by M. L. Briers
“Okay, point taken, you win,” Lulu grumbled. “But, on the bright side that feeding thing is supposed to feel sooo good.”
“It is, right?” Karen chewed the inside of her cheek with nervousness. She had a buzz of excitement within her, but she didn’t want to share that with her friend. “Is that like a definite thing, or pure speculation?”
“From what I’m told,” Lulu leaned in closer. “You can definitely believe the hype.”
“Hmm,” Karen said, trying her best not to look too interested, like she wasn’t chafing at the bit to test drive that urban legend for herself.
“So, what do you think?” Lulu asked and Karen shrugged.
“He’s not going to get carried away and … you know?” She made a slurping noise before she poked her tongue out of the side of her mouth and closed her eyes.
“No,” Lulu snorted a chuckle at her, and she opened her eyes.
“Meh.”
“He knows you’re not a big gulp, it’ll be fine,” Lulu dismissed her worries.
“What if it’s not? I don’t have magic to defend myself.”
“If the worst were to happen then I promise to avenge you.” Lulu reached up and drew a cross over her heart.
“That’s so sweet,” Karen said, but then her smile dropped. “But I’d be dead in that scenario.”
“He’s fine. It’s fine…”
“Fine is not reassuring, fine is a bad thing.”
“It’s all gravy?” Lulu shrugged.
“Will he make me a vampire?” Karen demanded.
“Only if you want to be a vampire. Do you want to be a vampire?” Lulu teased her, and frowned when Karen took a moment to consider her options. “Hey?”
“I’m thinking,” Karen snapped back.
“Well, I guess your bloodthirsty ways really are showing,” Lulu chuckled.
“I don’t think I want to be a vampire yet,” Karen offered back, but she didn’t look sure.
“Meh, take a decade, think on it, figure out the pitfalls,” Lulu said with another dismissive wave of her hand. “In the meantime, if you’re going to sleep with him then you’re going to have to actually stop screaming and demanding I zap him.”
“Sounds – fair.”
“Okay, you’re all good to go, and if the worst comes to the worst, get drunk, that’ll loosen you right up.” Lulu chuckled.
“Sage advice.”
“Well, I am a witch.”
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
~
“So why are you wearing a damn wedding dress?” Nick demanded as he stalked towards the cabin through the woods over every bit of uneven ground that he could find, just to shake up her brain a little more and give her one hell of a ride on his shoulder.
“I was trying it on,” Darlene huffed.
She lifted her head a little and looked around in the darkness of the woods trying to find something memorable that would point the way back to where they’d come from should she need it.
“Did you have a groom in mind or do you just have some weird fetish?” Nick growled.
He wasn’t sure he wanted an answer to that. Then he might just have the need to kill someone again.
“Yes, I have a wedding dress fetish,” she bit out.
“Well, whatever floats your boat, sweetheart,” Nick chuckled.
“Think high heels, stockings and a garter…” the sound of a hungry growl made her smile.
“Now you’re talking…”
“I think you’d look very fetching in that get up,” she chuckled, and heard that hungry growl turn into muttered curses.
“Who hit me over the head?” Nick growled.
“Boris…”
“Boris, what the hell kind of a name is … is he a Russian?”
“I’ve never asked him.”
“You know him well enough to get him to hit me over the head but you’ve never been curious about his name or where he’s from?”
“That pretty much covers it, yep.”
“I’m guessing he’s a damn vampire.”
“I’d have to say you’re right,” Boris melodic tone made Darlene shoot upwards on Nick’s shoulder and she almost brought the both of them down, as the beta ground to a halt.
“You changed your mind?” Darlene asked.
“I’m guessing it’s too late for your friends, but I’ll get you out of here if you still want to leave.”
“Over my dead body,” Nick growled.
“That’s the plan.”
~
~
“I got you sweatpants and a top, but I’m thinking I like the blanket way better,” Den said, offering her the kind of sexy grin that made her heart skip a little beat and her palms kind of sweaty.
“I thought you would have liked me out of the blanket way better,” Piper shot back without bothering to engage her brain first.
When the alpha looked shellshocked, she had to press her lips together to keep from chuckling. The sound of a low rumble filled the air and she knew what that was going to turn into. Sure enough, there was a hungry growl that rolled towards her and reminded her of what they’d been doing before Darlene had attacked.
“That sounds good,” Den said, and he was trying to judge his mate’s mood.
While it was true that he was a take charge kind of a guy, he certainly didn’t want to do anything to throw up a wall between them. They’d been getting on damn well, and he had to hope that was going to continue.
“No comment,” Piper said with a small shrug.
“How about a nod in the right direction?”
“You’re feeling a little out of your league here, alpha?”
Damn, but the way that she said alpha made him smile. It felt as if she was already one of the pack, like he’d wooed her and got her to be his. He liked that feeling a lot.
