by M. L. Briers
There was a sound of rustling leaves off to her left, and she lifted her head and peered over the side of the tub. Her heart tried to escape her ribs at the sight of the large black wolf that eyed her right back.
“Oh boy,” Elizabeth muttered to herself. It wasn’t every day that you found yourself face to face with a wolf, especially, when you were practically naked and in a hot tub. “Go away, and don’t sniff.”
Elizabeth felt a sudden rush of anxiety as her mother’s words came back to jump all over her last nerve. When the wolf exposed its fangs in a snarl, she wasn’t sure if the first thing she should be feeling was a rush of relief that the beast wasn’t her mate or karma for what she’d done to her mother.
“Oh boy!” Elizabeth said again. This time it had a whole different meaning behind it.
She rushed to pull on the magic within her. Lying in the warmth of the water, she hadn’t really been concerned about her defenses, and she’d let things slide.
Now she was more than concerned, but it would take a moment or two to bring her magic to the surface. When the wolf snapped its jaws together, giving her fair warning of its intentions, she wasn’t sure if she had enough time.
CHAPTER SEVEN
~
Quinn stood outside his mate’s bedroom door and eyed the covered tray of food that had been left untouched. She hadn’t even opened the door to take the food in.
He didn’t like it. Not one little bit.
She was his mate, and he needed to provide for her. It wasn’t as if he could barrel into the room and force-feed her a dinner, and that annoyed him even more.
His beast was unsettled. The wolf wanted to claim their mate — it had waited long enough to find her — but right then it needed to protect her, mainly from herself.
Quinn started to pace back and forth outside Valerie’s room. The man had to wonder just how long she could stay inside, as his beast clawed within him to get to her.
“Damn it! I’m too old for this,” Quinn growled as he muttered to himself.
He turned towards the door and reinforced his resolve as he lifted his hand and rapped his knuckles against the wood. Either she was coming out, or he was going in.
“I’m still alive,” Valerie called from inside.
“Good to hear — open the door,” Quinn offered back.
There was a long moment when the only sound was silence. Quinn shuffled on his feet as he searched his mind for what to do next.
He’d had a lifetime of dealing with females, but of course, never one that was his mate. Things were different when you knew it was forever.
“Go boil your head.”
Quinn closed his eyes for a brief moment and groaned. She definitely wasn’t going to make life easy.
“Maybe later, but for now, we need to talk,” Quinn was hoping to appeal to her rational side.
“I don’t speak wolf.”
Obviously, the woman didn’t have a rational side.
“You’ll be speaking to it in a moment,” Quinn muttered.
“Stop mumbling like a grumpy old fart and go away.” Valerie hoped that by keeping the door between them that the mating pull wouldn’t work its magic. In her mind, it was better than no hope at all.
“Speaking of grumpy old farts — you haven’t eaten.”
He heard her huff on the other side of the door and imagined that the look on her face that must have been extremely sour. He took a little comfort in that knowledge.
“Yes, I’m planning on starving myself to death. It seems like the better option than spending the rest of my life with you.” Her voice was dripping with sarcasm.
“Wouldn’t throwing yourself under a bus be quicker?” Quinn grumbled.
“Oh, I’m sure you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“Nothing could be closer to my heart.” Quinn felt the annoyance rumble through him with another growl from his beast.
Neither man nor wolf was enjoying the way the conversation was going. It wasn’t exactly a textbook wooing, but where witches were concerned, nothing ever was.
In his mind, there was a reason why witches and wolves should never meet. She was the prime example of that.
An elder with a chip on her shoulder, maybe both shoulders, about shifters. Well, at least with a chip on each shoulder it should level her up.
“It’s no surprise to me that you remained a bachelor.”
“It’s no surprise to me that your husband ran off and left you,” Quinn muttered back, but she’d heard him.
“He died.”
“Probably pushed him off a cliff,” Quinn muttered on a hushed breath. That time he was determined that she wouldn’t hear him. “Sorry to hear that.” He lied.
“He was twice the man you will ever be,” Valerie lied.
Elizabeth’s father had run off it when she was three. Valerie hadn’t seen or heard of him since, and good riddance to bad rubbish in her book. The only thing the man had ever done right was to father Elizabeth.
Quinn’s annoyance turned to anger at her words. His beast rose up within him in a rush of jealousy from man and wolf.
Quinn reached for the door handle and regretted it the moment that his hand wrapped around the metal. Either his mate had somehow managed to wire the door to the electricity supply, or that damn woman was playing magical tricks on him.
Not that it felt like a trick — it was as painful as hell with every muscle in his body clenching as if it had been wrapped in a tight fist.
Quinn growled like a man on a mission.
That mission was to kill his mate.
~
~
~
Do wolves like water? Am I safe in the tub?
Elizabeth eyed the beast that was baying for her blood as it snarled and snapped its jaws together in anticipation of a tasty treat. Her.
This weekend is turning into a damn stupid idea — yea for me — the genius who thought of it.
