His Mate - Seniors 4

by M. L. Briers

  She’d never been one to let it all hang out, and there was no way in hell that she was starting a new trend in front of him. While it was true that life was for the living, and that you should always take the opportunity whenever it raised its head, she had to draw the line somewhere.

  The man looked as if he was dreaming up some devious plot. Elizabeth couldn’t even imagine what that would look like. Perhaps, he just hadn’t had his quota of fiber for the day.

  “I really want to get in that tub,” Rick said, and he couldn’t hide or silence the underlying growl that rumbled along with his words.

  “If it means that much to you then turn around while I step out.”

  “That’s not what I had in mind.”

  “Don’t even go there.”

  “Oh, but I think you’d like it.”

  It wasn’t just the hungry look in his eyes that made her heart batter against her ribs. It was the way that he’d said it — full of promise — and that was one thing that they both could probably agree on.

  “Don’t think. It’s not working for you,” she said. “Now turn around…”

  “Why so shy?” Rick teased her again.

  “That’s it.”

  Elizabeth wanted out of the tub. She’d had enough.

  A heartbeat later and Rick yelped at the sting in his eyes. It felt as if she poked him with her fingers.

  He slapped his large hands against his face, covering his eyes, and she hightailed it out of the tub while she could. While he was preoccupied.

  Rick could hear her splashing around in the water, and even as his wolf growled within him at the thought of her escaping, he listened hard for the sound of her feet hitting the ground.

  “Don’t leave!” He growled as his beast rose up within him and he could feel the prickle of the wolf’s fur just under his skin.

  “Yeah! I’ll just stick around for round two,” she snorted contempt for that idea.

  Elizabeth snatched up the towel and wrapped it around the body as she started for the inn. She muttered and grumbled with every step.

  Rick was in danger of losing control of his wolf. As an enforcer; his beast was ever present just below the surface, ready to anything, and that was what made him so good at his job. Unfortunately, his beast could also be willful and unpredictable.

  He knew that he had to do something to try to control the situation. He did not want his wolf to break free and try to hunt her down.

  In his beast’s mind, their mate was escaping. If she ran now, then that would be very bad.

  Rick dropped his hands and tried to focus through the blur, but he had very little vision. His eyes still stung like crazy from her magic, but he had no other choice than to act because he needed to keep the wolf within its human cage.

  He started on fast legs towards the sound of her footsteps. His upper thighs slammed into the hardwood of the hot tub, and as he thrust his hands out in front of him for stability and found only air — he knew what was coming next.

  Rick went headfirst into the tub. The loud splash of his body hitting the water caused Elizabeth to turn and look over her shoulder.

  Rick’s legs were up in the air, wedged against the side of the tub. His bare backside was sticking out water, but the rest of him was submerged.

  Elizabeth couldn’t help herself — she felt the hard rise of laughter within her — and even though she slapped a hand over her mouth, it really didn’t help. When the sound burst free from inside of her, she doubled over, braced her hands against her knees, and really let rip.

  She hadn’t laughed that hard in – forever. It was made worse as the shifter fought to regain his feet.

  Rick was slipping and sliding and shimmying his legs downwards, as he scrambled with his hands to push up for air.

  “You certainly wanted in that tub!” Elizabeth bit out through the roaring, rolling laughter that went through her as the man finally broke the surface and gasped in one hard breath after another as he spluttered out water.

  “I’m glad you’re amused,” Rick grumbled and growled.

  “Oh, I am.” It was all that she could manage to get out between fits of laughter.

  Rick was out of the tub a moment later with every inch of his hard body on show again. He grumbled a growl as he stalked straight for her.

  Now that he could see once more, he saw the amusement in her eyes start to fade, and he was grateful for it. His pride had taken something of a battering.

  “That was not my fault!” Elizabeth rushed out in the hope that the man would cease and desist from whatever his plan was, and because she was still struggling to breathe after laughing so hard.

  “Oh, trust me. That was definitely your fault.” He growled back.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ~

  “Oh no, Mr – no pants. Don’t you try to lay this at my door,” Elizabeth scowled at him.

  “You blinded me…”

  “Only temporarily…”

  “Long enough, don’t you think?” Rick growled back.

  “It wasn’t me that decided to go walkabout when I couldn’t see where I was going!” Elizabeth hissed in annoyance. “You Muppet!”

  “No, but it was you that decided to run out on her mate!”

  The moment the word was out of his mouth Rick regretted it. Well, he did, and he didn’t.

  The look on her face was priceless. She was speechless, which was a bonus at that moment in time.

  He winced, considered his next move, and then tossed up his hands in frustration.

  “That wasn’t the way I wanted to tell you,” Rick admitted.

  Elizabeth didn’t say anything. Her mind had frozen and she drew a blank.

  Rick waited patiently, for all of ten seconds until he couldn’t wait a moment longer, patience just wasn’t his thing.

  “Well, say something,” Rick urged.

  The lights were on, but nobody was home. Her lips quivered a little, and he thought that she was about to speak.

