~
“No – I’m senile…” Dorothy bit out with a roll of her eyes and a huff to boot…
“Damn, that takes all the fun out of it,” Angela muttered as she dropped her eyes and deflated a little. She was so looking forward to the surprised look on her friend’s face.
“Sorry to disappoint you – I seem to have done a lot of that in my life.” Dorothy snapped back.
Then the elder turned on her heels and set off for the back door of the Inn with the three of them following on in her wake like they were doing a muted conga…
“Now don’t go getting all morose,” Angela berated her.
“What’s going on?” Hank grumbled.
“Her granddaughter…” Lark informed him and received a sharp elbow in the ribs from his mate for his troubles.
“I have a granddaughter too?” Hank snapped his head back on his neck. “Geez, life moves fast when you’re not paying attention.”
“Paying attention now?” Dorothy asked, lifting her hand and her middle finger to the elder.
He grumbled another growl as he went back to chewing on that wasp once more…
“A sweetheart, you say?” Hank eyed Lark, and the man shrugged his broad shoulders.
“She likes me,” Lark offered back, lifting his hands at his sides with a helpless, but teasing shrug, and got a rumbling growl back for his trouble. He sniggered.
“Why don’t we have a nice cup of tea…?” Angela started and Dorothy turned to look at her. With one hand resting on the door handle, and one grey eyebrow raised – she gave her friend a look that said she was questioning the woman’s sanity.
“Yes, let’s…” Dorothy sounded a little more chipper, but then her faced dropped. “I’m sure that’ll make my granddaughter not hate me, my life somewhat bearable, my body revert back to its hour glass figure, and my mate vanish…” Dorothy’s dry tone had set Hank’s nerves jangling and the man groaned inwardly.
It wasn’t like he’d asked for a mate. Heck, he’d stopped doing that about twenty years earlier when he realised that it wasn’t to be.
He’d planned to enjoy the last years of his life by being a somewhat lazy old fart. It had been working quite nicely for him until Chloe had come back a vampire.
He’d felt a sense of responsibility to try to keep his old friend on the straight and narrow, but once Chloe was done with her newbie phase of trying to suck the witches dry – he’d planned on going back to his old ways of watching sports on the television all day, and watching pups frolic and cause mayhem when there wasn’t much on…
Sure, he’d grumble and growl at them, and say stupid stuff like; we were more respectful and better behaved in my day – but that was what elders were for…
Now, however, he had a cantankerous mate to deal with and pencil into his plans…
Hell, who was he kidding? He’d have to make all new plans.
It would have been better if I was gay … at least we could have slobbed it out together in front of the sports channels, showering might have been optional, but … no …
Now I’ll have to watch romance films, and say nice things about her backside and her hair…
She’s got a good backside … slipped a little, but nice and curvy, and a good size for my hands…
What am I saying? The woman’s probably doesn’t even like making out, making love, getting her groove on…
Groove on…? Hmm, do they still say that?
Oh hell, I don’t give a fart! I still say it.
“Anyone seen Monty?” Chloe appeared off to the left of them as if by magic, but they were all painfully aware that the woman didn’t have that anymore.
She had her backside perched on the railing of the porch, her arms folded, and her fangs were down just a smidge…
Lark groaned. Now wasn’t the time to deal with her…
Hank gave a deep warning growl as he put himself between Dorothy and the vampire, and Angela muttered something that nobody could hear, as she lifted her hand and flicked her wrist…
Chloe was tossed backwards over the railing, much to the vampire’s shock and Dorothy’s delight…
“Ouch!” Chloe grumbled, sight unseen from somewhere below the porch…
“Serves you right,” Hank growled.
“It was just a question … Geez, you people are so touchy…” Chloe bit out as her head and shoulders appeared between the gaps on the other side of the railings…
“Now that’s how you should be, caged behind bars,” Angela eyed the vampire and Chloe eyed her right back…
“Is that so?” Chloe sneered, and the woman hadn’t learned much, because her fangs were still down.
“Do I look like I’m joking?”
