~

 

“Hey! Leave my driving out of this,” Ashley huffed. “I got us this far, didn’t I?”

“You mean the rolling backward down the hill part?” Nancy shrugged. “Sure. I was really enjoying the rush from that one.”

“Maybe one of you would like to drive next,” she offered back.

“You mean if we’re not pushed over a cliff to our premature deaths?” Nancy asked.

“Maybe you should hit the brake,” Eliza said, sounding nervous.

“Why? So that us and the truck can start rolling backward down the hill?” Ashley looked at her as if she’d grown another head.

“Okay, there is that,” Eliza grimaced.

“Can we just say that we’ve been rescued by a nice, friendly, type of the guy, and leave it at that?” Ashley offered.

“Sure, I like fairytales as much as the next girl,” she shrugged.

“Trying to concentrate here,” Ashley snapped back.

“It’s not as if you’re driving — you’re just kind of, not-steering,” Nancy offered back.

“Could you zap her for me, because she’s annoying me now?” Ashley groaned.

“Your wish is…”

“Not happening,” Nancy offered her friend a warning and Eliza didn’t carry through on her plan.

“I think the mountain’s leveling off,” Ashley said with a big dollop of hope in her voice.

“I hope that doesn’t mean we’re going down the other side,” Nancy grumbled as she grabbed hold of both back seats and grimaced at the thought.

“Hit the brake! Hit the brake!” Eliza shrieked her demands.

“Which one is the brake again?” Ashley tossed her a smug look as they ground to a halt.

“I hate you!” Eliza hissed back.

“You hate me so much that you wanted to take me to Bermuda with you,” Ashley chuckled.

“Oh, Bermuda,” Eliza sighed at the thought.

“Look on the bright side…” Nancy started and then fell silent.

“Go on?” Eliza urged.

“Nah, forget it — there is no bright side,” Nancy chuckled.

“I hate you as well,” Eliza bit out to the sound of her so-called friends chuckling.

“Okay, maybe you’ll find a really big, sexy, mountain man to spend the cold, snowy, night with…” Ashley offered.

“The abdominal snowman finds love on the snowy mountain,” Nancy giggled, but the witches shrieked at the unexpected sound of a hard wrap of knuckles against the driver’s window.

“I guess someone feels chatty,” Eliza bit out before she started to chew her inner cheek, nervous after Nancy’s teasing.

“Or maybe this is where he chops us up with an ax and tosses us off the mountain,” Nancy said, and as Eliza tossed a death glare back over her shoulder, her friend offered a wide beaming grin back in return.

“Think happy thoughts!” Ashley offered as she cracked the window open just a touch and the icy air blasted in.

“I was sent to meet you at the Inn, but they said you’d already left.” The deep tones rattled the windows and filled the inside of the car with bass. “It beggars belief that you’ve decided to use the death slide road instead of the cut through — but I’m just glad I managed to find you.”

“Does anybody else want to go back to the inn and killed the receptionist?” Nancy grumbled.

“You’ll need to leave your car here, grab your staff, and come with me,” he informed them.

“Does anybody else feel like staying in the car?” Eliza muttered.

“That car’s not going to handle these mountain roads in the snow,” he informed them.

“We’ll be right there,” Ashley said as she rolled up the window and turned towards the others. “We don’t have much choice — think of our special gifts — we’ll be fine.” She assured them.

“If his voice is anything to go by that guy is huge, like barn-sized,” Eliza said.

“The bigger they are…” Ashley started, but Nancy finished it off.

“The harder you zap them.”

“Exactly!” Ashley nodded in agreement.

 

~

~

~

 

Drake hadn’t been too pleased to be sent on a wild goose chase down the mountain only to find that the women had already left. But it was what it was, and now that he’d found them, all he needed to do was deliver them to the cabin, and go back to watching his sports.

That was easier said than done. When the three women exited their car, and with small shrieks and squeals against the weather, yanked their suitcases out the boot, he could feel the magic in the air.

Drake resisted the urge to sniff. His beast was willing, but he knew better. You didn’t sniff a witch.

‘Brother, we have a problem.’ He used the mental link between the pack members to warn the alpha of impending doom, and in his mind; witches were always impending doom.

‘Did you lose them?’ The alpha asked.

‘I wish.’

‘You have them?’

‘I do. But I don’t want them.’

‘Well, isn’t it lucky that you don’t have to keep them? Take them to the cabin and stop pouting.’

‘Well okay, but on your head be it.’

‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’

‘They’ll be cooking up toads and puppy dog tails in no time…’

‘Witches!’

‘Bingo!’

Drake waited while his brother grumbled and growled. He eyed the three witches as they dragged their suitcases through the snow toward the back of his truck. The dippy trio weren’t even dressed for the bad weather.

He felt kind of guilty at not helping, but he was still waiting for his brother to make up his mind what to do next.

Could he really leave them out in the snow?

‘I can leave them here,’ he grimaced at the thought.

Drake guessed that if his brother denied them entry to pack land, then he could, maybe, sneak them into his cabin and leave them there alone.

It wasn’t that he wanted to go against whatever his alpha decided, and perhaps he shouldn’t have told his brother that they were witches before they were inside the guest cabin — but he didn’t really think that he could leave them out on the mountain in a middle of a blizzard.

‘Take them to the cabin — everyone needs to give the place a wide berth,’ the alpha growled.

Drake breathed a sigh of relief at the alpha’s decision. His brother was normally a hardass — but where females were concerned, even he had a soft spot for a damsel in distress.

Even if they were witches.

“You know what, muscles?” Nancy eyed the large looming figure of the mountain man that she couldn’t quite make out through the snow. “Don’t trouble yourself — we’ve got it.”

“Leave him alone,” Eliza huffed. “He’s probably had a hard day cutting down… Christmas trees,” she whispered the last part as she drew alongside Nancy at the back of the truck and readied herself to lift her suitcase into the back.

“Can you feel…?” Ashley started to reach out with her magic, but the sound of Eliza’s hearty shriek when Drake swept her suitcase out of her hand and tossed it into the back of the truck gave her pause for thought.

“That’s…” Eliza was cut short by Nancy’s aggravated tone.

“Oh no, you don’t!” Nancy was holding onto her suitcase with both hands while Drake was trying to yank it away from her so that he could throw it in the back of the truck with the other one. “Let go!”

“What are you…?” Eliza shook her head in dismay at her friend.

“Shifter!” Ashley shrieked out as the supernatural ping that she’d sent out hit her shields.

Everyone suddenly stopped what they were doing and froze in place. Even Drake froze.