Page 7 of Hexed Up

Prim bends over the stove, dragging a forefinger across the top and sniffing at whatever residue she’s found and my heart beats so dramatically in my chest it makes my ribs ache.

The fine for a love potion will be particularly high. Messing with people’s hearts and their lives is considered a grave offence. There’s a chance that if the Witching Authority decides to make an example of me, I could end up in that prison after all.

Why, oh why, couldn’t today’s potion have been one for stubborn acne or worrying hair loss. The fines for those are pretty minimal – most of the witching community brews those potions for themselves – it’s selling them to the civilian population that gets you into trouble.

The civilians aren’t meant to know about our existence (although many do). It’s why I’ve convinced my family I bake cupcakes for a living and not potions.

Prim is sifting through the pile of ingredients on the countertop and I hope to goodness she doesn’t glance upwards because out of the corner of my eye I spot more of that smoke hovering on the ceiling.

She opens some drawers and some cupboards, surveys the floor, then strides to the living room area, moving cushions and peering under the sofa.

The beat of my heart is starting to return to normal and I think I might have gotten away with this, when my sister, the Magical Enforcement Officer, walks in a path directly towards my bedroom.

“Where are you going?” I shriek, throwing myself between her and the door.

Her eyes narrow and she examines my face. I’m pretty sure my cheeks are flaming. I could never, ever in one hundred years be a spy. I’d blow my own cover in a matter of minutes.

“Your bedroom.”

“My bedroom?” I laugh nervously. “Why do you need to search my bedroom?”

“I need to search the complete property, Molly.”

“But it’s my bedroom. There’s nothing in my bedroom.”

But as those words leave my mouth, I hear the door behind me creak open and my sister’s eyes widen in absolute horror – or is that disbelief … or something else?

Okay, I haven’t been laid in a while. I haven’t had a boyfriend in even longer. But is it really that damn surprising that I have a man in my bedroom?

I turn my head slowly to glance at the man whom I pushed into my bedroom moments ago, and then I totally understand my sister’s expression. In fact, I’m pretty sure that expression is mirrored on my own face. Because Mr Hottie appears to have lost all his clothes and is standing butt-naked in my room with only my small hand-towel protecting his modesty.

“Oh my goodness, I didn’t know you had company. Why didn’t you say you had company?” my sister babbles, jumping backwards. “Oh! Oooooh! Is this the cause of the explosion?!” In her flustered state, she manages to knock her glasses askew on the bridge of her nose and fumble her pen onto the floor. Her gaze darts around the room, trying its best not to land back on Mr Hottie.

I can relate. Mr Hottie is huge. There is an awful lot of him. An awful lot of skin and an awful lot of, erm, muscle. Forget Superman. He looks more like a Greek god.

“Company?” I say.

“Explosion?” Mr Hottie growls. “Can someone please tell me what is going on?!”

“This is my sister,” I say like that will magically explain anything.

“Primrose,” my sister says, “Primrose Eccleston.”

“Horatio,” Mr Hottie counters. “Horatio Shaw.”

“Horatio,” I mumble. So not a Harry or a Henry after all.

My sister’s gaze swings between the two of us. Then she scrambles to retrieve her pen from McGruff’s jaws. They tussle backwards and forwards over the pen for what feels like everlasting hours until finally she bops him on the nose and he releases it from his teeth.

“I’m so sorry for intruding, Molly!” she says, her cheeks even pinker than McGruff’s fur. “I’ll call you.”

And then with yet anotherpop!she’s gone.

I slump down onto the nearest sofa. “What the hell was that about?”

“She thinks you were doing it,” Damien explains, eyes roaming all over Mr Hottie’s – Horatio’s – sculpted physique. “She thinks the explosion was caused by an involuntary orgasmic release of magic.”

“What? That is not a thing.”