by M. L. Briers
DEFENDING HIS MATE
By
M L BRIERS
Copyright © 2013 by M.L Briers
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
DEFENDING HIS MATE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ONE
Joshua felt the claws rip through his skin with total precision. The vampire was not only besting him in this fight, he was damned well enjoying it. It had come from the treetops to swoop down on him as he ran the perimeter line of the property.
There had been no scent. The smell of death that would normally accompany the beast had been carried away on the wind high above him. The first he knew of the proximity of his attacker were the claws that seemed to come from everywhere at once in a frenzy of blows and sideswipes.
That’s not to say that Joshua had not dealt the vampire a few blows of his own. The scent of the vampire’s blood was strong all around him. Even in his fur.
Joshua feigned swiping left with his claws, only to swing to the right and sink his teeth into the vampire’s thigh. A minor wound that had the vampire roaring in pain, but he came back with claws swinging from all directions.
Joshua felt the deep gouge, right down to the ribcage and rolled away from the body blows he was enduring. Trying to regain his footing on the parched earth of the embankment, Joshua felt the ground give way beneath him.
His claws dug into the earth as his powerful back paws tried to outrun the cascade of earth downwards, but it was of little use. He felt himself go just as the vampire took another wipe, his claws cutting through thin air as Joshua rolled with the earth.
The pain from his wounds was excruciating, as he rolled down the steep hill. His body was already battered and bruised from the fight and now it was taking the added punishment of the rough terrain beating against it, his wounds tearing open wider from the fall.
The roadway came up to meet him at high speed. The collision with the tarmac was slightly less painful than everything else he had endured, but still hurt like hell.
Joshua forced his eyes to open even though he was of a mind to keep them closed. There wasn’t an inch of his body that wasn’t screaming in pain and he found that he couldn’t hold onto his wolf’s form as he drifted somewhere close to death.
The vampire looked down on the human form of his enemy lying in the road. The battered and beaten body of a man, not a wolf, blood and torn flesh covered his skin, and the vampire knew that the Lycan had nothing left to give.
He made a move to step off from the embankment. He would drop down into the roadway and finish this. The fight was over and there was no more fun to be had.
The sudden flash from the car headlights played over the barely alive body lying in the road and the vampire hesitated in his task. His fight was not with a human, and he estimated that he didn’t have time to drop down, finish off the Lycan and disappear before the car was upon them.
He just had to hope that the driver was drunk, half blind or not very attentive and ran over the Lycan. No such luck. The sound of squealing brakes filled the night air and the smell of burning rubber from the tyres filled his nose, as the car screeched to a halt practically sideways across the road.
It didn’t matter. With the wounds he had inflicted on the Lycan he would be dead soon enough. The sound of the car door opening had him turning from the scene, but the scent that he caught in the air made him hesitate and then turn back.
She was Fae.
Joshua tried to turn onto his side in the bed that he knew instinctively was not his. The pain that seared through him felt as if he was being ripped apart by red hot knives, driven deep into his flesh, and he moaned accordingly.
The fight with the damn vampire was at the forefront of his mind. How could it be that he had lost so badly? One wrong move and he had nearly been gutted like a pig, and yet here he was, still alive.
He could smell the Fae in the air. It was a flowery scent with a backdrop of electricity that tingled at his sensitive nose, almost akin to a sneeze when it first starts, and he couldn’t help but wonder if he hadn’t gone from the frying pan into the fire.
He couldn’t quite force his eyelids open just yet. But his hand reached for the covering over the wound on his chest and he felt the immediate swat of a hand against his.
“Don’t touch. You need to heal.” There was a melodic quality to her voice, mixed with the same consternation that his mother would show him when he was a pup. Perhaps his luck was in after all. Maybe he had found a mother hen type and not the hag that the pack knew to be living just off of pack land. The one they knew to stay away from.
“I need the moon.”His own voice was gravely and almost unrecognisable to his ears. If he hadn’t known he had spoken, he would have thought someone else was in the room with them.
“Patience wolf, it’s daytime. Rest now.” There was sweetness to her voice that called him to sleep, and so he did.
Cynthia was humming to herself when she left her van behind and walked up the path to her friend’s house. She was having a good day, as days go. All of her deliveries had been made and she had nothing on for this afternoon, so a little distraction with Isabel was just the ticket.
Although what was so important that she had to drag her sorry butt over here with so much urgency she didn’t get. If Isabel had a problem with her magic, it would be a first. She was one of the better Witches that she knew. She could tame the wind if it suited her mood. But the urgency in her voice said something was up, so here she was.
She lifted her hand to knock at the bright purple door of the little cottage and that was as far as she got. Isabel practically tore the door from its hinges as she reached out a hand, snagged that extended arm and yanked her inside. It was a move that had Cynthia’s eyes snapping wide open in shock, and a protest of a squeal on her lips.
