by M. L. Briers
~
“Well?” Clive demanded, more forcefully than he’d ever done before. He didn’t know why, but his need to know if the alpha had found his mate or not was clawing at his very soul with frustration.
Ryan sniffed again.
Then he growled.
Then he went back in for a second try.
Nothing.
The alpha wolf growled long and hard, and Ryan had the urge to do the same. He snapped his head up and found her eyes staring back at him – she looked… guilty.
“I don’t know,” Ryan admitted, not taking his eyes from the witch for one second.
“How can you not know if she’s your mate or not?” Jason asked.
“Why can’t I?” Ryan’s words sounded accusing, and they were.
“Why are you asking me?” Vanessa shot back, overplaying the innocent act by about a mile.
Jeannie and Faith sniggered, but they had the good graces to do it behind their hands. Clive groaned.
“Why would I ask the witch?” Ryan said dryly, eyeing her, and watching her squirm a little.
“I just said that,” Vanessa tossed back at him.
The alpha could see just how her brain was running at full speed. The woman was devious – devious and mischievous – and probably a lot more to boot. He just didn’t want to think of all the other ways she would try to thwart him.
“Take it back,” Ryan grumbled a growl.
“What?” Vanessa was playing it for all it was worth like the dying swan, without the dying, or the swan.
“Take the magic back and let me scent you,” Ryan’s growl became a little more forceful.
“Oh, damn,” Clive spluttered a laugh. “An alpha wolf without a sense of smell – just how badly can that go wrong?”
“Sense of…?” Vanessa offered innocent eyes, but he could see it there in her very soul – deceit, deceit of the worst kind.
“This isn’t over,” Ryan promised her.
“Looks pretty bleak from where I’m standing,” Vanessa said with a teasing smile that took the corners of her mouth upwards.
Ryan’s beast grumbled another growl.
Man and wolf needed to know.
It felt like she was his mate.
It seemed so damn right that he could practically taste it on his tongue, and yet.
He couldn’t scent a damn thing.
“There are other ways,” Ryan said, and it was his turn to allow a smile to grace his lips.
Vanessa’s heart hit her ribs, and she frowned hard.
“What damn ways?” She demanded, but it was already too late.
Ryan was bringing his lips down to hers.
CHAPTER TEN
~
It was safe to say that the alpha wasn’t playing fair.
Vanessa guessed after what she’d done with her magic that she deserved it, but in her mind, that wasn’t the point.
Not only had he shocked her with a kiss, but he’d also tipped her backward and shocked the heck out her with that one as well. The man thought he was in a damn black and white movie and he was the hero. Not in her book.
But as her world tipped, so she’d gasped in surprise, and he’d used that to his advantage and had deepened the kiss.
And what a kiss it was.
Vanessa felt as if she’d never been kissed in her life before – which was absurd, because she could list the names of all the boys, and men, that she’d kissed to date on the one hand – except him – she’d not really been introduced.
And now he was kissing her like a man on a mission to prove something, to himself, to her.
To make her swoon – and there was swooning!
The man was also sex on a damn stick – also unfair, but there was little that she could do about that either. But that kiss, boy, did it set her toes curling, her womb jumping in delight, and her breasts heaving like some romance novel chick.
“Whoa!” Faith chuckled.
Even through the rushing of blood and the pounding of her heart in her ears, Vanessa heard her friend’s word, and it stomped on her very last nerve.
She placed her palms against the hard muscles of his chest and pushed.
Something inside of her said not to do it, and yet she did it.
Something told her to enjoy it, enjoy the kiss, enjoy the moment, and yet; she couldn’t give herself over to that moment completely. There was another part of her that wanted to stomp on the man from a great height, for which she’d need a ladder.
Vanessa squirmed against his body as she tried to break free. The hard muscles of his chest weren't the only thing that tempted her to stay put; there was something long, thick, and mighty hard that was pressing against her stomach as well – and that was even more of a temptation to her brain and her body that she could have done without.
“Geez, let the woman up for air, already,” Clive chuckled.
Ryan’s body was on full steam ahead at just the taste of her tongue against his, and even if he couldn’t scent her – every inch of him had come alive and assured him that she was his mate.
Mine…
His beast wholeheartedly agreed.
That was all that Ryan needed to release her lips and stare down into her hooded eyes as she snapped her lids open and stared at him for a long moment like she’d been hit over the head with something heavy.
“Mine…” Ryan growled out, and boy did he love saying that after the roadblocks that the wicked witch had thrown up in his way.
“The hell you say,” Vanessa squirmed some more the moment that the realization took her that she was done for. “Mate my…”
“I don’t think you want to finish that sentence, not if you really think about what you’re offering,” Clive chuckled.
Vanessa squealed with annoyance as she managed to get some of the alpha’s taut skin between her finger and thumb, and pinched him as hard as she could with a little magic to back it up, of course.
“Yeow-ouch!” Ryan yelped, and it was his brothers turn to snigger. Both of them sounded like Mutley, the cartoon dog.
“Aww, someone get a boo-boo?” Vanessa babied him, and the alpha wolf inside of him growled in annoyance.
