CHAPTER FOURTEEN

 

 

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When Mason stalked back into the living room, there was his mate standing at the window, and she pulled in a big breath, held it, and let it out on something of a sigh. At first, he thought that she was going to try and escape through the window again — but, she didn’t make a move to do that. Perhaps that was progress.

If looks could kill then the vampire standing outside the window would be ashes. Kelly hated that bloodsucker with a vengeance.

She’d been set to escape out the window once more while the alpha was busy ushering everybody out the front door. It would have been perfect — almost — she still would have needed to escape pack land, but at least she would have had another bite at the cherry.

And there was Mr. Smirky and smarmy, vampire extraordinaire, standing there on the other side of the glass, so close, and yet, so far from being dead. Oh, how she wanted to enact her vengeance on him.

If it hadn’t been for him then she would never have crashed her car, never met Bree, never have been on pack land, and never have known that she was a mate — oh, happy days. Not.

On a sigh, she caught sight of the alpha out of the corner of her eye as he stalked into the room. She gave the vampire one last death glare and turned away.

When her gaze met Mason’s; he swallowed down hard. Now that the screeching, zapping, sarcasm, bickering, and general madness was over — Mason realize that he actually needed to woo his mate now.

That was a tall order if that look was anything to go by — but he was an alpha, and he could rise to the challenge.

“I should feed you,” Mason said, and he couldn’t quite keep the beast from his voice as it rumbled beneath his words.

“Like a pet?” Kelly said, and she thought she should be annoyed, but she couldn’t seem to manage to quash the amusement that image invoked in her mind.

Mason stumbled over his words for a moment. “Like a mate,” he offered back with a look that questioned her sanity.

Kelly couldn’t help but notice the way he stood there. His muscles were braced, his hands were slightly fisted at his sides, and he looked strained. Well, what else did she have to do while she was trapped in a house with the big bad Wolf but question his values? “Mates need to be fed?”

“It’s the job of a male to provide for his mate…”

“You can’t be that much of a caveman,” Kelly tossed back.

“I don’t understand…”

“Did the sexual revolution just pass the shifter world by?”

“What’s the sexual revolution?” Mason said, and of course, he knew what it was, but she didn’t need to know that.

“Wowzies!” She muttered as she forced her gaze away from him and to something more generic instead.

She’d kind of wished that he was hard to look at — but he wasn’t. She kind of wished that fate didn’t have that little extra nudge up its sleeve called the mating pull — but it did. She really wished that he’d stop fisting his hands and flexing the muscles in his arms, because that looked really, really as sexy as hell — but he seemed destined to keep doing it.

There was nothing for it — she was going to have to kill him. That was the only answer to her prayers — not that she had prayed — but she could wish for it all the same.

The explosion of the thought happened in the back of her mind and blasted to the forefront. She had made a wish — of all the stupid things — a witch making a wish without even thinking of the consequences.

Could this be all her fault? No, she blamed Bree.

It didn’t matter that she’d stood at her car and wished for a new life. It didn’t matter that she’d wished to find a small town where she could fit in and be accepted for who she was. Now, none of that mattered.

It didn’t matter that she’d wished for a family. It didn’t even matter that she’d wished for a sexy guy with big strong arms to wrap around her and tell her that she was wanted – loved. None of that mattered a jot.

It didn’t matter that she should have known better. A witch making a wish — and how many wishes had she made without thinking?

Oh, she was a bad, terrible, silly, sorry excuse for a witch.

But it was all Bree’s fault!

Mason stood there clouded by uncertainty. It wasn’t that he was unsure that she was his mate — she was. He wasn’t uncertain that he needed to woo her — he did.

No, what he was uncertain about was the slideshow of emotions that were flicking on and off over her facial expressions at such a speed that he could barely keep up. If she’d been a she-wolf, then he would have thought that she was holding a conversation through the pack’s link with another she-wolf and dishing the gossip — but she wasn’t. That could only mean one thing — she was talking to herself.

Well, he already knew that witches were crazy — that just proved his point.

Still, crazy or not, witch or not, she was still his soulmate, and he was determined to woo her.

“When you’ve finished, you know…” Mason offered a sympathetic look to his mate.

Kelly cocked her head to one side and frowned back at him. “I know?”

Mason lifted his hand and tapped his temple. “Talking to yourself…”

“What’s with the tapping your head?” She lifted a hand and mirrored it back to him. Then he noted the way she snapped to attention. “Are you saying I’m a crazy person?”

“Crazy?” Mason snapped to attention. “Not — crazy — exactly…”

“Do you want to get exact, before I punch your lights out?”

“A little cuckoo, not that it’s bad thing…”

“I’m a little cuckoo?” She snorted a chuckle as she folded her arms and questioned his sanity with the rise of her eyebrows that shot up toward her hairline.

“It’s nice that you can admit it…”

“I didn’t…”

“You did…”

“I did not.”

“You said; I’m a little cuckoo…”

“You’re a little cuckoo.” She tossed back, and Mason took a moment to think that over.

“I’m not cuckoo — I’m a Wolf…”

“So you have a split personality – multiple personalities — there’s human you, the wolf, and a cuckoo. It must be crowded in there. Tell me, Alpha, are there any more?”

Kelly tried really hard not to let the smile touched her lips — it didn’t work. It was the constipated look on the alpha’s face that did her in. She splattered a chuckle as she tried to keep it at bay.

“I need a drink!” Mason growled.

“Now that I can get behind,” Kelly chuckled. “It’s the best thing you’ve said all day.”

Mason pulled himself to his full height and stuck out his chest. Finally, he’d hit on something that is she appreciated — even if it was only that she needed alcohol to spend any time with him. He could still take that as a damn win.