“Geez, Isa. I think I just left half of my internal organs on your doorstep, what the hell?” She glared down at her friend, not only her words demanding answers but her whole stance. Her hands had gone to her hips, her head was tilted to the right, and she had that pout on her lips that told Isabel to fess up, or else.
“I have a problem…” Isabel started to confess, but that was as far as she got. Cynthia was nodding her head adamantly.
“Yes, you do. And let me tell you…” She was about to go into another one of her speeches and Isabel really didn’t have the time.
“Shut up, Cyn.” The harsh words made her friend snap her jaws shut. The look in her eyes told her she had better explain, and rapidly, exactly what was going on.
“I picked up a little problem on my way back from gathering this morning.” Isabel looked up at her with innocent eyes. Too innocent, it had the hairs on Cynthia’s body standing to attention. She narrowed just one eye in suspicion at her friend.
“What did you do?”
“It wasn’t exactly my fault…”
“Wasn’t it now?”
“He was injured…”
“He, who?”
“Just lying there in the road really…”
“Oh for the love of… stop babbling woman and spit it out.” Cynthia knew that when Isabel started to babble, the conversation was all but lost for the rest of the day.
Isabel snapped her mout
h closed with a slight pained expression. She took one long breath and blew it back out on an even longer sigh. Cynthia stood there waiting.
Patience wasn’t one of her virtues, she didn’t have many at all if truth be known, but waiting for Isabel to fess up was harder than she would like to admit.
“He’s in there.” Isabel rolled her eyes and her shoulders slumped down towards the ground in an obvious show of defeat.
Cynthia looked down with an air of caution. Raising one eyebrow, she looked towards the closed door of Isabel’s bedroom and back again.
“You got a man in your bedroom? Well that’s a good sign that you have rejoined the human race after- he who shall not be spoken about.” There was an air of amusement in Cynthia’s voice that didn’t quite match the cautious look in her eye.
“Not like that.” Isabel pressed her lips together in annoyance, before flicking her head towards the closed door.
“Do I really wanna know?” Cynthia asked. That question caused Isabel to roll her eyes again, and shake her head, no. “Oh crap, Isa, what have you got yourself into now?”
Cynthia stomped down the hallway and practically threw open the bedroom door. It took a long moment for her eyes to adjust to the semi darkness of the room and then she saw him lying there.
Her heart slammed hard into her ribcage, her eyes went wide with disbelief, and the gasp that left her lips had even Isabel’s eyes rolling in her head and she grimaced, knowing exactly what was coming next.
Cynthia took a long moment to steady her racing pulse and bite down on all the expletive’s that were naturally rolling around inside her mind. Pulling the door closed, she turned on her heels and walked in calmness back to where her friend was standing. Then she took a moment, took a breath, and let loose.
“Are you frigging kidding me, you bought a dog home with you?” She hissed down. The anger, frustration, fear and just plain disbelief came at Isabel in waves.
“He was in the road, what was I supposed to do?”
“Well I don’t know Isa. Hmm, let me think…” She seemed calm and rational now as she starred off into space, contemplating. “Drive the hell over him.” She hissed out and Isabel took to rolling her eyes for the umpteenth time.
“Come on, Cyn, really...?”
“What do you think will happen when the circle gets to hear about this…? Or the frigging Lycan’s…? Or whoever he was fighting with… Because that guy’s had the crap kicked out of him Isa!”
Cynthia wasn’t wrong. It was something she prided herself on, and Isabel knew it. She had put herself in deep with this one, now she needed to get out of it.
“It was a vampire…” She was pretty much reluctant to admit it, and the look on Cynthia’s face said why. Right now she looked as if she had been hit with a shovel. Throwing her arms up in the air in frustration, she turned away from her friend.
“Oh great. Let’s invite the whole supernatural realm to this party.” She spun back on her heels, her brows raised as she demanded answers.
“Are you frigging nuts…?”
“I need your van…”
“Oh hell, no you don’t.” Not only was Cynthia wagging a finger in her direction, but she was shaking her head so adamantly that Isabel had to wonder if this was a favour too far.
“I need to get him back to his pack before…” Isabel tried to reason with her.
“I can’t have my van smelling like mutt. And to go to pack land is akin to suicide…” Cynthia wasn’t having any of it. There was absolutely no logic for this that she could see.
“Come on, Cyn. What the heck am I supposed to do with him?”
“Put him back where you found him and hope the vampire will be happy with your offering.” Cynthia snapped back, even before she could think it through properly.
“I need your help…”
“You need your head testing.” Cynthia snapped back. She was in no mood for this discussion, now or at any time in the future.
“Please help me.” Isabel gave her one of those sorrowful looks that never failed to rile up Cynthia’s protective streak. The woman would huff, and puff, but she would help. Isabel could feel it in the air.
“Fine, take the van. Even if it does have my business name emblazoned on the damn side, so that everyone knows where to come when they are tracking the damn mutt.” She crossed her arms over her chest and dropped her head in defeat. It had been such a good day, she told herself.
