The sound of chatter around them died suddenly when the door to the bar opened, and a tall, leggy, brunette walked in. Everyone turned to look at her, everyone but Santino.

  There was a clip-clop of heels on the wooden floorboards, and the vampire knew that things could go either way – he wasn’t betting on an outcome, only that it was going to be public.

  He turned to look up at the brunette when she came to stand beside him at the table. When the vampire flashed her a devilish smile, her eyebrows arched. “Did you miss me?” he asked, but his tone was far too cocky for Lorna’s liking.

  The witch was right – a heartbeat later and the brunette was emptying a bottle of beer over the vampire’s head. “Y-oooouuu,” Merry growled, turned on her heels and stomped back outside, slamming the door behind her.

  Coleen pressed her lips together and tried to hide the grin. “I’d say that’s a no, but that’s just me. Maybe someone else read things differently?” She looked around the table at the sniggering men and Lorna who was trying her best to hold onto her laughter, but she just couldn’t do it.

  With a snort, Lorna burst into fits of the giggles, and that started the others off. Santino sneered at them. “Who’s the idiot that called her?”

  “That would be me,” Betty said from the doorway of the kitchen. “Called her the moment I heard your voice.”

  “Well, thank you for that,” Santino said, shooting the elder a hard stare.

  “She deserved to know you were back,” Betty said, berating him with a look. “You did break her heart…”

  “She was fifteen and nothing happened!” he protested. “How many times do I have to say it?”

  “Maybe until you can convince her of that,” Betty said with a shrug.

  “I…” Santino stopped talking and rolled his eyes to the ceiling.

  “The old alpha thought something happened,” Nash said, eyeing his old friend.

  “The old alpha was wrong,” Santino informed him. “And you know it, because if you thought there was something in it, then I wouldn’t be sitting here at your table – I’d be dead – or, running from a bunch of miffed off wolves trying to kill me…”

  “There’s still time,” Nash said. “I like to let my food go down before a run.”

  “Do not even start that with me,” the vampire protested. “I know all of you, and you all know that…” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “Was all in her teenage hormonal mind.”

  “That’ll teach you to lead a female on,” Dalton said, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms.

  “Do not be nice to females, got it,” Santino said.

  “Or don’t fraternise with teenagers,” Lorna said, scowling at him.

  “It was not my fault,” he protested.

  “Try telling her that,” Coleen berated him.

  “Yeah, go ahead,” Lorna said, motioning to the door.

  “Now?” Santino snorted a chuckle.

  “No time like the present,” Nash said, grinning.

  “Unless you’re scared?” Coleen said, challenging him.

  “Of a girl,” Lorna added.

  Santino folded his arms, cocked his left eyebrow at the witches and gave a dramatic sigh. “You can’t bait me – that’s my trick.”

  Coleen shrugged. “Go ahead and deflect,” she said.

  “I’m not … deflect from what?” he asked.

  “From the fact that you’re scared of a girl,” Lorna added, and she tossed a look at Coleen, and they both rolled their eyes at the same time.

  Santino wagged his finger at Coleen. “I see what you’re doing, and it’s not going to work.”

  “Yeah, we’re doing evil things – like getting you to fess up to your mistakes,” she said and shook her head.

  Lorna joined in. “Like trying to explain to the girl whose heart you so cruelly broke…”

  “I did not break her heart,” he protested.

  “You kind of did,” Nash said, joining in the baiting.

  “See,” Lorna said, pointing to Nash, and getting distracted for a moment when their eyes met. “What he said,” she added, losing her chain of thought.

  “Forget it,” Coleen said, waving a dismissive hand in his direction. “He’s a big, bad vampire. He doesn’t feel the need to atone for his sins…”

  “What sins?” Santino protested. “I’m innocent of all wrongdoing.”

  “Prove it,” Coleen baited him again.

  That time it worked. He pushed up to his feet and started for the door. “Fine!” he snapped back over his shoulder and was gone.

