by M. L. Briers
The first inkling I had was when he started to lean in and everything inside me said duck to one side, evade, evade… but soft lips pressed against mine before I could do a thing, and then I really didn’t want to. There was a rush of hello that went through my body followed by a short period of whoa before wow decided to kick me right in the womb. I don’t think I’d ever been this girlie in my life before, and I liked it… a lot.
The feel of that hard body pressed against my soft and oh so squishy one until we sort of melded together was fate’s damn way of telling me we were mates, Ying and Yang, two peas in a pod… The feeling of his hands wrapped around my upper arms gave me the strange sense of being trapped, caught, snared by the wolfman, and that was a heady feeling within itself. But it was his soft, teasing, then demanding lips against mine when I made no effort to protest that sent my womb doing the Samba and my heart trying to breakout and tap a hello against his chest.
Definitely a Whoa-wow-put a fork in me I’m done moment to savour. So why did I want to kick him in the shin and punch him in that hard moulded stomach of his when he came up for air…? Oh yeah, self-defence. I refrained, my mind was a little too interested in conjuring up all the ways that I could get down and dirty with this shifter…
“Damn, I don’t want to leave you alone…” He growled at me again or maybe he just growled in general, but it was me that he was affecting.
“I can take care of myself.” Somewhat. Except where he was concerned because then I wanted to roll over and get him to rub my tummy with his… I really didn’t want to go there, but if only that was true, because I really did, even if there was a part of me that wanted to deny it, deny him, and definitely deny accepting that he was the one out of the blue like that.
“That’s yet to be determined.” He had a point I suppose, but talk about kick a witch when she’s down.
“Wow, you have about as much charisma as the snake that lives next door.” I shot back with the need to defend myself, defend my magic.
“You have a snake next door. I hate snakes.” He gave a small shiver for my benefit.
“She’s old and doesn’t get out much anymore. Can we get back to talking about you leaving?” From the way he looked at me, kind of like I’d gone and kicked his puppy again, I’m guessing I sounded a little harsh, but needs must, and I needed him gone.
“You should come with me.”
That would kind of defeat the purpose of me getting rid of him so that I could regroup. I delayed speaking for all of ten seconds and he decided to fill the void.
“Let’s go.” He took a mini step back, but that wasn’t far enough. I on the other hand had no intention of moving from the spot I was claiming as my own. When he gave me an expectant look I had to sigh.
“I’ll lock my door if it makes you feel better about going.” I offered and got something of a scowl back.
“You don’t lock your door normally?” He berated me with his tone and his eyes.
“Sure I do. Of a night… sometimes…” I found I couldn’t really lie to him, which was a bummer. “Do you lock yours?” I was on the attack as a way of defending myself.
“That’s not the point.”
“Of course it isn’t.” I offered back sweetly with a touch of arsenic. “I’m a girl…” I rolled my eyes. I just couldn’t help myself. He growled in annoyance, and I guess he just couldn’t help himself.
“This isn’t up for debate. I’m the…”
“Male.” I injected over the top of him and got another growl for my trouble. In for a penny…
“Law.” He corrected me and I gave him a whatever kind of a smirk. “And if I say you’re coming with me then…”
“Do you remember the talk we had in the field not so long ago, where I berated you for being rude, and you belittled that by being ruder?” I dropped down to my backside on the chair as my way of showing I was pissed off, at least that was what I had intended to do… The truth of the matter is someone in their infinite wisdom must have moved me a step or two to the right of the damn chair when they were slobbering kisses on me… and my backside skidded against the edge of the chair and there I was with my backside hitting the hard wood of the floor and my legs splayed in the air… Don’t you just hate days like these?
Hawk’s growl was actually berating me my stupidity as he reached down and yanked me back up to my feet. My backside hurt, my pride was out the window, and here he was growling…
“I’m glad to see that you can take care of yourself.” He offered that little cupcake with a straight face and a condescending tone, and oh boy did I want to belt him in the kisser with my little scrawny fist that would see every bone in my hand shatter… To bloody right I did. But did I do it? Nah. I liked pain, vengeance and revenge as much as the next witch, but not enough so that I’d have to go begging Scott the vampire for a blood fix to heal me.
