Page 25 of What The Hex (The Family Spells)
Nothing could’ve prepared me for this.
Violet moved across the white marble floors and toward the dais I was standing on, heading up the steps and keeping her eyes locked on the priest as if she could actually see him. Hell, maybe Agma, Lulu, and I were the only ones in that auditorium that knew she was blind.
Vy moved to stand beside me and reached out a hand, waiting for me to take it. I had other battles to fight, so I did, curling my fingers through hers and getting a little shiver of fear down my spine. I tucked my wings in close against my back and curled my tail around my own ankle. I kept my gaze focused on the man behind the altar, a demon named Günter, Violet’s father.
My heart was pounding because I knew what was coming, had known it since I was sixteen years old and my grandmother sat me down with a book of ritual and made me read it cover to cover—thirty-four fucking times.
I knew what was coming, but that didn’t make it any easier. Several more demons appeared from the radiating chapels behind Violet’s dad, dragging cages full of live animals. Wolves, to be precise. But I knew without even having to see them shift that these were no regular wolves.
Werewolves.
They were going to slaughter werewolves.
My throat got tight, and I closed my eyes. I’d read about the sacrifices in the book, but the author hadn’t been particularly specific on what species were going to be sacrificed. I’d assumed we’d slay a few chickens and have ourselves some mashed potatoes, biscuits, and KFC for a few weeks afterwards.
Standing here now, I could see that it was going to be much worse than I thought. Much, much, worse.
Violet squeezed my hand hard enough that her nails dug into my skin, and I opened them back up, watching as a second and third cage were dragged into view.
By the time the ninth cage arrived, I swear to the goddess, I almost lost my shit. There was a girl in there, a redhead, weeping so hard that she was choking, mascara running down her cheeks. She was werewolf, too, but somehow, it was even more chilling to see her in human form like that.
“Fucking balls,” I whispered aloud, and Violet yanked on my hand, telling me not so subtly to shut the hell up. And she had the power to make me do it, too. I sealed my lips and tried to figure out if there was a way for me to use the ivory to save these people in the cages. If there was, even at the expense of my own life, I’d do it; I swore on my dick that I would. I swore on Grace Spells, too. How could I simply stand there and be privy to a ritual that I wanted nothing to do with, a ritual that left my blood cold, that made me shake, a ritual that made me want to run for my fucking life and never look back.
Sure, human weddings had some outdated rituals, like fathers ‘giving’ their daughters away, but this … this was way beyond that. My hands curled into fists, and I retreated inside of myself in a way that I’d never done. I delighted in being the outspoken asshole, but here, tonight, I was nothing but a blip. None of this ceremony or ritual was actually for me; I was a prop.
Günter offered up a bowl of salty water—courtesy of Hael’s strange shores—and Violet dipped her palms in the liquid, turning toward me and touching her palms to either side of my face. She spoke spellwords in her native tongue and with my shitty half-knowledge of my father’s language, I did my best to keep up. I could feel the spell coming around us, binding us together. This was way more than just a wedding; this was a binding that I was going to have to find some way to get out of.
Violet’s father begin to chant as the wolves accompanied him, adding soulful howls of frustration and terror to the mix, and the rest of the room took up the spell. It was one that had been cast for generations, one that my mother would’ve heard cast before she was married to my father for a brief period of time. This ritual had been around for as long as Coven Wyrmwood had been a coven, and yet … I wasn’t sure that I’d been a part of anything more horrible in my entire life.
What made it even more difficult was that I had to participate. I had to lift my hands up and cast a spell, speak words that I’d been memorizing for the last sixteen years of my life. I had to take Violet’s hands and lead her up to the altar, mix up two potions and then pass one to Violet, our arms intertwined as we drank.
