Page 11 of What The Hex (The Family Spells)
But I didn’t want to start a war either.
“Please explain this to me,” I whispered, trying to hold in my temper. Lulu had complete control over every aspect of my being. It was not the right moment to give attitude. Connard sat beside me, flicking his tail back and forth across the surface of the table. His orange eyes were glowing with frustration, but he was as trapped as I was in all this. He even had little golden shackles on his wrists and ankles. “Because I’m sitting here wondering if you’ve lost your ever-loving shit.”
“Hex,” Grandma Lulu began as she carried over a steaming cup of tea to the table and set it down in front of her chair, like this was any other day, like this wasn’t All Hallows’ Eve and I wasn’t bound with shackles to her magic. “You’re going to have to trust me on this one.” Con hissed and lashed out with a paw, causing Lulu to pinch her lips so tight that fine wrinkles appeared above her mouth.
“Grandma,” I said with a sigh, raking my fingers through my hair and gritting my teeth at the sound of the clinking gold chains. “You know I trust you, but you have to admit, this is some pretty fucked-up shit.” I sighed again and tried to control my temper; getting angry with the High Priestess of Coven Wyrmwood wasn’t going to get me anywhere. It wasn’t going to save Grace. It wasn’t going to save Grace’s mom.
“Watch your language, Hex.” My grandma sat across the table from me, like she’d done thousands of times before in my life. She curled her long fingers around her teacup and stared into the liquid as her familiar, that pesky orange asshole, Ved’ma, perched on her shoulder and glared at me with dark eyes. “Getting angry with me isn’t going to get you anywhere.” She glanced up at me with eyes like wet earth, dark and endless. Clearly, I’d inherited my eye color from my demon side, not my witch side.
Fitting, because at that moment, the only thing I felt like was demon.
I pulled my leathery wings in tight against my back and tapped the end of my tail against the floor. I’d never felt so powerful and so powerless at the same time. Magic coursed through my veins, magic that was both familiar and foreign all at once. There were parts of me coming to life that I’d never touched on, not once. There were parts of me I hadn’t even known existed and now felt like I couldn’t live without.
“There are plans, intents, forces at work, gears that have been churning before you were even born. Hex, you know how the coven works. We are all delicate, fragile petals on a long stem. We cannot control where the seed of our existence drops, nor where our roots cling. And we cannot fight the strong wind that blows. We each have our purpose, and we fulfill it.” She looked right at me, eyes drilling through my skull. “This is your purpose, and you’re filling it tonight—by marrying Violet.”
My fingers curled, nails gouging the surface of the ancient table. It had to piss my grandmother off, but to her credit, she sat there stoically, staring at me with that icy cool calm that had frightened me since my very first memory. But I’d always been more frightened of disappointing her than anything else; not tonight. Tonight, I was afraid that if I didn’t do what she wanted, she’d make me do it. And she’d make it hurt. Truth be told, I wasn’t sure if my grandma loved me or the coven more. That was a hard fucking truth to swallow.
“Grace,” I began, but Lulu was already waving her hand dismissively and lifting her mug to her lips. She drank her tea in one, long swallow, and set the cup back down on the saucer, leaning over to peer into the tea leaves. My grandmother was no seer, but most witches had at least some form of divination available to them. I watched her, waiting for whatever verdict was making her brows crinkle. “Look,” I continued, feeling this hot, achy sort of desperation wash over me. I couldn’t believe I was about to say this. “I’ll marry Violet, willingly, but please, let me help Grace with her mother. Fuck, let me get Grace and her husbands out of Hael, at the very least.” I couldn’t stop thinking about that demon guy, what had Grace said his name was? Maybe she hadn’t? Anyway, I didn’t trust him, and I didn’t like him.
“Hex,” Lulu said, looking up at me with a hard, cold truth etched into her features. I swear, I saw her familiar smirking at me. “You heard the orders of the Three, and I can change those no more than you can. You will marry Violet, and you will leave Grace, her husbands, her mother, and the rest of Coven Apothecary alone.” Lulu sighed and lifted a hand to her forehead. For the first time in my life, I couldn’t help thinking how old and tired she looked.
