by M. L. Briers
“Geez, you two have only just met, and yet she knows you so well,” Leslie grinned.
“Right, let’s get this mating and wooing show on the road,” Clive announced with glee, slamming the door shut on his bar, and locking it behind him.
“No party?” Victor asked with a deep frown.
“Oh yeah,” Clive said with a smug smile, “there’s going to be fireworks and everything – back on pack land, as we watch the truly awesome threesome woo their mates.”
All eyes fell on the three brothers. Expectation and amusement shone in equal measure in their eyes, with Clive and Leslie the worst as they grinned with uncontrollable glee.
“No pressure,” Ryan growled out, rolling his eyes in his head, and his body towards the truck as he tried to think of the best way to get his mate in the truck without looking like a complete idiot or breaking her.
Mating was a right royal pain in the backside.
“And you, the redhead,” Clive pointed at Jeannie, and the witch scowled back. “I want my damn handle…”
He got no further as she lobbed it at his head.
CHAPTER TWELVE
~
“Don’t think that I’m even remotely happy about this!” Vanessa grumbled as she sat in the back of the stationary pickup truck with her arms crossed and a death glare for the alpha, and the alpha alone.
“Well, I’m glad to know that this is you angry and not just your usual state of being,” Ryan tossed back through the open window in the front of the cab to the sour faced witch on the back seat.
He’d got back to pack land before the others, and he’d taken the parking spot right in front of the main house. Now he was waiting.
Deep down, he’d never expected her to make things easy and get out of the truck of her own accord. Why would she, she was a witch, and witches were… tricky.
He’d considered a million ways to fish her out of that backseat on the drive home, but now that he was faced with doing just that, well, he was second guessing himself.
“This is kidnapping,” Vanessa grumbled.
“Nun-napping,” Trevor chuckled as he strolled from his truck towards the alpha’s.
“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” Ryan growled, folding his arms over his broad chest and eyeing the man with contempt.
“Not now that the party is canceled, no,” Trevor shot back to the sound of the other trucks that were bouncing along the pothole dotted track road towards the big house.
“You can’t just steal a person off the street,” Vanessa hissed out from inside.
“You’re not a person, you’re my mate, and it was a bar,” Ryan tossed back, just slightly distracted by the arrival of the others.
The alpha was kind of hoping that having her friends around would take some of the sting out of being whisked away to pack land, and make it a slightly more tempting prospect for her to get out of the vehicle, but he wasn’t about to bet his life on it, or hold his damn breath.
“Still a damn person, you Muppet!” Vanessa muttered back as she eyed everywhere that he wasn’t and huffed in annoyance.
Ryan ignored her. He’d rather that she took her sour attitude out in mumbles and insults than zap him the way that she had the vampire and Jason. She might have been helping her friend, but still.
He could only hope that she’d keep her magic to herself. That wasn’t exactly what witches were known for.
“But not a nun,” Trevor chuckled.
“I’ll bet you were top of the class at school,” Vanessa grumbled, and Trevor frowned.
“Why are you taking out your bad mood on me? He nun-napped you.” Trevor pointed a finger at the alpha and Ryan looked down at it as if he had the desire to reach out and snap it off. Trevor snatched it back into a tight fist.
“Good choice,” Ryan growled.
“Are they all this… rabid?” He asked the alpha, and Ryan snorted a scoff of pure amusement.
“Rabid?” Vanessa said before the alpha could answer.
She cocked one eyebrow at the man and scowled with the other. It was quite an impressive look on her. Trevor didn’t much care for it, and he was lost in her dark glare until his friend whooped out of the window of the pickup that drove by.
“You should have seen Mick’s truck bunny-hopping all the way home!” Rodney called out of the window with a certain amount of glee, as he swung the vehicle around and parked it up.
“That’s what took you guys so long?” Ryan snorted with contempt at his brother wasting good wooing time.
“When it wasn’t bunny-hopping it was flat out dead,” Leslie chuckled, slamming the door shut behind her, and clapping her hands in glee. “He got so mad that I thought he might rip the steering wheel clean off, and the language, he’s lucky she’s a witch and not a real nun,” She added, practically bouncing down the path with excitement.
“Glad I could be a source of amusement for you,” Mick growled out of his window, turning the steering wheel to park the truck when the damn thing came to an abrupt stop once more.
The beta bit down on another half a dozen curse words as he tossed a glare back at his mate who was occupying the back seat, all of the backseat, as she inspected her fingernails and tried to look bored.
“Problem?” Faith sounded innocent enough, but her eyes were on fire with mischief.
“Fine…” he growled back. “Here’s good enough.”
He tossed the gearstick into park and shot Faith another glare back over his shoulder. For her part; she offered him a look that was an equal measure of smug satisfaction and innocence personified.
Faith had to admit; she’d quite enjoyed the journey. She was just waiting for the man’s head to explode and it would be job done.
“Constantly amusing, brother, but this one is extra-specially sweet,” Leslie chuckled.
“Females,” Mick mutter on another grumbled growl.
“Males,” Faith tossed back, trying to mimic his deep tones but coming up woefully short.
“Out of the damn truck,” Mick growled.
