by M. L. Briers
“No!” Quinn shook his head again as he glared at Hank in annoyance.
“Say what?” Angela asked as she strolled towards the group. You could have heard a pin drop in the room as everyone’s attention was turned on Quinn.
“Doesn’t matter — it’s not important,” Quinn grumbled.
Mine…
Quinn’s wolf growled inside of him. The beast had waited a long time to find their mate, and he wasn’t about to give up now.
“Go on, Quinn. You know you want to,” Lark chuckled.
“Nope.” Quinn shrugged his shoulders and looked anywhere but at the group.
“What’s going on?” Valerie demanded. She’d had more than enough fun and games for one day. She was going to find Elizabeth and go home — at least, that was the plan.
“Yeah, Quinn — tell the lady what’s going on,” Hank chuckled.
That sound annoyed Quinn to his very core. He felt the need to punch the man on the nose — at least that would relieve some of the coiled up tension within him.
“Lady,” Quinn snorted his contempt for that word.
“I’m warning you, you old fart,” Valerie hissed out in hushed tones that were only meant for him.
“She isn’t?” Angela chuckled as she caught on to what was happening.
“Oh, she is,” Lark grinned.
“It’s what?” Valerie demanded once more, and she would have stomped her foot in frustration, but she didn’t want to appear childish, or risk toppling off balance.
“I don’t want to spoil the surprise,” Angela chuckled.
“Will somebody just tell me what is going on?!” Valerie’s voice was becoming shrill again, and all three shifters grimaced at the sound.
“Quinn,” Hank prodded the man again.
“No!” Quinn grumbled.
“Oh just man up,” Valerie demanded, and Quinn’s beast rose up within him. There was something about his mate challenging him like that which touched a nerve.
“Mine!” Quinn growled out as he turned towards his mate and saw the shocked expression hit her like a freight train out of nowhere.
CHAPTER FIVE
~
“Are you having a senior moment?” Valerie demanded on a deep scowl that almost made her eyebrows cover her eyes.
“No,” Quinn growled.
“I think he’s having a senior moment,” Valerie said as she turned towards Dorothy and Angela.
Her words were more out of hope than belief as her eyes pleaded with the two elders to tell her that what she thought was happening wasn’t happening.
“If that makes you feel better,” Angela sniggered.
“Makes me feel better!” Valerie was wide-eyed and looking at the woman as if she just thrown up on her shoes. “Is everyone around here insane?”
“Not yet, but after a few years of living with Quinn, I’m sure you will be,” Hank chuckled.
“Living with…?” Valerie looked as if she needed to hold onto something stable. “Well I — that’s to say — I’m just — where the hell is my daughter?”
“Why do you need your daughter?” Angela shrugged. “Your mate is standing right there.”
“You have got to be kidding me,” Valerie’s voice was low, deep, and Quinn was sure that he heard a growl in her voice.
“Would you call this karma?” Lark asked Hank with a grin on his face that stretched from ear to ear.
“You know — I think it might just be,” Hank chuckled at Quinn’s expense. “I mean — perish the thought that Quinn would deny his mate the pleasure of — him.”
Quinn grumbled another growl as he shuffled in place. The man looked as if he didn’t know what to do with himself.
“You two will be laughing on the other side of your faces when I unleash my wolf,” Quinn growled.
“Don’t you dare!” Valerie hissed at the man.
“Oh, you have a problem with wolves. There’s a surprise,” Quinn tossed up an absent hand as he shook his head in dismay.
“I have a problem with you,” she snorted contempt for them.
“Well, suck it up, sister,” Dorothy said.
“A mate is a mate whether you like it not,” Angela reminded her.
“Not,” Valerie grumbled.
“Couldn’t agree more,” Quinn growled.
“Well, at least you have some common ground,” Angela chuckled.
~
~
~
“What did you do, young lady?!” Valerie demanded, and she could already spot the guilty, sheepish look on her daughter’s face from the other side of the room.
“I can explain…” Elizabeth started to do just that, but Valerie was so riled up that impatience got the better of her.
“Can you?” The elder said as she placed her hands on her hips and offered her daughter a hard glare in return. “Can you explain – him?”
Up until the moment that her mother lifted her hand and pointed towards the six-foot tall shifter, Elizabeth hadn’t really noticed him. The fact that the man filled the doorway made her wonder why, but then, when her mother was on the warpath there was usually little time to notice much else.
“Him?”
“Yes, him! The dopey -looking, male chauvinistic, lump of arrogance that claims to be my mate.” Valerie folded her arms and demanded an answer with a hard glare.
“Mate!” Now that it had actually happened Elizabeth had to wonder if it was truly a good idea. “I…”
“You thought you’d throw me to the wolves! Literally.”
“Not all of them. Just one!” It was only when the words came out of her mouth that Elizabeth realized just how wrong that sounded.
“That’s your answer?” Valerie demanded with a big dollop of surprise mixed with disbelief.
“I’m not sure — give me a moment,” Elizabeth said as she searched for another answer to her mother’s question, maybe one that wouldn’t incur her wrath.
