by M. L. Briers
“Tell me you did not just…” Mick growled out, snapping his head around and glaring at his younger brother.
“Oh, yeah!” Jason offered back with so much glee that Mick really did want to rip off the hand holding the phone and beat him over the head with it.
He hadn’t yet sent the picture, but he fully intended to do it.
“I’m going to kill you,” Mick growled, starting to release his mate.
“That would be…” Faith bit down on her words the moment that her mate stopped moving and turned to stare down at her. “Ok with me.” She could have hit herself upside the head.
She’d had a chance to get away from him, and she’d put her damn foot in her mouth. She berated herself with dark words – lots and lots of dark words.
“You’re not a nun,” Ryan said out of nowhere, nodding his head solemnly, and yet he was biting down on his annoyance, and Vanessa could see it right there on his face.
“Technically…”
“Not even close,” Ryan snapped back, warning her with just a glare not to try to keep up the pretense.
She must really have thought him a damn gullible fool.
“But…” Vanessa grimaced.
“Don’t go there,” the alpha warned her.
Ryan had a bad feeling about the woman. Probably the same bad feeling that his brother had before he’d laid claim to his mate.
His body was doing strange things, things that it had never done before with any other female that he’d met, and his wolf was overly protective.
All in all, things didn’t look good for him, or her, but mainly him.
“I’m a woman with faith,” Vanessa offered back, turning her head to give him her cheekiest sideways smile.
“Ha!” Jason chuckled, tossing a hand towards Mick’s mate. “With Faith.” He grinned like an idiot. “I get it.”
“You should get that one neutered,” Faith bit out towards Mick, and he grunted a chuckle.
“Hey!” Jason growled.
“Don’t growl at my mate,” Mick growled back.
“Could you all just stop doing… stuff, and take a minute?” Vanessa said, but Ryan had other ideas.
He took one step and closed the distance between them.
“I need to…” he started, but Vanessa literally jumped back away from him in disbelief.
“You do not…” she bit out, sounding more than offended by his proposed actions, and yet it was more the horror of the thought that she could find herself with Faith’s problem than getting up close and personal with the sexy-as-hell alpha.
Oh, how she wished that she’d never walked into the damn bar in the first place.
It was all Faith’s fault!
“I think it’s inevitable,” Clive offered.
“Shut up!” Faith grumbled at the vampire, and he snatched his upper body back and raised his eyebrows at her.
“How did you ever think you’d pass for anything other than a witch…?”
“Witch!” Mick exclaimed. He hadn’t picked up her Fae scent when he’d sniffed.
CHAPTER EIGHT
~
“I…” Faith started and then waved it away. She’d been busted – again. She’d dropped her wards and allowed him to take her scent, just not all of her scent. She groaned inwardly. “Never mind.”
“What the hell is going on?” Jason grumbled.
“The world has gone insane, and your brothers have found their mates. Enjoy it, it only happens once,” Clive offered back.
“Nuns?” Jason shook his head in disbelief.
“Witches! Oh, do keep up,” Clive scoffed.
“Back off!” Vanessa snapped at the alpha as he took one more step towards her.
“Can’t do it,” Ryan shook his head, but his eyes were fixed on hers, and loaded with a sinfully hungry look.
“I can do it for you,” Vanessa warned him, but one more step and he’d be right in front of her.
Vanessa bit down on the flash of guilt that she felt before she’d even done the deed. But that in no way stopped her from lifting her hands, flicking magic from her fingertips, and sending the alpha flying backward into a table.
Chairs scattered in all directions as the man crashed to the floor.
“Strike!” Jeannie chuckled.
“I was going to say that,” Jason said, eyeing the witch with a big dollop of suspicion.
“I’d say great minds think alike, but… yeah!” Faith tossed her friend’s way, and Jeannie shot her a death glare.
Then she turned that glare on Jason. “Don’t get any ideas,” she snapped, and the beta shrugged.
“About what?”
“Anything,” Jeannie shot back. She wasn’t about to draw the man a map.
“No real worries there then,” Clive said.
“Why does everyone treat me like the village idiot?” Jason growled, and Jeannie eyed him for a long moment as the vampire jumped right in on that one.
“Do you really need an answer to that question?” Clive said.
“I’ve known you five minutes, and you’re not exactly…” Jeannie half rolled her eyes in her head and considered the nice way to say dumb.
“He’s thought-challenged,” Clive grinned.
“Yeah, fine, ok, I get it, thanks,” Jason growled back.
“Oh, you’re entirely welcome,” Jeannie beamed him a smile, and he gave that look a double take.
“Maybe I should scent you,” Jason said, and the witch pulled her head back on her neck in disgust.
“Why?”
“Well, two’s a crowd, but three is better,” he said, and Clive groaned. Jeannie just looked really confused.
“Say what?” She hated to ask.
“Fate put you here with the mates for a reason, don’t you think?” Jason shrugged his broad shoulders at her, and the witch sneered back.
“I’m trying really hard not to.”
“You never know,” Jason said, eyeing the witch up and down, as a slow smile spread on his lips.
