~

 

‘That’s not me!’ Jake said through the link.

“You sure, because it sounds girlie enough…” Neal chuckled.

Lucas wasn’t laughing. He didn’t like that collection of sounds.

It sounded like the woman might be in real trouble. From the direction that they were headed it could have meant that she’d accidentally found the drop off that led down to the water below.

He scented the air; looking for a clue, a sign, the direction of the female – and that was his first mistake.

He felt the hard crunch of his stomach tying itself in knots. The burning of his muscles as they locked up tightly, and to add insult to injury – right when he didn’t need it to happen – his length hardened and his wolf roared within him.

Mine…

What made it worse still… that scent was all Fae.

“Mine…” He growled out.

His legs ate up the distance as his brother almost stalled in mid run and tripped over his own feet at his brother’s words.

“Whoa – Say that again?” Neal demanded.

His head whipped around to see his brother coming up at speed behind him – passing him easily as the man used his solid arms to pump the air.

“I really don’t want to,” Lucas admitted, and with good cause. “Whatever you do, brother… don’t sniff if you don’t like witches. Just in case…”

“Witches!” Neal growled – matching his brother for speed, even if he was at a disadvantage of being on the back foot when his brother had gone by him, and much to his annoyance; he found himself trailing behind him slightly.

“Not a damn word,” Lucas bit out. He was certainly not amused by the turn of events.

“You got yourself a witch mate?” Neal was laughing, but that didn’t stop him from being concerned at that girlie squeal that signaled that his brother’s mate might already be in trouble.

“I said, shut up.”

“No, you said not a word.”

“And yet, you’re still damn well talking.”

“There were six words… I like to be thorough.” Neal chuckled. “At least we don’t have to worry about the tourists spotting Jake.”

‘I’m on my way – what’s going on?’ Griffin demanded through the pack’s link.

“You wanna tell him?” Neal would have rolled his eyes if there had been time.

“Hell no!”

Lucas whipped his head around, and he glared at his brother. He knew that Neal couldn’t resist.

‘False alarm – they’re witches, we don’t need the vampire,’ Neal offered back.

Lucas almost sighed with relief that his brother hadn’t announced his news through the link where everyone could have heard it. That would have been – awkward.

‘ Witches…’ Griffin grumbled a growl. ‘ Wonderful.’

‘Lucas found his mate!’

Neal had said it with so much glee that Lucas could willingly have stopped and beaten the man until he couldn’t make a damn fist anymore.

But there was that urgency to get to his mate; to find out if she was the one that had let out that scream – females and screaming were a damn bad thing, and his wolf was determined to find the culprit for the screams and make him pay.

“Later, brother – you and I – later.” He growled the promise back over his shoulder to the sound of Neal’s dry laughter.

“Anytime, brother, anywhere. You know I like to use your face as target practice for my fist.”

Lucas scented the air and found two different scents – one much stronger than the other – that one was closer – and she wasn’t his mate, but it sounded like she was calling to her in hushed whispers.

 

~

~

~

 

“Where’d you go?” Penny hissed out as she scrambled to her feet in the semi darkness of the woods, uncaring of the mud that clung to her hands and her clothes as she searched for a sign of Isla.

Night had closed in fast, and she didn’t like it. One moment they were running from an alleged wolf and the next – Isla was missing on a shriek that told her that her friend was in trouble.

She wasn’t the only one.

The vampire dropped down from the trees right in front of her making her pull up short. Her shields protested in no uncertain terms – bells rung – sharp tingles ensued – and everything inside of her screamed one word; danger!

“Looking for me?” Percival asked.

He had scented the Fae essence in the air the very moment that he’d started to hunt the tourists at the alpha’s request, and once his fee had been negotiated.

He knew that he wasn’t really needed the moment that he uncovered that little titbit, and yet, he’d enjoyed the short lived hunt, and he always liked to play with his food before he sampled it.

“Hell no!” Penny bit out as she raised her hands and drew her magic to her tingling fingertips.

