by Briers, M L
It was then that she realised that his eyes had turned from ebony to a jade green, with the brightest amber flecks she had ever seen, and she was mesmerised for what felt like the longest moment of her life.
“Then let me help you with that.” He let go of her wrists and circled his arms around her body, one at her waist and one under her knees, as he pushed himself to a standing position with her in his arms.
The rush of excitement went through her body. It had nothing to do with being that high off the ground and more to do with his strength, his closeness. When he slowly let her legs down, he turned her body against his, providing her with the stability she needed right at that moment in time.
Much to her dismay she found her body pressed against his of its own volition, and when she palmed his chest with her hands, the urge to run her fingertips over his muscles was stronger within her than it had been before, and she wondered at it.
She found the floor beneath her feet and knew that she should have stepped away from him then. As far away from him as possible, but she just wanted one minute more within his strong arms. How wrong was that?
“I never meant to scare you into fainting little Fae. You don’t have to fear me.” His deep sultry tone did something to her womanhood that it shouldn’t be doing, and she mentally shook herself free of him, even though she had made no effort to move.
Shannon tested her shields and found resistance. Pushing against that resistance with all of her will until it slapped back at her like an elastic band, and she yelped with the sudden sting of her magic caving in on itself again.
“What’s wrong?” When his hand touched against her cheek she felt the electricity flow across her body in a heady wave and gasped at his touch.
“It’s you. I can’t keep my shields in place. It’s too painful…” She shook her head, trying to clear the haze that kept descending over her mind every time he touched her, every time she tried to reengage her shields.
“Then don’t.”
Easy for him to say, not knowing what kind of effect his nearness was having on her body and her senses. Or maybe he did, maybe he was doing this, projecting himself through her shields somehow…?
“What are you?” She pushed her palms against his chest in an effort to break away from him, but she got exactly nowhere. He stood like stone in front of her. His arms were a steel cage wrapped around her body and she didn’t like being this helpless without her magic.
“Lycan.”
“Part Fae?” She accused and he slowly shook his head back at her, his eyes locked with hers, and she saw the amusement within them. Just as she saw the desire flash through him when she squirmed and stupidly managed to press herself against his arousal. Her eyes widened with the shock that realisation could bring.
“Oh no.” She breathed out.
“Oh yes, little Fae.” He growled down at her, his tone had turned decided husky, and she swallowed hard.
I can’t be his mate. I can’t be his mate. I can’t be his mate… Oh damn it to hell, I’m his mate.
CHAPTER TWO
This was not how life was supposed to go. It was a new start for her, in a new place. She’d not been here five minutes and now she was someone’s mate. An Alpha to boot. This Alpha, Mr-Stroppy-Britches. No bloody way was this happening.
Shannon shoved herself away from him with every ounce of strength she could muster and he let her go. She took a second out of her life to flick her eyes up to his and regretted it instantly.
The look he was giving her was akin to finding the biggest, brightest, best gift wrapped present under the Christmas tree, and then finding that it had your name on the tag. Did he not know that those presents were usually all fluff and extra padding and not what you really wanted at all?
Well he would feel totally let down to find her on his Christmas list this year, because she was no-one’s mate, un-mateable, non-mate-material.
Hell, she could no more be an Alpha’s mate than she could build a marshmallow tower to the sky, and she knew she would never be able to do that because she’d eat them all long before she got a foot off the floor.
“You need to leave.” She was practically growling herself now. God, this was insane.
“Oh no sweetheart, I think we both know that I’m right where I need to be.” She snatched another look at him again and groaned inwardly and outwardly.
The cocksure look he had on his face and the gleam in his eye was enough to send her heart pounding within her ears. Shannon had that itchy feeling within her that told her that this was not going to end well for one of them, or maybe even both.
“Fine. You stay and tend the shop and I’ll leave.” She spun on her heels and went to snatch up her bag from the long work bench. Her fingers just scrapping the leather surface when his fingers wrapped around her wrist and he was spinning her back towards him.
“”You can’t run away from the inevitable…” He grinned down at her. Those green eyes were laughing. Well they wouldn’t be if he got to know her better that was for sure. Where men were concerned she was a prickly pear, not to be messed with and that was the way she intended to keep it.
“I can give it a damned good try…” She tried to yank her arm free from his touch and all she managed to do was give him a rather large handshake of sorts.
“Do you not fancy me as a mate little Fae?” Now he was just being annoying. Like a gnat at a barbecue, and boy did she want to swat him with something that would leave an impact, the trouble was she didn’t have anything remotely resembling a tree trunk to hand.
“I do not fancy you full stop.” She yanked again and he ended her suffering by tugging on her arm until she was back against his chest. Her palms were itchy to touch him under that top instead of over it, and she gritted her teeth.
“I can hear the thump of your heart, you can’t lie to me.” He was just playing with her, and she was getting more annoyed by the second.
“If I wanted a dog I would go to the pound and get one…” Shannon twisted and turned against the arms that were locked around her waist, and what annoyed her more than anything, was that he didn’t even have to break a sweat to keep her in place.
