Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Epilogue
ALL MY EXES DIE FROM HEXES
BOOK THREE
KILLIAN MCRAE
Table of Contents
Title Page
Hex Goddess (All My Exes Die From Hexes, #3)
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Epilogue
About the Author
OTHER TITLES
Author’s note: This book was previously released as With God Intentions, part of The Pure Souls Series. Other than minor editorial updates, it is largely the same book. The author wishes to make sure that they who purchased or read the previous iteration of this book are aware, and decide whether or not to proceed with that understanding.
Prologue
Nothing cut the horizon so beautifully as Clare’s silhouette, ringed in moonlight, framed by the open French doors. The onyx pool of the inky Olympian firmament was the only thing that hugged her curves as perfectly as he did. Goddess in grief, he was a lucky man. Well, lucky half-man, though Dionysius Zitka would have told you that being half-nephilim came with some major bene. Bedroom performance, for example. A maestro of his wife’s body, Dee could conduct Clare through a four-part symphony of sensuality, leading to a crescendo that would have made Mozart shudder.
“You’re up again.”
The sleek bombshell drew her arms over her chest and turned to meet her husband’s half-drunken expression. The curvature of her abdomen was more noticeable at that angle, and it made his chest swell with pride. He never expected pregnancy to look so damned good on a woman.
Clare’s shock ebbed as she noticed that she wasn’t the only one “up.” With a lithe step, she lifted one of the diaphanous curtains from the breeze and modestly covered her body.
“What’s the shy act for?” he asked, hitching himself up on his elbow. “There’s no part of that feisty frame of yours foreign to my eyes. Or my hands. Or my mouth.”
Clare let the curtain and her anxiety fall away. She placed herself at the foot of their bed and turned the other cheek to him, pointing a long finger at the juncture of her back and hip.
“This spot? This one right here? You never tasted it. I really think you should remedy that or I’m calling liar.”
Damn. He both loved and hated how lovemaking intoxicated him. Not as bad as a full-blooded nephilim, but the three hours they’d put in earlier in the night left him unconscious. Luckily, hangovers weren’t part of the package, and he was more than comfortable with the thought of drinking Clare to excess. As he reared up and pulled her down on top of him faster than her mortal body could comprehend, he decided he’d be okay overdosing on her anytime.
“Aren’t you playful?” she giggled, already positioning herself over him in a way that had him saluting Saturn.
“With you? Always.”
As they lay in the aftermath of their ecstasy, the world silenced, and their heartbeats slowed, keeping time with each other. Moments from nodding off, he felt Clare’s body tensing.
“Baby, you’re not nephilim. I can’t read your thoughts.” His finger pulled her chin up, bringing their gazes together. “If there’s something bothering you, you actually have to tell me.”
She nodded. “That’s it. That’s what’s bothering me.”
His face screwed up in confusion. “What?”
“That,” she said. “I’m not nephilim. Not even half-nephilim.”
“You’re not going to go off about that whole aging at different rates thing again, are you?”
“No, but since you brought it up...”
Dee sighed as he rolled on his back.
“Facts are facts, Dio. I’m already thirty-nine. On your most ragged days, you’d have problems passing for even thirty.” She sighed, her body falling further into the mattress. “I’m too old for you.”
“But I’m older than you are!” he retorted. “I was never great at math, but I think it’s literally impossible for you to catch up and overtake me.”
Rolling over, she pulled the sheet over her breasts, which he’d much rather have covered with his mouth. “You know what I mean though. It’s already happening. I hear what other people say when they see us together in public. The nice ones call me a cougar. The rest, a cradle-robber.”
“You know I don’t give a fuck about what other people say. And you shouldn’t either. I love you beyond your body. Not that I don’t love your body. But I’m going to love this body of yours, and the heart inside it, when it’s forty, fifty, sixty... I could keep going, but I think you get my point.”
“I know.” She sat up on the edge of the bed, running her palms over the bump of her belly. “But what would people say when a gray and wrinkly thing gets called ‘Mom’ by our quartergod child who looks young enough to be my grandson? And what about ten or twenty years from now when people start asking if you’re my son?”
“You’re going to tell them, proud as a peacock, that I’m your husband, and I personally deliver you the moon and stars each night, and ask them if they’re jealous, of course.”
She couldn’t help laughing, although soon, the echo of her happiness took on a bitter tone. Dee reached up and pulled her body into his. He smoothed back her hair, kissing her temple.
“It doesn’t matter to me. It will never matter to me what others think of us,” he said. “I’ll love you forever, no matter what you look like.” Inching out from behind her, he ran the back of his fingers down her arm. “No matter what this body becomes, I love the soul that it holds far more. But...�
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With wide eyes, she looked back over her shoulder at him.