“Have I mentioned that I r-e-a-l-l-y, r-e-a-l-l-y don’t like you?” My irk gene was fired up like a thousand suns and with good cause.
CHAPTER FIVE
“Yes, but do tell me again because it makes me feel special.” He growled out with enough sarcastic merit to warrant my eyes rolling back within my head one more time and making me consider throwing myself of the cove cliffs.
“I r-e-a-l-l-y, r-e-a-l-l-y don’t like you.” I just had to do it.
“Thank you. Can we go now or did you want to throw yourself down on the floor some more while you try to rip every shred of self-esteem from my poor ego?”
Well, what do you say to that?
“As you asked me so nicely.” I offered as if I was the worst kind of person in the world, and right then I felt like it. His eyes sparkled with amusement and a smile broke out across his handsome face.
“Gotcha!” He teased. Yep, my irk gene just blew a gasket and all bets were off over where the spill would end up.
“Goddess, save me from killing this man until I can think of a really torturous, evil way to dispense of him.” I asked for help and got a chuckle back from my mate in return.
Then his hands came down on my shoulders and he spun me around towards the front door. I groaned. I bitched. I wailed, and all within the confines of my tired, little, overworked mind.
~
“I don’t want to see the Goblins.” I whispered in the confines of Hawk’s truck. “They kind of weird me out.” I admitted. I wasn’t proud of the fact that I tried to steer clear of them as much as possible, but there it was. I’d rather a Troll than a Goblin any day of the week and twice on Sunday’s.
“Ok, I don’t know what to say to that.” He gave a shrug off his shoulders.
“Look, when you meet the Goblin king, then you’ll understand.” I hissed back. I knew they couldn’t hear from outside the truck, a Goblin’s ears might have been big and pointy, but they weren’t good listeners…
“Is it because they are shorter than…”
“No!” I denied hotly. “I have nothing against height challenged people. I’m not exactly tall myself, if you didn’t notice.” It was true. At just five foot tall in a town where the majority of its inhabitants were a good six foot and above, I was considered a little person.
“Then?” Hawk tried to get me to fess up. I groaned inwardly at having to say it out loud, so I didn’t. I pushed open the damn door to the truck and strolled away from him on fast feet towards the cottages at the edge of the woods that housed the Goblin community.
“Welcome, welcome, the witch and her friend.” Amos, the Goblin King’s right hand man came towards me at a speed that had Hawk on the alert. He growled and I mentally rolled my eyes into my skull and prayed for oblivion to take me away. Amos stopped in his tracks and eyed the shifter.
“Amos, this is Hawk.” I offered an olive branch…
“But he’s a wolf.” Amos tried to beat the wolf over the head with it.
“Well spotted.” Hawk growled out sarcastically. Amos’s eyes rolled backwards in his head and he took the shifter in with his special vision.
I felt the cold hand of creeped-out climb up my spine and shivered accordingly. Eww…
“I see what you mean.” Hawk offered in my general direction and I whispered back so that Hawk could hear but the Goblin couldn’t.
“They do that a lot.” Then Theseus came out from his cottage and walked right up to me. His face was level with my breasts and he had no damn intention of looking up. Being the Goblin King came with its privileges, I wasn’t one of those.
“Welcome, Joss…” There was a gleeful look on his face and nobody could have claimed to not know why.
“Theseus, my eyes are up here.” I bit out.
We had to go through this every damn time and still the man didn’t get why staring and talking to a woman’s breasts was wrong. I know he wasn’t the only one, and it wasn’t because he was a Goblin either, a lot of human men did it too… But it still irked the hell out of me.
