by M. L. Briers
“Blood from a stone comes to mind,” Tom offered from his comfy chair by the fire.
“We’ve got rid of the faeries, the pack has gone home, and now we have some alone time with our mates…” The alpha explained.
“Well, I’m not seeing an upside to this,” Natalie grumbled. “Are you seeing an upside to this, Saffy?”
When Natalie shot a look at her friend; she noted that Saffy was eyeing the alpha as if he was chocolate cake. She nudged her with her elbow to try to get her to snap out of it.
“Huh?” Saffy shot a guilty look towards Natalie.
“No upside?” Natalie glared at her.
“Err, no, no upside,” Saffy rushed out, unsure what she agreed with because she’d been lost in thought at the time, and oh, what thoughts they were.
Then she turned her attention back toward her mate and found him staring right back at her. Busted.
“Look, I just need a car or lift out of here,” Christie started to explain, but when she caught sight of movement out of the corner of her eye, she turned to see her mate starting toward her. “Stay!” She lifted her hand and pointed a finger right at him.
Rex stopped in place — only because he didn’t want to be zapped again. Not because it hurt, which it did, but because it was time lost when he could have been wooing – imprinting on her. He tilted his head to one side and looked totally unimpressed by her actions.
“That’s funny, almost as funny as the thought of you leaving,” Rex said on a grumbled growl of annoyance that was mixed with a big dollop of sarcasm, and he could see from the glare that she aimed at him that she didn’t appreciate it.
Tough. If she wanted to treat him like a dog, then she was going to have to take the rough with the smooth, and he could deliver both in equal measure.
“Look, it’s kind of sweet that you think you can kidnap me or keep me as a prisoner, but here’s a heads up — I’m a witch — I’m always going to be able to escape you.” Christie folded her arms, tipped her head to one side, and regarded Rex as if he was a petulant child.
“I don’t need to kidnap you-you came to me. As for being a prisoner — I don’t see any bars. I’m going to woo you…” Rex’s speech was cut off when his mate tossed her head back and roared with laughter.
“Somebody took their happy juice this morning,” Natalie whispered to Saffy.
“Woo me. That’s so cute,” Christie managed to get out once she’d stopped laughing and was only spluttering chuckles at the man’s expense.
All the while she could see the anger simmering inside of Rex, and that was a good thing, because she wanted to throw him off balance, put him on full tilt so that he made mistakes – hopefully, big ones.
“That’s our Rex, cute,” Jonathan chuckled as he offered his brother a gleeful look.
Rex dropped his chin toward his chest and offered his brother a death glare. He wasn’t impressed with his mate’s words, but he found himself even more unimpressed by his brother’s attitude. Even the damn alpha was chuckling at his expense.
“Don’t you have some wooing of your own to be getting to?” Rex growled at Jonathan.
“I’m just naturally lovable,” Jonathan chuckled back.
“Ha!” Natalie spat out.
“Well, you’re not going to be on my Christmas card list,” Jonathan offered back.
“Shows you how much attention you’ve paid — I don’t even like Christmas,” Natalie folded her arms and offered him a curious look, part challenge, and part disdain.
“I knew that,” Jonathan said quickly, but the scowl on his face said differently.
“Sure you did,” Natalie rolled her eyes away from him.
“Nice — wooing there, brother,” Rex chuckled.
“I need coffee!” Saffy gave a small shake of her head in disbelief. “No – alcohol!” She announced with a definite nod of conviction.
“I hear that,” Doug grumbled.
One mating in the pack would have been enough to upend everything — but three…
“I always need alcohol,” Tom chuckled.
It was something of a happy day for him when he could watch the upper echelon of the pack could make complete idiots out of themselves with their mates. He was going to enjoy it to its fullest.
“And something sweet,” Natalie’s mind turned towards pudding, any pudding would do, just as long as it had a gazillion calories — because in her mind if you were going to eat pudding then you might as well take the nuclear option.
“Apparently, Rex is sweet,” Saffy chuckled and managed to get a growl from all three shifters as each one resented her words for very different reasons.
Rex didn’t want to be thought of as sweet – he was a beta and beta’s certainly weren’t sweet.
The alpha didn’t like his mate calling his brother sweet. The only man that she should have been thinking about was him.
And Jonathan didn’t like his mate thinking about Rex at all, let alone the thought that Saffy might think that Natalie might prefer his brother over him. That was just wrong on so many levels that he couldn’t wrap his mind around it.
“Hark, a chorus of growls,” Jake chuckled.
“Cake — kitchen,” Jonathan growled out to his mate and even offered her direction by way of a pointing finger.
“That’s what I like — a man of few words that speaks my language,” Natalie chuckled.
Jonathan puffed out his chest with pride and grinned from ear to ear as he stole a look at Rex, and the beta sneered back at him. Natalie rolled her eyes once more and groaned inwardly — she certainly hadn’t meant to encourage her mate.
“It’s just a shame that it comes in the package of a muscle man. I much prefer strong of mind,” Natalie offered her words to no one in particular. She did notice that Jonathan’s chest deflated a little and considered it a job well done.
