A Shifter Under the Christmas Tree

by M. L. Briers

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ~

  Kaylee yanked the front door open while Max was still halfway up the path and he took one look at her stance and knew this wasn’t going to be the easiest thing in life he’d ever done. But no matter what she threw at him, it was still going to be worth it in the end – or that’s what he was telling himself as he stalked right up the little porch steps and stood in front of her.

  “You blindsided me,” Max said, folding his big muscled arms over his impossibly broad chest and making his biceps round out even further.

  Kaylee tried to ignore the manly goodness of the package standing on her doorstep; she had bigger fish to fry – although, if she ever ran into a fish his size she was definitely going in the other direction.

  She narrowed her eyes, tilted her chin down and stared up at him from beneath her long lashes. “That’s what you came here to say? Is your male pride stinging right along with your balls?” she asked, and folded her arms, mirroring his stance.

  Kaylee was magic ready and not afraid to use it if she needed to. But, she’d prefer it if he just went away of his own accord. Why she could kick him in the pride all over again, she’d rather not break his spirit.

  “No,” Max said, and then said no more.

  Kaylee waited for a few seconds to see if he was going to add to that riveting denial, but when he didn’t, she just jumped right in. “Well, okay, interesting visit,” she mocked him and went to take a step back so she could close the door.

  The truth was, she was nervous, and she wanted him gone.

  “We need to talk,” Max rushed out. He didn’t know if he could, words weren’t his thing, but he didn’t want her to close the door either.

  “We just did…”

  “More, we need to talk about…”

  “Can I get cake?” Jackson asked, and Kaylee felt the blood leave her head and rush down to her feet.

  Damn. That was the last thing she needed.

  The last time she’d looked in on Jackson, he was laying on his bed, headphones on, playing a game on his handheld system that was never far from his itchy little fingers. Now the seven-year-old was by her side and dropping her in a deep pile of poop right up to her neck, but then, wasn’t that what kids were for?

  Or was he? The look on Max’s face said he sure hadn’t been expecting a child, and he was thrown to the point where if his mouth opened any wider she could have tossed a ball in it like one of those fairground games. This could be good for her.

  “Sure, kitchen counter,” Kaylee said, dismissing the boy to go do his own thing before kicking herself on an afterthought. “Milk, get a milk to go with the unhealthy treat.” Damn, but she needed to stay on top of that stuff for the future.

  Jackson turned back and stared up at Max with curious eyes. “Who’s he?” he asked, in that judgemental, dismissive tone that kids had that made you feel about two feet tall in front of strangers, but when Max twisted his head on his neck and narrowed his eyes on the boy, she kind of liked that tone.

  Score another point for their team.

  “Nobody,” Kaylee said, adding another point to the tally, and shooed him away.

  Max’s gaze snapped back to her, and his narrowed eyes took her in. In return, she stared right back. “Nobody?” he asked, making sure to keep the growl that was desperate to rumble through his chest at bay.

  “Nobody he needs to know,” she said, challenging him with a hard glare. “We’ll be gone soon.”

  Max wasn’t sure what the hell was going on. Fate had sent his mate to his town and into his life, but was she already married? Just to rub salt in the wounds, she also had a child.

  He was too late.

  “That’s not exactly…”

  “I have my family to take care of, you can leave now,” Kaylee said, and for one long moment, he looked as if his bear was going to explode right out of him and she was going to be faced with more than she bargained for.

  Max didn’t know whether he was coming or going, but she’d made it clear for him. She had a family, and he was surplus to requirements.

  Damn, he was too late. She’d settled for someone who wasn’t her true love.

  It wasn’t as if he could just kill her husband and they could be a happy ready-made family for him to walk right into – life didn’t happen that way, and he was sure that even if she wasn’t miffed at him for the murder – the boy would be devastated at the loss of his father.

  “Yeah,” Max said, and hesitated a moment longer, tempted to go right in the house and beat the man to death, before he came to his senses and walked away without a backward glance.

  His mate wasn’t his to have.

  Max’s bear moaned a sorrowful tune within him as he climbed into the truck and got the hell out of there as fast as he could before he changed his mind about murder.

  Maybe he’d get lucky and the guy would die on his own, and soon, but what were the odds of that?

  ~

  “Do you think mom will call tonight?” Jackson asked when Kaylee walked into the kitchen and found the boy standing there with a slice of cake the size of a doorstop that she could only have eaten when Auntie Flo came a calling, and a half glass of milk with the rest of it splashed over the countertop, but it was the sad look in his eyes that tugged at her heartstrings.

  Kaylee could have killed her sister for leaving the boy once more without even a goodbye. It had been a regular occurrence throughout his life since about four weeks after he was born, and Kaylee had been there for him every step of the way. “I don’t know,” she answered truthfully.

  Hell, she’d sent enough text messages to her sister over the last few weeks to tell her what was going on, would a damn text back kill her?

  “Is she going to be able to find us all the way out here?”

  “If she can, she will, but…”

  “Work,” he said and looked downcast.

  “Yeah,” Kaylee lied. “Work.”