He could live with having her as his mate. She was definitely his type, except for the whole witch thing, but he could overlook her flaws if she could overlook his.
“I never want to know,” Jeannie said with a grimace.
Jason wolf was pushing forward within him. The beast more than liked the idea of finding his mate.
Jason didn’t much care either way, but if she was his mate, then he knew what would happen if he let her get away.
He lifted his chin and scented the air, but all that he got was the scent of the bar and the others around him – scents that he was used to, scents that he didn’t want. And then there was Faith’s scent, but he dismissed that.
What he couldn’t dismiss was his need to make sure.
Jeannie pushed her magic harder and wrapped her shields more closely around her as she worked to keep her scent under the wraps of a benign smell – all three witches knew the way to cloak their scent, and they’d been doing it with success thus far.
Now Faith was a mate, and maybe Vanessa was as well, but there was one thing that Jeannie was absolutely sure of, she did not want to be in her friend’s shoes. Except the red ones with the high heel and cut away backs – those were dreamy.
“Stop sniffing like you’re looking for breakfast,” Jeannie hissed at the beta.
“Drop your magic and let me smell you then,” Jason tossed back on a scowl that brought his dark eyebrows down.
“What are you, nuts or something?” Jeannie looked at the man as if his wolf was showing and about to take a bite.
“Just curious, sweetheart,” Jason offered back.
“Yeah, well, curiosity killed the … wolf,” she hissed the warning, but the beta didn’t seem daunted by it.
“I don’t think you’d kill your mate,” Jason’s grin widened.
“You’re not my mate!”
“How’d you know unless I scent you?”
“Sniff me…” she wrinkled her nose at the thought.
; “Love too,” he said, stepping towards her, but she was already backing off.
“Stay right there you overstuffed bag of muscles,” she warned him, but the man kept walking.
Six foot four of pure muscle was heading her way, and she didn’t rightly know what to do about it.
“Don’t you wanna make sure?”
Jason grinned, but that grin was as wolfish as his beast, and as sexy as hell, but sexy or not – the man didn’t look as if he was going to take no for an answer.
“Nooooo,” Jeannie said, slowly shaking her head, as her eyes widened slightly, and she carried on moving back away from him with every step that he took towards her.
There was only so much room to be had in the confines of the bar, and her back found the closest wall with a thud that startled her. She huffed as she hit it.
“Where’s that sense of a witch’s spirit for adventure?” Jason teased her with his words, his tone, and a pair of very sexy come-to-bed eyes.
Jeannie swallowed down hard. She’d seen what had happened to Faith and Vanessa, and she wasn’t getting on board that love train.
A split second later, she’d used her magic to toss a chair in the man’s path, and she was off and running full pelt, in heels, towards the door – and the meddlesome vampire.
“Move it or lose it!” She shouted at Clive, and she was sure that the man’s eyes registered something close to surprised alarm.
Clive was caught between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, he didn’t want to get his backside zapped, but he also didn’t want the witch escaping. On the other, if he tackled her, and she was a mate – his backside was liable to get a few fang marks in it – not to mention what would happen to his bar should Jason’s wolf burst free.
“Jason!” Clive ground out. He didn’t want to act unless it was absolutely necessary.
“Oh, I’ve got this,” The beta sounded like she was a tasty morsel that he was looking forward to devouring.
Jeannie might have been speedy, for a witch, but she was no match for the beta, and he wrapped an arm around her from behind, wrenched her backwards from the floor against the hard muscles of his chest, and spun her around; away from the vampire, and put a stop to her mischievous ways.
“It’s sniffing time,” Jason said with relish.
“Don’t you sniff me,” Jeannie bit out, as she tried kicking out her legs, but she was just flaying in mid-air as the man held her feet off the ground so she couldn’t get purchase on anything even remotely solid with which to kick off from.
“Too late,” Jason teased, dipping his head, and she tried to push down on that side, tried to make her cheek meet her shoulder and keep his head from getting too close to her neck, but ultimately… she failed.
“Don’t you even,” Jeannie grumbled and kicked for all that she was worth, but to no avail.
She wasn’t about to drop her shields or her wards. She was determined to keep her magic well and truly alive.
The only trouble was, the moment that his cheek touched hers, she felt that tingle – the one that started where skin met skin and rushed over her body like a wave of happy goodness inside and outside of her.
Out of pure shock, her mind spun and the instant that she felt her magic slide, she snapped back to it, but it was already too late.
Jason’s wolf was eager for her scent. Man and beast took a good whiff, and something inside Jason just snapped into being – every inch of him flooded with knowing.
He’d found her true scent, and a low, deep growl rumbled through him at the knowledge that she was the one.
Mine…
Jason practically dropped her like she was a hot potato. Her feet hit the floor, and she was off like a whippet out of the gate.
Jeannie threw herself away from him.
The others stood stock still and held a collective breath of disbelief and curiosity, and when Jeannie spun back towards him, her eyes were on fire with anger and accusation, and her mouth puckered with all of the curse words that she was considering spitting out at him.