In his book the woman was lucky that she was his mate. Otherwise, he might just have pulled over somewhere down the road and tossed her backside out to fend for herself. Although, probably not.
Both he and his brothers were just too much of a soft touch when it came to females. Perhaps he needed to toughen his stance with a witch or three in the pack.
“And you asked so nicely,” Faith offered him the middle finger as he stared at her in the rear view mirror.
Mick muttered something dark as he tossed open the driver’s door and unfolded his large frame from inside, but she couldn’t quite make it out.
Just the sheer fact that she’d annoyed him to the point of his head exploding was good enough for Faith to grin to herself. She took a moment to truly enjoy it.
The man had the audacity to manhandle her out of the bar, into his truck, and then grumble and growl all the way to pack land at her antics – like he hadn’t deserved everything that she’d done to him already.
Oh, but she was more than willing to do so much more.
“Now what?” He looked at Ryan because the man didn’t seem to be making any headway in getting his mate out of the truck either.
“The hell if I know,” Ryan growled back with a solemn shake of his head and the need to kill someone boiling up inside of him.
“Two, big, strong, Neanderthal males,” Leslie sniggered at her mean, and moody brothers and just how lost they were when faced with their mates.
It was just too good to be true.
“Two stubborn witches,” Mick shot back.
“And let’s not forget… mates,” Leslie said with impish good humor.
Both of her brothers let out a low rumbled growl of annoyance at her words.
“Don’t remind me,” Mick muttered.
“I heard that,” Faith called from inside.
“Big ears!” Mick tossed back, folding his large arms across his chest, and looking somewhat miffed off
and a little lost.
It went without saying that he’d never had a mate before, and normally, he didn’t have to force a woman to get in his truck or find a way to get them back out again.
He was at a loss of how to handle a salty and annoying witch.
“Try saying something nice,” Leslie teased.
“Nice… dress,” Mick tossed back over his shoulder, and then he remembered that his mate was wearing her nun costume and he groaned inwardly.
He rolled his eyes closed and cursed outwardly as his sister chuckled harder.
“Muppet,” Faith huffed.
“I have clothes you can borrow if you wanna change,” Leslie offered, taking just a little bit of pity on her brother, and Faith’s ears pricked up. She liked the sound of that.
“Cool, thanks.”
When she popped open the back door and climbed out, Mick gave his sister a questioning look.
“No woman wants to wear a sack,” Leslie shrugged.
“But it suits her,” Mick said.
He wasn’t feeling too generous where his mate was concerned. Especially not after the journey from hell that she had delivered to him with her bag of magic tricks.
“I think my shoe print on your backside would suit you,” Faith eyed him with contempt as she stomped towards his sister.
“Nice to know you were looking at my butt,” Mick bit out, leaning his upper body in towards her as she made her way by him, and she flicked her eyes in his direction with a glare that could have killed him had she placed just a little magic behind it, and a sneer on her full lips.
“It’s better than looking at your face,” Faith hissed back. “I don’t feel the need to throw up my lunch,” She added in a dry tone that made him snap his head back on his neck.
Mick knew that most women, especially human females, liked the way that he looked. If his mate didn’t then that meant that he had a little more to do in the wooing department to make her his.
But it was the sound of sniggers from the other pack males that grated against his nerves and made his wolf want to burst out from inside of him and start showing them who the beta was.
“Nice comeback line, I’d give it a solid eight on the screw you factor scale,” Clive offered with a smirk as he rested his backside against his car and surveyed the goings on of the mating males.
He was intent on enjoying himself at their expense.
It wasn’t every day that a man found his mate, and now the three top males of the local pack had all found a mate at the same time – witches too – he wouldn’t miss it for the world, and he had front row seats that he intended to use.
“And another thing,” Jeannie bit out; her voice carried from inside Jason’s truck and out of the window as he rolled in behind the convoy of vehicles and pulled up with a sour look on his face and a giant huff. “If you think that I’m going to roll over and play Juliet to your Romeo – well, you can think again.”
“Juliet died,” Clive called to her, and the witch snapped her head around, and her eyes narrowed at the vampire.
She bit down on a curse.
“Baby, to your Johnny Castle,” she corrected herself, choosing the characters from one of her all-time favorite films, Dirty Dancing.
“Who?” Jason offered her a curious look over his shoulder.
“Of course, you’re male!” She announced like it was a deadly disease that she didn’t want to catch.
“Nice of you to notice. What gave it away?” Jason grumbled back as sarcasm dripped from his voice.
“Oh, there’s a can of worms that you really don’t want to open,” Clive chuckled.
“Pig ignorant, arrogant, muscle bound, testosterone fuelled, male chauvinist…” she counted them off on the fingers of her hand.
“Yeah, sorry I asked,” Jason grumbled, practically booting open the truck door and throwing himself out of the cab into the night air like he was escaping a tsunami.
“Told you,” Clive teased in a sing-song voice that got him a growl and a matching scowl for his trouble.
“Hey, Vanessa, let’s go, clothes this way,” Faith said with a nod of her head towards Leslie.
