For a split-second, I wondered what it might be like if he were to open up those orange wings I'd seen the other day, enfold me in them, and tuck me close. Ugh. Clearly, I was still wound-up from the excitement of the day, and the rapid approach of Samhain, and the spell that would either save my mother … or damn her. "Let's keep going, and see if we can't get some peace."
Hex nodded, and we walked along together, side-by-side. Neither of us said anything, but it was quite obvious we were both thinking hard. Me, I was just praying to the goddess Hecate that I got that spell right tomorrow, that I fixed Hex’s erectile dysfunction problem, so we could both move on from this strange attraction. Once that was taken care of, at least I would know that I'd fulfilled my end of our bargain, and I'd no longer be at risk from the magic mark on my wrist.
We walked along the edge of the woods until we got to another path that led back through the pumpkin patch and toward the tractor ride. I wasn't ready to go that way, so I took a few steps off the beaten path and took a seat on a massive, red–orange pumpkin. It was big enough to fit two people, so Hex sat down beside me.
"Did I tell you I caught a category six demon watching me the other day?" I asked, glancing over at Hex, and tucking a loose strand of hair behind one ear. Hex raised an eyebrow, but he didn't look at me. No, he kept his gaze out on the pumpkin patch, and the couples holding hands as they worked their way through the maze of glowing lanterns.
Well, technically the owl-demon wasn't watching just me, but I wasn’t about to admit that I had a hot, little foursome just before my mother’s awful dinner party.
"That's not … normal for a witch from Coven Apothecary?" Hex asked, repeating the question he asked me the other night. But I was already shaking my head.
"I mean, it could be just simple coven business, but I've never experienced anything quite so … purposeful. Caine, Argent, and Spectre, they all smell trouble." I sighed and reached up to adjust my prosthetic ear. "And trust me: they're good at sniffing out trouble." I paused for several more minutes, watching as the tractor rumbled away, heading back up to the general store where all of the kids were gathered to do crafts and drink cider. Soon, my husbands and kids would be down here with us, and this brief moment of peace with Hex would be gone. "Have you told your fiancée about our Halloween plans?"
Hex growled and looked away, staring down at a cluster of small white pumpkins on the ground near his feet. I wished in that moment that Bast was here with me, but both her and Connard were sleeping in the back of my SUV. Now that I'd seen them curled up together back there, I was almost positive they'd mated at least once. I thought I'd felt a spark of pleasure from her end of our connection earlier, but I often got those whenever she caught a particularly juicy mouse or was ripping the feathers from a blue jay.
I sighed.
"You haven't told her, have you?" I asked, and Hex shook his head. He ran his fingers through his black and orange hair before turning to glance over at me.
"How can I?" he asked, looking at me with a pleading in his gaze that I didn't want to misinterpret. I wanted that pleading to be saying save me, Grace, take me away from my obligations and make me … yours. But that was my romantic side talking. Hex would never be mine, and I needed to make peace with that.
"So what are you planning on doing?" I asked putting my palms flat on the waxy surface of our makeshift seat. I leaned forward and closed my eyes, breathing in the sweet scent of freshly carved pumpkins, musty straw, and moonlight.
For a while there, Hex didn't speak, and I wondered if he would even bother answering me. But as the tractor made its way back down the hill with a fresh set of passengers, he glanced over at me. I turned my head slightly to the right to look at him, and found our mouths far too close for comfort.
"I'll think of something," he said, but he didn't sound sure in that moment, didn't sound like a cocky asshole with an agenda. He sounded like a man who was considering other options, options that he may never have realized were options before. But if his coven really had an agreement with his fiancée’s cabal: there was nothing either of us could do to stop that union. "I will.”
Before I could question myself, I leaned in toward him, my fingers digging into the hard, shiny surface of the pumpkin as my eyes closed of their own accord, and I found myself with gently parted lips and a pounding heart.