“Ooh, the kitty has claws…” She heard the amusement in his words and something clicked within her. The last straw snapping perhaps?
“Take your paws off me before I do something that we will both regret.” The venom in her voice told him that he had pushed her far enough. He released her from his arms and watched her practically throw herself away from him.
He noted the way her eyes flared with anger and indecision, and for one long moment he wondered if she was going to get even by using her magic on him.
But then her eyes turned to daggers and he knew that his fun at her expense was over for now. But he wasn’t ready to let this drop. Turning on his heels he went back to sit in the overstuffed excuse for an armchair, where he’d been holding her not long before, and waited patiently for her to compose herself.
“Out.” When she lifted an arm and pointed towards the door he didn’t move a muscle. He wasn’t entirely stupid, he kept his eyes on her to see what she would do.
Lucas had agreed to her having this shop. Even if it was basically akin to an advertisement to what she was. Because he was assured that she was the best at what she did, and his pack deserved the best.
There were times when even a Lycan could not heal themselves, and she had been thought highly of by her last pack.
He knew the magic ran strong within her, and he wasn’t about to risk a display of her power now. Not when he had first terrorised her and then teased her beyond all rationality. It had seemed fitting somehow, after the incident with the Wolf’s Bane.
“Is my volume turned down?” She was as sarcastic as she was feisty, and he liked that about her, although, after the first thirty years or so it might wear a little thin.
Shannon regarded him from as far away as she could get without showing that she was backing down. A few feet away wou
ldn’t give her much protection against him should he choose to close the distance between them. But it might just allow her to put her shields…
Damn, those collapsible shields.
What was she supposed to do without them? Since she was a child she had been well practiced in using her shields for all manner of protection and security, and even a little deception… and what her mother didn’t know could never come back to haunt her, she told herself, as she considered her options.
Option one… why was he just sitting there watching her...? Wait, option one… was he going to say something…? Damn it, Option bloody one… What was he…? Oh for the love of… Maybe she could just drop a chimney on him? Too bad she didn’t have one of those handy…
“Are you going to leave…?” He didn’t move, he didn’t say anything. He was a statue that she was playing twenty questions with. “Ever?” She emphasized the word as best she could. Chin down, spoken nice and slowly so even he could understand, and yet… Nothing.
Shannon threw up her arms in total frustration and started to walk towards the curtain, shaking her head and mumbling words her grandmother would surely blush at, to herself.
“I was waiting for you to calm down.” His deep tone called to her and she stopped in place and bit down on her lower lip.
Damn it, he was her mate. Of all the…
“I was perfectly calm…” She shot over her shoulder without turning to face him. She really didn’t need to see the sexy hunk- She mentally slapped herself, she really didn’t need to see the Lycan pest sitting there looking back at her with those eyes… mental slap number two.
Ignore the eyes… Ignore the tousled black hair that looked like he’d just stepped out of bed… ooh bed… Ignore the thought of bed. Ignore the dark stubble that framed those kissable lips…Ouch, kissable? Really? And ignore the little dimple in his chin that she’d thought, only for a split second mind, might feel kind of nice to run her tongue over.
Shannon felt the need to plant her face in her hands and weep tears of irony that would surely burn her cheeks. She didn’t want a man in her life. She wanted to be an old maid. She liked her own company, it suited her needs, and now here she was the mate for a man that valued the pack mentality.
She was not a joiner and never had been. If she was going to join something it would have been a circle. They had chased her long and hard to try to persuade her, but to no avail. She was a solitary. Happiest in her own counsel.
“You were not calm…”
“I was…” She bit off the need to debate it with him. She had neither the time nor the patience right now for anything other than a goodbye, farewell, don’t come back.
Lucas bit down on the grin that threatened his lips. She was certainly easily riled, that was for sure. But then she had just found out she was the mate of a Lycan Alpha. Not always the best news for a Fae.
Shannon rolled her eyes and then her neck towards the ceiling. Dragging in every last bit of patience that she could muster, she turned with a determined nod of her head and greeted his green eyes with a small smile of politeness.
“Could you leave now?” It was a reasonable request, she thought. Presented in a reasonable way, so she got a little antsy when he didn’t make a movement.
“I could, but I’m not going to… just yet.” When he placed his hands on the worn patched of the arms of her chair, the same place where she liked to rub the palms of her hands while thinking, it felt like an intrusion of her space.
Stupid really, considering he was the larger than life intrusion on her whole space.
“Fine. What do you want?”
The look that he gave her had her face flushing and her toes curling within her pointy toed heels. And when those green eyes made a slow and detailed appraisal of her body, starting at her pointy toed heels and working their way right up to meet her eyes, she felt like her temperature had just shot up to boiling point.
Stupid damn question! Try again.
“You are not my type…”
“Fate says differently…”
“Fate can go take a run and jump.” Her voice hitched a couple of octaves and she winced at her loss of control. Shannon really wanted to stomp her foot, and there was a particular Lycan she would liked to have stomped it on sitting in her favourite easy chair.
