That smile from the vampire only made her prickle. “I’ve got a bone to pick with you,” she said, and took a step towards him, but Nash flung out an arm and stopped her progressing any further.

  “No, you don’t,” the alpha said, and she snorted her contempt for him. Not sure he wanted a repeat of what just happened to Greg if she got all riled up again.

  “Don’t tell me what to think…”

  “I’m not telling you what to think…”

  “Sure, you are,” Lorna said, frowning up at him. “Right now my beef is with him, not you…”

  “Whatever do you think I did?” Santino asked with the sound of glee that pressed down on her irk gene and just kept pushing.

  Lorna snapped a look his way. “Seriously?” she practically growled in annoyance, and that made Nash’s ears prick up along with his beast’s.

  “Aren’t I always the pillar of wisdom and seriousness?” Santino offered, knowing it would ruffle her feather more.

  He had an idea why she was miffed at him, a six-foot idea of the mate that was standing with her, but still, he couldn’t help himself. Besides, it might lighten the moment, and it did draw sniggers from the crowd that was still watching.

  “You want me to tell you what you are?” Lorna said, trying to use her weight to push through the alpha’s strong arm that was blocking her way so she could get to the vampire, but there was little give in that barrier.

  “Walk away, Santino,” Nash growled. He could feel his beast rising within him.

  All the wolf could see was their mate and the vampire going head to head. It didn’t matter to the beast that it wasn’t a matter of life or death, because defending their mate was paramount.

  If the vampire wasn’t careful, then Nash’s beast would burst loose, and he’d be running from a lot more than a miffed off witch.

  “I’d say run,” Lorna bit out.

  “But think logically, if it wasn’t for me, you would never have met your mate,” the vampire offered the kind of smirk that made Lorna glare at him without blinking even once.

  Then she screeched in annoyance, and it was so high pitched that it caused Nash a moment of pain as his sensitive hearing took the full blast. “That’s the bone,” Lorna bit out.

  Nash held on as his mate tried to get by him. Then he had to wrap his arm around her waist when she really went for gold and lunged forward. “Not even one day back and look at the problems already,” Nash growled.

  “It’s not my fault you have a defective omega and a crazy witch mate,” Santino said, chuckling to himself as a look of pure disbelief swept over the alpha’s face.

  “Fine,” Nash growled, and let Lorna go. “Have at him.”

  Lorna liked that idea, and Santino could tell because there was a crazed look in her eyes along with a smile that said she was relishing the idea. He didn’t like his odds.

  “Oooo,” he said, and was about to make his escape when her magic whipped his legs out from beneath him, and he was on his backside before he could do anything about it.

  “We should talk,” he rushed out, trying to reason his way out of it, but the low cackle of a chuckle that came from the witch said it all – the time for talking was definitely over.

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  ~

  Coleen wasn’t about to let her mate have all the fun. With a push of her hands on his hard chest and magic through her palms, she had him on his back in a heartbeat.

  A second later and she straddled him.

  “That’s not how this goes,” Flint growled, as his wolf rose up within him, demanding that the beta take back control of the situation, and fast.

  Coleen grabbed two handful of his shirt and ripped it apart with a wicked grin and a wicked chuckle of satisfaction to match it. “Maybe not in your book, but this is witch-world now, and I’m in charge,” she said with a big dollop of glee.

  Coleen knew that if there was one sure-fire way to stoke up an alpha type male, it was for a woman to take control. It might not have been the best idea in the world to make a wildling wilder, but in for a penny, in for a pound, and she was going to get him as wild as she could, or die trying, but hopefully not until they’d mated.

  Coleen preferred to go out with a bang and not a whimper.

  It was better that Flint realised now that she had a wild side as well – sort of like full discloser without words – otherwise he’d probably think that he had to hold back, and that was the last thing she wanted.

  Flint growled long and hard and had to try to keep his beast from pushing forward when his mate curled her fingertips against his chest and scored down his skin with her fingernails.

  Oh boy, was that so damn good that it might just be bad – for her.

  Flint tried to move, tried to push up so he could roll her over and take back the control that he needed to keep his beast in check, but her magic was pressing him down like an invisible weight on his whole body, and he wasn’t going anywhere until she said so.

  Flint needed to think of a way out of the mess he’d gotten into. “At least have the heart to kiss me when you do that,” he growled.

  Coleen’s wicked little smile was worth more than gold to him, and yet, when she dipped her head, ignored his lips, and ran her tongue over his nipple – he regretted opening his mouth in the first place.

  He had an angel on one shoulder telling him not to let his beast side out, and a devil on the other who was urging his wild side on. When Coleen ran her blunt teeth over his nipple – the damn devil won.

  With a hungry growl that said he was either going to eat her alive and relish every bite, or he was more than ready to make her his, Coleen guessed that he was as close to a wildling as he was going to get without shifting into his furry side – and she didn’t want that.

  She released her magic just as Flint was fighting to beat the hold she had on him and her head spun as she found herself on her back with him on top of her – his dark smoulderingly sexy eyes eating her up. “You’re welcome,” she said, grinning like all her Christmases had come at once.