I fully expected Hex to back up, run away, call me an idiot for trying to make something out of the mess between us. Instead, he met me halfway, putting his mouth to mine, breathing hot breath against my lips. We came together in the most perfect moment, our mouths meeting, tongues brushing in a strange, almost tentative way, like we were teenagers.
It was one of the sweetest, most unexpected first kisses that I had ever had.
It surprised the shit out of me.
Hex reached up and cupped the back of my head with one hand, pulling me closer, kissing me deeper. It felt so good, like I was falling into him. It was the sort of kiss that you wish would last forever, but never makes it more than a few seconds, almost as if it's too perfect to last.
We both pulled apart at the same time, opening our eyes and staring at each other in shock.
I …" Hex began, but he didn't finish his sentence. Instead, he looked away, and I felt that shield sliding up between us, blocking his emotions from me. But, like I said, I was a bit of an empath, and before that emotional shield locked firmly into place, I swear I tasted longing, curiosity, and attraction.
Even though Hex Sorciere was an idiot, and I wasn't sure if he liked my husbands or my kids in the slightest, I wondered … if this contract didn't have such a vise-grip on his balls, would he give us a chance?
I was desperately wondering if there was a way for me to find out, when I reached out to touch his arm. But Hex, he simply stood up and walked off, disappearing into the corn maze.
That was the last I saw of him that night.
The next evening, I called Hex as soon as I had the spell prep finished and ready to go. I thought about having him over to my house to do it, but then … I couldn't stop thinking about that kiss in the pumpkin patch.
It was so fucking magical. Why did it have to be so fucking magical?! I could still remember the feel of his lips on mine, the way his tongue teased my lower lip, how he tasted, like ginger and cinnamon.
Nope.
I could not have him over at my house, or I couldn't be held responsible for what I would do. Last night, when I talked to the guys about the kiss, I'd seen it in their faces. They were worried about me falling for him.
When I first met Hex, I would've thought they had no reason to feel that way. But now, I wasn't so sure.
The shop bells gave their joyful tinkle as the front door opened and in walked the asshole of the hour. Our eyes met right away, and I found myself tumbling into them. I hardly knew the guy, and from what I did know of him, he was a serious dick face. And yet, there was something about the way he painted that pumpkin cut-out with Fey that just got to me.
"Hey," he said, licking his lower lip. His eyes were looking at everything but me. His familiar, Connard, was with him, trotting along at his side. The cat sat down and licked his shoulder, flicking his orange eyes up to meet mine. Like many familiars, he had the same color eyes as his master.
“Did you get a chance to talk to your fiancée?” I didn’t know what else to say, and besides, I meant in relation to the spell for my mother, not the kiss. But Hex got righteously pissed off anyway, raking his fingers through his hair.
“Look, I know I’m a douche, but I'm not a fucking cheater and I'm not a liar.” He stared at me with that strange pleading in his gaze again. “If I tell Violet that we kissed, she will destroy me. She'll destroy my coven; she’ll destroy yours. Do you understand that? I couldn’t fucking tell her."
Whoa. Overcompensating much?
I pursed my lips, and put a hand on my hip.
“That’s not what I was talking about: I meant about the S
amhain spell.” Hex just stared back at me like I’d lost my damn mind. "I'm not an idiot," I continued, feeling my cheeks heat up with warmth, "so don't talk to me like I am one. I'm a thirty-two year old woman with three husbands and four kids." I leveled my gaze with his and held firm, curling my hands and fists at my sides. "Trust me: I'm more than aware of the consequences."
Hex paced in a small circle while his familiar continued to clean its paws. The tension in the air was thick enough to cut with a knife, and I swear I saw the incense smoke swirling in a strange vortex between us.
Magic. Our magic wanted each other, whether we wanted each other or not.
Although … I sort of think that we did. We were both just too stubborn to admit it. Or too practical? Maybe we were too practical?
"Besides," I said, closing my eyes with a sigh, "you've made it perfectly obvious that you’re not interested in a relationship with someone like me."
Hex glanced sharply up at me, but he didn't say anything. He didn't have to. His silence was enough.
