by M. L. Briers
He roared back in pain and smacked the side of his head against the open door… he yelped and gripped the counter top for stability; knocking into the bread pin and sending a large rolling pin crashing down onto his fingers from the top of it…
Jasmine grimaced … that wasn’t all her, but from the look on his face – it might as well have been…
“Really – really clumsy!” Jasmine offered.
“Forget wooing … I’m going to kill you…” he growled out…
“Not a good idea…” Jasmine offered with a small shake of her head, and then he took one step forward and his foot stomped down on the head of the broom causing the stick to shoot up and hit him right between the legs…
“I…” he gasped in a really big breath as the pain shot through his crown jewels, up into his stomach, and tore outwards in all directions through his body.
Sam’s legs quivered, unable to hold himself up a moment longer; he dropped to his knees on the tiled floor. His teary eyes staring at her, accusing, questioning…
“Ok, that one was all you…” Jasmine grimaced a moment before he fell forwards on his face on the floor, groaning as he landed on his already broken nose…
“Well played, dear … now you might as well just shoot him and put the poor boy out of his misery!” Caroline offered from the kitchen doorway as Jared stood beside her; chuckling silently as he wiped the tears from his eyes with the backs of his hands…
“That was fun … do it again!” Jared chuckled harder, and Jasmine rolled her eyes in her head.
“Seniors!” She shrugged, before turning on her heels and stalking off across the room. Her Grandmother and Jared parted ways for her to walk through and out of the kitchen doorway.
“She takes after me,” Caroline said, by way of a warning to her own mate … Jared eyed the beta on the floor.
“Leaves a mess wherever she goes?” Jared grinned back.
~
~
~
“Meredith…” Wade called after her as she followed the corridor that ran off the living room to see where it would lead. The house was a little mass of nooks and crannies, and she liked that, but it wasn’t exactly secure.
“I’m not escaping – I’m checking out the lay of the land,” Meredith offered back over her shoulder.
“Escaping? Nice choice of words. My office,” Wade informed her. “One window, no back door.”
Meredith stopped in her tracks and turned back towards him.
“What about the rest of the pack?” Meredith asked.
“How do you mean?” Wade stopped just short of her and folded his large arms across his chest as he waited for her reply…
“We can put wards around this place to protect the house, but there are only three of us – there is no way that we have enough juice to cover the whole of the pack…” Meredith tossed up a hand in frustration…
“The pack will protect the others. I just want to make sure that you’re all safe…”
“That makes no sense…”
Meredith turned on her heels and started to pace back and forth. Wade watched her for a long moment, unsure what it was that she was doing or thinking, or even if she was thinking, although, she looked like she might have been, but she was female – so Wade decided to wait it out just in case … then he got itchy with the whole waiting thing and decided to jump right in…
“Explain this to me?” He motioned to her feet and she stopped in place, frowning back at him.
“What?”
“What you’re doing…”
“Thinking…” she quirked an eyebrow at him.
“About?”
“I just want you to be safe here…”
“I do…”
“You mean us poor little helpless witches?” Meredith frowned.
“That sounds like a loaded question to me.” Wade wasn’t about to jump into that one and get berated for something he hadn’t done.
“Why not protect everyone?” she shrugged.
“You said that you couldn’t … doesn’t that make it a moot point?”
“Well …. Not if they all came here. That would free up other wolves to join the … I’d say slaughter, but…” She shrugged again.
“You don’t think we should kill the mutts?” Now he was looking at her as if she’d grown another head.
Meredith opened her mouth but nothing came out. Her first reaction had been; live and let live, but the werewolves obviously didn’t have a mind to do the same, and he had every right to defend his people and his land as he saw fit.
“It’s just that they were people once.”
“Once – now they’re killing machines; once a month on the full moon, and the rest of the time they’re ticking time bombs.” Wade offered her the truth of it.
“It’s a shame you can’t just assimilate them, like the Borg…”
“The Borg? Are they a pack?”
“In a way … sure…” Meredith didn’t know how anybody couldn’t get a Star Trek reference, but she didn’t feel that now was the time to sit him down in front of the TV and let him binge on box sets… “The main thing is that you can’t, so … moving on.”
“To something I can do something about,” Wade offered and she looked around in slight confusion, still half focused on the whole Borg fiasco, and wondering what the hell it was that he was going to do…
“Death, destruction, annihilation, slaying…” She offered back to him, but Wade’s lips quirked into a small, but powerfully motivating – to her dancing womb – grin…
“Wooing…”
CHAPTER NINTEEN
~
“Wooing?” Meredith had a cutting edge to her voice that was as close to a shriek as he wanted to hear with his sensitive hearing. “Now?”
