by M. L. Briers
“Aside from that.”
“Oh well, aside from that misdemeanor - there’s the fact that misery loves company, and I didn’t want to come alone.”
“You set me up.” Lucas groaned.
He slapped the palm of his hand against the steering wheel and pushed his head back against the seat rest. He should have known better than to trust his brother.
“I omitted to tell you the whole truth.”
“Son of a…”
“Now be nice; she was your mother as well,” Neal growled.
“Let’s get this over with. Meet and greet - no sniffing the humans.” He growled.
“I think it’s no eating the humans.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not sure that one works for me,” Lucas grumbled.
He reached out and popped the door open. The rain was coming down thick and fast in waves that chased each other across the open land, and he was up to his ankles in muddy water when his boots hit the ground, and he sank fast under his own weight.
“I bet they’re regretting the decision to come this weekend right about now,” Neal said as he rounded the truck and came to stand by his brother’s side.
“Car’s here. It doesn’t look like anyone’s home – you’d think the lights would be on already. Night’s coming on, and they’re city folk.”
“If they’re out in this then they need their heads tested.” Neal took a moment to scan the area through the rain that was pelting down all around them.
“No harm in knocking,” Lucas said; eager to get it over with, earn his brownie points with the alpha, and get back to doing his own thing.
He pushed off and squelched on every step through the muddy field towards the pods.
“Famous last words, brother.”
~
~
~
“Ooo – Ooo – ooo.” Penny shrieked as she jumped around and waved her arms before brushing the backs of her hands against her backside.
“I’m guessing the music that you’re dancing to is in your head?” Isla chuckled.
“Spider! Crawling on my hand, yuck!” Penny shivered right to her very bones.
“Have a little sympathy … he probably just wants to get out of this rain as well.”
“Nasty yucky things!” Penny grumbled.
“So much for getting in sync with Mother Nature.”
“When Mother Nature has more legs than I do she can do one.” Penny pulled a face that reminded Isla of a constipated cow. Not that she’d seen a constipated cow, but it was how she imagined one would look.
“Well, apart from vegetation that lets out most things.”
“You betcha!” Penny assured her. “Unless it has fur. Depending on the animal; I may make an exception.”
Isla slowly pushed up to her full height. Her eyes widened as she looked over Penny’s shoulder at something in the distance.
“What about Wolves?” She asked. Her voice quivered a little, and that had nothing to do with the cold or the rain that had managed to seep right through her clothes.
“Wolves?” Penny frowned.
“A wolf, to be exact.”
“I wouldn’t want to come face-to-face with one…”
“Then I suggest you run!” Isla said.
She didn’t wait for Penny's reaction. Instead; she grabbed a handful of the woman’s jacket and wrenched her along behind her as she set off through the trees with no idea where she was going.
“Isla, what the hell?” Penny bit out.
Penny’s booted feet were slipping and sliding in the mud as she stopped being pulled and started to run on her own in earnest. She had no idea why she was running, but Isla had an aversion to exercise, so there had to be a damn good reason for it.
“Keep going – don’t look back!” Isla bit out.
“Look back at what?” Penny said.
Just being told not to look back sent the urge to do just that clawing within her, but she didn’t dare turn her head as they dashed through the trees, not with all of the low hanging branches that she needed to avoid.
If this was by some chance a damn joke – she planned to kill her friend at the earliest opportunity.
~
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~
“Did you hear that?” Neal asked his brother as he twisted his head to the right and listened harder through the wind and rain.
“Sounded girly, I thought it was you.”
“Sounded like it came from the woods.” Neal offered back.
Neal had already set one foot in front of the other and was stalking across the field towards the tree line to investigate. Lucas rolled his eyes in his head, but he set off after his brother anyway.
“Tourists bug me so!” He grumbled.
“They bug everybody – it’s all part of their charm…”
“On the bright side. If girlies need rescuing, then I’m certainly the man for the job. Especially, if they look like supermodels and are grateful for the rescue.” Lucas chuckled at the thought.
“Probably more like trolls!” Neal offered back.
“Says you.”
“Says the laws of averages.”
“There you go with that fancy talk again,” Lucas grumbled.
‘I think I have a little problem,’ Jake, one of their pack; growled through the mental link that joined the pack as one, and set them apart from the mutts who couldn’t make the same connection as Lycans could.
Those words made Lucas groan; problems wouldn’t see him getting home anytime soon.
‘Please tell me you are not in the woods at the back of the property,’ Neal demanded that assurance.
‘Yep, I kind of am,’ Jake sounded less wolf and more sheepish.
‘Please tell me that you are not a Wolf,’ Neal could only hope, but it seemed unlikely.
‘I could … But, I’m guessing you’d rather hear the truth.’
“Oh, damn it to hell!” Neal ground out.
Now he knew what that girlie sound was. Damn humans spotting one of the packs wolves very rarely ended well.
