~

 

Jules faced off against the annoying, frustrating beta. Her scowl alone could probably have turned him to stone if she’d put a little magic behind it, and she was tempted.

“You need to stop miffing me off!” She hissed at him.

“I know!” Daniel tossed back.

He figured that one or the other of his feet had been lodged firmly in his mouth from the moment that he’d encountered his mate. That didn’t bode well for wooing her.

Jules questioned him with just a look, and he tossed up his hands in pure frustration. He couldn’t seem to say the right thing if his life depended on it — but it wasn’t his life that depended on it — or maybe it kind of was — because if he failed to woo his mate, then there would be no life for him. No future without her.

“Then why are you trying your hardest to do it?”

“I just can’t seem to stop myself!” He rolled his eyes and tossed up his hands again.

“Maybe, you should just stop talking altogether.”

“Yeah — that sounds like a plan. But then I’d probably still find some other way to miff you off.” He looked more than a little perplexed.

Jules mulled it over for a moment or two. The man was being brutally honest, and she found that endearing.

So he couldn’t help coming out with stupid stuff — well, she’d been there herself. Maybe she could give him a little leeway. After all, it wasn’t as if this whole thing was an everyday occurrence for either of them.

Jules guessed that finding his mate had probably thrown him for just as big a loop as it had thrown her.

“Probably,” she offered, eyeing him with suspicion and wondering if he was now telling her exactly what she wanted to hear.

Daniel lifted his arms and expanded his hands as he gave a helpless shrug. Now he was taking endearing to a whole new adorable level.

“Well, say something!” She demanded.

“I thought that we just agreed it was probably best that I didn’t?” Daniel offered back.

“So, you’re taking a vow of silence for the rest of your life?” A small chuckle caught in her throat and her eyes lit up with amusement.

“Maybe just until I’ve wooed you.” He offered back with the kind of look in his eyes that a sad puppy might offer his human after he’d been admonished for pooping in her shoe.

“Seriously?” She chuckled again, but this time she tipped her head to the side like a curious beast as she stared back at him.

“Sure. What? Wait, don’t tell me you’re having another stop the pigeon moment again, right?” He grumbled.

“Actually — no.”

“Another gorilla-orangutan moment?”

“More of a Bambi…”

“Bambi! Are you kidding me?”

“Well, maybe Simba?” She said as she lifted her hand and tapped a fingertip against her lips in contemplation.

“Like when he was the king of beasts?”

“No.”

“Well, hey, why don’t you just insult me?” He tossed up his hands again to the sound of another chuckle that came from her lips.

“Okay, I’m thinking puppy…”

“I know I said insult me, but, come on.” A small growl rumbled in his chest as his wolf took offense.

“You know, if you don’t want to hear the truth, then you shouldn’t ask the question.” The smile on her lips expanded until she was beaming him really big grin.

“Bambi?” His eyebrows did the mating dance, and even that was adorable. “What is it with you and cartoon characters?”

“What can I say? I guess I’m still young at heart.”

“Can’t I just buy you a coloring book and some crayons and you can stop with the insults?”

“Yeah — it doesn’t work like that.” She shrugged.

“How convenient.” He sighed inwardly.

 

~

~

~

 

Aggie fought against the sleep that had taken her. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew that something was wrong, and that feeling set her whole body on guard to defend herself against whatever was coming.

She knew she needed to wake up, and yet she knew that pain was chasing her heels. It would be so much easier to stay asleep.

As she slipped back into the reality of the moment; pain throbbed in her head, and she pulled her magic deep within herself in the certain knowledge that she would need it. Her body tingled with the reality of the supernatural that was close by.

“And there she is — the Queen of meddlesome witches.” That voice couldn’t belong to anything other than a vampire.

Aggie knew that the game was up and that he’d sensed her waking. She forced her eyelids upwards and tried to focus through the blurry vision on her abductor.

“Well, I’m not dead so…”

“Yet. You’re not dead yet.” Cassius thought it best that he let the witch know exactly where she stood.

“Which means you want something from me,” Aggie reasoned as her eyes finally started to clear and she saw the vampire that had snatched her from the woods.

“Ever heard the saying; don’t count your chickens…?”

“I prefer the one that goes; a bird in the hand…”

“I can see how you would. In your position, I might as well.”

The man was as big as any bear shifter that she’d come across. Tall, broad, and brawny. Vampire or not, it would certainly take something special to put him down.

“Sympathising with your victim?” Aggie shot back.

“Now when have you ever known a vampire to do that?”

The smugness of his tone annoyed her. She had the urge to hit him with her magic, but with her hands tied firmly behind her back there seemed little chance to do much damage with the spells that she could create.

“Never, but you took me for a reason.”

“Maybe I just wanted to savor the moment.” His jet black eyes held no humor and his gaze was as hard as steel.

“I’m guessing, and stop me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think I am — but we’re both too old to be playing possum.”

“Agreed.”

“And as I don’t have the luxury of not aging — I’d kind of like to get to the point before senility kicks in.” Aggie sneered at him.

“Well, aren’t you just as feisty as they say?” Cassius didn’t sound impressed.

“I don’t suppose you want to tell me who they are?” She was fishing for information, trying to find a reason for her situation.

“People talk.”

“That’s so — overflowing with information,” Aggie said. “What say we just cut to the chase?”

“You stuck your nose in where it didn’t belong.”

“That doesn’t sound like me,” Aggie took a second to think about it. “No, wait — yes, it does.”

“Remember, witch, feisty only gets you so far, and then it gets you killed.”

That didn’t sound like an empty threat in her book.

“Well, I’ve had a good life,” Aggie gave a small shrug of her shoulders. “It could have been better. It could have been longer, but that’s the breaks, I guess.”

“It would have been so much easier just to have killed you where you stood,” he groaned.

“With regret comes enlightenment,” she chuckled.

Aggie had very rarely backed down from a fight, and even circumstances like the one that she was in had sparked a knee-jerk reaction within her to fight and not cower.

“Then you regret meddling in my business?” Cassius demanded.

“You know, I’d have to say — probably not. Not that I know who the hell you are, or what business of yours I appear to have meddled in, but take it from me — if I did it then I had a good reason.” Aggie shrugged again.

“Let’s see how feisty you are when I’m draining your lifeblood,” Cassius took one long step towards her.

“Now, let’s not be rash here. You took me for a reason. Are you going to spoil the surprise now?”

Aggie’s argument caused the vampire to stop in place. He gave a slight tilt of his head as he considered her words, and then bit down on the annoyance of the witch’s presence.

“You’re right. Of course, I could do things differently, and not have to put up with you. But still, I did have a plan,” Cassius admitted, and it was the first confirmation that she had that she was, in some way, valuable.

“A man with a plan. How could it go wrong?”

It was a rhetorical question. In Aggie’s mind, whatever could go wrong, she planned to make happen.

Now, all that she needed to do was to play along with the vampire and live long enough to see that to fruition. The only problem with that was that she’d never been good at singing someone else’s tune, and keeping her mouth shut was like trying to tell a bee not to do what bees do.