“If you didn’t want me living with you anymore all you had to do was ship me off to a care home,” Valerie hissed in annoyance.
“You looked lonely,” Elizabeth explained.
“And you couldn’t just buy me a cat?”
“I can see how you might think that was the way to go – now,” Elizabeth grimaced.
“Now? You mean now that I have a lecherous old dog following me around and sniffing at my heels?” Valerie huffed.
“Don’t start with the dog jokes,” Quinn growled as he furrowed his brow and eyed her from beneath it. “From where I stand you’d give Attila the Hun a run for his money.”
“Then take that as a warning and don’t stand so close,” Valerie shot back as she eyed the man from head to toe once more and snorted her contempt for him. All of him. Every last inch.
“And how are we all getting along?” Angela asked as she walked up behind Quinn in the doorway and shoved him inside the room.
“Trying not to get too close to frosty the She-Demon,” Quinn grumbled as he eyed his mate with a big dollop of suspicion.
“Trying not to catch anything from the old goat,” Valerie offered with a sneer for her mate.
“Well, okay then. It looks like my job here is done,” Angela tossed up a shoulder and grinned at the two new lovebirds before she turned away to leave.
“Wait!” Elizabeth rushed out and stopped Angela in her tracks. “You can’t leave me alone with them.”
“Really? Because I’m thinking something along the lines of making your bed and laying in it,” Angela chuckled to herself as she turned and strolled away.
Both seniors turned their fiery glares onto Elizabeth, and the woman swallowed hard before she grimaced at the thought of what she was dealing with. Maybe she hadn’t quite thought the weekend through.
~
~
~
“No!”
“Yes!” Quinn eyed her with contempt.
“No!” Valerie was adamant.
“Yes!” Quinn wouldn’t have it any other wa
y.
“No, no, no, no! And here’s the kicker — noooo!” Valerie growled again, at least, it sounded that way to Quinn’s ears.
“I’m telling you, witch, if you growl one more time you’re going to be saying hello to my wolf,” Quinn said as he squared off against his mate who was a good foot shorter than him. Oh, but what she lacked in height she made up for in determination. She was mean one!
“And if your wolf comes out to play he’ll be howling soprano a few seconds later!” Valerie hissed back the warning like a rattlesnake that was ready to strike.
Quinn’s beast didn’t like the sound of that. While the wolf had never run away from a challenge before in its life, it also had no appetite to find out what their mate had in store and a high-pitched growl wasn’t in anyone’s best interests.
“So, not an animal lover then,” Quinn grumbled a growl.
“I wouldn’t kick a dog, but you’re a different matter entirely,” Valerie huffed as she eyed her mate with the big dollop of contempt for his very presence on the planet.
“It’s just dinner, damn it,” Quinn’s eyes were on fire with annoyance.
The moment that he’d met his mate she’d been contrary to everything that he did or said. It bugged the hell out of him.
He knew that wooing wasn’t easy — nothing in life that was worth a damn was easy — but when every time that he opened his mouth her reply was no, he had to wonder how he was going to build a bridge to get from there to yes.
“Yes, but it’s with you.”
“Would you prefer it if I sat there with a paper bag over my head?” Quinn grumbled.
“It’s not your face that’s the problem — it’s what comes out of your mouth,” Valerie huffed. “You seem to have verbal diarrhea.”
“You are the most…” Quinn bit off his words. Arguing with the woman wasn’t going to get him what he wanted.
“Please, don’t stop now. Enlighten me.”
“If only I could,” Quinn muttered the words
“What’s that? Speak up. Not all of us have supernatural hearing.”
“Thank God,” Quinn muttered. “I said; that would be good, but I don’t know you well enough — yet — to comment.”
“Don’t hold your breath — or do the world a favor — and do. Either way, I don’t want to have dinner with you.”
Valerie didn’t want to spend any more time then she had to with the man. She knew what time spent with him would mean with regards to the mating pull, and that was and big no-no in her book.
Quinn grumbled under his breath, and it didn’t take a genius to work out the kind of thing that he was saying. It didn’t matter to her what the man’s words actually were; the gist was all that she cared about.
All she wanted to do was to get to her room and be done with him.
When she reached her door, she didn’t even bother with the key that she gripped tightly within her hand. Instead, she used her magic to unlock the door and toss it open. That way she didn’t need to miss a step in her escape plan to be done with him.
“I’ll expect you for dinner at seven in the dining room,” Quinn said. The rumble of a growl still underlined his words.
“Expect away,” Valerie tossed back over her shoulder as she strolled into the room and used her magic to slam the door closed behind her.
“Witch!” Quinn growled from the other side of the door.
“And then some,” Valerie muttered to herself as a small, lopsided smile started on her lips.
Truth be told, she hadn’t had that much fun in a while. Sure, she’d fenced words with Elizabeth on a regular basis, but it was so much fun to go at it with some fresh blood.
CHAPTER SIX
~
“Well, what are you going to do — stay in your room for the whole weekend?” Elizabeth asked.
