Page 50 of Hexy Beast

There’s one thing everyone should know about embracing change. Everyone wants you to do it until you actually do.

Then they’re all “let’s think this over” and “you’re acting so different.”

I get it.

I do.

However, letting my wolf be in the driver’s seat of the what, when, and how of my decisions and actions is all about throwing the slow and deliberate out the window. It’s acting on instinct. It’s going left when the trail goes right. It’s going full speed in the dark without your headlights on. It’s all about doing exactly what you want at the exact moment you want it.

That can be a lot for some folks.

Case in point? Effie the chaos witch, who I’m realizing isn’t as impulsive as she is mind-breakingly fast at brain processing. She’s looking at me like I’m a few cards short of a full deck.

“What in the fuck are you doing, Darius?” she asks, stopping a few steps short of where the rushing river drops off into nothingness and becomes a waterfall.

I shoot her an adrenaline-fueled grin that I know will get completely under her suddenly tight skin. “Exactly what you told me to do.”

I can’t see the spray carried up behind me by the fall breeze from the waterfall, but I can feel it, and I love how even though she’s farther back from the edge than I am, it’s turning Effie’s lush waves into tight curls. She has the pinched look around her mouth of someone fighting not to call someone else a dumbass, and her nose is all scrunched up with worried frustration.

“I said you should let your wolf loose and use your instincts freely to get back to Arcadia,” she tells me, her gaze on me, but her attention still seemingly on the long drop between us and the river’s surface. “I never said anything about cliff diving.”

“And my wolf is exactly who I’m listening to,” I say.

“About damn time,” my wolf grumbles inside my head.

“Yeah, can it, furball,” I shoot back. “You’re simply out on parole, that’s all. This isn’t permanent.”

He lets out a growly harrumph. Whatever. This is a test run, a pilot program, not a permanent change, no matter what I’m letting Effie believe right now.

“The woods will let us out when they decide to,” I say to Effie before taking another step closer to the edge. “And anyway, we aren’t exactly seventy feet up in the air here. It’s what, thirty feet? Maybe thirty-five? So, about the height of an Olympic diving platform.”

“Yeah,” she scoffs as she crosses her arms. “There’s just one problem with that logic.”

There are a million problems with what we’re doing. The woods have a well-worn path that we should be sticking to, and yet here we are on a side quest that’s about nothing except the thrill of it. But I’ve committed to this, and I’m not turning back now.

“What’s the problem?”

“I,” she says, doing a whole ta-da motion with her hands over her body, “am not an Olympian.”

I slowly take her in, my gaze going over every wave in her hair, every curve of her body, every inch of her it’ll take years and years to memorize.

“No, you’re not. You’re Effie Fucking Sherwood.” I hold out my hand and give her a wink. “Now, let’s jump.”

She doesn’t move, and for a second, I think I’ve overplayed my hand, but then she smiles and shakes her head.

“No magic?” she asks as she walks toward me.

“No magic. Just instinct.”

“This is unhinged,” she says with a chuckle before stopping next to me and looking over the edge at all the open air beneath us.

I shrug. “Probably, but you have to admit it’s fun.”

She gives me a look that says she can’t decide whether to laugh or yell at me, but she takes my hand. I don’t give either of us the opportunity to have second thoughts. I just follow my wolf’s instinct right over the waterfall’s edge.

For a second, all I can feel is Effie’s hand in mine and an electric blast of pure what-the-fuck-have-I-done.

My heart is going faster than my motorcycle on a straightaway. Adrenaline is blasting through my veins like a geyser with no off valve. And then I realize I’m sailing through the air, almost flying but more falling, and it feels fucking great.