by M. L. Briers
“But that was werewolves right?”Hope looked for clarity and Faith shrugged.
“One wolf is as good as another as far as she’s concerned…”Faith’s head snapped around the moment Adam growled out his presence.
The look he got from three very guilty witches told him all he needed to know and he sighed inwardly.
“You called her didn’t you?”Adam looked at Faith first for clarity and saw the look of guilty shock flash across her face.
“She came for the gathering…”Faith rushed out a little too quickly.
“Then how do you know what I was talking about?”Adam growled with every word. Faiths jaw flapped around for a moment or two.
“Even I knew what you meant and I have baby brain…”Fay offered trying to buy Faith some time to pick up her game.
Adam turned his accusing eyes on his mate. “It would have been all three of you little troublemakers, so don’t think I’ve forgotten your part in this.”Fay withered slightly under his stare. Damn it, he could read her like a book.
“Well, does it matter, what’s done is done, however she got here?”Hope offered on a small guilty smile and Adam groaned.
“I knew it. Why would you do that?”Adam frowned and growled, possibly the only time outside the bedroom that the man could multitask, Fay thought as she sighed.
“It was me…”Fay offered and she saw Hope and Faith take a physical step backwards. Cowards.
“What was you?”Adam demanded and she shrugged.
“I was the one who wanted to call his mate…”
“But dumb and dumber went along with it…”Adam growled out and Faith took a step forwards again. Her hands going to her hips. “Isn’t it called Fate for a damn reason?”
“Now hold on there alpha…”She started, but Fay burst into tears and silence hung heavy over the room. Faith’s eyes shot to Fay and then back to Adam, and she saw him physically balk at his mate’s tears.
“Sweetheart?”Adam growled down gently as he reached out and wrapped her in his arms, drawing her to his chest and soothing her.
“I’m sorry, Adam. I just thought it would be nice if everyone had a mate…”Her eyes flicked up to Faith’s and Faith balked as she recognised the duplicity in Fay’s glance. Her jaw sagged open until she mentally snapped it shut.
My God, the pupil certainly had become the teacher… Faith looked to Hope with a knowing look, and Hope caught her meaning as she bit down on her lips and turned away so that Adam couldn’t see the smile that crept onto her lips.
“It’s ok…”Adam growled gently.
“What with it being Christmas soon. I just wanted Abel to be happy…”She sniffled. Adam lifted her chin and brushed at the tears that hadn’t fallen yet.
“It’ll be ok, sweetheart. Abel will work it out.”Adam assured her and Faith rolled her eyes.
“If he’s not stuck up a tree or down a ditch somewhere by now.”Faith muttered and Adam frowned at her.
“Not very helpful, Faith.”Adam growled out a warning at her as he motioned to his mate’s distress, and Faith opened her mouth to berate him and closed it again on a muttered sorry.
“Do you want some porridge?”Adam asked Fay with a hopeful smile. He wanted to take her mind of Abel. He certainly wanted to take her mind off her tears. He hated to see his mate cry. He hated that since she was pregnant he couldn’t judge her emotions so well. The damn hormones were running rampant inside her and one moment she appeared happy and the next she might as well have had fangs and claws, because she was just as vicious with her tongue.
Fay nodded and sniffled the imaginary tears away as Adam let her go and moved through the kitchen at speed. If there was one thing he had learned how to make it was damned porridge, the woman ate so much of it he wouldn’t be surprised if the pup came out with a porridge coating.
Faith narrowed her eyes on Fay and gave her an accusing stare, and Fay answered with a small shrug of her shoulders and a twinkle in her eye. Score one for the pregnancy wild card, she told herself as she watched her mate work.
Motioning with her head for Faith to leave, Faith slipped out of the kitchen on one side of her and Hope on the other, as Fay waited for them to make their getaway before she turned on her heels and fled after them.