“I can’t make promises, but maybe we can ask Michael if he knows anything that could slow down the aging process. The Bible talks about men living to be nine hundred. Finding a way to get you to the two-century mark can’t be that hard. And I can ask my dad, too. He’s been around since dirt was clean; maybe there’s something he can do.”
“Oh, I’m sure there’s a lot he can,” she said with a tinge of sarcasm. “He brags to me all the time about his abilities, telling me I married the wrong god.”
“That’s Zeus for you,” Dee agreed, relaxing into the mattress. Didn’t he know it? His father, the king of the Nephilim, wasn’t exactly known for his humility. “I guess what they say is true, it’s good to be king.”
She turned and placed a line of kisses over his chest. His desire stirred within, as it always did whenever she made the slightest indication towards him. Hell, sometimes a simple glance at him with just the right look in her eyes was enough to coax him into pinning her against a wall in the closest, private corner.
“I love you, Dio,” Clare said. Only she was allowed to use the double entendre nickname without getting sucker-punched. “I’m so lucky to have you.”
Her kisses followed a southerly path, and his body went into preparation mode. Sometimes, Dee thought the only thing better than having this woman in his life, was having a life with this woman. She meant everything to him.
“Luck is for leprechauns, babe. What we have is a blessing.”
Clare sighed, laying her head on his chest. “The Lord giveth, and He...”
Two fingers on her lips stopped that line of crazy. “If He tries to taketh away anything, believe me, Clare, He’ll have hell to pay.”
Chapter 1
“What the hell!?”
A lub-dub cadence drowned out his voice, even to his own ears. Dee’s eyes shot open, catching a flash of artificially blue hair while tasting an ashtray on his tongue. Caught by his eyes and the arms that lashed him down, he reacted just in time to save the wine glasses overhead from crashing onto his forehead.
The demigod retreated back to the bar. To his left, Chipper, his half-sister’s cerebus, protector and bouncer at The Grotto, analyzed him with suspicion. Did Dee actually pass out? How? He was a demigod; so it was nearly impossible to knock him on his ass. He couldn’t remember hooking up with any of the wedding guests; and even then, it would take an all-out orgy for him to get drunk enough off sex to pass out. Then what?
He closed his eyes and laboriously cleared his mind. The events of the evening came rushing back in a blur of angel feathers and demon blood. Dee held his breath and nodded at the bouncer.
“Just take it easy there, sir.” The kindness in Chipper’s voice lined up awkwardly with the strength he exerted while pinning Dee to the bar. He forgot how strong the sons of bitches were, having honed his wrestling skills by taking on the pups in his youth. “It’s okay. They’re gone.”
“Gone?” he swallowed. “But Riona... Is she...?”
“She’s safe.”
From behind the wall of muscle, an olive-skinned, black-haired, sleek figure maneuvered into view. His fellow pillar looked like hell, and that was saying a lot for someone who had recently immigrated from its southern border.
Jerry offered a hand, pulling Dee to his feet. “Michael knocked you unconscious, but I got Riona out, and Ramiel managed to drive away Michael and Marc and seal the portal.”
“Wait, what?” His fingertips drove into his pounding temples. “What do you mean, he drove them away? You didn’t slay Marc?”
The look in Ramiel’s eyes brought confusion. “Your other pillar there let him go.”
“Let him go?” Dee’s head snapped in Jerry’s direction. “Why in the hell did you do that?”
“I have my reasons. Are you okay?”
Dee put his body through the checklist. He was a little sore where his hip broke his fall. His jaw throbbed a bit, but he remembered taking a blow in the same spot. No serious injuries, as far as he could tell. Only...
“Why does my tongue taste like an ashtray?”
“Because I have a nicotine problem.” Molly’s cackling voice answered from across the bar.
Jerry’s expression went all-business. “Good, now get up; we have to get out of here. Standard operation procedure in Hell: dispatch a second squad to any undefined battle. I’m not sure I got the strength right now to take on a demon. My magic might be as weak as yours.”
“Gee, thanks for the pick-me-up, Jer.”
“I’m not trying to put you down,” Jerry explained. “Besides, without Riona nearby, both of us are just weaker.” His eyes traced over the biceps that almost split open the arms of Dee’s suit jacket. “Magically speaking, I mean.”
Sliding off the bar, Dee tested his balance. “Chipper, will you and your boys have any problems if we take off and demons come sniffing around?”
The cerebus coughed a laugh. “We have our ways of dealing with them. Dead or not, no one likes to be mauled and quartered by supernaturally large dogs.”
Jerry pulled in closer to Dee. “What about Molly? We can’t leave her here.”