"Well," I said with another sigh, "all of the supplies have come in so … let's fix your dick."
I turned around and left through the purple curtain that separated the store from the consult room. I'd already set out all the supplies that we needed on the table, lit the candles, perfumed the air with incense.
It was quite the assortment of goods, and as I looked at them, my frustration turned into a raw, hot anger. If Hex hadn't stormed out the first time I’d met him, if he’d enough decency to hang around and put the order in for the red rose petals, then all of this could've been avoided. But … it was what it was. What could I do about it now?
Dick Face followed me into the room, taking a seat on the chaise and doing his own survey of the supplies. Even though it was hard for me to be in the same room as him, at least I knew that today, I could fulfill my end of the bargain that we’d made. After this, the rest was up to him.
The kids were with my husbands, my little black dress was pressed, and my magic was raring to go.
"So …" Hex began, and I could hear the tension thick in his voice. He was as unhappy as I was. It was like neither of us wanted each other, and yet we couldn't seem to resist. Our magic called to one another, our bodies lusted after one another, and our souls were joined by an invisible red thread that Hex didn't even believe in. It was one of the most uncomfortable situations I have ever been in my entire life. Half of me wanted to murder the guy, and the other half wanted … No, I didn’t know what I wanted. "We're visiting Hael on Tuesday?" he asked it like we were visiting a winery or something. But this was the fucking demon realm, and my husbands and I were part of Coven Apothecary–we hunted demons for a living, and they hunted us right back.
“Yep.” It was all I could force myself to say. I didn’t want to make small-talk. Instead, I focused on working the spell as fast as possible.
I gathered up a jar of rose petals, uncorked them, and added them to a black granite mortar and pestle. With many spells, it didn't matter what material the mortar and pestle were made from, but for this one, it really did. Especially since I could find no spell signature on Hex’s cock. Honestly, at this point, I wasn't even sure he was spelled. But I wasn't about to bring that up to him. It didn't matter. The bargain we made, was for me to fix his dick, and that's exactly what I was going to do.
This spell I was working, it should get him up and running, whether he was afflicted with a spell, hex, curse … or even if he was having medical problems that he either didn't want to acknowledge or were difficult to diagnose. What I couldn't help him with, were psychological or emotional problems. I just hoped like hell it wasn't something like that …
"Do you want me to walk you through what I'm going to do?" I asked, trying to pretend like Hex wasn't my long-lost soulmate, like I hadn't kissed him in a pumpkin patch with the stars glowing above us, the smell of hay and apple cider in the air around us. No, I was going to sit here and wear the reality of my situation around my shoulders like a cloak. I was a thirty-two year old High Priestess from Coven Apothecary, and I had three husbands, and I had four kids under four, and here was a man sitting in front of me who was scared to death of the life I lived. Here was a man who had a fiancée, who enjoyed a life of motorcycles and one-night stands, and who–even if he were interested in my family–could not be a part of it because it would start a war.
I would not be responsible for starting a war.
"No," Hex said with a sigh, reaching up to rub at his temples. "Just … do your thing. I trust you." It was that last bit that really got me, that made my heart constrict, the possibility of what we could've been. The possibility of what we might've been in another life, in another time, in another place.
So, I sat there and I ground red rose petals into a paste with a little bit of ginger and a little bit of vanilla. I added this to a medium-size cauldron full of warm water. The spell I was working with was so specific, that the water I used had to be taken from a stream that met the mountains. There was one not too far from here, near this little hot springs getaway that my husbands and I sometimes visited when my sister could watch the kids. Luckily, every time we visited, we took back barrels full of the stuff. It was so pure that if a person were to drink too much of it, it would actually leach the minerals from their body.
While that continued to boil, I took the semen that I had collected from the last spell we worked. I hadn’t told Hex about it as I thought he might freak-out, but it was going to make this spell a hell of a lot easier, and a hell of a lot more effective. I'd kept it in the tissue where he’d, uh, deposited it. I flicked the whole thing into the cauldron before Hex could think to ask any questions about it.
