Page 27 of Hexy Beast

Still, I can’t help but continue to tease this tightly wound version of Darius. “And what happens if you fall madly in love with me and can’t bear to see me go?”

He doesn’t snort, well, not exactly, but he makes some kind of huff of disbelief. “I won’t.”

This is clearly the best news, and the little pang in my chest where my hopeful heart would be if I had one is obviously indigestion from lunch. Though the pinch is annoyingly persistent—distractingly so.

That’s why instead of magicking the both of us out of Arcadia, I instead ask, “So until death do us part?”

This time he does snort.

“Not even close.” He glances back out through the blinds, still on alert, but some of the visible tension leaves his broad shoulders and his stance changes to a more relaxed one, as if it’s just us again. “A month should give me enough time to pull a plan together for another job and to execute it.”

Thirty days as an alpha wolf’s convenient wife and then back to my normal life? I can do that in my sleep. Plus, if the Council is distracted by trying to ransom me from the pack (because we both know Nikos is not the kind of werewolf to give up on that option), then that means their plans to gain control over Witchingdom will be delayed. Artemis isn’t right about fated mates, but maybe I am supposed to be here, maybe this is how I can help beyond being a WitchyGram fun-time girl.

Maybe I have a purpose after all.

And if I get some Darius-assisted orgasms along the way, then score one for the badass witches who enjoy a toe curler or twenty.

Recovered from my earlier clumsiness, I walk over to Darius, putting a little extra swing in my hips, which would have knocked him sideways if he’d actually been looking at me instead of out the window again.

“So,” I say, pulling his attention, “are you getting down on one knee now or in front of the rest of the pack?”

Something changes in his gaze as he looks at me, and a deliciously dangerous sensation licks at my skin, setting off a shiver of awareness that has me clenching my core.

“Effie,” he says, gazing at me as if he’s about to eat me up in the absolute best ways. “If I’m ever on my knees in front of you, it won’t be to propose and there won’t be an audience.”

Then, as if he hasn’t just dropped a whole sex fantasy bomb, he walks out the door.

I’m not sure whether I should be grateful or magick him right back so he can follow up on that promise.

Chapter Ten

Darius…

Walking out of the cabin to face off with Nikos and leaving Effie standing there with that perfect mouth of hers in an O of surprise would probably be the highlight of my day—maybe my week, because everything else is guaranteed to go to shit.

That doesn’t mean I should have uttered the words my wolf put in my mouth. Knowing Effie, the tempting little witch will take it as a challenge or a promise.

“Oh, it’s a promise, all right,” my wolf says in my head.

I ignore him—something I have a lot of practice with. The rest of the Aetos pack may get to indulge their inner wolf as much as they want, but as the alpha, I don’t. There’s too much on the line for me to listen to the horny furball with fangs. That’s why I only let him out under a full moon. With the next one being in a few days, he’s more obnoxious than usual after being kept shut up for so long.

I’m not sure if my wolf or Effie Sherwood is going to kill me first, but one of them is bound to put me in a pine box. Who knows, by the end of the month I might welcome it.

If Nikos doesn’t manage to turn the pack against me first.

Of course, the smart way to avoid that would be to ransom the sexy little witch off, not marry her—even if only temporarily.

“But we’re not gonna do that, because she’s ours,” my wolf says with a possessive growl.

“Fuck off, Sparky.”

“You do understand that I’m you, and you’re me, right?”

The furry fucker isn’t wrong, but that doesn’t mean I have to give in to the call of the wild like my father did and ignore everything except what his primal wolf side wanted. I can keep my wolf on a tight leash, rule with logic not instinct, and take care of my pack while the rest of Witchingdom goes to shit. Whatever it is that the witches are up to doesn’t involve us.

In short, fuck them witches.

But not literally.