Page 11 of Head Witch in Charge (The Sherwood Witches #2)
Leona…
The next morning my body is still loose and lazy from the night before, wrung out from orgasms and the killer massage Erik gave me that led to more orgasms. The sex has been so mind-meltingly fantastic that its made the handfast mark linger on my wrist, a golden glow that brightens each time he touches me.
I’ll kinda miss that when all of this is over.
But that moment isn’t quite yet. Thank the fates.
Reaching out for him so we can start the day off right with more orgasms, my palm slides across cool sheets instead.
I crack my eyes open and confirm what I already know—I’m in bed alone.
On his pillow, however, there’s a white notecard embossed with the resort’s logo.
Off to find more strawberry jam. Can you believe we emptied out the resort’s supply?
Xo,
E
Jam. Yeah, we went through a lot of that over the past few days, and that was before that silly handfast ceremony last night and all the naked fun we had after.
Running my fingertips over my wrist, I gasp as a golden tattoo of a bracelet appears on what had been my unmarked skin only heartbeats before.
It almost looks real, as if last night’s spell is more than just impotent old magic that will last about as long as this temporary tattoo will—until my next shower.
Thinking of which, I smell like well-satisfied funk, and a shower isn’t a luxury at this point, it’s a necessity.
Getting out of bed with an audible groan—there are sore spots, and then there are the good kind of sore spots—I can’t flatten my lips from the permagrin I woke up with as I walk toward the bathroom.
I have a deep conditioning treatment on my mind and my hand on the bathroom door, but the sound of Erik’s voice outside the closed hotel room door freezes me to the spot.
“We’ll talk about The Liber Umbrarum’s location later, Kiehl,” Erik says, his voice sounding harder than it had to me before.
“That’s not gonna happen,” the other man shoots back. “We talk now.”
“Fuck off. I don’t have time for you right now.”
My hand’s on the doorknob, ready to whip the door open and back up Erik with this guy who sounds like a real charmer, but some whisper of warning holds me back.
“Then you better make time,” the other man says. “I don’t give a shit if you are the heir or whatever it is you witch assholes call it, you’re just a shitbird to me, and we have a deal, Svensen.”
Svensen?
Why would he call Erik that? He’s a Phillips.
“Shut the fuck up,” Erik says, sounding nothing like the man who sang in my ear last night as we danced under the full moon. “I told you not to call me that here.”
Unless he is, because this is Vegas, after all, and nothing is exactly as it appears.
My hand goes to my stomach, pressing hard against it.
If I could feel anything at this moment, I’m sure the heel of my palm jammed up against my diaphragm would hurt, but right now, I’m not sure even having a troll step on my foot would make me blink twice.
I’m frozen. I’m in shock. I’m halfway to cracking in half.
Svensen?
Erik Svensen?
Not him. It couldn’t be him. It has to be anyone but him. That family is horrible. They’re dishonest. They’re the worst people in Witchingdom. But why do this? Because he’s an asshole? Because he’s bored?
Because…
The whole world fades away as realization hits.
Because he wanted to marry the Sherwood heir for all the monetary and power benefits it would give him.
Family means everything in Witchingdom, and even if the circumstances aren’t ideal, to say the least, my family will have no choice but to accept him (and his family by proxy).
Money would be given. Support would be shown. Power would be shared.
Forget letting the wolf into the henhouse. That is nothing. I’ve let the Svensens into the heart of our family.
My stomach twists and flips like a fish tossed from the sea onto the shore. I’m going to throw up.
A million recriminations rush through my head as I run into the bathroom.
Foolish.
Too horny to be trusted.
Ruined things for your family.
Failure.
Bad heir.
A fucking loser.
As soon as I reach for the door, I notice the handfast mark and my lungs seize.
It’s old magic. That kind never lasts because nature is always evolving, so all the ingredients we use in spells act differently.
I mean, the newts’ eyes we use today are three times stronger than in the past, so everyone knows to cut the amount that goes into the cauldron or else it will throw the magic ratios off.
If you don’t, the spells you work will only be for temporary use.
The other night’s handfast ceremony won’t stick.
It can’t.
No matter what, it can’t.
But I can’t stop the panic washing over me in giant waves.
I need to call my sister to figure out my next steps.
Not Effie, she’ll get the truth out of me in about thirty seconds, and no one can know what I’ve done.
It can’t be Tilda because she’s busy with her magical misfits group.
Juniper is out; she sees through bullshit like other witches see through a window.
That leaves my sweetest, most trusting sister.
I’m too freaked out to feel like throwing up anymore, so I hustle out of the bathroom—pausing in front of the door to make sure Erik the Evil and the other guy aren’t out there anymore—and then go grab my cell phone off the bedside table.
Bea answers on the second ring.
“Do you need bail money?” she asks, unable to keep the giggle out of her voice. “Oh my…could…you…even…imagine?” Now she’s laughing so hard she’s having trouble getting the words out. “You? Bail?” She lets out a loud bark of laughter. “As if.”
“No, I don’t need bail money.” Sounding almost exactly like my mother at her most imperious, because if I sounded like me, it would just be sobbing.
“Shocker,” my sister says with a snort-laugh. “You never need anything. You’re a one-witch power machine.”
I wish. It’s more like I’m a one-witch mistake machine. And a liar, considering what’s about to come out of my mouth next.
“The girls and I have a disagreement we need you to decide,” I tell her, looking around the empty room as if my friends who I came to Vegas with are in here.
“About roosters or old spells?”
It’s a logical question; those are her two areas of expertise.
My bottom lip trembles, and it takes me a second to get myself under control. “Old spells.”
Bea claps with excitement. “Hit me.”
“How difficult is it to reverse a handfast marriage?”
“Oh, a handfast is weak magic,” Bea says with a disappointed sigh at what I’m assuming is a simple question for her. “Barkley could probably break it.”
My shoulders inch down from my ears and some of the panic ebbs from my veins. If something is so easy a rooster could fix it, I have nothing to worry about.
“Unless the handfast was done last night.”
My heart comes to a dead stop in my chest and all my blood drains to my toes. “Why’s that?” I ask, trying my best not to sound like someone on the edge of disaster.
“Well, last night was a full moon, and old magic, even the weak stuff, when done on a full moon, is super strong,” she says, excitement building in her tone.
“There’s all sorts of old-timey ingredients that no one uses anymore that have to go into the cauldron, extra steps that have to go into spell weaving, and usually the cooperation of all of the involved parties. ”
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Every part of me that was ice-cold gets eaten up by a blast of terror-fueled heat. I have beyond screwed everything up for my family and for Witchingdom. This is so bad, there isn’t even a name for it.
“In short, breaking a handfast made under a full moon is a pain in the ass.” She lets out another big chuckle. “Aren’t you glad you don’t have to deal with that?”
“Yeah,” I manage to get out, “really glad.”
Bea keeps talking about how lucky I am not to have to work out an old magic spell, but her words fade into the background and all I can hear is the blood rushing through my ears.
If my family finds out the truth—if my mother finds out the truth—they are going to know how big of a fuckup I really am.
That can’t happen.
Whatever it takes, I’m going to fix this, and then Erik Phillips—correction, Erik Svensen—is going to rue the day he thought it was a good idea to fuck with me.