Mine…
“Well, you know…” he shrugged. It wasn’t like he met his mate every day of the week and he really didn’t want to screw it up.
“Never been with a woman before?”
“Huh?” He swallowed what felt like a big lump in his throat.
What the hell did he say to that? Of course he’d been with a woman, but he guessed she didn’t want to hear that.
Still, he couldn’t lie to her, she was his mate, and what the hell kind of a way was that to start the rest of their lives together?
“You’re face is priceless, it looks like you swallowed a live scorpion or pooped your panties…” she chuckled.
“I don’t wear panties,” he growled.
“Coincidence, me either,” she tossed back at him, and he swallowed hard again. That growl was back, rumbling through his chest, and she liked it.
“I bet you don’t wanna prove it?” he grinned. The woman was wearing a damn blanket, but still, he could only try his luck and…
Holy hell! His mind came to a screaming halt the instant that she let that blanket drop to the floor around her ankles.
“I win,” she grinned, and the way that Den stalked across the bedroom towards her, said that she might just be about to get her prize.
~
~
“You’re entirely welcome,” Lulu whispered to Slade as she strolled out of the living room and left Karen inside without her.
“I might just owe you…” Slade started, but she cut him off.
“Might?” She snorted a wicked chuckle as she carried on walking.
Carson stood stock still and scowled at the vampire. Slade lifted one eyebrow and stared back at the man.
“Fetch!” Slade bit out, waving him off after his mate, and the beta grumbled something under his breath as he turned and started down the hallway after her.
“I hear you’re not the big, bad…” Karen stopped on a scowl.
“Count Dracula?” he offered, helping her out when she reached a dead end.
“Did you know him?”
“Not personally, no,” he said, offering her a curious look.
~
&
nbsp; ~
“Lulu,” Carson called, speeding up to catch her as she entered the kitchen.
“Mine,” she said, reaching out towards the bottle of Scotch on the kitchen counter, but the deep hungry growl that rolled through the air towards her made her rethink that word and mentally kick herself. “Bad choice of words.”
“Good damn choice,” he bit out, wrapping one large hand around her arm and yanking her back towards him as he spun her on her heels.
Mine…
Carson’s wolf had heard it as well. Their mate had all but staked a claim on them, even if she hadn’t meant to do it.
His beast pushed forward, demanding that he do the same, and Carson struggled to close that cage door shut. But the moment that he brought his lips down on hers, his beast became muted, and the wolf decided to take a back seat with a wait and see approach.
CHAPTER THIRTY
~
“That’s the plan?” Darlene bit out as she braced her hands against Nick’s back and pushed upwards, trying to crane her head enough to see the vampire from where she was perched on the beta’s shoulder. “Did I say to kill the man?”
“You said rescue – this is how I rescue you,” Boris offered back to the hearty sound of a warning growl that rolled from the beta.
“You already rescued me,” Darlene tossed back.
“And you didn’t leave. That’s not a good outcome for me…”
“For you?” Darlene tried to squirm enough to get a good look at the man. “What’s this got to do with you besides paying back a damn favour?”
“You’re my go-to witch when I need something. How can I have a go-to witch when you’re mated and living on pack land?”
“Get the hell off my land before…” Nick growled.
“So, this is all about you?” Darlene hissed. “Put me down.”
“Not yet,” Nick growled.
He wasn’t sure what this vampire was up to. The man didn’t seem to be working with his mate anymore, and that could be a problem for her, because if the vampire killed him, then Darlene could be in trouble.
Nick knew that he had to defend his mate and protect her with his life if it came to it. Nothing else mattered but her safety.
“You might want to listen to the witch,” Boris warned him.
Nick’s wolf was clawing to be set free and protect their mate, but that couldn’t happen while he was still carrying her. Nick needed to choose the lesser of two evils, and he wasn’t sure which way to go.
“Put me down, let me at him,” Darlene hissed out in annoyance. “If you think I’ll ever do another favour for you again…”
“That makes you worthless to me…”
“Then jog on,” she bit back.
“And let you walk away with my secrets?” Boris said, and Nick could see the writing on the wall.
“What bloody secrets?” Darlene hissed back.
“Whatever information you may have garnered from working for me.”
“I make it my business not to know other people’s business,” she tossed back, slipping against the hold that she had on Nick’s back, just as the beta decided that she needed another challenge in her life and spun her around in the air, fast and furious, as he brought her down from his shoulder and planted her on her feet.
Unfortunately, Darlene’s head still felt like it was spinning, and she stumbled backwards onto her backside, as Nick’s beast burst free of him, and that was when all hell broke loose.
~
~
“Ask me anything,” Slade said as his mate watched him like he was about to pounce. That sounded like a damn fine idea to him, but he knew that she wasn’t ready.
“What does drinking blood feel like for you?”
“For me?” Slade was actually surprised by her question. He’d expected everything that she wanted to know to be about her side of being a mate. It wasn’t often that someone shocked him, but she had.
