Page 31 of Head Witch in Charge (The Sherwood Witches #2)

Erik…

LeLe is definitely going through a mental list of murder spells right now. Maybe some gelding spells too.

Yeah, this might be the end of me, but getting to see her go all evil adjacent without even realizing it while setting up that race was pretty fucking hot.

Then watching her fight to keep her cool when all she wanted to do was fillet me was melt-your-brain sexy.

Add in the fact that she always knew how to use those perfect pink lips of hers to say just the right thing at the right moment?

Sexy redheads that are occasionally evil adjacent, have iron wills, and are excellent purveyors of competency porn is definitely my kink.

Don’t make that face. It’s not like your turn-ons are all one hundred percent non-weird either.

“We cannot get to the secured facility fast enough,” LeLe says through gritted teeth. “We. Are. Leaving.”

I want nothing more than to pull her close and kiss her breathless again, but I have to satisfy myself with watching her hips sway as she marches over to Frieda and Walter to say goodbye.

I’m a risk-taker, but not a complete idiot.

The woman really is slicing and dicing me in her head, The Liber Umbrarum and Witchingdom be damned.

So I make the smart move and don’t move at all.

“Can’t wait to get back on the road with you either, wife.”

Okay, fine, my mouth moved. Sue me.

LeLe’s only response is to raise her right arm straight up in the sky and flip me off.

Damn, that is one hot witch who knows how to keep a man on his toes.

Take this morning, for instance. I knew the moment I woke up that there would probably be some pushback on last night.

I could have forged ahead, or I could accept her mood and figure out how to work around it—a decision that took all of two seconds to make.

One thing growing up Svensen teaches you is to always be moving.

Why? Because a moving target is harder to hit, and more importantly, as long as you’re moving, you have time to find a loophole.

Sitting back and waiting for things to happen to you is for suckers.

So, I played LeLe’s game, and while she was manipulating Frieda and Walter into gaining our freedom, I used her distraction to my advantage to get what I wanted—her.

The fate of Witchingdom doesn’t mean shit to me, but staying married long enough to inherit my family power so I can get Cy and Sigrid away from the Svensen shitty influence? That’s all that matters.

And if I keep repeating that to myself, I will block out the little voice in my head saying some really stupid shit about finding a loophole that will keep LeLe from getting hurt in the process.

Sure, that would be nice, but come on, we all know this is going to end ugly. I told you from the beginning that I’m not the good guy. I look out for mine and that’s it. The rest of Witchingdom—including my dad—can sit and spin.

Speaking of the world’s worst DNA donor, my phone vibrates in my pocket. It could be Cy or Sigrid, but it’s not. I swear the buzz is different—angrier, nastier—when he is calling.

I pull out my phone and, no shock at all, it’s dear old Dad. “Father.”

“What is taking you so long?” he snarls. “Can’t you get one stick-up-her-ass girl to fall for you? Do I need to do this myself? The Sherwoods gave us the perfect opportunity when they stole The Liber Umbrarum from us, and we’re going to seize it and kill two birds with one weird-eyed witch.”

He is definitely a shit father, but he’s damn good at pivoting when he has to.

The second he realized the Sherwoods were the ones who took The Liber Umbrarum, he knew the Council would assume they’d keep possession of it and stalk them for it.

Meanwhile, he’d have it in the family’s secured facility and without the Council being any the wiser could carry on with the original plan to sell it off spell by spell to the highest bidder—minus the iron to gold alchemy spell that hadn’t worked and had given Dad a third nipple. That was bird one.

Bird two? The family debt that would be erased by the access to the Sherwood money.

Dad would drain them dry as fast as he’d done my mother’s family’s bank accounts—at least that’s what he assumed.

I wasn’t so sure it would work that easy with the Sherwoods even before I met LeLe.

Afterward? My chips are all in on her winning that hand.

“You there, boy?” my father bit out. “Or am I talking to an even dumber witch than I sired?”

The edges of my phone bite into my palm because I’m gripping it so tight. Usually I’m better prepared for my father’s vitriol, but being around LeLe and the lack of constant cruelty is making me soft.

My jaw is clamped tight enough to crack a molar, but otherwise I manage to keep my reaction on lockdown. What he wants is to get me to explode. It’s what brings him joy. The fact that I know he’s doing it to provoke only makes it sweeter for him if I break. So I don’t.

“I have everything under control,” I say, managing to keep the fuck-you out of my tone.

