The Lion's Witchy Mate: Magic and Mayhem Universe (The Wilder Crew) Read online

  “Whoa, you need some help with that, young lady?”

  Startled by the deep voice, she dropped the large roll. The loud thunk the metal made as it hit the concrete floor was a testament to the substantial weight she’d just about lifted without thought. Torrance grunted, making a face as if she was in pain. “Goodness, I didn’t realize that was so heavy.” She leaned forward, putting on a show of trying to pick it back up. “I think I need to get a cart,” she wheezed, whipping her hand across her brow. If they gave out Oscars for shifters pretending to be human, she surely would be a shoe in.

  “Here, you take mine. I’ll load it in here for you.”

  Son-of-a-biscuit-eater, she swore internally as she recognized who the male was. They’d gone to high school together only he’d been the jock every girl wanted. Every girl except her.

  “Thanks, Jack. You home for...err, it’s not a Holiday?” She and Jack didn’t run in the same circles, never had. She was the girl who you didn’t bring home to meet the parents. For one, Ridge would’ve beat you senseless for talking to her. For two, nobody was good enough for her in Ridge’s estimation. And lastly, none of the guys, human that is, wanted to tangle with a girl who hung out with a bunch of huge guys who rode Harleys, and gave menacing looks. Nope, their mamas taught them better than that. If she’d ever acted as though she’d fuck and not tell, she was sure she’d have lost that V-card, but since she wasn’t that type of girl, none of the pricks, pricks like the gorgeous Jack, gave her a second glance. Besides all that, she had come into some weird powers that made her shifter shit seem like baby steps. Not that sprouting fur and fangs wasn’t awesome, but it was her witchy side that was out of control at times. And by out of control, blowing shit up was as far out as they came. So, yeah, she tried to stay away from dickheads who pissed her off, or she was apt to turn them into sniveling little boys for real.

  Jack chuckled while he lifted the roll of fencing into the cart, his muscles bulging as he did so. Too bad she didn’t like humans with all he had to offer. Good looking, great body, dickhead personality. Two out of three usually wasn’t bad, but he had been a Grade A dick.

  “So, what’ve you been up to since school?” he asked.

  Oh, she was sure he thought she was a complete loser who hadn’t amounted to anything except working at the bar Ridge owned. She almost wanted to tell him she’d already achieved her degree online but decided he didn’t need to know anything about her. Let him look down on her, like he’d always done. She’d graduated early from high school, taking extra college courses while idiots like him were going to prom and getting laid in the backseat of their cars. At twenty-one, she’d already had two bachelor’s degrees. At twenty-three her master’s degree was complete. She had more knowledge in her pinky than he did in his entire body. While she’d been staring at him, she realized she’d not answered him.

  “Ah, this and that. You?” She really didn’t give two fucks what he’d been up to, but polite society and shit had her asking.

  “I joined the Army. I’m on leave right at the moment.” He flexed his arms as he spoke.

  Torrance wanted to stick her finger in her mouth and make a gagging sound like she’d have done back in junior high. However, she was a grown woman. Instead she nodded. “I bet your parents are happy to have you home?”

  Whatever she said must’ve angered him. The scent that wafted from him went from male interest to angry human in an instant. “It’s just my mom and I. My dad was killed when we were in junior high.”

  Chapter Two

  She took a step back from Jack as he moved forward, her cat clawed at her insides, hating the male invading their space. Jack was over six-feet-tall with at least a hundred pounds of muscle more than her. In her human form, he could possibly cause her a little harm, but she’d be damned if she allowed him the chance, neither she nor her panther were scared of the asshole.

  “I’m sorry, Jack.” She didn’t know what else to say. Hell, her own parents were killed when she’d been a cub. Did she walk around like a little bitch crying anytime someone asked about them? No. She just shrugged and went on about her day. “Listen, thanks for letting me have your cart. I need to be getting back home before Ridge gets up.” Usually when she used her brother’s name, townsfolk tended to give her a wide berth. Well the humans did, the shifters gave respect. She tried moving the flatbed around Jack, coming to a stop as he put his foot on the end, halting her. Again, she fought her panther back, her animal and the witch inside her started making plans. Already she saw a list of words. Spells she realized as did her cat. Torrance breathed slowly, hoping to calm both her primal beings down enough she wouldn’t be turning Jack into a frog or dinner.

