by M. L. Briers
She needed to meet him halfway in this wooing thing – eventually – and going toe-to-toe with her again so soon would only force her to pull further away.
Alf had decided to see where this mate-witch thing led. Fate had put them together for a reason, and he had to trust in that.
Also, the thought of going rogue didn’t appeal to him, but he was sure that if Harper kept on being her caustic self, then he might just prefer a quick death.
“We’re coming out,” Harper snapped back, and the alpha had to admit, it surprised the hell out of him.
“Well … good,” Alf said with a small air of suspicion.
Had his mate suddenly changed her tune because of Kent’s mate?
Was the witch a good influence on her?
“Tell me you found some deodorant and mouthwash,” Harper tossed back, and Alf bit down on a stream of curse words that went through his mind and almost spilled from his lips.
The woman was damned annoying – but that didn’t stop him from lifting his arm and sniffing his armpit, nor did it stop him from cupping his hand over his mouth to sniff his own breath.
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“And this is where we handcraft those boxes,” Alf said, giving his mate the guided tour of the large barn that housed the workings of the pack’s business.
“So, where do they undergo checks and testing to make sure they don’t explode on some poor innocent customers?” Harper asked, impressed by the setup, but not by her box.
“Well, they are all checked, but nobody shoves everything, including the kitchen sink in one, and then sits on it,” he grumbled with a deep frown that took his eyebrows low over his eyes. “But, now that you’re here.”
Harper couldn’t help the small snort of laughter that escaped her lips. It seemed like Happy had grown a sense of humor.
“So, do I get a replacement box for my troubles?”
“Are you going to try to explode it again?”
“No,” she sneered.
“Then you can have as many boxes as you like,” he said, and she offered him a curious look.
“It’s not like they’ll be leaving pack land anyway.” He shrugged.
“I will; you promised to drive me home…”
“I never promised…”
“As good as…”
“Not really…” he shook his head.
He knew this argument had been coming once he’s shown her around as he said he would, and he didn’t savor it, but she’d insisted on seeing the business, and he couldn’t put it off.
“What’s an alpha that goes back on his word worth?” Harper scowled at him.
“I never gave you my word.” He chuckled then, as he raised those eyebrows in amusement, and watched her intently.
“So, as a prisoner…”
“That’s not what you…”
“As a kidnapped witch…”
“Not that either. You came willingly…”
“I wouldn’t say willingly – exactly. You threatened to rip off my door and camp out at the foot of my bed,” she tossed back on another frown. “If I wanted a dog I would have rescued one.”
“Ouch,” he winced as his wolf reacted to her slur.
“Don’t play innocent with me…”
“Aren’t you even curious?”
“About where you get that level of audacity from? Yes.” She snapped back.
“About finding out why fate put us together.”
That made her press her lips together, and two little ridges formed over her nose as she frowned. Harper had to admit, she’d thought it had been a brain fart on fate’s side, but she hadn’t really had time to consider the whole mate-fate thing as a whole.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
~
“No,” Harper said, and promptly turned on her heels to walk away from him.
“Why did you come here if you weren’t curious?” he asked, following in her footsteps.
“For Joy.”
“Joy?”
“The other witch that lives at my house,” she tossed back over her shoulder, trying to deflect his questions with sarcasm in the hope that she’d annoy him enough for him to let the matter drop.
“We met…”
“You stank her out in your truck.” She snorted in disgust once more at the memory.
“My bad.”
“Too right it was.”
“I apologize,” he said and saw her frown as she almost tossed a look back over her shoulder at him, but for some reason, she seemed to stop herself before she did it.
“You’re apologizing?”
Harper felt the twang of suspicion in her brain. Something just didn’t seem to add up.
“Yes.”
“And where’s the punchline?”
“Not on the horizon. I might be a shifter and an alpha, but I’m still just a man, and when I’m wrong…”
“Deny – deny – deny, and only admit when backed into a corner.” She chuckled.
“If you want to back me into a corner, I’m not going to object,” Alf’s voice had taken on a playful tone, and she couldn’t resist turning around to see the laughter on his face once more.
Since the moment that she’d met him, he’d been a moody, broody, macho, butthead, but then there was that moment in his truck when the amusement on his face, in his eyes, had hit her in the stomach like a sledgehammer, and she couldn’t resist the temptation to see that look on him again. He wore it well.
Damn, but the man did have a nice smile. It was as sexy as hell, and those eyes were intent on making her blood pressure rise and taking her heart rate up with it.
“Is that your idea of a come-on line?” She scowled for want of something better to do and to try and deflect him from picking up any sign that her body was misbehaving itself.
“No,” he chuckled.
“Well, good, because if it were, then it would suck,” she said and promptly turned away from him again to stroll off as fast as her feet could carry her without actually breaking into a jog.
