by M. L. Briers
Part of her hoped that the pack had already located the missing child and she was safe. Part of her wanted to be warm, dry, and indoors. But like the rest, she wouldn’t be returning to the house until they found the child.
Pack or not, and that was an argument to be had at another time; she wasn’t going anywhere.
~
~
~
“Where?” Turner demanded as he stood naked on top of one of the rocky outcrops and looked around the area.
The rain was hammering down, but even so, they should have been able to see Tina if she was where the witches had led them to, where they said she was.
“Not…” Jodie lifted her hand and motioned in a circle around them. “There. There.” She pointed down to the very rocks that the man was standing on.
“That’s…” He started a slow shake of his head, but his eyes took in the jagged mouth of the opening in the rocks. “Crap!”
“Maybe there’s another way in,” Finley said as they all fanned out and started to comb the area.
“The opening is too small, even for me,” Nicholas said. “There’s no way one of the pack is getting down there, even a female.”
“I’ll go,” Steph said and heard the low, deep growl of the alpha that didn’t like that idea.
“With those hips?” Casey pulled her head back on her neck and eyed her sister for a long moment. “I’ll go.”
“You can’t go,” Jodie said.
“It’ll be fine,” Casey said.
“What’ll be fine?” Finley asked.
“She doesn’t do well in small enclosed spaces,” Steph said as a warning for her sister about acting irrationally.
“It will be fine,” Casey repeated herself.
“That’s…” Jodie started, but her sister cut her off.
“It’s a child!” Casey bit out.
Neither of her sisters said another word.
“Can you do this?” The alpha asked. “I don’t like the idea of sending you down there if you’re going to get in trouble.”
“I can do this,” Casey said.
Her body felt as if someone had plugged into the mains. It buzzed from head to toe with a big dollop of apprehension and a small amount of fear for the unknown.
“You smell scared,” Finley said.
“Then stop sniffing me,” Casey snapped back.
She was going to do it matter what. There was no one else.
“Her healing magic is far superior to ours,” Jodie offered.
“And that settles it,” Casey warned Finley with just a look. The beta nodded.
“What’s wrong with my hips?” Steph said to Jodie.
“Well if you swing your hips you could properly bulldoze those rocks out the way.” Jodie offered her a smug smile.
“So, how is having a mate working out for you?” Steph asked, and she folded her arms under her breasts and pushed them up and outwards with a smug smile.
“Don’t even get me started on the size of your boobs,” Jodie hissed back at her sister.
In times of stress, other families offered tea and sympathy, hand holding at its very best. In Steph’s house, it was bickering and sarcasm that saw them through the tough times.
~
~
~
Casey squeezed through the confines of the small space. She had to wonder how even a child could have managed to get through the narrowness of the cracks in places.
Her heart was pounding in her ears. Her skin felt clammy, and that had nothing to do with the fact that she was wet clean through her clothing.
Her mouth was dry, and her insides were buzzing and shaking like she had the worst flu possible. She could only have wished that to be the sum total of her problems.
She’d second-guessed herself from the moment that she’d entered the tight space. Then she told herself why she was doing it and tried to wholeheartedly concentrate on just getting the job done.
She could hear chatter from above. Deep voices and more feminine ones, but she couldn’t hear the words over the sound of her heart beating in her ears.
Her foot touched something softer than the rocks, and she was more than grateful to know that her journey was ending. Either that, or she’d discovered an animal’s lair.
She wasn’t athletic. She wasn’t brave. She was just one damned determined woman.
Casey managed to take her first reasonably deep breath when she pushed downwards and realized that the space had opened up a little more. Thankfully it was big enough for the both of them to squeeze in.
She had to use her hands and feel her way over the child’s body in the darkness. She pulled on her magic to locate the injuries that Tina had sustained.
Casey worked as fast as she could. She didn’t want to be down there any longer than she had to be, and she wanted the child back up with the pack where she belonged.
She wasn’t just fighting the tight space, or the dark, she was fighting fear itself. But Casey was determined that it was a fight that she was going to win.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
~
“She’s found her,” Steph announced.
“How do you know?” Kit asked.
“She’s using her magic. I can feel it,” Steph informed him.
“Then Tina’s still alive.” The alpha sighed with relief.
“There’d be no point in her using magic if she were dead,” Jodie said as her nerves gave way to sarcasm to ease her fears. Then she turned her eyes towards Nicholas.
“Don’t say it,” Nicholas groaned.
“There are always exceptions to any rule,” Jodie offered the vampire a warning glare.
“You had to say it,” Nicholas groaned.
“What’s the point in a vampire if he can’t be the butt of everyone’s joke?” Jodie grinned.
“I’m thinking that having the witches in the pack is a very bad idea,” Nicholas offered to no one in particular, and yet all the shifters gathered growled in unison.
“I think they like us more than they like you,” Jodie offered back.
