by M. L. Briers
“Hello? What kind of a question is that?” Jodie curled her top lip in disgust.
“You’re in a wolf country now, little witch, better get used to it,” Nicholas chuckled.
“When in Rome?” Jodie tossed back, and the vampire nodded. “Well then excuse me while I sniff my own backside and chase my tail.” She hissed back.
“Oh look, a witch with attitude, shocker,” Zoe grumbled.
“Watch it, grandma,” Jodie snapped back.
“Jodie!” Vale berated her. “The woman is an elder, show some respect.”
“You know, respect is a two-way street,” Jodie grumbled.
“I feel like I’ve become completely irrelevant in the decision-making process of my own life – like I’m invisible,” Steph said as she looked to Casey and her sister shrugged.
“Sorry, did you say something? I kind of blanked there for a moment. I’m still thinking about Jodie sniffing her butt and chasing her tail,” she chuckled. Steph groaned.
“I know this is a lot to take in,” Kit offered an olive branch.
“You think?” Steph sneered back, taking the mythical olive branch and beating him around the head with it.
“Well, it’s not like I’m over the moon with it either,” Kit growled back.
“Okay then — we’ll shake hands and call it quits. You go your way, and I’ll go mine,” Steph expanded her hands at her sides and shrugged, offering him a smug smile.
“Oh no, Missy, it doesn’t work like that,” Zoe berated her. “He’s the alpha, and he needs his mate.”
“Look, haven’t you done enough?” Steph berated her right back.
“I found the alpha’s mate, didn’t I?” Zoe looked smug.
“I think you’re glossing over the fact that she’s a witch,” Nicholas leaned in and teased the elder.
“Well, you can’t have everything,” Zoe sighed.
“Aren’t granny’s supposed to be soft and fluffy like?” Jodie eyed the woman for a long moment. “How did we get Attila the Hun?”
“Better than Jabba the Hutt, I suppose,” Casey grinned at her sister.
“I’m not so sure,” Jodie offered back. Then she thought for a long moment. “It’s not like it affects you, Casey, unless…?”
“Unless what?” Casey frowned.
“Well, you never know — maybe you have a mate here,” Jodie looked smug.
“Bite your tongue!” Casey didn’t waste any time in making her sister do just that.
“You have seriously got to stop doing that,” Jodie grumbled back.
“Here’s a thought — why doesn’t everyone stop sniffing everybody else?” Steph eyed her mate.
“Too late for you,” Kit said.
“And if I were a betting man I’d say it’s too late for Turner as well,” Nicholas chuckled as he folded his arms and eyed the beta.
“I didn’t sniff!” Turner growled as he held up his hands to his chest and gave a small shake of his head.
“No?” Nicholas asked.
“No!” Turner grumbled a growl.
“Sure?” Nicholas teased again.
“Almost — maybe — kind of… sort of… positive,” Turner muttered.
“What the hell does that mean?” Jodie hissed.
“It means I might have, maybe, taken a breath — or two…” Turner admitted. Jodie glared back at him. “Okay, maybe three!” He rushed out. Then he grimaced.
“Three!?” Jodie’s hands went to her hips, she tipped her head to the side, and she offered him a death glare.
“Okay, funny story,” he started, and her eyebrows raised up towards her hairline. “Maybe I’m just going to see the funny side of it, but, when we were in the car…”
“The car?” Jodie bit down on a curse.
“Metal thing — has wheels,” Turner offered back. The woman looked as if she was chewing a wasp.
“Oh please, continue, I’m cracking up on the inside,” she hissed out.
“Okay, sense of humor meltdown,” Turner rolled his eyes.
“Will you just get to the point?” Jodie hissed out.
“There’s a point?” Turner tossed back.
“You’d think not,” she bit out.
“You know, I’m kind of rooting for this to have a happy ending,” Nicholas said as he nudged the elder and she grunted back at him. “Don’t you think those two make a cute couple?”
