Page 107 of What The Hex (The Family Spells)
“Your soulmate.” The words fell from my mouth like fire. I wanted to snuff them out. I wanted to snuff that man out, whoever he was. Some idiot trapped in Faerie. It wasn’t like traveling to another city or even another country; it was like traveling straight to Hael itself.
Dangerous, twisted, dark.
This witch girl might never come back once she went. One wrong move, one wrong bite of food, dancing at the wrong party … she’d be trapped. That is, if she got lucky and found herself stuck instead of dead.
I knew right away that I was going to go with her.
“People can have more than one, you know,” is what came out of her mouth next. She facepalmed and groaned, muttering words under her breath that caused the air in front of her to not only fog, but also to sparkle. I saw a pumpkin; I saw a witch hat; I saw a cauldron. They glittered gold before disappearing into the night.
I blinked back at her, my skin itching as the moonlight fell across the bronzed flesh of my bare arms. It was getting closer to that time, a moment where, because I’d denied myself for months, I’d have to shift into my wolf form—whether I wanted to or not.
Shame washed over me, hot and burning, but it was nothing compared to the flames that the sight of this woman’s curvy body or her scent inspired in me. I pushed those thoughts aside to focus on her instead.
“More than one soulmate?” I said, but this wasn’t new information to me. There were plenty of werewolves out there—in other packs, o’ course—with more than one mate. I cocked my head to the side as the woman continued to peer up at me. Her bright red lips were now pursed in silent determination, and her gaze was unrelenting.
“Yes. You’re a half-witch, aren’t you?” she asked, and I smiled.
“Not bad, for a witch nose,” I said, resisting the urge to reach out and pinch hers. I wanted to do it, too, despite the fact that we’d met all of fifteen fuckin’ seconds ago.
“Not bad?” she responded, slightly aghast. “Witches have better senses of smell than werewolves do. That’s a straight fact.”
“Not true,” I grumbled back at her, and she frowned at me, narrowing her eyes in annoyance.
“It is true. You might not believe it because you’re a half-witch; you might have a witch’s full sense of smell. I assure you that it’s not your wolf side.”
“How the hell do you know what? You go truffle huntin’ or somethin’?”
The witch woman smiled.
“I know because a werewolf has around three-hundred million scent receptors while a witch has about five-hundred million.”
I just stared at her as she smiled matter-of-factly at me, her hair as red as blood under the flickering old light beside the bar’s back door. Moths were swarming it, wings battling against the glass to reach the source of heat and light inside.
And then I did somethin’ I’d never done before. I grabbed this strange woman’s beautiful face in both hands, and I dropped my mouth to hers. Her lips parted in surprise, but her hands, they found my shirt, fingers curling into the fabric as she leaned into me.
It was a kiss crafted of pure magic. Not so much fate as it was good luck and circumstance. She’d come to my neck of the woods chasing another man, and I’d come to the bar racking my brain for a way out.
We’d both found something worth lookin’ for instead.
My tongue searched hers, tasting the sweet heat of her mouth, tracing her pretty teeth. She kissed me back, too, with no small amount of fervor. When we broke apart, we were both panting even worse than before.
“Take me with you,” I said, before I could talk myself out of it.
Traveling to Faerie might just get me killed.
Staying here might cause me to wither and die on the inside.
“You don’t even know my name,” she murmured, but not like she was displeased. She met my gaze again. “It’s Graceley, by the way. Graceley Spells.” She shrugged her shoulders again. “But you can call me Grace.”
“Caine,” I growled back, my heart thundering so hard in my chest that I thought it might just burst right out. “I …” Here I trailed off, glancing down to see the fine gray-yellow hairs sprouting along my right arm. Grace looked down and noticed them, too, and I snarled, turning away.
It was shameful to shift in front of others—particularly non-wolves of any sort, shape, or size.
I was making an ass outta myself in front of a girl I liked.
“Tonight, I …”
“You may want to be in wolf form for this,” she offered up, her attention on the trees this time instead of on me. “Might be more useful. I assume you’re not well-versed in spell craft?”