“Thank God!” Vanessa groaned, and she was out of the truck in a heartbeat, with Ryan looking on in disbelief that his sister could get two mates to do what they couldn’t.
He guessed it was always handy to have a little sister around. Although, over the years they had teased her mercilessly, and hounded her protectively with almost every step that she took.
They loved her to distraction, and he knew that she loved them, because she might have grumbled, griped, and thrown a few heavy and unyielding objects at their heads whilst bemoaning cleaning up after them, but she’d never tried to kill them in their sleep – although, the same couldn’t be said about her cooking.
“Wait for me, don’t leave me with tall, dark, and stupid!” Jeannie said, rushing after them as Jason growled in annoyance. “Point made, grumble butt,” she called back over her shoulder as she chased after her friends and left her mate in her wake.
Jason bit down on the need to find a comeback line that would teach the woman who was the boss, and yet, he couldn’t think of a single thing to say. The woman was not only annoying, but she confused the hell out of him.
She’d had quite a mouthful to offer him on the journey home. None of it was good, and most of it wasn’t exactly ladylike, but he’d let her ramble on in the hope that she’d wear herself out.
He’d already had to toss her over his shoulder once to get her from the bar to his truck, and he didn’t mind her showing that kind of enthusiasm for their mating. But he was sure his backside was black and blue from being constantly pounded with a door handle, and he was hoping that she’s be less venomous by the time they got home.
No such luck.
She was a witch, and he knew from tales that he’d heard that they were feisty, but his mate gave those stories a whole new meaning in real life.
“Time to get wooing!” Clive announced, slapping his hands together with glee and eyeing the alpha with so much amusement that the man could have punched him right in the eye.
“You’re not invited in, pack only,” Ryan growled.
“Now you know that you can’t uninvite a vampire into your house,” Clive offered back.
“No, but I can let my wolf dine on your corpse.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
~
“How about this?” Leslie held up a sheer black shirt that was cut way too low at the front for Vanessa’s liking.
“Oh, that’s nice,” Faith snatched it out of the air when Leslie threw it to her.
“Do you really want your sisters up front and on parade with your mate ogling them every chance that he gets?” Vanessa scoffed, and Faith scowled as she held up the shirt and inspected it.
“But, it’s pretty,” she grumbled.
“Enjoy the drool that falls from his tongue,” Vanessa muttered, and Faith huffed.
“It’s summer, and I’m not wearing a damn snowsuit. You already talked me into wearing the penguin get up to the party and look how great that turned out,” Faith huffed. “You wear a turtle neck if you want, but I want to be comfortable,” Faith nodded, sure that she wanted to wear that shirt, just… well, because.
“Vanessa’s just jealous because you have more boobs than she does,” Jeannie chuckled, resting back in the large wing backed chair and lacing her hands behind her head as she watched her friends with amusement.
“Am not,” Vanessa scowled.
“So, are too,” Faith grinned.
“Anything more than a handful is a waste,” Vanessa dismissively tossed up just one shoulder. “I have no need to haul around two large flotation devices on my chest on the off chance that one day I might be drowning and will need them.”
“The size of Faith’s bazookas could keep us all afloat,” Jeannie snorted and watched Faith place her hands on her hips and arch her back so that her ample breasts were all up front and center.
“They’re all natural, and that’s what counts,” Faith said with a little jiggle to prove her point.
“Nobody in their right mind would get their boobs pumped up that much on purpose. Let’s face it – height to boob ratio – something went wrong,” Jeannie grinned.
“Are you missing an ass?” Vanessa tugged on Faith’s habit and got her hand slapped away for her trouble.
“I will zap you,” Faith hissed.
“It must take a lot of effort not to fall forwards on your face,” Leslie chimed in.
“You too?” Faith lifted her chin in the air and floated towards the bathroom door. “I’m above all the jealousy in this room.”
“Heavy load, coming through – if she slips now she’ll impale the wall,” Jeannie teased.
“Thanks, beanpole,” Faith snorted, “at least when I stand in a corner nobody mistakes me for the coat rack.”
The heavy thud of the bathroom door slamming shut behind her made them all chuckle. Leslie turned back towards her closet.
“I think we both know that it doesn’t matter what you wear, my brother is going to drool over you,” Leslie said and tossed Vanessa a shirt that was cut only slightly higher than the last. “Hell, he came on to you when you were wearing a cloth bin liner.”
Vanessa sighed inwardly.
“You’re brother certainly wasn’t on today’s to-do list, pick up costumes, go to a boring party, walk into a bar and find my muscle-bound, arrogant, alpha mate,” she sighed outwardly.
“That gives a whole new lease of life to the tired old joke of a nun walks into a bar,” Jeannie chuckled.
“It’s certainly one for the grand-pups,” Leslie nodded.
“Grand-pups! Geez,” Vanessa shook her head in dismay. “I haven’t even dipped my toe in the mating pond yet, and you’ve got me old, gray, and surrounded by Rugrats.”
“Yes, but they’ll be your rugrats, so you’ll love them,” Jeannie chortled.
“After all of those years living with an alpha male, I’ll probably be too brain-dead to care,” Vanessa scoffed. “No offense, but your brother’s a little…”