~
~
~
Casey could feel Tina getting stronger. She heard the she-wolf draw in a hard breath and felt her body rise to meet her hands.
“Don’t panic,” Casey said into the darkness.
“C-Casey?” Tina’s voice sounded weaker than her aura felt.
The pup sounded unsure, confused by the darkness, and where she found herself.
“Good ear,” Casey tried to push the fear from her own voice.
“Where…?”
“You fell at the crags. Do you remember?”
“Y-yes.” She didn’t sound sure.
“You need to tell me if you have any pain anywhere. I might have missed something,” Casey said.
“My head aches. But it doesn’t hurt.”
“You’re going to need to climb back up. Can you do that?”
“Why do you sound scared?” Tina asked.
Casey grimaced. She’d tried as hard she could to keep the fear from her voice and not scare the child. They said honesty was the best policy and she only hoped that was true.
“I don’t like small spaces,” Casey admitted.
“Then we should leave,” Tina said. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and she could see that the witch was fearful.
“You first,” Casey said.
“I’m not scared.”
“Good. Because down here I’m as blind as a bat and you need to lead the way.”
~
~
~
It was getting harder and harder Casey to climb back up the slippery rocks. She’d made Tina go on ahead without her, and she figured that the child had already made it to the top because she couldn’t feel the small chippings that came off the rocks coming down at her anymore.
Casey stopped to try and grab a breath as she clung on by her fingernails. It felt like it was getting harder and harder to breathe.
The
space was tight, and now that she didn’t have the distraction of Tina to take care of the climb felt almost impossible. She was tired, maybe too tired to go much further.
Her heart was hammering in her ears once more, and there was a rushing sound like the sea. Fear gripped her. Doom washed over her.
She wanted to get out; she really did, and yet she didn’t feel like she could take another breath to climb another inch. Life sucked.
A few hours ago I’d never felt more alive.
He’d kissed me — brought me back to life. Now, this.
Fate.
Mate.
Finley… Finley…
“Casey!” Finley’s deep tone echoed off the walls and into her mind — deeper – into her very soul.
Finley…
“Casey — climb!” Finley growled out the words.
Casey wanted to move. She wanted to climb towards that voice. But she couldn’t.
“Climb now!” Finley demanded.
“She’s freaking out,” Jodie’s voice rattled around the small space.
“Freaking out — my ass,” Casey’s voice barely made a sound.
“Climb, Casey, climb!” Finley growled.
That sound rattled her very bones into action. She lifted her foot and wedged the toes of her shoe on a small ridge.
She pulled her weight up with her arms and pushed with her legs.
“Keep going. Keep coming towards me,” Finley demanded, and she complied.
Slowly. Carefully. Almost inch by inch until she felt his fingers brush against hers.
That touch sent a rush of something through her body that took a sledgehammer to her fear. She pushed on, up, until she felt his fingers close around her wrist, and he was slowly lifting her out of her very worst nightmare.
Casey didn’t take a full breath in until she was wrapped in the security of Finley’s arms. Only then did she find that she could breathe again.
“Well, it’s good to know that a witch is good for something,” Nicholas announced.
“Zapping,” Jodie said as she and Steph unleashed their magic on the vampire in happy unison.
“No — sense of humor,” Nicholas bit out between his teeth.
~
~
~
Kit was proud of his pack. While the witches had languished in the showers, his pack had taken it upon themselves to bring an assortment of clean, feminine clothes for them to wear.
He guessed he would have preferred his mate naked, or at least, wrapped up in something of his, but he was more than pleased with the heart that his kin had shown in their respect for what the mates had done to save Tina.
He was also impressed by Casey. He’d thought that she was the weaker link of the three, the one that might not fit in with his pack, and he was glad to have been proved wrong.
As Kit placed a pile of clothes upon his bed for his mate, his mind couldn’t help but wander to the sound of the shower running, and thoughts of his naked mate inside.
He wasn’t sure how long he’d been standing there with a damn ache that wasn’t going to go away until he mated with her, but the sound of the shower going quiet slapped him around the back of the head and made him jump in place.
He turned on his heels and headed toward the door to the hallway when the bathroom door opened and he hesitated in his stride. Busted.
“Clothes – bed,” he tossed back over his shoulder, desperate to turn and look at her, but he knew he’d have guilt written all over his face.
“Funny, I somehow don’t picture you wearing that dress,” Steph offered back, and he ground to a halt just short of the doorway.
“I know it’s not my color,” he offered back with half a mind to escape and half a mind on turning around and heading right for her.
The sound of her gentle laughter was the clincher that he couldn’t deny. He bit the bullet and turned back.
Sucker punched. The sight of her wrapped in a towel, her wet hair spilling over her naked shoulders, water droplets running over her skin, almost made him groan out loud.
His cock twitched hard against the confines of his jeans, his stomach clenched like it was inside someone’s fist, and his knees went weak.
