~

 

“Gee, couldn’t tell that’s a shifter,” Nancy grumbled.

“We have to leave…” Ashley rushed out the words as her mind and body rushed to panic.

“No we don’t,” Nancy offered back.

“Yes, yes we do,” Ashley said.

“Weren’t you the one that said there’s a blizzard out there?” Nancy pinned her with a hard stare.

Something was wrong — that was obvious, but what could be so wrong that Ashley wanted to run out into a blizzard?

“I suddenly like blizzards,” Ashley said as she started across the living room toward the kitchen door. “We can get out the back.”

“Can you hear yourself?” Nancy followed her friend.

Ashley almost collided with Eliza in the darkened kitchen. Eliza squeaked in surprise and grasped her wineglass to her breast so that there would be no spillage because spilling your wine was a travesty.

“Of course I can hear myself,” Ashley tossed back over her shoulder as she sidestepped Eliza, grabbed her friend’s upper arm, and whirled her around to the sound of another squeak as she risked spilling her wine again.

“The wine! The wine!” Eliza protested.

“Well, drink it. We need to leave,” Ashley demanded.

“We do?” Eliza asked, confused by the new change in direction.

“We do!” Ashley was adamant.

“Okay, what brought about this change of heart?” Nancy demanded, as she lent her shoulder against the doorframe and eyed her friend with curiosity and a lot less panic than Ashley was exhibiting.

“Oh, you didn’t hear what I just heard!” Ashley was shaking her head in denial.

“Well, it might be helpful if you told me what I didn’t hear that you just heard,” Nancy tossed back.

“That’s true,” Eliza agreed.

“Just — stop!” Ashley held her hand to silence friends.

Her heart was pumping in her ears, her hands were sweaty, and she was just a little bit too drunk for everyone to come at her with questions and responses all at once.

“So, tell us already,” Eliza asked.

“Yes, tell us already,” Nancy demanded.

“Fine! Just let me get a word in edgeways,” Ashley protested.

“Edgeways, sideways, upside down, I don’t care just tell us,” Nancy demanded.

“There’s a mate inside this cabin!” Ashley announced.

“Well, doh!” Nancy offered back.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Eliza grumbled.

“No,” Ashley shook her head. “Another mate!”

Nancy’s mouth opened, but not a word came out. One of her eyebrows were raised up toward her hairline, but the other one declined to follow, and she looked more than confused.

“Huh?” Eliza wasn’t as silent as her friend, but she was just as confused.

“That — that,” Ashley lifted her hand and pointed over Nancy’s shoulder. Nancy jumped in place and turned to find nothing there. “New shifter guy that was fighting with Eliza’s mate — he said that he had a damn mate in here and he didn’t look happy.”

“Well, I don’t want two shifter mates,” Eliza spat out on a chuckle.

“Oh no,” Nancy managed to push the words out as she continually shook her head in denial.

“It’s me — or you!” Ashley announced the obvious.

“Well, it’s not me!” Nancy snapped back, shaking her head in denial.

“But, you don’t know that,” Eliza offered up with a small glint of amusement in her eyes.

She might have been leaning towards the drunk-as-a-skunk side of the spectrum, but she remembered the fact that Nancy had been more than ready to throw her under the mating bus before — now the tables had turned, and the shoe was firmly on the other foot.

Payback was a bitch.

“No, no I don’t,” Nancy’s eyes roamed around the room as she contemplated what to do next.

“We need to leave,” Ashley demanded action.

“Oh, now you want to leave? Now that it’s one of you.” Eliza tossed up her hand and snorted contempt for them before she put the wine glass to her lips and drank her glass of dry.

“Not the point,” Nancy said as she wagged her finger at her friend.

“Definitely not the point,” Ashley agreed.

“We have to leave,” Nancy announced.

“What have I just been saying?” Ashley tossed up her hands in dismay. “Does nobody listen anymore?”

“Well, I’m not leaving,” Eliza shrugged.

While the fact that she was a mate to a shifter obviously hadn’t gone unnoticed by her, she also didn’t like the odds of being out there in a blizzard either.

“You have to leave,” Nancy said. She eyed Eliza as if the woman was insane.

“No, I don’t,” Eliza tossed up a shoulder. “I already know who my mate is.”

“And that makes it okay?” Ashley asked.

“No,” Eliza shrugged again as she considered it. “But if it’s a choice between becoming Mrs frosty the bloody snowman, or staying in this nice warm cabin with some really good wine…”

“You cannot be serious?” Nancy shook her head again.

“When life gives you lemons — swap them for grapes and make wine,” Eliza chuckled.

“I think she’s lost her mind,” Nancy sighed.

“I think she’s drunk. We need to make decisions for her,” Ashley said.

“No you don’t,” Eliza scowled at the thought of it.

“I think you’re right,” Nancy nodded in agreement.

“I think we need to leave,” Ashley said.

“No, we don’t,” Eliza shook her head in denial.

“I think you’re right,” Nancy agreed.

“Would you two just…” Eliza kind of freaked out on the spot, she even stomped her foot, and then she hissed out a few unsavory words and eyed the pair of them with disdain. “I might be a little drunk. I might be the mate to a shifter. I might be a witch that fate has picked on. But! I can still make my own decisions, and I am not going out there.”

 

~

~

~

 

Eliza was almost certain that she must look like she was wearing one of those padded sumo wrestler suits because she was dressed in almost every bit of clothing that she’d had in her suitcase. Not only that — but they were headed outside and into a blizzard.

How stupid was that? Even more stupid than her friends wrenching on layer after layer of clothes to try to ward off the cold.

The trouble was, those clothes were meant for a tropical island vacation. Luckily, they hadn’t made her wear her swimwear and undergarments. But she still felt like a sumo wrestler in disguise.

“It’s cold,” Eliza grumbled the moment that the back door was pulled closed behind them, and the frosty gusts whipped up across the land and blasted them hard.

“It’s called winter. Suck it up,” Nancy hissed out in a whisper right by Eliza’s ear. Eliza smacked her in the face as she swatted her away.

“I’d much rather be sucking up wine.”

Eliza’s teeth were already chattering. She didn’t do well in cold temperatures, let alone the arctic conditions that they were facing.

“Hush up, and let’s get moving,” Ashley said. Then her foot caught on something that was propped against the side of the cabin, and it clattered to the wooden boards.

The three witches froze in place.

“Don’t move,” Nancy hissed out on a whisper.

“Does that include my jaw? Because I can’t stop my teeth from chattering,” Eliza grumbled back.

“Can you two shut up?” Ashley hissed back over her shoulder.

“They’re making a damn run for it!” Someone growled out.

The three witches gasped in unison. All of them drew back their heads back in horror at being caught red-handed.

With squeals of surprise, they all took off in completely different directions.