Jason held up his hand and pointed one thick finger at her.
“M-ine…” Jason said as if he was so damn confused by it all that he really couldn’t make heads or tails of what he’d found.
“Surprise!” Clive announced with mirth.
Jason shot a quick look at the vampire, swallowing down a good portion of his tongue, and then his eyes flicked right back towards Jeannie as if magnetized by her.
“But…” Jason said as shock clouded his mind.
“What did you think would happen when you sniffed, you idiot!” Jeannie bit out.
“I didn’t think you were my mate,” Jason offered back.
Jeannie tipped her head to one side and lifted her hands to plant them on her curvy hips. She regarded him in much the same way that she would a cat that had taken a poop in her slipper.
“So, you did it as a joke?” Jeannie demanded, and Faith’s burst of laughter made her temper boil.
“Kind of, yeah,” Jason said, like a schoolboy in front of his principal.
Then the man offered a small shrug of his broad shoulders, and a rather pained, if not sheepish look to his mate as she tossed up a hand in frustration.
“Ha-bloody-ha-ha!” She was less than impressed.
“That’s two down, one to go,” Clive announced like they were on some TV game show, and the alpha growled a warning at the man. “Just saying … but if you could speed things along a little that would be good too?”
“Don’t bust my chops,” Ryan growled, pulling himself up from the floor to his full height.
After sitting on his pride and watching his idiot younger brother find his mate, he felt the pressure of the moment. It wasn’t as if he was alone with her. It wasn’t as if he had privacy at the most important time in his life.
His eyes locked onto Vanessa just as she slowly turned her head to eye him like she’d just noticed there was a big, bad wolf in the area.
“Now…” she said, holding up her hand and wagging her forefinger at the man to ward him off.
Ryan eyed her right back.
He had to admit that the nun’s outfit was slightly distracting, but not half as distracting as knowing that his brother’s had found their mates and claimed them before he had.
He felt that pressure growing inside of him. What if he’d been wrong about her?
He wanted his mate, damn it, and he wouldn’t be denied taking her scent, because deep down, Ryan just knew that she was his – probably right from the very first moment that he’d laid eyes on the devious witch.
CHAPTER NINE
~
“I wouldn’t bother running,” Jeannie said with a sour tone as she watched Vanessa take one tiny little step backward away from the alpha’s advance.
It wasn’t the distance, but the symbolism of that step that counted in Vanessa’s book.
The look in the man’s eyes had told her much the same as Jeannie had, and she wasn’t about to run, but she sure didn’t want to get sniffed and confirm what she was already sure of either.
She was his mate.
She had to be.
Her body was happy to see him in more ways than she wanted to think about, and she didn’t like – not one little bit.
A mate to a shifter wolf. And her a witch!
Two down and one to go – what were the odds that I’m not his damn mate?
So much for being under the protection of God.
I’m wearing the garb… isn’t he supposed to help a girl out or something?
I suppose this is God’s punishment.
That’ll teach me!
Well, no, not really, but, damn it to hell fire and back again!
A shifter.
Alpha.
Him, with the hard muscled body and the sexy eyes that make me go a little gooey inside.
Ok, so the hard muscled body is a bonus, but I don’t want to be gooey. I’m not a cake.
Oooh, cake.
; Damn it!
Stupidity got me into this mess; maybe stupidity can get me out of it.
How stupid can one girl be in a night?
Oh God, here he comes.
Grab the pitchforks and the torches, or maybe just put my head between my legs and kiss my backside goodbye.
Doomed!
Doomed I say!
Or… maybe not.
Vanessa pulled on her magic and flicked her wrist, sight unseen to the alpha, but both witches picked up on the little burst of magic that left their friend and flew across the room to its intended target.
Ryan pulled up short. He narrowed his eyes on the woman, and his nose twitched – it was the strangest feeling in the world.
“What did you do?” Ryan asked, and she gave him a look of complete innocence.
“Huh?” Innocence be damned, she was going for the gold standard – the Academy award – the Olympic champion of the world.
“Do, what did you do?”
“Me do?”
“Yes.”
“Me?”
“You.”
“I’m just standing here.” Vanessa shrugged, maybe she was playing innocent a little too much, but there was no going back now that she’d jumped in with both feet and her magic.
“I need to scent you.”
Ryan closed the distance between the two of them. His beast was antsy. It was starting to claw inside of him, and this time he wouldn’t be denied.
“Fine!” Vanessa snapped out, and that didn’t fill him with the warm and fuzzy feeling either.
The witch had been so damn gung-ho not to let him scent her that he wondered why she’d had such an easy change of heart.
He stepped right up to her, wrapped an arm around her waist and yanked her up close and personal, and the little minx even tipped her head to one side and allowed him access.
Something wasn’t right.
Ryan dipped his head and took one, long, deep breath.
Nothing.
His beast grumbled a growl, and he felt that exact same sense of annoyance.
It wasn’t that she wasn’t his mate.
Oh no.
It was that he couldn’t smell a damned thing.
~
~