The snow started to thicken as it fell. Great big flakes of white blanketed around her in no time at all and the silence was almost deafening as she carried on going, one cold, leaded, foot in front of the other cold, leaded foot. She was no longer wearing boots but concrete slabs on her feet, and Jack Frost wasn’t content with nipping at her nose, he’d certainly had his hands inside the warmth of her snow clothes.
Ok, so she knew that this was a bad idea to start off with, a really, really, bad idea, but what was supposed to do, stay at the cabin and succumb to the mating pull?
Was it really better to freeze to death in the middle of nowhere? Not that her mate would allow that of course. Not her mate, she corrected herself, the wolf, if she started to think of him in terms of him being her mate it would stick in her brain and only make him more real to her emotionally.
Abel had just about enough of this. She was walking in a damn blizzard, and she had no idea where she was going, because she had started to walk in a large arch. The further she went, the closer she came back up towards the cabin again.
He was starting to feel the cold and he was even considering shifting into his wolf for the rest of the trail, but then he would lose his damn clothes and when he needed to shift back for her, he would be naked.
He was closing the distance between them, and he knew instinctively that he hadn’t speeded up, which meant she was slowing down, obviously not a good sign that she was enduring the weather well.
Abel reached out and touched her shoulder. For a long moment she didn’t acknowledge his touch, and then her body tensed and she shook her shoulder to try to shake him off.
“You can’t get through this, we need to get you to safety…”Abel called through the hood she had pulled up and over her head. Pulled tight it snuggled in around her ears for warmth.
“I’m fine…”
“No, you’re not fine. Let me help you…”Abel growled out. It didn’t take much for him to pull her to a dead stop and turn her around towards him. Not only did she look like a Popsicle, but she looked totally deflated, exhausted, and miserable.
“I don’t want your help.”She shook her head adamantly, and Abel thought that it was probably the most movement he had seen in a while from her, apart from the slide of her feet on the snow.
“Tough.”Abel growled down at her. A moment later he had reached down and slung her up and over his broad shoulder, and was already stomping off in the slightly altered direction from which they had been going. Off towards his cabin, although he guessed fate had sent her on a pretty good path towards it.
CHAPTER FOUR
“Put me down, wolf.”She seemed to have a little more life in her now, at least enough to kick her legs and squirm against him as she tried for freedom, but he held her tightly, unwilling to let her go.
“Abel.”He corrected her and heard her huff.
“If I call you Abel will you put me down?”She bit out between clenched teeth, ready and willing to make that concession if it got her down from his shoulder.
“Nope.”Abel bit out, certain that the moment he put her down she would either stomp off in a different direction, or zap him and then take off in a different direction, and he had her where he wanted her so he didn’t need to make any concessions. “But I might let you down off my shoulder.” Abel grinned to himself, maybe one concession.
“Fine, Abel…”She spat out. It wasn’t a particularly nice way that she’d said his name, maybe more of a curse than a caress on her tongue, but she had said it none the less.
He instantly spun her downwards and she gave a small shriek as her world went spinning around her, ending up in his arms, looking up at him through the falling snow and meeting his blue eyes with hers.
&nb
sp; “You’re a real jerk, do you know that?”She ground out, not even bothering for the moment to try to be set free. She was tired and bone cold, and she could have willing curled up against him and surrendered to slumber in those strong arms once more.
“So I’ve been told.”Abel grinned, he couldn’t help himself. It might not have been a declaration of love from her lips, but at least she was starting to talk to him again, even if he was a jerk, apparently.
“Then perhaps you should take the hint.”
“Or perhaps I just don’t care.”Abel offered back to her, and he thought she might have pouted and folded her arms over her chest if she had been standing on her feet, instead he heard a small sigh.
“Perhaps you’re incapable of change…”
“Perhaps I haven’t had the need or the inclination, until now.”Abel was who he was, he never apologised for his laid back attitude to life, and he wasn’t going to start now, but being mated meant compromising, so he guessed he would have to roll with the punches, or the damn electrocution that his mate dished out.