  “I didn’t mean to scare you off,” he said in a husky voice.

  If she’d been human, she’d have believed him. But scents don’t lie. Jack was angry. No, Jack was pissed, and for whatever reason, he was directing that anger at her. Why she didn’t know, and she didn’t give a shit. “You didn’t scare me, Jack. I just got a lot to get done before Ridge gets up. No use wasting daylight.” She didn’t say with the likes of you, but it was implied. If he didn’t take the hint, that was on him. “See ya, Jack. Hope you have a nice visit.” Or not.

  “Hope I see you around, Torr.”

  She looked at his foot on the cart, then at him. “Gonna need you to move.”

  Jack moved back a step. “Ah, my bad. Hey, you busy tonight?”

  No way was she going to give him any type of hope they could do anything other than this little chit chat they had. “As a matter of fact, I am. I’ll be busy for the next three thousand five hundred twenty days, give or take a hundred.” At his scowl, she pressed the cart forward, laughing inside because she knew he was trying to figure out how long that was. Sure, she could have just said ten years, but spouting off random numbers that weren’t truly random fucked with people. She liked messing with those who thought they were better than she was. People like Jacky back there. Stupid fucking dick. In high school, he’d have stuck his five-inch cock into any available hole. From what she’d heard, he was not a grower but that could’ve been a rumor.

  “You alright, Torrance?” Howard asked.

  She nodded, waving toward the cart. “Can you ring me up for this?”

  “You got everything else you need?” he asked, pulling the tag off.

  Even if she didn’t, she wouldn’t be going to the back of the store where Jackoff was. Nope, she’d make do with whatever she had at home. Again, words began scrolling in her mind. Not words, but a spell that would help her conjure up what she needed. Fine time to show up witchy.

  “Here you go, you probably need some of this too.” Howard lay a spool of wire on the counter. “On the house.” He looked toward the back with an uneasy grimace. “I’ll put this on Ridge’s account. You go on and get out of here. Day is a wasting away.” His smile seemed forced.

  “Thanks, Howard. Let your wife know I got some great lotion for arthritis. I’ll drop it by the next time I’m in town.” Torrance patted the old man’s hand. It was real sweet of him to be worried about her. She let a little soothing magic flow from her to him, hoping it would pass to his wife until she could get him some of her lotion. For the past two years, Baba Yaga had been working with her, or rather working on her to get her witch in line. Finally, she felt as if she was becoming a better witch until her cat decided she wanted a damn mate.

  She pushed the cart with the fencing and wire out the doors, breathing in the fresh air. The stink of Jack and his anger finally leaving her senses. “What a douchebag,” she muttered as she rolled the cart to the back of her truck. After checking that nobody was around, she hefted the bundle of heavy fencing into the back, making a show of it being hard while inwardly she was doing a big ole eyeroll.

  By the time she was climbing into the driver’s seat, she could see Jack at the counter. Luckily for her, Howard was keeping him inside by being his normal chatty self, she was sure. Goodness, she was going to
need to send him some salsa from Ridge’s tomatoes or something equally nice along with the cream. In her mind, she ran through the cabinet of goods she’d canned last year, thinking of what a human male like Howard would enjoy other than salsa. The sound of a Harley caught her attention like they always did. The loud pipes made sure you could hear the rider long before you saw them. A safety mechanism if you would.

  Torrance wasn’t sure what made her panther leap forward, but the huge beast on the bike flew past where she sat, going way too fast for her to make out much of him other than he had to be at least as big as Ridge, if not bigger. Black hair flew behind him in a long cascade that would definitely rival her own. Yet he didn’t slow or even stop. There was no sign or indication that he was anything but a rider driving through. She let out a gulp of air when she began to see stars. “Shit, breathe.” When she realized she’d been sitting in the parking lot too long and that Jack might take that as a sign, she shifted the truck into gear, pointing it toward the opposite direction of the rider. Why she’d had such a visceral reaction to an unknown rider, she had no clue. Maybe she needed to get laid. “Duh, that’s what getting rid of your V-card means.” Her panther purred, damn hussy.

