Page 72 of Hexy Beast

“That is absolutely the fuck not gonna happen,” I tell him as I stalk over to where he is. The fact that he won’t look at me is not gonna stop me from getting in his face. “I’m not going anywhere. You’re stuck with me. We made a deal.”

He shrugs one shoulder. “Circumstances changed.”

“I’d say so.” I march around him and stand directly in front of him. Frustration and confusion and hurt make my stomach tight. “I have a wolf inside me now. A wolf! And there’s this dark sort of musky trail of power too. I don’t know exactly what that does, but my wolf is throwing a bunch of attitude.”

His expression remains neutral as he looks at something past my left shoulder. “Welcome to the club. It’s what they do.”

“Yeah, well, don’t you think it’s telling that I, Effie Sherwood, a witch, now have the ability to go all furry?” I wave my hand back and forth between us. “Doesn’t that say something about us?”

“We went through this already. You had a dormant gene. Anyway, you won’t transform into a werewolf,” he says, still not looking at me. “You don’t have a pack.”

“Bullshit.” I jab my finger into his unyielding chest. “You are my pack, and you know it.” My voice starts to shake, and hot tears of frustration prick at the backs of my eyes. I suck in a deep breath because I refuse to cry. This is not the time to fall apart. This is the time to put it all out there on the line. “You felt it last night, just like I did. It’s fate. We’re mates.”

Finally, his gaze lands on me, and my breath catches. My chest fills with a kind of effervescent hope that is so immediate and all-encompassing that I could float away on it. Then his eyes harden and grow cold as he looks down at me, and all those tiny little bubbles pop.

“I don’t believe in fated mates,” he says, so obviously lying that I’m amazed he can even get the words out without breaking eye contact.

It’s all I can do not to throw my arms up into the air and scream—or hit him with a stop-being-a-dumbass spell. Instead, I take a deep, steadying breath because turning him into a fluorescent pink toad isn’t going to be the thing to make him understand what a stubborn fool he’s being.

“You don’t doubt for a minute that the universe has a plan for you. If you did, you wouldn’t fight so hard against it,” I say, trying to keep my voice from shaking so much. “You wouldn’t keep your wolf on such a tight leash. You, Darius Aetos, are scared of your own fate.”

He starts like I’ve just slapped him, his cheeks turning red with the heat of his frustration. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I do, and you know it.” I press my hand to his chest above his heart, and there’s a shock of warm electricity that shoots through me followed by the sensation of his wolf’s warm, furry head rubbing against my palm. “Your wolf knows it.”

There’s nothing he can say to that because he knows it’s true. He looks down at me with such intensity that it’s as if he’s memorizing every freckle and frizzed-out wave. Then he dips his head down and kisses me. No, that’s the wrong word for it. Kisses are gentle or passionate or demanding. This is something altogether different. It’s desperation and sadness and a deep unfulfilled longing for something that he can’t have.

And here I am kissing him right back despite everything, because he already has me.

All of me.

Wolf and witch.

I’m his. He’s mine.

And he’d realize this if he could just get out of his own damn way.

Fuck me (not in the good way). I am in love with an absolute idiot.

He just needs to get his head out of his ass long enough to see that he doesn’t have to give up everything, every part of himself, to protect the people he loves.

Darius breaks the kiss but continues to cup my face in his hands. “If you ever need me, no matter the reason, no matter the job, no matter anything, if I survive tonight I’ll be there.”

Then the melodramatic alpha werewolf who loves me—because come on, we’re all seeing through this whole to-save-her-I-have-to-leave-her bullshit, right—finally transforms into his full wolf form. He shakes out his fur and gives me one last long look before galloping off and leaving me behind.

A plan for what to do next comes together in less than a thought, and I pick up his cuff off the ground and slip it into my pocket. It may have been what tethered us before, but what ties us together now is so much stronger than any proximity charm—and Darius knows it. Time to go save his ass and get him to admit just that.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Darius…

Effie is wrong.

I keep repeating that to myself as I stick to the shadows in Arcadia. I switch back to my human form to be better prepared for whatever Nikos has waiting for me, grab a pair of jeans from a clothesline, and slip from the cover of one building to another as I make my way through the alley and toward the park where Aunt Artemis is. I take each step knowing this is the only way. I have to go it alone. It’s the only chance Effie and my pack have of surviving.

By the time I get to the park in the center of town and am standing just outside the circle of light surrounding Aunt Artemis, I’ve shut up the lingering doubts. This is my plan. Now it’s time to work it.

“Nikos,” I yell as I walk into the literal spotlight and give Aunt Artemis a wink to let her know it’s going to be okay. I’m going to fix this. “I’m calling your bluff.”