“Don’t try to sweet talk me, I already told you I’m not interested.”
“Yes you did. Several times, but what your mouth says and what your heart feels are two different things, and you’ll come to see that.”Abel assured her, and then she really did look as if she wanted to pout, or go ten rounds of the zapping game with him. He wasn’t entirely sure which, because she had her shields in place and he hadn’t learned her moods yet.
“I won’t be around long enough…”
“I’d say the snow and Fate have other ideas.”Abel grinned to himself, he couldn’t help it. He had his mate in his arms and he was headed for his warm cabin, where hopefully they might just get snowed in for a while. Let her fight the mating pull on her body and mind then, he thought, thinking that things just might be looking up.
By the time they reached his cabin she was shivering. Abel knew the fastest way to warm her was with a hot bath. He would have preferred to strip them both naked and curl around her in his bed, but he didn’t think she’d go for that idea.
“W-here are we?”Sasha’s teeth were grinding together as she bit down on her jaw to try to stop them chattering in her damn head.
Abel flicked on the lights as they entered and he made no move to put her down, back heeling the door closed he stalked clear across the cabin to the door at the far end.
“My cabin…”
“What? N-no, I thought y-ou were tak-ing me-ee back to-oo…”She gave up. It was too hard to talk and not chatter in her gums, and she already felt enough like an idiot for having to be carried here, wherever here actually was?
Abel slowly lowered her down his body and set her on her feet. Reaching out, he flicked on the bathroom light, and she frowned. The effort to try to stop her body convulsing in shivers was becoming as tiring as it was tiresome.
“You ok to stand there while I get the bath running?”She hadn’t even notice that Abel hadn’t release his hold on her yet, or that her gloved hands were loosely gripped against the sleeves of his jacket.
“B-ath? Not bl-oody likely.”She ground out and watched Abel lift just one eyebrow at her, questioning her sanity with that look.
“It’s the fastest way to get your body temperature up, but if you’d prefer to share body heat…”
“W-what?”Sasha’s cheeks found just a little colour and he had to chuckle.
“Stop being a baby, I won’t even look at you when you’re naked if you…”
“W-ait, what?”Abel left her standing against the wall as he strolled into the room and she heard the sound of the water running. Damn, but that sound invoked the image of a hot steamy bubble bath and she almost craved it as much as a hot chocolate.
She started to relax the physical grip she had been holding on her muscles and her body started to shake almost uncontrollably by the time Abel appeared again.
“Jesus woman, you’re going to shake yourself to death. Let’s get your clothes off…”Abel went to reach for the zipper on her jacket and she managed to slap his hand down.
“T-ouch me and lo-se a-a hand.”She spat out between chattering and Abel grinned down at her. She certainly was feisty, he liked that.
“Ok, here’s the deal. No funny business, I’ll help you off with your layers, but no further than underwear, or you’re going to be here all night the way that you’re shaking.”Abel raised his brows at her, questioning her need to deny the logic of his words.
“F-fine.”Sasha didn’t think she could even pull off her gloves right at that moment. Her hands weren’t even interested in gripping anything.
Abel stepped towards her and tried to be as benign as possible, but obviously when he stepped in front of her he was the only thing she could see. The huge broad shoulders and expanse of a muscled chest loomed in from of her, as his hands made quick work of her gloves and the zipper on her jacket. The backs of his hands touched her frosty cheeks when he pushed the hood backwards, and the warmth felt like the warmest summer sun hitting her skin, and she almost moaned at his touch.
He took off her jacket and knelt down to take off her boots as she leaned back against the wall. When he stood up she felt the heat from his proximity, on the outside and the inside, and she didn’t notice that he was unzipping her jeans, and then she did.
“W-hat are y-y-you…?”She wasn’t sure if the rush to panic within her had made her stammer that much, or if the shivers were getting worse.
