Page 28 of Hexy Beast

No matter that she smells like the first honeysuckle blooms of spring or that her skin is so soft, her curves so full, or her ass so perfectly round and smackable. Trouble trails after Effie Sherwood like the scent of a pie fresh out of the oven.

“Which is exactly why we should give her a naughty nibble,” my wolf says.

“Do I need to lock you up again for you to shut up?” I stride across the park toward where a third of the pack is gathered. “Really, what in the fuck were you thinking with that whole ‘on my knees’ comment?

“Do you need me to go into graphic description, or would a quick overview do the trick?”

“You’re a real asshole, Wolf.”

“Oh, you’re gonna make me cry if you keep talking like that. Now there’s that brainless wonder, Nikos, in the gazebo. I’m looking forward to taking another swing at him.”

On this, my wolf and I are aligned. Giving in and going with my wild side with that punch felt as good as stepping on the first leaves during the first full moon in the fall and feeling them crunch under my paws. Crisp. Refreshing. And oh so enjoyable. I can understand why my father and the other alphas in my family let their wolves run free. It feels fucking fantastic.

“That’s not how this is going to go down,” I tell him.

My wolf lets out a snort of disapproval. “What, you’re going to logic Nikos into submission?”

There’s no point in answering him, so I don’t. Instead, I finish the walk across the park to the gazebo where the pack is gathered.

The automatic lights are beginning to click on as the sun starts to lower on the other side of the mountain. Dusk comes early and fast in autumn in the Arcadia Valley, which is why it tends to be the pack’s favorite time of year. It’s finally cool enough that we can change form and run through the woods without overheating, but not so cold that frost clings to our fur.

Usually, the gloaming as the full moon approaches is when everyone is loosest and the line between our forms feels like more of a suggestion than a physical fact. Tonight, however, the tension in the air has everyone on edge. Artemis is sitting in her chair in the middle of the gazebo. She stops rocking as I approach the stairs.

“Where’s your bride-to-be?” Artemis asks, her gaze sliding over to Nikos sitting on the gazebo banister as if she’s just waiting for him to start shit (as if there’s a chance in Witchingdom that he isn’t about to anyway).

“She’s coming,” I say as I climb the steps, making sure to keep my expression neutral even as my wolf’s hackles rise. “It’s not like she can stay away.”

I haven’t figured out the exact limit of how much physical distance there can be between us, but I have to be approaching it. Maybe if I can drill down on the line of separation, I can figure out why it exists in the first place.

“You already know,” my wolf says. “She’s our mate.”

I ignore him. Again.

Artemis nods as if having a witch metaphysically glued to my hip is perfectly normal. “So the ceremony will be at full nightfall.”

“This is bullshit,” Nikos says as he drops down from the banister and crosses over to where I’m standing, giving his back to Artemis. “The witch is not his fated mate.”

Like a broken clock, even Nikos is right twice a day—but he still needs to shut the fuck up and show Aunt Artemis some respect. The pack may have voted him in as my second-in-command, but the Fates have picked Artemis to receive the moon’s messages. That isn’t something to be an asshole about, even if we agree that Effie isn’t my fated mate.

“And you’re the pack oracle all of a sudden?” I get right in Nikos’s face and let my wolf dance close to the surface so there’s no way he can miss it. “The moon talks through you now?”

That shuts him up, no doubt because he knows that unless he holds a lot more power than he has now, neither I nor Artemis are wolves he should mess with.

Nikos is a dumbass, but he’s a survivor, I’ll give him that.

The air shifts around me, and my whole body revs up like every nerve has been injected with Nitro. It’s almost like those few seconds before I transform into my wolf. Instead of inhaling the scent of winter pine needles, wet wood, and cold, hard, dark soil, however, I’m hit with the scent of honeysuckle and that everything’s-fresh-and-new smell of running through the woods on a warm spring day. And then Effie appears, falling out of thin air above me, and I have a whole half a second to brace my legs and hold my arms out to catch her.

“This is really getting old,” she grumbles. “How come you never go snap, crackle, pop through time and space to me?”

I pull her close against my chest. “Because I’d squash you if you tried to catch me.”

“Sure, use the size card,” she says, rolling her eyes but unable to stop one side of her full mouth from curling up into a smile. “Speaking of catching, you can put me down now.”

“Why?” My wolf’s question comes out before I have a chance to censor it, but it was my first thought as well.

“Because that one”—she tilts her head toward Nikos and raises her eyebrows—“looks like he’s willing to go through you to bury me.”

“Let him try,” I say with a low, snarling growl before my wolf even gets a chance to respond.