Yep, just gobbled it right up.
Caine yanked me against his chest and held me in the shadows of a ghost tree. It had white bark, and three big knots on the front that resembled the howling face of a spirit. Its spindly, leafless limbs stretched up above us like it was reaching for help that would never come. I had to suppress a shudder as we huddled against its warm trunk, felt its breathing. You heard right: this tree was breathing.
Several demons swooped over the spot where we'd just been standing, looking for us.
"They wanted us to burn that corpse," Argent said, his voice low and almost inaudible above the storm. The foliage of the woods was so thick that there wasn't much moisture making it through the red, yellow, and orange canopy, but every now and again I felt the uncomfortable plop of a hot raindrop on my nose, like a tear. It even tasted salty.
"This is all the fault of your fuckin' coven," Caine said, pointing at Hex. The demon-witch rustled his wings, and flicked his long tail, but he didn't say anything. There was an uncomfortable sort of expression on his face though, like maybe he wasn't entirely sure if this was his fault or not.
"It's possible Violet could've … arranged something," Hex admitted, running a tattooed hand down his face. He closed his eyes so tight, I could see the creases in the dark liner he'd covered his eyelids with. "I told her everything last night: about the sex, and about Samhain. Seems a bit extreme though, to try to kill us, don't you think?"
"Don't ever underestimate a bridezilla," I said with a sigh, stepping away from the tree and listening to the forest crackle, breathe, and moan around me. It was a cacophony that some members of Coven Apothecary found hauntingly beautiful … and that the rest of us just found haunting. "Honestly, you know this could just be a coven issue?"
Caine scowled at me, but Spec was nodding, digging the handle of his scythe into the wet dirt beneath our feet. There were strange mushrooms everywhere, but not like cute spotted Wonderland style ones. These were severe and strange, with little bristles that gave rashes, or spores that burned the eyes. I made sure to stay well away from them.
"This is all about the Mother of Coven Apothecary, a woman who was cursed by some unknown entity with a spell signature so complicated, we can't even begin to trace it." Argent kept his gaze up toward the sky, watching as the demons circled. They clearly saw the corpse, but we were nowhere near it. It was only a matter of time before they broke through the tree line to start looking for us.
I took a few steps backward, and then turned, heading into the woods. I knew the guys would follow along behind me.
"So you do think this is connected to Mom's curse?" I asked Argent. His long, mint green hair was hanging loose down his back, one small piece braided in the front while the rest fluttered free in the warm breeze. He looked over at me with those beautiful gray eyes of his, and I could see the wheels and cogs behind them churning. He was thinking, but wherever that line of thinking was taking him … he really did think it came back to my mother. And since my mother was the Mother—this was coven business.
We moved on in silence for a while before Caine stopped abruptly. As a werewolf, he probably had the best hearing out of all of us. And I say probably because this was yet another one of our fun, healthy debates that we liked to have on a regular basis. Mostly because we liked to have makeup sex afterwards.
He just stood there, his furry wolf ears shifting into being on the top of his head, poking out of his shaggy, blonde hair.
"Oh." I grimaced and tapped at the pocket on my leather pants, wishing there were cell phones that worked in Hael. "I forgot to send the twins over with their turkeys."
"Their turkeys?" Hex asked, like I'd completely and utterly lost the plot.
"Like, these textured, fuzzy turkey-shaped dog toys. The twins are teething, and if they don't have their toys, they'll probably chew up one of my sister's fancy designer furniture pieces …"
"This is the shit you're thinking about while we're out here?" Hex asked, his orange eyes meeting mine and sparking with fear. I just stared back at him, and I knew in that moment that we were so wrong for each other—and so right at the same time. When he was inside of me, all I could see was Hex. He became my world, my everything. The only people I'd ever been around that did that to me were my husbands.
Hex was made to be mine, and yet … his personality couldn't be any more wrong for my family.
And my family came first.
This was one indulgence I was going to have to give up.
"You never stop being a mother, Hex, not even when you're in the fiery depths of Hael, hunting demons."