“You think any demon would want to mess with her? They already live in Hell, Jerry, isn’t that punishment enough?”
They could barely see Molly’s mouth move through the wall of smoke she exhaled around her. “Screws may be loose, lover, but I got as much wrong with my ears as you have with your ass.”
Dee bristled. He hadn’t put so many hours into free weights for nothing. “What’s wrong with my ass?”
A shower of ash arced from her cigarette. “Exactly my point.”
“Don’t sell her short. She’s still witch enough to give any demon a run for its money,” Jerry continued.
“Molly a...?” Dee’s voice died mid-sentence. “That’s news to me.”
“It might be news to her, too. I’m not the only one who played with her memories throughout the years. Her mind is like a Jackson Pollock painting. She might not even have Alzheimer’s. Probably just a lot of gaps from different charms.”
“But what makes you think she’s a witch?”
“What? Besides her getting it together long enough to tell me?” Jerry asked. “Michael’s not stupid. If he’s been planning this for years, he would certainly try to give his progeny every possible advantage. He’d have chosen a witch as the mother.” Jerry looked off into space. “He couldn’t find someone with a bit more motherly instinct, though?”
“Victims are easier to manipulate,” Dee suggested. “A woman raised by a bad mother would dream about a father coming to save her.” Plus, it would take one hell of a human to raise a half-angel child without getting fried to a crisp along the way. With a huff, Dee grabbed one of the whiskey bottles from behind the bar and popped it open. “His options would have been pretty slim too. The wiccan bloodlines are becoming scarcer. Last few centuries, too many die before we had a chance to start a family. Evil’s had a good run.”
“But you’re not from a wiccan bloodline,” Jerry argued.
Dee shrugged. “Guess I’m one of those freak cases. Even the archangels have no idea why I was called. It must have been one of Big Boss’s rare mistakes.”
“Like shit,” Jerry said. “If you never became a Pure Soul, you’d never have met Clare.”
The shattering whiskey bottle sprayed glass over the counter, tinkling when a few pieces fell to the floor. Dee shot a whole Walmart display case full of daggers at the former demon.
“If I were never a Pure Soul, she’d never have died.”
“Well, of course, she would have. She was human.”
If not for Ramiel sensing that Dee was only one more stupid comment away from lashing out, everyone was about to have a free Bloody Jerry, compliments of the house.
“Gentlemen, can we focus?” The angel inserted himself between the fuming demigod and the huffing ex-demon. “There is a time to every purpose
under Heaven, which includes, somewhere in the schedule, time to kick Jerry’s ass for being an insensitive dolt. For now, we need to take action. I should check in, and tell the council what happened. I’m also going to stop and see Riona, wherever she is. Let her know you guys are on the way so she doesn’t go apeshit.”
“Hold on there, chief.” Jerry reached across and fisted Ramiel’s necktie, keeping the angel anchored in the mortal plane. “You don’t want to go where she is.”
“Unless she’s enrolled at clown school, we’re good,” Ramiel answered. “An archangel can enter any realm.”
“There’s a distinct difference between can and should,” Jerry advised. “There’s one realm that even archangels should avoid, because they’ll be lit up like a firecracker if they come uninvited, not to mention scaring all the locals to Kingdom Come.”
Reality punched Dee in the gut. This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening. He blanched, and his mouth went guppy.
“Please tell me that there’s another realm than the one you better not be talking about.” The demigod waited a moment, visibly filled with hope, only to sigh it out with frustration. “Riona is at my dad’s?”
“She’s not at Zeus’ palace exactly,” Jerry countered. “Don’t worry. I worked it all out in advance. I asked Persephone if she’d sponsor us, and let us hide out until someone got the scratch on Marc’s demon’s disposition, after he arose.”
Ramiel rolled his eyes as he pulled back. “I know I can’t sleep like humans, but maybe this will somehow turn out to be a bad dream. Look, you boys play nice while I go talk to the principal, okay? And Jerry, you’re so going to owe me an explanation for how you stumbled onto a charm for porting. That’s forbidden info that only angels are supposed to know.” As he dematerialized, Dee swore he heard him grumbling, “God damned gnosis demons.”
Dee was too focused on the subject at hand to be distracted. “So Riona’s with Persephone and, by extension, my dickhead uncle. Oh, yeah, that’s way better.” Dee’s eyes met the floor as he shook his head. “Your sexy, half-angel wife is alone in the den of debauchery, with a genetically perfected and sexually accomplished nephilim who doesn’t give a gryphon’s left toenail whether or not she’s married, and capable of seducing the most pledge break-driven, PBS news anchor.”
Hex Goddess (All My Exes Die from Hexes Book 3) Page 1
