Page 41 of Hexy Beast

“Come on,” he says as he turns away from me and starts walking. “We keep going.”

I lean my back against the tree with the red balloon. “No.”

Darius snaps back around, obviously unused to having his direct orders ignored. Well, too bad, so sad. I am not his fated mate or a member of his pack. I’m just his pseudo fiancée, and I’ve had enough of his attitude. And judging by the fact that his whole aura is sparking with pissed-off energy—so much so that there might actually be flames—he’s had enough of mine too.

Can alphas spontaneously combust? I sure hope not.

“You heard me,” I say, refusing to be intimidated by his alphaness (at least on the outside). “Just because last night happened doesn’t mean I’ll do whatever you say—especially when it’s completely illogical.”

He shoots me the smarmiest of smirks as he closes the distance between us. “Unlucky for you, then, because we both know as soon as I get far enough away from you, you’ll just sail through space and time to be right by my side.”

It’s all I can do not to scream in frustration. The absolute ego of this guy. “I can’t believe I fucked you last night.”

He lifts an arm so it’s pressed against the tree over my head. “And had multiple orgasms, don’t forget that part.”

Then he winks.

Winks!

I mean, what he said is true, yes, but that doesn’t mean he needs to actually say it out loud or sexy wink at me.

“I’m super responsive,” I tell him, wrapping whatever pride I have around me like a moth-eaten blanket. “I could climax right now if the wind blew a certain way. It wasn’t anything you did.”

He steps back and shrugs one shoulder. “Whatever you say, witch.”

Heat blasts through me as I do exactly what he wants—follow after him as he casually strolls through the clearing to yell at him some more—but I’m too mad to stop myself.

“You are the most egotis—”

Darius jolts to a stop. He curves an arm around me and sweeps me behind him, effectively shutting me up a second before I hear a twig snap to our left. His body goes scary still, as if he’s listening to something a witch can’t hear. There’s a rustle of leaves on the right, and then the birds in the trees directly in front of us take off in a rush. You don’t need shifter instincts to know something bad is coming.

Darius stands perfectly still except for the twitching his nose does as he sniffs the air and then lets out a seriously scary growl.

“Whatever happens,” he says, his voice low, “stay behind me.”

As if I’m some kind of damsel in distress.

Fuck that shit.

“Why would I do that?”

I feel more than I see him grit his teeth and quick count to twenty. “Because for once, you’re not going to do whatever you want to in the moment, and you are going to follow the rule of doing exactly what I say, when I say it.”

“That’s only gonna happen when we’re both naked and there are orgasms on the line,” I tell him as my magic builds inside of me in response to whatever shitstorm is coming.

Darius sniffs the air again as if to confirm something. “These guys who are coming aren’t from the Aetos pack.”

I have just enough time to register that the oh-shit level of this is not just bad but really, really bad, before a massive werewolf with long white-blond hair and a neck tattoo of the Council’s sigil bursts into the clearing.

Darius shifts his stance, going full protector mode, even as he lets out an I-will-destroy-you growl that comes from somewhere scary as fuck deep inside him.

If he only had to deal with one Council-sworn werewolf, that would be one thing, but there are at least a half dozen more lurking in the trees’ shadows. There’s no time to plan or talk over options.

A honeysuckle-scented burst of power flows up from some mystical place inside of me, and I wrap both of my arms around Darius from behind. Mentally centering my magic, I chant volare three times and then jump. The first leap takes us to the top of one of the pines. I pause just long enough to see the half dozen werewolves rush into the clearing where we’d stood a moment ago. Then, before Darius can launch into a whole “I’m an alpha. I can take care of myself” rant, I take the next leap.

You see, there’s a reason why we witches use brooms. We don’t fly like a bird or a magic carpet, but we can jump gracefully and really fucking far.

We bounce from the top of one pine tree to another until we’ve put enough of the woods between us and the Council werewolves that it’s safe to go back to ground level.