Page 25 of Hexy Beast

Oh, honey, a direct attack is not my style at all.

“Not an option,” he says, “especially not with that stunt your sister pulled with the spell book.”

I flop back, sending a few pillows flying off the bed, and let out a huge sigh. “What, you’re going to take it personally that she got one over on you?”

I feel the vibration of his footsteps as he marches over to the edge of the bed. It isn’t that he’s stomping or anything like that; it’s just I can tell when he’s getting closer. My body knows.

Yes, I realize that sounds all fated mate-y (if you believe that stuff, which I don’t), but that’s not how I mean it. Maybe I’m super observant or something—and it took my whole life up until this moment for this skill to kick in. Well, listen, my sister Tilda went from having no witchy power for her entire life to being the strongest witch for the past several generations recently, so things like that can happen.

And if you keep reminding yourself of that, maybe you won’t feel like such a big liar.

Yeah, that little voice of doubt in my head can shut right up.

“No, I’m not taking it personally,” Darius says, looking down at me from the opposite side of the massive mattress, “but you might take it personally when Nikos gets the votes to ransom you off to the highest bidder to make up for the loss in income to the pack.”

“I thought you were the alpha,” I say because it is a very logical point and not because I’m distracted by the way his biceps look when he crosses his arms like that so it’s the first thought through my brain.

“I am the alpha,” he says, totally unbothered by what others surely would have taken as a challenge. “But this isn’t a dictatorship. When it comes to things that can have a massively detrimental impact on the entire pack, we come to a consensus.”

That makes sense with what I’ve seen so far of Darius and his pack. I haven’t spent a ton of time around werewolves (every pack pretty much despises witches as spoiled know-it-alls), but it’s usually all about brawn over anything else. Even a hint at disagreeing with the alpha gets smacked down—usually literally—immediately. The Aetos pack is different.

“You’re a new kind of alpha, huh?” I say.

He rubs his hand over the back of his neck, the move nudging the collar of his T-shirt around and revealing a glimpse at the complicated multicolored tattoo climbing up from his shoulders and chest. “I’ve seen how it works the other way, so yeah, I guess I am.”

“So, what does that have to do with us getting married?”

He lets out a sigh and sits down nowhere near me, because this bed could sleep a half a billion. I roll over and prop my head up in my hand to get a better look at him as he takes his time deciding what to say next. Does that move me a person’s-width closer to him? Yes, it does, and I’m not sorry about that. The seams of the man’s jeans are fighting to keep it together around his tree-trunk-thick thighs, and I wanna be there if they lose.

“If we’re married, then you’re part of the pack, and you won’t end up in one of the Council’s holding cells—or worse—because they were willing to pony up the most money.”

I lift an eyebrow. “Are you under the impression the Sherwoods don’t have bank?”

“Oh, I know you’re just a poor, bored little rich girl who has to entertain herself by doing dumb shit on social media, but the Council doesn’t just have bank,” he says, his tone as neutral as his words are damning. “They are the bank.”

Ouch.

Not at the bank thing, that’s whatever, but at the poor-bored-little-rich-girl part.

I am more than just my social media. And yes, fine, most of my life plans center around others, like being the best eccentric aunt ever to my sisters’ future kids, but that doesn’t make me less than anyone else. It just means I’m living for the day. I’m not worried about tomorrow because what’s someone like me ever going to do about that? I’m not the heir. The family magic took one look at me and knew better.

Even I can’t argue with that.

I am the Sherwood exception that proves the rule.

My sisters all have their purposes. Tilda is the once-in-several-generations magical talent. Leona is the heir to the family magic and head witch in charge. Bea can see into the future, even if interpreting it is a whole other story. Juniper is an expert on rare magic and the smartest of us all, even if she does have a bad habit of cheating at Scrabble because no one wants to challenge the arcane words she uses and therefore she plays that to her advantage.

And me?

I make silly videos on WitchyGram.

Really, if the Council is going to throw one of the Sherwood sisters into a deep, dark, and dank cell, I’d be the best one to sideline in our fight against those fascist assholes.

Determined not to show Darius that he scratched my soft underbelly with his comment about social media, I shoot him a grin. “Are you a follower? Do you subscribe to my profile or just hate-watch when it comes across your timeline?”

He waves me off. “Not the point.”

“Ooooh.” I scooch a little closer. “I’m totally leaning toward subscriber, but under a private alt account like Snarls McGee or Sir Growlishious.”