by M. L. Briers
“Stop with that creepy, damn, stealthy, vampire shit.” Landon growled out, trying, and failing to keep his fangs from elongating at the sight and scent of the bloodsucker.
“And here I was thinking that we were friends.” Connor said with a mock downcast look on his face, even as his eyes sparkled with amusement. “I think you hurt my feelings.”
“I’ll hurt more than that if you don’t get out of my damn way.” Landon growled.
Just as he couldn’t stop his fangs from pushing down, now his claws came out, and Connor noted the stance of the man. Everything about him screamed out of control.
“Pray tell, what would be your hurry?” Connor teased. Never one to fail in his efforts to poke the bear – he certainly liked to poke this one.
“My mate.” Landon growled back.
His chin was practically resting on his broad chest as his jet black eyes glared at the vampire with more anger than Connor knew what to do with.
Connor considered his words for a moment. Then a grin burst across his face in double time and caused the alpha to growl a long, hard warning.
Landon really was in no mood for Connor’s particular brand of humour – not when his mate was getting away. Not when his bear was clawing to be set free.
“Congratulations!” Connor enthusiasm made Landon growl all the more. He couldn’t share that sentiment, at least, not yet.
“Move or be moved.” Landon growled.
“And who would the lucky wench to be, I wonder?” Connor sidestepped just a little as Landon made a move to leave, follow his mate, track her scent, but then Connor blocked the way again, smirking. “Tell me it’s a feisty witch and make all of my dreams come true.”
“I swear, Connor…” Landon growled, trying to sidestep the vampire one more time, but being blocked – this way and that – by the man’s insufferable need to meddle.
“Uh-uh.” Connor wagged a finger at him. “Not until you share your feelings.” He grinned hard and Landon growled harder.
“I will say this only once more – m – o – v – e.” Landon’s bear was about ready to burst from inside of him, and Connor could see that he’d pushed him far enough.
After all, he didn’t want the damn bear to eat the mate…
“After you.” Connor stood aside and swept his arm in front of the alpha, offering him a path right on by him.
“That would imply you’re coming with me.” Landon didn’t wait to question the vampire. He’d already started off on fast feet, and sure enough, the vampire was following.
He grumbled and growled and his bear did the same.
“I have to-”
“No – you – don’t.” Landon growled back over his shoulder.
“Sure I do.” Connor grinned. “We can’t have you eating your mate before the happy event… just imagine how insufferable you would be then.”
“Are you saying I’m hard to get along with?” Landon asked before sniffing the air and making sure that he was on the right track.
Honey and peaches… that was her alright.
“Perish the thought.” Connor sniggered.
“Good. Because I don’t think I’m so hard to get along with.” Landon growled back at the vampire.
“Let’s let your mate decide that one.” Connor chuckled openly now. “Did you say that she was… human?” He enquired, eager to find out what fate had in store for his friend and how much trouble they were all in if they had to explain their world to a human female, and all he got was a hard grunt for his trouble.
“Didn’t say a damn word.” Landon shot back.
“Then she’s a witch?” He asked.
“Would you go away?” Landon growled.
He was torn between tearing the vampire a new one and finding his mate, but his bear knew exactly which one it prioritised… He wanted their mate.
They’d waited long enough for her.
“Oh, a witch…” Connor said. Nodding to himself as if to confirm it, and Landon shot a glare at him from over his left shoulder.
“How’d you draw that damn conclusion?” He growled.
He didn’t want Connor’s help, or need his company. Right now all that he needed was to find his mate and woo her… woo her well.
“Because you don’t want me here.” Connor grinned at his own reasoning.
“That’s because of your winning personality.” Landon growled back.
“Or because you’ve already had your backside kicked by the witch and you don’t want to lose face when it happens again.”
Landon ground to a halt and pivoted back around on the balls of his feet towards the vampire. Connor pulled up short, but he still almost ran right into him.
They stood eyeball to eyeball.
“Why would you think that she kicked my butt?” Landon growled.
It was irrational, he knew it. In those moments when he should have been tracking his mate, hunting her down – there he was challenging the vampire to spit out what he thought he knew before he had the urge to take his head off of his shoulders and put an end to him forever…
CHAPTER THREE
~
“Because if she didn’t, I suspect that you’d already be with her, and you wouldn’t have had an outdoor bath…” Connor let his eyes roam down the alpha’s clothes.
The man was still dripping water as he walked.
Landon’s nose twitched in annoyance. In his mind the vampire was just too damn smart for his own good…
His beast grumbled, growled, and protested the fact that they didn’t have time to eat the vampire, and yet they weren’t off hunting their mate either. Landon just wanted to plant his fist in Connor’s face…
“That’s not what happened, Sherlock…” Landon lifted his hand and poked an index finger against the solid wall of Connor’s chest to make his point.
