Page 13 of Zoe

Heather slapped her hand over her mouth to hide the smile, Zoe groaned and dropped her head back against the top of the bar, and Eileen made a little whimpering sound in the back of her throat.

“This is not the holiday I planned,” Zoe groaned.

Eileen looked to Heather for confirmation, but the she-wolf was speechless. Heather reached up and scratched her face. “How’d you like them Christmas baubles?” she asked, wincing.

Eileen’s nostrils flared as she turned her nose up at the thought. “Not much,” she said, reached for a bottle of Jack, flicked off the pour top, and threw her head back as she drank, and drank, and drank. Then she slapped the bottle down on the side and breathed out as the fiery brew burned all the way down. “Merry bloody Christmas,” she growled.

~

“Breathe!” Maria instructed Zoe, who was sitting on the sofa at the cabin bent double with her head between her legs.

“That’s what I’m trying to do!” Zoe hissed. “This is an ugly rug,” she said, throwing her upper body back against the cushions. “Ughhhhh!”

“Okay, calm,” Maria said with soothing tones as if that would work.

“Are you serious?” Zoe snapped, eyeing her friend as if she’d just thrown up on her shoes.

Maria grimaced. “I don’t know what else to tell ya, except – you’re screwed.”

Zoe pushed to her feet, snatched the open bottle of tequila from the table and headed to the kitchen. “Nice pep talk,” she hissed back over her shoulder and hightailed it to the backdoor.

“Do you want me to…?” When the door slammed shut behind her friend, she grimaced again. “Please tell me that all’s well that ends well,” she said, looking up at the ceiling as if wishing for guidance.

When the elf appeared in a puff of smoke, Maria swiped at the smoke that quickly dissipated and eyed the man. “You’re wish was for your friends to find love and lifelong happiness; I’m honouring that wish,” he said. “It’s what I do.”

“Yes, but mates?” She lifted her hands and weighed the situation in her mind as a little squeal stuck in the back of her throat.

“That sound is very annoying.”

“Surely there is another way?” Maria offered him that puppy dog pleading look that worked with the man at the local takeaway shop who had finally stopped putting green peppers on her pizza. It had only taken two years, but who knew – maybe elves were fast learners?

“The witches are mates; what do you want me to do, miff off fate?” he asked with a level of indignity that she responded to.

“No.”

“Well then?”

“I see your point,” Maria said and dropped her backside onto the sofa where Zoe had just been.

“One good turn deserves another, and you did me a good turn, and now I’m paying it back,” he said. Then scowled. “If you want a messenger to shoot,youmade the wish.”

“I know and I thought I had worded it correctly.”

“This turn of events is not my fault.

“I know – I know,” she said, getting a little heated. “Maybe I should have excluded mates,” she said to herself.

“If you had doubts…”

“Okay, okay, I know, I know,” she said, pushing to her feet. “Two down and one to go.”

The elf smiled. It was a little creepy, and Maria eyed him with suspicion. “Yes, Heather – I’m eager to see how that one plays out; she’s a challenge for fate, but, in the end, the ball is rolling.”

Maria grimaced once more. She just hoped however this whole thing played out; she wasn’t going to lose her friends over it. After all, as the elf said, she’d only started the ball rolling; it looked like fate was in the driving seat.

She wagged her witching finger at the elf. “You haven’t really done any work in this whole thing.”

The elf grinned. “Not my fault,” the elf said. “And your wish has been granted.”

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