by M. L. Briers
My life was flashing before my eyes and not in a good way. It was running on full speed ahead and I was racing to catch up because people kept taking my precious time and misusing it. Now I was being accused of not only a damn crime, but of toad licking. Couldn’t anyone take a joke around here? Apart from my life, that was one big damn joke.
“But you just said…”
“Do they not have humour where you come from?” He opened his mouth to speak but in truth one more word from this guy and I might just go postal on his arse.
“Wait, don’t answer that. I don’t have time to explain what a joke is to you or humour, not even a vague outline of the concept. I have a life, or at least I’d like to have a damn life if other people’s lives and problems didn’t always get in the way, and right now you are the least of my worries.” I was being a bitch, but with good reason… this guy pissed me off right from the damn word go.
When he looked at me with those puppy dog eyes and that head twisted on his neck like a wolf… well, I softened a little. But not enough to make me want to be nice. Not even throw him a bone, not unless it was off the top of the cove and he was sure to follow it down to a water grave, along with those damn stupid wet sailors that had listened to some bitches singing a bad tune. Oh damn, I’m rambling. Perhaps I’m going senile like Marmaduke?
“Ok, you can go.” He informed me with such a dismissive tone that it kind of knocked some sense back into me and bowled me over at the same time.
“Say what?” I had to ask.
“I don’t believe you are the mastermind behind this illegality.” He offered that to me with a little too much dismissiveness for my liking.
“Oh, really?” I should have just cut my losses and got the hell out of there. But I kind of wanted to blast those stupid mushrooms into oblivion.
“Are you telling me that you are?” How like a man to try to twist things around.
“No!” I snapped back. He waved a hand in my direction.
“Then you can go.”
My chin dropped down towards my chest and my mouth popped open for just a minute until my brain kicked my backside into gear. I snapped my mouth shut and felt that irk gene rise again. Yep, this guy was definitely top of my damn postal list.
“I r-e-a-l-l-y don’t like you.” I gave it every bit of acidity that I could muster. When he looked at me with those sexy soulful eyes, wait, when did they become sexy? I wanted to growl like a damn bear back at him. Then he did the most Goddamn awful thing imaginable… he gave me the sexiest grin I had ever seen on a man.
Now that really did piss me off. I gasped in a breath, turned on my heels and damn, but was I out of there. I didn’t consider it running away, nor retreating, more regrouping before I killed the sucker. My day was definitely going from bad to the sublimely worst day ever.
~
“And I didn’t even get to zap the bloody mushrooms.” I was letting it all out to the one person that I knew would understand me. Well, person was a stretch of the imagination. Mrs D’s cat, Meow, had paid me an afternoon visit and I was letting her eat my tin of tuna, and she was letting me vent. The best part was that she didn’t talk back.
I heard the sound of a meaty engine draw up in front of my house and I swivelled my chin on my hand and checked out who was set to disturb me now in my little utopia of letting off steam. I didn’t recognise the truck, fancy and brand new, but then tourists got lost around here all the time. I sighed inwardly and ignored the intrusion.
“Let them take it out on the knocker, as my old grannie used to say.” I offered that piece of wisdom to the cat for the next time it might be tempted to open a door.
My eye was caught by something large coming up my driveway and I turned back to see that damn man having the balls to come anywhere near my house. It was that no sense of humour wolf shifter that denied me my postal on the mushrooms and accused me of growing them to boot. Oh, hell no!
I called my magic to me and flicked my wrist at the ball that was lying on the path; still unclaimed by the Macauley demon-children, and watched with great satisfaction as it rolled under the guy’s feet and tripped him in his step. I sniggered, but it just wasn’t enough to bring him to heel as his superior balance and agility had him right back on his feet again. Bum. He did stop and eye my house for a second, but then he started forward again…
“Let’s see just how much he wants in.” I whispered to the cat as I turned my attention towards the front door and my perfect view of it. I cast a simple spell towards it.