  Flint couldn’t contain the hungry growl that rolled through his chest any more than he could contain the need within him to make her his. He snagged her wrists and pushed them up over her head, holding them in place with one large hand as he torn her shirt apart with the other in the same way she had done to him.

  He guessed he got the better view as he exposed the black lace of her bra and the globes of her creamy breasts. With another growl, he flicked out just one razor-sharp claw and cut through the band of material that ran between her breasts.

  “Tell me again how you want to take your time,” Coleen said with the cockiest, wickedest grin yet.

  Flint matched that look with a roguish one of his own. “Tell me where it says a guy can’t change his mind.”

  ~

  “That’s enough,” Nash said, strangely taking pity on the vampire when his mate dumped him headfirst into a puddle of mud.

  Lorna thought she was going pretty easy on Santino, considering the man had played her and Coleen just to get what he wanted. “Payback’s a witch,” she said and zapped the vampire’s backside as it stuck up in the air like he was begging for it to be used as target practice.

  Nash rolled his eyes, but he did have to chuckle. In his book, the vampire had got more than what he deserved, but it had been a scream watching it.

  But all that time Nash’s thoughts had turned more and more to what they’d been doing before they’d left the cabin, and with his wolf itching and clawing to remind him of what came next, he’d been getting a little distracted with those thoughts.

  With three long strides, Nash was at Lorna’s side, and with one dip at the waist, he hauled her up and over his broad shoulder to a screech of protest from the witch.

  “That’s cheating,” Lorna said and zapped his backside.

  “Yep,” he said, agreeing with her and trying to ignore the sting in his tail. “But we were busy before Santino got you all riled up and I think we should get back to the cabin.”

  Lorna had been having those exact same thoughts for the last few minutes or so, and she thought that was probably why her heart hadn’t really been in doing what she’d been doing to the vampire.

  It had been fun, making Santino pay for his out and out dishonesty, and she’d warned him before about being sneaky to get what he wanted. She guessed she should leave a little for Coleen when the witch appeared again from whatever she was doing, and she had a pretty good idea of what that could be because she’d been doing it as well.

  “Well, when you put it like that,” Lorna muttered, and his pace picked up as he started off on foot towards the cabin. “But my legs do work…”

  “Wouldn’t want to tire you out,” Nash tossed back over his shoulder, grinning to himself at the thought of what came next.

  “No, you two go ahead,” Santino called. “I’m fine by the way.”

  “I wasn’t asking,” Nash and Lorna said together, and then chuckled.

  Santino looked at Merry, and she had a hand covering her mouth, but he could read the smile in her eyes. He guessed his pain was less important than making her smile again.

  Merry managed to get her grin under control, and she cocked an eyebrow at him. “Oh, get up, you’re making the place look untidy,” she mocked him and enjoyed the moment.

  Santino pushed up to his full height and straightened his muddy clothes. “There’s a dead guy right there, but I’m untidy?” he grumbled.

  ~

  At the first blast of the mating howl that sounded through the night and seemed to echo through the trees, Lorna snapped up on Nash’s shoulder and grabbed both sides of the cabin’s doorframe, yanking him back and almost putting them both on the ground.

  Nash growled long and hard.

  “Tell me that isn’t what I think that is,” Lorna said, looking out into the darkness as if she could actually see something that made sense rather than just shadows in the night.

  “That most definitely is what you think that is,” he said, tugging a little to get her to let go, but she wasn’t budging, and he kind of liked her arms on her body and didn’t want to risk yanking them off. “Will you let go of the damn door?”

  “Not so fast,” she said, and the sound of suspicion in her tone made him question what she hoped to figure out.

  “This is not fast,” he grumbled, rolling his eyes before he dropped his head forward and mumbled and groaned.

  “If that’s what I think that is then that means Coleen mated with Flint,” she said as if she suspected a crime had been committed and she was Miss Marple about to solve it.

  “Or maybe she picked up a stray wolf along the way,” he grumbled and yelped when she zapped his backside.

  “That would be my friend you’re talking about,” Lorna bit out, berating him with her words and actions.

  “I apologise,” he shot back over his shoulder. “For you not having a sense of humour.” Lorna zapped him again. “Really?”

  “Yes, the second one was for accusing me of being humourless,” she said, turning to look at him. “I can find the humour in most things.”

  “Like…?”

  “Like the fact that if that was what we think that was…”

  “It was…”

  “Then Coleen gave in first and I can slut-mate-shame her,” she said with a twinkle of mischief in her eyes and a big grin on her lips.

  “Then can we go in now?” Nash asked.

  Lorna let go of the doorframe, and he shot inside the cabin like he had a bat out of hell on his tail. He wasn’t waiting around to see if she changed her mind again.

  “Someone’s in a hurry, let’s hope that’s not how our night is going to go,” she said, chuckling.

  “There’s only one way for you to find that out, sweetheart,” Nash informed her with that sexy underlying growl rumbling along with his words that made her body tingle in places that were tempting her very soul.

