Page 4 of My Hexed Honeymoon (The Bridgewater Pack #2)

CHAPTER FOUR

Gotta be honest, I don’t understand half of what Helena just said.

Something about it prickles my skin and shrinks down my world to the here and now, though.

Oracle.

Power’s finally been awakened .

She’s the only one who can reach it.

And by she , she meant me . The impotent witch and massive disappointment, only good for being married off and bringing forth an heir with actual power.

But as Helena’s amber eyes lock onto mine, a strange tugging sensation ripples beneath my skin, and the golden threads of the universe blink brighter into existence.

My mother’s jaw locks, razor sharp, her accusation slicing through the silence. “All this time you’ve been pretending to be so powerless.”

Oh, for Hecate’s sake, instead of being relieved I have more uses she can exploit, she’s mad?

I’m the one who was locked in closets, told fear would eventually unlock my magic. I read a grimoire for three days and two nights, no sleep, no food, no breaks. And in the end, she was furious I dared to pass out before I mastered any spells.

“I have no idea what she’s talking about, Mother,” I say, my voice slightly scratchy from disuse. “You’re finding this out at the same time as I am.”

Beside me, eyes the color of the darkest, most bitter espresso narrow on me in suspicion. Perfect. My groom’s taking my mom’s side, so guess who’s sleeping on the couch tonight? Fingers crossed he doesn’t shed.

I don’t even know if we have a couch or a bed or what the house even looks like.

For a moment, I feel hopelessly lost and alone, but that’s nothing new.

My gaze drifts past Helena to Riven again, as if another vampire will soothe my stung feelings and abiding sense of ennui. As if I’ll find a bosom body instead of a monster who wants to sink their teeth into me.

Riven’s lips quirk, a hint of fang flashing in their smile. I might welcome it, as long as it gets me away from the brooding beast at my side.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see that Andromeda’s advancing on me. “Ungrateful brat, I’ve given you everything. How dare you keep this from me!”

She raises her hand to strike, and embarrassment burns my skin that they’ll all witness her violence against me.

In a flash, Diego moves—faster than I expected, even with preternatural speed. He catches my mother by the wrist, his body a wall of muscle that blocks her off from me. “Enough,” he says, his low growl reverberating through the space and leaving my skin humming.

Nobody has ever stood up to my mother. None of the witches in the coven, and certainly not me.

An emotion I can’t name but suspect is gratitude floods me. Given everything else that’s happened between Diego and me, I don’t know how exactly to feel about it.

Andromeda, however, is pissed. Green light crackles at her fingertips, and I hate that I’m not strong enough to stand up for him the way he stood up for me.

But then Diego wrenches her arm behind her back, spinning her around as if he’s a cop and she’s about to take a ride to the station.

Now his fangs are out, dangerously close to Mother’s carotid artery.

“We agreed to your deal, but make no mistake, I’ll protect what’s mine at all costs, and you’ve ensured Natalia’s part of that. ”

Since he was defending me and all, I bit back my comment about how I was right freaking here. Same way I stifled the sudden ache in my core at the gravelly timbre of his voice when he said my name.

It was deeper. Lower.

Filled with a possessive edge that left no room for argument.

Nobody called me Natalia, either. Heat pools low in my gut, my nipples strain against the confines of my dress, and I’d give anything for a fan to cool my face.

It must be the bond.

My shallow breaths saw in and out of my mouth, my gravitational pull adjusting to Diego De la Cruz’s wake, and I couldn’t stop staring at his sculpted jaw—even though he’s still centimeters away from puncturing my mother’s life-giving vein.

Andromeda’s not threatening him or the pack or flinging her magic around like I expected. She’s stone-fucking silent, and it’s utter bliss, vampires and werewolf groom notwithstanding.

“And I’m bored,” Riven says, but their magnetism no longer causes a blip of a blip. My ovaries are performing a drumline routine, my fixation on Diego’s mouth—fangs and all—growing more and more distracting.

Diego flings my mother away from him, not gentle or mannerly, not an ounce of goodwill. Without taking his gaze off the gathered group in front of him, he extends a hand, stretching long fingers in my direction.

Without a second thought, I take hold, practically floating to his side as he anchors me against him. It’s odd for our bodies to be so in sync when he’s still looking at me like I’m a burden he’s now forced to attend to.

“Tell us more,” he instructs the vampires, and I sink my teeth into my lower lip, studying the dark scruff that perfectly frames his lips.

I hate him, I hate him, I—Goddess help me, he’s brutishly beautiful.

The warmth of his body seeps into me, leaving me a tad breathless and dizzy.

