Heidi: Nano Wolves 3

by Donna McDonald

  Again. Speechless.

  “When are Council elections?” It was time to vote some of those turd knockers out.

  “Essie.” Angela rolled her eyes and took another swig. “There are no elections. They’re appointed and serve for life.”

  “I knew that,” I mumbled. Skipping Were History class was coming back to bite me in the butt.

  “I’ll go.” There was no way I couldn’t. Even though my knowledge of the hierarchy of my race was fuzzy, my skills were top notch and trouble seemed to find me. In any other job that would suck, but in mine, it was an asset.

  “Good. You’ll be working with the local Pack alpha. He’s also the sheriff there. Name’s Hank Wilson. You know him?”

  “Yep.” Biblically. I knew the son of a bitch biblically.

  “You’re gonna bang him.”

  “I am not gonna bang him.”

  “You are so gonna bang him.”

  “Dwayne, if I hear you say that I’m gonna bang him one more time, I will not let you borrow my black Mary Jane pumps. Ever again.”

  Dwayne made the international “zip the lip and throw away the key” sign while silently mouthing that I was going to bang Hank.

  “I think you should bang him if he’s a hot as you said.” Dwayne made himself comfortable on my couch and turned on the TV.

  “When did I ever say he was hot?” I demanded as I took the remote out of his hands. I was not watching any more Dance Moms. “I never said he was hot.”

  “Paaaaleese,” Dwayne flicked his pale hand over his shoulder and rolled his eyes.

  “What was that?”

  “What was what?” he asked, confused.

  “That shoulder thing you just did.”

  “Oh, I was flicking my hair over my shoulder in a girlfriend move.”

  “Okay, don’t do that. It doesn’t work. You’re as bald as a cue ball.”

  “But it’s the new move,” he whined.

  Oh my god, Vampyres were such high maintenance. “According to who?” I yanked my suitcase out from under my bed and started throwing stuff in.

  “Kim Kardashian.”

  I refused to dignify that with so much as a look.

  “Fine,” he huffed. “But if you say one word about my skinny jeans I am so out of here.”

  I considered it, but I knew he was serious. As crazy as he drove me, I adored him. He was my only real friend in Chicago and I had no intention of losing him.

  “I know he’s hot,” Dwayne said. “Look at you—you’re so gorge it’s redonkulous. You’re all legs and boobs and hair and lips—you’re far too beautiful to be hung up on a goober.”

  “Are you calling me shallow?” I snapped as I ransacked my tiny apartment for clean clothes. Damn it, tomorrow was laundry day. I was going to have to pack dirty clothes.

  “So he’s ugly and puny and wears bikini panties?”

  “No! He’s hotter than Satan’s underpants and he wears boxer briefs,” I shouted. “You happy?”

  “He’s actually a nice guy.”

  “You’ve met Hank?” I was so confused I was this close to making fun of his skinny jeans just so he would leave.

  “Satan. He’s not as bad as everyone thinks.”

  How was it that everyone I came in contact with today stole my ability to speak? Thankfully, I was interrupted by a knock at my door.

  “You expecting someone?” Dwayne asked as he pilfered the remote back and found Dance Moms.

  “No.”

  I peeked through the peephole. Nobody came to my place except Dwayne and the occasional pizza delivery guy or Chinese food take out guy or Indian food take out guy. Wait. What the hell was my boss doing here?

  “Angela?”

  “You going to let me in?”

  “Depends.”

  “Open the damn door.”

  I did.

  Angela tromped into my shoebox and made herself at home. Her hair was truly spectacular. It looked like she might have even pulled out a clump on the left side. “You want to tell me why the sheriff and alpha of Hung Island, Georgia says he won’t work with you?”

  “Um…no?”

  “He said he had a hard time believing someone as flaky and irresponsible as you had become an agent for the Council and he wants someone else.” Angela narrowed her eyes at me and took the remote form Dwayne. “Spill it, Essie.”

  I figured the best way to handle this was to lie—hugely. However, gay Vampyre boyfriends had a way of interrupting and screwing up all your plans.

