The Green Witch and the Alpha

“Well, smack my ass and call me a hearse ‘cause I am DEAD. Holy crap. Maybe I’m not dead. Am I asleep? Is this a dream? Pinch me…nevermind, don’t pinch me. I don’t want to wake up.” Mimi stared out of the glass door of the greenhouse, focused on whatever was going on outside. Alex glanced at me and shrugged,” You alright over there, Mims?” “No, I’m not okay! I’m hallucinating; that must be it. I’ve been reading too much smut lately and now I’m imagining that there are three hot, billionaire-biker-CEO-mafia bosses out there talking to Moira.” That definitely piqued my curiosity. I dropped the tomato cuttings in my hands and ran over to the door to join Mimi and Alex. Her colorful description sounded bizarre, even for Mimi, but holy crap, her description totally made sense after I saw them. In front of Moira, the head of our coven, were three tall, muscular hunks of masculinity in dark suits. Even from a distance, it was clear their clothes and shoes were ridiculously expensive. The guy in the middle had his dark hair pulled up in a bun with an undercut and a neatly trimmed beard; the other two men were clean shaven with shorter hairstyles. All three looked like they’d walked straight out of a movie or photoshoot. It was like someone had ordered a three-scoops-of-s*x sundae straight from a spicy romance novel. Alex started chanting, “I am a lesbian, I am a lesbian,” under her breath. I snorted at that. “They’re the werewolves Moira told us about yesterday.” “Ope,” Miriam’s eyes widened, “In that case, I’m gonna need a new vibrator after tonight.” I gave her a side-eye, “Careful, don’t burn your c**t off while fantasizing about the testosterone triplets over there.” “Oh, it’d be worth it,” she continued, “especially when I’m imagining them making a little Mimi sandwich for a midnight snack.” Alex started making heaving noises. “What? They’re hot, and I need new lady spank bank material. Oh wait, looks like blondie is wearing a wedding ring. That leaves Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome #1 and Mr. Tall, Dark and Handsome Man-Bun. Which one do you want to call dibs on, Sam?” “They both look like gym-bro fuckboys to me,” I patted her shoulder. “They’re all yours.” Right after I said that, Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome #1 turned his steely blue eyes over in our direction. Mimi noticed and gasped, “Ooh la la! I bet that’s his default face. Like, instead of Resting b***h Face, he has Sexy Smolder Face. He’s probably really bossy in bed, too. Just...how...I...like ‘em.” She licked her lips and made the loudest, most disgusting, wet-sounding slurping sounds she could and then smacked her lips. Alex had her eyes closed and nose scrunched up, “Bleach. Someone please bleach my ears for me.” Mimi snapped, “Oh shut up, Alex. I heard what you were saying a minute ago.” Alex blew a raspberry at her while flipping her off. Mimi didn’t even flinch, just wiped the side of her face where some of Alex’s spit had landed and continued her blatant ogling. Mr. #1 continued to look in our direction and it seemed like his smolder, or whatever Mimi wanted to call it, intensified while his eyes slightly narrowed. Oh no, maybe he’d heard us, or at least heard Mimi’s big mouth. The greenhouse, of course, was vented. We had the fans going, so maybe that was enough noise to cover us. Plus, he was too far away to hear anything we’d said. But then, didn’t werewolves have super-hearing or something? All I knew was the way he was looking at us made me feel uneasy. I was about to tell them my suspicions when Mimi blurted out, “And the one in the middle, I just want to climb him like a tree and grab onto his man-bun while I ride his face!” We all burst out laughing but then froze because right at that moment, the other two men snapped their heads in our direction. Moira turned around to see what the men were looking at. Alex and I scrambled back to our workspaces and tried to resume working while freaking Miriam waved at our visitors, then slowly turned around and swayed... yes, swayed her hips as she walked away from the door. I grabbed the water hose near me and sprayed her in the butt when she passed. Miriam glared at me, “Hey! What did you do that for?” I glared back, “Because of you and your loud mouth! I think they heard what we were saying, or at least what you and your big mouth were yelling. You have no volume control!” Miriam’s jaw dropped, “So what? We were just looking.” “But if we’ve offended potential investors because of your thirsty comments, Moira’s now in the awkward position of doing damage control since she’s the one dealing with them.” Mimi scoffed, “Oh, get off your high horse, Sam. You called them fuckboys, plus you and Alex were laughing.” She was right. I was being immature about it, too. Before I could apologize, the door to the greenhouse opened and Moira stepped inside. “Good morning, my busybody babies. Our visitors, who you were so gracefully gawking at a few moments ago, have requested to meet the rest of our coven before moving forward with negotiations. We’re meeting on the back porch in 20 minutes for introductions, after which only Jimmy, Coco, and myself will be needed.” “20 minutes!” Miriam yelped. “We’ve been sweating our butts