~

 

“Well look what entices a witch from her pod… beer,” Lucas announced as loudly as he could in front of the door to his mate’s pod.

The door was snatched open, and there was his mate. Boy did she smell good after her shower, like a summer meadow sprinkled with spices? She was definitely good enough to eat.

“Someone said beer?” Isla grinned.

“And while you girls have been waiting for the witches to come out of those… half whiskey barrels,” Percival twisted his head on his neck and frowned at the pods. “Your pack have been cooking up a storm.”

“Food and beer?” Isla said, her inner glutton twitched with interest.

“Lots of food. Barbecue with a nice thick Scotch, mustard and honey sauce.”

“That’s like four food groups right there,” Isla chuckled.

“Scotch is not a food group, Isla,” Keri berated her.

“Well, it should be. It’s made with… food,” Isla shot back.

“The elders have been falling over themselves to make big, chocolate cakes and gooey…”

“Chocolate… cakes.” Isla was practically foaming at the mouth. She sidestepped her mate, who had the same look about him, only it wasn’t the thought of a cake that he was lusting after, walked the few steps to Penny’s pod, lifted her fist, and started to hammer on the door. “Alcohol, meat, and chocolate!”

There was a loud thud from inside Penny’s pod, followed by a very unladylike curse before the door was practically ripped back off of its hinges. Penny blew her fringe out of her eyes.

“You had me at alcohol, but the others are gravy,” Penny shrugged.

“Settled,” Percival announced, motioning to the witches to go towards the woods. Then he whispered just loudly enough so that only the shifters could hear. “Do I know females, or do I know females?”

“Well, I’m impressed,” Griffin muttered back.

 

~

~

~

 

“What the hell happened to the back garden?”

Lucas bit out at the sight of fairy lights strung high above the grass, and solar lights on spikes that had obviously been ripped up from the pack's individual gardens and dotted about the area to give the whole place a summer party feel.

“It’s beautiful,” Isla said, taking it all in, and noticing some familiar faces from the summer fair that were now in the crowd that had gathered.

“Yes – yes, it is,” Lucas said, shooting a look at the alpha, who in turn shrugged his shoulders.

He wasn’t any the wiser than his siblings, but he guessed that the elder females had taken it into their heads to put on the festive display for the mates.

“Looks like a fairy threw up,” Neal grumbled, and Penny shot a magic sting right at his backside that made him jump in place. “In a good way!” He barked out.

“It’s pretty,” Penny berated him.

“I know,” Neal protested, not wanting to be hit by her magic again. “I said that.”

“After prompting by your mate,” One of the elders, Maria, scowled at the beta. “Butthead.” She muttered and then changed her demeanor to bright and breezy as she welcomed the witches. “Come, eat, we have cake.”

“Oh, do I like the sound of that…” Isla grinned, and she was the first to move forward towards the gathering as people turned back towards what they were doing and let the newcomers find their feet.

“I call my cake, death by chocolate – now, I know there’s a death by chocolate already, but my cake can really send your sugar levels spiking to the point where you could literally have a stroke…” Maria wiggled her eyebrows at the witches.

“What? That’s not…” Lucas started, but his mate shot a glare back at him over her shoulder.

“I’ll take the risk,” Isla berated him.

“Fine, go ahead,” Lucas said. “Can’t we at least mate first before you try to kill yourself?” he muttered and felt the hard slap of Neal’s hand against his shoulder.

“That moment when; you find out that your mate would rather die than mate with you,” Neal chuckled.

“I wanna try it!” Penny announced, and Lucas grinned.

“Yeah, it sucks, right?” The beta returned fire with relish, and Neal grumbled and growled.

“I could go some of that right now,” Keri said, following on behind her friends. “And alcohol. Someone promised alcohol.”

“That moment when your mate would rather be face down in a barrel of scotch than mate you…” Lucas offered to the alpha and Griffin growled back. Lucas took a big step away from the man.

“Me too… beer,” Isla said. “No, wine… oh hell, Scotch, lots and lots of Scotch. Just put a teat in a bottle… unless there’s a barrel somewhere, in which case I can just lie beneath it with my mouth open.”

Griffin turned his eyes towards Lucas, and the beta visibly shrank in on himself. Then the alpha folded his arms across his chest and grinned.

“You were saying?” Griffin asked.

“Me, not a damn thing, just chewing on my foot,” Lucas grumbled.

 

~

~

~

 

“I need the little girl’s room,” Penny whispered to Keri as she turned away from the group and hit Neal’s chest face on – literally. “Seriously? Do you have to do the brick wall thing every time I turn around?” She hissed up at him in annoyance as she slapped her palms against his chest and pushed backward away from him, but only because the man was as solid as a mountain and flatly refused to go anywhere.

“No, and yes,” Neal chuckled. “But, hey, I can’t help it if you walk into people.”

“Not people, you,” Penny berated him.

“Me too, but people,” Neal teased back.

“Good solid men in this pack,” Maria said with a nod of her head as she looked impressed. Then she grinned from ear to ear. “Makes for good healthy pups.”

“Oh geez, pups?” Penny exclaimed as Keri put her hand in front of her mouth and giggled.

“You don’t like babies?” Maria asked, and Penny rolled her eyes at the thought of it.

“I need to get used to the thought of having a big baby around first, without thinking about the little ankle biters.” Penny offered back, eyeing her mate with a small sneer.

“Yes, men are children,” Maria nodded. “Let’s face it, they’re only good for one thing, and when they invent a good robot that can take care of a woman’s every need, well, then men will truly become obsolete.” She shrugged.

“I’m with you on that one,” Isla said, raising the glass in her hand to the elder.

“I think you’re probably four of five ahead of me on drinks though,” Maria shot back, rolling her eyes.

“Let me show you the toilet,” Neal said, and Penny snatched her head back around to eye her mate with disbelief.

“Why? Is it so much different from ours?” She frowned up at him. “I don’t have to pee outdoors, right?”

“No, we have inside plumbing, and electric, and everything,” Neal shot back as thought the woman was a few squirrels short of nuts.

“Good, because it might be fine for bears and wolves to pee in the woods, but I draw the line at peeing on my own foot,” Penny muttered as she started off for the house with her mate in tow.

“Well, the idea is not to pee on your foot…” Neal muttered.

Keri was still chuckling as she watched her friend go off with Neal. She was in no doubt that the witch could take care of herself, and what was her mate going to do? Love her to death.

“You don’t drink a lot…,” Griffin said, bringing her attention back around to him.

“I didn’t know it was a requirement,” Keri offered back.

“You’re friends…” Griffin started.

“Oh, they’re lushes,” she said, batting that one away with her hand.

The sound of his soft chuckles rolled towards her. She kind of wanted to hear him growl a little more, now that he was free to do it whenever he wanted to let loose, but she wasn’t going to ask him to do it.

That would probably be considered rude, or weird, or weirdly rude, and she might have been a mate, but she still felt as if she was on the outside looking in.

There didn’t feel like so much pressure on her shoulders anymore. Maybe, because she’d accepted him. Maybe, because she’d accepted that she really didn’t want to walk away.

No, she was going to become mate to the alpha of the pack. It was just a case of how much she made him work for it.