“Well, nobody is going to accuse Jonathan of being a rocket scientist,” Rex chuckled. He was glad to get his own back on his brother.
“Let’s go,” Jonathan directed his mate toward the kitchen with an outstretched hand.
“There’d better be cake in there,” Natalie warned him.
“I’m a man of my word,” Jonathan assured her. When Natalie drew level with him, he leaned in and whispered against her ear. “That’s why when I tell you I’m going to woo you — I’m going to woo you.”
Natalie tripped over her own feet and almost pitched headfirst to the floor. Luckily, Jonathan’s reflexes were lightning fast, and his arm came around her waist, yanking her back towards his chest, and causing a rush of shocked excitement to flare through her body.
CHAPTER TWENTY
~
“I saw your face,” Saffy whispered to Natalie as they went about wrapping up the leftover food from the party and stuffing it into the oversized fridge.
They’d meant to get cake — lots of cake, but how could you let so much good food go to waste?
“My face?”
“When Jonathan wrapped his arms around you — that face,” Saffy whispered back.
“And when I was making a face, what was the face I was making?” Natalie shrugged. She didn’t have a clue what her friend was talking about.
“Normally you have resting bitch face,” Saffy said with an underlying element of glee that caused Natalie to offer her the kind of look that would have dropped her dead on the floor, had she put any magic behind it.
“Gee, thanks.”
“Welcome. But not this time, if I had to narrow it down — I’d go with — mini-orgasm.” Saffy almost spat out a chuckle when Natalie’s head snapped around, and her eyes glared with disbelief and horror at her friend.
“I did not have a mini-orgasm face,” Natalie hissed.
“It kind of looked like a mini orgasm face to me,” Saffy grinned from ear to ear with amusement.
“I hate you,” Natalie hissed back.
“That may be the case, but you still had a mini-orgasm face,” Saffy chuckled.
“None of your business,” Natalie hissed. “Big ears!”
“Listening into people’s conversations,” Saffy snapped at the man as she shot Natalie something of an apologetic look.
“Well, maybe if you didn’t want to be overheard…” Rex shrugged his broad shoulders.
“We were whispering!”
“What’s going on?” Jonathan asked as he followed his brother into the room.
“Something about a mini-orgasm face,” Rex shrugged.
“Oh, geez,” Natalie grumbled as her mate turned his attention toward her.
Jonathon’s dark eyes narrowed on her, and he took in the flare of red that filled her cheeks, and then there was the way that she fidgeted on her feet. Busted.
“You had a mini-orgasm?” Jonathan scowled.
He wasn’t sure if he liked that idea. After all, it was his job to deliver her pleasure, and he had to wonder what had done it for her.
“I did not have an orgasm — mini or otherwise!” Natalie hissed back in disbelief. “It was Saffy!”
“What was Saffy?” The alpha asked as all three brothers stood at the door like they were queueing up to get in.
“It wasn’t me!” Saffy’s voice pitched higher as she rushed to denial.
“What wasn’t you?” Doug looked confused.
“A mini-orgasm,” Rex shrugged again.
“I did not have a mini-orgasm!” Both women announced as one and then turned to glare at each other.
“Do you want one?” The alpha grinned from ear to ear as he stared back at his mate.
“Make it stop!” Saffy rolled pleading eyes toward Natalie, but her friend shrugged back at her.
“Isn’t karma a kick in the pants? You started it,” Natalie offered her no sympathy at all.
“You mean like…?” Rex motioned between the two women. He gave a suggestive wiggle of his eyebrows, and the witches turned their noses up at him.
“Get your mind out of the gutter,” Natalie hissed.
“What? It’s not like it…” Rex chuckled.
“Don’t you have a witch that’s escaping?” Saffy offered back and snapped something on within the beta that sent him spinning on his heels and out of the kitchen with a grumbled growl.
Natalie elbowed Saffy in the ribs, and Saffy groaned in annoyance.
“What? Christie can take one for the team,” Saffy grumbled back. She didn’t see a problem with sending him after his mate.
“Way to sell out one of our own,” Natalie berated her before she rolled her eyes and her friend’s antics.
“Like you didn’t do it to me,” Saffy snorted her contempt for Natalie’s change of tune.
“True, but I expected more from you,” Natalie grinned.
“So, to get back to the mini-orgasm…” The alpha started, but when both witches turned their glares upon him, he held up his hands to his chest and decided that was a closed subject. “Moving on.”
“Good idea,” Natalie said, but it wasn’t the alpha that she offered a scathing look to, but Saffy.
“I was just saying,” Saffy said as she mirrored the alpha by holding up her hands, only she was smart enough to back away from her friend before she got zapped.
“I hate… Christmas,” Natalie groaned.
“Okay, grouch,” Saffy chuckled. “You’ll be turning green next.”
“Only at the thought of mating with him,” Natalie tossed a look at Jonathan, and the man growled.
~
~
~
Natalie closed the bathroom door and turned towards the hallway. She almost ran slap-bang straight into Jonathan’s chest but caught herself just in time.
“So, about this mini-orgasm?” Jonathan’s deep voice rolled over her skin like fingertips.
