by Briers, M L
REJECTED BY HIS MATE
By
M L BRIERS
Copyright © 2014 by M.L Briers
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
REJECTED BY HIS MATE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THRITEEN
CHAPTER ONE
“Ninety nine bottles of beer on the wall, ninety nine bottles of beer… if I had those bottles of beer from the wall, I bloody well wouldn’t be here…”
Jill’s singing left something to be desired at the best of times, but when she was three sheets to the wind and slurring as if she’d been to visit the dentist and had a mouth full of novocaine, well, it was enough to make every dog and cat in the neighbourhood cover their ears with their paws and whimper for it to be over. Fast.
Petra winced from the shrillness of her friend’s voice. If there was a downside to Jill tying one on it was that she rolled out every song from her barrel of oldies before she would finally fall asleep, or pass out, usually face down on her bed, if she made it that far, and snore her way thought the next eight hours, with as much grace as a fog horn, until she woke up looking like a hedge witch that had been attacked by the same makeup regime applied to a circus clown. It was always a Kodak moment.
“Roll me over, in the clover, roll me over lay me down and…”She tripped over a small cobble stone, her own feet, or the damn tooth fairy, Petra couldn’t be sure which. All she knew was that the sight of her friend sailing through the air, flapping her arms about her as if she were trying to fly, and ending up face down on the ground in the dark alleyway was akin to a ritual dance that should have been expected, but still brought a moments panic to Petra’s heart as she watched. Her own responses were too dull by her alcohol intake to be anything more than an afterthought as her friend lay there cursing.
And then there was the rush to amusement. Full blown hysterics, as Petra slapped her thighs and let rip with a roar of laughter that cackled and echoed through the night. The utter enjoyment of someone else’s mistake instead of our own was a wonderful thing.
“Thanks for your concern…”Jill pushed up with one hand and dismissed her friend’s lack of empathy with a shake of the other. It was akin to the Queen of England waving to her subjects. Only Petra doubted that Queen Elizabeth had ever suffered such a fate.
“You’ve turned that into an art form…”Petra took a couple of steps and reached down to grab hold of Jill’s wrist. Yanking upwards in a haphazard manner that only served to make Jill lose her balance on her other hand and end up almost kissing the ground again, her friend hissed at her.
“Don’t help me, you hinder…”Jill snapped, yanking her arm out of Petra’s grip and finally managing to push herself up to her knees as her head spun. “Ohh, I’m gonna feel that in the morning.”Jill groaned.
Petra snorted long and hard as she tried to hold onto the laughter that rolled through her. Grabbing her around the waist, Petra hoisted Jill up, more like a rag doll than a real life human being, and tried to get her to her feet…
“Ladies…”The boots hit the ground at the same time as the melodic tones swept over them. He’d dropped down from the rooftop in a heartbeat, blocking their path, and causing Petra to let go of Jill, who slid downwards, hitting the floor with a thud and a groan. Petra readied her magic to defend them from the Vampire.
“Graveyards two miles east…”Jill bit out, wanting to rub the pain in her backside, but knowing even the slightest movement sideways would cause her to titter over.
“Someone’s feeling feisty in their cups tonight…”The vampire’s dark eyes sparkled with amusement at the predicament that the Fae found themselves in.
“Cups, what century are you still living in?”Jill turned up her nose at the man and his presence. Vampires seemed to be the very bane of her existence right now and she’d just about had enough of them to last her a lifetime…
“What do you want, blood, a spell…?”Petra eyed him with a lot less amusement than he seemed to have for finding them in this vulnerable state.
“Well if you’re offering, both…”He beamed with a perfect set of white teeth and just the hint of fang…
“I wasn’t offering either, just trying to establish the game and what part we’re supposed to play in it.”Petra assured him as his attention moved away from her for a moment.
“Perhaps I just wanted to say hello…”
“Perhaps the earth is flat…”Petra noted the way his eyes were everywhere but on her. It irked her slightly that he was somehow distracted by something else rather than being on guard against her magic. She could zap him now, but she doubted that she would have the opportunity to gather Jill off the floor and be gone before he took his revenge. Especially as she was sporting five inch heels and a skirt that fitting like Clingfilm.
“Isn’t it?”Distracted or not, he still managed to be as sarcastic as possible… “Well, nice talking to you. Gotta go.” He disappeared in front of their eyes and both witches took a long moment to frown and blink. Not trying to summon him back, just making sure they were seeing what they were seeing…
“Did that seem strange to you?”Jill stated the obvious and Petra rolled her eyes as she reached down to hoist Jill back up to her feet in a case of the blind leading the blind.