“I didn’t realize the barn was on fire…” he teased.
“Just trying to get away from the smell of your armpits, Happy,” she tossed back.
Maybe Darby was wrong. Maybe they should spend less time with their mates as Joy had pointed out.
She wasn’t immune to the alpha’s charms, and to her surprise, she’d found that he had a few of them, and they weren’t all centered in those strong forearms of his.
So what if she couldn’t fight off the mating pull?
Did she really want to take that risk?
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~
“Hold up,” Darby said, waving her hand and pulling up to a dead stop. They might have only been out for a stroll, but even that was more exercise than she liked to get into her daily schedule unless it was shopping, a girl could always find stamina for that. “I’m wearing five-inch heels on these boots, Sparky, and I like my feet better when they aren’t throbbing.”
“You don’t like to go for romantic walks?” Kent made a mental note for future reference.
“That’s what this is?” Darby shot back with a small frown. “Because I don’t see anything romantic in stomping over waterlogged grass, views of fields, and endless amounts of green.”
“I thought witches embraced nature,” Kent looked confused.
“I can embrace nature just fine without walking in it.”
“But the wishing well is just over there. I thought females liked that kind of thing?”
“Wishing well?” Darby perked up at the sound of that.
“It’s said to hold magical properties…”
“Let’s take a look,” Darby urged him on, and that seemed to make the beta perk up a little at the thought that he’d found something she was interested in.
In her mind, it wasn’t exactly a well. There was a small, round stone wall, no bucket or mechanism with which to garner water from the bottom, and yet, that might have
been a blessing in disguise.
“We don’t use it anymore, and the water table inside has dropped a little over the years.”
“How deep is it?” Darby asked, placing her hands against the stone wall and leaning in to take a look. The daylight reflected off the water below, and she estimated that it was a good twenty or so feet down.
“Twenty-two feet maybe? The…”
Kent yelped when a blast of her magic suddenly hit him. It was akin to hitting a brick wall, and even if he’d had time to brace himself and plant his feet, he still wouldn’t have been able to fight against the force that swept him off his feet and tipped him down the well.
One moment he was standing there facing her and the next he was falling, falling until he hit the water and was submerged beneath it. There had been no time to think, but once he’d spent a moment or two in that ice water, his brain kicked his backside into gear, and he was madder than all hell.
Darby waited for the moment when Kent’s head and shoulders punched up through the surface of the water and his dark eyes locked onto her. He blinked several times to clear his vision, and the deep, angry growl echoed off the walls and sounded like his hungry wolf had a plan to take a bite.
“Whoops! Are you hurt?” Darby called.
She might have deliberately dumped his backside down the well, but she didn’t have any intention of killing him – not unless she really had to, but that was unlikely. Nope, her intention was to be free of him so she could make her escape and lead the vampire away with her.
“No,” he snapped out on another rumble of an angry growl as he glared up at her. He had a mind to wring her neck.
He had to wonder if there was something decidedly wrong with her. Why else would she dump him in the well and then enquire after his health? The woman was from another planet.
“I’ll go for help,” she lied, but before he could answer her in words that would make a nun blush, she was already gone from that large round opening above, leaving him with only the view of the darkening sky.
“I’m going to chew her out in more ways than one,” he grumbled as he reached for the jagged stone of the walls and set his attention to climbing back out.
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~
“I thought you were interested in the business side of things around here?” Alf said as he followed on his mate’s heels as she headed back toward the house.
“I was — I am — I saw where you made the boxes,” Harper tossed back over her shoulder.
She needed a little time and space away from the alpha, more so to ease her fevered mind from where it was taking off into uncharted territory. Not that she had never ogled a man before, but this man was her fated mate, and that spelled danger in so many ways that she didn’t even want to think about it in the way that she had been.
Harper felt confusion knocking on the door to her mind and bringing its old friend insanity along with it. She didn’t even want to entertain the idea of the alpha being her mate.
“Anyone would think that you were running away from me…”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Harper tossed back. She had heard the satisfaction in the man’s voice, and while it wasn’t unwarranted, she wasn’t about to admit that – not to him.
“Are you starting to find that you have feelings for me? Feelings that you might like to explore?” Alf was relentless. He had her on the run in more ways than one, and he was planning to use it to his advantage.
“Again — don’t flatter yourself,” Harper groaned inwardly.
That witch Darby had set them on the wrong path. Spending time with their mates wasn’t a good idea at all. She needed to find joy and get her away from Clark before the mating pull became ingrained within her psyche.
If Darby wanted to increase the mating pull, then that was up to her, but Harper wasn’t going to put Joy or herself in that situation again.
