.
“If you think for one moment…” Caroline started as she rounded on him and pointed her fully
loaded with magic index finger at the man…
“I do!” Jared announced. The teasing enthusiasm within him sparkled through. “Don’t you?”
“No I do not!” Caroline said, sounding somewhat disgusted at the thought.
“Would someone like to fill me in on who’s thinking what?” Jasmine leaned in towards her mother and asked.
“Well, he’s thinking whoopty-doo! And your Gran’s thinking about all the ways that she can make him suffer.” Meredith offered back.
“Is that so?” Caroline lifted her chin in a dignified defiance of her daughter’s words. “It’s getting rather chilly … We should be leaving now. Where did you park this truck?”
Meredith opened her mouth to speak … But there were no words.
Crafty old Witch!
~
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~
Of course, Caroline was never going to admit it to anyone but herself, but as she sat in the back of the shifters pickup truck, bouncing and bobbing along, that she might have made a grave mistake.
Only time would tell. She had the distinct feeling that she might have bitten off more than she could chew.
It wasn’t the first time and she was sure it wouldn’t be the last. Especially, as they were now heading towards pack land, and she was allegedly the elder’s mate.
“I seem to remember very clearly warning you not to tempt fate,” Meredith said on a whisper as she leaned in towards her mother.
“I did not tempt fate.” Caroline offered back in equally hushed tones.
“Who did what now?” Jasmine asked as she leaned in towards them.
“Nothing! I did nothing!” Caroline hissed back.
“You sound just a little bit guilty there, mum,” Meredith offered. “Perhaps you should have taken my advice and bitten your tongue.”
“Oh, you’d like me to be the guilty party here, wouldn’t you?” Caroline hissed back.
“Well I never said it,” Meredith offered her a smug grin.
“But it was you that got fate’s attention by pointing it out,” Caroline grumbled.
“So this is my fault?” Meredith tossed up a hands in frustration and let them drop back down onto her thighs. “Remind me again who it was that wanted to come to the mountains?”
“Oh, don’t you turn this back on me!” Caroline hissed.
“How can I possibly turn it back on you when this trip was your idea in the first place?”
“Perhaps we should be focusing on what comes next and not what is behind us,” Jasmine said.
“You know what’s behind us?” Caroline said as she turned to look at her granddaughter. “Our car. It’s back where your mother put it in a ditch.”
“Oh look! My fault again,” Meredith lifted her hands and drop them back to her thighs once more.
“Well, it’s nice that you’re finally admitting it, dear, but that doesn’t solve our problem now, does it?” Caroline’s tone said she’d scored a victory.
Meredith turned her head towards the window and stared out at the darkened landscape. It warmed her to imagine all the ways that she could hand her mother over to her mate, brush of her hands, and get the hell out of their before her mother realised what was going on.
It’s not like she wouldn’t be happy.
The whole fate things said that a mate would be happy.
So what’s wrong with me doing that?
Maybe I could try to persuade the alpha to pull over and let me out here?
Maybe I’m being a little harsh…
No, wait, this is my mother … There’s no such thing as too harsh.
There is, however, degrees of payback.
“Your mother’s never been one to take responsibility for her actions,” Caroline offered to Jasmine.
An image of them opening the car door, her kicking her mother out, and closing the door behind her as she cackled and drove off of pack land warmed Meredith to the very bone. Of course, that wasn’t going to happen, because as her mother pointed out her car was back in a damn ditch.
“Well mum took responsibility for me,” Jasmine said.
“Yes, but babies die if you don’t pay them any attention; so she really didn’t have a choice.” Caroline offered back.
CHAPTER SEVEN
~
“That’s a horrible thing to say.” Meredith hissed.
“Time was when a woman got married before she got pregnant, but your mother just skipped over that part completely.” Caroline huffed.
“And what was I supposed to do, marry a tree, because we all know that Jack’s feet didn’t touch the ground when he found out I was pregnant.” Meredith folded her arms and huffed once more.
“Well you picked the wrong man,” Caroline said as she lifted her chin as though she were about to sniff the air.
“You don’t say?” Meredith grumbled back.
“If you’d listen to me…”
“Then Jasmine would never have been born.” Meredith shot her mother a dark look. “And I for one like having Jasmine around.”
