by Mary Hughes
Noah gave the pup a good scold, letting his roiling anger and alarm bleed into his tone. When he set him down, he rapped his nose for good measure.
The boy slouched, as if his tail were tucked between his legs.
Noah turned to the witch. “I’m sorry for the boy’s behavior, Ms. Blue. Naturally, I’ll pay for any damages.”
“Well…” She rocked on her toes and Noah could see her mind working. He waited for the worst, but her plump cheeks went rosy. “If it can make us friends…apology accepted.”
“Thank you.” Friends? With a witch? He’d rather pal around with a rabid badger. “I’m glad to have this settled.”
He grabbed Marlowe by the shoulders and marched the pup toward the door. The witch hustled past them to open it.
She misjudged the distance and plowed into them both. Noah twisted to catch her from falling.
She blinked up into his eyes, beaming. “Oh, thank you!”
That girlish batting disoriented him just long enough for Marlowe to twist and duck away.
The pup, laughing, ran to grab the dildo then dashed toward the back of the store. His running fist pumped the tower in the air like a bizarre personal barbell.
“My vibrating skyscraper mushroom!” the witch cried.
“Mushroom?” Marlowe, as if trying to aggravate the damned witch, turned and crowed. “It’s a psycho dildo ’shroom!”
The witch flitted after the pup, spinning her fingers like a thousand itsy bitsy spiders, her jewelry clacking like an antique train. “One for the money, two for the show.”
Noah launched himself after her. Twist his tail, she was casting a spell. She looked sweet but if she had real power, well, he’d seen the destruction of mages’ battles. “Don’t—”
“Three to get ready and four—”
“No!” Dread kicked Noah to leap for the boy.
“—to go!”
He cut eyes back. Air warped toward him, wavering like hot day. Before it hit, Noah tackled the boy, taking him to the floor. The impact took the dildo from his hands, flying in an arc through the beaded curtain of the back doorway.
Noah raised his head.
The warped air rippled past them, sailing into a free-standing Snow White oval mirror near the doorway.
The spell rebounded off the mirror. No, the mirror didn’t just bounce it. It augmented it.
Noah shoved to his hands and knees as a glittering tsunami of magic whooshed out of the mirror, heading off to his left. Damn it, this was why he hated magic. Unpredictable, uncontrollable. The spell shot into a glass curio cabinet full of pictures, hit one, and ricocheted—
Straight into his face.
It punched him like a fist. He spun on his knees and fell onto his back, magic shivering into his skin like a thousand tiny barbs. The spell spiraled down into him, condensing in the middle of his chest…and then nothing.
While Noah lay there panting, Marlowe leaped to his feet and disappeared through the beads.
Barking dogs. The pup had probably scooped up that damned mushroom on the way.
Noah wrestled to his elbows. His face hurt like he’d taken a fist. The witch packed quite a wallop for looking like a long-nosed Mrs. Santa.
Weaving fingers fluttered in his face.
Acid splashed into his belly. “Lady, don’t—”
“Reveal.” She stared down at him in plate-eyed horror as her face drained of all color.
“What in blazes is going on?” His words were more growl than voice. Normally, he had excellent control of his wolf. But this, on top of being forced into the alpha fight and the challenges to his new leadership, would make even the calmest wolf howl. He shoved himself to his feet. “What did you hit me with?”
The witch’s fingers covered her mouth. “You felt that? Oh my. Oh dear. This is not good. This is very not good.”
“If you don’t tell me what—”
“Nothing. Everything.” The plump woman flitted to the mirror. She traced its dark wood frame with fluttering fingers, her eyes surprisingly intent.
“Lady, I don’t know what you’re talking about. But that was some serious magic.”
She whirled, skirts flying. “How do you know that?”
“Same way I know you’re a witch.” He tapped his nose.
“That’s impossible. No one can sense a witch.”
He shrugged. “I can. I’m pack alpha.” The truth, in so far as it went.
She whirled back to the mirror, studying it so intensely Noah was surprised it didn’t blush. She was muttering to herself. “Impossible. Magic is paradox. Witches sense the paradox but shifters are the paradox. A shifter sensing magic would be like…like a color sensing itself.”