“Couple of what?” Zoe bit out.
“Okay, maybe not.” Nicholas rolled his eyes back towards them.
“Am I your damn mate or not?” Jodie hissed.
“Let me just do the sniff test one more time to test that theory,” Turner grinned.
“I think not,” Jodie said as she folded her arms under her ample breasts and heard a rumble of thunder go through his chest. She cleared her throat, and he snapped his eyes back to hers.
“Okay, now that was so not my fault,” Turner lifted his hand and held up his index finger, but he was already too late — Jodie slapped him with her magic.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
~
Casey was backing away from the group. She loved her sisters and would never deliberately throw them under a bus, but it was already too late for them.
They had been sniffed, scented by wolves, and their fate was sealed. She, on the other hand, still had a chance to get away.
Maybe she was a mate, maybe she wasn’t, but Casey wasn’t about to take that chance.
Finley had been standing with his backside resting against the car watching the mini-drama unfold before him. His arms were folded across his chest, and his legs crossed at the ankles, he looked relaxed, but he really wasn’t.
Finley knew enough about witches to be on his guard. When he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye, he noted one of them trying to get away.
“Going somewhere?” Finley didn’t move a muscle, but he was more than ready to do it.
Casey stopped in her tracks and eyed the beta as if he was a pair of headlights and she was a rabbit.
“Why?”
“Just curious is all,” Finley offered back with a small shrug of his broad shoulders.
“Well, mind your own business,” she hissed back, wrenching her head back and eyeing the interloper with disdain.
“We’re you going to take off and leave us?” Jodie asked with a big dollop of disbelief for her sister’s actions.
“Not exactly,” Casey lied, but she looked way too sheepish for her own good.
“I don’t believe you sometimes,” Jodie tossed up a hand in her sister’s direction and shook her head with disappointment.
“Hey, that’s unfair. You two have already been sniffed, sentenced, and with little to no hope of parole. Why should I wait around to possibly suffer the same fate?” Casey demanded. She placed her hands on her hips and glared back at her sister.
“Sentenced?” Turner looked confused.
“No hope of parole,” Kit chuckled.
“I think one sister definitely pulled the short straw when it came to brains,” Zoe said as she rolled her eyes at the witch’s antics.
“That’s what I said, but of course, I got growled at for it,” Nicholas offered the elder a small nudge of his elbow against her arm, and she growled back at him.
“Suck it up. After all, that’s what you’re good at,” Zoe bit out.
“You think being a mate is that bad?” Finley asked.
“Yes.” Casey wasn’t sugarcoating it or pulling any punches. Why should she? It was how she felt – true mates and love everlasting – Pah!
“So, if I sniffed you right now…” Finley started, but he didn’t get to finish. She looked like a rabbit caught in the headlights again.
“Oh, don’t you even try it,” Casey warned. “I’ll put your furry backside in the nearest tree if I have to.”
Finley was a good judge of character, and he thought that the witch looked like she meant it. The only trouble was, his wolf liked a challenge, and he didn’t like her attitude.
“I can’t believe you were going to leave us,” Jodie muttered, and her sister flicked a guilty look in her direction, but her eyes went right back to staring at the beta again.
Casey didn’t trust the man as far as she could throw him, less in fact, because she was sure that she could toss the man a good distance if she put enough of her magic behind it.
“Not leave,” Casey said. “Retreat – for self-preservation reasons. I’m sure you understand.”
“Because you never know when the big, bad wolf is going to sniff,” Finley offered her a low, deep growl, and watched her shuffle her feet in place as she eyed him with contempt. “Scent the air.”
He dropped his arms to his sides and pushed off with his backside from the car. She looked as if she was waiting for the starter’s pistol to sound to be off and running.
“Don’t you dare!” Casey would have growled if she could have. But she didn’t speak wolf, and she certainly didn’t want there to be any misunderstanding between them.