  “Well, you see…”

  “He’s her mate and he dipped his stick in several other…actually many other oil tanks. So she dumped his furry player ass, snuck away in the middle of the night and hadn’t really planned on ever going back there again.” Dwayne sucked in a huge breath, which was ridiculous because Vampyres didn’t breathe.

  It took everything I had not to scream and go all Wolfy. “Dwayne, clearly you want me to go medieval on your lily white ass because I can’t imagine why you would utter such bullshit to my boss.”

  “Doesn’t sound like bullshit to me,” Angela said as she channel surfed and landed happily on an old episode of Cagney and Lacey. “We might have a problem here.”

  “Are you replacing me?” Hank Wilson had screwed me over once when I was his. He was not going to do it again when I wasn’t.

  “Your call,” she said. Dwayne, who was an outstanding shoplifter, covertly took back the remote and flipped over to the Food Channel. Angela glanced up at the tube and gave Dwayne the evil eye.

  “I refuse to watch lesbians fight crime in the eighties. I’ll get hives,” he explained, tilted his head to the right and gave Angela a smile. He was so pretty it was silly—piercing blue eyes and body to die for. Even my boss had a hard time resisting his charm.

  “Fine,” she grumbled.

  “Excuse me,” I yelled. “This conversation is about me, not testosterone ridden women cops with bad hair, hives or food. It’s my life we’re talking about here—me, me, me!” My voice had risen to decibels meant to attract stray animals within a ten-mile radius, evidenced by the wincing and ear covering.

  “Essie, are you done?” Dwayne asked fearfully.

  “Possibly. What did you tell him?” I asked Angela.

  “I told him the Council has the last word in all matters. Always. And if he had a problem with it, he could take it up with the elders next month when they stay awake long enough to listen to the petitions of their people.”

  “Oh my god, that’s awesome,” I squealed. “What did he say?”

  “That if we send you down, he’ll give you bus money so you can hightail your sorry cowardly butt right back out of town.”

  Was she grinning at me, and was that little shit Dwayne jotting the conversation down in the notes section on his phone?

  “Let me tell you something,” I ground out between clenched teeth as I confiscated Dwayne’s phone and pocketed it. “I am going to Hung Island, Georgia tomorrow and I will kick his ass. I will find the killer first and then I will castrate the alpha of the Georgia Pack…with a dull butter knife.”

  Angela laughed and Dwayne jackknifed over on the couch in a visceral reaction to my plan. I stomped into my bathroom and slammed the door to make my point, then pressed my ear to the rickety wood to hear them talk behind my back.

  “I’ll bet you five hundred dollars she’s gonna bang him,” Dwayne told Angela.

  “I’ll bet you a thousand that you’re right,” she shot back.

  “You’re on.”

  Excerpt: Matchmaker Abduction

  Aliens In Kilts, Abduction 1

  Spoofy, Silly, Science Fiction Fun!

  More About The Aliens In Kilts Series

  As I’ve confessed before, Science Fiction Romance is my guilty author secret. I love reading it and I love writing it. There is nothing better for me than a hot romance happening in the middle of non-stop action and adventure somewhere in space or on a different planet. This is what happens to rom
ance authors who grew up watching Star Trek and Lost in Space.

  In the past year or two, I’ve gotten a lot of requests to write “alien abduction” romances, and I know what you wanted from me, but that’s just not what I ended up doing in these stories… LOL My warped sense of humor won out.

  Aliens In Kilts is spoofy, and silly, and yes, I’m making fun of alien abductions, as well as every other SciFi trope out there. Sorry Whovians, Trekkies, those who have the Force strong within them. My Irish hero and heroine have no idea about any of that. They are ground up technophobes from the 1950s who are trying as hard as they can to catch up.

  I can’t really fully explain the humor in these books, but if like movies like Galaxy Quest, Spaceballs, or more recently Guardians of the Galaxy, then you’re probably going to like this series. I’m writing more of them so I hope someone out there has a sense of humor like mine. I would love for this series to live long and prosper.