off out here and now you want us to meet with three sexy, hot, handsome, bang-worthy businessmen, who happen to be werewolves, and I do not look or smell cute right now!” It wasn’t really that hot this early, and the fans were on; my shirt was only a little damp in a few places instead of all over like it would be at the end of the day. I understood Mimi’s concern, though. She told us about being bullied as a kid in school because her parents were addicts, so they didn’t always have running water for baths and clean clothes. She was fine getting dirty while working around the farm, but being anything less than spotlessly fresh around new people caused her to spiral into intense anxiety. Now we were working in a greenhouse in late summer about to meet three very sexy men, each dressed in a suit that probably cost more than my entire wardrobe. Despite all that talk earlier, she didn’t care if they were attracted to her. She simply didn’t want to be dirty, smelly, lonely little Mimi again. I made eye contact with Alex and nodded, “Hey Mimi, how about you go freshen up and I’ll wrap up things here with Alex? There’s not much to do that can’t wait until after the meeting, anyway.” She didn’t hesitate and yelled a quick thanks at us while running out of the greenhouse. “Alex, would you mind texting everyone else about the meeting? Cora and Dakota are at the bakery, so Ian and his guys are going to meet them later. Just text everyone else, if you don’t mind.” “Sure thing. Sam, I’ve put all my cuttings in water, so I’m going to head up to the house while I text.” “Okay. I’ll see you in a bit,” I gathered cuttings from my worktable and put them in a large container with a few inches of water in the bottom to keep them from wilting while we had the meeting. We had been preparing tomato plant cuttings from the outdoor beds for our hydroponic greenhouse. It was late summer, and we needed to get them started now so we could harvest in winter. “Moira, I thought we were doing the meet and greet later today. Why right now?” “I don’t know. Ian seemed a little on edge about something and suddenly asked to move it up,” she grinned at me."Maybe he wanted to meet the three beautiful witches staring at him from behind a greenhouse door." “Ha! Well, Mimi is definitely on board, and they even had Alex reconsidering her lack of attraction to men.” “And what about Miss Samantha?” I shook my head. I doubted any of them liked chubby girls with glasses and messy hair. “Don’t werewolves usually stick to their own kind?” “Yes, I suppose so,” she looked around while helping me finish up. “Anything you’d like to talk about?” I shrugged and pretended to focus on wiping my table again. “I woke up with a case of the Sads. Came out here early for a distraction and, well, now I have ten times as many cuttings as I started with.” Moira nodded her head and rubbed my arm. Our entire coven “knew”, but Moira was the only one who had actually seen how extreme it could get This morning, I woke up feeling the weight of another depressive episode coming on. Dealing with my feelings wasn’t an attractive option at that moment, so I decided to distract myself by getting started on the tomato project. I gathered extra long lengths of the tomato vines from the outdoor beds to be cut into smaller pieces for the indoor hydroponic system. While moving the cuttings from the wheelbarrow to tables, the tears started falling. I took a deep breath and allowed the scents of the greenhouse to calm me. The movements from the tomato vines nearby were barely discernible at first, but their tendrils grew faster as they got closer to me. They continued to grow across the table, both toward me and down to the earth, just barely touching the skin on my arms before descending to the ground by wrapping around the legs of the table and forming an arch around me. Once I stopped crying, I cut the vines away from the table and greenhouse floor. We had more than we needed. Most of these would be composted. Ever since I was a kid roaming the plant nursery my grandparents owned, plants have reacted that way to me. Their energy was drawn to mine, especially when I was anxious or sad. My family always dismissed it as the fabrications of a child with an overactive imagination and too much time alone. As I got older, I learned to keep this information to myself after my family became convinced it was simply the manifestations of some kind of mental illness. That was before I met Moira and the others. “Moira, my 30th birthday came and went and not a peep from my family; no card, no phone call, or text. I haven’t heard from them in over a year now. It’s like I don’t exist to them. I tried to move on from that, but it started a whole spiral of shame about every decision I’ve made in life, so I woke up this morning hating everything about myself and convinced that I am completely unlovable.” Moira put her arm around me, “My darling, you are kind, an amazing green witch, beautiful, and absolutely loveable. Your birthday was over a month ago; have you been feeling like this since then?” I hugged Moira back and nodded. “Samantha sweetheart, I think the best thing at this moment would be for you to join the rest of us as we eyefuck these fine werewolf visitors.” “Moira, what the hell!” “What? I’m