The penis bone of a raccoon was next–I know, I know, but the raccoon really does have a bone in its penis called the baculum. This was crushed up with the blood of a virile male (for this, we used some of our dog’s blood) as well as the crushed antlers of a male deer during breeding season.
Hex watched me do all of the spellwork with a sort of detached facial expression. I couldn't decide if he wanted to be anywhere else but here, or if he wanted to be here and didn't feel like he should.
Brushing some red hair back from my face, I stirred the new mixture from my mortar and pestle into the cauldron and watched it change color from clear, to a brilliant, vibrant red.
"I need some of your hair," I said glancing over at Hex. He startled a bit, but he complied, taking the ceremonial dagger (aka an athame) from my hand, and slicing off a small chunk of his orange and black hair. "And I need a little blood …" I continued, grimacing slightly before I added, "and a teeny, tiny piece of skin from your–"
"Right. Of fucking course." Hex exhaled sharply, and held his wrist over the cauldron, creating a small slice in the tattooed flesh before massaging out a few ruby red droplets of blood. He then turned away from me, and I could hear him unbuttoning and unzipping his pants. After a moment of cursing under his breath, he turned back around looking a little paler, and put the tiny piece of skin into the cauldron.
The next part of the spell, I knew we were both going to hate. It required taking the chalice, traditionally the female symbol in witchcraft, and having a virile woman put a sample of her own blood, hair, and skin into it. Hex would then have to drink this mixture before taking the rest of the potion. If he were gay, we would use two athames, and add the other man's blood to the cauldron. But in this case, Dick Face was straight. Sigh. And since I had four kids … we all knew I was virile as fuck.
Without saying anything to Hex, I started to fill the chalice. I’d already taken a moment alone in the bathroom earlier to get that tiny piece of skin from my … well, you know, it had to be from the vagina, and it sucked. I added it together with some blood and hair, then poured in some of the mountain water, and handed it over to Hex.
"Drink that," I said, and before he could give me any attitude about it, I added, "look, I know it's weird, but if you ever want to get i
t up again, you’ll listen to me." I forced myself to smile at him, even though the emotion hurt somehow. "Besides, you said you trusted me."
It honestly bothered me when he didn’t retaliate with some stupid quip. Instead, Hex just downed the mixture without complaint, and handed the chalice back to me. I took it, and set it aside, before I met his beautiful orange eyes again.
He looked almost … defeated. It was bugging the shit out of me.
"You know you're going to have to open your pants?" I blurted, trying not to sound too breathy or husky when I did. Hex stared at me for the longest time, and when he did reach down for his pants, it was a slow, sensual motion that I could not take my eyes off of.
I found myself unconsciously flirting with him, running my tongue across my lower lip, reaching my hand up to touch my hair. I shifted uncomfortably on the chaise, wondering why I’d chosen to wear such a short, tight, black dress. I could feel it teasing my thighs at the same time I felt the rush of wet and warmth between them. My body seemed to shift and wiggle of its own accord, trying to escape the throbbing down below.
Hex bit his lower lip as he freed himself from his pants, and I was stupidly pleased to see that he was indeed erect again. It drove me nuts, but I couldn't help myself. I liked that he got hard only for me.
"Will this really work?" he asked finally, his eyes heavy-lidded, bedroom eyes. I didn't trust myself to speak, so instead, I nodded. And then I reached my hands out, and took his hot, hard, sweaty flesh between my palms. Hex’s eyes closed of their own accord, and he dropped his head back to rest on the chaise, a groan slipping from between his lips.
"Hecate, goddess, worlds above, join the consort with his love. Take his staff and make it straight, give him strength to procreate. Blessed be this man I quest, female power my behest." Warm red light took over my hands, magic seeping from my body and into his. Hex’s power called right back, moving up and out of him through his shaft and into my palms. Even though it wasn't professional, I found myself beginning to stroke him.
The Family Spells: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance Page 16