“Noooo?” Connor raised his eyebrows high on his forehead in expectation of the lies that were to follow.
“I… she…” He grunted and huffed in annoyance. Then he raised a hand in frustration and dismissed his friend with a hard swipe at the air.
Turning on his heels again, Landon made haste after his mate in an attempt to try to close the gap between them and to make up some of the lost ground that he’d given up by talking to the damn bloodsucker. He needed to keep his attention directed solely towards finding her.
He’d have her. Hunt her down. There was no doubting that within his mind… but whether he could woo her when he found her would be another thing entirely.
He was long in the fang and set in his ways, and he’d never really expected to find his mate. Now he had – hell, the pressure was on to make her his, and he didn’t need an audience while doing it.
“Good explanation.” Connor teased to the sound of another warning growl.
“Go the hell away.” Landon shot back.
“Can’t do that.” Connor’s sing-song voice annoyed the alpha so.
“Sure you can, just retrace your damn steps.”
“Now tell me this – who is going to alpha the alpha?” Connor asked, and Landon shot him a glare back over his shoulder.
“Boy, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about…” Landon growled out.
“Well-”
“And I don’t want to know, just take off and don’t come back.”
“Think about it.” Connor offered, still with the overly melodic tone to his voice that made Landon’s beast edgy and grated on the man’s nerves.
“I don’t have time for your bullsh-”
“Now – now, temper – temper.” Connor offered. “And exactly the reason that you have watched all the members of your clan closely for psychotic murderous tendencies when they’ve found their mates…” He left the sentence there…
Landon grunt. He didn’t much like it but he supposed the damn vampire had a point.
He had watched over all of his clan as they’d found their mates and wooed them. Not because he was a pervert or anything – not even because
he was a meddling SOB like Connor - but because he wanted… needed those mates to stay safe…
Just in case the man lost control of his bear…
“Damn it.” Landon growled out.
His beast was already antsy. The bear wanted out, wanted to be free to hunt down their mate and…
“Crap!” Landon growled and got a blast of Connor’s laughter for his trouble.
“There you go. I think your brain just kicked your backside into gear.” Connor offered to another long growl.
“I think I might just kick your ass.” He growled back.
“And yet you see the truth of it. Why I’m staying. Why you want me to stay-”
“I wouldn’t use the word want.” Landon bit out.
“Why you need me to stay.” Connor offered back.
“To keep my mate safe,” Landon sighed, “from me.”
“Two bodies one mind, we’re gelling here.” Connor teased again.
“Don’t push your damn luck.” The alpha grunted.
~
~
~
Every step that Gemma took away from the river in the hopes of finding the right track that would lead her back to her car, was another step when she was ruining her damn boots, but another step away from the shifter, so that was a plus that she couldn’t argue against.
She groaned inwardly at the thought of what she’d done to the guy. Guilt plucked a slow tune at her nerves.
The man had offered her a beer. He was grumbly and a little offhand, and yet being a shifter she could understand why.
They had to be mindful of all those things that made them what they were so that they didn’t tip their hand and weren’t discovered by humans. She got that – she’d lived a lifetime hiding her magic.
From the tone of his voice, he didn’t seem to like witches – or maybe she was wrong about that and he liked them just fine – just didn’t trust them. And she could kind of understand that too.
But, why – oh – why, had she dumped his backside in the river like that?
There were others ways to handle a shifter. There were others ways to handle a man – sexy man, but still a man, and over her adult life she’d probably learned every one of them.
No, like a newbie witch that had just had her first encounter with the supernatural, she’d panicked and used her magic to blast him a good one. Without thought or consequence for what came next, she’d attacked, and that was on her to own it.
He certainly wasn’t going to be happy about it, and lucky her, she had two full weeks booked in a cabin on the mountain in order to regroup and get away from life’s little problems…
She’d be lucky if he didn’t hunt her down within two hours and seek his revenge.
That thought made her antsy. The woods were quiet. Too quiet, as if they were holding their breath in anticipation of that damn man jumping out of nowhere and…
And what? She had to wonder what kind of a man he was. What kind of revenge he would want in order to ease his pride and that of his beast…
Bear. The man might have been a sexy silver fox with that shoulder length hair that was turning silver at the temples – those dark eyes were still as clear as day with those little weathered lines that folded nicely in his tanned skin – and he might have had a big, hard, muscle packed body that a man half his age would be proud of… but he still had a beast inside of him that dictated the rules of engagement.
It was those rules that she now had to worry about.
Perhaps, if she was ever lucky enough to find her damn car, then the smart play would surely be just to get in it, get it unstuck from the mud, and drive back down the mountain – putting as much distance between her and him as possible. Go home.
Home… not a place that she wanted to be right then, not with all hell breaking loose there too.
She was trapped between a rock and a hard place. She’d blown all of her savings on two weeks in a dumbass cabin on a dumbass mountain, and she was the dumbass that hadn’t checked to make sure that there weren’t any supernatural macho men about.
