by M. L. Briers
His leg still hurt like hell, but it was healing. Those witches were trouble in his book, and the sooner they left pack land, the better, unless his wolf ate them first.
That was a tempting thought and one that he would probably enjoy getting behind.
“You can’t second a non motion,” Carson sneered at him.
“Can – will – would, and did,” Nick growled back.
“You’re just sore, in more ways than one, because the witches got the drop on you,” Carson shot back.
“They didn’t get the drop on me. Let’s see you guard against their magic,” he growled.
“Oh, we don’t want to hurt him,” Piper said.
“We don’t?” Lulu frowned.
“Nope, he’s the nice one,” Piper said, with another smile for the beta. It was as wicked as she could make it, and the beta shuffled on his feet as he offered Nick a smirk.
“I’m the nice one.” He puffed out his chest with pride and wiggled his eyebrows.
“I’ll alert the press,” Nick sneered. “You’ve always been … strange.”
When the alpha rumbled out another growl of annoyance at his siblings acting like idiots, all eyes turned back to him.
“It’s not strange being nice,” Piper said, “it’s…”
“Nice,” Lulu shrugged. “Refreshingly so.”
“Very,” Piper agreed.
“Hey, refreshing little flower,” Den growled and snapped Carson out of his moment of gloating. “You want them; you got them. Find out what they’re up to.”
“No problem,” Carson said. Then he held out his hand and motioned for them to walk ahead of him.
“Where the hell are you going?” Den growled.
“Taking them back to the house. It’s cold, and they look thirsty…” Carson reasoned his actions.
“They look…?” Nick tossed up his hands in disbelief. “Bleeding heart here thinks they look thirsty.” He said to the alpha.
“We are,” Piper lied.
“They are,” Nick said in disbelief. He’d much rather just run them off pack land, and by run, that would have been his wolf chasing them.
“See!” Carson had made his point.
“Fine,” Den growled.
He didn’t want the witches any closer to the house than they already were, but the thought of the females needing something and him not offering it was like a poison chalice to him.
He sometimes regretted that part of him that needed to protect women. Bouncing the two witches off pack land on their backsides would have been the smarter way to go.
“Fine?” Nick asked, his tone dripping with disbelief. “Should we carry them?”
“Don’t be an ass,” Den growled.
“I am a little tired from running from the mean one,” Piper said to Lulu, and she could barely keep a straight face because the amusement in Lulu’s eyes was egging her on.
“Don’t push your luck,” Nick growled.
“I’ve got a broad shoulder,” the alpha growled, and he couldn’t believe just how much his beast seemed to like that idea. Truth be told, he didn’t really mind the thought of it either, but probably for different reasons than his wolf had. “Still want to be carried, sweetheart?”
He wondered where that word had come from – she certainly wasn’t sweet and she would never have his damn heart. Not unless she ripped it from his chest with her magic.
“I think I can manage,” Piper frowned.
“Well good,” Den said, his tone dripping with sarcasm. “How about you, Princess?” He shot a glare at Lulu, and she snapped a scowl on her face and reflected his attitude right back at him.
“Not even if my damn life depended on it.” She lifted her chin in defiance and snorted in disdain.
“Which it might,” Nick growled.
“Not this side of forever,” Carson growled back.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Nick barked at him.
“I don’t like your attitude,” Carson growled back.
A moment later and the two betas were going at it, head-on, and taking swings at each other while the alpha groaned inwardly. While it wasn’t uncommon for his brothers to act like jackasses at the drop of a hat they were normally a lot more professional when it came to doing their jobs for the sake of the pack.
Sadly, this wasn’t one of those times, and he was more than tempted to knock their damn heads together. All of this because of two little meddlesome, poisonous females.
“Witches,” Den grumbled with a small shake of his head.
CHAPTER FIVE
~
“Enough!” Den growled at his betas before turning a dark gaze on the witches.
They were devious, mischievous little sprites and if he had his way, he’d show them the door, but he thought they were up to something, and for the sake of the pack he needed to know what that was.
“It was just getting good,” Piper whined.
“My money was on the big one,” Lulu chipped in, and as the men were of equal stature, that gave the alpha pause for thought.
“Behave,” Den growled.
“Naturally,” Piper said, feigning innocence.
“Behave naturally,” Lulu agreed, and the alpha grumbled as he folded his large arms across his impossibly wide chest and dropped his chin, eyeballing them from beneath his dark eyebrows.
“Tell me who else you’ve told about us,” the alpha demanded.
“Now, I’ve seen enough movies to know that when captured you never give up intel like that…” Piper said.
“Captured?” Den looked a little lost.
“She watches a lot of movies,” Lulu said with an over exaggerated nod then offered a grimace, followed by a helpless shrug.
“Intel?” Carson asked.
“Valuable information,” Piper said as if he was five.
“I know what…” Carson sighed, shifting his weight, and lifting his hand to try a different tactic, but the alpha had already jumped in.
“Again, captured?”
“Aren’t we prisoners?” Piper asked, offering him big wide eyes that made his guilt gene kick him in the backside. “Are we not to be killed, buried out here somewhere…?”