"Speaking of demons," Caine said, shifting into his tawny wolf form. I liked to describe his fur as a winter morning, when the sky is white with the promise of snow, but there's still a hint of gold as the sun tries to peek over the mountains. His clothes were now shredded, and for the rest of our duration in Hael, if he shifted back, he'd be naked.
That was okay with me though.
Seriously fucking okay.
A creature trotted around a thick copse of tightly-clustered birch, slime dripping from its brown-purple skin. It looked like it was rotting, its massive front teeth similar to a rodent's. It had small, shriveled arms, and big muscular legs with hooked talons on the end of its feet. I could sense its magic from here—it was at least a category four.
That would get us our bone dust, so long as we could kill it quietly.
The creature was clearly looking for food, not trouble, but when it swung its bulging eyes over to us, I could see a thick, cloud of white flies descend, landing on its slick skin.
"Caine," Spectre said, and my wolf-hubby snarled, drawing the demon's focus. It let out a small scream, sending the white flies scattering. When it charged, it went right for Caine, as planned. The guys had gotten good at fighting together over the years, and Spec knew exactly what to do.
Hex watched as the vampire stepped up behind the demon and severed its head with his scythe, dropping the wet, slimy skull to the wet earth beneath our feet. Spec swung his blade into the skull, and lifted it up. No point in risking touching it with his hands, not when we didn't know what the fuck that slime might be.
"We'll burn this later," Spectre said, the warm breeze ruffling up his hair. He shivered, but not from cold. This place was just creepy as all get out. "Although I don't like how easily we stumbled on this guy either."
"Agreed. Let's find this goddess-fucked tree and get the hell out of here," Argent said, as a birch tree blinked about a dozen eyes at me. Back in our world, birch tree knots were just that, just marks on the white bark. Here, they were fucking eyeballs.
"What exactly does it look like?" Hex asked, and I noticed his white horns had developed orange stripes that swirled up to the top, making them look like lollipops. I almost wanted to lick one. Almost. But then I remembered Hex running out of my shop like it was on fire.
No.
No, I did not want to lick him.
"The tree we're looking for has big clusters of hanging fruit that look like cherries," I said as we wandered past more clumps of those creepy mushrooms. The smell of the head stuck on Spectre's staff was making me feel nauseous. "But if you touch them, they sort of … explode."
"Sounds promising," Hex replied, stretching his wings wide and then snapping them closed, like he was embarrassed and hadn't really meant to draw attention to them. His tail was long and thin, with a little spade shape on the end. I wondered if it were sharp? "All I have to say is thank fuck I wasn't born down here."
He reached up to his shoulder, like he intended on petting Con. But both of our familiars had been left at home, giving us an unbreakable lifeline outside of this world. It was far too dangerous to bring them down here, and they were far more useful up there anyway.
I could communicate with Bast, no matter where I was. If I needed a way to send a message home, I had it. I very nearly considered messaging about the turkeys, but I didn’t want to send u
p a false alarm by sending a useless message.
"There are better areas," Argent said, looking up at the thick clusters of leaves clinging to the spindly branches. "This is … how should I put it, a bad neighborhood."
Hex sighed, and ruffled up his hair, closing his eyes for a moment. He almost stepped on a cluster of mushrooms, and I reached out on instinct, grabbing at the hard muscles in his upper arm. Hats and cats, that's nice. I let go when his eyes flicked open, and we ended up staring at one another.
Hex opened his mouth as if he were about to say something, but thought better of it. I didn't have the energy to press him, so I turned back to the woods and followed after my husbands.
We walked on in silence—not a bad survival tool, to be honest—and I occupied my busy mind by going over details for my mother’s spell.
Tomorrow was Samhain; tomorrow was Halloween, and it was our one and only chance to save Abigail’s life. By trusting Hex, I’d put her fate in his hands. While I knew Coven Northbank was on standby, my coven–and my mother–would never forgive me if this went wrong.
That is, if my mother even lived to be disappointed in me.
