A Shifter Under the Christmas Tree

by M. L. Briers

  “Maybe I should…?” Mark said, getting to his feet with a pained expression.

  “Nope, it’ll be fine,” Tanya said, nibbling the inside of her cheek as she thought about Max.

  He wasn’t the most friendly and outgoing of their family, something had been weighing on his shoulders for a long time, and she hadn’t been able to get to the bottom of it, but she was sure this would be different - maybe.

  “What’ll be fine?” The deep melodic tone came from outside the cabin, and Mark groaned and rolled his eyes.

  “Really? Again?” The alpha growled, and he slumped back down in the chair like life had just bowled him over. “This is why I said; do not feed the strays that come to the damn door,” he grumbled, his tone dripping with sarcasm.

  “And deny your friend a home-cooked meal?” Cameron asked. He stopped at the threshold of the back door and grinned like he was after more than just pasta.

  The vampire had been invited in a million times, and yet, he still waited to be asked. It was good manners, and he liked to show Tanya the respect she deserved.

  “I got pasta, and I got Scotch,” Mark grumbled, going through the same ritual he did every time the vampire appeared – it was as if they were mortal enemies instead of easy friends for the last thirty years. “We don’t keep a stock of O Neg.”

  “I’d say you’re full of it, and that could be true in both senses of the word,” Cameron said, still grinning.

  “You know what – you’re right,” Mark said, pushing back to his feet. “Let’s go in the garage, and I’ll show you something I whittled earlier – I think you’re gonna like it – I know I’m gonna like giving it to you. It’ll make my millennium…”

  “Tempting, but I’d rather know what’s got your fur up,” Cameron said, motioning to his foot as it hovered over the threshold to catch Tanya’s attention. Left to the alpha, he’d be standing there all night.

  Mark sighed. “None of your…”

  “Come on in, Cam,” Tanya said, reaching for a dish to plate up some food for the vampire.

  “You need to stop doing that,” Mark grumbled good-naturedly. “You invite him in and feed him and look what happens; he keeps coming back.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  ~

  Cameron strolled to the dinner table and pulled out a chair. He shot the alpha a look of glee that he knew wouldn’t be appreciated but would be anticipated. “You’d miss me if I was gone.”

  “Define gone? Like gone from our lives, the area, the planet?” Mark shot back.

  “Come on, Dad,” Shauna said with a conspiratorial smile for the vampire. “You know he’s your best friend.”

  Mark screwed up his face. “Why haven’t we built you a cabin of your own yet?” he made it sound like a threat to make her stand on her own two feet, and she chuckled in return.

  Shauna did perk up at that idea even if she knew it was a pipe dream. “That sounds like a good…”

  “Forget it,” Mark growled. “You’re not old enough.”

  Shauna looked momentarily crushed. “He gives hope and then snatches it away,” she grumbled, but she’d already known that the day her old man let her out of his sight would be the day she was mated or hell froze over, and she wasn’t counting on either of those things happening any time soon.

  Tanya put the plate down in front of Cameron, it was piled high with food, and he nodded his appreciation. “See, someone’s always happy to see me,” he informed the alpha.

  “She likes it when the postman shows up as well; it doesn’t mean she likes you,” Mark grumbled. “Nobody actually likes you.”

  “I’m crushed,” Cameron said. “Wounded through the heart.”

  “Not yet, but when we go to the garage, all bets are off,” Mark shot back with a cocky grin.

  “So, anything I should know about?” Cameron asked. “Like why Max was driving like he had a demon on his tail?”

  “No,” Mark growled.

  “He’s found his mate,” Lucas said at the same time and did a double-take of his father when Mark turned to scowl at him. “You said I should always respect my elders and tell the truth – he’s definitely an elder.”

  “He’s everyone’s elder,” Mark growled. “He’s like Father Time.”

  “A mate?” Cameron said, ignoring the jibe.

  “It gets better,” Shauna said, teasing it out.

  “Do tell,” Cameron said, baiting her with a flash of a smile.

  “Don’t tell,” Mark growled. “He’s not family, and he doesn’t need to know the ins and outs of a duck’s behind.”

  “That’s a given on both counts,” Cameron said. “But where else am I going to get my entertainment if not here?”

  “They invented a thing called television a while back,” Mark shot back. “Go get one.”

  “She’s a witch!” Shauna announced like she’d won first prize in a raffle and couldn’t wait to share the news.

  Cameron had a fork full of food halfway to his mouth and stopped to turn a look of surprise at the alpha. Mark grunted and shrugged. “Well now, a witch,” he said, rolling that thought around on his tongue. “The only thing worse than a witch in town is a witch mate in town.”

  “Why?” Shauna asked, frowning. She was curious to meet the witch; it would be her first encounter with one, and more curious to meet the poor woman who was Max’s mate.

  “Because a witch mate can’t be run out of town,” Cameron said with a little acid in his tone.

  Mark dropped his head on his neck and groaned. “Here we go,” he grumbled, after thirty years of the vampire, he knew what came next.

  “What?” Shauna asked, looking between the two men, but neither spoke, so she turned pleading eyes on her mother.

