Page 130 of What The Hex (The Family Spells)
They’d already torn apart a stuffed Santa Claus, a throw pillow with a snowflake on it, a pair of Abel’s boots, and their older cousin’s new iPhone.
“This was an early Christmas present, and now my life is over, and I hate everyone!” she’d screamed before dashing out the back door and into the snow. Maeve—Abel’s oldest daughter that he’d had while still in high school—had spent all morning telling us that she was the voice and wisdom of Gen Z, and that she was going to change the world with her immense level of self-awareness and staunch political activism, and then she’d seen her chewed phone and gone full teenager on us all. “I’ll never be an influencer now! I’ll just get job in a freak show.” Just before she headed out the door, I saw her sprout ears, a tail, and an unfortunate strip of fur on her bare midriff.
“For the life of me, I will never understand why that girl pays more for half a shirt than I do for a full one.” Raeanne tsked her tongue as I pretended to be enjoying myself, helping Fey glue together a lump of popsicle sticks that I guess was a reindeer and looked more like … well, a lump of popsicle sticks.
“Enjoy ‘em while they’re cute,” Abel warned, pausing beside the table where Caine was desperately wrestling a grape out of one of the twin’s mouths. Grapes are extremely poisonous to canines, by the way—even werewolves. Cyanide? Doesn’t hurt ‘em. Arsenic? Nope. Silver bullets, sure, but while in wolf form, they were as weak to grapes as they were silver. In human form, no problem.
I sat there frozen in fear until Caine finally pried the grape loose, and Ophelia bit his finger.
“You call this cute?” Caine replied, but surely, a grape-eating, finger-biting brat was better than a teenager. There was a certain je ne sais quoi to teenagers that caused their magic to go haywire, exploding lightbulbs at random, or coloring their own hair blue without their consent. Once, when I was fifteen, I’d accidentally caused every desk in my high school to flip upside down and stick itself to the ceiling.
“Only gets worse, brother,” Abel said with a chuckle, his gaze sliding over to Argent. He was sitting at the counter in Raeanne’s kitchen, staring at the countertop and doing the silent, brooding immortal bit that made me as nervous as werewolf babies with grapes.
Monster was there as well, on the stool beside him. He was only thirty-five, but he may as well have been a century or two older than Argent for the way he sat there and stared into his tea mug. It was a hokey Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer mug that made my teeth hurt just by looking at it.
“I enjoy Christmas, but this is nuts,” Spectre murmured, eyeing the extensive décor in the cabin. There were trays of sugar cookies on every surface, heaps of presents beneath the tree, and enough tinsel to choke a dragon. “At least I keep my décor understated and elegant.”
“You’re one of them nuts who decorates the day after Halloween; don’t kid yourself.” Caine put the pups on the ground, but he left their leashes on as Raeanne sighed and shook her head. My husband curled his lip a bit at her disapproval but said nothing.
So far as family visits went, this wasn’t so bad, was it?
It would get much worse. Tomorrow morning, when Monster, Argent, and Hex left, it’d be the worst. How could they possibly go to Faerie and leave us here?
In all reality, I knew it made sense. The kids and I were safest here, away from any portals to Hael, in a new, remote location. The chances that we’d see a krampus were slim. Even if they were tracking me, it’d take time for them to get here. Besides, I’d be surrounded by Pack Citrine Sunrise who would at least shift in a crisis.
And Argent was right: the second that I set foot in Faerie, the queen would know it, and she’d come for me. I likely would not survive her wrath.
But also … would I survive hours upon hours of cheesy Christmas movies, arts and crafts, and Raeanne’s company? It was difficult to tell which path was the riskiest to take.
“More glitter!” Fey crowed, dousing the glue-wet lump in red and green sparkles. My mouth twitched as Hex sat on the couch with werewolves on either side of him, looking perplexed as they forced him to watch a football game. The expression he wore was similar to one a man might wear if he were about to be enclosed in an iron maiden.
“I have a newfound respect for Hex Sorciere,” Spectre whispered, leaning in so close to my neck that I wondered if he wasn’t going to bite it. I shivered, but I had Fey on my lap, and he had Zavier, and we were stuck here in family holiday hell.
