Page 17 of My Hexed Honeymoon

“Fuck you, buddy,” I say, anger unfurling and pumping through my veins.

“Not right now, babe. Like I said, we’ve got a busy day.” He looms over me, not a single compromising line in his body. “But don’t you worry your pretty little head, that’s coming.”

My breath leaves me in a whoosh, my heart ceasing its beats as he leans closer.

He lifts a lock of my hair and winds it around his finger. “And when I do fuck you, you won’t be calling me buddy. You’ll be crying out my name,beggingme for mercy.”

CHAPTER NINE

The forest isquiet this morning—too quiet. As if even wildlife knows something big and dangerous is about to happen.

I drove one of the tricked-out Jeep Rubicons to where the faded dirt path gave way to thick foliage, a good distance past where my men sweep the perimeter on a regular basis.. Once the trail grew too thin, I kept on going, engaging 4L and climbing at a steep 40-degree angle, until we were bouncing around the cab like heated kernels of popcorn.

Natalia grabbed the oh-shit handle or braced a hand on the glovebox a few times, but other than that, she’s remained stony and silent.

From there, we hiked another couple of miles, through thick underbrush practically undisturbed by man, until we crested a peak that allowed us to see the entire valley.

I reach down and extend a hand to Natalia, a gesture of goodwill—along with a pinch of genuine concern for the fragile human body she has to navigate the world in—fully expecting her to ignore it like she’s done every other time I offered assistance.

Evidently, brewing coffee is welcome, but a hand-up is?—

To my surprise, she slaps her palm in mine, and through ragged breaths, asks, “Are we almost…” Wheeze. “There yet?”

“Just as soon as I pull you up this ridge.” Increasing my grip on her hand, I haul her to me with extra gusto.

Only realizing I’ve underestimated how much she weighs as she slams into my chest, the fingernails of her free hand digging into the muscle of my shoulder. “I was going to make some joke about how they’d never find my…”

As she works to stabilize her center of gravity, her breasts smoosh up against my chest. Then I’m staring down at the cleavage the V-neck of her black tank top hinted at, my throat completely dry.

“Whoa, find my body, even before all the hiking.” She narrows eyes the color of that neon green moss that grows on the north sides of rocks and trees on me, and my heart gallops even harder and faster. “If you made me hike this insanely rocky hill to kill me, not only is that next-level evil, I’ll also come back and haunt you forever. Just saying.”

That, I didn’t expect.

Same way I didn’t mean to soften toward her so fast. I tamp down every squishy, weak emotion—as well as my urge to wrap her in my arms—shame rising up and overtaking the rest of my traitorous desires.

In a perfect world, my wife and I would get along and be on the same team. I could admire her incredible sense of humor and we’d trust each other and all that other happy shit.

But at the end of the day, she’s still a witch. A marriage in name is all this’ll ever be, so there’s no use pretending it’s anything more than transactional, not for either one of us. “I’ve seen your kind slaughter dozens of werewolves,” I say. “Women and childrenin their beds.An entire village burned to the ground.”

The screams that replay in the back of my mind still haunt me, my brain forever trying to sort out which screams came from my mother, my little sisters, my brother. As if that would make it better, or I could go back in time and save them somehow.

Rage simmers my blood and locks my jaw. “You’re the evil villains, not the other way around.”

Obviously thrown by the switch in mood, Natalia takes a giant step backward, the soles of her shoes slipping against the gravel and rock. She glares at the hand I automatically brace at her hip so she won’t fall, as if she’d rather fall down a cliff than be close to me.

Snagging hold of a tree branch, she tugs herself up higher and away from me, proving me right. “Clearly you’ve already made up your mind about who I am, so maybe I’ll just kill you then.”

I spread my arms wide, showing off the fact that I don’t need a fucking branch to hold onto and speak through clenched teeth. “You can certainly try.”

“Ugh,”she says before storming off into the trees, bushes scraping her cheeks and arms. And even as blood wells and scents the air, I tell myself I’mgladshe’s hating this hike so much.

It makes it easier to hate her.

We maneuver our way around rocky crags and knotted tree branches to finally crest the summit. Here, the air is cooler and dense with dew and the scent of pine, damp earth. Natalia’s unique sweet scent swirls into the mix, invading my head and scrambling my thoughts.

Not only do I wish she looked more like a crone with green skin and a wart on her nose, the least she could do is to stop smelling so damn intoxicating.

As we reach the tippy-top and the ground flattens out, Natalia stops short, a gasp falling from parted lips.

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