Authors: Eve Langlais
Wickedest Witch (25 page)
Her best friend rolled her eyes. “Oh
, come on. You can’t tell me you’re still thinking of going through with your plan.”
Naomi lifted her shoulders again instead of answering. The plan her friend spoke of involved marrying a nice—very normal
—human male and living a mundane and drama—AKA brawl—free life. Not that she’d ever had any violence directed at her—although she’d caused some on occasion when she lost her temper, usually on one of her burly brothers. Her father and siblings would never let anyone, themselves included, harm a hair on her head, but amongst each other, fists spoke more often than words. As the only girl with five older, testosterone laden brothers, Naomi learned early how to hold her ground and retaliate when they pulled their pranks. Having grown up in chaos, where a wrestling match could break out at any moment, she decided years ago that at least in her case, marrying a shifter prone to chaotic episodes because of their animal nature wasn’t her idea of a happily ever after. While the bedlam didn’t seem to bother her mother, or even her female shifter friends, Naomi longed for peace and quiet—and the ability to own crystal.
In her childhood home, none of the dishes matched and furniture was butt ugly given sturdy didn’t equal pretty. In her parent’s house, things needed to withstand just about any kind of natural—or familial
—disaster. Currently living on her own, Naomi’s place reflected the exact opposite, with elegant pieces in light colors. She especially cherished her fragile collection of glass butterflies, and gleefully enjoyed the fact none of them had required crazy glue after a particularly frenzied family event. She didn’t miss having to referee her brothers by grabbing hold of their ears and tweaking them into submission. She hated all the male posturing and ball scratching assertion the males of the shifter clans required.
Gentle and normal, that’s all I ask for.
Given her desires, Francine’s suggestion that her mate could possibly be in attendance at this bloodthirsty and brutal sporting event filled her with horror. Although, what if some quirk of fate brought the shifter in question—an intellectual type who preferred discourse to pugilism
—to the lacrosse match by accident, much like herself? She snorted.
Fat chance.
An
“Ooh” from the crowd drew her from her thoughts and she looked up to see someone from the London team splayed out on the floor, flattened by number forty-four, the behemoth from their very own house team, the Ottawa city, Loup Garou’s.
The Loup Garou’s
—which translated to werewolf, even if the team was comprised of a dozen species—hollered in triumph as their main man sprang over the prone body of the hapless opposing player. The titan sprinted for the opposite end, his broad body and shoulders acting the part of blocker and clearing a path. Number sixty-nine, with a Colgate grin that made her shiver, paralleled the behemoth, the ball cradled in his lacrosse cage as he dodged the pissed off Londoners, those still left standing after the beast’s rush.
As a new team, the London Moon Shifters were still digging hard to acquire players tough enough to stand against the older teams. Actually, according to her brothers, because of the behemoth and his slimmer compatriot, all the teams currently scrambled to find players that could break the Loup Garou’s winning streak. Transferred to the team from Saskatchewan in only the last month, the acquisitions of the two best players by her home
city was quite the buzz around town. Her brothers crowed about it and wrestled each other in their excitement. Naomi personally thought the concept of paying guys to throw a ball around and hit each other with sticks was dumb.
So dumb, yet I can’t stop watching,
she thought with disgust.
The play on the floor moved fast as the clock ticked down to victory. In a last ditch effort, two of the bigger London players ran in a bull rush at number sixty
-nine, who grinned before he sprang into the air with feline agility and fired the ball at a speed humans would have choked at. The giant, still running swiftly, moved to intercept the ball currently tunneling through the air.
The crowd hushed as they watched athleticism at its finest, including Naomi, whose wolf forced her to stare with rapt attention. A man his size, more so than the rest of the population, should have remained subject to the laws of gravity
and yet, despite his obvious height and weight, when the behemoth leapt—his ascent almost vertical—he soared like the lightest of feathers.
Leaning forward, with her breath held, she waited for nature’s rules to drag the beast
—dressed in a delectable man’s body—back down, even as she knew second hand from her brothers —fanatic lacrosse fans— the man kept defying the odds. Up he soared, his netted stick rising high above his head, reaching to grab the ball whipping through the air. The crowd stopped breathing, their bodies taut with tension. For a moment, number forty-four’s eyes, the surprising soft brown of a wren’s feather, met hers—and locked.
The breath sucked from her lungs at the intense, yet puzzled, regard in his surprisingly beautiful orbs
, framed by thick dark lashes. Heat coiled low in her tummy as his slow curling smile tugged at her own lips and shot a tingling, wet warmth to her cleft.
Suddenly, his eyes rounded in horror and his mouth opened on a yell a second before he smacked into the arena glass like a bug on a windshield. She didn’t really
get a chance to enjoy his cartoon splatting moment because she blacked out as their dual moment of inattention saw her smacked in the face by the game ball as it torpedoed into it.
Find Delicate Freakn’ Flower and other stories by Eve Langlais at all major online stores.
Hello and thanks for taking the time to read something I wrote. I do hope I managed to entertain you – and make you giggle a time or two. Since you’re actually checking out this note, I guess it means you’re curious about me, so here’s the scoop.
I am a mom of three, who is just shy of forty. I am married (over thirteen years now) to a man whom I adore – when he’s not driving me insane. A true romantic, I totally believe in love at first sight. But then again, I also think there is life ‘out’ there – hopefully as sexy as the aliens I’ve created in my mind. Lol.
I am Canadian, but being a military brat, I’ve been coast to coast. Right now, I’m living in the Ottawa area – hockey, poutine and beavertails, yay – and enjoying the chaos of family life.
If you want to know more about me, then I guess I should mention you can visit me at
Sexy c
overs, excerpts, my blog, and other items that might interest you, await. Be sure to sign up for my
new release mailing list
if you’d like to know when my next story will be available for your reading enjoyment.
Until we meet in the pages of a book again, wishing you tons of great reading and smiles,
Eve