“Outer wear…”He informed her, not bothering to take no for an answer as he yanked them down around her ankles and uncovered her long legs. He growled inwardly at the vision, outwardly he made no effort to notice.
“Th-at’s e-enough…”She tried to brush his hands away from her jumper, but he tugged it upwards, praying that she wasn’t naked beneath and breaking his word, but secretly hoping that she was.
She wasn’t naked. She was wearing one of those sports bra’s that she stood little chance of getting off on her own, and he growled down.
“You’re never going to get that off…”Abel informed her and she balked, her eyes flew wide as she tried to take a step away from him. She was already in her bra and panties and she really wasn’t about to let him… “We’ll just have to put you in like that…”Abel said out loud, more to himself than her, but his words seemed to ease her anxiety a little more, right up to the point where he bent down and picked her back up into his strong arms again and she wanted to roll her eyes and slap her forehead at the same time.
“F-f-f…”She couldn’t spit it out, her mind and body was too intent on the warmth that seeped into her skin from his body now that she was down to her bare flesh and he was only in that top.
“It’s going to feel hot, but it’s not, once you’re in we can slowly add more hot water…”Abel leant over the large tub with her in his arms and slowly lowered her downwards. How the hell could she feel so safe in his arms? She wondered briefly, before the heat of the water hit her backside and she moaned aloud from the warmth.
The sound that left her lips made him harder than he already was for her. Damn, but he hoped that she made that noise when he took her to bed. Abel shook the thought out of his mind, now certainly wasn’t the time.
Slowly he immersed her in the water, flicking off the cold water and lowering the speed of the hot, so that it slowly topped up the bath around her. He saw her head ease back against the tub, saw her eyes close and her lips part as she savoured the heat around her body. She was still shivering, her teeth trying to chatter, but she was slowly thawing, and slowly relaxing her muscles.
“Will you be ok if I go make some hot chocolate?”Abel asked and she nodded her head, but she didn’t open her eyes.
He got to his feet and looked down on her, she looked like an angel in his tub, a slightly battered and bruised angel, but still, he’d give anything to climb in there with her and hold her in his arms…
Sasha heard his boots on the hardwood floor as he left the room, but she co
uldn’t dismiss him so easily. He seemed so easy going, so… nice, but that was only because she was his mate, she needed to remember that underneath he was a wolf, and that wasn’t a good thing.
Abel called his brother as he waited for the kettle to boil and filled him in on what had happened. When Adam started to tease him he ended the call and finished making their hot chocolate. Strolling into the bathroom he noted that her breathing had eased and she had some more colour, bruises aside.
Placing the mugs down on the floor as he knelt beside the bath he dipped his fingers into the water and turned off the hot tap, any warmer and she might just come out like a baked potato.
Abel rested his arm against the tub and gently stroked down her cheek with the backs of his fingers, careful to steer clear of her bruises.
“Sasha?”He knew she was somewhere between sleep and getting there, just tittering on the edge. She moaned softly and shivered again, her lashes fluttered open and she took a long moment to realise where she was.
“Warmer?”He asked as he saw the colour flood her cheeks this time, and he turned away to give her a moment. Reaching for the mugs he held hers out to her. “Chocolate?”
Damn, a guy who brought her hot chocolate in the tub, if that wasn’t a kick in the pants by fate she didn’t know what could be. She reached for the cup, careful to place her fingers as far away from his as she could get them so as not to touch him. It wasn’t that she didn’t like the rush that went through her when they touched, it felt good, really good, too good, and that was the problem.
“Thanks.”She blew the stem from the mug and sipped carefully, she’d already been frozen, and she didn’t need to be burnt on the same day.
Abel sat back on his heels and kept his attention away from her. He looked at the room around him.
“Might just have to decorate, what do you think?”He asked casually and she frowned into her mug.
“You’re asking me for decorating tips?”
“I’m trying not to notice that half naked woman in my tub…”He chuckled and just knew that her cheeks were flushing red again.