~

 

“Okay, I want to go home,” Angelique tipped her chin up in defiance once more.

She’d take him at his word and stand her ground.

“Technically, this is your home now,” Luke offered back. That smile was back on his lips again.

“Are you trying to be annoying?” Angelique asked.

“I think it’s just a happy by-product of my nature,” Luke did grin that time. It was a slow to boil smile that stretched his lips and kept her spellbound until it was done.

Then she mentally slapped herself around the back of the head and snapped herself out of it. Damn, he had one heck of a sexy smile.

“Well.” She took one step toward the front door.

“You’re right! I forgot the alcohol,” Luke said and cut her intention to be going off at the pass.

It was a play for time, and she knew it. But she had asked, and he had offered, and it was alcohol.

“Well…” She started to search for a way out of it.

“And let’s not forget that someone is getting your car from where you left it, so you have a little time,” Luke lied.

He’d completely forgotten about her, but then so had she.

“I did not leave my car…”

“Right. Kidnapped by the Christmas fairy. How did you let that happen, again?”

“You know, I’ve been asking myself the exact same question. Fairies are just so…” She searched for the right word.

“Devious?”

“Yeah…”

“Mischievous?”

“Oh, yeah!”

“Like they’d sneaked out of the bathroom window when you weren’t looking?”

“I guess one drink couldn’t hurt — much.” She gave an awkward shrug, but that was all that the alpha needed to raise his arm and motion toward the sofa.

He’d got her there. They said witches were devious; she guessed nobody had met the alpha yet.

How did you make small talk with an alpha? Angelique guessed she was about to find out.

 

~

~

~

 

Luke was playing for time. He knew that fate had an inbuilt system that brought mates closer together. They called it the mating pull.

The more time that they spent together, the stronger the pull would become. It was like having his wooing work done for him, and he liked that idea because he had no idea how to woo a witch.

He supposed that wooing a witch was like wooing anybody else — deviousness and zapping aside — but still, she was his mate and he only had one shot at it. If he messed up, he could go rogue, and going rogue meant that there was going to be fangs and claws, and chewing — lots of chewing.

The way that his mate was eyeing him over the top of wine glass, you would have thought that there had already been some chewing going on. He needed something to break the ice; easier said than done.

“Why is there a damn fairy outside the front door?” Leo grumbled as he stalked in through the back door and let it slam shut behind him.

The alpha groaned at the sound of the elder rifling through the refrigerator in the kitchen looking for something to eat. Now wasn’t exactly the right time to introduce her to the cantankerous old buzzard.

“And a male fairy to boot,” Leo snorted contempt for that. “I thought they kept their males of the lock and key.” He chuckled to himself.

“Apparently they made that one the Christmas fairy,” Luke offered back, but he got no further as Leo roared with laughter.

“Oh, that’s a good one — a male Christmas fairy!” Leo chuckled harder as he ripped off the leg from a cooked chicken and stalked up to the doorway of the living room.

Leo had the chicken leg almost to his lips when he froze in the doorway and his eyes locked on Angelique.

“That better not be a female fairy,” Leo grumbled.

“What’s better than a fairy?” Luke asked.

“A witch. I’d say only slightly, and I do not endorse the idea of having one of those around either,” Leo grumbled.

His salt and pepper eyebrows rose and fell as he talked. The deep-set wrinkles around his eyes grew deeper as he eyed her with a whole big dollop of suspicion.

“Too bad,” Luke growled a warning at the old man.

“What the hell do we need a witch for?” Leo demanded. “We don’t have much trouble around here. Why invite some in?”

“You’re saying that all witches are trouble?” Angelique asked. She didn’t think she liked this elder already and she’d only just met him.

“Yep.” Leo wasn’t about to sugarcoat his words.

“Well, if I’m not wanted around here…” Angelique started to push up from her seat.

“She’s my mate,” Luke offered a death glare toward the elder.

That chicken leg was stuck in the man’s mouth, and Luke was kind of hoping that it stayed there. But Leo clenched his jaws in surprise at the alpha’s declaration, and on hearing the bone snap, he opened his jaws and dropped into his hand.

The elder spluttered laughter.

“Oh, that’s a good one — you nearly had me there. Let’s give the elder a heart attack. Got it.” Leo wasn’t smiling.

“Angelique meet Leo, Leo meet my mate,” Luke growled another warning for the old fart to be civil.

“I’d rather not!” They both said at the same time.

Then they eyed each other for a long moment, both snorted with contempt, before they looked away.

“Well, that proves that you’re both as cantankerous as each other,” Luke chuckled to himself. “This should go well.”

“A witch mate…?” Leo grumbled a growl in his chest underlining his words as he considered it. “Bummer — for you, Alpha.” Leo turned on his heels chuckling as he walked back into the kitchen.

“What a great guy!” Angelique snorted her contempt. “Tell me, do you have any more relics in your family tree that you’d like to share with me?”

“I heard that!” Leo growled from the kitchen.

“Good,” Angelique tossed back.

Luke grumbled a growl as he rolled his eyes within his head and sighed inwardly. He knew that nothing in life that was worth having was ever going to be easy — but, did wooing his mate have to be so damn hard?