  “I’m gonna go play in my room,” he said, picking up the plate in one hand and the glass in the other.

  “You wanna stay up a little later tonight and watch a movie with me in front of the big bad open fire?” Then she mentally told herself off for overcompensating with him for her guilt, especially when it wasn’t her guilt to own.

  Jackson brightened a little. “Okay,” he said and shrugged like he’d been half-expecting it.

  Yep, she really needed to stop overcompensating and playing the sucker to his little Oliver Twist.

  ~

  Max was a little dazed and confused. He’d thought long and hard about driving away from her cabin, and his beast hadn’t wanted to leave, but what was the point in staying around?

  She was so close and yet out of reach. He couldn’t have his mate no matter what he did – except kill her husband which didn’t sound like such a bad thing, and yet, that wouldn’t bring her into his life, it would only drive her further away.

  Luckily for him, he wasn’t driving the old back roads the way he would normally have done, pedal to the metal like a demon was on his tail. He was too busy thinking it all through – or rather, mulling over how bad the rest of his life had just become without the prospect of a mate and cubs in it to go fast. So when something jumped out in front of him, he stood a better chance of not killing it outright.

  Max cursed as he hit the brakes, pulled the steering wheel to the right, and kissed his backside goodbye at the thought of the steep drop off the side of the mountain.

  Somehow he managed to miss the thing in the road and keep the truck from going over the edge, although, he had a feeling it was within spitting distance of doing just that.

  “Son of a…” he growled and tossed open the driver’s door, eager to kill whatever he’d just missed.

  His feet hit the dirt as he jumped out into the dead of night with a hard growl and the need of both man and beast to kill with his bare hands whatever had crossed his path.

  “You’re lucky my mother has been dead for f
ive hundred and sixty-three years, or I might have taken that comment personally,” Cameron said turning on his heels to face him. The vampire was still standing in the middle of the dirt track, and Max wished his reflexes hadn’t just kick in and he’d kept going – maybe even have sped up a little.

  “Vampire…” Max growled, part-recognition, part-warning for what he wanted to do next.

  Max’s bear was ready, willing and able to take the man down; it was just a matter of if Max was able to control his beast, and if he wanted to.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ~

  “It’s always vampire when someone is angry – which, of course, shows their true inner feelings…”

  “What the hell are you doing jumping out in the middle of the damn road like that?” Max demanded as he stalked towards him.

  “I’ve found it’s the best way to get someone to stop…”

  “I’m stopped,” Max growled.

  It was the last conversation with the last person that he wanted to be having right then, but years of knowing the vampire said that if he didn’t at least find out what the hell the man wanted then, he’d stick like gum on his shoe until he had.

  “So, tell me about the witch,” Cameron said, eyeing his friend for signs that the shifter was going to try to rip off his head and hand it back to him.

  “The wi…?” Max bit down on his anger. “She’s none of your damn business.”

  Cameron took a long moment to mull that one over, more for show than because he needed the time. “She’s everyone’s business…”

  “Not anymore,” Max growled as he turned away. A lot of good it did him because the vampire was in front of him a moment later.

  “Trouble in paradise?”

  “No…”

  “Love’s young dream having teething problems?” Cameron knew the man, and he knew when he’d answered too fast.

  “Drop it,” Max growled.

  Cameron hooked a thumb over his shoulder at Max’s truck. “Drop it?” he asked, and it took a couple of seconds for Max to figure out what he was talking about.

  “Not if you value your life,” Max warned him.

  “But, I’m already dead,” Cameron said with glee.

  While he did want to know what was happening between Max and the witch, he also knew that getting the shifter to hand him that information was like pulling fangs, and he’d never pass up the chance to rile a shifter – it was an unwritten rule.

  “There’s dead, and then there’s dead.”

  “One little push,” Cameron warned him. “And down she goes…”

  “You’re head will be following it shortly after,” Max growled, and that thought made him feel a little better.

  He had a need to rip someone’s head off, and it damn well couldn’t be his mate’s or her husband, but he could kill the vampire, and hardly anyone would bat an eyelid.

  “A husband?” Cameron announced and noted the way that Max practically jumped on the spot with anger flashing in his eyes and disbelief written all over his face.

  “You read my damn mind?”

  “Well, you weren’t going to offer it up,” Cameron shot back with a shrug.

  “That your idea of an apology…?”

  “God, no. Never apologise when you can just kill someone instead,” he said and started walking in the direction that Max had just come.

  “Where the hell are you going?” Max asked, suspicious because the vampire lived in the other direction.

  “To check out the husband.”

  “The hell you are.” Max started after him.

  “You’re happy to have a Warlock…”

  “Warlock?”

  “Wizard?”

  “Wizard?”

  “Well, I don’t know, and that’s why I’m going to check him out,” he tossed back. “A witch is bad enough and should be run out of town, but a…”

  “Nobody is running anybody out of town,” Max growled.

  His mate might not be his, but he wasn’t about to stand by and let the vampire or anyone else run her and her family out of town. His bear approved of that decision.