For one or two long heartbeats she stood there eye to eye with the bloodsucker as they sized each other up, and then, out of a sense of self-preservation; she unleashed it towards him, blasting him in the chest and sending him flying backward through the air.

“Where is she?” Lucas demanded as he ran towards the witch – not his witch, not his mate, but another.

“Holy cow it’s a convention!” Penny bit out as she delivered the same punishing blow to the fast moving shifter, sweeping him backward off his feet, and depositing him on the ground some thirty feet away from where she stood.

Panic ensued within her.

“Isla!” Penny started towards the last place that she’d seen her friend.

The sound of running feet behind her snatched at her attention and made her turn in place to see the second shifter that was coming right for her, and with a sidestep out of the way; she used her magic, and his momentum, against him to hurl him over the edge and out of sight.

One moment; she was tracking his flight, and the next he was gone. Just like Isla.

The sound of his startled yelp followed him down the incline, and she was half grateful to him for showing her where it was, and half dreading the fact that her friend had met the same fate. A few more steps and she would have gone down herself.

“Are you certain you’re not looking for me?” Percival said. His melodic voice was so close to her that he have could have been whispering in her ear.

Penny turned fast, too fast on the muddy ground. Her feet slipped out from under her, and she was sailing backward through the air – with the kind of curse that would have made a sailor blush – before she could do a damn thing to stop herself from falling.

“Whoops!” The vampire called after her.

At a stretch, he might have been able to reach for her, but he knew that it was more than likely that she would have taken him down with her, and he did so hate to get his clothes muddy.

Penny’s backside hit the ground. She hit a bump and her body curled in on itself for protection.

She rolled and rolled, bumped and thudded her way down the slippery slope with no time to reach out; either with her hands or with her magic, to be able to stop herself from falling.

She had somehow managed to twist her body on her journey and was skidding down the last part of her magical mystery mud ride on her stomach. She’d tried to stretch her arms out in front of her; hoping that she wasn’t about to headbutt a tree. When she came to a hard-soft-ish landing, finding herself yanked upwards by unseen hands, and deposited over the body of a man.

Her brain swirled at the prospect of just who that was, and she could have hoped that it wasn’t the shifter that she’d just tossed over the edge, but what were the odds?

How many muscle bound bodies could there be lying around just waiting to grab a mud sliding witch on her travels?

The momentum and sudden impact took them both back over the ground. The hard rush of air was knocked out of her lungs; on a startled squeal, and a pained yelp came from him.

Penny laid for a moment across his body trying to figure out which way was up, and what the heck had just happened to her. To Isla. And just whose body she was using as a mattress.

Penny coughed out a breath and sucked one back in. She slapped her hands down against the hard muscles of his chest and pushed upwards, but when she tried to lock her elbows and push backward away from him; she found that his hands were still around her upper arms, locking her in place, and her knees skidded in the mud.

Rather than face plant against the man’s chest again; she yanked a knee forwards to try to stabilize herself and felt the connection with his most prized possessions. She knew that she’d hit home when he yelped out in pain once more.

A heartbeat later and his upper body shot up from the ground, his head coming towards her, and if she hadn’t of moved sideways, then he just might have head-butted her. That danger was short lived, and he dropped back against the earth on another grunt of pain and a squishy thud.

Neal’s hands released her arms as the fire in his balls made him twist on the ground in pain.

Penny shimmied back away from him, but in her rush to get away; her knee skidded backward, and she fell face first against his groin.

There was another groan of pain. This time it was louder, harder, deeper, and a lot longer.

Penny planted her hands in the mud and her fingers sunk into the gooey mess. She pushed up and back onto her knees.

Realization of what she’d done sunk into her brain and she felt a flash of guilt for his pain, and yet she couldn’t help feeling mortified by where her face had ended up, and more than a little miffed that she was in that situation in the first place.

“That’s certainly wasn’t an offer … And it doesn’t make us friends!” She bit out, scampering backward on her knees to get away from him and his damn balls before she did him any more damage or he got the wrong idea entirely.