~

“Where are you hurt?” He couldn’t really help the low, deep growl that rumbled in his chest. He’d done this; this was on him.

“Are you a total and complete bloody idiot?” Her muffled question took him by surprise, but the female was already on the move and pushing up from the bed of leaves and debris on the ground.

“I didn’t see you…” Ray started to explain, but he didn’t get far.

“You didn’t see me?” She bit out another curse inside the crash helmet. “Were you walking with your eyes closed?”

“No, but…”

Ava reached up and snapped back the visor so she could offer the idiot a death glare. She’d dearly love to put some magic behind that look and zap the idiot into tomorrow, but she knew that she couldn’t risk it.

Ray was momentarily stunned by the Jade Green of her eyes, and the fact that she was looking at him as if she could have ripped his head off and handed it back to him, given the chance and the strength, and that look wasn’t lost on him. He guessed he couldn’t blame her.

“No, but…?” she tossed back in disbelief. “There’s a but?” She snorted her contempt for whatever excuse the man thought to offer her — nothing would be good enough.

Who didn’t look when they crossed a damn road? An idiot and he was that idiot.

“Not really,” he grumbled with a small shake of his head. She was right, he should have been looking for traffic, but the road was so rarely used that he hadn’t expected any.

“Exactly!” she snapped out, bringing him out of the guilt trip that he’d fallen back into. “You didn’t see me because you weren’t paying attention — who does that? Who walks across the bloody road without paying attention, you numpty?”

“Apparently — me.” He offered her a small shrug of his shoulders and a sheepish look to boot. He felt like an idiot, but worse than that, she could have been seriously hurt.

“And how did you not hear me?” She demanded as she reached up, unhooked the strap under her chin, and pulled off the helmet.

Jet black curls tumbled from inside the helmet, over her shoulders and down her back, and Ray was momentarily stunned again by her sheer presence.

That had never happened to him before. He’d seen beautiful women up close and personal, but nobody had ever taken his breath away.

She did that. The crazy biker lady with the fiery look in her eyes left him speechless as his beast rose within him, curious at Ray’s reaction to the female, and urging him to scent her.

“Huh?” He snapped back to attention as his beast tried to push forward. Now certainly wasn’t the time for his damn wolf to make an appearance.

“Seriously?” Ava hissed out. She didn’t know if he was pulling her chain or not, but if he was, then she wanted her pound of flesh.

Ava took a step toward her bike that the idiot had a death grip on, and that was when she felt it — the supernatural in the air pinged her shields and sent tingles over her body. Ava didn’t move another step.

She noted the way that his eyes flared and then narrowed on her, the way that his head twisted slightly to one side as if he was curiously trying to make out exactly what planet she was from, and his top lip twitched as he recognized her Fae essence.

That was bad. It was bad enough that she had been run off the road by a stupid shifter that hadn’t been paying attention to his surroundings. But the fact that she’d just lost the upper hand and he knew her as a witch was even worse.

For what felt like forever they stood there in a face-off. Neither one spoke, neither one moved, and yet, the looks that passed between them said what words didn’t.

“You’re on pack land,” Ray said, trying not to rumble a growl and make the situation worse. His beast was still too curious for his liking, and he had done her harm.

“You don’t say,” she tossed back, placing the hand that wasn’t holding her crash helmet on her hip and looking unimpressed. How quickly his attitude had shifted when he discovered that she was a witch.

“I do say,” Ray offered back, he was still trying to work out where things went from there.

A witch. A witch on pack land. How much worse could things get?

If it wasn’t for the fact that he’d almost killed the woman, then he would have been growling and demanding that she leave.

A part of him hoped that her bike was roadworthy and she could do just that before the alpha discovered her presence in their town. Then there was the other part of him, the part that was still stunned by her presence and he didn’t know why, but he didn’t want to move her on just yet.

“How convenient — you can’t see, you can’t hear a motorbike traveling down the road, but you can still speak total and absolute bloody rubbish,” she sneered.

“I admit that I wasn’t looking for you, and I couldn’t hear you because I had music playing in my ears, as for speaking rubbish — the alpha of our pack is not as tolerant of witches as I am,” Ray tossed back.

He didn’t owe her an explanation — or, maybe he did. After all, he had run her off the road. But still, he wouldn’t be taken for a fool by a devious witch.

“Tolerant?” The cheek of the man!

“You have to admit that where witches go then trouble seems to follow right behind…”

“And you have to admit that when a shifter opens his mouth, he might as well just cram his whole foot in there.”

“Are you hurt?” Ray didn’t want to start a war with the woman; he just felt bad about running her off the road.

“Why? Are you going to make me magically better?” she offered back with a small sneer of victory over the man.

“I can get you help…” Ray scowled at the woman. She was being unreasonable – he was only trying to put right what he’d done wrong, and then they could be done with it.

“There’s a coincidence — I can get me help too,” Ava shot back.

First, the man had jumped out in front of her in the road causing her to swerve and ditch her bike — then he’d threatened to run her out of town — if they were handing out prizes for stupid then he would be in the front of the damn line.

The man annoyed her in a way that she couldn’t quite understand. Normally, she was pretty easy going, live and let live — but with him, there was something itching and scratching at her, something tapping at the back of her mind that she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

She didn’t know whether to just zap him and be done with it, get it out of her system – Goddess only knew that he deserved it.

The man was built, stacked, muscles upon muscles, and she wasn’t opposed to looking at him. Sure, his personality left a lot to be desired, but then … he was a shifter.

Ava’s mind wandered for a long moment — it was his eyes, something in his eyes caught her attention and held it longer than they should have. He had nice eyes, they were the color of nice milky chocolate, and she did like chocolate.

It couldn’t be that. There had to be more, but aside from the muscles, the broad shoulders, sexy eyes that she could get lost in — Ava snapped to attention.

That wasn’t good; she didn’t want to get lost in his eyes — perish the thought — getting lost in his eyes would mean they were up close and personal, and who wanted to get up close and personal with a stupid wolf shifter?

Not bloody her, that’s who.

Of all the towns to meet up, trust Frankie to pick a shifter town. How like her friend not to bother with a little thing like due diligence and checking the place out first.

“Look, witch, I’m just trying to be…”

“A menace of epic proportions? Congratulations – job done. Sorry, I don’t have a prize for you.”

“For the love of — could you lose the attitude? I’m trying to apologize, and I’m trying to make sure you’re okay,” Ray growled.

At least he didn’t need to worry about hiding his wolf side around her like he did with other humans. That was probably the only bonus in having a troublesome witch around.

Well, maybe not the only bonus — that woman really was damn good to look at.