Page 14 of Hex Me (Immortal Vices and Virtues: All Hallows’ Eve #7)

Tamsin

T amsin lay on her side, one leg thrown over Max’s waist, her head on his shoulder. If anyone had asked her to predict how her night would end, it would not have been this.

Mates.

Her and Max were mates .

And it felt right, like this was what should have always been. Maybe she needed to take fate out for dinner as a belated thank you.

Lying next to her, Max was studying the broken pair of glasses he’d dug out from under his back. “I dinnae think I can fix these.”

“Why were you wearing them anyway?” Tamsin asked.

“To drive ye nuts?”

She lifted her head and then flipped him the bird. “Aside from that.”

He chuckled but finally explained, “They can detect magic.”

Tamsin sat up, stunned. “Wait, what?”

“I made them so I could see magic.”

She stared, horrified, at the crumped frames and broken lenses. “Do you know how much those glasses are worth? And we crushed them!”

“They were a prototype. I can make more.”

“You can ‘make more.’” Stunned. She was stunned. Her mate. Her cunning, clever mate had made glasses that could see magic. “You are brilliant!”

He grinned, the expression making him appear young, bashful. “I know.”

She hmphed, but inwardly, she was delighted. “What made you do it?”

“So I could keep an eye on ye.”

“Sure, sure.” She tugged the coverlet up and leaned her head back against his shoulder. She wasn’t sure he was ever going to give her a serious answer.

“After those creatures invaded,” he started, “back when we first met, I wanted to try and work out how we could see them. I stumbled across this in the process.” Monsters who could make themselves invisible.

That’s what he was referring to. Max had stumbled across a life-changing invention while trying to make a second life-changing invention.

She marveled at her mate’s casual genius.

“Tam.” Max’s voice was suddenly serious. “We’re mates now.”

She grinned. “Yes, yes we are.”

“I’m immortal.” His expression was troubled.

“Oh, that.” She waved a hand through the air. “I may be, too.”

“What do you mean, ‘may be’?” She could hear his frown. She loved it.

“Well, my grandfather was a god, and I can manipulate space and time. Plus, I’m already fifty years old and I look barely twenty-five.” She drew a heart on his chest with her finger.

He grabbed her finger. “Ye were going to tell me this, when?”

“Now.” She looked up at him and grinned.

“Evil.” He shook his head. “Ye are an evil woman.” He shook his head again.

“I’m your woman.”

He gave her a smug look. “That ye are.”

Tamsin’s cell phone rang with an incoming video call. “Who the hell is calling at this hour?” She scrambled out of bed to find her phone and frowned at Sabrina’s name on the screen. What was going on?

“Who is it?” Max asked.

“Sabrina.”

“Do you think there’s a problem?” Max asked.

Tamsin lay next to Max, careful to make sure he wasn’t in view of the camera and pulled the comforter up to her chin. She answered the call. “What are you doing calling me at 2 am? Aren’t you meant to be in Avalon?”

Sabrina’s red hair glowed like it was a halo as she looked at the phone screen. She must have been standing under a streetlight in the Crossroads, seeing how phones didn’t work in Avalon. “Well, we just ducked back so we could get some snacks.”

Get some snacks? At 2 am? On All Hallows’ Eve?

“And?” Tamsin prompted.

“We just wanted to see how the party went,” Sabrina continued blithely. “But I can see you’re already at the hotel.”

Kieran’s face jammed against Sabrina’s as he looked at the phone screen. “I see Tamsin got the bed. Is Max on the floor?”

Tamsin froze. She hadn’t thought about how she’d tell them about her and the phantom.

“Max is right here.” He leaned over into view, giving them both that shit-eating grin she still wasn’t sure she appreciated, mate or not.

“Hah! I knew it. Pay up!” Kieran fist-pumped the air.

“They’re just sharing a bed. It doesn’t mean anything,” Sabrina argued.

Kieran pointed a finger at the screen. “They’re naked!”

“What?” Sabrina focused on the cell phone, and Tamsin swore she turned a little green in color. “Uncle Max!” Then she turned her gaze on Tamsin. “That’s Uncle Max!”

“He’s not my uncle,” Tamsin growled, not appreciating her friend’s insinuation and dismay.

“No, he’s her daddy!” Kieran shouted, laughing.

“And her mate!” Max added with glee.

Sabrina’s blue eyes went wide. “Wait, mate ?—”

“I hate you all,” Tamsin declared and hung up the phone. She stared at the screen and then threw the cell across the room.

Max was quiet, then he asked, “Are ye unhappy about us?”

Tamsin turned to him, horror creeping through her veins at his question. “No! Not at all. The complete opposite, actually.”

“Then why’d ye throw yer phone?”

She crossed her arms over her chest, knowing she looked like a petulant child, but unable to stop herself. “Cos they’re assholes.”

Max nodded and pulled her closer, his tone conciliatory, but his relief evident. “That they are.”

Tamsin shut her eyes. “They’re going to give us so much shit.” Her phone was already buzzing with messages from its position on the floor.

“Yes, they are.”

“Why aren’t you annoyed?”

“Because I’m related to half of them. If they think too hard about it, it will gross them out.”

“Lucky you,” Tamsin mumbled.

Max tucked her head under his chin, but she felt his chest vibrate with his laughter as he wrapped her in a hug she felt all the way to her soul. She heard the smile in his voice when he said, “Lucky me, indeed.”

The End