Chapter Six
Effie…
Darius races down the mountain roads like the entire Sherwood family is breathing down his neck instead of little ol’ me.
Not that I’m not scary on my own—I am petrifying—but my whole family coming together to kick your ass is frightening on a whole different level, which Grumpy Fur-kins seems to understand deep in his bones, judging by the way he’s practically flying down the highway.
I’m sure there are trees and animals and picturesque lakes along the way, but I don’t see them.
The whole world is a blur of green, brown, and blue as he hits a billion miles per hour.
Hairpin turns? Maybe he gives the rear brakes a light press.
S curves? I swear to the Fates, he speeds up on every one.
Road taking a sharp up or down? He just leans into it like he’s daring the universe to break his neck.
It is literally the most fun I have had in years. If I didn’t think I’d go flying off, I’d unwrap my arms from around Darius’s middle and throw them in the air.
Wait.
Maybe there is a silver lining to whatever boomerang charm he managed to stick on me.
If I bounced off the motorcycle into the atmosphere, I’d just poof right back on.
Right?
RIGHT!
“Don’t even fucking try it,” Darius says, his gruff tone teasing my natural pain-in-the-ass tendencies.
“Try what?” I ask as innocently as someone like me can muster.
He makes a ninety-degree turn at a speed that should have sent us flying off the mountain. “Whatever it is your twisted brain is thinking up.”
“Oh, you think my brain is twisted?” I lean in, really plastering myself against his back, so my lips are practically touching his ear. “Honey, it’s like a roller coaster up there. It’s all loop-the-loops and turns and death-defying drops.”
Darius snorts. “Just don’t let go. It takes a lot to hurt a werewolf like me, and I’d just regenerate anything nonfatal anyway. Your fragile witch body, however, would be toast.”
Maybe.
Probably.
It doesn’t matter, because flirting with Darius is more fun than testing out my theory—at the moment.
“Awwwwww. Does the fuzzy-wuzzy wolf want to protect me?”
He shrugs those broad shoulders of his. “Hard to ransom a dead witch.”
“So gruff and tough when you think you’ll get away with stealing The Liber Umbrarum and glitching my magic. Are you trying to be super sexy? Should I tell you it’s working and that I’m all aquiver?” I tease him. “Or are you the kind of alpha who gets off on being a little beta every now and then?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know.”
And fuck me, I would. Like a lot. Like a lot a lot.
I have fun when I am in charge, when I’m not, and when it’s all just a battle for control. Completely distracted from my earlier plan to try out the limits on Darius’s boomerang charm, I slide one hand across his hard abs, down his side, and over the top of his thigh.
He lets out a warning growl. “I’m not one to be played with, witch.”
“Then you have been missing out.”
I stretch my fingers outward, letting the tips brush against the inner seam of his jeans.
With my chest pressed against his back, I feel his breathing hitch even though we’re going what feels like Mach 10 around the mountain.
His already-hard thigh muscle tenses under my palm, and I swear the air changes around us, visibly wavering like the hot air around a desert oasis.
Is it a bluff?
Absolutely.
I might tease and annoy, but I never go where I’m not enthusiastically welcomed and wanted.
So, for as much fun as it is to poke at the wolf, I know I’ve pushed things about as far as they should go.
Time to go back to holding on for dear life because, yeah, I have my magic, but it’s obviously glitching if I can’t overpower whatever charm he’s stuck on me, so the smart thing to do is to wrap both arms tight around his waist.
Before I can lift my palm off his thigh, though, Darius clamps one of his big, meaty hands down over mine, trapping me and making my whole body go on alert in the best of bad ways. He holds my hand firm against his thigh, not moving it, but definitely not letting it go.
All of a sudden, I’m the one getting played here.
My nipples tighten to hard points, and I am so regretting my choice in bras, because the black lace with the pokey underwire I’d decided against when I got dressed this morning would have been worth the jabbing pain in my boob.
I scooch forward on the seat so not even the mountain air can get between us.
Still, it’s not enough. I want more, I can’t help it, and I’m half tempted to do some acrobatics so I’m face-to-face with Darius instead of with my front to his back, but before I can give in to the impulse, he makes a sharp turn onto a dirt path and actually picks up speed.