“No time like the present…” Wade dropped his arms to his sides and went to take a step…
“Like … now – now? When you’re mind is on ripping and tearing apart limbs … gouging your claws into a mutt’s flesh?” She lifted her hands and twisted them together. “Ripping and tearing, twisting and wringing … blood everywhere…”
Wade didn’t move a muscle, well, maybe one, but that moved itself – twitching in his jeans … but that had been happening since the first time that he’d met her and wasn’t his fault.
“Squeezing heads until their eyeballs pop out of stalks…” she continued and the alpha twisted his head to one side and regarded her with a vaguely mild smile, but definitely a curious stare…
“Eyeballs popping out on stalks?” His eyebrows rose up a little…
“Heads ripped off – throats ripped out…” She grimaced at the thought…
“Is there some history of mental health issues in your family that I should be aware of? Or, you know, Jack the Ripper was a distant Uncle?” He asked and she snorted a chuckle.
“I get a little…”
“Crazy?”
“Carried away…” She offered back with a little air of disbelief in her tone for his words.
“Yes – yes, you do,” he gave a hearty nod.
“I’m working on my over active imagination,” she frowned.
“Just starting?”
“No!”
“You need to work harder…” Wade snorted a small chuckle.
“So how will you kill them then?”
She put her hands on her hips and Wade grumbled inwardly. He’d obviously upset her again…
“As quickly and painlessly as they will allow.”
“Oh, well, good for you.” She offered back, before she turned on her heels and started back towards the door at the end of the corridor…
“Wrong way – that’s my office…”
He watched her pull up short with a low curse and a snap of her fingers in annoyance. Then she turned and came back his way…
“You’ve got that whole sniffing thing out of your system, right?” She narrowed her eyes on him as his lips twitched with just the beginnings of a smile…
“Sniffing … sure, for now,” Wade offered back and noted that the tension in her shoulders eased a little – but just as she was about to walk by him; he reached out, snagged one arm around her waist, and in the time that it took her to blink – her back was up against the wall, and there he was – Mr Sinfully Sexy Grey Wolf himself – all around her; caging her in…
“But not the kissing part.”
Wade gave her no time to answer; his lips came down on hers, soft, but demanding – like he had an itch to scratch and she had the claws to do it.
Meredith had two urges; the first was to kick him so hard that his – probably never to be Great Grandchildren would feel it – the second was to climb up those big muscled legs of his, wrap her legs around his hips, cling onto those broad muscled shoulders, and kiss him until the cows came home – not that they had cows…
Travis stalked around the corner in search of the alpha and stopped in his tracks … He decided that right that moment probably wasn’t the best of times to enquire when they were going out to rip of some mutt’s heads – he thought it might just be a mood killer – he did an about face and slammed into the wall in his haste to get away…
With a grunt of pain; he let out a curse and tried to make a quick getaway, but the sound of a deep growl of annoyance made him turn to see both of them staring back at him…
“I’m leaving…” Travis said, sidestepping the wall and pointing his way…
“Could you make any more noise about it?” Wade grumbled, and he heard his mate give a small chuckle.
“I suppose I could set off the fire alarm if you wish…” Travis offered back over his shoulder as he disappeared from sight.
Wade turned his attention back to Meredith. His eyebrows were dancing over his eyes as his emotions shifted back to her…
“Well, that was a mood killer…” Wade tested the water.
“Then you’re not very invested in…” she started, but his lips came down on hers.
He’d gotten all he needed to know in her first few words…
~
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~
“Here’s where you’re hiding,” Sam bit out.
When he’d finally managed to pick himself up off the floor and was able to put one foot in front of the other without the ice pick of pain shooting through his balls; he’d followed her scent through the house and found her sitting in the old, comfortable chair in the side nook that was just off the living room.
“Hiding in plain sight?” Jasmine offered up to him with a hint of sarcasm in her tone.
“Hardly in plain sight…”
“Hardly hiding,” she frowned up at him…
“That’s the last time that you use your magic…”
“In your dreams.” She gave a small but distinct snort of contempt for his words.
“I’m sure you will be … And I’m sure it will be a nightmare.”
“I guess it’s lucky that we’re on the same page then.”
Sam really didn’t want to ask but he felt like he had little choice. He had no idea what page she could be talking about, and before he committed to saying anything; he needed to know.
“And what page would that be?”
“The one where I hightail it out of here and never look back.”
She said it so simply that Sam had to believe that she meant it. His Wolf was about as happy as he was to hear it, and the beast roared within him; threatening to push forward as he mourned the loss something that he’d never had.
“Is that what you truly want?”
Sam needed to know. He could waste his time trying to woo her, but if her heart and mind were truly set on leaving him then there wasn’t a damn thing that he could do about it.
“I…” Jasmine had rushed to answer him, but then her brain had kicked her backside into gear and she realised that she wasn’t entirely sure what she wanted.
Her grandmother was a mate.
Her mother was a mate.