  “Yes?” Rick urged her again.

  “Mate?” She bit out.

  “Yes.”

  “As in…” She could go no further.

  “Mate.” His eyes narrowed on her a little.

  “I heard you!” Elizabeth rushed out as she tossed up a hand and waved it in front of his face.

  “Then why ask?” Rick was confused.

  “Gee, I don’t know — maybe because I thought your brain had farted!” She hissed back.

  Rick pulled his head back on his neck and folded his large muscled arms across the broadness of his chest. He eyed for a long moment.

  “This whole, pull me close and then push me away strategy of yours is unbecoming…”

  “There is no — pull me close — part to it. What are you — insane?” She would have growled if she could have, but knowing her luck, he might have taken that as a come-on line.

  Elizabeth couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Even putting aside the fact that the man was up his own backside, a mate? No damn way.

  Fate must have taken leave of her senses!

  Talk about karma — oh, damn karma!

  That’s – bummer!

  A mate? And what a big one – everywhere – all of him.

  Squished comes to mind. Amongst other things – like sex – goddess – sex. With him. And if what they say about shifters is true, and at this point, I have no reason to doubt it, lots of sex.

  Sex for breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner, and supper! That’s a lot of sex in anyone’s book.

  Geez, I’d be walking like a bow-legged cowboy that was in the saddle from sunup to sundown.

  Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!

  “What are you thinking about?” Rick had to ask because he couldn’t make out the emotions that were flashing across her face.

  “Where best to dispose of your body,” she hissed back.

  ~

  ~

  ~

  Valerie eyed her mate with the kind of look that Quinn expected could freez
e water. But he was hot stuff, and a little frosty glare wasn’t going to deter him from trying to woo her.

  He didn’t know how many years he had left in front of him, but he’d waited a long time to find her, and now that fate had put them together, he’d be damned in more ways than one if he let her get away.

  “You’re my Juliet…” he said, trying for the first time to recall something that he’d heard was a love story. He preferred westerns.

  “They died.” Valerie’s voice matched the look that she was giving him.

  “But it was a love story, right?”

  “Written by a man,” Valerie offered back.

  “A wise one if our situation is anything to go by,” Quinn muttered.

  “I heard that.”

  “Just checking to see if you were paying attention,” he lied.

  “Just listening for your next stupid comment,” she offered back.

  “Perhaps I have something profound to say…”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Perhaps I’m just waiting for the right time.” He grumbled.

  “Look, I get that you have been waiting a long time for a mate, but it’s not like we’re going to have children and grow old together.” Valerie reasoned.

  “It’s not about children or how many years we have together. It’s grasping every second that you can to spend with someone you truly love.”

  Valerie frowned. She couldn’t find a snappy comeback answer for what he’d said because she couldn’t find fault with it.

  Maybe if she wasn’t old and set in her ways, then she might have felt the same way. Maybe she would have grasped the chance to love with both hands.

  Her mate didn’t strike her as the romantic type. Hell, he didn’t even know that Romeo and Juliet died. But he had an advantage over her — he’d been brought up to believe in true love — mates.

  Valerie felt a little pang of guilt for trying to take that away from him. But she wasn’t a romantic either. That’s not to say that she didn’t like movies and books where people got their happily ever after — other people — just not her.

  “A wolf got your tongue?” Quinn wiggled his eyebrows at her once more, and this time it didn’t annoy her half as much as before.

  “Not in this lifetime.” She frowned at him because she didn’t want to encourage him. She was set in her ways, and that was how it was staying.

  She was sorry for him that he had been searching a lifetime for a mate and had found only her. That wasn’t her fault, and there was nothing that she could do to change fate.

  Valerie was old enough to know that sometimes life really did just hand you rotten lemons.

  ~

  ~

  ~

  “You have to admit it’s kind of funny,” Rick said.

  The look that Elizabeth offered him left him in no doubt that she lacked a sense of humor.

  “I’m laughing on the inside.” She bit out.

  “Are you sure? Because if looks could kill…” Rick teased.

  He wasn’t wrong; she was sorely tempted to kill somebody. Maybe even him.

  It wouldn’t be that hard to dispose of his body in the middle of nowhere.

  What am I saying? I can’t kill him – I’d get caught.

  Wolves have good noses — and good noses can smell a dead body a mile away.

  Oh my Goddess, was I really contemplating killing a man?

  I am a horrible, terrible, evil mean person. And yet…?

  Oh wow, there I go again!

  ~

  ~

  ~

  Hidden deep within the foliage of the woods, Cassidy watched and waited. She’d heard every word between the enforcer and the witch.

  Rick might have sent her away with her damn tail between her legs, but she’d just retreated downwind from him. She’d heard his claim, and it wasn’t right.

  Ever since the first witch had turned up, they’d been taking members of the pack as their mates. Bewitching them with spells, but she wouldn’t let that happen to Rick.