“That makes me think that we need to leave… and now.”Petra hissed as she tried to take all of Jill’s weight and keep both of their balance at the same time, cursing out as her metal tipped heels scrapped over the cobble stones…
“Ladies…”The deep tones appeared from behind them and Jill immediately grabbed a hold of Petra’s arms and refused to let go…
“Drop me again and I’ll kill you…”Jill hissed as Petra put everything she had into launching Jill up onto her feet. Job somewhat completed, she yanked her arms away from Jill’s death grip and spun around on the balls of her feet towards the new presence… And spinning was right, her body might have spun, but her head spun more and she put her arms out to the sides in some kind of hope she could stabilise herself…
Fail. Her head was still reeling when she felt the strong arms go around her waist and haul her against the concrete chest of her new annoyance. Every inch of her body tingled with the knowledge that this one was supernatural in origin, and yet not a vampire.
“Out of the frying pan…”Jill’s words echoed in the surreal part of her mind that was being slammed with the bells and whistles that were ringing for his presence. Her palms found the solidity of his chest and she resisted curling her fingers into the material that covered, what she was sure were very well defined Pecs, and instead she tried to push a little distance from his overwhelming energy that swept through her. The trouble was he wasn’t letting go of the vice like grip he had about her body.
Petra knew she need to regain control of her mind when the first thing she thought of was ‘warm’, then her mind snapped on the time honoured phrase, ‘oh-oh’, and it was just swings and roundabouts until she chased that up with, ‘whoa’. Her body tingled in all the wrong places for her not to notice just how good his body felt the length of hers, or was that the right places? No, she was
sure it was wrong, but it felt so damn right…
“Wolf…”She’d meant to add words to that, but it was all she could manage to force from her lips when her mind was in a sudden meltdown and she was pressing her body to his. Not the kind of tactic that she would normally employ to get out of his grasp…
“Witch…”There was a moment’s amusement in his tone and as she tipped her head back and tried to focus on the pair of dark eyes that stared down at her, somewhat judgementally, she thought, when she finally got a lock on him. She found that most of his face was bathed in the shadows of the dark alleyway…
“Let go…”She managed to at least try to take a step away from him, as hard as that seemed inside her fog induced brain. When the accumulated toll of the evening’s festivities took away most of her ability to do anything much other than stay pressed against him, which wasn’t an unpleasant experience, but not one she’d normally endeavour to initiate, she kind of knew she was in trouble.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea…”His deep tone drifted into what was the logical part of her brain and swept back out again, preferring to go towards the pleasure centre of her mind, filling her body with the kind of warm fuzzies that she just didn’t allow in the day to day normality of her life.
“Put a full stop in it…”She patted his chest as if she were congratulating him for joining the dots, of which he hadn’t reached yet. “I don’t think, full stop. Not an uncommon trait for your kind, and then, that’s a good idea and you let me go…”She chuckled at her own funny. He growled, and he could have just run his fingers over the bare wanton skin of her body, as the deep rumble travelled over her and caused her to shiver in a good way… Or a bad way, depending how one viewed throwing themselves head first into the lion’s den or the Lycan den in this instance.
“You’re drunk…”He growled down. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t tell from the moment he’d picked up her scent just outside the bar. Following her and her friend down the road in the insanely protective need to make sure she got home safely, and to locate her address so he could properly introduce himself when she was sober. And then the vampire made an appearance…
“Wow, state the obvious…”Jill tittered on her heels and cursed the way the cobble stones tried to push her feet, first one way and then the other, as she swayed with the turning of the world around her.
“I found my conscience. My moral compass…”This time Petra did try to push away from him. Nobody told her what to do or berated her for doing as she saw fit… Well, maybe her adoptive mother, but she didn’t have to put up with it from a damn wolfboy…
“You found you’re mate…”He growled down at her in that judgemental way again and she couldn’t help but snort contempt for his words.
“Mate…”She blew out an exaggerated chuckle as she tried to squirm herself a little distance inside his strong arms. “Hands up anyone who knew that Lycans had a sense of humour?”She felt an overwhelming need to put a little distance between them, and if she’d been in her right mind, she would have felt an overwhelming need to put a lot of distance between them…
“This is no laughing matter. In this state you could have been supper for that damn vampire.”He berated her and yet tightened his hold around her at the same time…
“I think not…”Jill couldn’t help the chuckle of knowing that left her lips as she wagged a finger of disagreement at one of the two Lycans that had their arms around her friend, or perhaps it was just one, nope there were two of them. Jill nodded in her certainty, and they looked like twins…
“Don’t judge a book by its cover…”Petra was already summoning her magic and when she hit him with a burst of pure energy, she regretted it immediately.
This damn wolf wasn’t about to let go of her. She found that out to her disadvantage the moment that he sailed backwards through the air, taking her with him. The hard impact of the ground meeting his back went through his body and into hers. There would be bruising tomorrow, she just knew it.
“Ouch. Jerk…”She cursed out. Trying to squirm her way out of the tighter hold he now had her. Squirming just caused him to groan out a growl as she rubbed against the hardness that had been a constant since he’d scented her…
“You zapped me.”He growled out another rumble that felt as if it was all around her. She placed her hands on his chest and used the toes of her shoes to push up his body so she could look him in the damn eye.