Dad goes on as if I hadn’t said a thing. “Technically your mother and I are still married, but no one’s seen her for decades. You can do the same with the Sherwood heir. They’ll just assume she’s dead or something.”

Red swirls on the edges of my vision.

Or something.

I close my eyes and let all that dark nothing fill me. “I said I’ve got it.”

“You better, boy,” he says, his words sharp. “The Council has already been through here looking for you and The Liber Umbrarum. It would break my heart to have to sacrifice my heir to them in order to keep the family safe.”

I don’t bother to hold in my laugh at that ridiculousness because by “family” he only means himself. Never mind that I filched The Liber Umbrarum in the first place because he ordered it. Supposedly he’d had a fence who’d sell it, but they decided it was too hot and reneged on the deal.

I glance over at Bessie’s bright yellow tail fin, the only part of her I can see from here, and let my magic reach out to push against the protective wards I put on the car, letting out a breath when I can feel them still in place.

“Like you,” I tell my dad, “I am devoted to doing the best thing for the Svensen family.”

“Then marry the fucking ginger twat and bring home her money and family protection before she meets with a horrible and very convenient accident, or I don’t know what choices I’ll be forced to make concerning your siblings,” he says, and then hangs up.

No, his threat wasn’t specific, but it didn’t need to be and he knew it.

I could stand here and stew about what a giant asshole he is, but that isn’t going to get me anywhere. I have to keep moving. I follow LeLe’s lead and go say goodbye to the trolls. They’ve already given LeLe a basket of food from the new garden to eat on the road.

LeLe is still pissed enough to not even look in my direction as we walk with the trolls—as much as physically possible considering the size difference—to Bessie, where she’s parked just off the two-lane road.

We’re almost to the car when a bone-chilling wind whips through the trees on either side of the highway.

The birds go silent.

The deer scatter.

Every single squirrel that had been gathering acorns on the forest floor scurries into the closest hiding spot.

Every oh-fuck nerve in my body goes on instant alert.

“Get in the car, LeLe.”

She shoots me a questioning look and starts to open her mouth, no doubt to tell me off, when a low hum reverberates through the air.

All four of us look east to where the highway rises up with the land and then dips down and disappears. The air starts to waver at the top of the crest of the hill, and another icy blast of wind—the Council’s calling card—blows through.

“We gotta go,” I say, yanking open Bessie’s driver’s side door and ushering LeLe in, following behind as she scoots across the bench seat.

Bessie starts on the first try, and I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding.

“I really hate those assholes,” Frieda says, glaring at the shimmering air in the distance.

Walter grunts in agreement.

“Go back through the woods the way we came,” Frieda says. “Follow the clearing under the overpass and take it past the cornfields. It meets up with the highway again, but you’ll have at least ten miles between you and these goons.”

Walter fishes a glass Mason jar out of his front overalls pocket.

It’s labeled “Extra Hard Riddles.” “We’ll buy you some extra time with one of these,” he says.

“Everyone has to stop for us, and these idiots take forever to solve a simple riddle; they’ll be here for a lot longer trying to figure out one of these. ”

Their behavior is making my head ache because it doesn’t make sense.

They’re not going to get anything out of helping a pair of virtual strangers avoid the Council.

In fact, it’s far more likely they end up paying for it.

Yet here they are, grinning at the approaching air waver that always precedes the Council enforcer’s arrival as if they can’t wait.

Frieda and Walter wouldn’t make it a day in the Svensen compound.

When I put the car in gear and we start down the path, LeLe twists in her seat and rises up on her knees to wave goodbye.

Then she hollers out, “So what does disappear as soon as you say its name?”

“Silence,” Frieda and Walter answer at the same time.

LeLe gives them one more wave and then sits back down, a determined look on her face.

The chances are slim to none that this plan to ditch the Council works, but it’s the best we’ve got, so I hit the gas and Bessie speeds down the path, kicking up a cloud of dust in our wake.

The dirt path twists and turns and is pockmarked with holes where rain and wear have washed the ground away.

I should have both hands on Bessie’s wheel, but instead I reach over and rest my palm on the seat between us right next to LeLe’s.

She glances down at it and then returns her focus to the path ahead as we speed through the forest.

“I’m still mad at you,” she says, not looking over at me.

But she takes my hand anyway, and I get the oddest feeling in my chest. It’s tight and fizzy and completely unfamiliar.

I can’t explain it.

I can’t identify it.

But I’m holding on to it just the same.