  Lorna grinned at Coleen, and she grinned back. Then a horrible thought occurred to her and she turned to look at the four shifters sitting at the table with them. “Umm,” she said, pushing up to her feet. “We should go with him,” she said, reaching over and dragging her friend to her feet.

  “Huh?” Lorna asked, looking down at her untouched food.

  “He’ll need proof, and we don’t want to miss the show, do we?” she said, nudging her friend in the ribs.

  “Nope,” Lorna said, catching on fast.

  Nash pushed up to his full height and narrowed his eyes on the witches. “Witches on pack land?” he growled the question.

  “What could go wrong?” Lorna bit out the side of her mouth to Coleen, who winced in reply.

  “Fine,” Nash said. “We’ll all go.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ~

  “Smooth move,” Lorna hissed out on a whisper as she sat beside Coleen in the back of the pickup truck.

  “How was I to know Spongebob and Square Pants would want to come along?” Coleen hissed back, not on as low a whisper as her friend.

  “Spongebob is square pants,” Flint said from the front seat.

  “And you would know,” Coleen muttered, causing Lorna to snigger.

  “She got you there,” Nash said, mocking his brother with a grin.

  Flint grunted. “Everyone knows who Spongebob is,” he grumbled.

  Lorna grasped both of the back of their seats and leaned forward between the two shifters, causing Nash to do a double-take, but it was the two large globes of her breasts that called to his eyes as they called to him from the deep V of her shirt and begged for his attention. A rumble of a growl bubbled in his chest, and he had to batter it down to keep it at bay.

  Temptation was a bad thing, especially when it took the form of a witch.

  “Spongebob is a cartoon character, and only men would watch cartoons after the age of puberty,” she informed them with something of a sympathetic, mocking look at Flint.

  Flint grunted again. “Really because I hear the latest Disney Princess movie is good…”

  “Oh, it is…”

  “Only men, ey?” Flint shot back.

  Lorna sighed. “Disney is not the same as…”

  “A cartoon?” Flint asked, amusement flashing in his eyes, and Lorna chewed that over before she came up short and huffed, pushing back into her seat.

  “He got you there,” Coleen whispered and noted her friend’s pout.

  Nash rumbled a chuckle because it was better than a growl. “That’s one all,” he said, eyeing the witch in the mirror.

  Lorna caught sight of his eyes in the rearview mirror, and she wanted to look away, but she couldn’t seem to do it. His eyes were full of laughter, and if they belonged to anyone else – anyone who wasn’t a wolf shifter – they were eyes that she might consider getting lost in.

  But the man was a wolf shifter, and an alpha to boot, and therefore off-limits. Shifters had mates, and not being his mate would only lead to heartache should she fall for Mr Tall, Dark, and Sexy. Not that she would, he wasn’t her type – not that she had a type, but if she did then she was sure that it wouldn’t be him.

  “What are you thinking?” Coleen asked, nudging her and bringing her out of her thoughts.

  Lorna’s cheeks went a brighter shade of red, and she could feel the heat coming from them. “Nothing, I’m a blank page,” Lorna rushed out, knowing that her denial was a little too fast for Coleen not to pick up on something amiss.

  “I’ve seen that look before,” Coleen said, with a teasing tone and a big bright, mocking smile.

  Lorna’s heart raced as it kicked her ribs. “No, you haven’t…”

  “Yes, I have.”

  “No,” Lorna bit out, offering her friend a warning glare. “You haven’t.”

  Coleen’s eyebrows tried to meet her hairline as she drew her head back on her neck and regarded Lorna with amusement. “Me thinks the witch-eth doth protest too much-eth,” she said, snorting a chuckle.

  Lorna zapped her, and with a squeak, Coleen jumped in her seat. “Hey, zap them, not me!” she hissed in annoyance.

  “They aren’t bugging me, you are,” Lorna offered back.

  “Touchy much?” Coleen shot back.