Describing what we’re on as a path is being generous here.
It’s like a narrow strip of ground that maybe someone walked through once a generation ago.
And speed? I don’t know how fast we’re going because my cheeks are practically flapping in the wind like I’m a dog who stuck its head out of a window during a tornado.
Low tree branches are coming at us fast, and we’re headed dead straight toward a rocky outcropping on a cliff’s edge.
I’m gonna die.
At the rate he’s going, there’s no way we can avoid smashing head-on into the boulders, and there’s not enough mountain between us and the perilous drop to stop before we go over.
And this jackass is speeding up? If I didn’t think this was my last thirty seconds on earth, I’d make a mental note to find out what kind of charm he put in his engine to make it go like this.
As it is, though, all I can do is tighten my one arm still wrapped around his waist, because if I’m going, I’m taking him with me.
“Relax, witch,” Darius says with a smile (yes, I know I can’t see his face, but I can totally hear his facial expression). “I’ve got you.”
Isn’t that always what werewolves say before they take the first bite?
If it isn’t, it should be.
But then, instead of us slamming into the rocks, the front boulder moves to the left and Darius drives right through the opening. There’s barely enough time for the motorcycle’s rear wheel to enter the space before it slides back into place with a no-nonsense thud.
It’s colder in here and darker (obviously) as we wind through the secret cavern.
I can’t see a damn thing (what does Darius have against turning on his headlights?), but werewolves apparently don’t have a problem seeing in the dark like witches do, so we zip through the narrow space at speeds that are usually only seen on a racetrack.
It’s the same for my dad, who’s a bear shifter.
He always says pitch-dark looks like dusk to him; things are a little less visible, but he can still see everything.
Honestly, I’m kinda glad I can’t see past my arm.
Tight dark spaces have never been my thing, and I’m simply holding on to Darius slightly less tightly than I’m squeezing my eyes shut.
The heat of the sun hits my face half a second after the cold damp stops licking at my skin.
When I open my eyes, it takes a second to regain my focus, and even after that I have to blink a few times to get my bearings.
After all, it’s not every day a witch gets to see the outlaw werewolves’ home base.
The village of Arcadia is set deep in a large valley, protected from sight by the mountains encircling it and the vast network of trees providing cover from above.
The only way in or out seems to be the network of caverns we just drove through.
However, the waterfall feeding the river disappearing into the woods on the north end of the valley hints at an alternative, which I add to my mental list of possible escape routes for when I figure out how to cancel out whatever boomerang charm he managed to hide on me.
Darius slows as we approach the outskirts of town. It looks surprisingly normal—at least at the beginning.
First, there are the sheep grazing on the edge of town. They are all marked with a mix of different identifying tags denoting they were *ahem* liberated from a variety of ranches. Well, that fits with the Aetos reputation of stealing whatever isn’t locked down.
The three men shearing the sheep (and plucking off the telltale tags) glance up as we pass, but they don’t smile. There’s a slight nod of acknowledgment but no waves of hello.
“Wow,” I say, lacing that single word with as much sarcasm as I can muster, which is a lot. “They seem excited to see you.”
“I don’t want their excitement, only their respect,” he says, lifting his hand off mine and keeping his gaze straight ahead.
I give his thigh one last squeeze before sliding my hand back up to his waist. “Such a tough big bad wolf.”
“Witch,” he says with a warning sigh. “Did you forget you’re in Aetos territory now? You might want to watch that smart mouth of yours.”
How many times have I been warned about that? So many. It never seems to take though. I just can’t help myself.
“Don’t worry, Wolfie,” I say. “I noticed you like to watch it enough for both of us.”
There’s a rumble of a growl in his chest that vibrates through to me.
I’m half tempted—fine, almost all the way tempted—to keep pushing just to see what happens next (my money is on hard, fast, against-the-nearest-tree fucking), but I manage to stop myself.
It’s not that I want to, but he’s right (not that I’ll ever admit it): I’m still technically in Witchingdom, but the only thing that matters is that it’s Darius’s turf.