  After all, he might not have been able to kill the husband, but if the man dropped dead of some unfortunate, but fortunate for him, disease – then he wanted her to be nearby.

  “We’ll see about…”

  With a roar of anger, Max took a run at his friend, and with a full-body tackle; he took them both over the edge of the road and down the side of the mountain.

  ~

  Max sat bloody, bruised, and brooding on the jagged rock and eyed the vampire with disdain. He’d like nothing better than to rip the man’s arms off and beat him with them.

  They’d gone off the side of the mountain and rolled down over the jagged rocks and the uneven ground until Max was so damn dizzy he didn’t know which way was up, and when they’d finally stopped descending, Max threw the first punch of many.

  “Well, if I’d known you felt that strongly about it, pouty face,” Cameron grumbled, and Max offered him the kind of dark glare that held the possibility of violence behind it.

  “Well, how the hell did you think I’d feel about you trying to run my mate out of town?” Max growled.

  “A mate you can’t have?” Cameron said and took a long moment to think about it while listening to the deep rumble of the shifter’s growl. “As I can hear, it’s a touchy subject, grumble-weed, then I’d say out of sight out of mind would probably be a blessing rather than a curse.”

  “Well, you thought wrong,” Max said, pushing up and regretting trying to stand on his busted leg before it was fully healed. He cursed and dropped back down.

  “She is a witch,” Cameron argued, a little half-heartedly.

  “I still don’t see your point,” Max grumbled.

  “She’s a witch!” he shouted, and they both grimaced together as the sensitivity of their hearing protested.

  “She’s a mate; which means she’s protected by the clan…”

  “Going to run to daddy?” Cameron mocked him.

  “I don’t need my father…”

  “Your brother?”

  “No…”

  “Sister?” he mocked while the shifter growled. “Oh, please, not your mother.”

  “Just…” Max pressed his lips together and pushed up. He couldn’t sit there a moment longer, no matter how much pain walking caused him.

  Pain was better than listening to Cameron for one more minute. If he wasn’t careful, then his beast would burst out of him and eat the damn vampire, and he’d deserve every bite.

  “Ok, fine,” Cameron called after him. “Tap into my guilt gene, why don’t ya?” He sighed.

  “Go to hell,” Max tossed back over his shoulder.

  “Been there, didn’t like it, got sent back as a vampire,” Cameron said, bounding up beside him. “I’ll tell you what, to make amends – I’ll kill her husband.”

  Max pulled his lips back and snarled as he felt his beast rise within him. The next moment his bear burst free and Cameron wasn’t grinning anymore.

  “Time to go,” he said and shot off into the darkness with the bear on his trail.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ~

  Mark just followed his nose. He walked into the kitchen and sniffed the air with glee. “Bacon and cookies for breakfast,” he said with a big beaming grin. “I must have been a good boy last night.”

  Tanya offered him a big beaming grin as she turned from the oven with a tray full of fresh cookies in one mitted hand and a spatula in the other. “Oh, you were,” she said, placing the tray down on the counter and shucking off the mitt beside them.

  Mark liked that look on her. It was teasing and wicked, and it made her eyes sparkle with mischief. He offered her a little growl as he reached out for a cookie.

  Tanya’s hand shot out, and she slapped his hand away. “But not that good. These cookies aren’t for you.”

  “Huh?” he grumbled and pulled a face. “I paid for the ingredients, er
go, my cookies.”

  “Nope,” she said and pointed a finger in warning at him when he reached for one again.

  “Old Mrs Clegg sick again, no, wait – that’s a syrup sponge thing,” he said frowning. “Church having a bake sale?”

  “Nope,” Tanya said, expertly scooping them from the tray with the spatula and placing them on the wire rack to cool.

  Mark noted the expression on her face. After twenty-six years he got to know her looks pretty well, and when she pouted just a little, she was up to no good. “The witch,” he said like it was a betrayal.

  “Well,” Tanya started.

  “No. Let Max do his own wooing,” he grumbled, letting his nose led him to the table and the bacon that beckoned him on.

  “I am.”

  “Without you getting involved,” he said, pulling out the chair at the head of the table and sitting on it like he’d just gotten heavier.

  “I will,” Tanya protested, frowning as she finished with the cookies and joined him at the table.

  “And the cookies are for…?” He raised his eyebrows and waited.

  Tanya grimaced. “A hello…”

  “No,” he grumbled, and when he shook his head, she could see his big old bear in him.

  “It’s just cookies,” she hissed.

  “And cookies lead to meddling, and meddling leads to … other stuff and Max doesn’t need his mother wooing his mate for him.”

  “I’m not wooing,” she protested, lifting the bowl of cooked fluffy eggs and scooping a heaped pile onto his plate. “I’m being a mother.”

  “Max doesn’t need his mother now, he needs his mate, and he needs to woo her himself,” Mike said. “We both know he could probably use the help, but, damn it, that boy…”

  “Thought you said he was a man?”

  “That too,” Mark growled. “Needs to stand on his own four paws…”

  “Two feet,” she added.