Page 16 of My Hexed Honeymoon (The Bridgewater Pack #2)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The council chamber is remarkably colder than the rest of the compound. Maybe it’s the stone floors, the absence of windows, or the uncomfortable-looking wooden benches. The raised platform of werewolves up front, like the room itself, is built for judgment.

Sasquatch, the werewolf acting as my too-tall, hulking shadow, delivers me inside with a nod to my husband. The enormous guy knocked on my door hard enough that the window frames rattled, informed me he’d be escorting me to Diego as ordered, and that I could choose the easy way or the hard way.

As tempted as I was to tell him he could go fuck himself—and Diego, too—there was a whole phrase about working smarter not harder. Plus the guy didn’t say a word, refusing to answer any of my questions or respond to any of my insults about werewolves.

“Go on up,” Sasquatch says, pointing his finger like I’ll struggle to find my way. Diego’s seated in that center seat on the raised platform like a king, his men at his side—and that very much included Nissa.

As I’d learned the night of the bonfire and ax throwing, the head of the Bridgewater Pack is all Diego De la Cruz will ever be, even to me. No going and thinking we had any form of friendship or intimacy.

No more cuddly chats by the fire or swooning that he cares if I’ve had a s’more before. I opened the shutters to my heart too wide that evening before the flickering flames—wanting so badly to fit in, even in a pack of mangy wolves…

It stung every single time I recalled the entire audience shrinking away.

Evidently, they got to use their supernatural strength to show off and throw axes, but I received the message loud and clear that they didn’t allow others to do the same.

Since that’d led me to declare my magic was the curse both of us always knew it was, I couldn’t currently access it. Not that I’d told Diego or anyone else that my powers were giving the silent treatment to me.

So big surprise, training isn’t going so great, and the instant I see Riven, a suffocating sense of failure settles over me.

I’m a champagne bottle someone’s shaken within an inch of its life, corked too tight and ready to pop.

I’m not sure if it’ll be anger or tears, only that it’ll be wrong either way.

“I trust the night finds you well,” they say, their eyes extracting all my secrets with the briefest of glances. Brightly painted lips purse, conveying they’ve noticed the night has not.

“Ah. I’d ask how we’re progressing, but your expression confirms my pressing sense of urgency was not in vain.”

Leave it to a vampire to speak with such outdated language—it takes me a few extra seconds to strip away the flowery language and figure out what in the Hecate they’re trying to say.

I lift my chin as I bury the truth of this past week deeper within me. All I’ve managed to do is sit in the forest, surrounded by golden threads I should be figuring out how to manipulate, fighting loneliness and self-pity.

Even now, my magic hums beneath my skin, restless and frustrated. Angry at not being used, yet utterly ineffective anytime I attempt to peel back the layers of this realm and return to the Hollow.

Something I’m painfully aware I could do when I had Diego as a grounding rod.

There was something about his infuriating, delicious distraction that countered the fear of peeking into the dark abyss.

Everyone who didn’t have to travel there kept acting like it was no big deal.

As if I were Dora the Explorer, skipping off on an adventure with a map that led to my impending doom, and seriously, I’d kill for a klepto monkey right now.

“Well, since your pressing sense of urgency knows so much,” I say, unable to keep the defensiveness from my voice, “you can go ahead and ask if it can do any better.”

I swear the corner of Diego’s mouth lifts the tiniest bit, then I have to remind myself I don’t care about his smiles.

Same goes for his hulking muscles and how he stalks across our living room with booming steps, back and forth, back and forth—as if he’s got a certain number of steps to hit on his watch and he refuses to meet his goal.

“That’s what I was afraid of,” Riven says, all contemplative, ignoring my barb completely. “The Arcane Tribunal that’s been eradicating sections of werewolves and vampires along the east coast is starting their trek northwest. We’ve only met their welcome party, and our spies say…”

Riven’s features sharpen, the line of her collarbone snapping tight.

“They have an entire army, trained in stealth tactics since the days of the Inquisition—since they dragged witches from their homes and burned them at the stake.

Anyone considered a monster was brutally murdered or driven into hiding.

“We’re not only going to be outnumbered soon, we’re going to be…

” They lick their lips, and their voice pitches ominously louder and higher.

“Outmatched. These hunters can’t be glamoured—not without the loom.

They have a whole arsenal of weapons created with the sole purpose of killing you and me.

We’ve already lost hundreds—many of whom were hiding out in sparsely populated forests just like us.

And by us, I mean vampire and werewolf alike. ”

The room grows eerily quiet as what this information means sinks in.

“They’ll keep the witches alive, though.

