CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

 

 

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“What are you doing?” Emily snapped her attention towards her mate who was standing suspiciously closer to her than he had been only moments earlier and he’d leaned in towards her. He looked – innocently sheepish.

“Me?” he asked.

Bree couldn’t help but chuckle as she climbed the small ladder. She’d seen the moves he’d made to side up to his mate. The way he’d sneakily closed in on her and then scented the air around her as if he was searching for breakfast.

“No, the goblin in the corner.” Emily placed her balled up fists on her hips and eyed him with a frosty stare.

“I have some really funny jokes about goblins…”

“Don’t even start with me,” Emily offered back. “I know deflection when I see it.”

“You do?” Jai was now the picture of innocence, and he looked interested in what she had to say, too interested, as if he were hanging on her every word like it meant the difference between winning or losing an important battle.

“I do.”

“Hmm.” He took a long moment to consider her words. It wasn’t that he needed that moment, but she was female, and he hoped that she’d be distracted by something else sooner rather than later.

He liked to think of it as the goldfish scenario.

“Oh look,” Bree called from her precarious perch on the end of the diving board. She pointed toward the center of the pool. “A crest.”

And there it was. His mate turned to eye the witch, and he hoped he was off the hook. He didn’t need to look at Bree; in truth, he couldn’t take his eyes off his mate.

That was when he noted the spark of mischief in Emily’s eyes, the way she swayed on her feet slightly, and the way that her fingers twitched at her sides as a mischievous thought ignited within her brain. At least now he knew that she had a tell when she was plotting something.

A moment later and her hand flicked on her wrist. There was a loud screech that filled the area and hurt his ears, and he did yank his gaze away from his mate just in time to see Bree flapping her arms like a startled bird just before she entered the water with the most ungraceful splash.

Emily tossed her head back on her neck and roared with laughter at the witch’s expense. “I hope she can swim,” she said between sucking in air and bursting with laughter like she had a funny version of whooping cough.

Jai felt the weight of her laughter lift a heavy weight from his mind, his shoulders, and his heart. He’d learned something from all of his years on the planet; if someone could laugh in the face of adversity that was going on all around them – then they were sure to weather the storm.

Laughter really was the best medicine and once you got through all the other emotions and learned to laugh once more – life took on a whole new meaning. His mate was going to be just fine.

Bree, on the other hand, resembled a drowned rat as she broke the surface and did a great impression of a water fountain as she splattered water, and doggy paddled towards the edge of the pool.

“I don’t believe…” Bree bit out with a look that could have toasted marshmallows, but Emily couldn’t stop chuckling.

“Small price to pay considering,” Emily grinned. “Don’t you think?”

“I’m trying really hard not to because thinking leads to spelling, and spelling leads to trouble, and trouble is something I’m trying to avoid, you she-demon.” Bree bit down on her annoyance.

While it was true that a dunk in a swimming pool wasn’t a huge price to pay for starting the whole mess with the mates, it was still as annoying as all hell, and she did like to get payback whenever possible.

“She-demon,” Emily considered that for a long moment. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Take it, shove it, and get me a bloody towel!” Bree bit out as she slapped her hands on the side of the pool and prepared to pull herself out of the water.

“Does the kitty not like water?” Emily chuckled, but she wasn’t chuckling when Bree’s dark gaze of annoyance narrowed on her, and she felt the magical hand shove her in the back.

Emily hit the water like a starfish. When she broke the surface and wiped the water from her eyes, there was Bree smirking back at her.

“Thought you might want to cool off,” Bree offered with a grin.

Emily took a deep breath and countered to ten as she swam towards the side of the pool. She had considered all of the things that she could do to get her own back on the witch, but the underlying amusement that bubbled and threatened inside of her made her wrath diminish.

But, when she flicked a look towards her mate and noted the way that his hand covered his lips as he chuckled behind it, her attention turned to more important matters.

Jai hit the water like a cannonball. He wasn’t so much pushed in as shot to the center of the pool. As his feet hit the tiled bottom, somewhere above the waterline, he could hear the hearty cackle of witches as they laughed at his expense.

He could live with that – just so long as his mate kept laughing.