~

 

“Oh no, Mr – no pants. Don’t you try to lay this at my door,” Elizabeth scowled at him.

“You blinded me…”

“Only temporarily…”

“Long enough, don’t you think?” Rick growled back.

“It wasn’t me that decided to go walkabout when I couldn’t see where I was going!” Elizabeth hissed in annoyance. “You Muppet!”

“No, but it was you that decided to run out on her mate!”

The moment the word was out of his mouth Rick regretted it. Well, he did, and he didn’t.

The look on her face was priceless. She was speechless, which was a bonus at that moment in time.

He winced, considered his next move, and then tossed up his hands in frustration.

“That wasn’t the way I wanted to tell you,” Rick admitted.

Elizabeth didn’t say anything. Her mind had frozen and she drew a blank.

Rick waited patiently, for all of ten seconds until he couldn’t wait a moment longer, patience just wasn’t his thing.

“Well, say something,” Rick urged.

The lights were on, but nobody was home. Her lips quivered a little, and he thought that she was about to speak.

“Yes?” Rick urged her again.

“Mate?” She bit out.

“Yes.”

“As in…” She could go no further.

“Mate.” His eyes narrowed on her a little.

“I heard you!” Elizabeth rushed out as she tossed up a hand and waved it in front of his face.

“Then why ask?” Rick was confused.

“Gee, I don’t know — maybe because I thought your brain had farted!” She hissed back.

Rick pulled his head back on his neck and folded his large muscled arms across the broadness of his chest. He eyed for a long moment.

“This whole, pull me close and then push me away strategy of yours is unbecoming…”

“There is no — pull me close — part to it. What are you — insane?” She would have growled if she could have, but knowing her luck, he might have taken that as a come-on line.

Elizabeth couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Even putting aside the fact that the man was up his own backside, a mate? No damn way.

Fate must have taken leave of her senses!

Talk about karma — oh, damn karma!

That’s – bummer!

A mate? And what a big one – everywhere – all of him.

Squished comes to mind. Amongst other things – like sex – goddess – sex. With him. And if what they say about shifters is true, and at this point, I have no reason to doubt it, lots of sex.

Sex for breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner, and supper! That’s a lot of sex in anyone’s book.

Geez, I’d be walking like a bow-legged cowboy that was in the saddle from sunup to sundown.

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!

“What are you thinking about?” Rick had to ask because he couldn’t make out the emotions that were flashing across her face.

“Where best to dispose of your body,” she hissed back.

 

~

~

~

 

Valerie eyed her mate with the kind of look that Quinn expected could freeze water. But he was hot stuff, and a little frosty glare wasn’t going to deter him from trying to woo her.

He didn’t know how many years he had left in front of him, but he’d waited a long time to find her, and now that fate had put them together, he’d be damned in more ways than one if he let her get away.

“You’re my Juliet…” he said, trying for the first time to recall something that he’d heard was a love story. He preferred westerns.

“They died.” Valerie’s voice matched the look that she was giving him.

“But it was a love story, right?”

“Written by a man,” Valerie offered back.

“A wise one if our situation is anything to go by,” Quinn muttered.

“I heard that.”

“Just checking to see if you were paying attention,” he lied.

“Just listening for your next stupid comment,” she offered back.

“Perhaps I have something profound to say…”

“Go ahead.”

“Perhaps I’m just waiting for the right time.” He grumbled.

“Look, I get that you have been waiting a long time for a mate, but it’s not like we’re going to have children and grow old together.” Valerie reasoned.

“It’s not about children or how many years we have together. It’s grasping every second that you can to spend with someone you truly love.”

Valerie frowned. She couldn’t find a snappy comeback answer for what he’d said because she couldn’t find fault with it.

Maybe if she wasn’t old and set in her ways, then she might have felt the same way. Maybe she would have grasped the chance to love with both hands.

Her mate didn’t strike her as the romantic type. Hell, he didn’t even know that Romeo and Juliet died. But he had an advantage over her — he’d been brought up to believe in true love — mates.

Valerie felt a little pang of guilt for trying to take that away from him. But she wasn’t a romantic either. That’s not to say that she didn’t like movies and books where people got their happily ever after — other people — just not her.

“A wolf got your tongue?” Quinn wiggled his eyebrows at her once more, and this time it didn’t annoy her half as much as before.

“Not in this lifetime.” She frowned at him because she didn’t want to encourage him. She was set in her ways, and that was how it was staying.

She was sorry for him that he had been searching a lifetime for a mate and had found only her. That wasn’t her fault, and there was nothing that she could do to change fate.

Valerie was old enough to know that sometimes life really did just hand you rotten lemons.

 

~

~

~

 

“You have to admit it’s kind of funny,” Rick said.

The look that Elizabeth offered him left him in no doubt that she lacked a sense of humor.

“I’m laughing on the inside.” She bit out.

“Are you sure? Because if looks could kill…” Rick teased.

He wasn’t wrong; she was sorely tempted to kill somebody. Maybe even him.

It wouldn’t be that hard to dispose of his body in the middle of nowhere.

What am I saying? I can’t kill him – I’d get caught.

Wolves have good noses — and good noses can smell a dead body a mile away.

Oh my Goddess, was I really contemplating killing a man?

I am a horrible, terrible, evil mean person. And yet…?

Oh wow, there I go again!

 

~

~

~

 

Hidden deep within the foliage of the woods, Cassidy watched and waited. She’d heard every word between the enforcer and the witch.

Rick might have sent her away with her damn tail between her legs, but she’d just retreated downwind from him. She’d heard his claim, and it wasn’t right.

Ever since the first witch had turned up, they’d been taking members of the pack as their mates. Bewitching them with spells, but she wouldn’t let that happen to Rick.

They might not have been mates — but that didn’t mean that they couldn’t be together. She just needed to take the witch out of the equation, break her magic on him, and make him see sense.