CHAPTER TWO

 

 

~

 

“Thank God,” Mason bit out.

One more witch really would spoil the pot, and she looked like trouble – short, curvy, flame-haired, pointy booted trouble, but trouble nonetheless.

“Don’t throw your God in my face, cos I’ll see it with a Goddess, and raise you a Hex.” That told him, she thought, but the somewhat constipated, confused look on his face said; maybe not.

“Huh?” Mason curled his lip and looked at her as if she was a mystery that he didn’t want to solve.

Kelly couldn’t help but think that he probably looked that way a lot. “Brawn – no brains – you don’t need to tell the world you’re an alpha, do you?”

“I can’t tell the world, can I?” he sneered back. The tone of his voice was dripping with sarcasm, but the growl that wanted out was kept on a short leash and made his point perfectly.

He’d love to shake his wolf loose and chase her away. No matter how appealing a witch looked, and she was appealing, they were still nothing but trouble.

She could see his point of view, but she was fed up with being moved on by jumped up little rulers of their own little domain. “Not the point,” Kelly tossed back.

“Well, could you make it on your way out of town?” Mason could feel the twitch of annoyance start just under his right eye. He’d suddenly developed it since knowing Bree – little wonder, witches were insufferable.

“I’m going…”

“Good, bye-bye…”

“In there,” she bit out in annoyance, as she lifted a hand and pointed over his broad shoulder. “Once I’ve eaten then I’ll be on my way and not before,” she sneered back.

It appeared that she only needed to set foot in some towns to be run out of it. Nothing changed.

“I suggest you grab something to go,” Mason warned her.

He needed to put his foot down with an iron fist and determination – no more witches would be allowed to cause trouble in his town, or for his pack. It was a new unwritten rule and one that he wanted to live by.

After all, it wasn’t as if he could just eat trouble makers – his wolf would never allow it, even if he did develop a taste for it himself.

She did look tasty – he tossed that thought right from his mind – or tried too.

“I suggest you change your attitude if you don’t want to end up a bald, neutered, and…”

“Enough.” Mason couldn’t hold onto the rumble of a growl a moment longer, and he regretted letting it roll out.

“Sounds like a storm rolling in, Mason,” Mr. Perkins from the local garage commented on the sound of thunder that the alpha had issued as the man strolled on by, and the alpha nodded in agreement.

“Let’s hope it passes us by,” Mason tossed back. He berated himself for the slip-up, but that’s what witches did, caused trouble, and brought trouble right to the front door.

“Oops, nearly let the wolf out of the bag,” Kelly said with a smirk for his fubar and brought his dark eyes back down to hers.

She couldn’t say those eyes weren’t enticing, they were. Even all narrowed and glaring at her in that way; they were still as sexy as hell and soulful. But sexy and soulful wasn’t her thing – well, not when they belonged to a butthead alpha wolf shifter with a bad attitude and a hatred of innocent until proven otherwise, witches.

“Leave,” Mason said, and he narrowed his eyes to little slits in his face and really wished that he could growl.

Kelly offered him a smirk of her own. Humans were around, not in any great numbers, it was a small town, but enough so that the man couldn’t do a darn thing while they were close by.

That put her in the driving seat – the queen cherry on top of a really big pile of them – and he was powerless to shake his wolf free, no matter how she baited him into it. She really did feel like baiting the bully into it.

It also followed that she needed to curb her magical ways, but a stalemate was better than him having the upper hand, and she could work with that.

“I don’t think I will,” she tossed back and reveled in the fact that there was nothing that he could do about it.

Mason bit down on his need to pick the woman up by the scruff of her neck and march her right out of town. But, what could he do? There were just too many witnesses that a struggling witch could rally to her predicament.

“Look,” he lifted a large hand and pointed his index finger right at her breasts. Kelly scowled as her gaze flicked down and then back up again.

“Watch where you’re pointing that finger before I point one of my own, Buster, and my one is loaded.”