Typical witch. No real answer. “Just tell me what you hit me with, Ms. Blue.”
The witch’s cheeks pinked. “Call me Linda.”
He tapped his dwindling reserve of patience. “Nice to meet you, Linda. I’m Noah—stop that!”
She wagged fingers at him, muttering.
Noah stepped sharply back, too late. The spell hit him with a brief glitter. “Damn it, I hate sparkles.”
“You saw that?” Her eyes widened like hobbit doors. She spun, trotted to the curio cabinet, opened it, picked one of the pictures and carried it back to him. “It hit Sophia’s photo before it struck you. Do you know her?”
Sophia. The name rang like the purest bell in his mind.
Then she pushed the picture into his nose, and the woman’s face hit him harder than the spell. Sophia.
Smooth, elegant, so beautiful he wanted to howl. Glossy bronze curls, elegant nose, and eyes that hit him in the gut. Big and intelligent, yet hinting that if a man got her someplace private they’d do some amazing things—
Noah backed away. He’d never heated up that fast. Damn it, what had the witch done to him? He tried to speak, but nothing came out. He swallowed and tried again. Still nothing.
Desperate to hang onto his control, he closed his eyes and used his three-two-one descent to his quiet place, one of the few things he’d kept of his father’s. After dipping a toe in the cool, calm waters of rationality, he opened his eyes again on the witch. “No. Never met her.”
She tapped the frame against her lip. “Interesting.”
“Linda, enough. What hit me?”
“The tiniest of hexes.” She bustled to put the picture back then trundled to an armoire to lift a folded white sheet from the shelves. “A simple bur.”
He shook his head. “That didn’t hit like a bur.”
“Yes, well, it took a few detours first.” She closed the cupboard, trotted to the mirror and threw the sheet over it. The cloth slithered into place like silk. She twitched a few places to cover the mirror completely. “There, that’s taken care of. I—oh dear.”
She stared at the front door.
“What’s the matter…yip?” Suddenly dizzy, he pressed a hand to his head. Or tried to. A paw wavered in front of his face.
“We’re closed.” Linda’s tone was strained.
Noah shook his head to clear it. He felt so strange. He finally managed to focus on the front door where a woman stood, hands over her mouth, staring at him.
The woman stuttered, “The door was open and I… D-did that man just turn into an animal—?”
Noah froze. Had he shifted without meaning to? That hadn’t happened since he was in diapers. He reached for his human…and nothing happened. What was going on?
“No, no. That’s an illusion.” Linda bustled to the woman and turned her away. “All mirrors and such. Come back tomorrow.” She hustled the woman out, closed the door and collapsed back against the jamb, hand against her forehead.
“Mr. Blackwood. Noah.” Heaving a breath, she straightened and trotted toward the back of the store. “You stay here. I have to go check out a few things.”
“Yip?” He couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Then, in a flurry of hairpins and a rattle of
beaded curtain, she was gone.
“Yip yip…? Yip!” He ground his teeth. Witches. Couldn’t trust the lot of them. Always secretive, and not in the necessary, protecting-the-pack way. He started after her, using the long-legged lope that was his wolf’s stride…and upended, landing on his back, little furry legs batting above him.
That was when he found out he was a fifteen-inch dog.
Available on Amazon.
Mind Mates
Pull of the Moon
© 2016 Mary Hughes
Pretty little shifter, wizard prince—their taboo love could burn the barriers between worlds.
Shifter Emma Singer has more problems than she can shake her pretty wolf tail at. Her father has been executed, and her mother and brother plan to sell her to a pack alpha for his harem. Even the wicked little crush she has on her boss is doomed—why would six-and-a-half feet of hot, handsome, royal wizard want a boring, good-girl, iota shifter like her? Not to mention her only power is going berserker—that's a real relation-shipwreck!