“That’s so not funny,” Ryan said, tilting her back onto her feet again as he grumbled.
“I so don’t care,” Vanessa hissed back, finally able to slap at him until he let go of her.
Then she took a step back and gave herself some much-needed breathing space.
“Fix my nose,” Ryan growled.
“Break it more like,” Vanessa hissed, folding her arms just under her breasts and finally giving her nun’s outfit some shape around her body.
Ryan’s eyes dropped down to her breasts, and she gasped.
“You stared at my boobs!” She bit out in disbelief.
“You offered them up, but…” He said, lifting his forefinger to silence her protests, “It’s not like I can see anything under the sack, now is it?”
“What is the world coming to when a nun gets kissed in a bar and some big lug stares at her breasts?” Clive said, stirring the pot rather nicely.
“Exactly,” Vanessa agreed like she’d been vindicated.
“She’s not a nun,” Ryan growled back in disbelief.
“She’s dressed like one,” Clive tossed back.
“Still … not a damn nun!” Ryan growled louder.
“Damn and nun in the same sentence? I guess that’s contempt right there,” Vanessa berated him.
“Oh for the love of…” Ryan tossed up a hand and rolled his eyes back in his head.
“Taking the Lord’s name in vain!” Vanessa gasped.
“Seriously?” Ryan blurted out.
“Are you saying you weren’t?” Vanessa twisted her head on her neck and gave him a sideways glare.
“I…” Ryan was getting to the point where he was more than confused and a whole lot frustrated – and his blood pressure was rising faster than when he’d kissed her.
“There you go then!
” Vanessa tossed up a hand back at him. “Shame on you!”
“Someone punch me so I know I’m not dreaming!” Ryan bit out – and a fist came flying out of nowhere and landed squarely on his jaw.
Ryan’s feet never left the spot that he’d been standing in. His head did move on his neck, but he dropped his chin towards his chest and slowly turned his eyes towards his brother.
Jason looked both amused, and a little worried.
“You did ask,” the beta said.
“Didn’t I just,” Ryan bit back, and the sound of his mate’s chuckle made him growl all the harder.
“Wow, you really are the village idiot,” Jeannie shook her head at her mate, and he scowled back at her.
“And you’re mean, but I don’t point that out, do I?” Jason grumbled and watched as his mate’s eyebrows lifted slowly towards her hairline.
“You just did, Einstein,” she offered back.
“Well, three mates for three shifter brothers – what fun we’re going to have tonight!” Clive said, clapping his hands together and rubbing them like he was cold.
“Define … we.” Ryan growled back.
He thought that he’d given enough of a damn floor to those present, especially the vampire, and he wasn’t about to add to that spectacle by wooing his mate in the man’s presence.
“Ooooh, no,” Clive shook his head. “I’m not missing out on the festivities, on the wooing, on the pure torture of you three finding your mates. I’m coming home with you.”
“Define home,” Vanessa scowled.
“Pack land,” Clive shot back with glee.
“Pack land!” Jeannie scowled at the man.
“No way, no how, no chance in bloody hell!” Faith bit out.
“Such language from a nun!” Clive bit out.
“You can stop using that old cliché, and you can take your words and shove them up your…”
“Faith,” Vanessa warned.
“What?” Faith snapped back.
“Ah, nothing, go ahead,” Vanessa waved an absent hand in the air.
She was done with the whole damn thing.
She was a mate.
A mate to an alpha.
What more could go wrong?
Faith let fly with a whole bunch of curse words – right up to the point where a big, tall, muscle bound shifter, walked in through the front door, took one look at the nun spouting obscenities, and turned on his heels and walked back out again.
“I guess the party’s off,” Clive said with a shrug. “Thanks to Little Miss Potty Mouth.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
~
“Oh look, how like a man to have a big old truck as an extension of his lack of equipment elsewhere!” Faith bit out in annoyance, as her mate half-heartedly manhandled her out of the bar and onto the dark street.
“Geez, Sister,” The bouncer said, eyeing Faith with disbelief for a long moment.
“She’s not a nun, damn it!” Mick growled at the shifter that the pack had supplied to Clive for the private party that they were supposed to be holding for Ryan’s birthday. Mick reminded himself to thank the man for letting in the nuns.
“She looks like a nun,” Trevor leaned in and whispered.
“Could that be because she’s dressed like a nun?” Mick growled back, shaking off the urge within him to head butt a wall, or Trevor, or anything that wasn’t his mate and couldn’t break easily.
“Oh … yeah.” Trevor shrugged.
“You really got a smart pack of shifters, don’t you?” Faith bit out, as he half-walked, half-lifted her towards his truck.
“What about the other nun?” Trevor called out, and Mick rolled his eyes back in his head as he grumbled and growled.
“Not a nun!” He called back over his shoulder.
“There’s a lot of not-a-nuns around tonight,” Trevor bit out with a small shake of his head.
“Must be something in the water,” Faith chuckled.
“Stop picking on people,” Mick growled against her ear.
Faith felt a flush of heat go through her body that she wanted to deny, but just like the menopause, when you were in the grip of it – there was no shaking off that sucker.