“What?” Den couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
Killing females went against the grain, even hurting them was abhorrent to him, and his beast. But there she was, all sad eyes and considering her own mortality, and his gut twisted as his beast growled long and hard at him.
“I know how much shifters hate witches,” Piper sighed and even offered him a small shake of her head in dismay.
“That’s true,” Lulu said to Piper, and they both nodded. Then she turned towards the alpha demanding with the rise of her eyebrows that he deny it. “It’s true.”
“Well,” Den shuffled his feet and shifted his weight as he scowled at the ground between them. “It’s…” he hesitated.
“True,” Nick growled.
“See,” Piper said, pointing to the beta, and Den grumbled.
“Hate is a strong word,” the alpha said with a small grimace.
“I don’t think it’s strong enough,” Nick growled.
“Sourpuss.” Lulu shot a sneer at the beta, and the man shot her a look of disdain.
“We should take this back to the house,” Carson said.
“No, we shouldn’t,” Nick grumbled.
“Who died and made you alpha?” Lulu said, and Den’s eyes snapped towards the beta. He grumbled a growl, and the beta twisted his head at the sound.
“Seriously?” Nick bit out in disbelief. “You’re listening to these witches now?”
“Females,” Den reminded him.
“Female witches,” Nick tossed back.
Piper shot a sneaky grin at Lulu and Lulu pressed her lips together so that a big grin didn’t spread across her face. They had them where they wanted them. Divided and on the back foot.
All the rest should be gravy.
~
~
&
nbsp; “Piper!” Karen exclaimed, turning in her seat at the kitchen table and welcoming her with a big grin. “This cake is to die for.”
“So much for eaten and buried in the woods,” Piper shot back over her shoulder as Lulu peered around her friend at Karen.
Then Lulu nudged Piper into the kitchen and scowled at the man sitting at the end of the table, too close to her friend for her liking. Lulu’s supernatural radar was pinging, and not just from the shifters that were behind her.
“To die for, such a funny saying,” Slade said, a glint of amusement in his eyes that set both witches on the defensive.
“Like a moth to the flame,” Lulu offered back by way of a veiled warning, and that made the vampire pull his head back on his neck and grimace.
“Poor moth.” His tone was teasing, but his eyes said he’d got the message.
“Stupid moth to risk being burnt to a crispy critter,” Piper offered back.
“I’m sensing a little hostility,” Karen said in a singsong voice that alerted the witches to her suspicious and oh-so-innocent nature where the undead was concerned.
“What are you doing?” Piper berated her, trying to distract her from the matter at hand to which she was actually clueless. If Piper were to announce that she was having tea and cake with a vampire, well, all hell might just break loose.
“Eating cake and enjoying the company,” Karen offered back, happy in her little world that was blind to the danger that her companion posed.
“Let’s go,” Lulu said, motioning with a nod for the exit.
“I think you’re forgetting something,” Nick said from over her shoulder.
“Back off, fluffy,” Lulu hissed back on a whisper.
“You heard her,” Carson growled, elbowing his brother out of the way and taking his place behind the witch.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Nick growled back at his brother.
“Stop with the growling,” Piper hissed.
“Yeah, remember we have a h…guest,” Den bit out, trying hard to curb the growl that was desperate to rumble through his chest, and knowing that he couldn’t relax his grip on it.
He hated that feeling. His beast muted, but unfortunately, he’d learned to live with it.
“And that’s their fault,” Nick said as he eyed the witches. “Besides, Slade can press the erase button.”
“Butthole,” Lulu gasped, as she offered the beta a murderous look, all she needed to do was put a little magic behind it, and his backside was toast. That was a tempting thought.
“Never going to happen,” Slade said, and Karen looked at him, unsure. She hadn’t really been a party to the whispered conversations that had taken place around her, oblivious to everything but cake.
She had heard Lulu say they should go, so she was rushing to finish the tasty treat. She wouldn’t want to be rude and leave it unfinished, and it was delicious.
“Sorry, I missed that?” she said, getting caught up in those amber eyes of his once more.
The man was sex on a stick, and normally she wouldn’t have been rushing off anywhere, but her friends obviously wanted to go, and she was a firm believer in girlfriends coming first over guys. There was always another guy, but a true friend was priceless.
“Your friend said a storm is coming, I don’t see it myself,” he lied.
“Maybe we should talk in another room,” Nick muttered.
“Maybe you should go first, and we’ll join you sometime never,” Lulu offered back with the kind of look that could fry him on the spot.
“Den?” Nick turned toward his alpha. His eyebrows were raised in expectation, and the alpha grumbled a groan.
“We do need to talk,” the alpha reluctantly agreed with his brother.
“I’m not leaving her alone with him,” Piper said as she gave a firm nod toward the vampire.
“Well, he hasn’t eaten her yet,” Nick grumbled.
“Gee, that makes me feel so much better,” Lulu shot back.
“Don’t worry, he’s housetrained,” the alpha assured her.
“Even the best-trained dogs can poop on the rug…” Piper said and offered a sneer to Nick.
