~

 

“What do you mean that wasn’t you?” The alpha growled. “I felt the magic…”

“Yep, you might have — but, it wasn’t my magic that you felt,” Ashley offered back.

Kiel wasn’t sensing any deception from his mate, and she didn’t look like she was lying. She looked like she was looking for something — and he scented the air in search of anything out of the ordinary.

“Nancy? Eliza?” he asked.

The scent of the witches was in the air all around him, but from what he could hear; neither of those witches was close by. That left his mate. The sneaky, devious little…

“I don’t think so,” Ashley said as she started a slow walk down the stairs to towards him.

Something wasn’t right — maybe, something was very, very wrong.

“Evil ghostly spirit that suddenly hates you?” Amy asked. Her brother shot her a hard glare.

“You know that old saying that goes; if you can’t say something smart…?” The alpha grumbled.

Amy offered him a sneer back.

“If that were the case then all of my brothers would be under a constant and irreversible vow of silence,” she grumbled as she folded her arms and huffed.

“Can you sense the magic?” The alpha asked his mate.

“Oh, now someone’s taken a tumble down the stairs they want my magic to help them,” Ashley offered back.

She was already searching for that magic in the air, she didn’t need him to ask her, but she didn’t mind rubbing salt in the wounds of his alpha stupidity.

“Yes.” The alpha growled on a scowl of annoyance for whatever mischievous and deviousness was at play. Even if it was his mate. “Please.” He added.

If it wasn’t her, then he needed to know about it. His sisters were in the house, and there were three humans if something dangerous were afoot then he needed to kill it.

“Well, as you said please,” Ashley offered back, and her mate grumbled a groan in the back of his throat.

Ashley was already following the magic trail, and the alpha was following her. When she stopped just short of the living room doorway and reached out with her magic to find that the trail led inside, the alpha was back in front of her again.

He was in full protection mode.

“In here?” Kiel asked, but before she could answer, his eyes widened in surprise again as he was hurled into the room, his feet hardly touching the floor as he went, and he was headed straight toward that damn Christmas tree.

Drake pulled back from kissing Eliza just in time to witness his brother sailing across the room as if he was skating on ice.

The alpha let out a yelp of surprise as he noted where he was headed and he stretched his arms out in front of him as if he was going to offer the tree a hug.

Kiel hit the tree full on like a runaway skier. Eliza shrieked in dismay as the tree toppled backward with the big alpha on top of it.

“That’s just wrong!” Eliza announced, and if she hadn’t of still been in Drake’s arms, then she might even have stomped her foot in dismay for all her hard work that was now wasted.

“That’s just funny,” Drake chuckled, but it didn’t last long. He bit that chuckle off the moment that the alpha offered a low, deep growl of warning to his sibling.

Ashley stalked into the room, and over to where the alpha was still lying on top of the Christmas tree, and when he snapped his attention up to her, she snapped a big, beaming smile across her face.

“Tell me, alpha, do you still think that you can handle a couple of faeries?” She asked, as she folded her arms across her chest and enjoyed the moment.

“Damn it to…” The rest of what the alpha spat out was low, mumbled, and hard to make out. But everyone present got the idea.

Kiel wrestled his body away from the Christmas tree and pulled up to his full height, slipping on a strand of tinsel and cursing once more. He grumbled a growl as he scoped the area for signs of faeries.

“I was just wondering because they seem to have kicked your backside – twice.” Ashley couldn’t help but rub it in. It was just too good of an opportunity to miss out on.

“When I get my hands on those … damn faeries…” The alpha growled out every word.

“I hate to say that I warned you about the Christmas tree,” Ashley shrugged her shoulders, looked off into the distance, and thought about that for a moment. “Actually, scrub that — I told you so.” She shrugged again before she turned on her heels and stalked out of the room, leaving her mate seething behind her.

“Whoops!” Eliza grimaced.

“Faeries — that’s not good,” Drake growled.

“Say something not damn obvious,” the alpha growled out as he started after his mate, slipping on tinsel once more, and almost pitching sideways before he recovered.

A string of fairy lights suddenly took on a life of their own, wrapped around his ankle, and he was flat on his face on the floor once more, growling like a wild thing with the urge to rip off someone’s head.

“You seem to have two left feet tonight,” Drake chuckled. “Oh no, wait, that’s obvious.”

 

~

~

~

 

“Let me up before I put my knee somewhere you’d rather I not,” Nancy warned her mate.

“You brought this on yourself.”

“I’ll remember those words when I deliver my knee,” she bit back on a low hiss.

“Now, let’s not be rash,” Jeff chuckled, but the sound of his chuckles rubbed over her last nerve like sandpaper.

“I don’t see it as being rash…”

“Nancy!” Ashley yelled from somewhere inside the house, and Nancy snapped to attention. “We’ve got faeries in the house!”

“I noticed,” she sneered as she eyed her mate with a death glare.

“Unfortunately, we will have to continue this another time — faeries in the house, trumps your stupidity,” Jeff said as he dropped his arms from around her body and allowed her to shimmy off of him.

She couldn’t resist elbowing him in the ribs one more time as she scampered to her feet. The grunt of pain that came from his lips was just too satisfying to miss out on.

“Speaking of stupid — I don’t hear your brother calling you for help,” Nancy said as she started off down the hallway with her mate in tow.

“Be nice or…”

“Go home?” Nancy tossed back over her shoulder with a small chuckle of amusement.

“Hardly.”

“Dang, don’t raise my hopes like that. It was as if you’d finally seen sense,” Nancy offered back.

“Never going to happen…”

“You seeing sense? Thought not, but one can always live in hope.”

“You really are…”

“Be careful what you witch for.”

“Oh, if I was wishing, it would be for…”

“A blow-up doll?”

“Gee, you crack me up,” he offered back with a dry tone.

“I’m just returning the favor for every time that I look at your face, and it brings me such amusement.”

Jeff couldn’t see any way to win with her. Every time that he opened his mouth she had bettered him.

How was he supposed to woo his mate if he couldn’t dazzle her with conversation, humor … him?

He supposed that he could just let nature take its course. Or rather, let the mating pull take its course, and then he would be irresistible to her anyway.

His beast growled. Somehow, man and beast didn’t like that idea too much.

No, he needed to woo his mate fair and square. But first, the damn faeries.