“I’m not going home with you,” Faith hissed up at him, and as she craned her head on her neck to get a better look at him, and to try out her evil glare of death and destruction – the look in his jet black eyes told her that he had other plans, and the set of his jaw said he meant to get his way.
“Fine, where’d you live? I’ll go home with you – your neighbors might be a little put out by the mating howl,” Mick teased.
“Mating howl!?” Faith grumbled a growl of her own – admittedly, it was nowhere as good as his, but that didn’t stop his wolf from showing a lot of interest in that sound, and Mick cursed as he mentally slammed that cage door shut within his mind.
“Something wrong, sweetheart?” Mick offered her a wolfish grin, and she offered him one bony elbow to the ribs – he was glad that he had a full set of hard muscles that saw her elbow skirt right off.
“Kiss my backside you…”
“Hey!” The deep, dark tones of another shifter caught the beta’s attention, and Mick groaned inwardly.
“Not a damn nun!” He growled, and his pack brother held up his hands as he took a long step back from his beta.
“Just checking,” Rodney said with a shrug of his broad shoulders.
“She looks like a nun, right?” Trevor said, and Faith couldn’t help but groan.
“I can see why you need a new gene pool. Unfortunately, I’m not your girl,” Faith bit out.
“No, just my mate,” Mick growled back.
“Your mate is a nun?” Steve spat out on a holler of disbelief as he sauntered down the road towards them.
“Not a nun,” Rodney said quickly back over his shoulder.
“Looks like one though, right?” Trevor offered.
“Oh … my … God!” Faith bit out in pure and unadulterated disbelief.
“Yeah, ok, you got me there,” Mick growled back.
He couldn’t help but see her point of view.
“Let me go!” Vanessa squealed out in annoyance as she squirmed and turned, and tried to push up from where she was hanging down the alpha’s broad back.
The last that she’d seen of Jeannie; the woman had her hand wrapped around the handle to a door marked private, and her mate was trying to get her free.
Vanessa had tried to help out, and she’d zapped his backside on the way out the door, a door held open by a grinning vampire that she’d also zapped, and now she was out in the night air – hanging upside down like a sack of potatoes from her mate's shoulder.
Oh, the indignity, and her wearing a nun’s habit as well.
“Not until you learn to play nicely with others,” Ryan tossed the words back over his shoulder as he stalked towards his pickup truck that was parked behind Mick’s.
Ryan couldn’t say that he hadn’t enjoyed hearing Jason’s yelp of pain when she’d zapped him. He had.
Neither could he say that he hated the sound of the vampire biting down on pain of his mate’s wrath as he’d left the bar behind him. It kind of made his year.
But still, he didn’t need her to know any of that, and he’d made a point of admonishing her behavior. Because he was the alpha and a pack needed discipline.
“Another nun?” Rodney bit out in surprise.
“We’re kidnapping nuns now?” Leslie said, as she stopped beside the other members of the pack and twisted her head to one side, offering her older brother a questioning look.
“There not nun’s,” Rodney said, and then he frowned. “At least, Mick’s one isn’t.”
“Not a nun – a mate – two mates…” Mick growled out, but he never got to finish.
“You both found a mate?” Leslie splattered amusement through her words like confetti.
The thought of her Neanderthal brothers having found woman that one woman who would put up with
them was unbelievable to her. Welcome though it was.
She’d had to live with them long enough to know that they didn’t exactly keep the house as a female friendly zone.
“All,” Ryan corrected her.
He turned towards his little sister and saw her frown, then, there was a timely loud squeal from inside the bar, and all eyes, except Mick’s and Ryan’s, turned towards the entrance.
Jason came out carrying his mate over his shoulder, and she had the door handle still in her hand. Jeannie was using it to beat her annoyance against the beta’s backside.
“Damn, she’s a mean one,” Jason growled.
“At least she’s not a nun,” Trevor offered with a small shrug as Jason shot him a curious look.
“No,” he offered dryly. “That would be bad.”
“They’re not nuns,” Ryan growled.
“Yeah, but they’re wearing penguin suits – that one’s not, she’s … normal,” Trevor offered back.
“For a witch,” Jason grumbled.
“They’re witches?” Leslie’s night just got a whole lot brighter and more interesting.
If anyone could keep her three shifter brothers in line – then witches could. Oh, she knew that she was going to enjoy the wooing part that was to come.
Ryan grumbled a growl back at her, and she shrugged a helpless grin.
“Really?” He eyed his little sister as she practically shone with glee.
“What? I think I deserve to enjoy the mating pull after all these years of being teased, prodded, pinched and treated like a female in a house full of male chauvinist pigs – that’s only fair. I guess it’s true what they say; God pays debts without money.” She offered back, grinning with glee.
“Newsflash little sister, you are female,” Jason offered.
Then he unceremoniously tossed his mate up in the air with just a flick of his broad shoulder, and she squealed out as he caught her at the waist with his two large hands, and gently eased her down the hard length of his body to her feet.
“Butthead,” Jeannie bit out, swinging her hand with the handle in it right at his head.
Jason’s eyes widened, but his hand shot up and his long fingers wrapped around her wrist, stopping her from hitting him upside the head with the metal handle and growling a warning to her.