Gabriel Light is a wizard prince who turned his back on his exceptional powers after he was accused of causing his parents’ death. Now he pours his intellect into his tech business, and hides his naughty, forbidden lust for his pretty shifter clerk. But when his sister is imprisoned, and Emma is kidnapped, it's time for this alpha-geek wizard to decloak with all laser cannons blazing. Only one problem—with Emma at his side, how can he stay focused, with his inner wolf howling to have her?
Emma’s father left behind a journal. When Gabriel and Emma accidentally release its hidden magic, they learn that together, they hold a key to power beyond imagining—if they can stay alive long enough to use it. But when Emma unleashes her berserker wolf on their enemies, can Gabriel draw her back from the brink before she destroys everyone in her path?
Warning: Contains a hot wizard prince panting to bring out a good-girl shifter’s naughty side. Accidental voyeurism, deliberate orgasms, a jealous rival wizard, and fun with prophecy
Enjoy the following chapter from Mind Mates:
Swaying atop the three-story ladder, Emma Singer swallowed hard and forced herself to climb higher.
Her fingers curled tighter around the rungs as she neared the metal braces of the Choice Buy’s exposed-structure ceiling. An Employee Appreciation Day banner drooped from her clenched hand.
“Damn. This good-girl shtick is getting old.”
Wolf shifters, even iotas, weren’t afraid of heights, but her stomach slid toward her legs the higher she got, maybe knowing something she didn’t.
She glanced down and immediately wished she hadn’t.
From the hushed, rarefied heights, her fellow Techie Titans looked like ants gathered around the home-theater setup, where their boss was installing a game. The huge flat-panel was reduced to postage-stamp size by her height.
Strangely, her six-foot-five boss looked just as imposing as usual.
“Hurry up, Emma.” Brant the Blundering, the gangly teen who’d pulled down the streamer in the first place, called from the base of the ladder. He was built like a puppy who hadn’t grown into his paws—and was as coordinated too.
Swallowing her vertigo, she stretched to refasten the crepe paper to a joist.
“More to the right.” Brant waved an arm to demonstrate, hand like an oven mitt on a broomstick.
He hit the ladder and knocked it sideways.
Emma tottered, arms pinwheeling. The streamer fluttered away, waving mockingly in crepe paper’s version of the finger.
No good deed goes unpunished flashed through her thoughts as she toppled off. The ladder rocked a few times before righting itself with a kerchunk.
It seemed an eternity for Emma to fall the three stories. Below, Brant’s wide eyes followed her descent. She had time to wonder if there was a twelve-stepper for acute volunteeritis.
Well. This is gonna hurt.
“Emma!” In the nick of time her boss, Dr. Gabriel Light, swooped in, doing his usual hero thing.
He caught her.
She landed in his strong arms (no problem). They were tight around her (no problem). His scent, masculine and heady, filled her sudden sucked breath (still no problem, or not much of one).
Automatically she clung to his broad shoulders, hard muscles under her fingers, her inner wolf wagging its tail (starting to be a problem). Her fingers threaded into his silky hair (definitely trekking into problem territory). Her lips, a whisper from his chiseled jaw, his delectable earlobe, opened, her tongue aching to swipe a taste.
Red-alert problem.
“Emma, you’re safe. Trust me.” Behind his plain glasses, his lids lifted to her. His irises were a startling, star-shot blue-green, like the moon sparkling off a warm sea, making her want to dive in and do the breaststroke.
For all that he dressed like a junior college professor, the man was teeth-achingly beautiful.
She tried to swallow, but her tongue had swollen to fill her mouth and nothing happened. She tried again, managing to pant and gulp at the same time, swallowed wrong, and started coughing uncontrollably.
Dr. Light set her on her feet—by sliding her down his sleek, muscular, cotton-and-male-smelling chest, oh yum—and rubbed her between her shoulders to ease her.
His big, warm palm did ease her cough, but the breadth of his hand filled the entire area between her shoulder blades and made the rest of her clench with aching desire. Gabriel Light wasn’t simply lead Techie Titan—he was their nerd king, and he was built like royalty.
The little iota wolf in Emma yipped happily.