“With mischief and deviousness…”

“Nope, just good old fashioned nuke ‘em power,” she shot back.

Her eyes said; go for it, but Mason knew better than to take the bait. Even if he really, really wanted to do just that.

“This is my town…”

“Has your name written all over it?” She shrugged.

“You’d better believe it…”

“Funny, I didn’t think the sign read; Mutley, on the way in.” She cocked her head to one side and challenged him with just the slow rise of her left eyebrow, but oh, what an annoying eyebrow that was to the alpha.

He had a new witch in his pack, another one that had promised to visit her friend often, that he needed to shake free, and now the little flame-haired one that was jumping up and down on his last nerve had strolled into town and challenged his wolf.

The beast had been through enough, and it was on edge just knowing that there was another witch right there in front of him that he couldn’t eat. Not that the beast would, but temptation could be a strange bedfellow, and boy, was he tempted?

  At the moment – life sucked.

“Get your food and get going – if I catch you here after dark…” Mason grumbled in place of a growl.

“You’ll be as toothless as you are now, or should that be … fangless?” Kelly tossed back and got a dark glare for her trouble. Her stomach grumbled from hunger, and his eyes narrowed at her.

His beast didn’t like the fact that – witch or not – she was hungry. It was in his damn DNA to feed strays, and by strays, that would be females. Even the ones that were likely to bite the hand that fed them.

“Eat,” he grumbled.

“I can get that food a lot quicker if you move your big butt out of the doorway.” She hooked a thumb over her shoulder to show him the way and heard him sigh.

Then he sidestepped to allow her to walk on by him. His beast grumbled a growl, but Mason didn’t let it loose. In truth, he even felt a little guilty that he had been going to deny her food. “Pie’s good…”

“Don’t care,” she snapped back, scowling as she stomped by him and muttered under her breath.

“Fine…” he grumbled and started to walk away as the olive branch was snapped back in his face.

“Go howl at the moon,” she muttered, and he hesitated in step as his muscles tensed and he considered starting round two with the pesky little she-demon.

Mason bit down on the urge to offer the witch a piece of his mind and a slice of warning to go with her damn pie. He stomped away – didn’t look back at the firebrand, and grumbled to himself all the while.

Kelly flicked a look back over her shoulder at the big man-mountain that was stomping away from her. The broad shoulders of the man were practically up around his ears, and he was ramrod straight with his huge hands gripped into fists at his sides.

She let out the breath that she’d been holding in and mentally kicked herself in the backside for starting a fight with the wolf shifter from hell.

What had she been thinking?

She was fed up with being kicked to the curb. Why didn’t people just hang up a big sign on the way into town – Kelly, the witch; not welcome here! At least then she’d be expecting disappointment instead of running headfirst into it in the form of a bully.

 

 

~

 

 

The alpha hadn’t been wrong; the pie had been good.

Kelly had tried to brush off the annoyance of the man as she’d sat in the booth all by herself and had eaten some really good home cooking. Now it was time to climb back in her car and head out of town for – Goddess only knew where.

She was determined to find somewhere that she could just … be, and if she had to do life all on her own, well, that was fine by her. She’d done it before and she could do it again.

That wasn’t to say that she wouldn’t mind finding someone that looked like … well, that alpha. He might have been twice her size, packed full of muscles, and one heck of a sexy guy, like really, really sexy, but he wasn’t date material.

If it wasn’t for the attitude, the growling, and the obvious wolf problem, then he might make somebody a good match one day. That somebody definitely wouldn’t be her.

Wolves mated for life — alphas mated for life – ergo, when the man found his mate he wouldn’t have to think twice about it — and neither would his mate. Lucky mate.

No, when he found his mate, then they’d just … be.

She sighed inwardly — she’d like to just … be. Be with somebody who accepted her. Be with someone who would just put his big, strong arms around her and tell her that she was loved and that she had a place in the world.

But, Kelly knew that she lived in the real world — things like that just didn’t happen to people like her.

But how she wished they could.