Page 35 of My Hexed Honeymoon (The Bridgewater Pack #2)

I didn’t realize how scared I was of that before it happened, and it can’t be too late—it just fucking can’t. Haven’t I lost enough?

Hasn’t she?

Strings of light begin to crawl across Talia like glittering spiders, weaving a glowing webbing over her body.

I thought it was bright before, when she was doing her thing with those crazy-thick vines, but I finally have to shut my watering eyes to avoid searing my retinas.

Once the red behind my eyelids fades, I stretch out my fingers, testing I’m not going to get fried, and then pulling her into my arms at long last.

The battlefield’s gone eerily quiet, vampire ash still swirling through the air as my soldiers begin to regroup. To sort through the injured and weep over those we lost, a weight that hangs around my neck like a stone necklace.

Then I hear the most glorious sound ever—Talia’s faint pulse, shallow and weak, but her heart is fighting to keep beating.

“Baby? Baby, can you hear me?” I press a gentle kiss to her forehead. “I failed you. I should’ve stuck by your side and kept you from getting hurt. And if you’ll just come back to me, I promise never to do it again.”

“Did I do it?” Her voice is a broken breath, but as her eyes flutter open, I give a choked cry of relief.

“You did. You beat your mother, took out the vampires, and saved us all.” I hug her closer, inhaling her hair and locking my arms around her extra tightly.

“You never failed me, Diego. You saved me. Marrying you and falling in love with you saved me in so many ways.”

Tears fill my eyes, and I don’t care who sees how much I love my wife. “You scared the shit out of me.” I pat her abdomen, growing ill at the sight of all the blood and searching for the wound I was afraid would never heal.

The lifeforce of the plants she loved so much had taken care of her in return—they’d healed a wound that modern medicine couldn’t have healed.

“I thought I’d lost you, and I wasn’t okay.” I lower my voice and brush my lips against hers in a gentle kiss. “I knew I’d never be okay again.”

She places her hand on the side of my face and gives me the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen, dried blood and cracked lip and all. “I guess I’d better stay put, then.”

I huff a laugh that’s a hint on the maniacal side after the emotional rollercoaster.

The bond between us sparks again—no longer a golden thread, but a warm, pulsing rope, stronger than ever.

“Can I be honest with you, though?” she asks, and I quickly nod and hold my breath. “Our honeymoon kinda sucked. We might need a redo.”

I laugh, this time full-out, the knot in my chest easing. “Maybe one that doesn’t involve vampires or bloody battles? Definitely no almost dying—that’s a rule I’m making right now.”

“As long as it applies both ways,” Talia says with a laugh. “I’m thinking Mai Tais on the beach. Room service. No sleeping bags.” There’s a wicked tilt to her mouth as she adds, “Well, maybe one sleeping bag.”

The ground still seems to be humming beneath us, as if the moss and roots are reaching for Talia the way I do.

Another sound filters through, and I could swear it’s a heartbeat.

Small and fast and coming from…her belly.

“I feel him,” she whispers, placing her hand there. “The baby.”

Green eyes lift to mine, glowing with a nervous excitement.

“We’re having a baby?” I ask, and she nods and tears up a little.

Kerrigan’s life is safe; we’ve won the battle against the witches and vamps and survived; we’re having a baby.

We’ll return to the compound to recover and rebuild, and that’ll include growing our family. I’m so happy I can’t speak, so I kiss her, stroking my tongue over hers and lingering for a moment now that I’m sure she’s okay,

Shouts come from beside us, a flurry of movement as Andromeda has broken free of her shackles with a spell.

I leap to my feet, Talia in my arms. Get Andromeda or get my bride far, far away?

A split forms in the fabric of the universe next to her, like when Talia peels back the layers to enter the Hollow. It feels the same, that dark and dreariness that makes it seem like you’ll never be happy again.

“Go ahead and keep the Blood Loom, I have need of it no more,” Andromeda says with a cackle that makes me wish I’d killed her instead of having some of my men detain her.

I just wasn’t quite sure how my mate would feel, not just today, but future Talia too.

“It was also a key, one that siphoned power directly from the Hollow.”

Talia and I exchange a confused glance, dread forming a brick wall in my chest.

“I was afraid it didn’t work—that I didn’t feed the loom enough blood to feed her.” That lady is entirely too delighted for someone surrounded by werewolves, and it’s beginning to worry me. “See, the siphon works both ways.”

I guess that’s my cue to send Talia off with Sasquatch and get to fighting bad guys again. At least we’re down to one sadistic witch, as the rest have run away.

“But she’s awakened, and she’s coming,” Andromeda hisses, and Talia shivers in my arms.

At the shift in atmosphere, my muscles tense.

A woman steps out of the fissure, radiating menace and an ancient magic that nips at my skin. She’s pale as a vampire, all elegance and deceit. Her black hair tumbles over her shoulder, and her eyes glint violently, primordial and amused, like she already knows how this ends.

Sasquatch goes stone still beside me, gripping the handle of the ax so hard it splinters. “You,” he bellows, his wrath a serpent ready to strike.

“It’s been a long time,” she rasps. “Where’s your little bird?”

Sasquatch hurtles himself through the air, what’s left of his now-stumpy ax in his hands.

Both she and Andromeda disappear in a flash of green smoke, reminding me of the strange sigils we saw right before Conall was shot full of silver bullets and members of our pack stopped healing.

“Who was that?” I ask Sasquatch, who’s still sneering and pacing and ripping at his hair.

“She’s a very powerful being who goes by the Shadow Mother,” he says, hatred dripping from every word. “She’s the one who cursed me half a century ago.”

Thank you for reading MY HEXED HONEYMOON!

If you haven’t read the other books in the Bridgewater Pack Series find more about them by clicking the link!

If hockey romances that make you laugh and swoon are your thing, read GETTING LUCKY NUMBER SEVEN about a shy chemistry nerd who’s sick of spending her weekends studying with her cat and wants to check items off her bucket list with her hockey-playing guy friend Beck—starting with mind-blowing sex!

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