by M. L. Briers
“Male chauvinist, uptight, pig ignorant, butthead?” Leslie shrugged her shoulders and offered a little chuckle. “But now that you’re here.”
“Oh no, don’t you lay that pressure on my door, Sister,” Vanessa scowled back at her, but she just grinned.
~
~
~
“Witches,” Jason sighed at the thought as he paced back and forth in the living room that suddenly felt small enough to be considered a cage.
“Better than Nuns,” Mick said offhandedly.
He was standing over by the doorway with his arms folded across his broad chest and one shoulder propping up the wall as he watched his brother pace. That back and forth motion did little to ease the tension within him, and he was getting close to walking over and knocking his brother on his butt just to make it stop.
“I took one look at Vanessa in that costume and thought fate had gone insane,” Ryan growled.
“Hasn’t it? They’re still witches,” Jason said, tossing up a hand at the absurdity of it all, and wondering just what he’d done to deserve a witch mate.
“They’re still mates,” Mick reminded him on a scowl and another rush of annoyance, this time for his brother’s attitude.
“W-i-t-c-h-e-s,” Jason said slowly, and Mick pushed away from the wall and took a long step towards him, pointing one thick, long finger of warning at the man as he growled like a wildling.
“Boy, I’m telling you. I will punch a hole in your skull, wrench your brain out, and shake it until you become less annoying,” Mick growled the warning, and he knew that he wouldn’t do anything that desperate – but he would put his damn fist in the man’s face if he kept on.
They had mates. Sure, they were witches, but they needed to spend their time wooing them and not bitching.
“Those that can – do, those that can’t – threaten,” Clive called from somewhere outside the window.
“Do we have to have a running commentary from the damn vampire?” Jason grumbled – trying to ignore the challenge that his brother had thrown up because his sister would go bat-shit crazy wolf if they fought in the house one more time.
He was doing his best to concentrate on other things – like wooing and getting rid of Satan claws from outside.
“Now, you wanna waste your time running off the vampire?” Mick growled. “You know what? Fine, you go right ahead, and we’ll be here wooing our mates.”
“Do you see any mates to woo?” Jason shot back, expanding his arms and motioning around him.
“I see a beta that needs punching in the head,” Mick grumbled.
“Can you two stop it?” Ryan bit out.
His brothers were good for one thing, and that was fighting like two rats tied in the bottom of a sack. He was trying to listen in to the chatter that was coming from upstairs, and hoping to use anything he heard of value to figure out a way to woo a witch mate – neither of those things was going to be accomplished if his brothers didn’t put a sock in it.
“Yeah, bring your in fighting outside so I can watch,” Clive called, and the alpha groaned. “It’s getting boring out here with only the chuckle crew for company.”
“Shame you can’t get in,” Rodney said on a low deep chuckle.
Some of the pack males had gathered around the garden table, lounging on chairs and listening into the conversation that was going on inside.
“I don’t see your invite,” Clive shot back.
“I’m pack, you’re not,” Rodney scoffed.
“And yet, you’re still on the outside looking in just like the rest of us,” Clive’s tone was dry, but his eyes said he was enjoying himself.
When the alpha appeared at the window, everyone’s attention snapped in that direction. There was a low warning rumble of a growl before the alpha reached up and snapped the blind down.
“Go home,” Ryan growled.
“Now, see what you did,” Clive rolled his eyes.
“That wasn’t my fault,” Rodney shot back.
“Just go home,” Clive waved a dismissive hand in the Omega’s direction, and the shifter frowned back at him.
“You go home,” he turned his nose up with contempt for the vampire.
“You’re pack, I’m not – I don’t have to obey the Alpha's orders,” Clive pointed out, turning the man’s words back on him, and scoring a nice home run.
Boy, did he enjoy watching every male gathered there begrudgingly start to push up to their feet, grumbling, and mumbling to themselves.
“This is your fault,” Rodney growled.
“Bye-bye,” Clive gave him a small wave before he folded his arms over his chest and settled in for the night.
Nope, he wasn’t going to miss the floor show – he just wished that he’d packed a supper.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
~
Faith tucked the mobile phone back into the nun’s habit and grimaced. She didn’t know if it was right or wrong, but she knew that if she didn’t tell Clara where they were then the woman would start tearing up the area looking for them. When she couldn’t find them, well, that’s when she’d start doing crazy stuff, and Clara and crazy went hand in hand.
When the loud thudding on the door started, she jumped out of guilt, and for one long moment; her mind raced to the assumption that she’d been caught.
“Come on, come on – I really want to get out of this get-up,” Vanessa demanded, and Faith’s pulse rate started to slow once more.
“Just wait your damn turn. I got a lot of boobs to get inside a snug top,” She grumbled.
Then she grimaced. Wondering if telling Crazy Clara where they were had been the best idea.
~
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~
It wasn’t called the midnight munchies for nothing. It was midnight, and all three witches, and one she-wolf, had gotten the munchies as they’d sat around in Leslie’s room, ignoring the males that constantly prowled outside the bedroom door, and had swapped stories about their childhoods.
