~

 

“Sorry…” The human muttered.

Lucas yanked his thumb from his mouth and gave a dismissive shrug of his broad shoulders; when all that he really wanted to do was to punch the idiot in the face until he felt better…

“It’s fine. I should have been paying attention,” he grumbled, but oh, how he wanted to release that growl.

‘Easy, Brother,’ The alpha warned him, and Neal was trying to drag his eyes towards his sibling, but he couldn’t seem to pull them away from his mate.

‘It’s fine. I’m fine.’

‘That’s a lot of fine’s…’ Neal teased.

‘What do you want me to say? I wanna rip the man’s arm off and beat him over the head with it, before dishing out the same lame sorry that he just offered me?’ Lucas growled.

‘Someone woke up on the wrong side of his wolf this morning.’

‘Someone, meaning me, would rather be wooing his mate than helping Father Ted with his moronic summer fair…’ Lucas shot back on a grumbled growl, as he went back to bracing the structure with both hands, albeit, one throbbing like a beacon of annoyance.

‘That’s Neal’s fault…’ Griffin grumbled.

‘How is this my fault?’ Neal protested.

‘You agreed to have this stupid summer fair in our field,’ Griffin grumbled.

‘I didn’t see you turning down the money from the baking stall,’ Neal shot back, and Griffin groaned.

‘Oh … the baking stall…’

‘Oh, no. The pack females are going to be coming soon,’ Lucas grumbled.

‘Front row seats to us wooing our mates,’ Griffin tossed back.

All three brothers contemplated that in deafening silence.

‘We need to get our woo on,’ Lucas was the first to break that silence.

‘Our woo on?’ Neal chuckled back.

‘Don’t be an …’ Lucas yelped again as the hammer that the incompetent human was now wielding hit him right on the tender thumb… “Son of a…” He bit out, snatching his thumb back into his mouth and growling like a wildling for anyone to hear.

‘Stop with the damn growling,’ Griffin growled at his sibling.

‘Yeah, sure … you come over here and let Thumper here loose on your digits, and we’ll see how well you do in the freaking growling stakes…’ Lucas growled back.

‘Temper – temper, brother.’ Neal chuckled.

Lucas took one long step towards the human and that man managed to swallow down a good portion of his tongue just from the look in the shifter’s eyes.

‘I’m going to chow down on this…’

“S-sorry,” the man spat out past the lump in his throat and the dark look in the beta’s eyes.

‘Lucas, back away from the human and behave yourself accordingly,’ Griffin warned him.

‘I’m a wolf; I’ll behave very damn accordingly,’ Lucas growled back.

Then he lifted the hand that wasn’t screaming in pain and pointed a thick, long finger at the human’s chest.

“Yooouu…” he bit down on every curse word that came to mind – only just mindful enough to remember the little old ladies of the church were around and about him.

“S-s-sorry,” the man spat out again, physically shrinking in size under the beta’s dark glare.

“Give me that damn hammer…” Lucas bit out.

A moment later and he was snatching the offending item from the guy’s hand. He didn’t want to hit the man with a hammer; he wanted to plant his fist square on the man’s jaw and watch him drop.

‘Be nice…’ Griffin warned.

‘I’m not going to kill him – just chew a little…’ Lucas grumbled back.

“Oh look, bullying the poor human.” His mate’s voice rang a bell or two within his mind.

“What do you expect from a shifter?” Keri chimed in.

Lucas snatched his eyes away from the man who looked as if every last drop of blood had drained from his head, and towards the three witches that stood side by side in front of the pods. Their arms were folded across their chests, accusing eyes blazing hell fire at him, and his beast growled a long, hard warning at him.

Lucas bit down on his need to kill someone.

He saw himself in the eyes of his mate, and he groaned inwardly.

Then he snapped his head back towards the hammer swinger, and the man swallowed again.

“Go and get a w-r-e-n-c-h…” he bit out slowly.

That human didn’t need to be told twice. He shot off like the hounds of hell was on his heels, and Lucas shot a look back over towards his mate.

The witch lifted her nose in the air and snapped her gaze away from his. There was no pleasing some people.

‘Good boy,’ Neal teased, and Lucas growled through the link.

‘You can kiss my furry backside.’

All three witches moved as one. As if they had a mental link of their own that started their feet moving across the grass at the same time.

And all three of them were moving towards the parking bays.

 

~

~

~

 

“Get to the car, get out of here, and then we can talk,” Keri bit out.

She knew that she needed to tell them what she’d overheard the night before about them all being mates, but she was kind of hoping to put it off as long as humanly possible.

“Oh, there’s no way in hell fire that I’m a mate to a damn shifter,” Penny bit out, and Isla ground to a halt.

“Say what?” She almost bit her tongue off trying to get the words out.

“You know?” Keri demanded, stopping in her tracks and eyeing Penny.

“Oh, yeah. I know,” Penny hissed back, looping her arm around Isla’s and dragging the woman along with her.

“A mate?” Isla said again, chewing over that thought aloud.

“Me too,” Keri sighed.

Isla ground to a halt again and yanked Penny backward as the woman carried on walking, lost in the moment.

“What the freaking hell?” Isla bit out.

Penny and Keri eyed each other over Isla’s head, but all three woman jumped in place the moment that Father Ted appeared in front of them.

“Now, what do we have here?” Father Ted said with a deep frown that brought his busy eyebrows down over his eyes.

“I could tell you, but you wouldn’t like it,” Keri bit out.