Valerie was sitting in the comfy chair by the window. She might have been staring down at the book in her hands, but she wasn’t reading. Thoughts were spinning in her mind to the point where they wouldn’t have let her concentrate on anything, let alone a book.
All that she could think about was Quinn and the fact that she was his mate. To add insult to injury, she’d been excited to read the romance novel that she’d brought with her. Now, that book seemed to be taunting her just with its existence.
“It’s a strong possibility. It’s a nice room,” Valerie offered back in clipped tones that warned Elizabeth that her mother was going to be particularly awkward for the foreseeable future. Not that she could really blame her.
“It’s not like you can hide from your mate,” Elizabeth reasoned, but her mother wasn’t impressed.
“I wouldn’t have to, now would I, if you hadn’t of brought me here?” She shot back with a small glare.
“Okay, that was wrong…”
“You can say that again!”
“I’m sure I’m going to have to say it for the rest of my life, but the fact remains…”
“It was an underhanded, truly deceitful, mean-spirited, horrible thing to do to a person?”
“Now that you’ve got that out of your system,” Elizabeth side inwardly. “You need to eat something.”
“I don’t break bread with wolves.”
“You mean; you’re scared of your mate,” Elizabeth offered back.
“Scared?”
Just one look at her mother told Elizabeth that she might as well bend at the waist and kiss her backside goodbye. She guessed she deserved it — after all, she had set the whole weekend up without her mother’s approval.
But, if truth be told, she really hadn’t expected her mother to meet a mate. She was more hoping that her mother might meet an elder her own age and a friendship might blossom.
“Why don’t we discuss this over dinner?” Elizabeth offered what she hoped was a reasonable request, and her mother would have been less likely to get her proverbial claws out in front of the room full of people.
Yes, she was a coward. Yes, her mother had every right to be angry. But in Elizabeth mind, and as her daughter, she also had every right to try to get her mother the best possible golden years that she could.
She’d screwed up. Sort of. But maybe a mate wasn’t the worst thing in the world.
“Unfortunately, I never perfected the art of telepathy, and I’m not leaving this room.” Valerie returned to staring blankly at the pages of the book.
“Fine, then I will have something sent up to you,” Elizabeth said. She knew her mother well enough to leave matters alone for the moment.
“Will you ask them to cut it into little squares for me as well? Or maybe they should just purée everything.” Valerie muttered loud enough for her daughter to hear.
“Mother!” Elizabeth sighed, but her mother didn’t look up, she just waved an absent hand like she was the Queen of England.
“Go eat dinner. You paid for this weekend, one of us should enjoy it.”
“Would you like me to eat with you?” Elizabeth asked.
“Are you going to spoon feed me as well?”
“I…”
“Run along. I’m trying to read,” Valerie dismissed her and was more than relieved when her daughter turned on her heels to leave.
“I’ll come back and check on you in a while,” Elizabeth offered as she reached for the door handle.
“I don’t need tucking in,” Valerie said. “Be careful out there — you never know when you’re going to meet a mate.”
Elizabeth hesitated at the open doorway. Her mother’s words rang in her ears like a really loud alarm bell going off and sounding a warning cry.
She looked to the left and then the right just to check that the hallway was clear. Right up until that moment, she hadn’t even considered the fact that she’d willingly walked onto pack land, or that she could actually be a mate herself.
“Something wrong?” Valerie’s voice rang out from the room behind her, and it held an element of amusement to it that stomped on her last nerve.
“No,�
� Elizabeth lied.
Just like every other smart witch, she always had her shields about her, but after her mother’s warning, she pulled on her magic a little more to reinforce them.
“Off you go then. Enjoy your evening with the pack.” Her mother’s tone mocked her.
Elizabeth swallowed down hard. She could hear the sound of her mother’s voice that the woman was enjoying herself. She guessed she owed her that much.
That didn’t stop the sudden urge that Elizabeth had to pack her things, throw her suitcase in the back of the car, and head back to town.
~
~
~
Three times Elizabeth had gone to her mother’s door, and three times her mother had called back the same thing; I’m still alive. Sarah seemed to think that everything would work out the way that it should and had finally persuaded Elizabeth to leave her mother be for the night and to go and enjoy the hot tub while she could.
Heaven. Elizabeth thought as she leaned her head back and gazed up at the clear sky and the twinkling stars that were putting on a fantastic show for her as the heat of the water soothed her tense muscles.
I don’t deserve it.
My mother is right; I’m a horrible person — not that she said horrible, exactly — but I can read between the lines.
I shouldn’t have brought her here.
She was fine as she was — just a little lonely — I should have bought her a dog, or cat, or both.
Now she has a wolf — not really the kind of pet an elder imagines.
And now I’m on pack land. What could possibly go wrong with that?
The moment that she’d thought it, she regretted it.
I think I need to go back to witch school — tempting fate? What am I, an idiot?
What could possibly go wrong? Why don’t I just slap the great big bulls-eye on my backside and be done with it!
Fate — if you’re listening — I take it back – I bite my tongue.
Elizabeth did just that. She bit her tongue and hoped to hell that fate would be kind to her.