~

 

It wasn’t that Luke didn’t trust his mate — but, he didn’t trust his mate’s unthinking need to put a little distance between them. She was probably in shock; he knew he was, finding a mate like that — that Christmas fairy had a lot to answer for.

He supposed he should be grateful to the man, and yet, he still felt the urge to rip his head off and hand it back to him for kidnapping his mate. He was caught between a rock and a hard place. If the Christmas fairy had not of done what he’d done, then he wouldn’t have his mate.

But, what the hell was the fairy godmother thinking making someone like George the Christmas fairy in the first place? Luke shook his head in dismay at that one.

He stood with his feet planted firmly on the ground. His eyes were locked and loaded on the bathroom window, and he was waiting for his mate’s appearance.

On the other hand, if he was wrong about her, then he would hear the internal lock of the bathroom door turn, and he could make it back inside in no time at all.

There, in the window, was the silhouette of his mate. She raised her hand, lifted the handle, and pushed the window all the way open.

She might have been in darkness, with the internal light behind her giving her a halo, but the alpha could still see her face perfectly well, and his mate was no Saint. He’d been right – she’d planned to run.

Her eyes locked on him and widened in surprise. Her lips parted, and she wheezed a little breath out like a deflating balloon.

“Just felt the need to get some air?” Luke asked. His deep voice snapped Angelique to attention.

“Yep,” she bit out, and her top lip twitched in annoyance.

Then she slammed the window closed again, and the alpha grumbled and growled ay her deviousness.

He’d been right about her. She was planning an escape, but it didn’t make him want to pat himself on the back for being right. Now, he was going to have to watch out like a hawk. Not that he hadn’t planned on doing it anyway.

She was a witch. They were sneaky. Enough said.

 

~

~

~

 

“Just out for a stroll?” George’s mocking tones and wide grin annoyed the alpha.

“Thought I’d come out to kick your butt,” Luke growled and was rewarded when George’s smile dropped like a stone.

“Does nobody have a sense of humor anymore?” George grumbled.

‘Every time I look at your face, I crack up,’ Jessica said.

“Well, you’re just a little ray of sunshine, aren’t you?” George offered what was obviously a fake smile.

‘Oh, does nobody have a sense of humor anymore?’ Jessica mimicked him.

Luke booted open the front door and stalked inside, slamming it behind him, and rattling the windows in the frames. He eyed Angelique as she stepped out from the hallway into the living room, and he noted a small grimace that shot across her face before it was gone. He had hope that she’d learned her lesson.

Then she lifted her chin in defiance and crushed that hope into the dirt. Witches!

“Really?” The low rumble of a growl within his chest told Angelique everything that she needed to know. The man was expecting her to say something – maybe even sorry.

She raised her chin a little higher. He’d be waiting a while.

“It’s so stuffy in here.” She gave a small shrug of her shoulders and challenged him to call her out.

“Isn’t escaping out of the bathroom window just a little beneath you?” Luke asked as he crossed his arms and tipped his head to one side to offer her a look that was mixed with disbelief. He had no problem with playing her game.

“I have no idea what you mean,” she lied.

“Sure — you don’t.” Luke wasn’t buying it, and they both knew it.

“Well, you can’t expect me to be over the moon, happy-happy, my life is complete, what joy, at the situation. Now can you?” Angelique mirrored his stance.

“I think I’m quite the catch,” Luke couldn’t keep the corners of his lips turning upward into a small smile.

“I’m sure you do — and I’m sure you are — for a she-wolf,” Angelique offered back, giving him that much.

It wasn’t as if the man looked like something the cat dragged in — he didn’t. If anything, he was out of her league, not that she had a league, she preferred not to fish in the sea — however many fish there might have been — she was fed up with throwing them back.

Now, she had a mate. There was no chance of throwing him back. Unfortunately.

“Well, unfortunately, fate didn’t make you a she-wolf,” Luke said, smiling to himself.

“Well, unfortunately, fate didn’t make you a…” Angelique waved her hand in the air absently. She knew there was a word out there somewhere for her; it was just a shame that she couldn’t find it.

“Warlock?” Luke offered back.

“Oh, Goddess, no!” She even gave a small shake of her head at the thought of it.

If she’d had the choice — which obviously she didn’t because fate had decided for her — she would have chosen a shifter over a warlock any day of the week.

“Purebred human?”

“Look, it’s not even because you’re a shifter — sort of — it’s more to do with the fact that I wasn’t expecting a mate. I didn’t ask for a mate. That stupid Christmas fairy…” She waved her hand absently in the air again as a stream of curse words flashed into her mind, and she couldn’t get past it.

“Kidnapped you…” Luke growled at the thought.

“Exactly!” Angelique snapped her fingers and pointed at the alpha, but there was no magic behind that index finger. “And then there was you…”

“Tall, dark, handsome — me,” Luke was smiling again, but it wasn’t a smug smile that she felt she could zap him for.

“That’s not really the point, is it?” Angelique huffed back.

Sure, he was all those things, and if she’d seen him across a crowded bar then she may have drooled into her wineglass, but that wasn’t really the point either. They weren’t in a bar where she would have had the choice to ignore him. No, she’d been snatched up, kidnapped, and delivered to her — fate-mate.

A lack of choices came to mind. Didn’t she have the right to choose?

“So, my appearance doesn’t offend you?” Luke’s smile spread a little bit wider, and Angelique groaned inwardly.

“Fishing for compliments?” She tossed back.

“Not at all. I’m just trying to find some common ground between us that we can build on,” Luke offered back.

“And you think that common ground could be declaring how Mr. wonderful you are, do you?”

“Am I?”

“Get over your ego.”

If he was to stand any chance of wooing his mate, then he needed to understand her mindset. Right then, what she seemed to be objecting to was the speed and shock of finding out that she was a mate. He could work with that.

“Common ground – build a bridge from either side that meets in the middle…”

“One wrong move and there’s a gaping canyon of painful death below just waiting…”

“How did humans ever populate the planet with that kind of an attitude?” Luke growled.

“As opposed to the – let’s sniff each other’s butt and then shag like crazy?”

“The fact remains,” he growled just a little more. “We need to build on our…”

“And if I don’t want to build? What if I just want to go home, crawl under my duvet, and stay there until after New Year?”

“Well, you don’t have to climb out of the bathroom window to do that.” Luke shrugged his shoulders.

She wasn’t a prisoner. She was his mate.

He couldn’t exactly keep her there if she wanted to leave. For one thing; she probably wouldn’t stop zapping him.

That didn’t mean that he wanted her to go. He’d found his mate, even, if it had been by way of the Christmas fairy.

He only had one shot, one mate, and he didn’t want to lose his chance at love, family, and everything that a shifter held dear within, but neither could he keep her against her will.

“You mean I’m free to leave?” Angelique narrowed her eyes at him with suspicion.

“Yes.”

“Then why were you standing outside the bathroom window?” Angelique demanded, raising her hand and dropping it again in frustration and futility. Men!

“Because we have a door,” Luke tossed back.

Angelique’s whole body straightened at that remark. She even gave a small grimace, and she had to admit that climbing out of the bathroom window did seem a little extreme.