Page 12 of What The Hex (The Family Spells)
I just couldn’t let it go.
“I get how this helps Cabal Ungeist, but witches, they always sort of work together. Each coven for themselves, sure, but …”
“This is not about you, Hex,” Lulu snapped, getting angry and pushing her empty teacup towards me. “Don’t you want to be able to walk free? Don’t you want that for your people? Do you think it’s fair that there’s an entire world trapped below the surface of this one?” She stood up from her chair so quickly that it fell back and slammed into the decorative table behind her, knocking a potted fern onto the floor. The glass shattered and dirt went everywhere.
That was what my life felt like right now, like that potted fucking fern. It’d grown there on that decorative table its entire life, nestled safely in its colorful pot, rooted firmly in its wet dirt, but now … it was nothing but scattered leaves and broken fronds across the floor.
I looked up at my grandma, and I could tell she was thinking about her daughter, my mother. She only ever got that look when she was thinking about that bitch. Not that I had any clue what Kata Sorciere had to do with all of this crap. She was a drug addict who liked getting high more than she liked her own son. What more was there to say about that?
“What do the leaves say?” I asked, opening my wings wide and setting them on the floor. My back muscles just weren’t used to holding up such large appendages. Now, if I’d had, like, wings on my pelvis or something, I’d be just fine; my pelvis was very much used to holding up a large appendage.
Heh.
But it just wasn’t funny in that moment, was it? Try as my mind did to lighten the mood, the whole world was fucked for me. Nothing could make it better, not even big dick jokes.
Lulu looked at me, really looked at me, like she was testing my mettle. After a moment, she sighed and closed her eyes. “They say …” she began, opening them back up quickly. “That someone you love has received a fate-altering visit from an old friend, and that someone you treasure …” Lulu locked eyes with me in a way that told me without words that she wasn’t exactly thrilled with this outcome either. My heart stuttered, my skin went cold, and bile rose in my throat. I wasn’t going to like she was about to say; I wasn’t going to like it at all. “Is going to die.”
Wow.
Monster’s place hadn’t changed much in the last fourteen years. It was still dark, sensual, and inviting. I hated him for that.
“You had me so gods-dang worried,” Caine growled, pressing his naked body against my back. Considering the circumstances, I shouldn’t have been turned-on.
Too bad. Tell my body that, please. Knowing I was in a life-or-death situation, the beginning of a war, just a mere half a day away from losing my mother … Fuck, okay, so that did sort of douse the flame. Did not stop my husband’s erection from poking me in the back however.
“Caine,” I whispered, and there was a tense sort of longing in my voice. I wanted him to hold me, tuck me close, tell me everything was going to be okay. But maybe it wasn’t? There was a very distinct possibility that things were not going to be okay for a very, very long time.
Besides, I could feel Monster watching us with copper eyes as he grabbed an iron tea kettle and hung it on a hook over the fireplace, knowing full-well that Argent wasn’t going to be able to drink anything he made with that water.
Dick.
“You live in a cave?” Argent asked, sounding bored. I knew better. He was strung tight, on the edge of his seat, ready to grant violence to the first person to cross him the wrong way. “How fitting.”
“Is it?” Monster replied, letting this awful, awful smile pull apart his mouth. His teeth were just slightly sharp in the front, and my body—still poisoned with pheromones—throbbed and pulsed in response. Caine snarled as Spectre stepped up on my right side and curled his fingers through mine. Shittiest part about being in a room with a werewolf, vampire, fae, and demon? They could all tell the moment you became aroused. I couldn’t hide a thing from these boys. “Because I hear faeries live in mounds of their own shit. Might just be a rumor, but knowing what I do of your people, seems reasonable enough.”
“And I hear demons eat their young. Between shit and infanticide, I know what side I’d choose.” Argent turned his charcoal gray eyes on Monster, a muscle sliding in his jaw, his calm voice belying the anger underneath. But as much as I loved my faerie prince, he was pushing too far with that one. There was an implication under his words that made my stomach hurt. He was referencing a memory better left buried.
