The Green Witch and the Alpha

Chapter 3: Samantha

The slap sparked complete chaos.

While I screamed, “Get the f***k away from me!” at a very large werewolf after slapping him in the face, his two pretty boy goons jumped down from the porch and landed beside him, snarling. I’d never seen a human face snarl like a wild animal, and it was terrifying. Moira, Jimmy, and Alex jogged down the stairs while the others rushed to the edge of the porch and watched with horrified faces.

Moira stopped on the third step from the ground and, calm as ever, commanded the werewolves, “Turn around!”

They did it, and I didn’t know if it was because she surprised them or if she channeled some of her magic. I suspected the latter because one of her hands grasped the pendant she always wore. Her other hand was holding…a gun.

Moira slowly waved the pistol at the werewolves, “Looks like we need to have a chat, so I’m going to ask you gentlemen to reconsider your current attitudes, seeing as how you are guests here.”

Mr. #1 snapped at Moira, “You won’t be able to shoot all three of us. We’ll disarm you before you can get a second shot out.”

Blondie with the wedding ring chimed in, “And unless it’s a silver bullet, it won’t matter anyway.”

“The bullets are coated in silver,” Moira retorted, “and I’ll have enough time to shoot one of you in the pecker. Who wants to volunteer?”

They didn’t have a chance to answer before Mr. Man-Bun spoke.

“Dave, Connor, stand down.” They relaxed their postures a little, but still stayed on alert.

He continued, “Moira, my apologies. Dave and Connor were just being protective of their Alpha; it’s part of their job and they were acting on instinct.”

She gave him a shrewd look, then flashed her eyes to me, “Samantha, darling, come over here by me.”

I walked quickly around the three werewolves and tried to keep a wide berth as I climbed the steps and stood beside Moira. Looking at them from this slightly higher vantage point did not make them look any less intimidating. I concentrated on keeping my shaking hands hidden behind me and slowed down my breathing. Moira was right to move me away from the ground; the patch of grass where I stood had already started to react to my fear and had grown a few inches.

The one known as the Alpha looked at me. His eyes were dark again and his face softened.

“Samantha? That’s a beautiful name," he took a step forward and rested his foot on the bottom stair. “I’m Ian. Can we go somewhere to speak in private?”

“No,” Jimmy said in his characteristic flat, bored tone. “Take a step back.”

Ian looked at Jimmy, his eyes narrowed slightly as he replied evenly, “The lady can speak for herself.”

“The lady is not going anywhere ‘private’ with you,” Alex said, then moved down to the bottom step right in front of Ian. Alex was trying to draw his attention away from me. She was being a good friend, doing something so brave and stupid.

“You still need to step back,” Jimmy said, maintaining his neutral demeanor.

Ian turned his eyes back to me, took his foot off the step, and moved back. He gestured for his men to take several steps back, too.

“Does this distance suffice?” he directed his question at Moira.

Moira nodded, putting the gun down by her side, “That’ll do. I believe I know what’s going on here, Ian, but just so there are no misunderstandings, I’m going to ask you to explain. Be very, very clear about it.”

“Well,” he looked at me, “this beautiful woman here, Samantha, is my fated mate. The other half of my soul, sent to me by the Moon Goddess.”

Holy s**t. My knees buckled and I sat down hard on the step behind me. Something in me wished I could conjure a thought more elegant than holy s**t but holy s**t, this man was saying I’m his freaking fated mate!

Ian reacted and tried to come over to me, but Moira stopped him.

“Uh, uh, uh, my dear Alpha, unless you want to test my aim,” she pointed the gun in his direction.

Ian stopped and held his hands in front of him, “Okay, Moira. I understand. I was just worried about Samantha.”

He placed his hands down by his sides, “How do we proceed from here?”

Moira considered his question for a moment.

“Humans cannot sense the bond, from what I understand, which is why you, loverboy, should have asked her for a date instead of going caveman and grabbing her like that. Do your kind not have rules to follow for something like this?”

“We do,” Ian said, taking a small step forward, then another. “It’s very rare to be mated to someone besides a werewolf, but there are protocols in place for the times it’s happened. I apologize for letting my excitement get the better of me. Perhaps you could join Samantha and me while we talk and figure this out, together?”