  Tanya sighed. “Cameron has a little problem with witches,” she said, and Mark grunted a chuckle.

  “Understatement,” he tossed back.

  “I hate them with the vengeance of a thousand suns,” Cameron announced like he was an actor reciting Shakespeare on a stage to a captive crowd.

  “Here we go,” Mark grumbled again. “Witches bad, vampires good, blah, blah, blah, get over it – it was ten thousand years ago when we were all still running around with spears.”

  “How old do you think I am?” Cameron asked, and Mark smirked.

  “Old enough to know better than to set yourself up with a stupid question like that – Caveman,” he tossed back.

  “What’s wrong with witches?” Shauna asked.

  “He had a little run-in with one or two…”

  “A full coven…”

  “Back in the day and they were mean to him,” Mark babied him as the vampire pouted and folded his arms across his chest.

  Cameron offered the alpha a hard stare. “They killed two good friends of mine.”

  “Vampires,” Mark said and waved it away.

  “Burned down the castle that was my family home…”

  “Cave with benefits,” Mark said, snorting a chuckle.

  “And ran me out of my ancestral lands…”

  “Boggy marsh in Scotland somewhere,” Mark said, waving a hand to dismiss the tale he’d heard a million times before, usually when they’d been drinking.

  Cameron scowled at the alpha. “I’m glad my deep, deep pain amuses you,” he sniped back.

  “You’d think after a billion years that pain would have dulled slightly,” Mark mocked him.

  “Heartbreak can never be healed,” Cameron tossed back, playing the sympathy card for all it was worth.

  “Yeah, and the other one goes ding-ding,” Mark said.

  “Dad, you’re mean,” Shauna said, taking Cameron’s side as she always did in the banter between the two.

  “I’m mean? The last time I went hunting with him, he left me dangling from a cliff face for five hours,” Mark reminded her.

  “Now I see why,” Shauna said, and the alpha grunted then turned a dark look at the vampire who grinned from ear to ear.

  “You might have t
hem fooled, but I’ve got your number,” Mark said, playing along.

  Cameron sighed. “Yes, but you never use it…”

  “That’s because I don’t want to see you,” the alpha protested as he turned pleading eyes on his mate. “Help me out here.”

  “You two have been having this same fight for thirty years, I’ve learned just to sit back and enjoy the show,” Tanya said, reaching for her glass of wine with a grin for her mate’s mock annoyance.

  “Lot of help you are,” he grumbled. “I’m going to my garage,” he said, pushing to his feet. “When you’ve finished eating my food – go home,” he said with one last passing shot. It was still his anniversary, and he still had a mate to woo.

  “Or maybe I’ll go find that witch and…”

  Mark turned back and pointed a warning finger at everyone in the room. “Nobody goes near Max and the wit… mate,” he said, correcting himself.

  “He’s got grumpier as he’s aged,” Cameron said to Tanya and she chuckled into her wine glass.

  “That’s not funny,” Mark grumbled. “He’s not funny.” But the sniggers told him the vampire had won that round.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ~

  Max turned off the engine and stared out at the little cabin that had seen better days. His first thought was that it needed fixing up and he could help her with that; he was never happier than when he was working around wood and making himself useful by fixing something – his second thought was that he was an idiot.

  It wasn’t her home, it was a rental, and he didn’t need to help her fix up the place to be a decent home for her to live in because what he needed to do was to woo her to live in his cabin – their cabin – their home – together, like a family. No, not like a family – a family.

  Then he grunted at that thought. It wasn’t just that he needed to woo her. First, he needed to talk to her, real talking, not grunting, not teasing, not demanding anything, but an actual conversation.

  That sounded a hell of a lot easier than it would be. In anything, he’d rather stick his head inside a beehive.

  Max had never been the one in the family that had great communication skills. Lucas was the funny one, Shauna was the me-me-me one, but he wasn’t into sharing his thoughts – those were private, and he liked to keep them to himself – that way it was harder to get mocked, or challenged – and it was a lot damn harder for his father to see him as the next alpha of the clan.

  Max didn’t want that. As firstborn, it was his right to challenge for alpha when the day came that his father was no longer the head of their clan, but he didn’t want the responsibility of taking on everyone’s problems, because he wasn’t a problem solver, and he didn’t want anyone to rely on him to get things done, because he saw himself more as a heavy lifter than a leader.

  To be the alpha you needed to lead. He was happier following orders, and sure, things didn’t always go well when he was left in charge – like the over-ordering at the store – he just didn’t have that attention to detail until it came to working with his hands and then that detail shone through.

  But he did want a family of his own. There was no doubt in his mind about that. He’d been living alone in his cabin for a few years now, and he missed the squabbling of his siblings, but he sure did like that he got to leave that chatter behind when he wanted.

  Then there was his bear – he’d spent years learning to control the beast, but right now he didn’t feel particularly in control. The bear was clawing to be set free, to get to their mate and know that she was theirs, but there was also the fact that he’d never truly trusted that he could keep that beast from doing something stupid, keep total control.