“I’m guessing we’re going to need the vampire for this one, and a few stolen memories replaced with a few wonderful ones of their holiday here which would give us a five star rating too. So I suppose there’s no downside to that,” Lucas said and his brother shot a dark look back at him from over his shoulder.
“Well, I’m not begging for the bloodsuckers help!” Neal said, adamant that he wanted nothing to do with the vampire this time. The bloodsucker was as annoying as hell and bartering for his help could, at times, be like pulling fangs.
“Don’t look at me …” Lucas shot back. “I didn’t even want the damn tourists here in the first place. Besides, sorting problems is the alpha’s job, no?””
‘Griffin – we’ve got a possible Wolf sighting by the tourists. I think you’re going to need to get the vampire down here.’ Neal said and heard the growl of the alpha within his mind as if the man was standing right there in front of him.
He couldn’t help but chuckle at the thought of how his brother had just taken that news. He was probably holding the sides of his head so that it didn’t explode, but right then; enjoyment aside, the most important thing was to find the tourists and contain them.
~
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~
“You saw a Wolf?” Penny demanded.
She was having trouble keeping her feet from skidding out from under her on the wet ground as she did her friend’s bidding, and ran through the woods without giving into the temptation of looking back, even if it was near killing her to do it.
“I saw – a Wolf!” Isla panted out on heavy breaths.
“You’re sure it was a wolf?” Penny demanded. “Because there are no wolves around here.”
“You wanna go back and check?”
“Not really, no.”
Penny’s right foot finally skidded out from under her; she’d known it had only been a matter of time before that happened. She’d been battling to stay
upright since they’d set off, and she twisted her body and went down on her backside in the mud.
Her hands sunk into the gooey earth on either side of her body, and she let out a deep, unhappy, disgusted groan.
“Don’t stop!” Isla shouted over her shoulder, but as she turned her head to look back at her friend; so the ground gave way beneath her feet to a mudslide that took her down a deep embankment.
She’d tried her best to stay up, running against the odds like she was on a treadmill, but even double timing it with her feet – like some cartoon character – she still couldn’t stop gravity from taking hold. She fell onto her backside with a grunt that was followed by a squeal, and started skidding down over the bumpy, wet terrain.
Penny blinked twice. One moment; her friend was standing there running on the spot, and the next she was gone.
The sound of a loud shriek was closely followed by a stammering – choppy yell and topped off with an elongated squeal that echoed out through the woods.
“Oh, that’s not good!”
CHAPTER THREE
~
‘That’s not me!’ Jake said through the link.
“You sure, because it sounds girlie enough…” Neal chuckled.
Lucas wasn’t laughing. He didn’t like that collection of sounds.
It sounded like the woman might be in real trouble. From the direction that they were headed it could have meant that she’d accidentally found the drop off that led down to the water below.
He scented the air; looking for a clue, a sign, the direction of the female – and that was his first mistake.
He felt the hard crunch of his stomach tying itself in knots. The burning of his muscles as they locked up tightly, and to add insult to injury – right when he didn’t need it to happen – his length hardened and his wolf roared within him.
Mine…
What made it worse still… that scent was all Fae.
“Mine…” He growled out.
His legs ate up the distance as his brother almost stalled in mid run and tripped over his own feet at his brother’s words.
“Whoa – Say that again?” Neal demanded.
His head whipped around to see his brother coming up at speed behind him – passing him easily as the man used his solid arms to pump the air.
“I really don’t want to,” Lucas admitted, and with good cause. “Whatever you do, brother… don’t sniff if you don’t like witches. Just in case…”
“Witches!” Neal growled – matching his brother for speed, even if he was at a disadvantage of being on the back foot when his brother had gone by him, and much to his annoyance; he found himself trailing behind him slightly.
“Not a damn word,” Lucas bit out. He was certainly not amused by the turn of events.
“You got yourself a witch mate?” Neal was laughing, but that didn’t stop him from being concerned at that girlie squeal that signaled that his brother’s mate might already be in trouble.
“I said, shut up.”
“No, you said not a word.”
“And yet, you’re still damn well talking.”
“There were six words… I like to be thorough.” Neal chuckled. “At least we don’t have to worry about the tourists spotting Jake.”
‘I’m on my way – what’s going on?’ Griffin demanded through the pack’s link.
“You wanna tell him?” Neal would have rolled his eyes if there had been time.
“Hell no!”
Lucas whipped his head around, and he glared at his brother. He knew that Neal couldn’t resist.
‘False alarm – they’re witches, we don’t need the vampire,’ Neal offered back.
Lucas almost sighed with relief that his brother hadn’t announced his news through the link where everyone could have heard it. That would have been – awkward.
‘ Witches…’ Griffin grumbled a growl. ‘ Wonderful.’
‘Lucas found his mate!’
Neal had said it with so much glee that Lucas could willingly have stopped and beaten the man until he couldn’t make a damn fist anymore.