“You were supposed to let go…”She hissed down at him.
“Well I didn’t get that memo…”He growled back.
For the first time his face wasn’t bathed in the shadows and Petra took him in. His eyes were almost black, but they were shielded by thick black lashes that gave him those smouldering ‘come to bed eyes’ everyone was always warning her about. Thick black eyebrows did the dance of the caterpillar as he stared up at her, and she thought they just might fall off his brow and into his eyes, as he scowled up at her. He had the kind of jaw that was made of pure granite, square and stubbled with a coating of a day or two’s growth, which could easily have turned into a full beard overnight…
“Whoa…”Petra thought he had to be the most sexy guy she had ever seen, and she’d been around the supernatural world long enough to have seen some very sexy beings… Although he wasn’t sexy in the sense of conventionality, more pure masculine caveman type sexy, and her body was telling her that she’d like to be dragged off to his cave pronto…
“What?”He scented her arousal on the air and every inch of him tensed with knowing just what she had reacted too. Him, her mate, and there was a long moment of sheer satisfaction within him before she tried to scramble off his body…
Her elbow dug between a couple of his ribs as she tried for leverage to get away and he growled out with the pain of it. “Damn it woman, do you file your elbows into a damn point…?”He growled, shifting his position, making her elbow slide down his side and her face planted against his chest, her chin digging into his breast bone, and he growled again.
“When you two have finished canoodling, I kind of want to go asleep now…”Jill whined as her eyes decided it was time to close, even though she was still standing up, even though she was torn between sleeping and puking.
‘Brad, I’m going to need your help with something…’ Dale growled out into the collective. He’d left his beta back at the bar eyeing up a tall blonde with legs that never seemed to stop, just his type, and he hoped to hell the man hadn’t been in the middle of wrapping those legs around his waist when he called him. Still, it couldn’t be helped this was far more pressing a need.
‘Be right with you…’He didn’t sound too put out, so Dale surmised that he hadn’t made his move yet.
“Stay still or I’ll sling you over my shoulder and carry you upside down…”Dale was trying not notice the way her body was sliding up and down his erection, but truly, how the hell could he not notice that?
“Toss me over your shoulder and I guarantee to hurl chunks down your back…”Petra hissed back, still trying to extract herself from the hard lumps of cushioning beneath her that was her alleged mate…
“Well that sound like fun…”Brad hadn’t even raised a sweat as he’d double timed it to where his alpha lay beneath the cute brunette whose backside was up in the air as she tried to push at least part of her body away from him.
“God, not another one…”Jill tossed her hands up in the air and tried to turn on her heels to walk in another direction away from them. But that didn’t work for her body as her feet ended up crossed and her body started towards the cobbles at a speed she couldn’t quite fathom…
“I’ve got you…”Brad’s deep sexy growl echoed through her brain as his strong arms captured her body and he hauled her against him. For one long moment, when he growled long and hard down at her she was captivated by him, and then she felt the liquid dinner she’d ingested start to make another appearance and her eyes widened a moment before he set her at arm’s length and she doubled over,
depositing her nights intake of alcohol onto his shoes…
“Nice to meet you too…”He growled down, a handful of her hair in his fist to keep it out of the way, as he stabilised her with his other hand.
Petra stopped moving on top of Dale long enough to catch sight of what was happening with her friend and she heard the earthy, deep chuckle of the man beneath her as she gasped in disbelief at what had happened.
“That’s better…”Jill pulled herself up to her full height of five feet two and wiped her mouth against the back of her hand…
“Glad to hear it…”Brad chuckled as he watched her sway on her feet…
“Oh that’s not good…”Was the last thing that came out of her mouth before she felt her legs go from under her and the darkness claim her into sleep.
CHAPTER TWO
Brad yanked her against the length of his body a moment before the lights went out. Reaching down and scooping her up into his arms, he cradled her head against his broad chest as he stared down, one eyebrow raised in questioning disbelief at the woman who was sleeping in his arms.
“Well that was an introduction I won’t forget.”The hearty chuckle that was torn from the beta’s lips echoed through the alleyway, and it made Petra want to cover her ears. It seemed too reverberated through her brain like thunder, and she groaned. She didn’t want to be in her shoes when she woke with what was sure to be a monstrous hangover in the morning, but she hadn’t quite mastered the art of astral projection yet, unfortunately.
“Get off me…”Petra squirmed against him again. She palmed his chest and tried to put a little distance between them. She wasn’t sure if she was hot and bothered because of the situation she was in, or because of the man she found herself in that situation with, but she guessed it was a little of both.
“You’re on me, sweetheart, and if you stay still I’ll have us back on our feet in an instant…”His growl was becoming more feral with every word, and she had a damn good idea that it was her fault, not just that he saw her as his mate, but because of the damn erection that she couldn’t seem to not roll against in her effort to escape him.