He took another step toward us.

“Shoot him, Mom,” Jimmy said, and I couldn’t help it. Hearing him tell Moira to shoot someone in his dull, monotone voice sent me over the edge, and nervous laughter spilled out of me.

A mixture of confusion and amusement came over Ian’s face and everyone else looked at me like I had lost my mind. We needed to move on from this stand-off, so I stood and looked at Moira.

“Look, I’m not sure if any of this is actually real, but he’s right, we should talk. I’d like you to be there but maybe we could lose the rest of the audience?” I c.ocked my head to the porch, where several more witches stood as they watched the drama unfold.

Moira started to hand the gun to Jimmy, then pivoted and gave it to Alex instead, “Don’t let this out of your hand until I get back,” she said softly, pointedly cutting her eyes in her son’s direction, “Go inside with the others. You too, son.”

She turned to Ian, “Are you comfortable leaving your men here while we chat in the gazebo? It will give us some privacy but they’ll be able to keep eyes on you.”

Dave and Connor immediately protested; they didn’t trust us and didn’t want Ian that far away from them.

Ian shut them down with a simple,”Stay here.”

-

When we got to the gazebo, Ian looked at me earnestly, “Samantha, I apologize for kissing you like that. I’ve been waiting for my mate for such a long time that when I found you, I got overwhelmed. The last thing I’d want to do is make you feel unsafe.”

He looked so contrite, it was unnerving.

“I would like to start over, please.”

I didn’t quite know how to respond to that yet, so I deflected with a question, “How were you able to sense that I’m your mate? Moira said something about a bond.”

“A couple of things happened. The Moon Goddess ties our souls together in a bond before we are born here on Earth. When wolves come of age, they can identify their mate by smell; mates usually have distinctive scents that attract each other. When two mates get close enough in proximity, their bonds are drawn to each other and start to react.”

He continued, his voice lowered, “I felt like electricity was crawling all over my skin, and then your scent hit me. I followed it to the stairs, and there you were. As soon as we made eye contact, the bond snapped into place for me.”

Ian’s eyes never left my face while he spoke. I felt a blush creep into my cheeks as I got lost in those perfect, deep brown pools that gazed at me with such intense longing.

Snap out it, and stop mooning over him like a teenager! You are a strong, confident, grown-ass woman. I mentally slapped myself, then remembered the real slap I’d given him. Thinking about the look on his face when he turned back to me gave me chills. I needed to proceed with caution.

“I’m not sorry for slapping you,” I blurted out. So much for treading carefully.

“You scared the crap out of me and I reacted accordingly. You can’t go around manhandling strange ladies like that and not expect to get smacked.”

Ian chuckled. His laugh was low and rumbly and…sexy.

“Duly noted,” he gave me a half-smile. “I understand.”

“Do you?” I felt the need to clear the air. “Because you looked angry right after it happened, and the color of your eyes changed.”

“No, I wasn’t angry, I was…” Ian paused and flicked the tip of his tongue across his bottom lip so slightly, I almost didn’t catch it. “I wasn’t angry. You surprised me with that slap, that's all.”

Moira looked up at Ian and spoke,”I cannot imagine any reason for a werewolf to be untruthful about a mate bond; your kind takes itself too seriously. That being said, I would feel better about continuing this conversation if I could see it for myself.”

She placed her hand on my shoulder, “Samantha, I have a way to see the threads of the mate bond, but you and Ian will need to hold hands. The incantation will only work if you’re touching each other. Are you comfortable with that?”

I shouldn’t be. There was a small sliver of pettiness inside me, still pissed about him grabbing and kissing me without consent even though he apologized. You don’t have to accept his apology, he was out of line, that part of me whispered. But something about the way this big, strapping Alpha werewolf was looking at me like he had stars in his eyes, plus how sincere his apology seemed, made me want to move forward.

“Let’s do it,” I told Moira, while holding both hands out to Ian. He looked down at my hands and took them gently into his. We both looked at Moira for the next direction.

“Do not release your hands until I tell you to, and you’ll need to look into each others’ eyes while I chant,” Moira continued. “Once the threads appear, you should be able to look at them yourselves, but do not drop hands. Got it?”

