~

 

“We’re going on a fairy hunt?” Nancy asked as the three witches stood in the kitchen and mumbled to each other.

“I don’t like the word hunt.” Ashley gave a small shake of her head. “It sounds cruel, evil, mean, and it sort of reminds me of the witch hunts, and we know how they went.”

“And what the faeries did to your mate wasn’t cruel, evil, and mean?” Eliza asked.

“That was just funny.” Ashley sniggered.

“Sorry I missed it,” Nancy offered back with a small gleeful grin.

“Straight into the tree — pow!” Eliza said as she shook her head in dismay.

She’d spent all that time dressing the stupid tree, and she thought it looked quite good, only for the big old alpha to slam dunk the thing right out of its pot.

“Really sorry I missed it,” Nancy chuckled.

“It was a classic,” Ashley sniggered again. “If only I’d had my phone to record it…”

“For your grandchildren?” Eliza chuckled, but the hard stare that Ashley gave her made her clear her throat and kill her chuckles.

“So, no fairy hunt — then tell me, what are we going to do?” Nancy asked.

“Fairy fishing,” Ashley said with a small shrug. It didn’t sound a lot nicer to her, but she was clutching at straws.

“You mean like with little metal hooks that tear into their skin…” Eliza cocked a finger, put it in her mouth, and she yanked at her cheek. “And then you’ve got them, and they’re squealing in pain and…”

“Can you not?” Ashley asked as she offered her a look of pure disgust.

“I told you those horror movies she watches are a bad influence on her,” Nancy whispered.

Eliza made a popping sound as she pulled her finger out of her mouth and grinned at her friend.

“Bet fishing doesn’t sound like the way to go now, does it?” Eliza chuckled.

“Does it really matter what we call it?” Nancy asked. “We just need to get those pesky little demons out of the house before they cause any real damage — to us.”

“Somehow, I knew you weren’t worried about our mates,” Eliza said, and her tone sounded a little too accusing for Nancy’s liking.

“If you remember rightly; I was the one who voted to kill our mates,” Nancy offered back.

“Meh,” Eliza grumbled as she gave another shrug of her shoulders.

“Hunt, fish, ground the little demons into the dirt, it’s all relative in the grand scheme of things. We need to get rid of them before they attack us,” Ashley berated her friends.

“Agreed.” Nancy nodded.

“Fine.” Eliza shrugged her shoulders.

 

~

~

~

 

“Oh no.” The alpha took his own sweet time as he shook his head from side to side. Ashley rolled her eyes back in her head and groaned inwardly at the man’s attitude.

“Yes,” she offered back.

“You saw what those fairies did to me, and I’m an alpha. I’m not allowing you to go head-to-head with them. What if you get hurt?” The alpha growled in annoyance at his mate’s rashness.

“Okay,” she held up a finger in front of his face to silence him and help get her point across. “Not allowing me?” Ashley put one hand on her hip and started to wag that other finger in his face. “Are you seriously trying to tell me…?”

“Yes. Do we have to do this now?” Kiel tossed back, without consideration of how it would sound. His duty was to protect his mate, not send her toe to toe against the faeries.

“Yes. And I don’t believe you said yes.” She folded her arms, narrowed her eyes on him, and gave him an evil hard stare.

“I can say it again if you like, yes.” He shrugged. He wasn’t about to back down.

“How like an alpha male to…” She stopped talking the moment that he slapped his hands against her upper arms. She was about to look down at them, just to make sure that he was doing what she thought he was doing when he yanked her towards him — and his lips came down on hers.

“Holy — wow,” Eliza sniggered.

“I suppose that’s one way to shut her up.” Nancy shrugged.

Ashley offered a small shriek of double surprise, the first because he’d kissed her, the second was when he pushed her back slightly away from him, and she twisted her head to the side, mouth slightly open, and gazed at him in disbelief.

“Well, you did say you liked me to be the take-charge kind of guy, dominant,” he grinned from ear to ear.

He could hear the wheeze of breath escaping her throat as she stared up at him. Then her brain kicked her backside into gear; she snapped her mouth closed and scowled at him.

“You need to stop doing that,” Ashley grumbled.

“No, I really don’t,” Kiel chuckled as he looked at his rather baffled and bemused mate.

“I need to go hunt faeries,” Ashley bit out through clenched teeth.

She was angry at him for kissing her like that in a sneak attack that blindsided her and angry at herself for liking it.

“I thought you said you didn’t like the word hunt,” Eliza offered with a snigger.

“Not helping,” Ashley grumbled as she slapped the alpha’s hands down from her body, gave a small shake of annoyance, and went to sidestep the big guy.

“Nope,” Kiel said as he stepped in her way.

“Oh, for goddess sake, they are just faeries — it’s not like it’s a big, ugly, mean vampire, like the one you keep as a pet,” Ashley offered back.

“I heard that,” Arthur called from another room.

“Pet in question,” Ashley offered back as she lifted a hand and motioned toward the door. Then she dropped her hand back to her side and made sure that it slapped her thigh; it sounded better that way as if she was making a statement all its own.

“If those fairies did to you what they did to me, you’d be damaged,” he reasoned.

That was only logical. He couldn’t understand why his mate didn’t get that.

“Then isn’t it lucky that we have a vampire on tap?”

“On tap?” Arthur called.

“Blood bank!” Nancy called back.

“I don’t share — I take,” Arthur called back.

“Looks like things are going to change around here,” Nancy called back on a snigger.

“Don’t count on it,” the vampire said as he appeared in the doorway and eyed the witch.

“Count” Eliza sniggered. “Count Dracula.”

“I’m so lucky that I’ve lived three hundred years and never heard that one before,” Arthur offered back with a dry tone.

“If you want to reach three hundred and one then I suggest you don’t cross us,” Nancy offered back with a smile of glee for the man.

“I admit that the vampire’s blood is useful…” The alpha got no further as Arthur made a point of choking on his disbelief.

“I’m sorry?” The vampire folded his arms across his chest and snorted his contempt for the alpha’s words. “Do I look like a medicine chest, walking cure-all to you?”

“Yes.” The alpha offered back before he turned his attention right back to his mate again. “And the answer is still no.”

“The trouble with that is — alpha – I didn’t ask the question,” Ashley tossed back.

“The answer is still no.” Kiel shrugged.

“Boy, does he not know witches,” Eliza offered a muttered whisper to Nancy.

“Boy, does he not know Ashley,” Nancy offered back, and Eliza nodded in agreement.

Ashley snorted her contempt for him as she lifted her chin in defiance, took a couple of steps around him, and stalked toward her friends. All three witches turned and walked in regimented unison toward the door.

Arthur moved out if the way to let them through. He certainly wasn’t about to stop them.

“What was that?” The Alpha looked to Arthur for answers.

“Are you being sarcastic, because it’s hard to tell?”

“No.”

“Oh.” The vampire looked surprised.

“Was my volume turned down when I was speaking to my mate?” Kiel growled.

“You never tell a woman no.” Arthur berated him with a look. “You find a way to make it so that they come up with the right answer, seemingly, by themselves, and then you consider it for a long moment, frown, and begrudgingly accept it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Boy, do you not know women,” Arthur said as he tossed up a hand, turned on his heels, and followed the witches out of the room.

“Yep, I’m getting that impression as well.” The alpha muttered to himself.