Page 48 of What the Hex

“Will you fix Nita?” Cyrus asked, echoing his thoughts.

“If I can, but I’m telling you, I honestly don’t know how.” Owen tensed, his eyes widened, and he looked on the verge of panic. “I don’t even know how I cursed any of you in the first place.”

“Well, let’s think about this logically,” King said, the voice of reason. “Cyrus said there were quite a few magic users at the last event.” He looked to the hellhound for confirmation and smiled when Cyrus nodded. “I think it’s safe to say that you absorbed magic from them without meaning to.”

“Do you have to touch them to do that?” Arlo asked from his perch.

“Yes, but it doesn’t always happen.”

“I’d guess the more powerful the Otherling, the more practiced they’d be at blocking you,” King offered.

Everyone nodded thoughtfully, agreeing that it made perfect sense.

“Oh, I get it!” Arlo shouted as he practically flung himself off the table. “You’re an ass-pear.”

“Accipere,” Owen corrected, but he looked to be having a hard time not laughing about the mispronunciation.

“Right, whatever. Spells are magic.” When no one seemed to be following his train of thought, he threw his hands in the air and huffed. “Take back the hex! Just absorb it. That could work, right?”

Owen thought about it for a moment, then shrugged. “Theoretically?” His tone didn’t hold a lot of confidence. “Yeah, I could try. I can’t promise it’ll work, though.”

“What do you think, darlin’?”

King leaned to the side to rest against his shoulder. “I think it’s worth a shot.”

“Agreed.” Now that they had that out of the way, he had another piece of news he’d been keeping close to the vest all day. “We’re going to have a few extra guests at the fan meet tonight.”

“Oh?” King sounded more distracted than curious. “Who?”

“My family.”

It took a couple of seconds for the information to penetrate, but when it did, King bolted upright, his eyes as big around as dinner plates. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“What?” Arlo demanded. “What did I miss? This telepath stuff sucks balls.”

“Calm down, darlin’. It’s just my parents and my sisters. I promise they’re not that scary.”

“How long have you known?”

“I called them first thing this morning.”

“This morning!” King screeched. “And you’re just now telling me? What the hell, Storm?”

“Tell me,” Arlo whined. “I want to know!”

“Oh, my god, I hate you.” With that, King launched himself off the loveseat and marched out of the room without so much as a see-you-later.

“I love you, too!” Storm called after him.

Clearly, no one knew how to respond to the outburst, and the resulting tension in the room turned thick and cloying. Until Owen finally broke the uneasy silence.

“Uh, so can I go now?”

Chapter thirteen

King was going to throw up.

Not just a little. Not only in his mouth. He was going to full-on The Exorcist everything he’d ever eaten in his entire life.

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