  “No. I just don’t like being told what I’m thinking when I’m not thinking anything,” Lorna lied.

  What she didn’t like was being busted and called on it by her so-called friend. Friends did not do that, and Coleen should have known better.

  “Someone hit a nerve,” Flint chuckled from the front seat, and without thinking, Lorna zapped him. “Hey!”

  Lorna folded her arms and pressed back in her seat. “That’s for snooping on other people’s conversations,” she said, and caught sight of the alpha’s gaze in the mirror, still looking at her. “And you, watch the damn road,” she berated Nash – noting that he immediately turned his attention back to the road ahead.

  She guessed she wasn’t the only one who didn’t like being busted.

  ~

  “Merry!” Santino announced like she’d won something in a game show, but all she’d won was a jolt to her heart when the stupid vampire decided it was okay to appear in front of her like a spectre after her soul.

  Merry stopped abruptly in her tracks, but she’d almost run right into him and growled in annoyance at the thought of being that close to the man. “Go away, you despicable ghoul,” she snapped, fisting her hands at her sides to try to keep calm and not allow her wolf to burst free and eat him.

  Although, that was a very tempting thought, and nothing less than he deserved.

  “Despicable and ghoul all in the same sentence, how quickly we forget…”

  “Quickly? It’s been ten years…”

  “And I’m sure you’ve been counting the days…”

  “Dream and on, sucker,” Merry folded her arms, lifted her chin, and eyed the bloodsucker down her nose.

  The vampire had been her first crush. A friend of her father’s, he’d always been around, and he’d paid her attention, had led her on, and then denied that he hadn’t when he’d been challenged by the elders.

  Despicable wasn’t a strong enough word for him. He’d made her look a fool, and she was still being teased about it to this day.

  “Only a person with strong enough emotions about someone would drive all the way to the bar, dump a beer on me, and then forget to take their car home…”

  “I didn’t forget!” she snapped, although, she hadn’t remembered until she was half a mile down the road.

  “Then, why are you walking?” Santino asked with a smirk.

  “I’m walking because I want to, and you deserved the beer, and more,” she added, her big brown eyes flaring with anger and accusation for what he’d done.

  “I was never your mate…”

  “I know…”

  “One day, you’ll find…”

  “Get out of my way!” she snapped and started right for him.

  Santino knew right away that if he didn’t move, then she was going to plough into him. That wouldn’t hurt him, but it might hurt her.

  He held his hands up to his chest and quickly sidestepped, allowing her to stalk by him and carry on down the road without another look over her shoulder.

  “You know?” he called after her. “You’ve got a lot more grouchy as you’ve aged.”

  Merry hesitated in her stride, the flush of rage inside of her almost tipped her beast over the edge, but she kept on walking, and she kept her beast trapped inside. She wasn’t about to rise to the bait – she remembered it well – even if it was a tempting thought to sink her fangs into him.

  “Well, at least some of us can age,” she tossed back.

  “That’s not always a good thing,” he called back and then smirked. “I mean, look at you – you’re not exactly spring fresh anymore.”

  That did the trick. She ground to a halt like she’d walked into an invisible wall.

  Santino noted the way her shoulders were practically around her ears like earmuffs, noted the fact that her hands were balled into fists, and as she slowly turned back towards him – the death glare in her eyes would have been enough to strike him dead if she’d been a witch.

  Whoops – maybe a little too much wolf baiting.

  CHAPTER SIX

  ~

  Nash hit the brakes in record time. His shifter reflexes were the only thing that saved the vampire from being struck by the truck and ending up a hood ornament, and he cursed with anger when the two females in the back of the truck squealed in surprise. “What the hell?” Nash growled out of the open window, but he didn’t need the vampire to give him an answer when the female wolf shot out from the trees on his trail, and she didn’t even turn a look in their direction.

  “Guess things didn’t go well,” Coleen said from the back seat and followed it up with a chuckle.