old, not dead.” “I know but, they’re potential business partners, right? We shouldn’t be objectifying them like this, or at least be subtle about it.” “Is that what the three of you were doing earlier?” Moira winked. “Let’s get going.” “Okay,” I replied, pulling off my apron, “give me a minute to wash up.” Moira, fashionista of the over-60 crowd with her beautiful silver dreads, colorful tunics, and necklaces galore, looked at my outfit of leggings and black t-shirt with astronaut cats on it like it had personally offended her and just shook her head. “How can one person own so many shirts with animals in space on them?” I just grinned while she continued. “Jimmy was walking Ian and his men to the porch and, well, I need to catch up with them before he starts mouthing off to an Alpha werewolf. He has my eyes but his daddy’s tact and brains. See you in a minute, darling.”” There was a 50/50 chance that Jimmy, with his penchant for pushing others’ buttons, would end up seeing the business end of a werewolf’s claws today. I washed up at the sink and checked the mirror to make sure my face and ponytail were clear of plant debris, then set out to join the others. Hopefully, this meeting would go well. - Mimi wasn’t the only one anxious about this meeting. We were all a little worried about making a good impression so this business alliance would go through. Our coven hoped to build more greenhouses and outdoor garden beds. In winter, we enjoyed fresh lettuce, tomatoes, and peppers thanks to our set-up, with local restaurants buying from us plus a rapidly expanding naturopathic and folk potions shop in the nearby tourist town. We needed more land for the expansion we had drafted, though, and the parcel we wanted to purchase turned out to be owned by the Hunter’s Moon pack. When we moved here three years ago, Moira, as the head of our coven, met with Hunter’s Moon leadership to make sure they knew we were peaceful witches. Jimmy went with Moira to meet the pack back then and said he didn’t feel real animosity from the Alpha and his crew, but they didn’t seem too happy about us, either. That part was not surprising, since it’s known that werewolves generally don’t like witches. We’ve probably run across pack members in town and even as customers, but other than that, we’ve managed to stay away from each other. Moira agreed with Jimmy and hesitated to reach out about buying the land from them. She took a chance, though, and called the Alpha. He refused to sell the land, but wanted to form a partnership with us. Our coven could use the land as long as we supplied his pack with a portion of our crops, only hired pack members, and agreed to work with their pack doctors on different potions and tinctures. Today, they were going to check out our operations and get the contract finalized. As it turned out, their pack had been trying for years to buy the farm we purchased. They were worried someone would buy the land and build housing developments; having that many humans so close to a large werewolf pack would be disastrous. But Mr. McEntire, the previous owner, had some kind of grudge against the Alpha. He refused out of pure spite to sell to him or Hunter’s Moon, which he thought was simply a family-owned real estate company. McEntire thought we were building “some kind of hippie commune” and took joy in how much he thought it would bother our new neighbors. The situation with McEntire probably influenced how Hunter’s Moon reacted to us. They should’ve been glad witches bought the land instead of regular humans. It was disappointing that we weren’t on friendlier terms with our neighbors. All that was about to change, though. _ As I got closer to the porch, Moira’s voice rang out as she started introductions. Before I reached the steps to join everyone on the porch, Mr. Man Bun appeared at the top, sniffed the air, then stared at me so intensely I stopped walking. What’s his problem? I thought, and before there was time to consider the answer to that, he jumped to the ground in front of me. That’s right, he leaped over every dang stair on the way down and planted himself uncomfortably close to me, so I took a step back. F.uck, he was tall; and big. Gym bro big. I mentally crossed my fingers that he hadn’t heard what I’d said earlier. I doubted he would hurt me, but if he tried to intimidate me I would verbally eviscerate him like I usually did with toxic man-babies. That would put our alliance at risk. “Mine!“ he said in a deep, rumbling voice before he grabbed the back of my neck and kissed me hard. That kiss. That lip bruising, panty-melting, flame-inducing kiss from a stranger made my brain mushy and it a moment to process that I was letting a freaking stranger manhandle me. He released me just in time, because surely it was a lack of oxygen that caused me to feel lightheaded. I looked up at him; he had the most self-satisfied smirk on his face. I wanted to slap it right off him. So that’s what I did. I reared back and slapped the fire out of his smug, stupidly handsome face. Growls and gasps erupted from the porch just as Mr. Man Bun turned back to me. His eyes, previously dark and now golden, were completely focused on me. The smile that formed reminded me of all the stories of the Big Bad Wolf in fairy tales.