We both nodded and Ian mumbled out a yes. I looked up at Ian. Damn, he’s tall, I thought, and remembered Mimi’s comment about climbing him.

Focus.

We locked eyes, and fought the urge to break out into a full on, face-splitting grin. I settled on one of my “Mona Lisa” smiles, as Alex described them; no teeth showing, just a pleasant little upturn of both corners. Ian didn’t hold back and I could see a flash of white in his beard while the corners of his eyes crinkled. Suddenly, this gazebo felt crowded. Is this what people meant when they talked about swooning? Because I think I was swooning.

I focused on taking deep breaths and remaining upright.

Moira began chanting softly. She usually spoke French if she didn’t use modern English for a spell, but this sounded older. As we waited for her to finish, Ian began slowly rubbing circles with his thumbs on the backs of my hands.

I suddenly became very aware of how warm his large calloused hands were while holding mine. His eyes were so full of desire it was overwhelming. I began to feel a warm flush spread all over my skin like gentle currents of electricity.

Just like what Ian described earlier, I thought. Moira must have been close to finishing the spell if I could feel the bond like this.

Some time later, Moira spoke to us, “Keep your hands joined together, both of them. But it's alright to look down now so you can see the threads of the mate bond.”

I pulled my eyes away from Ian’s and immediately missed their warmth, but was glad for a little break. That was intense. Between our bodies was a tunnel of light connecting our chests. In the center were threads of red and white light, woven together in no particular pattern, with little glowing particles that looked like glitter floating around the threads. I noticed the white colored threads seemed to come from Ian’s chest while the red ones came out of mine.

We stood like that for a while. Did all mate bonds look like this? I looked back up at Ian, who was already staring at my face again.

“You have the greenest eyes I’ve ever seen. They’re so beautiful.”

This man had a lot of damn nerve. First he gave me a brain melting kiss, then apologized for not asking first, and then told me sweet nothings about my eyes? He was going to be the end of me.

R.I.P Samantha, death by a heart b***r from a werewolf.

“You can let go now,” Moira said.

Neither of us moved.

We can’t stay like this all day, I thought, even though that’s exactly what I wanted to do. I gave Ian’s hands a light squeeze and pulled away, feeling sadness as the image of the mate bond faded away.

Moira got straight to the point, “Now that Samantha and I have seen there is an existing mate bond, we need to have a serious chat. Ian, you seem to have no hesitation about this, but all I’m seeing is a situation with lots of ‘Proceed with Caution’ tape wrapped around it. Werewolves and witches have a complicated history, but your pack in particular seems to harbor some extreme distrust for us. You made that very clear three years ago, after we first moved here. I recall your elders expressed fears of us summoning demons and stealing children.”

What did she just say? I thought. This was a different story than the one Moira and Jimmy had told the rest of us. They'd made it sound like the werewolves just wanted each of our groups to “stick to our own”, but this sounded bad. Really bad.

Ian faced Moira, “I’m not rejecting Samantha. It won’t be easy, but my pack will come around and accept their new Luna. I’ve waited too long to find my mate and now that I’ve found her, I’m not letting go.”

He turned to me, a look of determination on his face, “I’m not going to reject you. If you want to reject me, that’s your right. But please give me a chance. Moira’s right; instead of claiming you right away, I should have approached this with more care and simply talked to you first. The protocols in place dictate that I am to court you in the ways of humans.”

My mind was spinning, trying to process everything he’d just said about rejecting him and wondering how old he is since he said he was supposed to “court” me. That’s something my grandma used to say; was Ian secretly 80-years old? Did werewolves not age? And then my mind circled back to the comment that had popped up as a giant red flag to me.

Did this motherfucking wolf just say he was “claiming” me?

Moira must have seen the vines of clematis around the gazebo ever so slowly start to extend and realized I needed to get out of my own head, quickly.

“Samantha dear, what are you thinking?”

I looked at Ian, “Did you just say you’re claiming me, as in putting a claim on me, like marking your territory? I’m an actual person, not an object you get to 'call dibs' on and if you think otherwise, you can f***k right off to f**k-offsville.”

Ian just stared at me. I had the tendency to say the word “f***k” a lot when I got angry and have been told it’s off-putting to men, which of course made me want to say it more. Maybe he was expecting a less foul-mouthed mate.

