Page 6 of What The Hex (The Family Spells)
I damn near puked.
“You will do what you’re told. Lulu Witch.”
“Yes, Crone,” my grandmother said, snapping her fingers. I felt my hackles go up. I collapsed to my knees, choking on my own saliva. Pain rippled up from my spine, my shoulders, my skull. My body rebelled against me: my wings ached, my horns pulsed, and the bones in my tail cracked and throbbed as if they were arthritic. I curled claws into the wood floor beneath me, scraping across the gold lines of the pentagram. “Hex, come.”
As soon as the words left her mouth, I felt power flow through me. It was hot and angry and mine, but I could also tell that I had zero control over it. This was both a gift and a curse, the price of being born half-demon.
I stayed where I was on my knees, feeling sweat drip down my sides to the floor. I stared at the wood beneath my fingertips and refused to get up, grinding my teeth together against the pain. The longer I fought the compulsion to obey Lulu, the worse the pain became. My muscles quivered, my eyes burned, and I felt my throat swelling to the point that it was impossible to breathe.
With a sharp gasp, I stood up, sucking in as much air as I could get to fill my lungs.
Shit.
Cats hissed at me from every shelf, every corner, every chair, watching me.
The whole coven was watching me.
“Let’s go.” Lulu moved to the door on the far left side of the room, and it was opened for her by two apprentices. I resisted … but only for a moment. I was already finding it hard to breathe in that stifling fucking room, incense swirling in the air between me and the Three. It was like … having the dick of reality shoved down my throat.
My coven was stirring up a war.
My grandmother violated my trust in the worst way.
And Grace … Grace was trapped in Hael.
The last thing I needed was to suffocate in here. With a curse, I stepped up to the edge of the pentagram, watched it shimmer and fade away at the command of the Mother, and followed along behind my grandma.
At least if I got out of here, I could get an explanation from Lulu.
And maybe, just maybe I could find a way to help Grace.
How dreadful.
I clenched my jaw and narrowed my eyes, watching the demon girl—Violet, such a pretentious name—waltz around the outside of the spell circle. She was trying to play off Monster’s snatch-and-grab of my wife as part of her ridiculous plan, but I had faerie underwear older than her.
Idiot.
“If you think I have a short or forgetful sort of memory,” I started, reaching out and putting my palm against the spell circle around us. It was strong, much stronger than I’d expect from a High Priestess. No, the power of the Coven Wyrmwood Three was coursing through this circle. Hmm. “Then you’ve got another thing coming.”
I reached for power in the ground beneath my feet, but we weren’t in Faerie. Shit, we weren’t even on earth anymore. The magic in Hael was strange, hot, and fickle. I smirked for show, grabbed onto every ounce of energy I had, and thrust it into the spell circle. It rippled and bent, but it did not break.
Violet scowled at me.
Violet.
Half-demon moron.
As soon as I got the chance, I’d gladly snap her neck and end her.
She tossed silver hair over her shoulder and stood there studying us.
“I hate to do this,” she started, but if she was still talking and not outright murdering us, that was a lie. Villains only chitchat when they want to inflict emotional and physical pain first. Me, I just dispatch whatever bastards have pissed me off, and move on. It’s easier to clean up blood than sort through emotions.
So either Violet was a dangerous psychopath who truly enjoyed hurting people or else she wasn’t strong enough to dispatch us quite so easily. Talking bought extra time, after all. My opinion was that she was a little bit of both.
“But your horrid wife has ruined our plans for the Witch Queen; she deserves to have her heart broken before her bones follow suit.”
The demon girl snapped her fingers, and I felt it: the spell we were trapped inside of was connected to a Hael-bound ley line. If the energy I could feel moving toward us made contact, we were all dead—even me. And I’d lived for fucking centuries.
Now, there’s a reason fae keep their hair long, and it isn’t just a fashion statement.
Too bad I hadn’t insisted on keeping mine longer.
I whipped a dagger from my belt, swung my mint green hair over one shoulder, and sliced it off so close to my scalp that I drew blood. Power I’d been storing for years surged out and slammed into the ley line before any of the magic could join the spell circle.