“I know.” Theseus grinned but he didn’t look up. I sighed and Hawk growled, and it was that last one that caught the Goblin’s attention. Funny that…
“And you must be…?” It annoyed me even more when the Goblin turned his head and cranked it all the way back on his neck to look up at Hawk, a man, of course he did…
“Her mate.” Hawk’s words hit me right between the eyeballs, and other places. How could he just blurt out something like that and to the Goblins as well? Hell, he might as well have just announced it to the faerie sisters because they were both infernal gossips… I really didn’t like him…
“But… you’re so tall and she is practically one of us.” Theseus offered and I had an immediate urge to kick him right in the nuts and watch him fly off through the air, head over arse. Nothing would have given me more pleasure.
“I need to…” I held up one finger as I searched for the willpower not to enact my dastardly needs and let fly with my right boot.
“Understandable.” Hawk offered me that much, and then he reached out, wrapped his fingers around my wrist and yanked me behind his back, as if for protection. I had to wonder if he was protecting me or the Goblin King…
“Well, what do I owe this visit?” Theseus crowed and I wanted to growl. Perhaps I’d just spent too long with shifters.
“I’m an officer of the supernatural and ex…” Hawk didn’t get to finish as the Goblin groaned long, hard, and loudly.
“I have done nothing wrong.” He announced as he turned on his heels and started back towards his cottage.
I poked my head out from around Hawk’s large body and watched the man go on fast feet. Hmm, if only I wielded that kind of power to make people I didn’t like vanish that fast… I might be onto something there…
“Mushrooms…” Hawk announced and I groaned. So much for not dropping me in it. Announce to the world that I’m a squealer, why don’t ya? Because the Goblins would be doing that soon enough. “For one. Maybe murder for another.”
Theseus stopped in his tracks in the doorway and slowly turned back towards Hawk with a look of pure disbelief on his face. Chatter sounded around the area and I knew that there were Goblins hiding and listening, as best they could, to every word. Bum.
“And who did I murder?” Theseus ground out.
“Marmaduke.” Hawk, no doubt, wanted to see the man’s reaction and he didn’t need to wait long. Theseus leaned against the doorframe of his house and took a long, deep breath in, then he sighed it back out again. A moment later the man threw up his hands and gave the kind of cry that was laced with pure joy. Geez, harsh…
“That man has been the bane of my existence for so many damned years, did you know that, did you know that?” Theseus was acting as if he’d just sampled his own damn mushrooms. Glee shone in his eyes and it looked like he’d just found Shaun the Leprechaun’s pot of bloody gold…
“They didn’t do it.” Hawk started to lead me away from the spectacle that was unfolding behind me, and I had to look back over my shoulder to witness the impromptu celebration that was taking place as Goblins appeared out of nowhere.
“Are you crazy, did you hear what he said?” I hissed back at him. If this was my mate’s idea of investigating then I’d spent way too many hours watching cop shows on TV that had it all wrong… “What are you a psychic detective that can read their minds?”
“You can’t fake that level of pure ecstatic joy…” Hawk whispered back as he opened the truck door and didn’t bother to wait for me to climb in as he hefted me into my seat.
“What? No, hello, actors do it all the time…” I protested his stupidity. If he wasn’t going to investigate Marmaduke’s premature death then I would, it was that simple.
“No, they really don’t.” Hawk laughed as if I was a child of five who couldn’t see the wood for the trees.
I lifted my index finger and sat forward in my seat to protest again when he slammed the door shut in my face, and I wanted to growl like a wolf with a thorn stuck in its backside… He was annoying me so… If growling was the only damn thing that he’d listen too then I could do the whole when in Rome thing…
When he climbed in the truck on the other side I turned towards him and lifted my finger again. I would have my say if it killed me, well, I maybe wouldn’t go that far. Hawk turned towards me and opened his mouth to speak. His hand came up and his fingers wrapped around my index finger as if I was pointing a gun to his head and he sighed.
