Page 38 of What The Hex (The Family Spells)
I turned again to the second demon in the room, the category nine that had once been my lover. Goddess’ tits, I’d thought he was my soulmate. Or rather, he used his hormones and his magic to let me believe that horrible lie.
Was it any wonder that Argent despised him?
I couldn’t find it in myself to hate him, though I should. I really should.
“Blood,” I repeated, offering him up an athame and a large jar. Monster did as I asked, smirking all the while, and cutting his arm at the wrist to drain out enough for the spell. Once he was finished, he healed his own wound with the swipe of two fingertips and passed two vials over to me.
I set one vial beside Hex and then took a stack of reaping willow bark over to Spec. Caine was nearly finished crushing herbs and mixing ingredients, a small cauldron boiling beside him.
Argent reappeared and I put him to work following behind Hex with the bone ash. He made sure the blood that Hex was using to draw the circle was sprinkled over with the gray powder.
As for myself, I set about laying out the remaining instruments—the carefully placed candles, the athame (fancy word for knife), the goblet, the faerie wine I’d procured for a staggering sum (I could cry just thinking about it), and the silken cushion where my mother would rest while we chanted and bled and drank in a circle around her.
“You don’t have to stay here, you know,” I explained to Monster, pausing beside him as he remained where he was, his taut ass parked up against the side of a worktable, his gaze on the spellwork taking place before him. “You’ve fulfilled your end of the deal for now; there’s nothing more I need from you until I wake up.”
“I might not be a witch, but I have power, Everen Sinnes.” He reached up, as if he might touch me, but I took a step back. I wouldn’t allow it. I wouldn’t allow him. What in the fluffy familiar did he want from me? Why come back after all this time?
My life now was nothing like the life I’d had when we were together. There was nothing left of the couple we’d used to be. He wasn’t here for that anyway, now was he? Monster wasn’t here for me—for us. Clearly, he was just playing games.
“Let me stay; it’ll enhance the spell,” he offered up, drawing his hand away from my face with a bit of a scowl. I felt his pheromones flair and then recede, as if he’d had a small lapse in control but quickly regained himself. I wasn’t the only person in that room who pulled in a sharp breath. “I already swore to do no harm.” He hefted his wrist up so that I could see the faint glimmer of the magic mark on his skin. “What more do you want from me? I don’t bite.” His smile widened slightly. “Well, not terribly much. Mostly on the inner thighs and only when you asked. Or begged.”
True story, much as I hated to admit to it.
“Real cute.” I rolled my eyes and resisted the urge to slap him, turning and focusing instead on the progress of the spell. We were nearly ready. Fucking finally.
Caine was holding the cauldron with the liquid in it for the healing spell; he’d have to pour it over my mother’s body once we brought her in here. He was also growling at Monster from across the room.
“Just say the word, sweets, and I’ll go get ya mama.” He let his teeth go full wolf and bared them in Monster’s direction. I exhaled and nodded. Caine set the cauldron aside and disappeared, Spectre close behind him. Either one of them could lift my mother up like a rag doll, but with the state she was in, she had to be handled with care.
“Get ready,” I commanded, grabbing a piece of parchment paper and the second vial of Monster’s blood, setting both items on a table near the window. Once the spell was done, whoever came in to check on us would look for the spell signature again and perhaps the awful curse would give up its secrets and tell us who cast it.
Because somebody did. And that somebody was like a supernatural hacker; they’d hidden their footsteps in a way I’d never seen before. Not once had I ever encountered a spell where I couldn’t pinpoint the signature of the one who’d cast it. When we’d tried to get a read on it before, we’d been left with an unnecessarily complicated pattern that was impossible to interpret.
Maybe, just maybe, we could get a clearer picture of who the culprit was after removing the curse. Monster’s blood was pungent, too, more so than the demon blood we’d used the last time we’d tried this. I was hoping that this time around, the signature would tell me straight-off who the asshole curse-worker was.
