Page 60 of What The Hex (The Family Spells)
“Prophecy?” Hex asked with a loud groan as he let his head fall back. “What prophecy? What role?”
“Your role was to anoint the powers of the next Witch Queen, just as Graceley did when she used the athame to anoint your foreheads with faerie wine. You’ve done that.”
“Anoint …” Hex began, and I flushed.
“You’re not the Witch Queen … but the baby you’ve just conceived very well could be.”
Monster had said that to me when we were still in Hael.
So that’s what he meant by anoint, eh?
I rubbed at my face.
“The Witch Queen is an old story and that’s that,” Abigail declared, but Monster was already shaking his head.
“No, Abigail Witch. The prophecy of the Witch Queen is real. I should know; the royal family has been working with the cabal for centuries on this very project.” He turned to look at Hex, and then his jaw tensed, and I could see that he was gearing up to reveal something. “And my little brother is a very important part of it.”
“Little brother?” Hex asked, reaching up to scratch at his temple with a single inked finger. “Um, the hell have you been smoking, buddy?”
Monster sighed and offered up a smile, one edged with darkness and broken promises.
I’d fallen for all of them before.
I couldn’t let myself go there again.
“Your father—my father—is the demon king,” Monster declared with a gentle incline of his chin.
Hex’s eyes widened, and I bit my lip. I was still processing that information myself; I could hardly imagine how Hex felt about it.
I knew a lot of things—like say, how mugwort could be used in tonics and potions to offer the drinker extra energy or how a spell for love was easier to cast on the night of a full moon—but that … I had not known that until Monster told us in Hael.
Hex and Monster were brothers, and Hex was a demon prince. Ironic, wasn’t it? Monster, my first love, was related to Hex, my last and final love. The universe could be quite cruel.
I gritted my teeth and, out of old habit, rested my hand on my belly.
Hex, though his face was pale, followed the motion before looking back up at me.
He knew. He fucking knew. And I had no idea what he was going to do about it.
I sat on the deck with my elbows on my knees, my head in my hands, and I tried to figure out who the hell I was, what I was supposed to be doing, where I was going from here. Nothing I’d ever believed my life to be was the way it was now.
Part of me—a big part—was relieved as fuck not to have to marry Violet. I didn’t like her, wasn’t attracted to her, had always felt trapped by our engagement. On the other hand, I had never wanted a soulmate either, for all of the same reasons.
Now, here I was, a fugitive, a wandering witch.
Though it was something I’d fantasized about all my life, I couldn’t help but wonder what it would really be like to never see my coven—and especially my grandmother—again. My apartment above the spell chamber, gone. My fully stocked cabinets and homemade cookies and …
How could she summon me like that? Boss me around, treat me like a pawn instead of a grandson? She had once given up her high priestess position to her daughter, my mother, hung up her hat and taken a secondary role in the coven. But when my mother had run off for the umpteenth time, Lulu had taken the role back.
She’d raised me. She’d prepared for my future marriage to Violet. And I’d just ruined all of her carefully laid plans.
“Hey,” a soft voice said, drawing my attention up to the vampire guy. He was the most likable of all Grace’s husbands. I had no idea what to make of that Monster dude. At least it seemed that the other guys despised him; he wasn’t part of the Spells family, much to my personal relief.
He was also, apparently … my brother? I had a big brother?
Also, also, also … I was a demon prince? Since when? In what universe?
Hael, apparently.
“Hi,” I said, eying the food and drink Spectre set out before me with no small amount of suspicion.
“If we wanted you dead,” he offered up, taking the seat on my left. “You’d be worm food already. Listen.” He put his own elbows on the table and folded his hands together. “I’m going to welcome you into our family because nobody else is going to. Not Argent or Caine, not Abigail or Giles or anyone else. You’ll be disliked, distrusted, for some time.”
“Gee, thanks?” I offered up, still unsure if I actually wanted to join Coven Apothecary or not. My head was muddled and I was exhausted, even if I’d just woken up from another nap. Connard sat nearby in sphinx-form, front paws stretched out in front of him, orange eyes intent on my face.