The sound of the doorbell was followed by a yelp and the kind of curse that would make one of Marmaduke’s wet sailor’s blush. It had just been a little zap, but it made me feel better. The sound of the growl reached through the door and was followed by the sound of thunderous banging against the wood…
I didn’t move a muscle. I had absolutely no intention of answering the door to that man. Why should I show him any kindness, any forethought? The man was a pest.
“I can hear your heart beating.” His gravelly tones reached right through the wood and made my heart beat a little faster out of guilt. Nobody wanted to actually be busted ignoring someone like that, did they?
“Shouldn’t have such big ears then.” I muttered back, knowing full well that he could hear me.
“Open the door or I will break it down.” That did it. I jumped up to my feet and stalked across the wooden floorboards with a purpose, and that purpose was to give him a piece of my mind. I snatched open the door and yanked it back on its hinges, and there he was… with those damn sexy come to bed eyes… err, staring at me with accusing eyes, better, I’m not going anywhere near a bed with that jerk…
“Now what do you want to accuse me of…?” I’d had enough of this, of him, and when he scented the air, well, I wanted to zap him right where it hurt and that wasn’t his damn index finger on the doorbell.
“Mine.” He growled at me. He honest to goodness growled at me like he wanted to devour me from head to damn toe.
I wanted to run, I wanted to hide under the covers and never come out… I slammed the door in his face with my magic and snapped on the locks. Magic wins against agility any day, especially when the guy was obviously as stunned as I was over that whole ‘mine’ thing…
“Crap.” I bit out as I tried to think of a spell, a way out of this that didn’t involve me killing him. Although, there was an idea. He was the top of my postal list.
“Open the door.” He demanded and I wanted to laugh with the irony of it all. A shifter. A shifter’s mate, me, Ha!
“Nope. Not going to happen.” I informed him with a shake of my head that he couldn’t see.
“O-p-e-n the damn door.” He growled again and my girls jumped to attention.
I pulled back from the door as if that was going to stop it happening. It seemed my breasts had known my mate long before I did. I should have known! How? I didn’t know that, but I should have known.
“Give me a minute… I’m… thinking.” I snapped back at him.
I was thinking of all the ways that I could possibly kill him. Fast, slow, run him over, drop him from the top of the cove cliffs, steamroller… messy, but effective, and I could definitely claim that one as an accident. Although, why I would have a steamroller in the first place might need a little working out.
“Marmaduke has been killed.” That certainly woke me up from my thoughts of murder.
When you’re faced with the actual thing it’s kind of funny how having murder in mind makes you feel guilty of something. It certainly turns you off the idea of actually doing one. I yanked open the door again and there he was… again, as before, still as sexy as hell even with the bad news that he brought.
“How?” Perhaps he was wrong, perhaps it wasn’t murder.
“Stabbed through the heart with an Athame.”
Nope that was definitely murder, unless the man was walking across the room with it pointing inwards. He could have tripped on a rug and fallen on it, or maybe not. M
aybe he threw it at something and it bounced off and hit him in the… Damn, it was murder.
“And you’re here, because?” I didn’t like where this was heading. He looked kind of torn.
“You were the last person to see Marmaduke alive.” He offered it straight and I felt that weight drop on me from a great height. Here we go again.
“First I’m the mushroom queen and now a murderess.” I gave it right back to him on a platter. “Nice.”
I tossed the door closed in his face again but this time I didn’t snap the locks on like before. I figured he’d have in if he wanted in anyway. So I walked away and found myself a seat back at the table with the cat… Bad move…
CHAPTER FOUR
The moment that the wolfman walked in through the front door, so the cat decided to take off up my right arm, across my shoulder, and make a beeline for the back door. Charming, cat scratches everywhere and all because of some stupid shifter wolf and his unending accusations. I caught him stalking towards me out of the corner of my eye and snapped out a scowl for his benefit.
“You seem to bring nothing but trouble my way.” I accused him for once just to see how he’d like it. He growled again, obviously not fond of the blame game treatment.
