Page 12 of Head Witch in Charge (The Sherwood Witches #2)

Leona…

One year later…

Erik motherfucking Svensen.

Of all the lying, good-for-nothing, still-maddeningly-hot assholes in all of Witchingdom to walk off of a train in the middle of nowhere Virginia, it has to be my secret husband who keeps avoiding our divorce spell.

I really do have the absolute worst fucking luck. And to make everything even more shitty, he’s wearing a tux.

An ordinary man looks hot in formal wear, and Erik is already a million on the ten-point hotness scale without the outfit help (yes, he’s well aware of that fact and, like the shithead he is, uses it to his advantage).

It’s not fair—especially since I’m wearing the leggings and oversized hoodie with a strawberry jam stain over my left boob that I had on when a spell gone wrong left me frozen in a block of ice for a week.

* Lets out a deep breath.*

Sorry. I got on a bit of a rant there. Let me catch you up on what’s happened since I walked down the aisle at the outdoor Hunka Hunka Burning Love Wedding Chapel and handfast married the absolute worst man in Witchingdom.

First, I found out that divorcing Erik isn’t as easy as a quick trip to the lawyer.

Nope. It turns out that a handfast marriage begun under the full moon needs a very particular and difficult dimitto spell to break the marital ties—and it gets worse from there.

Not only does the spell have to be completed within a year of the handfast marriage, the dimitto spell requires that both parties agree to take part in it.

If either of those requirements are not met, then the dimitto spell is useless.

No good.

A waste of air.

Pointless pontificating.

In other words, I’ll be married to Erik for the rest of my life.

It won’t take you three guesses to figure out which one of the two of us doesn’t want to get divorced—not that he’ll tell me why. The guy’s a Svensen; he’s probably just doing it because torture is one of his hobbies.

Second, the Council’s power has grown, and it’s starting to break free from the shadows and make its move to take over Witchingdom.

Third, my sister Tilda accidentally froze everyone in the family—literally—during a spell gone wrong.

Then she, this guy named Gil, who she’s totally in love with, and her friends stole The Liber Umbrarum, an ancient spell book that gives whoever possesses it massive power because of all the ancient knowledge contained in it.

Tilda, good witch that she is, used The Liber Umbrarum to defrost all the Sherwoods.

That—not surprisingly—got the Council’s attention.

They tried to execute a whole smash and grab of The Liber Umbrarum themselves, but Tilda and her friends saved Witchingdom by foiling the attempt.

Yeah, they crashed a train in this meadow in the process, and it looked like things were not going to end happily, but every newly unfrozen Sherwood magicked their way to Tilda’s side to help her face down the goons sent by the Council to take the spell book from her.

Not that she needed much help from us, because it turns out she has more power than just about any other witch alive.

The good news is the Council’s enforcers have scattered to lick their wounds in private.

The bad news? There’s no way the Council is going to give up after one little skirmish, not when the spells in The Liber Umbrarum are the key to them gaining total control over Witchingdom.

Really, you need to hear the whole story about the heist from her if you haven’t already. I can’t believe I missed being a part of it all because of being a temporary witch popsicle.

That’s a lot, right? Well, deep breaths, because we’re not done yet.

Who do you think Tilda and her friends stole The Liber Umbrarum from? If you said the Svensens—as in Erik Svensen—then you are right.

Yeah, don’t say I didn’t warn you that it is an interconnected dramafest over here.

And that’s why I’m standing in the middle of a field, surrounded by my entire family, staring at the biggest mistake of my life and trying to figure out if he’s going to spill the truth to my family.

And then they’ll know that I, the Sherwood heir, the one who has to do everything right the first time because that’s what is expected and demanded of me, fucked up.

Big-time.

Add to that the fact that I’ve been hiding the whole handfast marriage thing from my family for the past year and you get why I’m white-knuckling life right now. Not only am I an idiot, I’m an idiot who’s been living in fear for the past year that her family would find out the truth.

Oh yeah, and I’ve been doing whatever it takes to keep my mother from making me pick a husband.

You do not even want to know what I’ve done.

Let’s just say a week of Barkley talking like a witch to distract the whole family was pretty dire.

The things a rooster familiar thinks about on a daily basis are both bizarre and boring in the same breath.

