Page 68 of Hexy Beast

“Looks like you’ll be the one surrendering,” Kyle says, his voice as creaky and battered as the rest of him. “Because I’m not alone.”

“Oh yeah,” says an unfamiliar woman’s voice behind me. “Well, neither is Effie.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Effie…

I’d know that snarky alto voice anywhere. I turn around and spot two of my sisters.

Juniper is standing there, a sweet smile on her face, her freckles highlighted by some glitter magic and her strawberry-blond hair pulled back into a bouncy high ponytail. She’s in head to toe pink with a splash of bright yellow here and there for contrast. Her hot pink cat eyeglasses—necessary because of all the time she spends reading the cramped, twisty text of old and forgotten spell books—hang from a gold chain around her neck. Most people look at Juniper and all they see is a naive nerd, but there’s steel underneath all the cotton candy fluff.

Bea, on the other hand, has, per usual, matched her sky-high heels to the color of the eye patch covering her left eye (today’s color is teal). Her deep red hair falls in glamour waves to the middle of her back, held in place with a no-knot spell that she perfected in fourth grade after one particularly painful post-bath comb-out. She looks, as always, like she just might be an assassin or the meanest teacher in your high school—possibly both. She pretends to be all that and an extra dash of bitchy, but underneath forty layers of hard bedrock, she is a total softie.

All my aches and pains from Kyle’s magic bolts melt away as if they’d never been there, and I run toward my sisters.

“Juniper! Bea!” I throw my arms around them. “You came.”

“Of course we did,” Juniper says, squeezing me hard and wrapping me in her sugar-cookie magic to speed up my healing. “It’s what sisters do.”

“We would have been here sooner if your SOS spell hadn’t been so janky,” Bea says after stepping back to look me over, her analytical mind no doubt cataloging all my injuries before they disappear and putting them on her things-to-avenge list. “It took three tries to figure out your messed-up Morse code.”

She’s such a pain in the ass, and I wouldn’t have her any other way.

“Well,” I say, “I was under some pressure and doing the spell by sign language behind my back while facing down a bunch of angry werewolves and a Council witch.”

Juniper rolls her eyes. “Don’t listen to Bea. She’s just grumpy because Barkley hid her favorite eye patch again.” She smiles at me, making me warm from the inside out. “You did wonderfully.”

Kyle clears his throat and says in what he probably thinks is his most intimidating tone, “You three are to face the Council’s judgment.”

Darius, still in half werewolf form, steps forward, moving between the Council witches and us. He still has a few bruises, but it’s amazing how fast shifters can heal. Emitting a low, dangerous growl, he flexes his arms down toward the ground and his long, onyx-colored claws emerge one at a time. He may be a man of few words, but he really doesn’t have to say a whole lot to get his message across, considering how the three Council witches behind Kyle are now profusely sweating.

Bea cranes her neck so she can see around Darius and lets out a disgusted snort. “Is that Kyle from the Hex Depot?”

Juniper looks around Darius’s other side to see for herself.

“I don’t work there anymore,” Kyle says, sounding as petulant as a toddler being told that he can’t have chocolate chip cookie cereal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

“Did you two hear something?” Bea asks as she turns around to face us. There’s so much sarcasm dripping from her words it’s practically tangible. “It was this annoying whiny sound.”

“Yes, it’s Kyle,” I say, trying not to laugh because despite the healing spell, it would hurt my ribs, which got nailed with a direct hit by one of Kyle’s bolts. “And he’s been joined by some of his Council friends.”

“Oh, like a playdate.” Bea claps her hands together with gleeful mocking. “How wonderful for them.”

In front of us, Darius chuckles—a sound that makes me go all soft and gooey in the middle.

Juniper slips her arm into the crook of my elbow and draws me close. “You okay?” she asks, keeping her volume low enough that the others can’t hear.

“I’ll live,” I say as quietly as possible as Bea continues to mock the Council witches. “Not that I’m not grateful you’re here, but where is everyone else?”

“Leona and Erik are taking care of the you-know-what,” she says before mouthing the words “getting The Liber Umbrarum to the secure facility” as if I hadn’t been able to unwind her code, “but everyone else will be here soon.” She leans in close. “There was a thing.”

My gut clenches. “A thing?”

“Barkley,” she says. “It’s a long story.”

Of course it is. I let out a breath, and my body relaxes—well, as much as it can in our current standoff.

Bea’s rooster familiar seems to delight in stirring up trouble and throwing everything into chaos, so I’m not surprised there’s been a Barkley-related delay.