Page 52 of Head Witch in Charge (The Sherwood Witches #2)

Erik…

It’s been a wild fucking day.

I was an heir. Now I’m just a regular witch.

I was a tree. Now I’m not.

I was a husband. Then I wasn’t. And now it seems like I might be again.

Life really does come at you fast when you fall in love with a Sherwood.

Shifting in my seat behind Bessie’s steering wheel, I turn and look at LeLe. My LeLe. For real this time. Honestly, I’m having a hard time believing it’s real.

“What you said before,” I say. “Did you mean it?”

“When I called you ‘husband’?” LeLe asks with a huge smile. “Yeah, I did.”

It’s more than a guy like me deserves, but I’m sure not gonna walk away from it. I’m an asshole, but I’m not that kind of asshole.

“So, where to next?” I turn the key in Bessie’s ignition. “The Council isn’t going to give up. I suppose you need to get home so you can help plan the next move.”

“Yes, but there’s one thing we need to do first,” she says as I shift Bessie into drive and guide her onto the bridge over the river marking the pixie’s territory. “Did you know there’s a full moon tonight?”

I gun the engine without meaning to as I process her words. “Are you asking me to handfast marry you, Leona Sherwood?”

She scoots closer on the bench seat and kisses my cheek. “I am, Erik Svensen.”

This time I stomp down on the gas with full intent. “Well, we better get moving then if we’re going to drop The Liber Umbrarum at the secured facility and then make it to the Hunka Hunka Burning Love Wedding Chapel in time.”

Twisting in her seat, she looks up at me and raises an eyebrow in question. “But the werewolves have it.”

“Do they?” I summon a quick spell that undoes the locks on Bessie’s glove box and the door pops open, revealing The Liber Umbrarum safely tucked inside.

LeLe gasps, her gorgeous eyes round with surprise. “But you were a tree, how could you?”

“There’s always a loophole, soon-to-be-again wife,” I say, grinning down at her as I curl my arm around her and pull her closer against me.

“I wasn’t just a tree, I was a witch transformed into a tree, meaning that I still had magic.

And as a tree, I was an official part of the pixie’s forest; the ban on outsider magic didn’t apply to me. ”

She snort-giggles and shakes her head. “You swapped out the spell book.”

“And there’s more.” My gut tightens because this one just might really piss her off, but coming clean to her seems right.

I don’t have to hide the truth from her because she’ll use it against me.

I don’t have to pretend not to care because she’ll find a way to leverage that knowledge.

I don’t have to always be on guard. I can just be Erik Svensen, patriarch to a family that maybe isn’t born to be bad.

Who’d have ever thought that could even be a possibility? Not me before LeLe.

“I haven’t told you the complete truth about getting to the facility,” I go on. “ We can make better time.”

I rest my fingers on her waist and the magic starts building between us before I can even ask if she’ll help. Like a couple that’s been together for decades—or two heirs who’ve found their matches—our magic is already intertwined enough to work together without a conscious spell.

“Hold on,” I say as I move the gearshift from drive to drive two, “it’s gonna be a bumpy ride.”

In half a heartbeat we go from cruising speed to what feels like light speed when you’re in a classic convertible with the top down speeding down the road.

Houses and fields go by in a blur as Bessie automatically swerves around slower vehicles and the occasional bridge troll standing in the middle of the highway.

“Bessie had super speed this whole time?” LeLe asks, her hair flying every which way as we race so fast if anyone watching blinked they’d miss us. “We could have driven this fast the whole time?”

“There’s always a loophole”—I dip my head down so our mouths are so close we’re nearly kissing, teasing her because I know she loves it—“wife.”

Her lips curl upward even as her gaze goes hazy with want. “What am I going to do with you, Erik Svensen?”

There’s a million answers to that question, but one rises above all the others. “Marry me.”

LeLe lets out a sigh of a yes as she reaches up and curls her fingers in my hair before pulling me down to deliver on that kiss.

Yeah, I’m still not the good guy—well, not completely—but I’m her guy, and there’s no happier ending than that.