I sighed, and walked closer to Caine, burying my fingers in his tawny fur. Being able to touch him like that, it soothed me—at least for a little while. But after a few hours, I started to notice something.
"There are a lot of stumps here," I began, taking note of what had to be at least the fourth one within the span of a single hour. I stopped walking, and the charms on my hat tinkled merrily, the only beautiful sound in those woods. There were no birds, no frogs, no insects, just the wailing, and crying of the trees.
"You’ve got a good point,” Argent said, moving over to touch the rough edges of one of the stumps. There was blood on it, but I wasn’t concerned—trees bled here in Hael, just like everything else. The fae prince lifted wet fingers up and rubbed the tips together, smearing red across his hands. “It seems fairly fresh, too.”
“Clearly someone knows what we’re after down here,” Spectre started as Caine let out a snarl. “Even though the ingredients in that spell are Coven Apothecary secrets.” He turned a look on Hex that could kill, his lavender eyes flashing.
“You didn’t tell me what we were after down here until just fucking now,” the demon-witch snapped, thrashing his tail in frustration. “How the hell was I supposed to spill secrets I didn’t know?”
Spectre just scowled and looked away, but I noticed that his fingers clamped down tight on the handle of his scythe. More than likely, he was daydreaming about cutting Hex’s head off with it.
“I’m not the fucking Witch Queen,” Hex murmured, rubbing at his face and referencing an old fairytale that every witch child knew, about a witch who’d rise up and unite the fractured covens. It was stupid, fantastical nonsense, but it was a fun story. “I don’t have prophetic visions, and I can’t read minds.”
“Whatever.” Spec ignored him as we continued on through the woods, the clouds moving across the unbroken red of the sky. It was nearly impossible to tell how long we’d been down here, but I didn’t like that it’d already been hours.
“There are reaping willows everywhere, and they just happen to be the only trees cut down in the entire forest?” I asked, wondering if we should turn back. But if we did, Abigail was gone. There was no alternative to this ingredient. Coven Northbank had their own version of a spell to break the curse, with completely different ingredients.
I was starting to wonder if I should just send the go-head to Bast.
It would mean losing the houses and the shops, leaving our entire coven broke and homeless, but my mother’s life was worth more than all of that.
Shit.
Why the hell had I even thought I could do this in the first place?
“Hey,” Hex said, drawing my attention over to him. “You look like you’re about to have a panic attack.”
“I’m a High Priestess,” I said with a forced smile. Really, the last thing I wanted to be doing was smiling at Hex Sorciere. He was like this ripe fruit, dangling just above me. I could see him, smell him, almost taste him … but I couldn’t reach. Not even close. “I always look like this.”
He nodded, but he didn’t seem convinced. I noticed he kept staring at me out of the corner of his eye, like there was something he wanted to say, but didn’t know how.
“What did your fiancée do when you told her?” I asked, not sure if I even really wanted an answer to that question. Argent made a sound in his throat, like he was disgusted. I could see his wings, glittering in the design on his back. If he wanted to, he could release the glamour and open them wide. They were impressive as fuck, but also deadly—poisonous to anyone that hadn’t mated with him.
Yep.
The only people in the world that were immune were myself, Spectre, and Caine. The dust from those wings could take down an entire army of lesser demons. Argent often lamented how dangerous they were, as it was nearly impossible for him to use them. And a winged creature always knew when he’d been clipped.
“I told her we’d had sex, that I was leaving after the wedding … and that I didn’t love her.” He looked over at me with his gorgeous eyes, and I found myself tongue-tied. Shocking development since I often had trouble keeping my mouth shut. “She told me to get out. I have no idea what happened after that. She won’t answer my messages, and my grandmother—Lulu—she hasn’t said a word.” Hex shrugged, and ran his fingers through his hair. “I’m guessing we’re just going through with the wedding as planned. What else are we going to do? What Violet and I want doesn’t matter; this arrangement has been in place between her cabal and my coven for centuries.”
