~

 

“It’s in a pot,” Luke grumbled and growled.

He didn’t want his mate to think that potting a tree that someone had just cut down wasn’t a waste of his time and an irony to boot, so he bit down on the need to offer her his opinion.

“Are you waiting for a pat on the head or a Scooby snack?” Angelique asked.

She wasn’t best pleased that they’d actually gone out and chopped down a tree for her. She didn’t know one single witch that celebrated Christmas by killing off a piece of mother nature.

Even Yule logs were gathered and not wrenched from the bosom of the land.

This madness was all the fault of the Christmas fairy. She had a good mind to bend that man over and shove that poor dead Christmas tree right up his…

“Perhaps a thank you wouldn’t go amiss, or is that not in your vocabulary?” Leo grumbled from the kitchen doorway.

The elder had another chicken leg in his hand — his third — and she had to wonder how many damn legs that chicken had in the first place.

“And… Searching…” Angelique rolled her eyes at the ceiling and considered his words. “Nope. Words unrecognized.” She sneered back at the elder.

“Smartass.” The elder grunted before he turned on his heels and walked back into the kitchen again.

“Apparently, that box has decorations of some kind,” the alpha nodded to the ominously large cardboard box that sat to her left.

Angelique eyed it with contempt. What did she know about decorating the tree? That was what snow was for. Mother Nature at her very best.

“Have at it then.” Angelique folded her arms to show him that she wasn’t about to delve in.

The look on his face was priceless — if she didn’t know better, then she might have thought that she’d asked him to wade through a pile of soiled baby nappies.

“Do I look female to you?” Luke growled.

“Do I look like I know how to…” She waved her hand at the Christmas tree. “Dress — make pretty — a damn dead tree at Christmas.”

“Then it’s lucky that we’re here.”

“Oh no!” Leo ground out from the other room. “Satan’s minions have arrived. Did someone call for more meddlesome creatures?”

“Did someone open their mouth and tell the pack that I’d found my mate?” The alpha growled.

Angelique was busy eyeing the two elders that stood side by side at the door. They came bearing gifts, covered plates within their hands, and she was more than interested in that prospect.

“We heard you had a guest…” Mirabelle rushed out with a beaming smile for the alpha.

“We baked Christmas cookies,” Isobel offered with an equally beaming smile this time for Angelique. She’d seen the witch’s interest pique at the sight of the plates.

“We heard that someone likes Christmas,” Mirabelle offered.

“Not so that you’d notice much,” the alpha grumbled with a flick of a glare toward his mate.

He had a feeling that somebody had been playing fast and loose with the truth — how like a witch.

“Well, everybody likes Christmas cookies,” Angelique offered him a teasing smile of victory.

The more, the merrier. Anything that stopped her from being alone with the alpha was worth embracing.

“You can run, but you can’t hide,” George said as he rested his shoulder against the frame of the front door and eyed the witch

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Angelique offered back along with the kind of glare that she itched to put some real magic behind.

“Don’t you?” His question sounded accusing to her. And when he narrowed his eyes at her with suspicion, she did feel a small flash of guilt — but when she flicked her eyes towards Luke that feeling disappeared rather quickly. So that was all good.

“Nope,” Angelique muttered as she looked anywhere but at anybody in the room. “Yum. Cookies. Can I have one?”

“We can eat them while we decorate the tree,” Mirabelle said, and Angelique’s hopes sunk within her.

Still, if they tasted as good as they smelled, then it was worth the trade-off. She guessed.

They were elders, and they’d had a lifetime to perfect the art of cooking. She just hoped that they hadn’t squandered that time.

“Sounds like…” Angelique shot another look at Luke, for some reason the man looked hungry, and she didn’t think it was food. “Fun!” She announced to the elder’s delight.

“If you’re a glutton for punishment and like spending time with demonic elements,” Leo grumbled from the kitchen doorway.

“Well, we put up with you for all these years,” Isobel offered back with a small sneer.

“Ah, a Christmas family gathering around the tree,” George announced, and every head turned in his direction.

“First order of business,” Mirabelle said as she eyed the Christmas fairy from head to toe. “Jump on the top of the tree.”

‘Now why does that sound like a very good idea?’

“I’m sure the Christmas fairy is not supposed to get this much hassle,” George grumbled.

“Suck it up, Champ,” Jett’s large hand slammed down on George’s shoulder making him groan as the pain shot through him.

“I’m sure my spine isn’t supposed to collapse like a tin can in a drunk’s hands,” George grumbled.

“Well, you brought this on yourself by messing in other people’s lives,” Angelique said. She had no sympathy for the man.

“It wasn’t me,” George grumbled. “It was the fairy godmother and let’s not forget fate.”

“That kidnapped me, bundled me in the back of my own car, and dragged me here like a Christmas present for the alpha?” Angelique demanded to the sound of an increasingly deep growl that rolled into the air from the direction of the alpha.

“You did?” Mirabelle gave him a look of disgust.

“And the alpha didn’t eat you?” Isobel looked from the fairy to the alpha, questioning his sanity, before looking back at the fairy again.

George looked aghast. He was glad that he was standing in the exit to the cabin. He took a very long step backward when the alpha took one very big step forward.

“I’m just going to check on — Christmas,” George lied, before disappearing in an electric blue haze.

Luke grumbled another growl. He didn’t know if it was bad, to eat the Christmas fairy, or not, but he’d kind of like to give it a go.

Luke turned to look at his mate. Angelique snapped her gaze toward the elders at the door just so that she wouldn’t be snared by those dark, hungry eyes.

The women grinned from ear to ear.

“Let’s decorate that tree,” Angelique smiled.