But she, her human self, wasn’t so pleased. Despite her interest in him, he’d never shown anything more than kindly concern. The last thing she wanted was to be a poor lovesick fool.
But he smelled so good.
“Are you all right?” Dr. Light, one arm clasped around her, slid a long, large finger under her chin. Tilting her head up, he gazed deep into her eyes. His own were sympathetic.
She stopped breathing at the oceans of tenderness in that gaze—fraternal tenderness, but so damned gorgeous.
Plus side, no breath meant her hacking cough stopped, long enough for her to wheeze with what air remained in her lungs, “I’m fine.”
One corner of his mouth tipped up in a gentle semi-smile. “You always say that. ‘I’m fine.’ Whether you are or not. You’re not a trainee anymore, Emma. It’s okay not to be fine. You won’t get fired. It’s okay to admit you need help.”
An iota wolf, admit to being vulnerable? Hell no, it wasn’t okay. Her breath surged back in a rush. She was bottom of the pack, and worse, built like a kitten, tiny and cute to the point that she had to buy her clothes in the kids’ section at WallyWorld and one of her nicknames was Piglet. She could never ever be caught out as needy and vulnerable, surrounded by apex predators all day.
She wasn’t sure whether she meant her shifter pack or the six-foot-five walking sex bomb who was her boss.
Human boss, she reminded herself. Who didn’t seem to have a clue she was interested in him.
“I’m fine,” she repeated through clenched teeth.
“Are you?” His gaze shifted to her mouth, and she stopped breathing again. “That’s bad for your teeth, you know. Relax.”
He eased the chiding words with a slide of his finger along her jaw, the rough whorls of the pad caressing her flesh. His touch raised tremors in her that shimmered down her throat, waking nipples and belly and wolf.
Oh, to grab him, hook a leg behind his, and take him down to the floor—with her underneath.
She was strong and tricky and might have tried it in private, except he moved like he’d studied martial arts and knew what to do. A warrior’s grace hinted at an extremely muscular body lurking beneath his sweater vests and slouchy pants. She’d probably only embarrass herself.
Her wolf didn’t seem to care. It was panting and lifting its tail, and her human wasn’t far behind.
So naturally, when her eyes were big pools of do-me and
she was spurting pheromones like a department store perfumery, her alpha wolf Bruiser prowled into the store.
* * *
Bzz-bzzt. A buzz like an angry hornet stung wizard prince Gabriel Light’s ears the moment the predator slunk into the store.
Cap’n Crunch me. Gabriel had magically alarmed the door for just such an event, but why now, when he’d finally gotten a semi-innocent excuse to wrap his arms around this warm bundle of soft, sweet-smelling heaven?
Emma. It felt like he’d been dying to hold her forever. Now, with her in his arms, was the first time in months he could breathe.
But that buzzing alarm told him the approaching beast was male, a wolf shifter, and, from that level of sting, Emma’s alpha. The beast was not going to appreciate seeing her in another man’s arms.
She started trembling, no doubt in response to the alpha’s rampant fight-club stench, a musk even Gabriel could smell. He tried to ease her tension with a joke.
“Hey, Emma. How many tickles does it take to make an octopus laugh?”
She skewered him with a disbelieving stare, icing his flesh. He’d blundered, she didn’t understand he was trying to comfort her, nobody gets my skewed sense of humor… Then she gulped and said, “Eight? Like, um, eight legs?”
Immediately his world brightened. “Nope. Ten tickles. Get it? Tentacles?”
She managed a tiny laugh, tinkling bells to his ears, and her body relaxed slightly under his arms. “That was such a dad joke.”
He loved that she, of all the people he knew, actually laughed at his jokes. He smiled into her eyes like a besotted fool.
Of course, that was when the he-wolf prowled into view.
Gabriel wondered how far he could get with the wolf by protesting his intentions were honorable. Probably not far. The creature was only barely in human form.
The wolfman was medium height but had a face like a dented shovel and a body like a trash compactor, his muscles-on-muscles popping in a stringy T-shirt that barely qualified past no-shirt-no-shoes-no-service.