Faith, as always, had turned to the thought of food and dragged the rest of them down with her. Now all four of them were headed down to the kitchen for the large frosted chocolate and caramel cake that Leslie offered.
Vanessa stopped in her tracks half way down the staircase and everyone behind her ground to a halt. All eyes were on the living room door as Jason and Mick jostled in the doorway to try to get out of the room first.
Two large hands fisted two men’s collars, and the betas were wrenched backward. Ryan stepped out into the hallway and tipped his head back to look up at his mate.
Ryan felt his length harden in a heartbeat as all the blood drained from his brain and found the little one at his groin. He’d been attracted to the witch when she was wearing a penguin suit, but now that she was in normal clothes, a flowy skirt that sat just above her knees, and a clingy top that highlighted her ample breasts, well, he couldn’t keep his cock from straining to be set free.
“Holy hell,” Mick growled out when he caught sight of Faith in a top that clung to her large breasts and made him wonder if he was drooling on his chin because he thought he just might be.
“Coming through, women in need of chocolate,” Leslie announced with a smirk on her lips at the sight of her three rough and tumble brothers looking as if all their Christmases had come at once.
“I could eat,” Jason said and got Mick’s elbow thrust into his gut for his trouble. “Tell me what I said?” Jason growled, but Mick was speechless at the sight of his mate.
“Put your damn tongue back in your mouth or throw it over your shoulder and stop staring,” Faith bit out with a scowl that did little to dampen Mick’s enthusiasm.
“You look…” Mick stopped talking because he wasn’t the kind of man who did poems and hearts and flowers. He wished he was because he really wanted to say something that was cleverly worded and full of how he felt, but that wasn’t him.
Faith waited for his words, a compliment, and she didn’t know why. But wh
en it wasn’t forthcoming she narrowed her eyes at her mate and pressed her lips together.
“Jerk,” she muttered.
“Smooth move, bro,” Leslie berated him, and the beta shook off the fact that his mate had spellbound him to the spot, and she didn’t need her magic to do it.
“Nice, look – nice…” Mick growled out, berating himself under his sister’s death glare.
“Gee, thanks,” Faith said, edging by Vanessa on the stairs, as the woman seemed rooted to the spot. “I need chocolate.”
“Let me point you in the right direction,” Mick grumbled, somehow managing to put one foot in front of the other as she shot on by him.
She snorted her contempt over her shoulder as he followed her down the long hallway like a faithful puppy.
“Would that be off a cliff?” Faith grumbled.
“I wouldn’t…” Mick bit off his words. He lifted his hand and pointed the way, and she snapped a look at his arm as it came over her shoulder.
“Watch the hands,” Faith grumbled.
“It’s just a finger,” Mick grumped.
“I got one of those,” Faith said, lifting her hand and flipping him the bird back over her shoulder.
She heard the low grumbled of another growl and couldn’t quite help the smile that touched her lips. Shifters were predictable.
Ryan eyed his mate with expectation, but she stood stock still and eyed him back without a word. Jeannie nudged her in the back and set her feet moving on the stairs once more, but her eyes were still locked with the alpha’s. She had a need to flee, and yet, her body was telling her to do anything but that.
“Can we talk?” Ryan wanted nothing more than some alone time with his mate.
“You get that you’re not my favorite person right now, right?” Vanessa stopped at the bottom of the staircase and sidestepped to allow the others to pass her by.
“I can see why ” Ryan offered back.
Maybe tossing her over his shoulder and practically kidnapping her hadn’t been the right thing to do, and yet, she was his mate, and she belonged on pack land. Not only that, she belonged with him, and he had a need to protect her running through him a mile wide.
He might have gone about wooing her all wrong, but he’d been blindsided by a lot of things when they’d first met, and he didn’t want to run the risk of losing her, of not getting his chance to woo her.
“You sure? Because you look pretty smug to me.”
“This isn’t smug, this is… I just want the chance to get to know you,” Ryan offered back, and Vanessa shot a look down the empty corridor. They were alone.
“And carrying me off was…”
“Wrong,” Ryan said. Then he took a deep breath and squirmed a little in place. “Probably.”
“And you were doing so well,” Vanessa sighed.
“Ok, look…”
“I get that I’m your mate…”
“Then can I have my nose back?” Ryan growled, just a little, just enough to make her press her lips together to stop the smile from forming.
“Your… nose?” Vanessa could do nothing about the smile that had reached her eyes.
“My sense of smell,” Ryan said, lifting one eyebrow and challenging her to deny that she’d done anything wrong.
“You gonna become Sniffy-Mac-Sniff-Boy again?” Her smile wouldn’t be denied; it claimed her lips just as he had done back in the bar.
“Not right now,” Ryan looked anywhere but at her.
He was an alpha, and showing weakness, either real or perceived wasn’t on his playlist. He guessed he’d need to change his tune where she was concerned. A mate made him weak and yet stronger at the same time. He would need to figure out the balance in that.
“Five minutes, ten hours…?”
“When the mood takes me, I guess,” Ryan offered back and watched as she narrowed her eyes at him, and got a little more defensive. “You’re my mate…”
“Doesn’t give you the right to sniff…”
“Doesn’t give you the right to steal my nose…”
“Your nose is still on your damn face,” Vanessa shot back.
