~

“It looks like we have something of a stand-off going on,” Cary offered Lana what he hoped was a non-passive aggressive look. He was trying not to escalate the situation, but she was a witch — a damn sneeze could escalate the situation.

“There’s no stand-off, there is a big ass shifter blocking the way to my car, but that can be easily rectified.” She lifted her hand and wiggled her fingers at him.

It wasn’t the wave that sent the alarm bells ringing in his mind, but the wicked smile that was gracing her lips.

“What, does my backside look big in these jeans?” He tried to lighten the moment, take the tension out of the situation, and not get his backside fried in the meantime. It was a big ask.

“Yes. And here’s another problem that you have — I’m a witch…” She gave a small shrug of her shoulders and left it there.

“Tell me something I don’t know…” He muttered, but she caught his words.

“The grass is green, the sky is blue, and don’t you feel stupid Scooby Doo? Oh no, wait, you know that last part.” She looked to the sky as if she was considering her words, and when she brought her gaze back down on him, he felt as if he was a specimen in a Petrie dish.

“I’m having this feeling, and correct me if I’m wrong, but I sense that you’re not a very nice person…”

“Says that the wolf shifter…”

“That doesn’t make me a bad person.”

“It does in my book…”

“Maybe you should change your reading habits…” He tossed back without missing a beat.

“Maybe you should just step aside and let me go before I prove your point for you and zap you so hard that the hair on your body will stand on end,” she said.

Lana couldn’t back down now. If he wanted a mean girl, then she was more than capable of providing that for him.

“I have to say, I’m not curious about that prospect, but between you and me; I’m more worried about what my wolf will do if you make a move to get in that car,” Cary informed her.

Lana took in a breath and held for a moment before letting it out with a small sigh and a shake of her head. The man was an idiot, his alpha had wanted her to leave town, and that’s what she was trying to do.

Why the beta was preventing her from doing that, like a dog with a bone, she had no idea — and then she did. Something clicked within her mind, something that she didn’t even want to consider — and yet, there it was as if it was written up on a giant billboard for all to see.

“Oh, no. ” Lana eyed the man as if his wolf was about to burst from within him and attack.

“I think the answer you’re looking for is — oh, yes,” Cary said with a glint of amusement in his eyes and a slow to burn smile that was spreading his lips wider by the second.

“I need to leave now.” She amazed herself at just how normal her voice sounded when inside her mind she was screaming at the top of her lungs, panicking as if someone had set her house on fire, and fighting the urge to zap him and leg it out of there.

“Do you seriously think that’s going to happen?”

“Seriously?”

“Yes.”

“I seriously think that you and I are going to have a very big problem, and I seriously think that the only way to avoid that problem is for you to step aside and let me be on my way,” Lana said with a shrug that brought her shoulders up toward her ears as she lifted her hands, palms up to the sky in a helpless gesture — but she was anything but helpless because she had magic, and she wasn’t afraid to use it.

“And I seriously think that you underestimate how much my wolf will want to hunt you down and…”

“Do not finish that sentence,” she said lifting her hand and pointing her index finger at him. For a split second, she wondered if; while that finger was outstretched anyway that she shouldn’t just zap him and be done with it.

“Then you get my point?”

“I’ll give you a point in a minute, and I guarantee it will be one that you won’t enjoy, in a place that you definitely won’t enjoy it,” Lana warned him with a slight hiss to her tone that warned him of things to come.

“Back to mean girl…”

“I didn’t know I’d ever stopped.”

“You have a point…”

“Enough with the points and just step aside.” The hiss in her tone was getting more pronounced as the frustration grew within her, and it reminded him of a rattlesnake that was poised to attack.

“You had to be in town for a reason…”

“Just passing through,” Lana lied.

There was no way that she was going to give up Frankie, not considering what was happening to her. Frankie definitely wasn’t the type to ask questions first, and that could lead to no end of trouble.

“Now why don’t I believe you?”

“Naturally suspicious? Maybe you have the type of personality that accuses other people of what you’re liable to do, who knows?”

“I don’t know, but still, something just doesn’t sit right with me…”

“Then change position,” Lana tossed back.

She eyed the distance to her car and considered her options. Cary caught that move, and he was ready for any attempt that she might make to hightail it into the car and try to outrun him.

Mine…

“I wouldn’t,” he warned.

“Wouldn’t…?” She tried to sound as innocent as she could and hoped that she’d achieved it.

Lana made a point of looking over the beta’s broad shoulder at nothing at all. She gasped, scowled, took a step back as if something was coming her way, and lifted her hand and pointed, and all the while she tried her damnedest to look terrified.

That worked — the beta reacted immediately, turning toward the alleged danger, and putting Lana behind the security of his back. Cary scanned the opposite side of the street; it was empty, not even a human.

He had a bad feeling, but it was already too late — her magic was already tensing every muscle within his body, and then he felt a magical thrust against his back, and there was nothing that he could do to save himself from being propelled forward.

Cary couldn’t even lift his hands in front of him as he rushed toward the lamppost. With his head stretched out on his neck, his forehead was the first thing to hit it — the clang registered in his ears and his brain; he saw stars as he rebounded back and ended up on his backside on the ground.

“I’d say sorry, but…” She left it there as she yanked open the driver’s door and climbed in behind the wheel. She reached for the door and flicked a look back at the beta lying on the ground. “I’m not,” she lied as she slammed the door closed and started the engine.

Lana may have felt a pang of guilt, but she knew that now wasn’t the time to be a girl, she was out of there.

Or not.

Lana had barely made it to the end of the road out of town when trouble struck. As she turned the corner; she heard the sound of a car racing up behind her, and before she could do anything to get out of the way, it pulled in front and cut her off.

Lana hit the brakes, and the air turned blue inside the vehicle as she muttered a stream of curse words and obscenities.

She didn’t need to look twice; she knew exactly whose car that was, and she wasn’t happy about it.

“You have got to be kidding me,” she bit out, popping the door open, and kicking it back with her booted foot before she climbed out onto the street. “You have got to be kidding me!” She shouted, repeating it for his benefit.

Not that she needed to do that, that man could have heard her from a mile away.

When River climbed out of his expensive sports car, he eyed the witch with a mixture of amusement and annoyance. To him, witches were some of the most annoying creatures on the planet, and the one in front of him was no exception to that rule.

While it was true that he liked to drive his fast car – what he didn’t like was to have to leave the damn city to chase down a witch, or two. Especially when that chase led him out into the middle of nowhere with bad roads and such annoyances as slow-ass tractors. He was already miffed; her attitude wasn’t going to help his frame of mind any.