Page 31 of What The Hex (The Family Spells)
If there even was a second attempt.
We’d come here to grab Hex, but he’d clearly already been on his way out.
I had no idea what to make of that.
“Off we go,” I said as Monster launched himself into the air, moving much more gracefully than one might expect for such a big man. He made flying look effortless; I noticed Hex watching him with undisguised envy.
Caine shifted back to human form and yanked on the jeans he’d left in a heap on the forest floor. He mounted his broom, shirtless and beautiful, his dirty blond hair hanging loose just above his shoulders as he narrowed his eyes on the demon above us.
“Hope he gets sucked into the engine of a jet liner,” he muttered.
With a small sigh, I pulled magic into me and kicked off, rising into the air above the trees as I waited for the others to join us. My husbands did easily enough—even barefoot and shirtless Caine. But Hex?
Hex … was not very good at riding a broom. He managed to get it in the air, but it bucked and thrashed under him like a wild stallion while Con yowled in annoyance and batted at his master’s face with claws fully extended. Poor Hex was clinging to the broom for dear life, the black shackles hanging off his much-less tattooed arms. He must’ve used a large portion of his ink to make his escape. There was quite a bit of bare skin as his robes fell up his arms and he ended up hanging upside down, clinging to the broomstick with gritted teeth.
Connard had now attached himself to Hex’s face; I could hear them both cursing beneath all of that black fur.
“It’s like … riding a bike,” I offered as Hex hovered nearby, and his broom shuddered and shook like an old junker on the last legs of its life. I almost smiled, but I was too busy fighting off the haze of Monster’s pheromones and the feel of his breath against the side of my neck.
He was hovering right fucking next to me. No doubt his close proximity was intentional.
“Everen Sinnes,” he murmured, and I damn near came right there, clenched right around the handle of my broomstick and … Shit. No. No. Son of an unwed warlock! I pushed back against Monster’s thrall to focus on Hex, reaching out a hand for one of his.
He grabbed onto it, fingers digging into my skin and making that disturbing level of need in me rise even higher. I gave him a little yank, and he was able to right himself. If we held hands the rest of the way, I could keep his broom in check, more or less.
We looked at each other, a million unsaid but absolutely vital things passing between us, and then off we went, against a buttery moon in a Halloween sky.
Most of us—even me with Monster’s carnal influence—managed to arrive at my mother’s house in one piece. Not Hex though. He had clenched teeth and a shaky disposition; it was obvious to me that if he had ridden a broom before, it was once or twice at best.
“I’ll give you lessons if we survive this,” I murmured as I passed by him and pounded up the front steps. The rest of the men followed me as I cracked open the front door, doing my utmost to pretend like the sweet, cloying scent of rot wasn’t sitting heavy on my tongue.
As a witch, I wasn’t unused to working with dead or rotting things. Death and decay were just as much a part of life as anything else, and I’d be remiss as a High Priestess if I didn’t acknowledge that. On occasion, a spell might call for a big, fat wriggling maggot. It might even call for one from a specific sort of corpse: squirrel, raccoon, possum … human.
Witch.
I shuddered and shook my hands out. My mother wasn’t covered in maggots—yet.
But if we didn’t execute this spell tonight, we were fucked.
Not only would my mother die, but this war that was brewing would get that much worse. We’d lose not just my mom, but the Mother of our Coven, one of our Three. Someone would have to step into her place … someone like me.
I didn’t want that position, not yet anyway. I was fairly certain that even though the collective Mr. Spells had never mentioned it, they didn’t want me to have the position period. Not now, not ever.
Even were things to work out, introducing a new member of the Three in the middle of a war was going to weaken us. We needed Abigail whole and hale.
We needed this spell to work.
With a sigh, I turned and placed one hand on the wall near the front door, throwing a look back at Monster that just dared him to try something cute tonight. “Behave,” I commanded him, and he lifted the magic mark on his wrist in response.