But there was that urgency to get to his mate; to find out if she was the one that had let out that scream – females and screaming were a damn bad thing, and his wolf was determined to find the culprit for the screams and make him pay.
“Later, brother – you and I – later.” He growled the promise back over his shoulder to the sound of Neal’s dry laughter.
“Anytime, brother, anywhere. You know I like to use your face as target practice for my fist.”
Lucas scented the air and found two different scents – one much stronger than the other – that one was closer – and she wasn’t his mate, but it sounded like she was calling to her in hushed whispers.
~
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~
“Where’d you go?” Penny hissed out as she scrambled to her feet in the semi darkness of the woods, uncaring of the mud that clung to her hands and her clothes as she searched for a sign of Isla.
Night had closed in fast, and she didn’t like it. One moment they were running from an alleged wolf and the next – Isla was missing on a shriek that told her that her friend was in trouble.
She wasn’t the only one.
The vampire dropped down from the trees right in front of her making her pull up short. Her shields protested in no uncertain terms – bells rung – sharp tingles ensued – and everything inside of her screamed one word; danger!
“Looking for me?” Percival asked.
He had scented the Fae essence in the air the very moment that he’d started to hunt the tourists at the alpha’s request, and once his fee had been negotiated.
He knew that he wasn’t really needed the moment that he uncovered that little titbit, and yet, he’d enjoyed the short lived hunt, and he always liked to play with his food before he sampled it.
“Hell no!” Penny bit out as she raised her hands and drew her magic to her tingling fingertips.
For one or two long heartbeats she stood there eye to eye with the bloodsucker as they sized each other up, and then, out of a sense of self-preservation; she unleashed it towards him, blasting him in the chest and sending him flying backward through the air.
“Where is she?” Lucas demanded as he ran towards the witch – not his witch, not his mate, but another.
“Holy cow it’s a convention!” Penny bit out as she delivered the same punishing blow to the fast moving shifter, sweeping him backward off his feet, and depositing him on the ground some thirty feet away from where she stood.
Panic ensued within her.
“Isla!” Penny started towards the last place that she’d seen her friend.
The sound of running feet behind her snatched at her attention and made her turn in place to see the second shifter that was coming right for her, and with a sidestep out of the way; she used her magic, and his momentum, against him to hurl him over the edge and out of sight.
One moment; she was tracking his flight, and the next he was gone. Just like Isla.
The sound of his startled yelp followed him down the incline, and she was half grateful to him for showing her where it was, and half dreading the fact that her friend had met the same fate. A few more steps and she would have gone down herself.
“Are you certain you’re not looking for me?” Percival said. His melodic voice was so close to her that he have could have been whispering in her ear.
Penny turned fast, too fast on the muddy ground. Her feet slipped out from under her, and she was sailing backward through the air – with the kind of curse that would have made a sailor blush – before she could do a damn thing to stop herself from falling.
“Whoops!” The vampire called after her.
At a stretch, he might have been able to reach for her, but he knew that it was more than likely that she would have taken him down with her, and he did so hate to get his clothes muddy.
Penny’s backside hit the ground. She hit a bump and her body curled in on
itself for protection.
She rolled and rolled, bumped and thudded her way down the slippery slope with no time to reach out; either with her hands or with her magic, to be able to stop herself from falling.
She had somehow managed to twist her body on her journey and was skidding down the last part of her magical mystery mud ride on her stomach. She’d tried to stretch her arms out in front of her; hoping that she wasn’t about to headbutt a tree. When she came to a hard-soft-ish landing, finding herself yanked upwards by unseen hands, and deposited over the body of a man.
Her brain swirled at the prospect of just who that was, and she could have hoped that it wasn’t the shifter that she’d just tossed over the edge, but what were the odds?
How many muscle bound bodies could there be lying around just waiting to grab a mud sliding witch on her travels?
The momentum and sudden impact took them both back over the ground. The hard rush of air was knocked out of her lungs; on a startled squeal, and a pained yelp came from him.
Penny laid for a moment across his body trying to figure out which way was up, and what the heck had just happened to her. To Isla. And just whose body she was using as a mattress.
Penny coughed out a breath and sucked one back in. She slapped her hands down against the hard muscles of his chest and pushed upwards, but when she tried to lock her elbows and push backward away from him; she found that his hands were still around her upper arms, locking her in place, and her knees skidded in the mud.
Rather than face plant against the man’s chest again; she yanked a knee forwards to try to stabilize herself and felt the connection with his most prized possessions. She knew that she’d hit home when he yelped out in pain once more.
A heartbeat later and his upper body shot up from the ground, his head coming towards her, and if she hadn’t of moved sideways, then he just might have head-butted her. That danger was short lived, and he dropped back against the earth on another grunt of pain and a squishy thud.
Neal’s hands released her arms as the fire in his balls made him twist on the ground in pain.