“You have my word,” the alpha offered back.
He watched as she chewed that over. He didn’t know why he found himself holding his breath for her response. It shouldn’t have mattered to him if she trusted him or not, but it did.
“And I’m supposed to trust you?” Piper asked.
“An alpha’s word is his bond,” Nick grumbled back with annoyance.
“Can somebody please flip his switch?” Piper sighed.
“Look…” Nick bit down on the urge to growl.
The beta lifted his hand and pointed a thick index finger at her. He’d like to flip her damn switch, and he was debating his next step when out of the corner of his eye; he noticed the way that the alpha took a step forward and placed his body between them.
CHAPTER SIX
~
The alpha knew that he might not be able to growl a warning at his brother, but he also knew that he didn’t need to do that. His eyes spoke everything that he needed to say, and he saw the understanding register on Nick’s face when the man twisted his head on his neck and offered him a deeply curious look.
“Glad we understand each other, brother,” Den said.
“Oh no,” Nick bit out with a small chuckle of disbelief at what he was seeing.
“No?” Den thought he’d made himself perfectly clear. He knew that his brother didn’t like witches, yet that didn’t account for this bout of strange behavior.
“No — no,” Nick bit back.
The beta had a strange look in his eyes as if he’d seen a ghost, but he was staring right at the alpha. If Den didn’t know better, he’d say his brother was losing it.
“Someone want to slap him around the back of his head until he spits out what he wants to say?” Piper asked.
“You didn’t — you couldn’t — ah, damn,” Nick grumbled as he dropped his head forward on his neck and shook it from side to side.
“Well, that explains everything,” the alpha bit back. “What the hell has gotten into you?” Den wanted to growl, boy, was that need clawing within him.
He had to wonder if his brother had lost his mind, the way that he was reacting to the witches, to the situation at hand, it wasn’t like him. Nick was pretty much the level-headed one of his betas, until now.
Perhaps the witches had done something to him. Maybe they’d spelled him somehow before he’d arrived.
Maybe he’d hit his head when those feisty little she-demons had attacked, and his body wasn’t healed yet. Whatever it was, it was getting annoying, and Den was fast losing his patience with the man.
Hell, even his beast was getting irritable inside of him. He guessed that Nick’s attitude was putting it on edge.
“Into me?” Nick’s eyebrows shot up on his forehead. “It’s not me.” He hotly denied as if he’d just been accused of shifting in front of the human or peeing in corners.
“Well, it’s not me,” the alpha shot back, feeling the rush of annoyance with his sibling shoot through him. He had the urge to smack the man upside the head again, or maybe plant a well-aimed fist in his beta’s face.
“Oh, I think it is.” Nick nodded his head in small, fast, erratic movements that made the man look a little insane.
“Do you wanna tell me what the hell you’re talking about?” Den demanded, folding his muscled arms across his chest, and eyeing the beta with contempt.
“Oh man, do you need to figure that one out for yourself, brother,” Nick bit back.
“Has he been drinking?” Lulu asked.
“You’d think,” Den tossed back, still eyeing his brother as if he’d never seen him before.
“I think he’s a couple of cards short of a full deck,” Piper tossed back with a snort.
“You’ll see,” Nick warned, biting down on a growl as he wagged his thick index finger at her as if she was a trou
blesome child.
“Don’t threaten her,” the alpha said, and Den’s top lip curled in annoyance as he gave his brother a long hard stare.
“Maybe you want to tell me why that is,” Nick said as he folded his arms across his chest, tilted his head to the left, and questioned the alpha with a look and matching raised eyebrows.
“She’s female,” Den tossed back.
“Females are formidable,” Karen said from somewhere over the alpha’s shoulder and reminded him of exactly why he couldn’t growl at his brother, even though it was something that he longed to do.
“Yes, they are,” Den tossed back, trying to include and exclude her from the conversation at the same time. “We need to take this conversation to another room.”
“Fine by me,” Nick grumbled back.
“After you, brother,” Den said, as he took a step to the side and motioned for his brother to go before him.
He didn’t get why Nick was being such a jackass, but he might as well get to the bottom of it before he knocked his damn head off or ended up growling hard and giving the game away to the human. He didn’t really want Slade to rinse her mind of the memories, but if there was little choice then he’d get the vampire to do it.
“Okay, I’m done with the cake, now we can leave,” Karen said as she pushed up to her feet. Slade bolted upright from his chair.
“Not yet,” Den rushed out, and when the human female turned her eyes on him, he bit down on his annoyance. “We haven’t talked about that thing that we were going to talk about,” he said to Piper.
“Thing?” Piper asked all innocent like, and there was a mischievous look in her eye as if she was about to enjoy watching him squirm on the damn hook of his own making.
“The thing — thing,” the alpha offered back, biting down on the word and warning her with a look.
“There’s a thing?” Karen chimed in. She had no idea what they were talking about, but there was definitely a different kind of tension in the air now that her friends had arrived.
“They’re male, there’s always a thing,” Lulu offered back.
“Why don’t you have some more cake?” Slade offered, pushing the tempting treat towards her and watching as her interest piqued.