“I’m just letting you come to terms with your fate…” He offered on a small nod of empathy. Not that he was very empathic right now. Not when she was a little fireball of anxiety and he wanted to both sooth her and claim her at the same time.
“That’s big of you. Why don’t you do it from outside?” The acidity in her voice made sure that he couldn’t contain the next grin that shot his lips wide and made his eyes shine, as she stared back at him with disdain.
This was not her fate, her destiny. She wouldn’t allow it to be. There had to be some kind of magic that would release unwilling mates from the entangled bond of a life of remorse, and could maybe allow him to find another to take her place.
Grasping at bloody straws now. She told herself, and watched as he shifted his position in her chair to get more comfortable.
“I’m good here.”
If there was a moment in her life when she wished she could take it back, a decision that led her to a moment in time, it was now. The decision to choose this place, this shop, this life, this path that had led her right to his door, was one she would surely regret for the rest of her life.
She would never make him happy, and he would never be able to give her what she wanted. Not him. A man was a burden to be endured in her world. She had little time for anything that didn’t involve magic and chocolate, because there was always time for chocolate.
“I don’t even know your name and you…”
“Lucas.” He interrupted her chain of thought and she lost it completely for a long moment.
Lucas. Hmm? It suited him… although right now Diablo would have been her first choice.
“Please leave.”
“What would be the point in that? You know I would just come back, over and again…”
“Like my Aunty Flo, who’s also an unwanted visitor…” She mumbled to herself as she turned on her heels and walked away from him.
Shannon had decided not to play his game anymore. If he wanted to sit in her armchair, so be it. She had stock to put out on the shelves. Let him sit there and twiddle his thumbs, she would carry on with her day…
“So, why did you give Corrine the Wolf’s Bane?”
Lost in thought, his presence just behind her took her completely by surprise and her heart jumped within her chest, as she closed her eyes for a long moment and counted to ten.
“Wolf’s Bane isn’t just for getting rid of unwanted Lycans. I trusted that she wanted it for what she said she needed it for.”
She kept her back firmly to him as she reached for the first box that she came to and ran her fingernail over the tape that sealed it.
When the tape gave way, the rough edge of the box sliced into her fingertip and she drew it back on a whispered curse. Bringing the bloodied finger to her mouth, she was about to close her lips around the wound when his fingers snagged her wrist and he held her hand firmly in place.
Shannon had to drag her eyes up his chest to look him in the eye. Her mind seemed to catalogue each hard ridge of his muscles on the way up. When she finally got to his eyes, they weren’t green anymore. They were turning darker by the second, as he looked down at her with a desire that spoke volumes to her womanhood. It wasn’t just her body he wanted it was her blood as well.
“Let me take care of that for you.” His husky tones held the rumble of a growl of need, and she balked at the very idea.
“Let you taste my blood?”
“Yes.”
“Pass.” She snapped back, trying to loosen his grip on her wrist, as the tip of his tongue flicked out and stroked over his lower lip. He could scent her blood, potent enough being Fae. But the fact that she was his mate made it even more of
a temptation for his needs.
“It will heal faster…” He started to offer her a rational explanation and she scoffed up at him.
“And you’ll have tasted my blood…”
“I’m going to taste it anyway Shannon…”
When she heard those deep husky tones roll over her name, she could have begged for mercy from any and all gods that might just have been listening. She opened her mouth to tell him to bug off and all she got was a slow inhale of breath.
Lucas in his Lycan wisdom took that as a sign to continue and he brought his mouth down towards the finger he had locked in place. She found that she couldn’t take her eyes off of his lips as they locked around her finger and caused a firestorm of sensation to ignite within her body.
There was the much expected jolt to her womb, although, jolt wouldn’t have been the way she choose to describe it, thunderbolt, lightening strike, a toe curling, mind numbing experience of pure erotic pleasure that only increased when she felt the gentle pull of suction against her digit that really could have been pulling against another, more personal part of her body.
To say she squeezed her thighs together was an understatement. Slam dunked the mental chastity belt and swallowed the key, followed by a pound of cheese, so as not to see that sucker for a week or two, would have been a more accurate description.
When his expression change to one of sheer ecstasy, she nearly threw herself down on the floor and begged for him to take her, just so she could look at that expression for another hour or so. She never knew that just a look could have your heart dancing an Irish Jig and your brain taking a vacation, whereabouts unknown.
The last arrow hit its target when he released her finger from his lips only for his tongue to circle and sooth and bring new life to the meaning of ‘going to hell in a hand basket.’
Holy Crap! The calling, the mating, and the bonding… I’m on board the love boat and we’re about to hit a reef… Lifejacket… I need a lifejacket…
Lucas kept his eyes on hers the whole time. Even when she watched what he was doing to her finger, and boy did she watch, he felt it through every part of his body and he grew hard from her touch, harder from the taste of her blood, and rock hard from the emotions and expression playing over her face.
