Page 47 of Head Witch in Charge (The Sherwood Witches #2)
Erik…
We land in a heap on the forest floor close enough to the river’s edge marking the border of the pixies’ land to hear it but far enough away that we can’t see it through the trees.
The queen, no doubt, just couldn’t help sending us a little close-but-not-close-enough reminder.
The woman loves her mind games. She and my dad would get along great.
LeLe sits up and starts to pull out the crunchy fall leaves stuck in her red waves. “I’m really beginning to think the queen is betting against us.”
I lean close and pull a twig out of her hair. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
She looks up at me, her lips parted as if she’s about to say something, but the air shifts around us.
The scent of her magic is there as she gathers it within herself, soft and barely detectable because of the pixie blockade, but the abilities of an heir—especially one like LeLe—aren’t so easy to put on lockdown.
In the beginning, it was her warm cake donut smell that called me because of what it represented—power and the ability to wield it against my father. But now? Yes, LeLe is one of the strongest witches there is, but she’s so much more than that.
She’s everything—except mine, and I fucking hate that almost as much as I love her.
It makes my gut twist and my chest hurt like a real bitch, and part of me wants to just give in to the pain and the bitterness.
But I’ve had a lot of practice in my life with denial for a greater purpose, and right now that purpose is getting LeLe out of this forest.
Still, I’m an asshole who can’t help but take a taste of what he can’t have.
I dip my head down and brush my lips across hers.
I swear, that’s all I intend, but the second I touch her, I forget the shit we’re in, where we are, and the rest of the world in general.
There’s only the two of us. And when she kisses me back, my whole body responds.
Heat and want and the rush of I-can’t-believe-this-is-happening slam into me.
My fingers are threading through her hair and I’m cupping the back of her head before I know it, deepening the kiss and putting into action everything I can’t say no matter how much I wish I could.
She matches my intensity, then kicks it up a few notches because she doesn’t just give as good as she gets, the woman I love always does more.
Fuck me, does she ever. A more cynical me would say it’s because of the adrenaline rush of what’s at stake here, but I know better.
It has been, is, and always will be like this with LeLe.
I’m not perfect for her, but damn is she perfect for me.
A better man would stop this now, but we all know that man is not me. I’m no hero. I’m just an asshole who isn’t ready to say goodbye.
Every nerve in my body is tuned in to LeLe—how she moves, the way she shivers when I yank a little harder on her hair, every little moan that escapes that sweet mouth of hers.
So when she grabs my shirt and yanks it out of my jeans, I’m already ahead of her, rolling us so I’m on my back in the undergrowth and she’s sitting astride me.
Eyes hazy with lust, she looks down at me and her lips curl into a smile too wicked for the always-does-the-right-thing Sherwood heir.
Not everyone gets to see that grin. It’s mine.
Just for me. And it steals the air from my lungs.
Her quick fingers are on the button of my jeans before I can recover, but believe me, I get my shit together pretty damn fast because I like the way she’s thinking.
“There are other creatures about, you know,” a low voice booms with enough bass to make the ground vibrate under my ass. “Why must witches be so uncouth?”
In less than a heartbeat I’m on my feet, taking LeLe with me as adrenaline surges through me.
My only thought is keeping the woman I love safe as I whirl around, shoving her behind me at the same time, ready to take on whatever pixie-incited fuckery has appeared.
But it’s not a pair of cursed lovers or an oversized pet hyped up on magic dragon biscuits glaring at us.
Instead, a giant oak tree is sneering at us.
“It’s not their fault they weren’t born as an oak or an elm or even,” the tree next to the first one says before dropping her voice, “a weeping willow.”
“I heard that,” a tree wails from somewhere deep in the forest.
“And we love you just the way you are, Antoine,” the second tree calls out before turning her gaze back to me.
“Hello there,” she says, speaking very slowly and very loudly as if I’m fifty-one cards short of a full deck.
“I am Addison. This is my often peevish and occasionally cantankerous brother Asher. Don’t worry, he’s all whining and no flinging across the forest.”
“Unless circumstances necessitate it, and then I shall not hesitate,” Asher grumbles.
I take a half step to the side, putting more of myself between the oak tree’s branch reach and LeLe.
