Page 20 of Hexy Beast

My wolf rattles the locks on his box.

Yeah, get in line, buddy.

It’s not like she hasn’t seen me without a shirt—hell, without anything on—before, but this is different. This time it’s my turn to torment her.

I reach behind my neck and yank my T-shirt off over my head. She bites down on her bottom lip. My wolf cracks the wood on that box of his in the abyss. And me? I run my hand down my hard abs like I’m brushing off the crumbs of a devoured strawberry rhubarb pie.

“Just can’t help yourself, can you?” Effie watches—not uninterestedly—as I round the rough-hewn picnic table and come over to the side where she and Artemis are sitting.

I give her a wink. “I thought I had some pie crust on me.”

She rolls her eyes. “You only had one bite.”

I eyeball her plate, but it’s not what I’m talking about when I tell her, “That can change.”

“Children,” Aunt Artemis interrupts with a warning look at both of us. The woman is in full oracle business mode and will not be fucked with. “This is serious. Sit down on the bench next to Effie with your back to us, Darius.”

I do, but not before I clock Effie giving me a thorough once-over.

“Effie, hold up your arm so I can see the freckles on the inside of your wrist lined up next to his tattoo so I can compare,” Artemis says. “That’s it, just like that. Don’t move.”

My chest tightens. There’s only one thing she could be trying to match up—and if the pattern does, it’ll mean Artemis just might be right about the fated mate thing. That’ll be a fucking disaster. Even worse, everyone at a nearby table has turned their full attention—and their shifter superior hearing—to us. Even if Artemis whispers—which has rarely ever happened in my life—they’re not about to miss what happens next.

Witches really are nothing but trouble.

As our pack’s oracle, Artemis relays prophecies that the pack alphas may or may not pay attention to—think don’t let the witch who floats in on the eastern wind into Arcadia or the whole pack will be cursed, advice which my great-great-grandfather did not follow. In addition, she gives each young pack member a tattoo when they turn fifteen, her hand guided by the universe. The tattoo is part rite of passage and part prediction of the future. She’s been telling me mine means there is a witch waiting for me for nearly twenty years.

The amount of shit I got when I walked out of her cabin on my birthday with the four-point heart of the Kardia constellation on my right shoulder. It was exactly the message from the universe a teenage boy does not want to get.

“One. Two. Three. Four.” Artemis counts the freckles on Effie’s wrist before clapping her hands together and letting out a quick howl of triumph. “That’s it—a perfect match with the birthmark on her wrist. I told you she was your fated mate. That’s why she keeps popping back to you like a rubber band being snapped.”

I turn on the bench to argue that there has to be another explanation in time to catch Artemis go into oracle mode. Her olive complexion takes on a pink glow, and a breeze that only exists for her sends her long silver hair tipped with pink flying out around her head.

Her eyes are open, but she’s looking at something far away when she speaks. “The heart witch rides in on winds of change, behold, beware, be ready.”

There’s a half beat of silence as the pack processes Aunt Artemis’s prophecy before Nikos’s shout breaks it.

“The fucking spell book,” he yells. “It’s gone!”

Unsurprisingly, that’s when absolute chaos erupts.

Chapter Eight

Effie…

And just like that, the barbecue goes from a pleasant late afternoon excursion in the park (unless you, like me, have been kidnapped) to snarling tension in a heartbeat.

No one goes full furry, but I am definitely hearing a lot of growls and a get her or two as the pack circles the table where Artemis and I are still sitting. Some people are starting to yell about having me for dinner, and I swear there are at least four distinct still-human-sounding rage howls that bounce off the mountains surrounding Arcadia.

No one is attacking—yet—but the air is crackling with animosity and barely reined-in fuck-you-ery.

Artemis keeps a hold of my hand, but she loses that otherworldly look in her eyes that she had a minute ago. She’d called me a heart witch, which is so very not me. Ask anyone. I’m not the soft and touchy type. Well, I am touchy, but definitely not in the sweet and adorable way.

Darius is still standing next to us, but he doesn’t glance our way as he drops his balled-up T-shirt onto the table. His hands are loose at his sides and his body’s relaxed, but there’s no disguising the power he’s holding in check. It’s like hearing the thunder after the lightning cracks and scares the crap out of you.

It is so fucking hot.

Yes, I know. I’m questioning myself right now too, but for someone used to being the most unhinged, unpredictable wild card in the room, this is a new experience.