“You look like a sour old witch that’s jealous of my youth and new found embrace of life…”
“Nice speech for a dead person.” Angela tossed back, and the vampire let out a long, slow breath of annoyance…
“I’ll remember that the next time you take an old person fall…” Chloe sneered just before she took off…
“Again…!” Monty grumbled as he stopped only briefly before taking off after his mate…
“We’re going to have an adventure, she said…” Dorothy muttered to herself with a flick of eyes at Angela and a condescending tone to her voice. “One last fling, she said … It’ll be fun, she said … should have stayed at the old Fart’s home…”
“Senior living facility…” Angela huffed. “And it is an adventure. Look, you found a mate!”
Dorothy eyed her friend for a long moment – she wasn’t sure if she wanted to zap her or slap her, but there were emotions spinning within her that wanted out…
“Wipe your damn feet!” Dorothy berated Hank as she yanked open the back door and walked inside…
“Well, aren’t you just a little ray of sunshine to brighten my day?” Hank grumbled back, and without warning, Dorothy used her magic to toss the door back into Hank’s face – unfortunately, he was walking inside at the time, and the thick glass thudded against his forehead…
With a growl of annoyance at the shock, rather than the pain, a curse that he didn’t care who heard, and a grumble … he tipped his chin down towards his chest and pushed the door back open.
The sound of muted sniggers from the two mates behind him did nothing for his mood…
~
~
~
Fallon gave Jamie the kind of look that said; no matter what he did or said, she was going to respond in a negative way to everything. That was ok with him – he knew he had a job ahead of him to woo her around to his way of thinking … and what he was thinking was damn right dirty … but, he had no choice.
She was his mate.
His true love.
The one person who was truly meant just for him … he tried to think of that description as a good thing, but it seemed to be coming up a little bit lacking on that front.
A witch by any other name – including mate – is still a witch…
Snarky – zap happy – not someone to mess with at the wrong time of the month, because it wasn’t just the case of lock up all the sharp implements – oh no – she had her own internal power source of pain…
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Fallon’s eyebrows really did try to meet over her nose as she scowled back at her mate.
“Like what?” Jamie asked, titling his head to one side and narrowing his eyes as he considered it.
“That…!” She tossed up a hand towards him and he may have flinched a little bit, expecting something more – and his wolf berated him for even twitching…
“Saying that a million times isn’t going to help when I can’t see what that is … wanna give me a clue?”
“Like you’re not sure if I smell bad or something…” Fallon grumbled, offering him a partial death glare…
Mine… His beast liked the sound of taking her scent.
Jamie didn’t think it would be that easy. It wasn’t as if his mate was a shifter and would accept his advances … but still…
At his wolf’s insistence; he took a step closer to her, and she pulled her upper torso back away from him a little, and eyed him with a whole lot of suspicion…
“What are you doing?” She hissed.
Jamie eyed her right back for one long moment, sizing her up, waiting to see if she’d back up, give ground, and then, when she did nothing at all, a slow to boil smile started on his lips and caught her attention.
Even though Fallon didn’t want to look, told herself to look anywhere but at him – she looked, because there was no getting away from the fact that the man was damned attractive, and that smile was as sexy as all hell.
“I think you had a really great idea…” Jamie said, taking another step towards her; so that the toe of his trainer was practically kissing the toe of her shoe…
“Oh no, if you’re going to do something stupid – don’t you lay the blame at my door.”
“Define stupid,” he teased back, leaning his upper body in just a little, just enough to make her heart race as she tried to bend backwards away from him a little more – the trouble was she wasn’t that bendy.
The more that he leaned in; the more that she realised that she’d need to be double jointed in quite a few places to keep any real distance between them using that method of evasion…
But she’d be damned if she was going to give ground to him. It felt like she’d be selling her soul to the devil and taking her witchy pride by the scruff of the neck and kicking it out of the back door like a flea infested cat…
“Something that you are sure going to regret when I zap you up and down the damn mountain…” She hissed up at him – wanting him to know that she’d just given him his first and his only warning…
“Yeah…” he looked skywards for a moment and considered her words. “Sounds about right.”
“Right is wrong…” she warned.
“Not always.”
“But in this case…”
“I’d say taking a chance is worth its weight in gold.”
“Would you?”
“I would…”
“Then you are even more stupid than I gave you credit for, and trust me when I say that I gave you a lot of credit.”
“Noted.”
Jamie’s grin widened as he returned his eyes to hers, and she found herself mesmerised by the fact that they were darkening to black…