“Maybe, even find his mate in the unlikeliest of places,” Finley teased her, but she wasn’t smiling, and she definitely wasn’t laughing.
“The odds look good so far.” Nicholas chuckle. “You guys are two for two and counting. I say go for it.”
“Whose side are you on?” Zoe growled.
“Fates!” The vampire’s eyes flared with amusement as a cocky grin spread across his face.
“Well, fate can kiss my curvy backside,” Casey grumbled. “I’m out of here before Mr. Chuckles does something stupid!”
A part of Finley had been stoked up to tease the witch, but there was another part of him that urged him to take the witch’s scent. He knew which part of him that was — his beast.
The wolf had witnessed its siblings find their mates. It wanted the same thing, and if there was any chance that she was his mate, then his beast was determined not to let that chance die.
She’d challenged him. Now, it felt as if she was goading him, and he couldn’t let that slide.
He had to take the chance that the feisty, sexy, annoying female was his mate. Witch or not. He was going in for a sniff.
Finley placed one foot in front of the other and started towards the twitchy witch. He could see that she was caught between a rock and a hard place and she didn’t know what to do about it.
Her hands started to lift at her sides, she pulled them into fists, and unclench them again like she had a decision-making disorder. Her eyes darted around the group as if asking what to do, and yet they always came back to him, and he kind of liked that.
Finley kept his eyes locked on her. He was ready for anything — anything except the magical shove that he felt against his back that propelled him towards the witch.
Casey’s eyes went wide at the sight of him rushing toward her. The moment that she realized what was about to happen, she clenched every part of her that could be clenched and mentally kissed her backside goodbye.
The big, musclebound, wolfman crashed into her like a wrecking ball against a wooden hut and took her breath away. His strong arms around her body and gave her no hope of escape.
Finley knew it would be bad to end up on top of the little witch. A part of his mind rushed to imagine her lying in a Casey sized indent in the earth like a cartoon character.
He tried to turn them in mid-air, knowing that he couldn’t stop gravity no matter how hard he wished for it. It sort of worked, and kind of didn’t.
His weight was pinning her down along one side of her body. A heartbeat later and that weight had lifted to the sound of a groan from her lips.
“Did I hurt you?” Finley growled in annoyance at whoever had caused that to happen with their magic. At the same time, he was concerned for the witch and her wellbeing.
“Well, it didn’t bloody tickle — you big oaf!” Casey ground out.
“Somebody pushed me,” Finley growled.
“There was no one around you. You fell over your own big feet.” Casey grumbled.
“That’s not exactly true,” Jodie offered on only a slight grimace and a moment of guilt, but once she could see that her sister was fine – guilt flew off on its broomstick. “One good turn deserves another, don’t you think?” She chuckled.
“I hate you!” Casey grumbled.
“Don’t talk to your sister like that,” Vale berated his daughter.
“Your daughters are unruly,” Zoe said and then she grunted her approval. “They might just fit in.”
“Get off me!” Casey placed the palm her hands against Finley’s broad chest and resisted the urge to test his muscles. She pushed — he didn’t move an inch. “And don’t sniff.”
“Whoops,” Finley said and felt every inch of her body that was pressed against his tense beneath him.
“Not whoops! There’s no whoops. Whoops isn’t allowed,” Casey hissed out like a cornered rattlesnake.
“Oh, I can assure you — there’s a whoops,” Finley said as the corners of his lips turned upward, but that didn’t match the frown that made his eyebrows try to meet in the middle.
“Take it back!”
“Can’t.”
“I don’t want to hear can’t — I don’t want to hear whoops — and I certainly don’t want to hear mine…” Casey snapped her words off the moment that a long, deep, hard, and very hungry growl rolled through his chest and got wedged in his throat.
She had to hope that he’d choked to death on it. After all, that was the only hope that she had left.
“About that last one…” Finley growled.