“Let me take care of those for you…” He seemed somewhat blinded to everything else around him as he went to reach for my arm and I snatched it away.
“Don’t you dare put your damn paws on me. Have you forgotten who you are?” I was thinking clearly, kind of, even if he wasn’t.
“I’m your mate.” He said it as if I’d missed that little gem.
“No, der. So tasting my damn blood is the best of ideas right now, is it?” I tossed that little hand grenade right back at him. If he tasted my blood before we mated and then didn’t get to mate, for whatever reason, he’d slowly go insane. Not that I didn’t think he wasn’t well on his way there already.
“It’s my duty to care for you.” He was adamant, but I couldn’t give a Flying Scotsman what he thought.
“Tell it to the hand.” I didn’t even bother lifting one. He knew what I meant. “So you’ve come to accuse me of some dastardly crime, again. I’ve had a busy day, apparently.” I tried for curt and sarcastic, I’m not sure what he heard.
“I did not come to accuse you of anything. I came because I met two faeries who said that there had been a crime at the Marmaduke house the night before and he’d told you, and only you all about it.”
So Anna and Tracy had dropped me in it from a great height. Wonderful, how unlike them. They had definitely moved up my postal to-do list. He was fidgety and that was unnerving.
“Sit.” I snapped out and he gave me the kind of old fashioned look of disbelief that made me question my words. “Whoops.” I offered by way of an apology. I knew he wasn’t a damn dog, and I really wasn’t prejudice against wolves. “Sit down, you’re making me jumpy.” I rephrased and he shook his head.
“I can’t. The scent of your blood…” He offered his own little apology and I frowned for a moment. He wasn’t a damn vampire…
“Oh, the mate thing.” I had to question if I really wanted this man, mate or not, slobbering over me. His eyes narrowed on mine and I had to bash a small moan over the head before it reached my throat. No wonder I like those eyes so much, no wonder they made me feel like a schoolgirl with a crush again…
“Joss…” He started and my name sounded really good on his lips, and that led me to the uncomfortable realisation that he now knew my name. So he knew my name, so what? He wasn’t going to use it in some dark spell or hex, maybe… Damn those Faerie sisters and their meddling ways.
“I don’t know your name.” I blurted it out. What the hell did I care, he was Mr-Bye-Bye for all I could be bothered with the whole mating thing.
“Tiberius.” Well what the hell do you say to a name like that?
“Oh.” I offered lamely. Hell, it was the best I could do apart from questioning his mother’s sanity to allow her pup to have that damn name.
“Do you have a last name?” I figured if the last name wasn’t penis then we might have a winner…
“Hawk.”
I rolled my eyes in my head and considered it. A wolfman named Hawk. It wasn’t ideal but it could work w-a-y better than Tiberius.
“Most people call me Hawk.”
“I wonder why.” Ok so now I was being facetious, but could anyone truly blame me?
“Let me take care of your scratches while you tell me what happened at the Marmaduke house.” Most of them had already closed on their own leaving behind little dotted lines of dried blood on my skin, but there were still a few deep ones where Meow had decided to dig her damn claws right in.
I was in two minds… Actually that was a lie, I was damn curious, and I know curiosity killed the cat, but I figured somebody had too… Be curious, not kill the damn cat, although I might do that…
“Fine-ish. Kind of fine. Maybe.” Yep and I was back to being in two minds about it again.
I heard him give a small deep chuckle that felt like velvet brushing over my skin, but when he moved behind me and his hot breath touched my neck, that was when the real fireworks started inside of me.
“Tell me.” He asked that of me a moment before his tongue licked against my skin, and I’m sure my eyes rolled back in my head and I was speaking in tongues… I didn’t even know what was coming out of my mouth as he cleaned and sealed the wounds along my shoulder and moved down my damn arm, but I did note the way that my stomach rolled and pitched and my womb did a dance inside me that made me want to throw myself down on the dining room table and assume the position… And that wasn’t good.