She snorts in response and just sidesteps my attempt at protection, moving to stand beside me as she intertwines her fingers with mine.
She shoots me a quick wink as if to say, You know we’re doing this together, right?
I’d argue if there were any point, but she’s right: There’s a better chance of her getting out of here if we work together than if I try something completely out of character like playing the hero.
“I beseech you to ignore my quarrelsome sibling,” Addison says. “He is in a mood because it is his turn to carry the orchard’s curse.”
“The weight of it puts your branches out of symmetry, as you well know, sister,” Asher says, sounding even more annoyed with the world than he had before.
He lifts one branch higher, making all his leaves shake, until his left side is an exact replica of his right—except for the shiny golden apple hanging from the end of one limb.
Jackpot.
LeLe lets out a soft gasp of surprise and squeezes my hand.
I slide my gaze over. Her lips are still kiss swollen, but the desire in them has been replaced by a singularly focused determination.
It is, without a doubt, so fucking hot to see her go into get-my-way mode.
When she takes over as head of the Sherwood family, the Council isn’t going to stand a chance—especially now that the dimitto spell is complete and she isn’t a Svensen anymore.
She doesn’t have to worry about my family’s stain tarnishing her.
I won’t let it. And The Liber Umbrarum? There’s a whole world out there for her to hide it from the Council.
She’ll find the right place. It’s what she does. She makes things—and people—better.
“It really is such an annoyance whenever it appears,” Antoine continues in his haughty tone.
“The songbirds try to impale their beaks on the impenetrable surface with disastrous results. The raccoons try to nibble it and end up with broken teeth for their efforts. Then there are the pixies, who are absolutely obsessed with it because it is a shiny prize to be won, as if they need anything else to gamble on. They are quite committed to living a wastrel lifestyle.”
“I can take it, if you want,” LeLe says, giving the tree a charming smile as she steps forward. “We could trade for it, anything you want. Just ask.”
Antoine crosses his branches and peers down at her. “You’ve traveled a lot?”
The instincts honed from being raised in the vipers’ den otherwise known at the Svensen family buzz to life, making my skin crawl with unease.
Antoine might look like your everyday magical tree complete with a surly attitude and strong branches strengthened by tossing witches around, but there is something more to him.
Just how many rings does his trunk have?
No doubt enough to hide a whole lot of intelligence behind a wooden exterior.
And for all the brains and negotiating skill LeLe has, she didn’t get it from growing up knowing that you were completely and utterly on your own.
I shoot Asher my most charming dumb-fuck grin and answer before LeLe gets a chance. “I’ve been all over Witchingdom and beyond.”
The oak’s attention zeroes in on me. “And you’ve got stories to share?”
There it is. Everyone wants something. My dad covets power and money.
LeLe wants to make Witchingdom the kind of place it can be, the kind we tell ourselves lies about that it already is.
This tree with its roots planted so deep it can’t ever leave wants to know what the world is like beyond the forest.
And me? Well, what I want doesn’t matter.
That’s why it is barely even a sacrifice to pay the oak’s price—and there will be one—for the golden apple that will get LeLe free. It’s not a sacrifice. I’m not a hero, remember. I don’t do that shit.
“I’ve got so many stories about trolls and witches and dancing gnomes that glow in the dark,” I tell Asher, putting everything I can into selling it.
“The spells that went wrong and the curses that went right. All of the stuff they keep off of WitchyGram when they post about it. The good, the bad, and the too interesting to share with the general public.”
The oak takes barely thirty seconds to consider my offer before the leaves hanging from his branches nod in agreement. “Then it’ll be you.”
“What do you mean, ‘it’ll be him,’?” LeLe asks, her voice tight.
“Our newest member,” Addison says, her voice filled with excitement as she does a pretty identifiable jazz hands impression with her leaves.
“Not everyone gets this opportunity,” Asher says. “Usually we just mulch the creatures—witches especially—who annoy us.”
Next to me, LeLe practically hums with righteous indignation. It’s exactly why she’ll be such an amazing matriarch; she really does care what happens to people—even the ones she shouldn’t.
“I have one condition,” I say before LeLe gets a chance to let loose with some well-intentioned fury on the oak.