But it’s not like I had a choice. My only other option was either telling my mom everything or bigamy.

I hope you understand by now that neither of those are an option and why I wake up with the two a.m. panics every night. It really has been the shittiest year of my life, and it’s all my fault.

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we have a problem,” Erik says after walking near to where I’m standing with my sister Tilda and our parents.

“My dad is absolutely livid about your family stealing The Liber Umbrarum. However, if we get it back to our secured facility right away, there’s a chance I can talk him out of involving the cops or worse. ”

There is no way he’s telling the truth—at least not all of it. More than likely, this is an excuse for him to take The Liber Umbrarum for his own selfish purposes because that’s what the Svensens do. They lie. They steal. They cheat. They fake their way into marrying you.

Well, not this time.

He’s not getting any alone time with that spell book, not with all the power that’s between its pages. The Council getting their hands on The Liber Umbrarum would be the worst, but Erik Svensen using it for his own purposes runs a close second in my book.

I crunch a pile of fallen orange leaves under my tennis shoes as I march up to him. (Am I picturing each dead leaf as Erik’s coal-black heart? Abso-fucking-lutely.) “So we take it back.”

“ We? ” he asks, one of his dark eyebrows shooting up.

I give him a dirty look that would send most witches for cover. Erik doesn’t even flinch. Overconfident bastard.

“After what happened in Vegas,” I say, keeping my voice low so only he can hear, “there’s no way I’d trust you with The Liber Umbrarum on your own.”

I could say more, but I don’t have to. Of course, that doesn’t stop my heart from beating against my ribs like it’s about to make a break for it.

All my years of training as the Sherwood heir come in handy though.

My palms might be clammy, and I’ve got a whole squadron of butterflies having the zoomies in my stomach, but I keep that shit locked up tight—at least as far as anyone can tell from the outside.

Getting the spell book to safety will take a few hours. Tops. I can put up with him even for twelve hours. Plus it will give me the perfect opportunity to finally persuade him (or force, or threaten, whatever it takes) to participate in the spell to break the handfast.

“Whatever you want, LeLe,” he says with a wink that people who don’t know him probably think is charming and flirty.

His grin matches mine just for showiness as he all but beams at my family, but there’s more to it, an intensity in his blue eyes that sends a shiver down my spine. Damn it. He shouldn’t be able to still do that to me, not after what he’s done.

He drops his hand the size of a dinner plate to the small of my back, his palm and long fingers spanning the space and making my whole body get all melty and wanty. The smug look on his handsome face shows that he knows exactly what he’s doing.

It takes everything I have not to let my annoyance show to the rest of my family, who are all sneaking looks at us, no doubt trying to figure out when we got so chummy and what is going on between us. I’ve got to get out of here before any of them start to ask questions.

“Shall we, LeLe?” he asks, his tone deferential as we walk past my mom and dad.

“You know I hate it when you call me LeLe.” He is the only one who does, because he obviously doesn’t value his kneecaps.

“Fine.” His hand drops a few millimeters, his fingertips almost but not quite brushing my ass. Typical Erik, tiptoeing along that line of acceptable and what will get him kneed in the balls. “I’ll just call you ‘wife’ instead. Is that better?”

My lungs seize as I whip my head around to make sure no one overheard.

“Not in the least.” Side-eyeing him, I take a small step forward and find myself missing the sizzle from his touch as soon as I break contact.

He grins at me. “But it’s what you are.”

“Only because you won’t participate in the dimitto spell.” The spell I’ve sent to him multiple times with little yellow Post-it Notes marking every line he’d need to chant.

“I have no plans to do that,” he says, not even bothering to pretend to be ashamed.

Yeah, no shock there. The first time I sent the spell, he opened the package and returned it with only the word nope scrawled across the top of the parchment.

The second time, the envelope with the spell came back unopened and stamped “return to sender.” The third time, I sent the spell via flying monkey couriers.

All I got back were pics of Erik and the monkey living their best life in a beach resort somewhere tropical.

Knocking my glare up a few notches, I keep my volume low as I tell him, “We are doing that divorce spell.”

“Oh, wife.” He steps closer so he’s just outside my personal bubble. “You’re breaking my heart. You are my one and only.”