As long as you’ll join their cause and do their bidding.

” Riven stretches an arm toward me, their fingertips barely grazing my cheek before Diego’s suddenly there between us.

“They want you as badly as we need your help, they just don’t yet know you’re the key. ”

I crane my body, peeking around Diego’s massive torso to maintain eye-contact with Riven. I’d like to say my bullshit-o-meter is highly accurate, though we’ve all been fooled by a pro now and again.

In this moment, the only thing I see in Riven’s features and the ultra-blue of their irises is genuine fear. Fear from a vampire who appears completely unbothered by the four giant werewolves glaring with murderous intentions from inside enemy territory.

“It’s not fair, what we’re asking, or that the fate of several supernatural factions relies on you, Natalia Burroughs De la Costa from the Oldenwilde Coven.”

I swallow, for way more reasons than my name now being an overwhelming mouthful.

“But here we are, and we need you. Time to make a decision.” Riven’s voice lowers and glides over my skin, silky smooth, their gaze pinned to mine as if we’re the only two in the room.

“We don’t need someone to try, we need them to retrieve a weapon that’ll finally put an end to our slaughter. And regretfully, we’re out of time.”

My throat clamps from the pressure of the mission, along with a week of failures. “I’m doing my best, but I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Dread rises up, replacing the air in my lungs until my head swims with the lack of oxygen. “I can’t ask my mother—she’s detrimental to my magic.”

Because harsh and unimpressed is all she’ll ever be when it comes to me.

“Well perhaps what I’m proposing doesn’t sound so bad in comparison, then,” Riven says, and uh-oh, they’re getting totally carried away with all that relief on their face.

I’m still broken.

I might be that way permanently.

“There’s a place where the veil is thin, where magic can be channeled and wielded with greater ease.”

Hope sends the beats of my heart racing, this idea that I could be useful calling to me. It’d be a bonus if it helped release some of this pent-up energy constantly buzzing beneath the surface.

“I can take you to it.” Riven reaches for me again, but Diego bristles and fully puts himself between us, cutting off eye-contact and everything.

He stretches every inch of his height to the limit. “Over my dead body.”

Riven shrugs a shoulder, their smirk infallible. “If those are your terms, I happily accept.”

I have to stifle my smile so nobody goes calling me a traitor, but I can’t help but envy and admire that type of badassery. Maybe they can teach that to me, too.

Diego sneers at the both of us, disgust dripping from his voice and his features. “You need me, and you know it.”

“ Sh e needs you.” Riven lifts their head, ever so regal, pale eyebrows arched up near their hairline. “Although I suppose, in turn, that means…”

As if it’s impossible for them to actually say the words, they demurely fold their hands in front of them and skip right over the rest. “You’re both welcome to join me. It’s a bit of a journey, and we’ll need to travel light.”

They deliver it with flair, as if it’s an invitation for a week-long getaway, not a magical excursion with hiking and camping, which I assume comes along. There aren’t many wells of raw magic in areas where humans bulldoze and populate.

Sometimes I worried nature was a tap that’d run out, not sure if it’d be a dream or a nightmare for me to wake up in a world without magic.

Maybe it’d be easier, I thought, but the mere idea makes me feel cleaved in two.

Diego sweeps his gaze over his council members before returning it to Riven, and whoa, I almost forgot they were all here as well. “We’ll discuss it,” he says.

I have no idea if that “we” includes me, but since the mission does, he’s going to quickly discover that it includes me now.

“I figured.” Riven bobs their head in the tiniest show of respect. “I’ll be waiting for your decision near the southern tree line where you found me. Within howling distance, should you need me.”

They stride toward the exit like they’ll be able to roam the compound unaccompanied, when I suspect they’ll be immediately intercepted by the werewolf who looks like he fronts a Norse metal band.

They open the door and—sure enough—meet the firm resistance of Sasquatch.

Guy seriously has to stoop to shoot the vampire the stink-eye through the open frame.

“Sasquatch,” Diego says from directly behind me, “please escort Riven to the lobby and stay with them while we make our decision.”

Riven waves goodbye like they’ve just performed to a sold-out crowd.

Then they take it further by blowing me a kiss.

And I tell myself it doesn’t make me happy, the jealousy that snaps Diego’s shoulders so tight. I know it’s the bond, more obligation than affection. But there’s also a golden string that binds him to me, even if only a result of magic.

So, even as I throw up my walls in the name of self-preservation, part of me still aches to figure out how we could be a real team.

I can’t rid myself of the urge to find a way to become a real team—an unconventional one, sure, but something solid.

Because if we don’t, there may not be any supernatural creatures left.