“I need you to drive…”
Cynthia’s head snapped up and she looked at her friend with the certainty that she had gone totally insane.
“Oh no…”
“I need to be in the back with him…” Isabel pleaded with her eyes and her words, and Cynthia all but lost it again.
“To pack land?” She didn’t think she needed to expand on that statement, everything she needed was there.
“Ever heard of strength in numbers?” Isabel asked hopefully and Cynthia shot her the look of a deranged woman.
“Ever heard of a dog’s dinner?” She snapped back, knowing that the one thing Fae did not do, was wander onto Lycan territory.
“They aren’t going to eat us. We have one of their own.” Isabel reasoned, which only caused Cynthia more outward signs of pain.
“Eat first and ask questions later. Isn’t that the Lycan motto?” Cynthia shot back. Not even willing to entertain the idea in her mind.
“You’re being unreasonable…” Isabel put that little sing song melody in her voice and watched Cynthia respond to the downgrade in animosity between them.
“And you’re being psychotic.” Cynthia gave it a tune all of her own.
“You know you’re going to help me.” She sung back on a grin of knowing that Cynthia was about to give in.
“You know we’re going to regret this.”
When Joshua didn’t return from his patrol, Elijah rounded up every member of the pack that could go out to search for him. It didn’t take them long to track Joshua’s scent, or the scent of the Vampire he had encountered. But what shocked the hell out of Elijah was the third scent that he had found when tracing Joshua’s blood loss through the woods. Fae.
The scent of the Fae in the air wasn’t just illogical to him, it was also intoxicating, and that was just damn wrong. He had to wonder what a Fae would be doing mixed up in a battle between the pack and a vampire. Could the Fae be working with their enemy against them now? And more importantly, why did the scent of this Fae bother him so much?
His snout had started to tingle, as if he were about to sneeze. No great mystery there. That was what happened when you encountered a Fae. But the heady scent of her, flowers and feminine spice, called to him like a wakeup call to his very being, as if he had never truly been awake until that moment in time.
Elijah shook the feeling off. It was a complication he would deal with another time. Right now he needed to follow her scent and find out where she had taken Joshua. Then he would find out what she had done to him, and then he would take his revenge on her.
It took a little magic and a lot of patience to get the Lycan from the bed, back out of the cottage, and putting him into the back of Cynthia’s van, all without dropping him on his thick head.
He wasn’t in the best of moods when he had woken briefly to find two Witches hovering about him, mumbling incantations, and floating him down the hallway.
Still, he was now safely in the midst of the soft bedding that Isabel had placed in the back of the van to try to ease his journey back to his pack. It might just be a rough ride through the woods trail. Isabel couldn’t be sure, because she had never had reason to take that road before.
Cynthia was right. Fae and Lycan’s didn’t mix. Socially or theoretically. In fact, there seemed a great mistrust between the local pack and the local circle, and solitary witches like Cynthia and Isabel were caught in the middle, with no allegiance to either side’s protestations of right and wrong.
Sure, if it came to it, she would side with her own kind. Wh
at else could she do? But she wasn’t about to leave the Lycan in the road injured, no more than she hoped a Lycan would leave her the same way.
Time would tell if she had made the wrong decision. She just hoped that Cynthia didn’t pay the price for her sympathy.
Cynthia cursed and muttered to herself as she put the van in gear. Isabel watched her friend bite down on her words, as they started on their journey back to pack land with the Lycan sleeping at her side, she was gambling with both of their lives here and she prayed to the Goddess that she wasn’t wrong.
Elijah slipped unseen through the woods. He was taking a chance being in his wolf form in the daylight hours, but he could cover more ground on paws than he could under human foot.
Joshua’s scent was easier for him to trace this way, especially as it was mixed so closely with that of the Fae.
When he reached the point where he was actually overwhelmed with her scent he knew he had come across her home. There was hope inside him that he would find his brother still alive. That the witches had not used him for some sacrifice, or spell. Lycan blood was apparently sought after in some circles, not only for its aphrodisiac properties, but also for the strength it could impart.
If this witch had taken his brothers blood for any reason, he would have more than her blood in revenge for such an act.
Elijah could scent his brother’s blood the moment he gained ground on the small house in the clearing. His rage rose inside him like a thunderbolt to his heart. He dug his claws into the earth and used his powerful legs to carry him to her back door.
Mindful of the power a witch could have, he waited only long enough to listen inside for the heartbeats that would tell him how many were there. His utter despondency at finding none within her walls flooded through him like a tidal wave.
Was his brother already dead? Was he too late? Had the witch already taken him to the circle to cast a spell?
Elijah shifted into his human form. He needed to get inside the cottage to better understand what had happened. Using the strength that his Lycan blood gave him, he forced the backdoor open with ease. Even a human could have gotten through her defences. The lock was flimsy and she had no magic wards up for protection that he had come across yet.