CHAPTER TEN

 

 

~

 

Bree watched as Emily and Martha gulped down the wine in their glasses without even tasting it. The pair of them could enter a beer chugging contest and be joint first.

“I don’t think we need the good stuff for this,” Bree said, and she snatched up the bottle from the kitchen table and got a stony look from Emily.

“Oh, no, no, no – I’m not contemplating this travesty sober,” she reached out and snatched the bottle back from Bree.

“Bree’s right,” Martha said, and then stopped as she frowned. “There’s something I never thought I’d say. Ha! Any-who, we need Tequila…”

“Margaritas.” Emily’s eyes lit up at the thought.

Bree sighed, and Martha scowled at her. “Every self-respecting witch has the ingredients for margaritas in the house. Don’t make me hurt you, Bree.”

“Fine,” Bree bit out, souring to the elder as she took off to get the ingredients. “You brew it, Grandma.”

“I’ll use all my witchy knowhow to make the best darn Margaritas this side of … wherever they come from.”

    “Hubble, bubble, let’s make trouble,” Emily chuckled to herself as she leaned her elbow on the table and propped her chin on her balled fist. “No offense, Martha, but at least you don’t have long left to put up with a mate…”

“Gee, thanks,” Martha’s voice was full of sarcasm as she rolled her eyes towards Bree who was coming back with the ingredients. “I feel so much better about facing death in the eye.”

Bree chuckled as she put the ingredients in front of the elder. Emily lifted her hand and pointed an accusing finger at Bree. “You’ve got a lot to answer for.”

“In my defense, it was Martha’s spell…”

“It was not. You took the unfinished spell that I was modifying for a client. This is your mess, missy, and you need to own it – before fate bites you in the backside,” Martha snorted. “Much like it’s done to me.”

“What did you do to miff off fate?” Emily asked.

“Breathed,” Martha grumbled.

“Question is,” Bree said as she eyed the witch. “What did you do in a previous life to miff off fate enough to get a vampire mate in this one?”

Emily opened her mouth to rush to denial, but that would have been silly – she couldn’t be held responsible for her previous lives, could she? If Bree was right then, fate seemed to think so.

“I don’t know,” Emily said with a grimace.

“Must have been bad,” Bree winced.

“He’s not that bad,” Martha informed the witch, and Emily scowled.

“He’s a vampire – how much worse can things get?”

“She has a point,” Bree said, watching the elder as she prepared the limes.

“Not helping,” Martha said as she pointed the knife at Bree.

“I think I’ve meddled enough. I’m not getting involved…” Bree held her hands up in surrender.

“Oh no,” Emily shook her head. “You’re helping – you’re helping me escape him or kill him – either option sounds good.”

“Well,” Bree grimaced. She didn’t much like either idea; she didn’t have any bones with the vampire – that wasn’t to say she liked him, but she didn’t not like him - either.

“And while we’re at it, we can plot the untimely demise of that big hunka lovin’ out there,” Martha grumbled.

All three witches looked glum, but for very different reasons.

 

 

~

 

 

“Put your damn fangs away and get a grip,” Thorn growled, and Jai closed his eyes for a brief moment and sighed.

“I’m finding it a little harder to conceal my true nature right now, give me time and…”

“You’re five hundred and seventy-two, how much damn time do you need?” Thorn growled back.

“Well,” Jai said, trying to hold onto to his need to tear someone a new backside. “Aren’t you Mr. Happy today?”

The elder turned a steely glare on the man and a look of disbelief. “What do I have to be happy about?”

“You found your mate…”

“I found a witch mate…”

“Still a mate…”

“Still a witch…”

Jai bit down on the need to put the elder on his backside. Annoyance scratched within him, frustration at not being able to control, either himself or the situation clawed at his very soul. “Prejudice is a wonderful thing.”

“Nothing prejudiced about thinking that all witches should be rounded up and…”

“Burned at the stake?”

Thorn’s beast roared within him, a warning, and a timely one. Just at the sheer thought of it, the elder wanted to rip the man’s tongue from his head and hand it back to him so he couldn’t utter any more stupid untruths. “Put on a damn island somewhere where they can only meddle among themselves,” Thorn growled back.

“That’s wonderful thinking – and guess which old buzzard would be on that island with a zillion witches and his mate?” Jai tossed back and watched as Thorn realized exactly who he was talking about. He grimaced at the thought. “Witches everywhere, and you.”

“Bite me,” Thorn growled, and Jai had to batter the urge to take the man up on his words.

He really needed to get a handle on his blood craving. Of course, it wasn’t the old man’s blood that he thirsted over, it was his mate’s, but that wasn’t the point. Needs must, and he was feeling – parched.

“You’re too old to be a tease,” Jai grumbled as he took himself off from temptation and decided that now would be a good time to eavesdrop on his little witchy mate.

“Where are you going?” Mason demanded as he fell into step beside the vampire.

“I thought I’d do a little shopping, grab some meat, have a cookout while I’m waiting for my mate to come out of the house that I can’t get into,” Jai tossed back with so much sarcasm that he might as well have gotten out a sander and run it over the alpha’s nerves.

“You need to get a handle on urges,” Mason offered back with just a small rumble of an underlying growl to let the vampire know that his sarcasm wasn’t welcomed.

“Why does everyone keep saying that?” Jai looked astounded.

“Because it’s true…”

“It’s like a broken record – really – I mean, if anyone knows they need to get a handle on their urge to sink their fangs into an innocent witch’s neck and drain her dry of every last drop of her blood until she looks like a dried up prune – which wouldn’t be appetising in the least – it’s me. Don’t you think?” He was ranting, and he knew it, but, maybe swapping one urge for another wasn’t such a bad idea.

Maybe he should kill the shifters present and then move on to the rest of the pack. It would certainly give him something to do while his mate was doing Lord only knew what inside that sanctuary with her witchy friends.