  Book Description

  True love is said to defy time, but can it survive space, aliens, and being abducted? Angus MacNamara and Erin O’Shea are about to find out.

  The big blue planet that most call Earth desperately needs matchmakers. There is only one small—okay, BIG—problem. No one wants the alien dating service job… No one. The original matchmakers are dead, and much worse, their DNA is no longer viable for cloning.

  Solution? Go back in time to some of Earth’s other—thankfully slower spinning—versions, and retrieve the alternates of the one couple in any universe who seems able to do the job.

  Far easier said than done though, especially when the alternates are anything but a loving couple, and both are none too pleased to be thrown into the future.

  What does oil and water create? Salad dressing or a real fecking mess of aliens, humans, and matchmaking fun!

  1

  Universe 6, May 15, 1958, on a hill outside Lisdoonvarna, Ireland…

  Angus MacNamara pulled the pistol from the holster on his kilt belt. He checked the chamber, made sure his shot was loaded, then looked down at the grave and glared.

  Love and hate had always been intertwined in his life. The nagging harpy he’d married over forty years ago had been his greatest pleasure and his darkest curse. Loving so hard made a man weak. There was no doubting that for him. But losing that love could destroy ya and often did.

  “Alright, woman. It’s been nine fecking years, but I finally kept my entire promise to yer dying soul. Yer children are married well, even the stubborn ones. Ya have two grandchildren remembering yer name already, five still on the tit, and a few more on the fecking way because our sons and daughter are as lusty as we were in creating them.”

  Angus huffed. “Wait… what’s that ya say? Yes, I can hear ya fussing, even from six foot under. ‘Why did it take so long, Angus? What have ya been doing all this time?’ Well, this isn’t the 1800s, you crazed old crone. I couldn’t make them hardheads you bore do what they didn’t want to. In fact, I had to fecking bribe most of their intendeds to take them on. Without yer guidance, the last four never got their edges rounded off as well as the first three.”

  Angus stomped his polished brogue on the mounded dirt. The tassels of his father’s clan flapped from the top of his pristine white stockings every time his foot landed. His kilt lifted with his actions, bringing a welcome breeze to cool everything under it. Wearing wool in the early summer was never a good idea for a man his size, but he’d wanted to look his best today. He’d wanted closure to come in style and for it to happen while he was wearing the plaid of his clan.

  “Pay attention to me, woman. Stop rolling over down there and laughing at my misery. Do ya think it’s been easy on me all these years without ya? Well, it hasn’t, ya cruel creature. I told ya not to die, but no… ya never did listen to me.”

  Wanting to make sure her spirit understood his frustration, Angus stomped on her grave again just for good fecking measure.

  Her feet made no sound as walked, but Erin muttered quiet oaths as she moved across the grass. “Goddess, what is the eegit up to now?” She swore even more fiercely when she got closer and saw how dressed up Angus was.

  Though a tall woman who dwarfed most men in height, Erin felt short next to the nearly two meters tall Angus MacNamara. That was especially true when he was looking every bit of his proper Irish self in his best Prince Charlie outfit. It irritated her to no end how the man’s long, sculpted legs seemed meant for wearing his stupid, fecking kilt that she’d have given anything to get under.

  “I know ya lost most of yer flipping mind years ago, but did ya have to call me out here to watch ya lose the rest, Angus? Goddess knows, I’d just as soon not be a part of yer descent into madness. Plus, I have to tell ya true—Mary MacNamara will come back and haunt ya good if ya keep stomping on her grave like that.”

  Angus jumped back from the grave and raised his pistol to point at the mounded dirt on the ground. Most of him was sure it wasn’t Mary speaking to him from beyond the veil. He wasn’t that many sheets in the wind… or at least he hoped he wasn’t.

  Just as he was wondering about the voice, a green-eyed glaring angel with shiny brown hair and enormous breasts appeared in his line of vision. Instead of a robe of white though, she was wearing some unfortunate man’s fecking pants as she stepped up to face him.

