Page 15 of My Hexed Honeymoon (The Bridgewater Pack #2)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The perimeter guards have our unexpected guest surrounded, half of them fangs and fur, with those in human form ready to transform at a moment’s notice. Through their barrier of bodies, I catch a glimpse of a platinum fauxhawk glowing in the moonlight.
“Riven,” I snarl, not bothering to hide my disdain or annoyance. “You should’ve called.”
Their swagger as they take the half step toward me before meeting the resistance of my men causes me to want to rip off a limb, so I cross my arms and remind myself I’m trying to prevent an all-out war with the vampires; not give them a reason.
Riven’s smile is all teeth and amusement, the very picture of someone who enjoys stirring up shit just to see where it settles. “And miss this warm greeting? You can’t get this kind of leering with a phone call.”
“You can. It’s called FaceTime.”
“Ah,” they say. “Next time, then. Although I don’t believe that sort of scowl, radiating that type of rage, can be fully captured in 3D. The extra dimension gives so much more detail to the flare of your nostrils and threatening jut of your chin.”
I exhale, making a show of how exhausting I’m finding them already, and that if they take testing my patience too far, I’m likely to snap. “State your business, bloodsucker.”
“Ooh, reverting to name-calling.” Riven’s features smooth, that quirk of a smile showing off fuchsia lipstick and a hint of fang.
Enough that my guards grumble in warning, from those on all fours to those cracking knuckles and flanking either side of me.
Riven takes off their gloves, one finger at a time, revealing those fake fingernails nearly as long as their fingers—I have no idea how they expect to ever defend themselves with those things on. “You can tell the Snarl Squad to relax. No blood needs to be shed unnecessarily, at least not tonight.”
Oh, I’m about to find it extremely necessary.
And that’s even before they say, “I’m actually looking for an audience with your blushing bride.
” They neatly fold their gloves and take their sweet time tucking them into the pockets of their cape coat, as if we can’t rip their head from their body.
“I don’t mind going to her, but I’m fine waiting here if you’d rather bring her to me. ”
Yeah, I didn’t want their vampire stench anywhere near my home or my blushing bride.
Not that she was currently speaking to me.
We exchanged a handful of words over the past couple of days, and it was like pulling fucking teeth. I never knew “Please pass the milk” could sound so much like “I wish I could eat this cereal next to your corpse.”
The woman I sat next to at the bonfire, laughing and licking melted chocolate off our lips and fingers, is gone.
The problem is, after that ax throwing contest, nobody can forget her display of magic or that she’s a witch.
Which has also led to her wandering off in the forest to practice her magic—as well as getting in and out of the Hollow—alone. Since things were tense enough as it was, I gave her the semblance of space, having Elias and Gideon shadow her from several yards back.
In the meantime, I’ve been dealing with pack meetings from morning till night, until I’ve seen for myself why Conall was so damn grouchy all the time.
While there are good ideas and items we absolutely have to discuss and address in the mix, the majority of it is complaints and requests.
It makes me feel like some angry Santa Claus who goes around telling children there will be nothing but coal in their stockings this year.
This week, we discovered the hunters dedicated to finding us and torturing information and our powers out of us before slaughter are calling themselves the Arcane Tribunal and grow bigger each day.
All while the pack members are arguing who gets to be in charge during PTA meetings.
Conall reminded me that when there’s a danger outside our walls, our members need normalcy more than ever inside of them.
More than anything, we needed to protect ourselves from those outside threats so that we could go on arguing about whether or not the kids needed to learn cursive.
I lift a finger to signal to Riven I’ll be with them in a minute, then dial up Sasquatch and tell him to pick up Natalia from my place and escort her to the meeting chamber.
While I could tell it was a difficult shift for the mountainous ginger who looked like a time-traveling Viking to go from Conall and Kerrigan’s personal bodyguards to taking orders from me, at this point, he’s the only one I trust to handle Talia with a modicum of respect—even if she gets sassy.
Hoping my best welcome-wagon pair could work their own type of magic, I sent Kerrigan and Gina over yesterday afternoon while I was in meetings to check in on my wife. Not even they could get much out of her, and she was surlier than ever by the time I arrived home in the evening.
At this point, the only way the two of us would create a supernatural heir was in the lab.
Is that the kind of thing Kerrigan could do at the clinic?
It’d be a pity to skip the fun part, where I buried myself between Natalia’s thighs and savored every little whimper and moan…
At the thundering of my heart, I have to press pause on the dirty thought reel. With a shift of my feet and a clearing of my throat, I calm my breathing and remind myself I’m standing in the middle of a forest.
Across from an overly smooth vampire.
“Come with me,” I say after confirming Sasquatch is on his way to the meeting chamber with Natalia. He didn’t bother commenting on how her mood was, but I’m sure as soon as she lays eyes on me, it’ll be downright icy.
As I escort Riven inside the compound, a line of bodyguards at my side, I scrub a hand over my face. After a day of being the decider for so many things I didn’t give a shit about, I was spent. I didn’t want to have to determine one more thing.
But with so many lives hanging in the balance, what I wanted no longer mattered.
That was the other thing about becoming alpha—it never stopped. And with a dangerous faction of humans out there with the sole purpose of eradicating us from the earth, we needed every ally and extra minute we could get.