“Yes, but maybe if you weren’t such a shut in …” her mother paused for effect. “You might have been able to find a decent man that would have given Jasmine a brother or sister.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, Jasmine.” Meredith offered with a smile for her daughter and a glare for her mother.
“Hey, I like being an only child. I’ve never been good at the whole sharing thing.” Jasmine shrugged happily.
“Well that’s because you didn’t have a sibling to share with.” Caroline said.
“I’m sorry, did I misplace a few siblings along the way, I don’t remember having a brother or sister?” Meredith said.
“Don’t do as I do, do as I say … You should have learned from my mistakes,” Caroline offered back.
“I did. It’s called parenting.” Meredith offered in a sickly sweet tone, and Jasmine had to swallow a chuckle.
There was a deep grunt from the front seat and Jared tossed a deep frown over his shoulder.
“I guess witch’s don’t feel the need to respect their elders,” he bit out in gruff tones that showed his displeasure.
“The grateful ones do,” Carline said, and from the corner of her eye she caught Meredith’s mouth opening and closing like a goldfish out of water. It amused her.
“That’s…” Meredith found her voice for only a second before she lost it again.
“Point to Gran,” Jasmine chuckled and her mother tossed her another death glare. “Sore loser…” She whispered in her mother’s direction.
“Well, the only thing I’ll be losing on this trip is my mother to her mate,” Meredith offered back. “Maybe she can come up with another sibling for me…”
“Oooo, a perfect ten,” Jasmine chuckled, as she pushed down in her seat trying to make herself look smaller. Her eyes were flicking back and forth between her kin on either side of her, just waiting for more grenades to be lobbed and hoping not to get caught in the crossfire.
“They always like this?” Jared directed his question to Jasmine and she considered it for a moment before she replied.
“No, this is a good day.”
Jared grunted in dismay as he turned back in his seat to stare out the windscreen. He had a bad feeling about this.
“Oh, the joyous realisation of finally finding your mate.” Wade chuckled, ever so slightly enjoying the man’s misery.
“Kill me now.” Jared muttered back.
~
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~
“But this isn’t right, don’t you see…?” Jared gave the alpha a pleading look. “I’m too old … What do I know about families?”
“You’ve lived in the pack your whole life. It’s one big family,” Wade offered back.
“Yes,” Jared bit out. “But I can hand those back at any time. This one I have to keep for life, and a grandchild!” His eyes widen at the thought.
“And witches three,” Wade grinned to himself. Boy, was he enjoying this.
> “That’s my point!” Jared grumbled.
“Where is your point?”
“Right there!”
“I’m not following, but then I’m only an alpha,” Wade offered back with sympathy.
“Don’t get smart with me, son.” Jared pulled his body to his full height with a small grunt for the twinges of pain he felt. He eyed the alpha like a man judging his nemesis next move.
“Smart? Me? Isn’t that your job? Being an elder, and all.”
“This is different,” Jared lifted his chin with pride. “It’s not like I’ve had a mate before.”
“Well,” Wade lifted his hand to his chin and rubbed at the stubble as he considered it. “Me either.”
“I suppose it is the blind leading the blind.” Jared sighed.
“Yep,” Wade gave a thoughtful nod of his head. “Guess you’ll just have to figure it out as you go along.”
“What if I don’t want to?” He grumbled.
“You’re elder enough to know the answer to that one.” Wade bit out.
“Guess I am.” Jared gave a solemn nod of his head.
He knew well enough what happened to mates that turned their back on each other. It was fates way or the highway.
He considered himself too old to worry about that. He was in his twilight years and after the kind of life he’d led every day was a blessing.
“A witch!” Jared growled at the thought. “Sometimes you just have to wonder what fate was thinking.”
“Yep,” Wade nodded.
“But then I guess my problem is your problem to,” Jared grinned. “I suddenly feel a little bit better now.”
He turned on his heels and walked out the door, leaving the alpha to grumble a groan in his wake.
~
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“Well, this is nice…” Meredith said she stood at the large wall of glass and timber frame that took in the mountain range outside and the lush green landscape leading up to the snowy white peaks. It looked like spring where she was and deep winter up on the mountain, and it certainly had its appeal.
Caroline huffed a she flicked her eyes to the view out of the window and back again.