She felt an immediate flush of guilty embarrassment hit her cheeks — as a wave of heat traveled through her body at being that close to him. Way too close for her liking.
“Drop it,” she bit out as she stared at him from beneath her furrowed brow.
“I’m male, it’s bouncing around inside my head, and it won’t be put to bed until I find out the truth — no pun intended,” Jonathan offered back.
He also offered her a wide, sexy, grin that somehow managed to make her toes curl within her boots. She didn’t much care for that feeling.
“Well, tell yourself that curiosity zapped the wolf, and go to sleep,” Natalie offered back in a tone that told him that where that subject was concerned he should let sleeping dogs lie.
“Again — I’m male – it doesn’t work like that,” Jonathan said as he reached up a hand and palmed the door behind her.
Natalie felt the rush of heat sweep through her body once more. The man was close — too close — and getting ever closer.
She pulled on her magic, snapped her fingers, and the bathroom door shot open – just as she sidestepped the man, and he stumbled forward into the bathroom.
There was a low rumble of a growl as Jonathon managed to stabilize his body and save himself a brief headache that he would have gotten from headbutting the tiled floor. He straightened, pulled back his shoulders, and turned towards the doorway.
Natalie grinned to herself as she snapped her fingers again and the door slammed shut right in front of his face.
“Ho – ho – ho!” She muttered.
She gave a small chuckle of victory as she started off down the hallway to the sound of the bathroom door opening, and a deep growl following on her heels.
“Devious, but you didn’t win,” Jonathan followed on after her.
“I didn’t lose either.”
~
~
~
“I have a little problem that I need to sort out, and then I’ll come right back.” Christie offered him an innocent shrug of the shoulders.
“I’m sure you would,” Rex didn’t believe her for one moment. He certainly wasn’t going to let her out of his sight.
“I said so, didn’t I?” Christie offered back on a scowl that made her eyebrows come down and partially cover her eyes.
“Yes, you did.” Rex folded his arms across his broad chest and offered her a totally blank expression back.
“Well then?”
“Not happening.”
“You are being unreasonable,” Christie said as if the man was both delusional and five years old.
“Possibly.”
“I said I’d be right back,” Christie pressed her point.
“What are the odds?” Rex chuckled.
“What if I give you my word?” Christie asked.
Rex took a long moment to think about it. That was a Catch-22 situation. He was caught between a rock and a hard place and whatever answer he gave her, well, she was sure to find fault with it.
“How about I don’t put you in that kind of situation to start with?” Rex thought that covered it.
“Meaning?” Christie folded her arms, tipped her head to one side, and demanded an answer along with the scathing look that she gave to him.
Rex groaned inwardly. Perhaps his answer hadn’t covered it completely after all.
“Well, you may give me your word, but due to circumstances beyond your control — you may not be able to keep it. I’d hate to put you in that kind of a situation.” Rex wanted to reach around and pat himself on the back for that answer.
“I see your point,” Christie said as she groaned inwardly.
It was a dance. They both knew it, and she had to admit that the man had impressed her with his answers – so far.
“Good. Then it’s settled,” Rex shrugged his impressively large shoulders and offered her a small smile that threatened to turn smug.
“Not as settled as you might think,” Christie offered back.
“I think it is.”
“I think it’s not.”
“I think you’ll find it is
,” Rex shrugged again.
“I think you’ll find that it’s really not.” Christie shrugged her shoulders back at him.
“Oh, for the love of God,” Tom growled as he rolled his eyes back in his head and offered a snort of a snore to show his appreciation for how he thought the conversation was going between the mates.
“What?” The vampire offered from the other side of the room. “The course of true love never did run smooth.”
“Yes, but does there have to be so much damn bickering?” Tom offered back.
“You do have a cabin of your own,” Rex grumbled to the elder. “Don’t even get me started on you, vampire.”
“What did I do?” Jake asked.
“I said don’t get me started…” Rex growled.
“I’m just sitting here like a little church mouse,” Jake held up his hands to his chest and grinned.
“Church mice don’t have fangs and a taste for blood,” Christie sneered at him.
“Wouldn’t that be one in the eye for the vicar?” Jake chuckled.
“Does he come here a lot?” Christie turned her attention back towards Rex.
“No — thankfully,” Rex growled.
“I feel unwanted…” Jake started to complain, but the mates cut him off in unison.
“Good!”
Christie looked back at Rex. She slowly narrowed her eyes at him as if him choosing the same word at the same time was some kind of conspiracy against her.
Rex narrowed his eyes back at her; he was unsure of what she was about to do next or why she was looking at him that way.
“The fact remains, I need to leave,” Christie announced and Rex almost sighed with relief. Confrontation averted.
“The fact still stands — that you’re not getting out of here, at least, for tonight.” Rex offered back. Christie went to open her mouth to speak, but he held up his hand in front of her. “It’s blowing a snowstorm out there. Even if you were to leave; you aren’t going to get far.” He reasoned.
Christie bit down on the unfortunate truth of it. She might not have been able to get out, but that snowstorm wasn’t going to stop someone coming for her.