Fate had spoken for her family and she hadn’t even taken the time to consider her own situation, at least, not properly.
“You know what? Don’t answer that. I have better things to do right now then to get into another argument with you.” Sam said with a whole lot of bitterness within his tone that she couldn’t help but pick up on.
The beta turned on his heels and walked away before she could even think of a response to offer him. It was lucky, because she didn’t much feel like dishing out a one liner…
Jasmine rested back against the soft cushions, folded her arms, and stared out of the window into the darkness beyond. She narrowed her eyes, her mouth opening slightly as if to form a word, and then she huffed.
CHAPTER TWENTY
~
Wade had to force himself to back away from his mate. It wasn’t that he wanted to do it, but if he didn’t do it right then; then he was in danger of sweeping her up off her feet, carrying her to his bedroom, and wooing her in all the right ways.
The trouble was that he knew full well he couldn’t stay. The full moon would be calling the werewolves out from their human form, and he couldn’t risk another human being killed or bitten. Not now. Not when they finally had a firm plan of action.
It wasn’t just him that was torn; his Wolf felt it to. The beast wanted nothing more than to take down the mutts – while the wolf wanted to claim its mate.
“I need to go and rip the head off something…” Wade grumbled on a growl as Meredith blinked twice as she stared up at him.
“Wow, if that’s what kissing me does to you then I’d hate to think how you’d be after we had sex.”
For a moment Wade was lost for words. Most of his brain was still engaged in the wooing process, and the blood supply had all raced elsewhere, and her teasing just didn’t compute.
“I really want to say let’s go find out…”
“I bet you do.” Meredith gave him a wickedly teasing smile, and he grumbled another growl – that time it was a lot hungrier.
“Woman, you really are going to be the death of me.”
“Maybe … If the werewolves don’t get you first.” Meredith eyes sparkled with teasing amusement, and the deep rhythmic sound of his laughter only made them sparkle more.
She liked that sound a lot.
“I can’t tell if you’re rooting for them or for me right now, and I guess I should be leaving before you answer that question and kill off my hopes and dreams.”
“Oh, am I supposed to be taking sides here?”
He could see the teasing mischief that practically ran in her veins. He guessed that was one of the consequences of having a witch for a mate.
“It would be kind of nice if you rooted for the good guys.”
“Tell me again – that’s the ones that don’t eat people, right?”
~
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~
Jared turned away from the kitchen door; leaving the three witches behind him, and stalked towards the alpha and the Vampire that had been as thick as thieves as they whispered together and talked over their plans on the other side of the room.
“Are they done?” Wade asked as he turned towards Jared, and the old man looked slightly perplexed.
“They’re in there chanting over candles and smelly things. If they’re not done then they should be soon enough.” He offered it as he saw it. He certainly wasn’t about to go into the witches lair again to find out what they were doing.
“We’ll be heading out as soon as they finish putting up the wards,” Wade said, flicking his eyes towards Sam as he came towards the group.
“Where do you want me?” The beta asked.
“Here to guard the house…”
“But…” Sam started to protest.
“I heard you got beaten up by a girl.” Wade folded his big arms across his chest and eyed the beta with thoughtful consideration.
“A witch, and…” He started to protest…
“Still a girl…” Wade was enjoying the payback, and
having Travis sniggering over his left shoulder only helped.
“That’s not what…”
“Really?”
“I didn’t get beaten up either…” Sam started to protest on a low growl of annoyance.
“And I wasn’t crying, but, you know…?” Wade offered back.
Sam snapped his head back on his neck and eyed the alpha as the man’s words registered within him. He gave a thoughtful nod of his head…
“I get it. You’re still…”
“You don’t think protecting the mates, and the pack that are coming here, is a worthy task?” Wade asked, flipping the subject and making Sam work to catch up.
“I never said…” Sam started to protest again, but Wade dug in.
“I know your mate can take care of herself…”
Travis snorted a chuckle and Jared’s shoulders were moving up and down as he laughed at the beta’s expense.
“I should be out there killing mutts…” Sam protested.
“I think they can handle it, junior,” Jared put in, rubbing salt into the beta’s wounds. “Wouldn’t want you getting knocked out by a flying bread bin or anything…”
All three men chuckled, but Sam was less than amused. He lifted a hand and pointed his index finger towards all three of them in turn.
“I didn’t see any of you do any better against the witches…” Sam growled.
“Witches…?” Meredith announced and made the beta twist his body around in surprise. “Is that all we are?”
“That’s not…” Sam started, but Travis slapped a hand against the man’s back.
“He’s still wet behind the ears and smarting because your daughter beat him up…” Travis announced; just as Jasmine swept into the room to hear the annoyed growl that rumbled through Sam’s chest…
“I didn’t beat him up; I was just playing with him a little,” Jasmine offered back with something of a smug smile as she placed her hands on her hips and eyed the beta.