~

 

 

Quinn stood outside his mate’s bedroom door and eyed the covered tray of food that had been left untouched. She hadn’t even opened the door to take the food in.

He didn’t like it. Not one little bit.

She was his mate, and he needed to provide for her. It wasn’t as if he could barrel into the room and force-feed her a dinner, and that annoyed him even more.

His beast was unsettled. The wolf wanted to claim their mate — it had waited long enough to find her — but right then it needed to protect her, mainly from herself.

Quinn started to pace back and forth outside Valerie’s room. The man had to wonder just how long she could stay inside, as his beast clawed within him to get to her.

“Damn it! I’m too old for this,” Quinn growled as he muttered to himself.

He turned towards the door and reinforced his resolve as he lifted his hand and rapped his knuckles against the wood. Either she was coming out, or he was going in.

“I’m still alive,” Valerie called from inside.

“Good to hear — open the door,” Quinn offered back.

There was a long moment when the only sound was silence. Quinn shuffled on his feet as he searched his mind for what to do next.

He’d had a lifetime of dealing with females, but of course, never one that was his mate. Things were different when you knew it was forever.

“Go boil your head.”

Quinn closed his eyes for a brief moment and groaned. She definitely wasn’t going to make life easy.

“Maybe later, but for now, we need to talk,” Quinn was hoping to appeal to her rational side.

“I don’t speak wolf.”

Obviously, the woman didn’t have a rational side.

“You’ll be speaking to it in a moment,” Quinn muttered.

“Stop mumbling like a grumpy old fart and go away.” Valerie hoped that by keeping the door between them that the mating pull wouldn’t work its magic. In her mind, it was better than no hope at all.

“Speaking of grumpy old farts — you haven’t eaten.”

He heard her huff on the other side of the door and imagined that the look on her face that must have been extremely sour. He took a little comfort in that knowledge.

“Yes, I’m planning on starving myself to death. It seems like the better option than spending the rest of my life with you.” Her voice was dripping with sarcasm.

“Wouldn’t throwing yourself under a bus be quicker?” Quinn grumbled.

“Oh, I’m sure you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Nothing could be closer to my heart.” Quinn felt the annoyance rumble through him with another growl from his beast.

Neither man nor wolf was enjoying the way the conversation was going. It wasn’t exactly a textbook wooing, but where witches were concerned, nothing ever was.

In his mind, there was a reason why witches and wolves should never meet. She was the prime example of that.

An elder with a chip on her shoulder, maybe both shoulders, about shifters. Well, at least with a chip on each shoulder it should level her up.

“It’s no surprise to me that you remained a bachelor.”

“It’s no surprise to me that your husband ran off and left you,” Quinn muttered back, but she’d heard him.

“He died.”

“Probably pushed him off a cliff,” Quinn muttered on a hushed breath. That time he was determined that she wouldn’t hear him. “Sorry to hear that.” He lied.

“He was twice the man you will ever be,” Valerie lied.

Elizabeth’s father had run off it when she was three. Valerie hadn’t seen or heard of him since, and good riddance to bad rubbish in her book. The only thing the man had ever done right was to father Elizabeth.

Quinn’s annoyance turned to anger at her words. His beast rose up within him in a rush of jealousy from man and wolf.

Quinn reached for the door handle and regretted it the moment that his hand wrapped around the metal. Either his mate had somehow managed to wire the door to the electricity supply, or that damn woman was playing magical tricks on him.

Not that it felt like a trick — it was as painful as hell with every muscle in his body clenching as if it had been wrapped in a tight fist.

Quinn growled like a man on a mission.

That mission was to kill his mate.

 

~

~

~

 

Do wolves like water? Am I safe in the tub?

Elizabeth eyed the beast that was baying for her blood as it snarled and snapped its jaws together in anticipation of a tasty treat. Her.

This weekend is turning into a damn stupid idea — yea for me — the genius who thought of it.

Oh boy, do I not want to admit to my mother that she was right. That’s a special kind of torture and one that should be avoided at every possible opportunity.

Nice wolf! Let’s just hope that it’s only having a bad fur day and it’ll move on.

When the beast snapped its jaws together once more and took a step closer, Elizabeth didn’t think she was going to be that lucky.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” The hard growl in Rick’s voice left the beast in no doubt that he meant business.

Elizabeth didn’t know whether to be relieved that he was there, or worried that there were now two unknowns to deal with. One wolf with a bone to pick and one man mountain that looked about as friendly as his wolf friend.

The only good sign was that the beast was no longer snapping its jaws. But it was still snarling and growling in Elizabeth’s direction.

“Get the hell out of here,” Rick growled at the beast.

The wolf seemed reluctant to abide by the enforcer’s orders. It hesitated for a long moment, caught in two minds about what to do next, and then there was deep, long warning growl that rumbled from Rick, and the beast turned tail and disappeared into the dense foliage.

“Are you alright?” Rick turned his dark eyes onto the witch.

When he’d settled on a relaxing soak in the tub, he hadn’t expected to find a witch from the inn occupying it. It wasn’t as if the elders ever used it, Sarah and Nathan on occasion, and once he’d found the vampires frolicking, but usually it was all his.

“What – that?” Elizabeth waved a hand and dismissed the beast. “I’m used to snarling, snappy wolves frothing at the mouth.”

“It wasn’t frothing at the mouth,” Rick said as he folded his large, muscled arms across his broad chest, increasing the size of his biceps, and she noticed, boy, did she. His dark eyes took in the scene in front of him.

The woman was in her early forties, with striking blue eyes that were the color of Sapphire and held his attention when normally his gaze would have drifted elsewhere. He could sense the magic within the woman and resisted the urge to scent the air.

If he’d learned one thing from having so many witches around; it was that he could never be too careful. He only had to think of poor Quinn and what that man must have been going through to know better than to take her scent.

“It wasn’t exactly giving me the warm fuzzy feeling either,” Elizabeth offered back in a tone that told him that she was more than just miffed. He guessed that she was also worried about his presence.

His beast didn’t react well to that sound in her voice. He might have been an enforcer, but he was also a protector, and where women were concerned — even witches — his protection gene was ratcheted up to a whole new level.

“Why are you here?” Rick hadn’t meant to growl, but his beast had reacted to her worries.

“Don’t growl at me,” Elizabeth tossed back as she scowled at him. “That wasn’t my fault.”

“I wasn’t growling at you,” Rick said, on another growl that he couldn’t really help.

“Sure you weren’t because you didn’t just do it again,” she snorted her contempt for the man and his lies.

“That’s not my fault!”

“Oh, so what? It’s my fault that you wolves can’t be civil, is it?”

“Us wolves? Lady, I don’t much like your attitude…” he growled.