“No, it means I accept you. I’m accepting the mate bond. It’s just the term we use for that. When I said I’m claiming you, that meant I accept that we are fated mates and want to move forward into a relationship with you.”

Moira interjected, “And for werewolves, that relationship is truly a lifetime commitment, only separated by death. That is correct, Ian?”

He nodded, and must have anticipated my next question, “You don’t have to decide that now. Nothing is permanent until I mark you. You can reject me at any point of our courtship, but the better we get to know each other, the harder it will be. Rejection after…intimacy…is extremely painful for werewolves.”

Oh my. Between him talking about "courting" me and using the term “intimacy”, I was convinced of the possibility that Ian is a prudish, elderly man.

“I’m not asking for anything beyond the opportunity to get to know each other right now. We can go on dates, move at the pace you’re comfortable with, and do this the way humans do. I’d really like to spend some time with you, Samantha.”

My curiosity got the better of me, “If both mates are werewolves, how would things go?”

“Unless there’s a really good reason, werewolves usually claim, mate, and mark each other within a day or two. The only rejections I’ve seen were situations where wolves married and had children with others before they found their fated mate. Those folks didn’t wait for their mates because they were afraid they would get too old to have children before finding them.”

I looked into his eyes again and immediately remembered the warm tingling sensation during the spell. I shook my head a little to refocus. This was too much; I needed time to think through and process everything.

"Can I ask how old you are?" he said suddenly. "Just curious. I'm 32."

"I turned 30 last month. Is that a problem?" I wasn't usually this cagey about my age, but he asked that right after comments about wolves wanting to have kids before they got too old.

Holy s**t, did I want to have little wolf babies with him?

His eyes widened slightly, "No, not at all. Like I said, just curious about you. I'm glad we're close in age."

Moira spoke, “Ian, you’ve made it clear that you want to pursue this. Samantha, how are you feeling about this? Do you have more questions for Ian?”

“It seems like the more answers I get, the more questions I have.” Ian nodded in agreement with me and smiled, which made my brain short circuit.

Focus.

“I need a little time to think about this on my own.” Ian’s smile faded slightly, and I felt terrible.

“I’m not saying I’m going to reject you. This is just overwhelming. And we have this business alliance with your pack on the line. I don’t want this situation between us to affect that; there’s too many people involved whose lives would be affected by it.”

“How can I ease your concerns about that?” Ian asked.

“I’d like to ask that regardless of what happens between us, the business partnership is not affected. That means there will be no retaliation; no breaking of contracts, or sabotage or harassment of me or the other coven members, and I want it in writing.”

Ian’s brow furrowed, “I wouldn’t do that, and neither would my pack. That’s not how we run our businesses.”

I looked at Moira and back at Ian, “Really? Is this the same pack who thought we were here to summon demons and steal children?”

Ian just looked at me before he sighed and answered.

“That’s fair. I’ll agree to it and we’ll put it in writing before negotiating the contract as planned today.”

He paused slightly, “Samantha, I meant what I said about getting to know you. I’d like to give you my number. Will you call me after you’ve had time to think?”

I nodded and took the card with his number, “Yes, I’ll probably call tomorrow, if that’s alright?”

That heart-smashing smile comes back, “You can call me whenever you’d like, Samantha.”

“We should get back to the others,” Moira interrupted. “Ian, your men are going to pass out from being out in this heat in those suits. Bring them inside to cool off, then we’ll continue our tour. I’ll leave the pistol in the house, seeing that we are all friends again.”

We started toward the back porch, and Ian signaled for Dave and Connor to join us. Right as we got to the stairs, Moira stopped me.

“Samantha, love, will you show these men inside and get them something cold to drink? Tell everyone else to go about their day. I want to check-in with Ian about something. We’ll be there in a few minutes.”

Moira’s voice sounded like poisoned honey; I could only imagine the conversation she wanted to have with Ian.

“Sure, happy to do it,” I turned to go up the stairs and then stopped. Ian was giving me the same look he had when we were in the gazebo, during Moira’s spell.

I reached over and took one of his hands into mine, “Thank you for the apology and the chat, Ian. I’ll see you later.”

Oh, that smile.

Heart b***r.