  Nash backheeled the cabin door closed, and then, like a bolt out of the blue had hit him and woken up his brain, he stopped dead in his tracks, twisted his head to the side as if he was listening for something, and sounded like Scooby-Doo questioning Shaggy.

  Two and two finally made four, and he hoped to hell he’d heard that right or – well – awkward.

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

  ~

  Lorna couldn’t do much but raise her upper body against his shoulder once more and look around behind her to see why they’d stopped. That little devil on her shoulder made her want to rock back and forward like she was urging him on, but she held that feeling at bay.

  “What?” she asked when she couldn’t find anything obviously wrong with the inside of the cabin.

  “That,” he said like he was thinking hard.

  “That what?”

  “What you said.”

  “What’d I say?”

  Nash reached up and slowly drew her down off his shoulder. He wasn’t shy about making sure that her body ran down the length of his on her way to putting her on her own two feet.

  “Our night…” he offered, and narrowed his eyes on her, giving her a curious look like he was about to interrogate her for a crime.

  Lorna smiled inwardly, but on the outside, she mirrored his look. “Second thoughts?” she asked as if she meant it as if he really could be thinking that way.

  Ha! An alpha male being handed his mate on a plate and he was having second thoughts – as if.

  The look on Nash’s face changed from one of inquisitor to a scrunched-up look of pure disbelief. “No!” he protested. “Are you insane?”

  Lorna considered that for a long moment, but inside, she was rolling on the floor almost peeing her panties. But, a game face was a game face, and she was great at playing Poker as well. “Some might say insane – I like to think of it as…”

  Nash cut her off in mid-flow with his soft lips coming down on hers. She was already in his arms, but she pressed closer.

  As close as she could get while they still had their clothes on.

  ~

  Santino caught hold of Merry’s wrist just as she was about to walk up the steps to the back patio of her cabin. She tensed, more than she knew she could as her shoulders were practically already up to her ears.

  “I don’t wanna talk about it,” she said, cutting him off before he’d even braced the subject.

  “Awkward,” he said, grimacing a little when she finally looked at him.

  “Awkward?”

  “I was going to ask if you fancied opening a vein…”

  Santino ducked when she swung the arm that he didn’t have a hold on at him with a balled fist that was only half-heartedly thrown.

  “You were not,” she bit out.

  “Then why did you try to punch me?”

  “Because,” she said as if he should know the answer to that question.

  Santino waited for a whole thirty seconds before prompting her. “Yes?”

  Merry shrugged. “Just because,” she said, and yanked her arm from his gentle hold.

  “And that’s good enough?”

  “It’s good enough for me,” she said with a snort of a chuckle. “I guess you just have the kind of face a girl can punch.”

  “Most girls would break their hand,” he informed her. Then he frowned. “This face?” he asked, pointing up at it as he flashed her a big, bright, devilish grin.

  “That’d be the one,” she said, nodding happily, but there was still a little sadness in her eyes that he hated to see there. “Although you are two-faced and the other one if just as punchable…”

  “Is punchable even a word?”

  “Does a vampire even exist?”

  Santino opened his mouth to speak but stopped when he looked confused. “You lost me there.”

  “If only I could lose you,” she lied. She was grateful that he’d come back when he did.

  Sure, her life had suddenly turned into fifty shade of poop, and he’d stirred a hornet’s nest of trouble from the past, but she’d also found out about Greg and her mate, and she’d taken her revenge and laid the past to rest.

  The circumstances around Pete’s death had always just seemed off, and she guessed in some small way it had been niggling at her since he’d died. At least now she knew why.

  “I told you before; I’ll always be there for you…”

  “And yet tonight it was a witch that saved the day,” she said, teasing him with the truth of it.

  “That’s not…”

  “Go on, admit it,” she urged him playfully. “It was the females that have taken care of business…”

  “Well, I wouldn’t say…”

  “Exactly!” she said and turned on her heels to run up the stairs.

  Santino was in front of her in a heartbeat, blocking the route to the backdoor and holding up just one hand like he needed to make his point. She could understand why – his poor male ego was in the toilet. Double revenge and funny to boot.

  “Hold on…”

  “Why so you can think of a way to salvage your ego and reputation in one go?” she teased, grimacing. “That’ll be an uphill climb, but please, make yourself look even more – male.”

  “Male?” he said, thinking on that one.

  “D-umb,” she offered back, folding her arms and waiting for him to try.

  “If I hadn’t been here tonight…”

  “I wouldn’t have been in danger?”

  “Well, possible, but…”

  “I wouldn’t have found out that my mate was murdered?”

  Santino held up his finger to make his point. “And wouldn’t have taken your revenge,” he reminded her. “That has to feel like closure.”

  “Well, I’ll give you that last point, but…” she said, holding up a finger to make her point. “You, Santi, are a trouble magnet…”

  “I bring joy wherever I go,” he countered, and she scowled. “Why the look like I just spat up on your shoes?”

 

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