Page 64 of Hexy Beast

There’s movement in the part of the gazebo that’s half-hidden from the light, and a man dressed all in black steps from the shadow. A trio of werewolves who don’t belong to the Aetos pack flank him as he walks out to the steps at the front.

Yeah, he’s not getting any closer to Effie than that unless he goes through me first.

I move up so I’m shoulder to shoulder with Effie, angling my body to block Nikos’s sight line to Atlas, who is starting to move. It’ll take him a few minutes, but the rope is no challenge for him, which they should have guessed, since it probably took three people to knock him out. Yet again, Nikos isn’t thinking ahead; he’s only reacting.

Effie stops whatever behind-the-back spell she was working and twines her fingers with mine before saying in a bored tone, “Hello, Kyle.”

The man in black flinches and seems flustered for a second before he recovers and goes back to looking down his nose at us from the top of the stairs. “It’s Formido, Effie.”

Effie looks over at me and rolls her eyes with all the disgusted drama of a teenage girl, and then turns back to Kyle. “Since when?”

He puffs his chest and says importantly, “Since I was named an obsidian member of the Council’s board.”

The air around us takes the scent of a ham sandwich that’s been left out too long in the summer sun, and suddenly the gazebo is awash in a light brighter than the bulbs strung along its parameter ever could be.

“Nice party trick,” I say while counting the number of steps it would take to get to Nikos so I could coldcock him and then close in on the dipshit formerly known as Kyle.

I’m about to make my move when one of his werewolf guards steps to the side, revealing Aunt Artemis encircled by a glowing rope with her mouth sealed shut by magic. She’s not struggling or trying to shout through her closed lips, but she is radiating ice-cold fury. It’s in the hard set of her jaw and the way she’s looking at the back of Kyle’s head like she already knows which brick she’s going to use to slam into it. She’s tiny and so old no one is really sure of her age, and yeah, maybe Effie is right, and she’s a little witchy, but she is also a woman not to be crossed. She has the look of someone who has been waiting decades for her revenge, and the Council’s werewolf guards must be picking up on it, because they’re starting to look warily at her as if Artemis is not a tied-up old lady but a solid threat.

That means my timeline for action just got tighter. My wolf starts to pull at the leash I’m holding on to. Letting go again is the last thing I should be doing. Losing myself to my wolf goes against everything I’ve been fighting for.

“And yet, you know it’s what has to happen,” my wolf says in my head. “You’re stronger with me. We can take him. We can take all of them.”

My palm burns as if the leather leash I’m holding tight around my wolf in my mind really is being pulled hard—desperately, even. Kyle, however, is clueless of the danger as he walks down the gazebo’s steps, coming to a stop beside Nikos.

“The Council,” he says with a sneer, “was promised something.”

I scoff. “I never promised you shit.”

“Oh, but Nikos did,” Kyle continues, brushing away some silver wolf fur from his shirt. “He promised us The Liber Umbrarum and a Sherwood. We can make good use of both. I’ll take her now and bring your aunt as a hostage until the spell book is in my possession.”

I squeeze Effie’s hand to reassure her if she has any doubts that this man will not be taking her anywhere. “That’s not going to happen.”

“A pity,” he says, his eyes as cold as the river in February. “The only decision, then, is which one will die first, Artemis or the Sherwood bitch.”

“The pack or the witch, make your choice,” Nikos says like the toady he is, unable to come up with an original thought.

“Neither,” I say without hesitation, never so sure of something in my life.

It’s a fool’s choice. Even if I did give one of them up, the Council wouldn’t be satisfied and Nikos would see it as a weakness—not that I ever would. I’d die first, and the odds are that I will. Even if Atlas wakes up in time, Artemis gets free, Effie works her magic, and I fight like I never have before. Four against several dozen is shitty odds.

“But you aren’t just four,” my wolf growls.

The Council witch waves his right hand, and a ten-foot brick wall forms around us, cutting off any means of escape. He snaps the fingers of his left hand, and the temperature goes from a cool fall evening when shifting is easy to a blistering heat that makes it difficult for most werewolves to take their wolf form. Then he shrugs as the scent of slow-rotting ham becomes nearly overwhelming and a torrential downpour starts, turning the ground in the park into a muddy mess almost immediately, making taking a run at him highly difficult at best.

“Unfortunately for them, ‘neither’ is not an option,” Kyle says as he raises his arms, “so I’ll choose for you.”

Then he turns toward Effie and sends a blast of foul-smelling magic her way in the same instant that I let go of the leash and free my wolf completely.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Effie…

Kyle’s magic slams into me hard enough that my head snaps sideways like I’ve been slapped, and a rope made out of spells curls around me. I stumble back a few steps in an effort to retain my balance. Time slows down for everyone but Kyle and me as he continues to hit me with spell after spell in such fast succession that all I can do is play defense.

My fingertips tingle with an icy charge that’s blocking my magic, and there’s a loud buzzing in my head like a thousand angry flies are throwing a kegger inside my skull. It’s hard to breathe. My stomach is roiling. My limbs are heavy.

The visibility through the sudden rainstorm is so limited I can barely see Kyle, but I still clock his smug grin. The fucker who has trolled my WitchyGram account for years, leaving shit comments and starting fights, really thinks he’s going to win this just because he’s one of the Council’s flunkies?