  Nash sucked in a hard breath through his nose as the anger inside him flowed through his veins like wildfire. He could have killed Merry if the vampire hadn’t ran in front of him first, but that wasn’t his biggest problem – the vampire could take care of himself – his biggest problem was that he had sniffed in an enclosed space, and his beast was on the rise inside of him.

  The beast’s interest had been piqued and with good cause. Nash could feel it – recognition – how one mate knew another when he sniffed her, and he’d sniffed her.

  Nash put the gearstick into park and turned slowly in his seat as he tried to get a hold on the wolf that was clawing to be set free. His eyes narrowed on Coleen, and then Lorna, as he tried to work out which one scented of summer meadows and hot spice, and which one scented of his mate.

  “Nash?” Flint asked, raising a hand and motioning to the runaway vampire. “You gonna follow?”

  Nash snapped a look at his brother – his eyes speared the man, and his beast offered the beta a deep, hard growl of pure warning. The man was a threat, and that threat needed to be neutralised. “Out!” he growled.

  Flint twisted his head to the side and frowned. “Huh?”

  Nash growled long and hard, and for one moment, his brother thought he saw a little fang. He punched open the door and hightailed it out onto the dirt road. He didn’t know what had got into his brother, but he knew when his brother wasn’t playing, and this was one of those times.

  “What the hell?” Flint bit back. He wondered if it was magic if one of those witches had put a spell on the alpha.

  “Mine,” Nash growled and noted the shock turn to pure amusement on his brother’s face.

  “A witch!” Flint announced, before tossing his head back on his neck and roaring with laughter.

  “Huh?” Coleen asked, snapping a look at Lorna, who was open-mouthed and staring back at her.

  “Huh?” Lorna asked, but the way her voice broke, Coleen knew that she was in deep-think mode. She could practically see the questions spinning above Lorna’s head in a giant bubble of doom.

  “Don’t look at me; I’m not a mate!” Coleen shot back, and Lorna’s eyebrows shot up towards her hairline.

  “Me either!” she managed, even if her voice had gone from normal to screechy in a matter of seconds.

  “I’m outta here,” Coleen said, turning in her seat and reaching for the door lock.

  “Not without me, you’re not!” Lorna said, but instead of trying the lock on the door beside her, she was trying to climb over Coleen to get out of her door.

  “Get off me!” Coleen snapped.

  “You’re not leaving without me!” Lorna said, slapping at Coleen’s hands as she tried to spring the handle and open the door herself.

  The sound of the locks snapping on made both witches stop in place and eye the movement in the front seat as Nash turned a look at them over his shoulder. “I don’t know which witch is my mate, and until I do, neither one of you is going anywhere,” he growled.

  “Crazy wolfman alert,” Lorna bit out, slapping at Coleen’s hand as she tried to yank open the door.

  “Your crazy wolf mate, not mine!” Coleen snapped back, and not content with slapping her hands away; she zapped her instead. “And get off me!”

  “You zapped me,” Lorna snapped.

  “Yeah, and I’ll do it again,” Coleen snapped. “Open your own door!”

  “And let you escape without me?” Lorna said, too busy squabbling to realise that the truck had started moving once more.

  Flint raised his hand and pointed a finger to the sky as he watched his brother drive off with the squabbling witches in the back. “Now this I’ve got to see!” he said with glee and took off on foot behind the truck.

  ~

  Santino hopped over the downed tree trunk like a man on a mission not to get a set of fangs in his backside, snatched a blanket from the washing line, and kept going. Once he cleared the cabin, he was back into the woods, and with the sound of the thud of the wolf’s paws behind him, he leapt from the ground into the lowest bough of large oak tree and turned a mocking grin down at the beast.

  Merry’s wolf pulled up short, bared her fangs, and snarled with all the pent up frustration she felt inside. If she could have climbed that tree, she would have, and the thought of sinking her fangs into his flesh made her feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

 

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