“There are always signs. Changes in breathing, skin colour, a twitch, a tell of some kind when someone is lying. It might even be the look in their damn eyes or not a look in their eyes that should be there. But those Goblins weren’t being deceptive.” He assured me and I accepted that whole skin changing colour thing, but come on the man practically admitted he wanted Marmaduke dead…
“Not that they weren’t glad Marmaduke was dead, no.” He’d read my mind, perhaps he was psychic. “But did they kill him…?” I snatched my index finger back from him and held it up again. His other hand came out and wrapped around it, taking it down again.
“No.” He offered as if that was God’s word and none should doubt it. Ha! Don’t even get me started…
“Reasonable doubt…” I snapped back. I was somewhat irritated that this man, my mate, couldn’t see it from my perspective.
“None whatsoever.” He offered with a grin as he turned back in his seat and started the engine.
I slunk back in my seat, more huffed, actually, as I stared out of the windscreen and considered what my life would be like as Mrs-Wolf-shifter, Mrs-Hawk… Things didn’t look too rosy from where I was sitting, not with his attitude. From the corner of my eye I caught sight of Amos sneaking around the back of the cottage and strained my neck to follow where he was going, but Hawk’s heavy foot kicking down on the accelerator soon put pay to that as I was catapulted back into my seat.
Now I liked to drive fast, but I liked to keep my head on my neck while I was doing it and not have my uterus come out of my spine. Nought to sixty in… bye, wasn’t as much fun when you weren’t the one controlling the damn car, and yes, I had a few control issues, but who didn’t? The only thing I could comfort myself with was the fact that this man had perfect eyesight and reflex’s, so in theory we shouldn’t end up embedded in a barn or a tree… in theory.
“Who else had a problem with Marmaduke?” Hawk wanted a list now? When my nails were dug into the cushion beneath me and my feet were absently pressing imaginary pedals, namely the damn brake, on my side of the truck…
“Not a damn clue…” I squealed slightly as we rounded a bend and a large tractor hauling straw was taking up much of the road in front of us. I felt a wave of relief that we were at last going to have to slow down, when super-bloody-speedy decided to go off road and zip around the obstacle. “Holy, crap, and I can’t believe you did that.” I ground out through clenched teeth.
“Worried?” Hawk turned his head towards me and shot me a grin that held a mouthful of perfect white teeth…
“Watch the damn road!” I growled back at him and this time I did
sound like a shifter wolf, albeit a female one.
“You have to know that I have perfect…”
“I don’t need your damn resume, wolf. I need you to watch where you’re going before I take you’re perfect everything and shove it up your perfect backside…” I ground out each and every word… that was when Hawk decided to slow down, somewhat. We were still breaking the speed limit, which I didn’t mind, but I felt better about rubbing salt in the wounds now.
“Given your profession, shouldn’t you be upholding the laws and not breaking them?” I hissed.
“Supernatural laws, sure. Human laws… not so much.” Hawk was grinning again. I noticed it as my eyes darted back and forth from the road to him. At least he was pretending to concentrate on the road ahead now and that was something I supposed.
“Speed limits are there for a reason.” I felt like a hypocrite, but I wanted to make my point.
“To stop humans going at speeds that their eyes and brain can’t comprehend, and with their puny reflex’s stretched to the maximum…” I kind of zoned out. It wasn’t necessarily my fault, after all, he was referring to me as some kind of sub-species to his superior one. I knew that zapping his backside at any speed would be wrong and so I drifted away on a fluffy white cloud of…
“Don’t you think?” He demanded as he stomped on the brake and I shot forward in my seat before slamming backwards again. I groaned inwardly.
“I try not too around superior beings.” I muttered, forgetting that he could catch a fly buzzing twenty feet away with those big wolf ears of his.
“Given any more thought to who we should consider a suspect next?” I would have tossed up a hand but I didn’t think I could get my nails out of the padding of the seat.
“Go see the elders, they might know.” I mumbled. The witch cottages were the closest place to where we were and I knew I’d be glad of the reprieve from his driving. I might even kiss the damn ground when we landed safely.