Page 124 of What The Hex (The Family Spells)
“How …” I couldn’t get the rest of the words out. What was there to say? This witch and this wolf—whoever he was—had managed to get through the labyrinthine network of passages inside the Seelie Court and here, to my bedroom. Locked, spelled, warded.
“Fae magic and witch magic are two entirely different things,” Grace said with a cocky smile. She crossed her arms over the white t-shirt she was wearing—stained with blood and grass and dirt—and let her smile morph into a grin. “Nothing in this place is prepared for a witch. Getting here was a walk in the park.”
My eyes shifted back to the wolf, but he wasn’t looking at me. He’d craned his head around to stare down the length of the hallway behind him. I desperately wanted to know who he was and why he thought it appropriate to travel Faerie with my woman, but I also knew we were short on time.
Much as Grace might be telling the truth—Faerie had not seen many witches over the years besides myself and my now dead father—I also knew our chances of making it out of the palace were much slimmer than Grace’s chances of getting in.
See, the Seelie Court enjoyed wandering fae and animals that happened to find their way inside the walls of our faerie mound. The court just didn’t like those poor hapless souls to get back out again. Instead, they were kept as playthings or food or toys.
“We need to go. Now.” I moved over to Grace and grabbed her arm, wetting my lips and resisting the urge to kiss her full mouth right then and there. Each second that we dallied was a second wasted.
With a sharp tug on her arm, I dragged her into the dark hall with its few flickering torches, and in the direction of the closest exit. The wolf stayed just behind us, trotting on near-silent paws. He had a smell about him, like wet dirt and magic, that told me wasn’t just werewolf. No, like me, he was a half-breed witch, too.
“There’s a faerie ring not far from—” Grace began, her words cutting off sharply as we came to a sudden halt.
Not fifteen feet from us stood one of my brothers.
He was a full-blooded sidhe, unlike myself. Tall, silver-skinned, with hair the color of ash and eyes like blue pools.
“Caedmon.” My voice was ice. My patience was as thin. My younger brother had an agenda all his own, and while my mother might care if I lived or died—because she knew damn well her other children would balk at the tasks given me—Caedmon did not.
“Argent.” He cracked his knuckles, and I knew right away what sort of game we were going to play here.
This was for keeps.
I shoved Graceley behind me just as Caedmon unleashed a curse trapped in his knuckles, flinging it our way as a distraction. In the same moment, he slid out his sword. He knew that if we were going to trade blows with magic, I would obliterate him.
The curse wasn’t meant to land, only to buy him a moment to move down the hall in our direction.
Guess he hadn’t yet seen the wolf.
The amber-eyed werewolf darted out from behind us and lunged at my brother’s throat.
I wasn’t entirely certain if Caedmon had ever seen a werewolf let alone if he actually understood what one was. Some fae could shift shapes. Spells were available for that sort of thing, if it appealed to a member of the court.
But a werewolf wasn’t just a shape-changer. A werewolf wasn’t just a wolf. And this one was also part witch.
His massive jaws clamped down around Caedmon’s neck, piercing his carotid and causing him to scream in a way that pleased me so greatly that I not only found myself grinning, but also had my flesh pebbling with goose bumps.
“Idiot.” I swung my hair over my shoulder yet again and sliced off a foot of it, using the power trapped within to wrench Caedmon’s sword from his hand. It clattered on the floor and down he went, on his back on the stone with a werewolf on his neck.
The natural magic in a wolf was not pleasant for the fae, and this one was just brimming with it. As Caedmon screamed and thrashed, I flung my hand in his direction, deflecting the magic that he so desperately tried to conjure up, and then I walked down the hall toward him with Grace trailing behind me.
“Little brother,” I purred, crouching beside him as the werewolf pulled back, his jaws stained with blood. A crimson pool was forming around Caedmon as he clutched desperately at his throat, eyes wide and frantic. I smoothed his hair back from his face and smiled. I’m sure it wasn’t a pleasant sight for him, dying as he was on the cool floor. His injuries wouldn’t kill him, no, but I was about to. Why should I keep him alive? Not only had he tried to kill me—more than once—but he was a sexual deviant with deep perversions. Dispatching him was a kindness to the universe. “Give this message to mother for me.”