  Sweet God in Heaven. Had he shot himself already and forgotten about it in his dying state? That would just be his fecking luck.

  The angel glared at him over Mary’s grave until she held up her hands because the pistol now pointed at her. She wisely backed up a few steps which clued him in about what he was doing. One set of the angel’s fingers gripped a note which she shook at him furiously. If it was a page from the great Book Of Life, his angel was sure fecking mad about what was written on it.

  Lowering the pistol, Angus wavered on unsteady legs, wishing now he hadn’t downed so many pints of Guinness. He’d thought it’d be easier to shoot himself if he was drunk. It never occurred to him that both heaven and hell would gang up and send a foul-mouthed angel his way as a final torment. He honestly thought ya got to settle yer accounts with St. Peter after ya passed on, not before ya ended things.

  He looked down at the grave again and glared. “Ya could have fecking warned about the avenging angel coming for me, Mary. What good is being dead if ya can’t help those left behind? She looks mad as the devil ever could look and now I have to deal with her all by my fecking self. I’ll not be forgetting this betrayal, ya wicked harpy.”

  Erin didn’t know whether to be more worried for Angus’s sanity or for her life. Angus was a known horse’s arse when he was drinking, but he usually had the sense not to pack a fecking gun around while in such a condition.

  “Did ya call me out here to kill me, Angus? Is that what this shit is? I always knew ya were a competitive sort, but ya could at least try to force me to move first. Yer meddling has nearly ruined my business reputation in this town anyway. Fact is, I’ve been thinking about leaving Lisdoonvarna, if ya want the whole truth. No one believes me when I say ya have been buying off the suitors when I know fecking well it’s the only way ya could ever make a real match.”

  “Erin? Erin O’Shea? Feck—I thought ya were an avenging angel come to torment me.”

  Angus stumbled and had to plant his feet firm to stay standing. He put a hand on his head, but it just wouldn’t stop spinning. Worse, Erin’s complaining always got through even the finest of liquors.

  “Och… are ya daft, woman? Our relationship isn’t that twisted. I would never call ya to Mary’s graveside.”

  Erin reached out her hand and shook the paper in it. “Yer a drunken liar, Angus MacNamara. This is yer handwriting asking me to meet ya here, or I’m as dead in the head as yer Mary down there.”

  “Liar? I’m no fecking liar,” Angus barked.

  He shoved the loaded gun back in its holster, fuming because a man couldn’t even kill himself in peace in this town. Stepping across Mary’s grave to get to the w
oman who’d both aided and hindered him in his matchmaking efforts, he yanked the paper from her steady fingers.

  Seeing them tremble a bit had him remembering them trembling on him that one night his weakness had decided to get the better of him. It had been so long since he’d had a woman, and the ale had gone to his head then too, and… well… feck it all. A living man had needs, didn’t he? It had only been the one time, but Erin O’Shea made it seem like he’d ruined her for forever.

  He looked at his writing on the note, bemused and befuddled by it. Even tipsy as he was, he had to admit it was a fine replication. “I can see why ya thought this was mine, but I swear on Mary’s grave, I didn’t write this. Tell me truthfully, Erin… ya had this faked to torment me, didn’t ya?”

  Erin fisted hands on her hips. “Why in the Goddess’s name would I bother faking a note from ya that had me traipsing out here to watch ya talk nonsense to a bag of bones in the ground? No one’s down there, Angus. Mary’s spirit left this world at her death. I’ve tried time and again to tell ya that.”

  Angus swung the letter around and shook it at her. “How should I know why yer would do something like this to torment me? Yer a woman, aren’t ya? That makes ya do things no man could ever understand.”

  “Listen here, you drunken arse…” Erin began.

  A throat clearing nearby interrupted her scolding and earned the interrupter a glare she usually reserved for her primary age students at the school where she taught part-time. The throat clearer was just one of a group of strange men staring hard at her and Angus.

  Strange men and strangely dressed too. They all looked like they were heading for a fancy French funeral. One hid a smile and coughed into his hand, but nodded when he saw he’d gotten their complete attention.