Harper pulled up short and tipped her head to one side at the first sight of Darby chasing across the land as fast as her high booted heels would carry her. There was no mate following on behind her, and she had to wonder what the witch was up to.
“What the…?” Alf asked from just over her left shoulder.
He was close, too close. She could feel the heat of his body reaching out to hers, and the mating pull that tingled against her skin.
“Looks like your brother might have come a cropper,” Harper announced, suddenly realizing that Darby had not been totally honest with them.
Divide and conquer had meant something different to that woman — she’d used it to try to garner her own freedom – the sneaky little witch.
“That’s not…” Alf bit off his words on a long growl of annoyance.
“Oh, but it looks like it is,” Harper said with a small chuckle.
She might not have liked what Darby had done, but she had to hand it to the woman — she’d played a blinder.
‘Kent? Your witch is getting away…’Alf used the mental link between the pack members to speak to his brother.
‘I’m climbing out of the damn well now — and before you ask – don’t ask,’ Kent growled back.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
~
Alf’s mind flashed up an image of his brother scaling the walls of the well, and he grunted in amusement. Clark went one better, the sound of his laughter filled the alpha’s mind, and bolstered his own amusement.
‘She pushed you in the well? Classic.’ Clark chuckled.
“I’ll be right back,” Alf growled out at the thought of having to do his brother’s bidding for him. He should be wooing his mate, not having to chase Kent’s woman across their land.
Still, the alternative was that the mate might get away, and that would be bad on so many levels that it wasn’t even worth considering. He suspected that Kent’s wolf was only being kept at bay from their fleeing mate by the fact that the beast knew it couldn’t scale the walls of the well.
Once Kent’s feet hit the ground, there was no telling if he could control his wolf, or if the beast would burst out from within him and chase down their mate. Alf needed to reach her before she did something stupid. Before Kent did something stupid.
There was only one problem, leaving his mate behind felt wrong.
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Darby wasn’t sure that running full steam ahead in five-inch heels over uneven and damn slippery terrain was the best idea that she’d ever come up with, but it was the best that she’d had for that moment. She wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Her mate was down a well, and she was after a quick getaway, and for that, she needed a vehicle.
She caught sight of the alpha and Harper out of the corner of her eye and offered up a small curse that the witch hadn’t managed to keep up her end of the bargain and keep the alpha occupied.
That didn’t matter much anymore. She was on the run and committed to getting away.
If she had the alpha to contend with now, then that was better than a whole pack of wolves. Her mate wouldn’t be down the well forever, either he could climb out, or somebody would help him.
Time was of the essence, and she didn’t have time to worry about the alpha.
Darby could see the trucks parked out front of the house, and she headed towards them as fast as her five-inch heels would carry her. She pumped her arms through the air, grumbled and groaned about exercise, but she was determined to reach those trucks before anyone stopped her.
“Hey!” The alpha called, and she ignored him.
She was grateful when she finally reached the level ground of the driveway. She was even more grateful when she reached the first truck, and she yanked open the door and forced her aching body into the driver’s seat, but then she noticed that the pickup was boxed in.
Darby cursed as she threw open the truck door and headed toward the last truck on the drive. She didn’t know whose truck it was, and she didn’t much care, planting herself in the driver’s sea
t and practically doing a happy dance for the fact that the keys were still in the ignition.
Darby guessed that nobody from the pack would steal a pack truck, they wouldn’t need to, and that was good for her. She turned the key and was more than encouraged with her escape plan when the engine to life.
Darby noted the alpha running around the corner of the house toward her, just as she kicked down on the pedal and wheel spun the tires against the drive.
The alpha was in her rearview mirror, and that was where she intended to keep him.
“That’s my truck!” Alf growled, but his annoyance at watching his pride and joy taking off on him didn’t last long when he realized he needed to give chase.
For one moment he considered doing that on foot, but that little witch was flying down the road at breakneck speed, and he knew he needed to take one of his brother’s trucks if he stood much of a chance of catching her and running her over to the side of the road before she hit the main road back to town.
Clark raced around the corner from the other direction just as Alf was taking off in his truck. The man tossed his hands into the air and let them drop back to his thighs in protest.
“Hey! That’s my truck,” Clark called out and got a middle finger salute out of the window from the alpha for his troubles.
Clark grunted in annoyance, raced towards Kent’s truck, yanked open the door and threw himself into the driver’s seat. He grumbled and groaned as he turned the key in the ignition and the truck roared to life.
Then it was pedal to the metal, and he followed his Alpha down the road after the witch.
“Damn it to hell!” Kent growled out at the sight of his truck flying down the road following the alpha, who was following his mate.
He was out of trucks. A heartbeat later and his beast had burst from within him, taking off on fast paws after the convoy.