“I get that’s it going to be tasty, but…?” She shrugged.
“Very. But, it also warms my body, and strangely enough, my soul…”
“You have a soul?”
“Everyone has a soul…”
“But, you died. Didn’t your soul, you know?” She fluttered her hand in flight.
“I still have my memories and personality, although, that’s constantly evolving. If I didn’t have a soul, how would I still be me?”
“Good point.”
“Thank you,” he offered her a smile. Not a cocky grin, not a smug look, but an honest to goodness smile, and she was captivated by it.
“So, what does it feel like to be dead?”
“I don’t remember that part, or do you mean, what does it feel like to be a vampire?”
“That was my next question,” she admitted.
“Strength, speed, health, the ability to jump tall buildings in a single bound…”
“Super-vampy,” she chuckled.
“One day maybe you’ll find out for yourself,” Slade said, and he didn’t want to scare her, but she seemed to be asking some very strange questions that he hadn’t been expecting.
“Baby steps,” Karen frowned.
“Of course. First you want to know how it feels to be fed on, no?” he asked and watched her eyes narrow on his.
He was going to cheat. He was going to use his powers to read her mind, but her questions had been so out of the blue that he’d decided against it.
He liked that she was surprising him. He hadn’t had that in a very long time.
“No,” she said, but he couldn’t help but notice the colour that darkened her cheeks with a nice red hue.
“Shame, I’m told it’s very…” he left that hanging, and she snagged the bait.
“What?”
“Satisfying for both of us.”
“Oh.” She looked anywhere but at him, but he could see her digesting that morsel of information and the cogs kept turning in her mind.
Then her front teeth came out to snag her lower lip and he knew that he had her attention. Now all he needed to do was not screw it up.
~
~
Darlene was dazed but not blind. She saw what was happening, heard it as well. The fight was underway and there wasn’t a damn thing that she could do.
The energy level of her magic was still low inside of her, and even if she could pull on it and get something closely resembling strong enough to do any damage, having that feeling of vertigo certainly meant that she might not hit her intended target.
The sound of Nick’s wolf snarling as it attacked focused her mind and she dug her hands down into the decaying foliage that littered the ground of the woods to the earth below. She used her fingernails to claw at the ground and dug her fingers into the cold soil.
Then she drew on that connection with Mother Nature and pulled the energy right from the very source from where it came. Her mind started to clear, her equilibrium started to return, and she watched as Boris backhanded the large wolf across the clearing as if he was a play toy.
“It’s me you want…” she bit out, snatching his attention away from Nick’s wolf, and the vampire offered the cruellest of twisted smiles.
“All in good time, Darlene,” he said, making it sound like a promise.
Darlene didn’t like that idea. What she liked even less was the thought of the vampire killing her mate.
He was hers to kill – if that was what she chose to do – and she’d brought the danger into their lives, she saw it as her job to fix it.
“Sorry, I’m the impatient type,” she said, lifting just one hand from the dirt and keeping her connection to Mother Earth with the other.
Then she let him have it, a full on blast that he took in the chest that ripped him backward from the ground and tossed him towards the nearest tree trunk.
The sound of the impact echoed through the night. It was as sickening as it was satisfying, and yet, she knew that wouldn’t be enough to kill the vampire.
She gathered
her magic and chose her weapon wisely, but a heartbeat later, and Nick’s beast was on the injured vampire, doing what beasts did best and she allowed the magic to die inside of her.
The man didn’t stand a chance of coming back from that one.
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
~
Piper had known what she was doing the moment that wicked thought to drop the blanket at his challenge had popped into her mind. She didn’t know what it was about being with Den that had made her so emboldened, but she liked her newfound sense of freedom.
Maybe because she was his mate and everything in the grand scheme of things for their future was already settled. Maybe it was just his strength, his whole attitude that was rubbing off, but as he took her down beneath him on the bed – she certainly wasn’t regretting it so far.
His kisses were already driving her insane. She wanted more, and not just hungry, fevered kisses, but more of him.
She could feel the hard press of his cock against her thigh and she wanted to feel him filling her, stretching her inner muscles around that thick cock and taking him deep.
There was almost an element of disappointment that rose up inside of her when he started down her body, kissing, nipping and licking over her skin, but she wouldn’t have wanted to miss what came next for the world.
Den spread her thighs and settled between her legs, her scent was all around him, and the scent of her arousal bayed him on to taste her, love her until she came undone for him, and when she did, he devoured her all over again.
Piper came back to that moment when all she wanted to do was dig her heels into the mattress and push up to escape him. The sensitive little nub of flesh was even more sensitive to the feel of his demanding tongue now than before, and she thought she might just go insane if he didn’t stop.
“I have other bits!” She ground out, fisting the covers, and trying not to zap him away with her magic.
There was a hard grunt, and the sweetest of torture immediately stopped. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry – wondering if she was already insane for making him stop.