Oh boy, do I not want to admit to my mother that she was right. That’s a special kind of torture and one that should be avoided at every possible opportunity.
Nice wolf! Let’s just hope that it’s only having a bad fur day and it’ll move on.
When the beast snapped its jaws together once more and took a step closer, Elizabeth didn’t think she was going to be that lucky.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” The hard growl in Rick’s voice left the beast in no doubt that he meant business.
Elizabeth didn’t know whether to be relieved that he was there, or worried that there were now two unknowns to deal with. One wolf with a bone to pick and one man mountain that looked about as friendly as his wolf friend.
The only good sign was that the beast was no longer snapping its jaws. But it was still snarling and growling in Elizabeth’s direction.
“Get the hell out of here,” Rick growled at the beast.
The wolf seemed reluctant to abide by the enforcer’s orders. It hesitated for a long moment, caught in two minds about what to do next, and then there was deep, long warning growl that rumbled from Rick, and the beast turned tail and disappeared into the dense foliage.
“Are you alright?” Rick turned his dark eyes onto the witch.
When he’d settled on a relaxing soak in the tub, he hadn’t expected to find a witch from the inn occupying it. It wasn’t as if the elders ever used it, Sarah and Nathan on occasion, and once he’d found the vampires frolicking, but usually it was all his.
“What – that?” Elizabeth waved a hand and dismissed the beast. “I’m used to snarling, snappy wolves frothing at the mouth.”
“It wasn’t frothing at the mouth,” Rick said as he folded his large, muscled arms across his broad chest, increasing the size of his biceps, and she noticed, boy, did she. His dark eyes took in the scene in front of him.
The woman was in her early forties, with striking blue eyes that were the color of Sapphire and held his attention when normally his gaze would have drifted elsewhere. He could
sense the magic within the woman and resisted the urge to scent the air.
If he’d learned one thing from having so many witches around; it was that he could never be too careful. He only had to think of poor Quinn and what that man must have been going through to know better than to take her scent.
“It wasn’t exactly giving me the warm fuzzy feeling either,” Elizabeth offered back in a tone that told him that she was more than just miffed. He guessed that she was also worried about his presence.
His beast didn’t react well to that sound in her voice. He might have been an enforcer, but he was also a protector, and where women were concerned — even witches — his protection gene was ratcheted up to a whole new level.
“Why are you here?” Rick hadn’t meant to growl, but his beast had reacted to her worries.
“Don’t growl at me,” Elizabeth tossed back as she scowled at him. “That wasn’t my fault.”
“I wasn’t growling at you,” Rick said, on another growl that he couldn’t really help.
“Sure you weren’t because you didn’t just do it again,” she snorted her contempt for the man and his lies.
“That’s not my fault!”
“Oh, so what? It’s my fault that you wolves can’t be civil, is it?”
“Us wolves? Lady, I don’t much like your attitude…” he growled.
CHAPTER EIGHT
~
“Oh boy, should you look in the mirror, Mr. It’s not exactly all sunshine and roses on your side of the fence, you know?” Elizabeth sneered.
“You wanna know what I know?”
“From the look of you, very little!” she snapped back, and Rick snapped his head back in shocked annoyance, and then another rumble of a growl went through his chest.
“Move over – I’m coming in,” he growled long and hard as he started to yank the clothes from his body.
Elizabeth gasped at the thought of sharing space with the man. She was almost naked, and that didn’t fill her with overconfidence or a warm fuzzy feeling either.
“Oh, no you’re not!” She was already pushing over to the other side of the tub.
“Oh, you had better believe I am,” Rick growled.
Rick’s large hands went to the waistband of his sweatpants, and he hooked his thumbs inside.
“Oh, you had better not be naked under those pants,” Elizabeth gave a small growl of her own. Not that she’d meant to — but when in Rome…
“I hadn’t expected company in the tub. But what’s the difference? A thin bit of fabric here or there?”
The look on her face amused him to the point where he felt his anger slipping away. He knew that a cornered witch was just as dangerous as a cornered rogue, but still, she kind of deserved it.
“Don’t you dare drop those pants,” Elizabeth hissed like a rattlesnake that was ready to strike.
“Worried you will see something you like?” Rick would have grinned from ear to ear, but a part of him was still on high alert to the danger that she posed.
One moment only half of his naked body was on display, and the next; he was practically touching his toes, and the fabric was bunched around his ankles. Elizabeth meant to look away before the man straightened up, she really did, but the man was like a black hole sucking her gaze right at him.
There he was — as naked day was long — a big, tall, widely built man, full of muscles upon muscles, and to say that her womb exploded into life as it did a happy jig, would have been an understatement. It was highly possible that her tongue was hanging out of her mouth and she was drooling.
His half-mast was sort of lopped over in her direction, and it was waving at her. She had to wonder; if it was entirely wrong that she had the urge to wave back.
“I…” She stopped as confusion hit her brain.
Do not like what I see — or do I not like what I see — oh goddess, I so do like what I see.
I certainly don’t want to bleach that image out of my mind forever.