  Looking in her rearview, she spotted Jackhole Jack walking out of the hardware store. His eyes seemed to stare directly toward her truck like he was tracking her. Nope, she didn’t need to get laid that bad.

  Her truck rumbled back up to her and Ridge’s home, easily taking the private drive without a problem. She kept looking behind her, making sure she hadn’t picked up a tail. The thought had her snorting. “Gah, I need to get out more.”

  She maneuvered the vehicle around the side of the A-frame log home so that the ass end was close to the little enclosure she’d made for Mr. Bixley. A sweet little bleating greeted her when she shut off the engine. “Hello, Mr. Bixley. Did you miss me?” she asked, walking around the truck to get what she needed. He stuck his little head out of the fencing, demanding attention.

  It took her a little over twenty minutes to protect what was left of the tomatoes to her satisfaction. While the sun was still high, she plunged her hand into the earth, sighing at the soothing energy that flowed into her while she chanted the words she pictured in her head. “In the plants does magic live. With sun and Earth this mystic gives. Vitality and strength to grow. It is done I will it so.” She repeated the words two more times.

  The mangled plants perked up; little green balls grew, getting bigger. If she kept her hand in the dirt much longer, they’d turn red and be ready for picking. Of course, Ridge would be suspicious. As it was, she hoped he’d been too tired and preoccupied with whatever had kept him out late this morning, followed by the phone call that had taken him from breakfast, to notice there wasn’t any new growth.

  “That’ll do it. Now you leave these maters alone, Mister.” She dusted her hands, watching the soil sink into her skin, giving her a gold shimmer. Hmm, something to think about later. Turning to Mr. Bixley, she shook a finger at her baby goat.

  He bleated at her as if he was sad, she’d gotten onto him. “I’ll give you a nice treat this evening if you behave yourself. Or, you could you know, talk to me like a familiar should.” She rubbed between his eyes, giving him some love. “You’re such a good boy.” She kissed the little white star shaped area before turning toward the back of the house, coming to a hard stop when she felt the fine hairs on her arms standing up. A sense of wrongness filling her all the way to her core that made her think of evil.

  She looked around the woods and toward the water, inhaling deeply, unable to scent anything out of the ordinary. The hairs on her arms were standing up. She’d learned to trust her instincts, and right then, they were screaming at her. Not taking her eyes away from her surroundings, she walked backward toward the house. Ridge was inside. Safety was inside. The last made her stop. She was a predator. Whatever was stalking her couldn’t be any bigger or badder than she was. Well, unless they were a shifter like her. “Fuck,” she muttered.

  She walked up the steps to the back patio, moving her eyes back and forth, scanning for movement. She didn’t care that her truck was sitting next to the house instead of putting it away in the garage like normal. Whatever was out there was tracking her, and it seemed big. She pressed the code in behind her back, using memory. Mr. Bixley bleated, making her look toward his little enclosure. “Open, Sesame,” she said while pointing her finger toward his gate, unsure it would work or not. The lever lifted easily. The little goat came flying toward her like he knew something would make goat stew of him outside.

  The door opened, allowing her to slip in with Mr. Bixley, slamming and locking it behind her. Although if it was a predator like herself, they might’ve been able to break through most glass doors but not theirs. Ridge had thought of everything when he’d remodeled after his parents had moved South. She cocked her head, trying to detect where Ridge was at. Behind the glass she continued to watch for signs of anything that shouldn’t be there. A glint of silver that could’ve been a hunter’s rifle caught her attention.

  “What’s got you spooked, little bit?”

  “Jeezus H Christ, Ridge,” she screamed, spinning around with her hand on her heart. “Are you trying to scare me to death? Why are you skulking around like a creeper?”

  Ridge raised one brow. “Skulking and creeper in one sentence? What the hell has you on edge?” He walked to the doors, staring out before looking back at her.