  There was no way in hell that he was going to put his bear in a position of power inside his clan if he couldn’t trust his bear not to abuse it – to let it go to his head. The last time his younger brother, Lucas, had challenged his bear, he’d lost the edge of control, and he’d never let that happen again.

  No, he was better off being the muscle for the clan and do what was expected and work in the family businesses, and he’d let his brother work to get their father’s approval to become alpha. He didn’t want it or need it, in fact, sometimes he messed up on purpose so that his father’s expectations were lowered.

  But the one thing he did need was his mate.

  The only thing he needed to work out now, was how to get his mate’s approval and how he could show her that he was the worthy life partner that she could trust to take care of her and any cubs that might come along.

  Max figured that was easier said than done – considering she was a witch and not a bear shifter – and he’d already tried the caveman style approach of throwing her over his shoulder and carrying her off to his truck – which had worked out so damn well for his balls.

  How did you go about wooing a ball-breaking witch?

  Carefully.

  ~

  With a box in her hands, Kaylee strolled by the window in the living room and flicked a casual look outside. With yesterday’s full moon still bright in the sky, she stopped in her tracks and did a double-take as Luna’s light caught the chrome of the truck and bounced it back at her.

  “Oh poop!” she bit out, desperate to pull out the earphones in her ears that were pumping out tunes and had made her oblivious to the sound of the truck’s arrival.

  In her haste, she stepped back and then forward looking for somewhere to put the box in the cluttered mess of stuff that had been unceremoniously dumped out of the car.

  Then Kaylee rolled her eyes and groaned at her stupidity before just allowing it to drop at her feet. She reached up and yanked the earphones free, but it wasn’t like she needed to hear the truck arrive, it was already sitting there like a squatting toad.

  Kaylee shot a sideways look at the front door and listened hard over the faint rushing in her ears that could have been from having the music too loud, or might have been the sudden spike in her blood pressure from her unwanted visitor.

  The fact that she was out in the countryside meant that a lot of people owned pickup trucks – it was like an unwritten law – and yet, nobody had visited the little cabin in the middle of nowhere since she’d arrived.

  Kaylee had to wonder what the odds were that some neighbour she’d never met had suddenly decided to pay her a late visit – or, the probable solution was that the bear shifter had found out where she was staying.

  One thing she didn’t like was coincidences. In fact, she didn’t much believe in them, and this was a coincidence too far.

  Another glint of moonlight caught her eye, and she snapped her attention back to the window and the truck outside. The driver’s door was pushed open, and she felt a wave of panic rise within her.

  “Poop!” she bit out again, doing her best impression of a cat burglar as she crept towards the window in a half-squat. “Double poop,” she hissed as she ducked as low as she could and peered out through the thick net curtains to see the guy looking around him like he was surveying the area for traps.

  Then she cursed herself for not laying any magical traps. Even he expected there to be traps!

  How stupid was that? A female in the middle of nowhere and she hadn’t thought to protect herself from unwanted shifters and a possible mate paying a call?

  Why had she suddenly felt so safe in her surroundings when there wasn’t anyone close enough to her home to hear her scream should the worst happen?

  Kaylee knew one thing, being a witch meant that it was never too late to correct her mistakes – until it was, but she didn’t think that this was one of those times.

  He was a bear shifter and knew about magic, and she was a witch who possessed magic – that meant she could still let fly without fear of being discovered because he already knew what she was.

  Nope, not too late at all.

  She thought she’d made her feelings pretty clear when she’d kneed him in the balls and took off – she wasn’t in the market for a mate. Could she help it if he
couldn’t get that through his thick skull?

  In her mind, she was perfectly entitled to do what she thought was necessary, and what she thought was necessary was – well, she didn’t know what it was – just that she could do it if she wanted.

  When he started towards the cabin, she ducked, cursed, and looked around for somewhere to hide. Then she mentally hit herself upside the head and sighed.

  Why should she hide?

  Attack was the best form of defence, and she was going to use it.

  By the time she’d finished with him, he wasn’t going to want to ever step foot on her land again. Not that it was her land, she argued and then cursed again for getting sidetracked.

  The best way to deal with a big, bad bully was to cut them down to size and get her retaliation in before he got a foot in the door.

  Then she snapped a look at the front door.

  Dang it, she was actually going to have to go to the front door and challenge him.

  But was challenging a bear shifter the right thing to do? Didn’t they say don’t poke the bear?

  Well, a kick in the balls was probably counted as poking the bear, so in theory, she’d already done it. What was one more time?

  Ugh! She hated her indecision – and she hated that she was going to have to draw the shifter a picture to get her point across.

  Kaylee had promised herself that the craziness in her life would stop – that she would find some small town to settle in, and have a normal-ish life, become a hermit who only used her magic for good and not to cause trouble – but, she wasn’t the one bringing trouble to her door.

  Trouble. It just showed that she couldn’t run away from her troubles because she’d only run into new ones.

  One thing she did know was that life was too short to hide behind your net curtains looking out on the world outside your window. She was going to have to deal with Mr Big, Sexy, Mountain-Man once and for all, and to do that – she might just need to get her crazy on.