Is it wrong that all I can think about is — gimme, gimme, gimme!
What the hell is wrong with me?
It’s not like I haven’t seen a naked man before — ha! I have! But, oh my goddess! There’s naked, and then there’s naked, and that man is lick-a-bubble!
Ice cream on a plate — no, chocolate cake, chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, with chocolate sauce dripping down over his…
Nooo!
No chocolate cake!
No chocolate sauce!
No dripping — no licking!
No getting into this damn tub where the water has got so hot that I’m dripping!
Oh, my goddess, no I’m not dripping — neither one of us is dripping, or licking, or licking droplets that drip.
I’m doomed!
I need to get out of this damn tub before the Sex God gets in.
Sex God?
Seriously?
Too damn serious. I’m in danger of melting — I’m melting!
I think I need to crawl away, curl up into a ball, and stay there until hell freezes over – until I freeze over.
Why isn’t it a frosty night?
Am I going into the early menopause?
Oh my goddess, am I going to turn into my mother? Who cares!
I need to escape…
“I’m waiting,” Rick’s deep, gravelly tone snatched her mind back to the present, and him. Not that she hadn’t still been totally focused on him — at least – parts of him.
“For what?!” Her voice had a shrill quality to it that rattled his eardrums. Her eyes were wide, and she looked like a startled rabbit.
“You were saying?” Rick folded those big arms over his broad muscled chest once more, and her eyes were confused as her brain demanded that she look everywhere, at every inch of him, all at once.
Too many choices!
Big biceps — hard abs — big, thick, getting harder — length… Getting harder!
Oh boy, how big is it going to get?
“Huh?” Elizabeth couldn’t draw her eyes away from his hardening length, and it wasn’t her fault.
“So, you do see something you like,” Rick growled long and hard.
He wasn’t opposed to a holiday romance if she was up for it. Witch or not, the woman was definitely lick-able.
Even his beast, who normally had a healthy skepticism about being anywhere near witches, seemed to agree. Rick definitely could spend many hours getting lost within her.
“Yes — no!” Elizabeth grimaced at her slip up.
Tell me I didn’t say that out loud.
Okay, I know I did, but that’s not my fault — my brain is on the far side of the moon — I think I need a holiday.
Wait — I’m on holiday — kind of, sort of, not really, but… ooh, doesn’t that give me an out for doing things that I shouldn’t, or might regret?
No — yes!
Geez, can I pull it together long enough to decide if I want a holiday romance or not?
Not! Or… Maybe — I do.
I’m confused!
That’s not my fault either; it’s his fault. That body, that face, that growl, woof!
Woof?
How about the wolf? There’s no getting around the fact that he is a shifter.
But still, that man should be on the cover of a men’s magazine. I’d certainly buy it.
Look at me — a feminist objectifying someone’s body.
I’m a bad and evil person. And boy, does it feel good!
Shame on me. But if I’m owning that shame anyway…
“There’s a shocker — a woman who can’t make up her mind.”
He looked dark, even with the shock of silver hair at his temples, his black hair, black eyebrows, and black stubble that clung to his strong jaw, still made him look on the damn sexy side of darkness. It didn’t help matters that his eyes had turned almost black either.
Too damn sexy for his own good – my good – my poor womb had expectations that it hasn’t had in years.
&nbs
p; Woe is me.
“Can’t you just…” she waved an absent hand in his direction. “Go away?” she was loathed to get out of the tub with him standing there eyeing her parts that were a slave to gravity.
“And miss my nightly soak?” he teased. “Not likely.”
“Then can you try to find one gentlemanly bone in your body and turn away while I get out?”
“One gentlemanly bone?” He took a long moment to ponder those words and Elizabeth would have folded her arms and tapped her foot against the ground with all of the lack of patience that she could muster if she could have.
It was kind of hard to do in a hot tub for obvious reasons.
“I see you’re going to be awkward,” Elizabeth said as she chewed on an imaginary wasp.
“Me? Awkward — never.”
When he grinned at her, he looked less dark and all the more sexy for it. She couldn’t win — her womb was going to jump around no matter what he did.
“You — a gentleman — never.” She returned fire.
“Never say never. But, you know…?” His grin widened from ear to ear, and he reminded her of the beast within him.
The man was definitely a danger to her, but she didn’t think it was her life more her panties that she needed to watch out for.
“Fine!” Elizabeth went to push up to her full height, but before she could, he took a long step forward, and she was mesmerized.
Her brain was confused again because her eyes had too many choices of where to look. Which muscle to watch first — or was it that waving length that drew her attention?
Whatever it was, Elizabeth was a stunned rabbit in the headlights of his approach.
CHAPTER NINE
~
“Oh, phooey!” Sarah rushed over to the oven and yanked it open.
She’d been able to smell the burning bread from down the hallway, and yet, she still hadn’t managed to detach herself from one of the elder witches that was at the inn to find a mate and was excited to the point of distraction at the prospect – her damn distraction from saving the bread.