Chapter Eleven
Effie…
We take off for the woods at a pace that has my boobs crying for mercy until I whisper a quick sports bra spell that keeps my chin from getting whacked black and blue.
No, my boobs aren’t really that big (hello, I do love me some hyperbole), but they are large enough to make jogging without proper support a giant pain in the tits. No one wants that—especially me when I’m already in misery trying to keep up with Mr. Every Day Is Cardio Day.
Isn’t that the opposite of what muscled-up tough guys are supposed to be like?
Aren’t they all arms and chests with the occasional leg day and without even a single cardio day in the rotation?
Not Darius. He’s running at a speed I don’t like to imagine the treadmill goes up to without even a hitch in his breathing.
And all that is despite the dark as night falls, the roots sticking up from the ground, and the occasional small woodland creature that scurries across our path.
Forget how damn sexy he is, Darius Aetos can fuck right off.
“You have to slow down,” I manage to get out as I press a hand to my side.
He slows down enough so that instead of wanting to die, I just want to break my leg so I can’t go on.
“Can’t you do a spell or something so you can keep up?” he asks, not even breathing hard.
I wish, but unfortunately all my earlier efforts to get away from Darius have left my magical tank on low, so I can only do simple things like conjure up a magical sports bra.
Unlike the head of the family or their heir, the rest of the witches in each line don’t have an unending supply of magic.
We have to refill our stores with a good night’s sleep, eating a good meal, and overall general wellness behaviors.
That’s always been a challenge for me because I am a witch who likes all-night binge-fests of my favorite shows while snacking on caramel toadstools with absolutely no regrets.
So while my witchy powers have run low before, they’ve never been as close to empty as they are right now—something I’m not about to share with my kidnapper turned fiancé of convenience right now, if ever.
“For what?” I pant out. “Why are we even running like this?”
“So they don’t catch up. Nikos and his toadies have a few reasons to want revenge on you, witch, and they’ll try to take it under the guise of the anything-goes blue moon gauntlet,” he says, glancing back behind us at the woods lit only by the moon a few days away from being full.
“If you’re not going to let me carry you, you have to push yourself. ”
That’s where he is wrong. I don’t have to do anything—especially not let him throw me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes—except not be more than a few blocks away from Captain Running Club. At that point, the universe will zap me righ—
Realization flicks me on the nose.
Unfortunately, it comes at the same time as a cacophony of howls that sound close enough to make the hair on the back of my neck stand straight up.
If I get out of this alive, I promise the universe, I’ll actually commit to a cardio routine and—who am I kidding. I am never going to be a cardio girlie. Life is too short to run unless there are zombies—or a pack of werewolves on the hunt on your trail.
Lucky for me and my wobbly legs, I can finally use whatever proximity charm he’s hexed me with to my advantage. I dig in my heels, slowing us down if not stopping us completely.
“Go ahead,” I get out between sucking in lungsfuls of air. “Go as fast as you can. I’ll wait here.”
His grip on my hand tightens, as if Darius is trying to telegraph the importance of the moment.
“If they catch us, Nikos will hold us captive—or at least he’ll try.
If he manages to succeed and the moon changes color before we get back to Arcadia, we fail the gauntlet.
Forget not being able to get married to protect you; Nikos will use my failure to make it back in time as a pretext to move against me. There will be consequences.”
Okay, that’s all really bad, but I know my limit, and I’m at it, even if Darius doesn’t understand the plan I’m cooking up in my head.
I look back at the trampled path we’ve run and decide it’s time to lighten the moment. “Are they going to eat me?”
Darius snorts. “No, that’s an old wives’ tale we like to let you witches believe so you’ll leave us alone.”
“But every little witch knows a werewolf will gobble them right up,” I say, filling my tone with as much fake outrage as I can, considering how winded I am. “I can’t believe you’d lie to the world like that.”
I can believe it. The Aetos Werewolves are a pack of thieves, and it’s a smart move to give the rest of Witchingdom something to worry about.
But I act surprised anyway, if for no other reason than to see Darius bristle in annoyance.