I roll my eyes.

His reputation is well-known. He’s a natural-born flirt with women, men, and everyone else.

There are at least five hundred fan accounts on social media that document his every rumored romance.

Not that I follow them. Okay. Fine. I do, but only so I can keep tabs on him to know where to send the dimitto spell.

“Erik Svensen, you can’t sweet-talk your way into my pants again.”

And maybe if you say it enough, Leona Amber Sherwood, it’ll actually be true.

Yeah, my inner horny self can just shut it about now.

“Now, LeLe.” Erik reaches out and brushes his thumb across my wrist, his touch sending a jolt of desire straight to my core and exposing the otherwise invisible golden glow of the handfast chain magically tattooed on my skin. “We both know that’s not true.”

“You’re the worst.” But in the absolute best way if you’re naked and in the mood to get your back blown out.

No!

I will not think about that now. I will not think about how we spent our time in Vegas naked and utilizing every horizontal surface and quite a few vertical ones to fuck each other boneless.

I will not think about how my panties are already damp, my nipples hard, and every horny hormone in my body is shouting, “Just fuck him already.” Instead, I’m focusing on how satisfying it will be to never have to think about this awful man ever again.

“I may be the worst, but you bring out the best in me,” Erik says, letting go of my wrist and flexing his fingers as if he felt the same electric spark when he touched me, just like I had.

Then he takes a few steps toward Tilda and Gil standing across the meadow.

They are holding the ancient spell book, so of course they have his attention.

“Come on, LeLe, let’s get out of here before the Council gets it in their heads that this is the perfect time to send in reinforcements and steal The Liber Umbrarum back. ”

My eyes go wide as the last word registers.

“Back?” I sputter as I turn up the speed to catch up with Erik’s long strides. “They want it back ? You stole The Liber Umbrarum from the Council?”

Of all the stupid, foolhardy, impulsive things to do, stealing from the Council is number one through ten on the list.

“It has spent the last hundred years mislabeled as a cookbook in one of their own archives. They didn’t know what they had, and so I liberated it from them. It takes a Svensen to really appreciate something as amazing as The Liber Umbrarum…” He stops next to me and smirks down at me. “Or a wife.”

My pulse skyrockets, and I look around to make sure no one overheard before I turn back to him and hiss, “I’m not your wife.”

Erik dips his head down, his lips brushing the curve of my ear in a way guaranteed to drive me to distraction and turn me on at the same time.

“LeLe, my bride, you most definitely are and always will be,” he says, his voice velvet sandpaper on every one of my most sensitive spots.

Then, he brushes a fingertip across my wrist, making my skin sizzle with awareness and setting off the warm glow of the handfast mark.

“I excel at many things, one of which is finding loopholes in any and all verbal and written agreements. I can guarantee you there isn’t one when it comes to our vows.

” He gives me that sexy smirk of his again. “You’re stuck with me, wife. Forever.”

A blast of heat steams through me so fast I’m surprised there aren’t tendrils of smoke coming out of my nose. And it’s because I’m that mad and frustrated and—fine—so turned on that kissing him and killing him both seem like reasonable reactions to his smug announcement.

I’m hot.

I’m bothered.

I’m very fucking confused right now. Not about our marriage—that has to go, no ifs, ands, or buts about it, and I know that. It’s just more of trying to figure out how in the world I can want to tell him to fuck off and fuck me in equal parts.

It must be the aftereffects of spending seven days frozen. It has to be.

I glare at him as he stands there with his loose body language and easy grin as if nothing in the world—not even the Council—can touch him.

Can he not take anything seriously? This is the Council we’re talking about, the big baddie of the Witchingdom that’s doing everything it can to take over and enact a dictatorship.

It’s my duty as the Sherwood heir to make sure that no matter what it takes, the Council will not get possession of The Liber Umbrarum.

A few hours alone with Erik to ensure the spell book is locked up away from the Council, and then I’ll strong-arm him into completing the divorce spell so my family never finds out how badly I failed them.

Then I marry whoever my mom decides is the best political move.

Love? Who needs it. Lust? Look where that got me in Vegas.

I can do this.

I will do this.

Today will be the best day of my life—the last one I ever have to see Erik motherfucking Svensen ever again.