  They might not have been mates — but that didn’t mean that they couldn’t be together. She just needed to take the witch out of the equation, break her magic on him, and make him see sense.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ~

  “So, how do you think this weekend is going so far?” Angela sighed as she lowered herself down into the comfortable chair beside the fire. She eyed Dorothy across the way from her, and the woman gave her something of a suspicious look.

  “No!” Dorothy offered back.

  “No – what?” Angela was confused, or maybe Dorothy was having a senior moment and had been talking to herself.

  “I know what you’re thinking.”

  “Don’t accuse me of thinking.”

  “That’s your trouble, you know?”

  “Thinking?”

  “Yes,” Dorothy said, but she didn’t elaborate on her point.

  “Perish the thought that one of us should do more than just fart out words without putting our brain into gear first,” Angela challenged her with just a look.

  “You know what I mean,” Dorothy bit out the words as she narrowed her eyes on her friend.

  “I do?” Angela looked a little perplexed as she clasped her hands in her lap and waited for Dorothy’s chain of thought to catch up with her mouth. It sometimes took a while, and she could be patient when she had to be.

  “Vampire blood indeed!” Dorothy huffed at the thought of it.

  “I thought that was a very good idea,” Angela tossed back. In truth, she hadn’t really thought about it since pitching the idea earlier.

  “Well, we all know what thought – thought.”

  “Do we?”

  “Thought – thought he’d farted, but he’d really pooped himself,” Dorothy looked smug at that comparison with Angela’s idea.

  “So you’re comparing my idea of giving elder witches a — not un-tasty sip or two — of vampire blood to cure what ails them with pooping your panties?”

  “Basically — yes.”

  “I’m not sure which is stupider…”

  “More stupid…”

  “Exactly — that too. Your analogy, or just how smug you look right now.”

  “And tell me what happens when something goes wrong, and we end up making a dozen or so Chloe’s?” Dorothy challenged her.

  Angela considered that for a long moment. It was true that she hadn’t thought that part through.

  “Well…” She had to consider it for a moment more.

  “It’s not like elders don’t drop dead every day of the week,” Dorothy shrugged.

  “Okay, there is that.” Angela conceded that point.

  “And with the best will in the world, I don’t think Monty would want to round up twelve newbie vampires like cats in a sack.” She pressed on.

  “Sure, I can see your point,” Angela admitted as she rolled her eyes up to the ceiling and considered her plan some more.

  “Good. Then you’ll drop it?”

  “Maybe,” Angela offered back. She sat forward in her chair and eyed her friend with excitement. “But for now I had a different idea.”

  Dorothy groaned.

  Head, wall — ouch!

  Head, wall — ouch!

  ~

  ~

  ~

  “That’s not how this is supposed to go,” Elizabeth whined a little.

  “What?” Rick asked.

  “Life,” she bit back.

  “It’s full of surprises!” he chuckled, and that sound grabbed her attention as the deep vibes ran over her skin and made her scowl harder.

  “Don’t throw cliches at me when I’m having a mini-meltdown.”

  “If this were a mini meltdown I’d hate to see the nuclear one.”

  “Yes, it may see you upside down in a hot tub again doing the funky chicken.” She lifted her chin in defiance and eyed him down the bridge of her nose.

  “I don’t do the funky chicken,” Rick growled, ju
st a little, but it was more than enough to make the fine hairs on her body stand to attention.

  “No? Are you more the monster mash kind of a guy?”

  “You think I’m a monster?” Rick didn’t like the thought of that. His mate had to know that he would never deliberately hurt her.

  “Did I say that?”

  “That’s not an answer. And yes, reading between the lines…”

  “And men are so good at reading between the lines,” she snorted a chuckle of contempt for him.

  “It’s my job to know what people are thinking before they are thinking it,” Rick offered back.

  “And what is your job?”

  “Enforcer.”

  “Then isn’t your job to go around punching people?” She asked and watched the man hesitate slightly as he redistributed his weight, shuffled his feet, and folded his large arms across his chest as he considered her words.

  “That might be a part of it,” he admitted. “But my job doesn’t define me. I would never…”

  “Hurt anyone?” She lifted her eyebrows and challenged him to deny it. Of course, he couldn’t.

  “They deserve it,” Rick shot back.

  “So, violence is the answer to everything in your book?”

  “Says the witch that just zapped me!”

  “That’s different!”

  “Different because it’s you?” Rick tossed back.

  The look on her face was a cross between sucking a very bitter lemon and shocked annoyance.

  “Different because…” She had an answer, she really did, but she just couldn’t give it to him at that moment in time. That annoyed her even more.

  “I’m patiently waiting,” Rick offered as a small smile tugged at the corners of his lips.

  “I’m thinking!” She snapped back.

  “Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick...”

  “Give me a moment!” She snapped back. There was a hiss to her tone that sounded like a really miffed off rattlesnake that had been stepped on by an elephant.

  “Well, if you can’t even come up with a simple answer…”

  She zapped him a second later. It wasn’t just any zap; it felt like an elephant stomping on his foot, and Rick yelped as he reached down for his painful toes and grasped them.