He scrunches his face and squares his jaw, and I swear I can hear him counting to twenty in his head.
It’s true you should never poke a bear, but no one says anything about poking a werewolf, and it turns out it is truly one of life’s great delights.
“We don’t have time for this, Effie,” he says as he yanks me back into faster motion as we rush through the woods.
I dig in my heels again, decreasing our speed, and manage to swerve in time to not take a low branch to the solar plexus. “So you better run and put as much distance between you and the pack as possible.”
Darius comes to a dead stop so fast I slam right into the brick wall of him.
His touch is gentle as he puts his hands on my shoulders to steady me, and the temptation to close the space between us and raise myself up on my tiptoes is nearly overwhelming despite the circumstances and the werewolf pack gaining on us.
It’s not a fated mates thing. It’s not. It’s obviously the heightened emotions that come with being in a dangerous situation like this, but still, I want to kiss him. I want it so bad.
Darius looks down at me, his expression grim. “I’m not leaving you.”
Fuck me. Not only do I believe him, now I want to kiss him even more. I have got to figure out how to get away from him before I do something stupid like fall for him.
Instead of giving in to my hornier instincts, I tell him, “Haven’t we spent the entire day proving that we can’t be separated?”
Darius opens his mouth as if to argue with me some more, but then his aha moment hits, and for the first time all day he genuinely smiles at me. All the breath leaves my lungs at the sight, because seeing this man be all snarly is hot enough. Seeing him actually happy? Fucking deadly.
He’s off on the next breath, running so fast that it’s obvious he was going slow on my account before.
I mean, yeah, I know he is way faster than I am, but does he have to rub it in my face?
I’m not sure whether to be offended or not at that, and since the only other thing I have to do is count down the seconds until the proximity hex zaps me to Darius or the pack gets to me first, it seems prudent to roll the question through my mind.
But really, all I keep thinking about is how Darius’s ass looked as he booked it through the woods.
Hey, I’m nothing if not true to my appreciation of art in motion.
Then the tingle starts in my fingertips, buzzing like I just brushed them across an electric wire.
It travels up from there, making my arm feel like it’s resting against a vibrating plate, before moving into my torso and then down toward my toes.
My cheeks are just starting to buzz and the woods are starting to blur when the first pack member appears on the periphery of my vision.
The woman is partially transformed into her wolf form, and she’s magnificent with her black skin morphing into ebony fur.
Next to her is a younger werewolf who lifts his snout and sniffs the air before spotting me.
He lets out a howl and the woman sprints toward me a second before the trees and the birds and the wolves disappear, and I’m in the in-between.
The next thing I know, I’m in Darius’s arms, wrapped tight around him as he weaves his way through the pine trees toward a quick-moving river heading away from a waterfall that spills through a break in the hillside.
He steps into the water, pausing to adjust his stance as it rushes around his shins.
And yes, I know, he’s carrying me now. I should object.
I have every intention of demanding he put me down… but not quite yet.
“This will throw them off the scent,” he says before walking toward the waterfall, the river rising with each step he takes. “Whatever you do, don’t look down.”
I do exactly what you think I would do the second those words are out of his mouth—I look down at the water rushing around us. There’s not much to see. The water tugs at Darius’s legs with the strength of a riptide as he walks, but that’s all there is until I see it.
Or should I say, until I see her.
The naiad’s long, flowing hair is wrapped around Darius’s legs, and her pale blue fingers yank at his ankles with every determined step.
I’ve read about the river goddesses, but I’ve never actually seen one before.
She couldn’t be more than four feet long, with shimmering blue scales for skin.
Half woman and half fish, she is one hundred percent looking at me with her dark green eyes.
There’s a moment when the sound of the water, the distant howls of the pack, and the wind rustling through the trees disappears.
It’s only me and the river goddess, and the water starts to look so comforting, like a big fluffy robe I can wrap around me and sink into.
I drop my hand so my fingertips glide over the top of the water, not quite breaking the surface, but there’s only the thinnest of lines between.
All I have to do is extend my arm the tiniest bit, and I can go under, swim the river’s length, and float away on the current.
“Forever,” the naiad says in my head.