Page 80 of What The Hex (The Family Spells)
What in the witching hell is wrong with me?!
“I cannot … I cannot answer that …” she stuttered as Monster’s shadow wings emerged from his back. He wrapped them around himself, curling the smoke around Lulu’s waist and hefting her up from the floor as he stood. She dangled in the air in front of him, quivering and sweating but somehow managing to stay silent.
Much as I disliked the woman, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to stand here and watch Monster torture her in my shop.
Although, if she were going to come for my baby, I would kill her.
“No need,” Monster finally said, offering up a smile that was utterly devoid of warmth. “I have my own theories.” He leaned in toward Lulu as Caine and Argent slipped past the curtain to watch. The latter caught my gaze and held it for a moment before returning his attention to Monster.
While he might dislike the man, he also probably agreed with him—Argent would also kill Lulu if given the chance.
She must’ve known that she was risking her life by coming here.
Yet, she had anyway.
Because, perhaps, her life already was at risk.
“Wait,” I said, even though I was already wondering if my empathy was going to come back to bite me in the ass later. “Don’t kill her.”
“As if I’d bother,” Monster said blithely, chucking Lulu at the far wall. She caught herself with a spell, falling just short of smacking into the table, and then used her magic to get herself standing upright again. Though Lulu had saved herself from actually hitting the worktable, the spell she’d used to cushion herself had ended up knocking bottles and jars all over the floor. Great, another five hundred bucks in inventory gone.
I almost felt sorry for the woman as she struggled to find her dignity, panting and gasping, her hand on her throat.
“The cabal—or maybe even her own coven—will do it for me.” Monster waved his hand dismissively in the High Priestess’ direction as she finally managed to straighten her spine with righteous indignation.
This time, when she lifted her eyes to mine, they were full of rage.
“Tell Hex that if he values your life, he will contact me.” Lulu ignored Monster, swallowing hard as she kept her gaze from straying to his with no small amount of effort. She truly was a powerful witch. If she tried to summon Hex against me, it’d be a battle of wills.
Hex’s grandmother slipped past Monster and out the curtain while we followed, watching absently as she magicked her coat from the rack and then paused, bringing the white wool to her nose and giving it a sniff. She whirled on me, her silver hair fluttering in a supernatural breeze, and then she cursed at me in such a way that glitter and tiny glowing images of hats and brooms and other witchy things appeared in a cloud near her lips. Happened, sometimes, when a witch was thoroughly and utterly pissed off. “There’s cat urine on my coat!” she shouted at me, and I tried not to smile, coughing into my hand.
“Well-deserved,” a haughty voice called from the top of a nearby shelf. I looked up to see Connard, who’d accompanied us to the shop this morning (Hex sent him in his place), sitting like an ebony statue with his tail wrapped around his paws. “How dare you summon your own grandson? I’m quite disappointed in you, Lulu Witch.”
Lulu’s familiar hissed at him from her spot on the floor, her eyes darting back to look at Bastet who was currently on the hunt. My familiar’s head was poked around the corner of one of the shelves, pupils dilated, one paw sliding out silently ahead of her.
Yep, things were heating up.
Lulu turned and shoved her way out of the door, Ved’ma slipping out along with her.
“Will they really kill her?” I asked Monster, and he shrugged, folding his wings in against his back. As always, they disappeared in a puff of smoke.
“Do you care?” he countered, turning his attention over to me. “You do see where she’s going with this, don’t you?”
I blinked at him as Caine took up on my right side, Argent just behind him.
Hex and Violet … If my new soulmate was no longer able to sire the Witch Queen—you know, seeing as he’d already done that with me—then what was his purpose? What did he matter to the cabal or the coven?
Grand Prince. That was what the Coven Wyrmwood Crone and Lulu Witch had both called Monster. Essentially, it was the demon term for ‘crown prince’, as in ‘next in line for the throne’.
Oh.
Oh fuck.
Argent said it aloud before I got the chance.
“If Hex truly is the son of the demon king,” he began, his voice dark with annoyance as he glanced over at Monster. “Then, theoretically, if you were to pass away through a fortunate accident”—I narrowed my eyes and gave him a look—“he would be next in line for the throne. That would make Violet the queen, and the cabal very, very happy.”
