~

 

Jonathan reached out and wrapped his arm around Natalie’s waist. He lifted her feet from the ground and spun her around to face the Christmas tree and away from his brother.

The alpha made a beeline for Saffy. The witch caught the movement out of the corner of her eye, but she turned too late — a heartbeat later and Doug had dipped at the waist, and tossed her over one broad shoulder.

“That’s not…” Natalie’s feet were still off the ground, and her legs were swinging back and forth as if she were trying to run in place.

She twisted and turned within her mate’s arms, trying to break free, trying to twist around so that she could continue to zap the alpha, but to no avail.

“Nice view!” Saffy chuckled as she stared at Doug’s backside.

“You witches are like squabbling teenagers,” Doug growled as he started toward the staircase.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Natalie ground out as she continued to fight against her mate’s hold on her.

“Don’t tar all witches with the same brush,” Christie snorted her contempt for the alpha’s words.

“You fight like a cat in a sack — but you’re still not getting anywhere,” Jonathan chuckled.

“Oh yeah?” Natalie didn’t consider her actions before she took them. She forced out her magic from her body, everywhere that her mate was touching her, but it only served to tense up all of his muscles — and then they were falling into a heap on the floor.

“Did you learn nothing from my fubar earlier?” Saffy chuckled as she tilted her head to one side and caught sight of Natalie being squished by her mate.

“My goddess, he weighs a ton!” Natalie managed to get out as she fought for a decent breath.

“I’m stocky! Well built,” Jonathan protested as he fought against his weakened muscles to try and push his weight up and off his mate.

“You wanna tell me where we’re going?” Saffy already knew the answer to that.

The constant bump of her stomach against his shoulder and the heady height as she looked down on Natalie told her they were starting up the stairs. She knew exactly what was at the top of the stairs, but still, she teased him.

“You said you wanted to mate with me,” Doug growled. That growl sounded hungry once more.

“I don’t remember saying when ” Saffy chuckled with nervous excitement.

“Sometimes a man just has to take things into his own hands,” the alpha said, as another growl rumbled through his chest and through her body.

“Especially, an alpha?”

“Definitely, an alpha.” Doug stalked down the corridor towards his bedroom.

Whatever was happening downstairs didn’t concern him. He was fully focused on his mate.

The alpha booted open the bedroom door and stalked inside. He went to backheel the door closed, but Saffy used her magic to slam it shut behind them.

He took that to mean that his mate was definitely all in. It wasn’t like he wasn’t going to make damn sure, but for now, he took it as a good sign.

 

~

~

~

 

“Get off me you big oaf before I zap you to kingdom come,” Natalie bit out.

She knew that she had brought it on herself, and yet, she still wanted to zap the man. Everywhere that his body was touching hers she had that damn, stupid tingle — she didn’t want that tingle — that tingle meant that he was her mate, and there was no escaping that.

Saffy had been carted upstairs over the alpha’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Was she to have that same fate?

The heck she was!

Jonathan was a nightmare of epic proportions. He was a mate — fate was on his side — and it didn’t help that he was a whole lot of sexy shifter wrapped up in a smile that made her toes curl in her boots in a good way.

Why did he have to be so sexy?

Why did he have to have eyes that were so soulful and felt like they were devouring her?

Why did he have to be so damn heavy that she couldn’t just escape from beneath him? Every second that he was pressed against her body felt like exquisite torture.

It wasn’t right.

It wasn’t fair.

It was just damned annoying.

Natalie hated fate.

She wished she could say the same about her mate — but he’d been growing on her like a fungus since the moment that she met him. She hated that too.

Yes, she’d messed up with her magic, and now the man was even more imprinted on her body. But oh, for the love of the goddess, the way that her body was buzzing from head to toe felt sinfully good.

How was she supposed to escape her fate?

How was she supposed to escape her mate?

Natalie felt his weight lift a little at a time. He grunted and groaned as he drew on a whole lot of willpower and what little strength his muscles gave him to push up and toss himself over onto his side on the floor.

“Squished witch anyone?” Tom chuckled.

“Don’t you have some nose fur to tweeze out,” Natalie hissed at the elder.

“Sweetheart, at my age I have excess hair growing out of lots of places. It would be a full-time job to tweeze it out, and that’s not how I want to spend the twilight of my days,” Tom chuckled.

“Well, that chucked up a lot of images that I don’t want to ever think about again,” Natalie grumbled, as she rolled over and pushed up to her hands and knees.

Her mate gave a hungry growl, and she tossed him a death glare before pushing back on her knees and sucking in all the good air that she’d been denied.

“You just put some images in my mind that I do want to think about — constantly — over and over again,” Jonathan growled at the thought of his mate being on her hands and knees as he stroked into her.

Mine…

“You can take your dirty mind, and you can shove it where the sun don’t shine,” Natalie grumbled.

She really hated the fact that he’d put those images into her own mind and the response of her body had basically been to assume the position, in more ways than one.

“You can deny it to yourself all you want, but we both know what you’re thinking,” Jonathan said on what sounded like a very dirty chuckle.

It didn’t matter if he was growling, laughing, or offering that chuckle. Every deep rumble of a sound that came from her mate seemed seductive to her mind, body, and even her soul.

That definitely wasn’t fair.

They said nothing was fair in love and war — and she had to wonder about when those two worlds collided. She’d been fighting a battle against fate, against him, and even against her own instincts. The trouble was she was losing that battle, and fast.

They said that love at first sight was just lust, but in normal humans, love at first sight was fate tapping you on the shoulder and pointing you in the direction of your fated mate. In witches, it was different because they already knew about mates, and there was the crux of it — Jonathan was her forever love.

Saffy seemed to already have fallen foul of fate. At least, she’d allowed the alpha to carry her upstairs, and the sound of her excited giggling told Natalie that it wouldn’t be long before her friend was mated to the alpha and stuck with the pack.

Natalie expected a similar fate. There was only so much a witch could do to fight against the mating pull — one of those things being to get the hell out of Dodge.

She’d missed that chance.

One way or the other, Natalie knew that she would succumb to the will of fate. But she couldn’t help but wonder if her mate needed to look so damn smug about it.

She wanted to zap him just to get rid of that look of certainty within his eyes.

“I suppose you think this is a done deal between us?” Natalie eyed the man as if he was Demon personified in a hot, sexy, shifter body.

A part of her was desperate to reject him — while the other part wanted to go full steam ahead and lick him from head to toe.

“I think it might be pretty much a done deal,” Jonathan grinned from ear to ear.

“A little too overconfident, I think,” Christie chuckled, she could feel magic in the air, and it wasn’t the faeries.

Natalie wove her magic around and around telling it what she wanted, and where to go to get it. One string of green fairy lights from the Christmas tree slinked across the branches like a snake hunting its prey.

Before the beta could do anything about it, those Christmas lights had wrapped themselves around his body like a boa constrictor.

“Make the wire as tough as steel, a change of attitude to unlock the reel,” she muttered under her breath, dusted her hands off, and pushed up to her feet.

“Hey, what gives?” Jonathan grumbled and growled as he tried to break the bonds that held him in place.

Natalie stared down at her mate in amusement. It was a sweet victory, of sorts, because a part of her kind of hoped that he would have a sudden change of attitude just so that he was free once more to pursue her.

“Think of it as a Christmas game — a Christmas puzzle — you need to figure out how to get free,” Natalie offered him a victory smile before she turned on her heels and stalked across the room toward the kitchen.

If she couldn’t have her mate — the next best thing was cake.