“Can’t?” She wanted to believe.
“Not that one.”
“Whoops — say; it’s whoops,” Casey begged.
“If only I could,” Finley offered back, and that rumble of a growl was still underlining his words.
“Whoops!” Jodie chuckled.
“I really, really, really hate you!” Casey hissed at her sister.
“Mine…” Finley growled.
“Ah, crap!” Casey groaned.
CHAPTER TWELVE
~
“Three witch mates. Tell me how this is good?” Suzie whispered to the elder as she stood on the far side of the kitchen making coffee.
“I think it’s the mates part that you have to concentrate on, dear,” Zoe offered back with a big dollop of sympathy.
“It still doesn’t fill me with a warm fuzzy feeling,” Suzie offered back.
“Think of all those grand – pups,” Zoe said. her eyes brighten with enthusiasm.
“Well, okay then,” she nodded before turning towards the group that was seated around the table. “Who wants cake?”
“That’s the spirit — feed them up,” Zoe chuckled on a whisper.
“It’s not a breeding farm,” Suzie whispered back.
“It is now,” Zoe chuckled back.
Suzie rolled her eyes at the elder’s antics. The woman was incorrigible, but she wouldn’t have her any other way, and the idea of finally having some grand-pups did fill her with a warm and fuzzy feeling.
All three witches perked up at the offer of cake.
“I’ll have some,” Nicholas said.
“Wait till you’re asked,” Zoe grumbled.
“She said who wants cake?” Nicholas offered back.
“Exactly. Who not what,” Zoe shot back.
“Harsh,” Nicholas grumbled.
“I don’t suppose it’s chocolate?” Casey grumbled. The way her luck was going it was probably carrot cake – she hated carrot cake — because carrot sounded healthy, and who in their right mind wanted to eat a healthy cake?
“Of course it’s chocolate,” Suzie said. What self-respecting she-wolf would serve anything else?
All three witches raised their hands as if they were about to ask a question in school. Suzie went to work dishing out the cake onto plates, but she couldn’t resist eyeing her sons at the table.
It was wooing time, and wooing was always fun. She guessed the girls being witches wo
uld only add to that dynamic.
She grabbed the first two plates and walked around the counter to the table. She placed them down in the middle and smiled to herself.
“Grab it and growl,” she said, waiting to see what would happen.
All six mates moved in their chairs as one, hands reached towards the plates, and then everyone stopped in place eyeing each other like someone had farted.
The alpha gave a long hard growl, and everyone turned their attention in his direction.
Kit reached out, took hold of the plate, and pushed it across the table top towards his mate. Both betas frowned. It wasn’t like the alpha to ever give up food.
“Thank — you,” Steph said, unsure what had just happened, but her stomach did a happy dance at the sight of the cake.
“You did that on purpose,” the elder hissed at Suzie as she turned to get the other plates.
“You think?” Suzie shot her a grin of satisfaction.
“Crafty.” Zoe raised just one eyebrow. She liked the she-wolf’s style.
“Positively devious,” Suzie’s grin widened.
“As any good mother should be.”
~
~
~
“Let me show you our pack’s land,” Kit offered as he lifted his hand and motioned for Steph to walk in front of him.
“I think I’ve seen enough,” Steph grumbled.
“In that case…” He took a step towards her, and she took a really big one back.
“Enough to know that I’d like to see more,” Steph rushed out.
She was backpedaling as fast as she could, and she only hoped that she’d gotten away with it.
Kit hovered in place for a long moment. He gave a small grunt. Then he lifted his hand and motioned once more, and she was off like a greyhound from the traps.
Steph didn’t run, but she wasn’t taking a slow leisurely stroll either. She felt the need to put a little distance between them to chew over what had happened. Fat chance of that. The alpha was right by her side every step of the way.
“You’re a witch, you know what it means to be the mate of an alpha,” Kit said.
“I know what it means to you,” Steph offered back.