In her mind the man was an oaf. He hadn’t learned his lesson, and sure, it hadn’t kept him from proving his point about them being mates, but it had made her feel better.
Vanessa was done talking to him. She turned towards the kitchen, but she had a need to be on her own, so she turned an about face and started for the front door.
“Where do you think…?”
“I’m getting some air, or is that not allowed either?” Vanessa shot back over her shoulder.
“You’re not a prisoner here, Vanessa…”
“Then I can leave?” She tossed back as she yanked open the front door and the cooler night air reached out and slapped her in the face like a wakeup call to arms. She heard a rumble from behind her, a growl mixed with mutterings from the alpha and she snorted her contempt for him. “Thought not.”
She stepped out into the darkness of the night and took in a long, calming breath. Then her head spun as her body was swept up into a strong, tight grip, and she was whisked away as the world shot by around her.
“Vanessa!” Ryan couldn’t believe his eyes. One moment; she was standing on the doorstep and the next she was gone.
He rushed towards the door and out into the night. He scented the air and growled at the lack of the one sense that he neededright then and there. Just like his mate, his sense of smell was gone.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
~
“Stop the world I want to get off,” Vanessa grumbled from the unladylike position of being on all fours in the dirt with her head down and everything spinning around her.
“Suck it up, witch.” The melodic feminine tones seemed to come from all around her in the darkness, but then everything was all mixed into one, blurring and spinning, spinning and spinning, she felt like the laundry on the spin cycle.
“Why’d you go and do a stupid thing like that?” She grumbled, uncertain if she wanted to hold her head to get it to stop spinning, or throw up whatever she’d eaten that day.
“It’s called a rescue,” Clara tossed back.
“It’s called a special kind of damn torture,” Vanessa didn’t know much about the biology of the human body and the workings of the inner ear, but she did know that whatever was sloshing about inside of it had better stop, and soon, because she was feeling decidedly green around the gills.
“Well, I’m sorry that I whisked you away from your captor…”
“Captor, the alpha?” Vanessa would have rolled her eyes, but she thought they might already have been swimming around in their sockets all on their own, them and lunch, and she really didn’t need anything else rolling about inside of her.
“Faith said…”
“Faith!” Vanessa’s head came up, and she tried to focus, but it wasn’t happening for her. “When did you talk to her?”
“She called me and said…”
“Something stupid, obviously.” Vanessa groaned. She thought the effects of going warp speed with a vampire might have started to wear off, but she couldn’t be sure.
“Are you telling me that you didn’t need my help?” Clara dropped down from her vantage point where she could see most of the pack’s land to plant her feet on the ground right in front of the witch.
“I’m telling you that they’re our mates,” Vanessa bit out.
“I heard.”
“Then Faith asked you to come and…”
“Not so much,” Clara shot back in her sing-song voice that annoyed Vanessa to the point where something pointy and sharp came to mind.
“Then why are you here?” Vanessa focused on the tall, slender woman in front of her that was clad in black leather pants and a bustier that pushed up what little breasts she did have to the point where they threatened to spill out.
“I’d be remiss if I didn’t help out a friend, no?” Clara offered back.
“We’re not friends.”
“Ouch, witch-bitch,” Clara snorted a chuckle. “You were the first I could get. Vampires – thresholds – ringing any bells?” she snarked.
“In my damn head, sure,” Vanessa grumbled, and Clara’s laughter stomped on her very last nerve.
“Somebody got out of bed on the wrong side this morning.”
“It’s been a very trying day,” Vanessa hissed back.
“I’ll give you points for that one,” Clara shrugged again. “So, we need to rescue Faith and the redhead.”
“Jeannie…”
“That’s what I said,” Clara shot back. “We both know I can’t get into the house, so…” she let her words rest there.
“They don’t need to be rescued,” Vanessa sighed. Slowly, but surely, she was finally losing the urge to throw up, and the spin cycle was easing to a slow churn.
“I see, throw your friends under the bus now that you’re free…”
“What?” Vanessa regretted snapping her head up once more as the world spun again. “I didn’t ask you to come swooping in like Batman…”
“Batman, please. If anything, I’m Catwoman,” she tossed a hand onto her shapely hip and raised one perfect eyebrow.
“A menace to society,” Vanessa muttered, but Clara’s supernatural hearing caught her words.
“Be careful little witch; I’m feeling kind of peckish right about now,” Clara said, but before Vanessa could answer her, Clara held up her hand and tilted her head towards the woods to listen hard. “Hush and stay there.”
Vanessa groaned the moment that Clara disappeared from view.
“Hush,” she muttered, forcing her body upwards, and wobbling a little as she rested back on her knees. “Boy, do you not know witches.”
The instant that Clive appeared right in front of her face, Vanessa groaned and wished that she’d stayed face down looking at the dirt.
“Back off blood-sucker,” she bit out.
“Are you injured?” Clive asked, and Vanessa would have loved to have rolled her eyes, but she was just getting a handle on the waves of dizziness inside of her.