“Way to go, Gemma. Out of the damn frying pan and into the fire… and oh, baste yourself before jumping in, why don’t ya?” She muttered.
Grumbling one curse after the other as the heels of her boots snagged on every uneven piece of ground that she could find, and she was sure that she’d found them all, she trudged on.
“Come to the mountains, the ad said. Lose yourself in the majesty of its peaceful beauty, it said. Not a damn word about the deadly shifters… oh no. Just let a poor unsuspecting witch walk headfirst into a mountain man of trouble…” She grumbled, tripping over an exposed tree root and having to save herself from headbutting a thick tree trunk…
“Goddess, damn it to hell and high water, and everything in bloody well between…” she ground out…
“Sounds like your day is going about as well as mine…” That deep, gravelly tone sent the hairs on her body rushing to attention, and from the sound of it, it hadn’t come from that far behind her.
Her fingernails practically dug into the bark as her fingers curled against the tree trunk, and every muscle within her body tightened up in anticipation of his attack.
Crap!
CHAPTER FOUR
~
“You stay back.” Gemma bit out.
She had nowhere to go and she knew it. She didn’t need to turn around to see just how miffed off he was going to be – she could hear it in that damn gravelly tone of his.
His beast was front and centre and it would probably love nothing better than to take a bite out of her backside – or worse.
What came next was all about choices – hers – did she maim him or go for the throat? Because this might just be the last chance that she got to get it right.
Her shields were going crazy. For one damn shifter he was giving her a lot of white noise where her witchy bells and alarms were concerned…
“Shall I hold him down so you can zap him?”
That melodic tone sent an ice cold chill through her veins and made her heart try to tap against the tree trunk in front of her… Perhaps her heart knew to make its escape before that thought even hit her brain and sent her head spinning around to take in the two of them…
One miffed off shifter and one oddly grinning vampire – both staring right back at her expectantly. If she had to hazard a guess – today was not a good day to pick a fight with the supernatural.
“You think I need your help?” Gemma held her nerve, even when those nerves were screaming at her to run for her life.
She released the tree trunk from her death grip and turned her body around towards them. She was ready for whatever they were going to throw at her… more than ready…
Her magic bubbled and fizzled inside of her just waiting for an out. It was probably as eager as his bear to tear free.
“I don’t know, mates can be problematic.” Connor offered and saw her blink hard… just once, before she stared at him for a very long moment without doing much of anything, including breathing…
“M-ates.” Gemma offered back with as close to the sound of hysterical laughter catching in the back of her throat than she ever wanted to hear coming from her own lips.
But hell, she felt crazy right about then. She felt as if her life had gone from bad to abandon ship in a matter of a few heartbeats…
“Not me.” Connor offered with a smirk. “If you were wondering.” He added and her eyes flicked straight to Landon.
She almost exploded a lung with relief at not being the mate to a vampire…
Yuck!
But a bear shifter…?
Was that much better?
Gemma held in place. She blinked once, because she had no control over it, had no control over much of anything, she was just running on autopilot. But she did keep her eyes locked onto that big man mountain of mountain man that was staring right back at her.
His chest was heaving as he greedily tried to take in everyone’s oxyg
en. His hands were screwed up into giant fists at his sides… Those big brick house shoulders pulled up and back as if he was ready to smash clean through the woods like the Hulk…
If it was true then it wasn’t the end of the world. Just the end of the world as she knew it.
Mated.
A mate.
At her age?
Being in your forties wasn’t exactly a crime these days. You weren’t expected to wear frumpy granny clothes and sit knitting by the fire… not that she had the first clue how to knit… but come on… a shifter mate, and still in his damn prime…?
She didn’t think she had the energy.
She certainly didn’t think that she had the ways and means to have cubs… Mother Nature was starting to become somewhat erratic with her body…
Why the hell would fate give her a mate… now?
“Bear got your tongue?” Landon growled.
His dark eyes were talking her in, judging her mood – and that wasn’t sunshine and roses – and he was wondering just what the hell this witch was going to do next.
Run? Maybe.
Scream and shout? Possibly, but he didn’t think so.
Zap him to hell and back? Likely…
Slowly, very slowly, she leaned the top of her body forward as if she was going to whisper something across the clearing. Her eyes were locked on his, and she turned her head slightly as if she was listening for an answer to her yet unspoken question…
“And how would you know that I’m your mate?” She asked quietly – almost thoughtfully.
“You smell good.” Landon growled back, and the groan from Connor’s lips made him frown as he wondered what the hell he’d said wrong – especially when his mate’s head snapped back on her neck and her body followed as if he’d reached out and slapped her – not something that he’d ever do – he’d rather cut off his own damn hands…
“That’s called perfume, you should try it sometime.” She muttered.