  She rubbed her arms, trying to dispel the heebie jeebies from her mind. “I’m sure it was nothing. I ran into Jackhole at the hardware store. He was being his normal dickweed self, and when I was out back putting some fence around your tomatoes, I felt...a disquiet.” There was no other word to describe what she’d felt. Off was another word, but even that didn’t seem quite right.

  “Did that fuck hit on you?” Ridge looked back at her, green eyes glowing.

  “You do realize I’m twenty-three, right? I can go out with guys, and you know”—she paused, raising her hands in a very deliberate show. First, she made a fist with her left one, making sure her thumb and forefinger opened to a large circle. With her right hand she poked her pointer finger in and out of the middle of the other hand. The suggestive gesture was one she’d used to tease Ridge with hundreds, maybe thousands of times in the past. “Do the dirty dirty.”

  “Not with that fucker, Torrance.” He took a step toward her. “I forbid you to have anything to do with that male.”

  She jerked backward. Ridge had never forbidden her from anything, let alone being with anyone. If her panther had wanted a male, truly wanted one, she knew Ridge would’ve allowed it. It was the way of their kind. Why her female had never chosen another, she didn’t know. Heck, she had almost wondered if the beast was into other females, but one time, at camp, that notion was dispelled. “Why?” she asked.

  Ridge snapped his teeth together. His jaw looked like he was grinding his back molars so hard she feared for them. Seconds ticked by while he appeared to be thinking before speaking. Smart male.

  “Ridge, just give me the truth. You and I both know I have a good head on my shoulders. If you tell me he’s bad, I’ll ask what he’s done. You don’t have to give me the gory details, but I will need more than a curt, ‘he’s a dick’. Actually, let me ease your mind. I have zero plans to have anything to do with him and me, in a horizontal get nekkid and do the wild monkey dance way. However, that doesn’t negate the fact you need to tell me why you hate him.”

  “Torrance, fuck.” He turned away nodding. “Remember the girl who killed herself out by the lake?” he asked, looking down at the floor. Slowly his gaze came up to meet her stare.

  “Oh goddess, Ridge,” she whispered.

  “Her name was Solei. She’d been pregnant by that fucker. He didn’t want the kid and told her if she didn’t get rid of it he’d have nothing to do with her. She went to a clinic, and...anyway, afterward she said he drove them home and told her it was over. The same fucking day
she did what he asked. Stupid kid thought they were gonna get married and be able to have more babies or some shit. Anyway, he left her on the front lawn, heartbroken and torn up. She walked to the lake and kept walking until she couldn’t anymore. In her purse she had a pocketknife her granddaddy gave her. She said she just sat down and slit both wrists, didn’t even think twice about it. When I stumbled upon her, I ripped my shirt off and tried to stop the blood. Fuck—there was so much already soaking the ground under her.” Ridge ran a hand down his face.

  Torrance went to where he stood and wrapped her arms around his waist. “You did everything you could. You were there with her. She didn’t die alone, Ridge.” She wouldn’t tell him she’d felt Solei’s spirit in the soil. She had been a year younger than Torrance and part of the cool kids.

  “Her skin was so fucking pale, her lips blue from blood loss. Yet she still wanted me to tell that little fucker she loved him. I agreed just so she wouldn’t cry anymore. I carried her through the woods, even though I knew she wasn’t gonna make it. Her blood was on my hands. I had plans running through my mind of how I was going to kill him. Instead I had to answer a dozen motherfucking questions about if I knew her. If I’d had carnal relations with her. She was a fucking kid,” he growled.

  She’d had no clue he’d gone through all that back then. “I didn’t know all that.”

  He shook his head. “It was easy to prove I had nothing to do with her or her death. The little fucker was seen with her all the damn time. Plus her blood was out where I’d said it was. The sheriff just had a shitton of paperwork he had to make sure was filled out properly.”

  “Well, you have no need to worry that I want anything to do with Jackhole. Even if he was the last dick on earth, I’d become a lesbian for life or subscribe to Dildo dot come.”