Andromeda’s wrath is aimed directly at me again, but with Diego’s protective arm around me, I can’t bring myself to worry or even care about the consequences. I’m no longer hers, and it’s odd to feel so bound and so free all at once.

“It complicates things that she’s so unaware,” Helena says, the scowl she aims at me eerily similar to my mother’s.

“That’s me,” I mutter. “Disappointing supernatural creatures everywhere with my lack of power.”

“Lack of power?” Riven gives a mirthless laugh. “Hardly.”

They slink closer, and Diego’s steely fingers grip my hip in a possessive show that causes a pulse between my thighs.

It’d be great if my body would stop reacting in ways I can’t help.

Given the choice between the wolves or the vamps, I’m not sure who I’d pick, but the choice has been taken from me anyway.

“Do you really not know?” Riven pauses their steps at Diego’s low growl, the corner of their mouth quirking as they raise their hands in the classic surrender stance. “Down, boy. I’m no threat to your bride. Not tonight, anyway.”

Every line of Diego’s body snaps tight, and I swear I feel the nip of claws at my waist.

I have the oddest urge to spin in his arms and soothe the storm; except I have no idea what my groom likes or doesn’t like, only I land more on the latter than the former.

“Stop looking with your human eyes and open your third eye,” Riven instructs, and I’m fairly certain they mean me. “A proper teacher would’ve instilled enough faith in yourself to trust your senses. I see that’s been beaten out of you, your Sight eclipsed by your survival instinct for too long…”

Riven glances at my mother, disgust in their expression. “Too bad. Now we don’t have time for proper training. But it’s still there, I can sense it.”

“That makes one of us,” I mutter, and a muscle flexes in Diego’s jaw. Irritation or amusement, I’m not sure, and I try to convince myself I don’t care.

“It’s that spark you feel…” Riven’s smooth voice wraps around me like silk, awakening the tingling energy that I’ve retreated into during my loneliest stretches. There were a lot of lonely stretches.

But there was sensing the frog jumping from lily pad to lily pad in the pond at our backs, and then there was finding a mythical object in a realm I’d previously deemed fictional.

“That’s not how my powers work.” The ability to see the glowing framework that connects us all showed up around adolescence, but it was a while before I could sort the glittering latticework that drifted up from the plants and trees from the individual imprints of souls.

“It’s not some kind of magical GPS. I’m not a hound dog who can pick up a particular scent.

I only see the auras of what’s already around me and… ”

I’m not sure I should admit this part, but in for a penny, in for a dollar or whatever. “And yes, I can sometimes see the pathway to find them.”

Betrayal and fury gleam within the depths of Mother’s gaze. Her lips don’t move, but inside my head, she calls me a liar, and I’m the one who curls closer to Diego this time.

She can’t hurt me anymore. Not physically anyway.

“But it’s only ever worked on something with a heartbeat—I’ve never used it to find an object. I’m much better with critters. People tend to blur together and read mostly the same.”

“We’re not talking about a regular object,” Riven says, their tone almost reverent. “We’re talking about a weapon with a powerful signature.”

I can’t help it, I’m cautiously intrigued.

“Which is where you come in.” Riven lifts an eyebrow at me, and my pulse kicks up. “Because getting in and out of the Hollow requires a witch who can navigate the astral.”

“The astral?” I ask, wary. There’s something they’re not telling me. “I can’t imagine a group of vampires came all this way and risked a confrontation with werewolves to watch me get lost in the astral plane.”

“We came to get back what you stole from us,” Helena snaps, and Riven places a calming hand on the other vampire’s shoulder.

“While I can see the threads that map out the universe,” Riven says, reaching out and dragging fingers across the wispy golden strings like an angel plucking a celestial chord. “I can’t weave them or bend them to my will.”

“Neither can I,” I say, and Helena clenches her jaw, her eye twitching like she’s about to lose her temper and choke the life out of me.

Diego must sense it too, because a low, threatening noise emanates from the back of his throat.

But even as I say it, when I stretch out a finger, those golden threads bend and swirl around me, which is new.

“You’d better hope you’re wrong,” Riven says simply. “Or else we have no reason to forge an alliance. There’s a supernatural storm brewing, and whether it’s this month or the next, hunters are coming for us all.”

Hunters.

That’s a word I understand all too well. We’ve flown mostly under the radar since the whole Salem Witch trials era, with hunters mostly focusing on vampires and werewolves. But once they discovered and slaughtered a coven in Toronto, we were added to their search and destroy mission.

“The vampires are ready for war.” Riven’s gaze moves to Diego, a challenging gleam in their eyes, the color of a cloudless summer sky. “How about you, Wolfie? Brand new to leadership and chomping at the bit. Are you?”