Page 127 of What The Hex (The Family Spells)
My mouth twitched and I sat back, too, reaching out for the teapot on the table and pouring myself a steaming mug. For as much as Pack Citrine Sunrise tried to tamp down on their wolf sides, they sure loved wolf décor. Throw pillows with wolves on them, paintings of wolves, even my mug had wolves on it.
I took a sip, my eyes on Monster’s. He was frowning, this pouty, almost annoyed sort of expression that belied the true fear in his gaze. He was terrified. Of what, I wasn’t sure. Not of me. He was far too arrogant to have the healthy respect for me that he should.
“I assume that pointless dithering and denial won’t do much to sway your opinion on the matter?” Monster stared back at me with narrowed copper eyes, cocking his head slightly to one side. “But if it doesn’t matter to you, then it doesn’t matter at all. Don’t worry about it. After the spell is completed, the Fire Veil will be closed. I’ll be on one side of it; you’ll be on the other. Just bear with me for the time being.”
I smiled at that.
“Did I say it didn’t matter? I said that I didn’t care. Two different stories.” My smile turned into a sharp frown. A dangerous frown. Although he’d said nothing at all, Monster had all but confirmed my suspicions.
Soulmate.
I stared into his eyes, but that zing feeling—sparked by sympathetic magic in the blood—only happened after long periods of separation. I’d been looking into his eyes a lot lately, searching for trouble, finding it.
Right here: this was trouble.
“Grace told me many times over those first few months”—here I was referencing the time when she’d been drugged by his pheromones to the point of incoherent screaming and crying—“that you were her soulmate. Over and over and over again. Once she sobered up, we both came to a mutual conclusion: your magic and your aphrodisiac had clouded her mind, her judgement.” I leaned back in, squeezing the mug so tightly that I heard the first crack and forced my fingers to relax their punishing grip. “What’s bothered me for years is this: you and Grace were happy together before all of that. For nearly two years. So explain to me why you would decide to turn on the person you love the most? Because, mark my words, Monster, I see that you love her. It’s written plain as day across your hideous face.” I snarled this last part out, my words taking on the slightest hint of an accent.
He was getting angry now, his fury rising by the minute. His shadow wings appeared and stretched out behind him before curling around his body on either side, like a shield, a coat of darkness.
“I’ve given up everything to ensure Grace’s safety. Everything.” This time, when the teapot and the mugs cracked, it wasn’t my fault. Hot tea cascaded over my lap, but I gritted my teeth against the pain and waited, watching Monster’s face shift from banal annoyance to worry to rage. “My entire life is nothing.” The glass on the framed photos hanging beside us cracked. “My heart is irreparably shattered.” The light fixture above us was the next to go, sparks and glass raining down as Caine’s brother let out a yelp from where he was in the lobby, sweeping the floor. I ignored him. “I have no future. Do not ruin this for me because of your petty pride.”
I almost felt sorry for him in that moment.
Me, of all people.
He was pitiable. His face was a mask of self-resigned melancholy, of torture, pure torment. Torment, I might add, that he’d inflicted on himself for whatever reasons I could not discern.
But I intended to.
If I had to subdue him with my magic—if I could subdue him—that’s what I’d do. I’d battle to the death outside in the snow and bring him to heel. I needed to hear the truth; there was no compromise.
“If you want me to let you continue on your merry way, you’ll tell me what’s really going on. Otherwise, I will march up those stairs and I will tell my wife my suspicions. Much as I hate to do that, much as I’d love to keep this reality hidden from her. If you don’t give me a good reason, it’s over.”
The windows shattered.
Every single window on the first floor.
They came down all at once in a sea of sparkling glass. The sound was almost beautiful, like wind chimes and rainstorms. The bulbs on the strands of Christmas lights exploded, one after another. Pop, pop, pop. And then the entire room was dark, despite the early morning hour. The storm had left the sky a gray swirl, and there were no lights left inside the lodge.
Abel was shouting, but I ignored him.
