~

 

All three witches sat at the dinner table, boy girl, boy girl, boy girl with Jackie and Amy looking around the solemn group, and offering each other glares in the hope that they’d prompt a conversation.

None of the witches looked happy to be there, but the mates had done things right, and they’d sent their sisters to invite the witches to dinner. How could they refuse?

A cloud of doom hung over the table, silence reigned, and each witch shot the other a glare whenever possible. An uneasy truce hung in the air between everyone present.

“Magic,” Amy rushed out, and the alpha grumbled a growl of annoyance.

“Talk about something else,” Kiel growled.

“Holidays,” Jackie offered, and the alpha grunted.

“Pick a different subject,” he grumbled.

“Well, why don’t you start the conversation?” Amy shot back in annoyance.

“Well,” he struggled for his next word, as everyone turned to look at him. “That snow is really piling up outside.” He rushed out.

His sisters sniggered. It was contagious, his brothers sniggered, and then the witches sniggered. The alpha grumbled another growl.

“This is getting us nowhere,” Kiel tossed up a hand in disbelief. He couldn’t understand why it was so hard for him to strike up a conversation with his mate and get the ball rolling.

“We have nothing in common,” Ashley offered back.

“That’s not true,” the alpha said, then struggled to find something that they could possibly have in common.

“Go ahead then, tell me what we have in common,” Ashley asked, and watched with amusement as her mate fidgeted in his seat, and struggled for something to say. “See.”

“There has to be something,” Amy shrugged.

“I wouldn’t bet the farm on it,” Jeff grumbled.

“We don’t have a farm,” Amy shot back.

“Which is lucky for the farm animals,” Nancy muttered, but Eliza caught her words and sniggered.

“It’s just a saying,” Jeff grumbled.

“Stupid saying,” Amy tossed back.

“Stupid man,” Nancy offered with a shrug.

“Can we eat without the sniping at each other?” Kiel grumbled.

“No.” Everyone said in unison.

“Ah, a family dinner around the Christmas tree,” Arthur called from the other room.

“There isn’t a Christmas tree,” Amy scowled.

“Maybe there is your problem,” the vampire called back. “Humans are always nicer at Christmas.”

“They’re not human, they’re witches,” Drake said, and Eliza did a double take of her mate, and then she grumbled something that he couldn’t hear, but he could guess the sentiment behind it.

“Still human, butthead,” Jeff offered back.

“Boy, you need to ask Santa for brains this Christmas,” Nancy said, as she offered him the evil eye.

“Fine, we’ll put up a tree,” Kiel announced as he slammed his palms down on the table and got to his feet.

“But, we’re witches, we don’t do Christmas,” Ashley scowled at the thought of it.

“A new life, a new tradition, a new start,” Kiel announced.

“I think someone is putting the cart before the horse,” Nancy offered to Ashley.

“I thought they didn’t have animals,” Eliza said, confused.

“You know,” Nancy leaned her elbows on the table and leaned over towards Eliza as if she was about to share a secret. “I think you and Drake are perfectly matched.”

“Bite me,” Eliza hissed back, and a deep, hungry growl came from her mate beside her. She reached out and snatched up a plate of cooked chicken, “The only thing you’re biting is this.” She hissed as she thrust the plate at him.

 

~

~

~

 

“Let it snow, let it snow, let it…”

“Fall from the sky in one big lump and land on your head,” Ashley tossed back to the vampire, as Arthur stood at the doorway to the kitchen and watched the witch stack the plates inside the dishwasher.

“How very – witchy of you,” Arthur offered back.

“What do you want, vampire? If it’s a tasty snack, then you’ll have to do without real blood. Although, I guess if push comes to shove there are a few raw steaks in the fridge, maybe you could suck on them.”

“That’s not very seasonally giving of you,” Arthur offered back.

The man was trying to decide what kind of witches had invaded his friend’s lives, and the jury was still out on that one.

Mates were always good for a pack, but witches? One could never truly tell.

“You know that there’s no getting away from the fact that you’re a mate, right?”

“You know, there’s no getting away from the fact that you’re dead, right?” She tossed back over her shoulder, but as any good witch would, she kept an eye on him using the reflection in the window.

“I’m well aware.”

“Me too.”

“Just so we’re clear.”

“As mud.”

“Don’t run,” he told it like it was an order, a dictate, and she didn’t do well with orders.

The alpha and his pack were friends of his. He’d hate to have to kill the alpha because the witch had skipped out on him and caused him to turn into a damn rogue.

“Can I walk really fast?” Ashley didn’t need some bloodsucker telling her what to do.

“Funny…”

“Why are you hanging around my mate?” Kiel demanded as he stalked in through the back door, wrestling with a freshly cut pine tree before he allowed it to collapse on the tiled floor like he was done with the kill.

Then the alpha shook his clothes free of snow and stomped his boots against the rug. Ashley berated him with just a look.

“Just keeping her honest,” Arthur said.

“Yes, I was contemplating climbing into the dishwasher and flowing down the drain to get away. All drains lead to the ocean, apparently.” She offered the vampire a scathing look.

“Okay, Nemo,” Arthur tossed back, before turning and starting down the hallway away from them. “I’ll leave you in peace with your mate.”

“If I open a vein will you come back?” Ashley called, but the sound of the alpha’s low warning growl told her that the man had no sense of humor.

Something else that they didn’t have in common.

“That’s not funny,” Kiel growled out.

“Was I joking?”

“Were you?” he scowled at the thought that his mate might like to feel the vampire’s bite.

“Did I stutter?” Ashley turned away from her mate and ducked her head so that he couldn’t see the grin on her lips.

The only problem was that the alpha caught sight of her smug grin in the reflection in the window. Mischievous little witch.

Kiel pressed his lips together and bit off a few choice words that he’d like to offer his mate. He was supposed to be wooing her, not constantly going head-to-head with her.

“I suppose, as we’re stuck here altogether, and the vampire will need blood at some point…” he left those words hanging in the air between them like a possible noose of his own making.

“What are you nuts?” Ashley hissed, turning back towards him with a look that said he must be.

“Yes.” He shrugged but somehow managed to keep a straight face, even when she was staring at him as if he’d just lifted the ax that he’d used to chop down the tree and was about to swing it at her.

“Feed the vampire?”

“Yes.” He shrugged those broad shoulders once more.

“My blood?” She cocked her head to one side and eyed the man.

“Did I stutter?”

“Your mate?”

“Well, there is that.” He reached up and stroked his fingers over a day’s stubble that was wrapped around his chin. “But, I have known him longer than I’ve known you, and the man has to eat…”

“Then bend over and let him sink his fangs into your backside. I’ve seen it naked, and I have to say, you’ve got more junk in your trunk than the average … wolfman.” She snorted her contempt for him, raised her chin in defiance, and started for the kitchen door.

“Is that a no?” he called after her.

“Do your own damn dishes,” she grumbled.

Kiel could finally crack a smile, but it had been raging inside of him for so long that he ended up tossing his head back on his neck and roaring with laughter.

“Ho-ho-ho, Merry Christmas,” Arthur called back. He’d, of course, overheard the whole thing.