Apparently between the gasps, the oohs and the aahs, I’d said a lot of things which I couldn’t really remember. I’d blotted that out in favour of the feel of his breath against my body. The feeling of his tongue running over my skin, and of course my girls were happily pointing their way due west, maybe one was slightly south west a little, but that wasn’t its fault.
“So, you figure that the person who stole the stick thing is the person that killed your friend?” He was talking alright but my brain was still on the fritz.
“Huh?” I think my eyes might have been somewhat glazed over because he looked really damn good to me right then. Like jump his bones good.
“That’s the mating pull…” He knelt down on one knee in front of me and I panicked. For one horrible moment I thought he was going to propose or something equally as repugnant.
“What are you doing?”
“Just bringing you back to me, Joss. Just fixing your mind right here and not in our bed…” He gave me the kind of sexy grin that made every inch of my body flush like a fifty year old afflicted with the dreaded menopause. Damn, it was hot… so was he, but wait. Stop, damn it!
“I don’t want a mate.”
“I know, shifters get that a lot from witches.”
I’m not just any witch, I’m me. I’m different. I’m… destined to be mated to a damn shifter wolf… Ok, calm down it could be worse. He could be a weasel, eww, Warren the weasel barman. Not a good thought.
“So, I didn’t kill Marmaduke.” Wait, didn’t we cover that already? He grinned at me again and even his normal grin was a damn sexy one.
“I’m guessing we need to look to the goblins.” How he could say that with a straight face I don’t know. There was definitely sexual innuendo in there somewhere, but I didn’t have enough of a brain to figure one out. Still, it sounded funny.
“They do make some trouble, but its petty stuff. Doug the bear wants to maul them because they keep raiding his raisins when they have the munchies…” I slapped my hand over my mouth and he narrowed his eyes on me. This guy was the law in supernatural circles and I just broke the covenant around here… thou shall not squeal. Oops.
“So the Goblins grow the mushrooms?” Yep, he’d picked up on it. It seemed to be only my damn brain that was fuzzy around the outside, squishy in the middle.
&nb
sp; “You didn’t hear that from me.” I dropped my hand to my lap and gave a small shrug off my shoulders.
Now I sounded like the Faeries sisters and that didn’t sit well with me at all, not one little bit. I wasn’t a squealer. I was a fixer. Except when faced with those eyes, and that wasn’t my fault.
“My lips are sealed.” He wiggled his dark eyebrows above his eyes and it looked like two caterpillars in a mating dance, and there I was, full circle back to mating again, bum.
“If only you’d started off like that.” I half muttered to myself and half let him have it straight between the eyes, and what nice eyes they were… Damn it to hell, I was hoping there was a way off this mating topic and yet I couldn’t find it if it was staring me right in the face, which he is, so little hope of escape there then.
“We got off on the wrong…”
“Paw?” I needed to use my super-bitchiness to get away from the fact that I was feeling attracted to him in a hornier than hell way.
When he didn’t answer, but those caterpillars danced again, I felt decidedly guilty. Not the kind of guilt I got when I put the Vampire, Scott down, or the other wolf shifter, Cane, just lowlife bitchy, like I was kicking a puppy or something. He certainly wasn’t a damn puppy.
“Don’t you have a murder to investigate?” A change of subject might work. He sighed.
“I guess I should get to it.” He pushed up to his full height and for a moment I was left staring right at his damn… package. Boy, if that wasn’t a pair of rolled up socks tucked down his jeans then he was impressive. I had to smile. Then I cleared my throat as I heard another growl rumble through him and I snapped my eyes up to his. Better, but only slightly.
“Bye.” I offered; unsure if I’d missed a question or something that was really life changingly important in however long it was that I was staring at his… package. When he gave me another sexy grin I was none the wiser, but happy in returning to my girlish ways, the same ways that hadn’t dogged me in years, and I hadn’t missed one little bit.
“I have to do this.” He offered me the words but they didn’t sound much like an apology and I really had no idea what he was talking about until his hands closed around my upper arms and he practically lifted me to my feet.