~

 

“Okay, that’s it, you and me are doing this,” Jeff growled out.

“Doing what?” Nancy demanded as she glared at her mate.

“This!” He growled.

“Gee, that’s so descriptive,” Nancy tossed up a hand, rolled her eyes, and huffed.

“You know — you really are…” he lifted his hand and wagged a finger in her direction.

She snapped her head back on her neck like he’d slapped her, and raised just one eyebrow, questioning his sanity and that wagging finger, and then she raised a finger of her own.

It wasn’t her index finger; it was the middle one.

“Right back at you.” She offered him a sickly sweet smile.

“That’s it!” He growled again.

“That’s a lot of it,” Nancy offered back with a smug grin. “How much it can one man take?”

“It is not funny,” Jeff growled.

“Well, to better judge that then I’d have to know what it is, wouldn’t I?” She looked smug — too smug for her own good, he decided to act on it. Not that he knew what it was either — just that he’d had enough of it.

The woman had a way of winding him up to the point of distraction — frustration — and to the point where – he couldn’t even remember his damn name.

“Okay — you’re coming with me,” Jeff growled out, as he bent at the waist and tossed her right over his shoulder.

“I do not believe you just did that!” Nancy grumbled as she hung down his back like a sack of coal.

He wasn’t Santa, and she was in no mood to be messed with.

“Get used to it.”

“I will not!”

“Yes, you will!”

“I will not!”

“Yes, you will!”

“Yes, you will — yes, you will — yes, you will!” Arthur sang out from an unseen room somewhere off the hallway.

“Shut up, vampire!” The mates said in unison.

“Look, you’re on the same page for once. Well done.” Arthur’s dry tone came back at them.

“Let me down,” Nancy demanded as she wriggled against his shoulder and nudged his head with her hip a few times.

“I will not!”

“Could you two not?” The vampire demanded as he appeared in the hallway in front of Jeff, causing the man to pull up short, and growl hard.

“Well, he needs to put me down.”

“Well, she needs to behave like a normal person,” Jeff growled.

“Define normal,” The vampire and Nancy said in unison.

“Exactly!” Nancy spat out a chuckle of disbelief that her mate couldn’t understand that.

“Not … you,” Jeff grumbled back.

“Oh, that’s … hmm … helpful.” Arthur snorted a chuckle.

“She wants to go out in a damn blizzard!” Jeff growled at the thought of it, at the vampire for just being there, and at his mate’s stupidity as his wolf growled at him.

“Well, that’s dumb,” Arthur tossed back.

“Exactly, thank you,” Jeff grumbled another growl.

“The vampire’s stirring the pot,” the alpha announced as he strolled on by them.

“Well, why don’t you just go tell everybody and limit my fun!” Arthur tossed up his hands, and when the beta dropped his chin to his chest and eyed him from beneath a dark scowl, Arthur sighed and walked away.

“Damn … vampire,” Jeff grumbled.

“Hey, genius.” Nancy zapped his backside just in case she hadn’t fully gained his attention. He jumped in place and groaned. “Put me the hell down now!”

“Not just yet,” Jeff muttered as he started up the hallway again, still carrying her over his shoulder, and even more determined to figure out what – it – was.

 

~

~

~

 

“Oh look,” Eliza chuckled as she whipped out the fake sprig of mistletoe and waved it in her mate’s face. Drake pulled back in horror at the toxic plant in his mate’s clutches.

There were easier ways to kill him, and some were a lot more humane in his reckoning.

“Are you insane?” He took a few steps back away from her as his wolf growled a warning to him like he didn’t already know.

“It’s not poisonous; it’s plastic.” She chuckled.

“Oh … but still,” Drake grumbled, feeling more than stupid.

He hadn’t even dared sniff the toxic offering, but now that his heart had stopped racing, and his hands were only slightly clammy, he could see it wasn’t real.

“Mistletoe and shifters,” she grimaced. “What a way to go.”

“Are you threatening me?” Drake offered her a suspicious look.

“What?” She scrunched up her face at him. “Seriously? Talk about paranoid.” She bit out.

“I’m not para … yeah, maybe a little, but you are…”

“What?” she snapped, narrowing her eyes on him, and he reconsidered his words. “Go on, say it – Mr. Paranoid.”

“Fine. You are a witch.”

“And you’re a butthead, your point?” She grumbled.

“You can be devious, mischievous, downright mean…”

“Oh really?” Her eyes flashed with annoyance. “And to think I was the witch that voted to stay. What a muppet…” she muttered and grumbled a few choice words under her breath, but a heartbeat later, she squealed in surprise as he locked a hand around her arm and spun her towards him.

“You what?” he demanded.

“You heard me, you big oaf! One voted to leave, one voted to kill, and I voted to…”

“Stay…”

“Yes…”

“With me?”

“Well, der.”

“As my mate?”

“No, chief cook and bottle washer, as my old Gran would say…”

“Why?” Drake couldn’t quite grasp what she was telling him.

Sure, he liked what he was hearing, but could she just be setting him up for a fall?

Was this some devious ploy?

Was she going to stick him with the evil eye when his back was turned? Or maybe some mistletoe.