He was a mess, and she was… phenomenal, beautiful, amazing.
“I think you’ve got a little drool…” she motioned to his chin, and it took him a long moment to pull himself together enough for his brain to catch up, but when he did, he grinned.
“That’s definitely not my fault.”
When she smiled, the damn sun came out. His heart leapt and so did his cock.
“You’re so – cute,” she chuckled.
“Cute?” His eyebrows did a dance and tried to meet in the middle.
“That’s a good thing.” She teased.
“Not for an alpha,” he looked dismayed, and she chuckled harder.
“But, it is for a mate.”
“I…” He thought about that for a long moment. He groaned inwardly, but he still puffed out his chest, and his cock still leapt at her words. “Guess.”
“Thanks for the clothes.”
“There’s food – downstairs,” he added on a frown. She’d thrown him a little.
“I’ll be right down.”
“Or we could…” he stopped when her left eyebrow arched. “I’ll let you get un-naked – dressed!” he groaned inwardly again.
Then he turned on his heels, managed to clip the doorframe with his shoulder on the way out, and slammed the door shut on his backside as he raced outside.
“You’re an alpha, damn it!” he growled as he stalked down the hall.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
~
Jodie yanked open the bathroom door and swallowed hard at the sight of Turner laying on his side on the bed. His head was propped up on his hand, and he was wearing low riding jeans with the button open, and nothing else but a big smug grin on his face.
“Still thinking about me naked?” Turner said and offered her a suggestive wiggle of his eyebrows.
“I’ve seen you naked, and it was nothing to write home about,” she lied.
Of course, she lied — the man was tall, broad-chested, and packed full of muscles — how could seeing him naked not be the highlight of her millennium?
“Oh, a little white lie, and from a witch — shocker!” He berated her with just a look, but that look was also playful.
Jodie wasn’t feeling very playful. She was hungry, tired, and emotionally drained.
She felt like a squeezed sponge would if it was crushed within his fist.
But still, her body was determined to rise to the challenge of — him.
She cursed that damned mating pull. She cursed the way her feminine bits and pieces had sprung to life at just the sight of him laying there.
She cursed the fact that she cursed. She’d like to turn the clock back twenty-four hours when she was oblivious to the fact that he existed.
That wasn’t entirely true.
She’d been warming to Turner all day, and not in the mating pull kind of way. She hated that.
Yes, the man was annoying, but she had to wonder if that was because he was trying too hard to woo her. But he was playful, he was funny, and he was as sexy as sin itself.
Out of the three brothers, Turner was the one that she would have chosen for herself if fate hadn’t chosen for her. The other two didn’t have his playful sense of humor.
But, laying on her bed naked was just taking it a little bit too far.
Jodie hesitated only briefly before she used her magic to spin the man off the bed. He landed with a heavy thud against the wooden floor, and the sound of a groan satisfied the need within her to show him that she wasn’t as easy as he seemed to think she was.
Turner’s head bobbed up over the other side of the mattress, and he slapped his two hands against the bed. He didn’t look any less smug.
“I came to bring you clean clothes and invite you to dinner,” he offered.
“An
d yet, there you were stretched out on the bed like some kind of gigolo,” she said as she folded her arms to make sure that her towel stayed firmly in place.
“But you still thought about me naked, didn’t you?” Turner’s grin widened to a wolfish smile.
Jodie had lied already, and he hadn’t called her on it. She had to wonder how long that would last if she did it again.
Of course, she had pictured him naked. He practically was, and it wasn’t a big leap for her mind to fill in the blanks.
“You are thinking about me naked right now. You are wondering if you’re going to be lucky, and this towel is going to slip…” She teased and watched as his gaze flicked up and down her body.
She saw his lips part. The tip of his tongue flicked out to wet his lips, and then he swallowed hard.
She’d turned the tables on him, and now the man wasn’t thinking about anything with his big brain — just his little brain. It had been all too easy.
“Dinner sounds good!” Jodie said in a bright voice that snapped him back to reality. For one long moment, he looked totally confused. Then he nodded and swallowed again. “Be down in a moment.”
Turner pushed up to his feet. He gave a fast nod of his head and started for the door.
Yep, it had definitely been easy to derail the man.
~
~
~
Casey walked out of the bathroom and found Finley exactly where she’d left him. The man’s backside was propping up the windowsill on the other side of the room.
His arms were crossed over his broad chest, and he looked as sexy as hell as he looked at her from beneath his dark eyebrows. He was dressed, and that wasn’t a complete win in her book.
“Feel a bit better?” Finley asked, and the deep, gravelly tone of his voice washed over her skin.
“I feel stupid,” she lifted her hands and dropped them back to her sides. She hated the fact that she had a weak spot in her armor and now everyone knew it.
“For knowing that you have a fear and having the courage to face it while rescuing a child that nobody else could reach?” Finley challenged her.