I faced forward again, tucking the tips of my fingers into my pockets and trying not to think too hard about that. See, I knew I shouldn’t have asked. What satisfaction was that answer going to give me? None.
Instead, all I felt was this well of angst that surged up and took over my chest. I was worried about mom, worried about these damn trees, and now I was worried about Hex. My anxiety levels were through the roof.
A few minutes later, Hex stopped dead in his tracks, orange wings flying wide.
“Wait,” he whispered, and the rest of us slowed down, stopped. I turned to face him as he scented the air, looking confused as hell.
“What is it?” I asked, but Hex just shook his head like he didn’t trust his own instincts.
“Probably nothing. I think this place is messing with me.”
“Messing with you how?” Argent clarified, his hair whipping around his face in a gust of warm wind. “Whatever it is, spill it. I don’t have time for games.”
Hex ran his tongue over his lower lip in annoyance, and shook his head. I noticed him reaching up to play with one of his horns, like he was surprised it was even there in the first place.
“I thought I smelled my grandmother’s spell signature, that’s all. But there’s no way, not down here.” Hex exhaled and started moving again, taking up the lead as he wove us through the trees, past several more stumps. The rest of us plodded along, but I didn’t know how much further I wanted to go.
The trees being cut down, that was no accident.
I think at this point, we all knew we weren’t going to find what we needed here. I was almost tempted to go back and follow the jack-o’-lantern trail, just to see who was up to this bullshit, when we came through a tangled bit of foliage and found a lone reaping willow, bent at the trunk and dripping with fruit.
Argent was the first to stop walking, reaching out to grab Hex’s arm.
“This isn’t right,” he said, putting words to the uneasy feeling inside of me. “Fuck, we should’ve turned back an hour ago.”
Hex was silent, staring at the tree with that same level of confusion as before. I looked from him to Argent, down to Caine, and then back to Spec. The vampire and I exchanged a long look.
“No, it’s not,” I said, turning back to the tree. All we needed was a bit of bark. That�
�s it. And even though I knew this was a trap, I was tempted to risk it.
Tempted.
But not stupid enough to do so.
“What’s the matter with you now?” Spectre snapped at Hex, but the demon-witch just kept staring, inhaling and then exhaling sharply like he was scenting for something.
Didn’t matter though.
This world played tricks on the mind, but I wouldn’t let it distract any of us. I was High Priestess, and I was making an executive decision.
“I’m going to contact Bastet and have her give the go-head to hire Coven Northbank.” I sighed, tasting failure on my lips. But this was the right decision: I knew it was. Argent turned to look at me, giving a slight nod. If he agreed with my decision, then it was the right one to make. “Let’s turn around and go. No way am I stepping a single foot closer to that tree.”
“Why not?” a voice purred, the Lucullan silk of it giving me chills.
Nearly gave me a heart attack, too, when I spun and spotted a man I hadn’t seen since I was eighteen years old.
A demon—a full-blooded one—stood right next to the reaping willow, his palm flat against the silvery bark. His skin was as black as ebony, almost colorless. And his hair was white as snow. His eyes though, that piercing copper, they used to make me swoon.
“Gods-damn it,” Argent sneered, giving the newcomer a scathing look. “What the fuck do you want?”
I just gaped at the man, a demon named Monster. Yes, quite literally, his name was Monster. He’d seduced me as a naive sixteen-year old girl, and he’d kept me playing his games until I turned eighteen. Seeing him standing there only confirmed that we were in some serious trouble.
“Do you want the bark of this tree or not?” he asked me, ignoring Argent, Hex, Caine, and Spectre. They may as well not even been standing there.
“You did this?” I asked, my voice as cold as ice as I pointed to a nearby stump. Time felt suddenly short, and I knew I needed to get a hold of Bast ASAP.
Hey, go ahead and tell Dad to move forward with Coven Northbank, I said, using my telepathic connection with my familiar to send a message across worlds. She didn’t get back to me right away, but I wasn’t surprised. Probably busy hunting rats. She’d get it done for me though; I trusted her.
The Family Spells: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance Page 19
