Chapter Fifteen
Effie…
I am not an outdoorsy person.
I don’t ever want to sleep in a tent—even a floating glamping one.
I don’t put a toe into lakes, rivers, or ponds if I can avoid it. I only swim in pools (hot tubs are just cauldrons for bacterial growth).
I don’t hike in the woods because it has always been my version of a living nightmare.
The only thing keeping me from crumbling to the ground with a butt cramp right now is the fact that my magic is back.
As soon as it became apparent that Alpha Grumps was not going to take my not being a shifter into account, I cast a custodire et non cadere spell.
That has my legs moving at triple speed while giving me elite-level balance.
Darius comes to a stop about two feet in front of me in what has become a very familiar clearing, because I swear we’ve been here before, and turns around to glare at me.
The big jerk hasn’t broken a sweat. But wait, it gets worse.
While I’m sweating and sucking in wind even with the spell I cast, his cheeks aren’t the tad bit pink with exertion, and his breathing is as calm as can be.
It’s totally unfair, and I hate him for it—despite the fact that the more than plentiful orgasms last night untied all the stress knots in my shoulders.
Darius lets out a long, weary sigh and asks, “Is this as fast as you can go? We really need to pick up the pace.”
“To where?” I shoot back as I come to a stop next to a skinny pine tree. “We haven’t seen anything but trees for the last two hours.”
“That’s the way it works. You just have to keep going.”
“Yeah? Well, we’re passing the same trees over and over and over again.
” I hold up my hand to stop the argument he’s about to launch into.
“We passed this tree fifteen minutes ago, so maybe you need to come up with another plan other than”—I drop my voice to a surly alpha werewolf bass—“just keep going.”
“They aren’t the same trees,” he says, ignoring my stellar impression as he stalks over to me. “You’re mistaken. We keep going.”
“Oh, really?” I let out a triumphant aha. “Then why does it have a red balloon tied to the branch?”
That stops him mid-turn before he can walk out of the clearing and into the thick woods. “What are you—”
“I magicked it there last time we passed it,” I say, interrupting him. “You’re still not using all of your instincts, and it’s fucking us.”
We both stand in silence looking up at the single cherry-red balloon tied with a pink string to one of the pine tree’s higher limbs.
If you think it’s killing me not to crow and tell him I told you so, you would be right.
I never said I was without fault. I have a lot of them, but walking in circles in the woods without noticing isn’t one of them.
Finally, Darius breaks the silence. “The woods don’t work like normal woods.” He crosses his arms, making his biceps look even bigger. “They move, remember? It must be doing that during the day now.”
The way he emphasizes remember has me itching to cast a spell that involves him being tied to a red balloon and floating away.
I can’t believe I let this jerk into my pants last night.
I mean, technically, they were his pants, and I was only borrowing them, but that’s not the point.
What is? I’m not sure. I’ve gotten distracted looking at the tats that disappear underneath his T-shirt collar.
You’d think knowing what they look like would ease that want to take a closer look. You would be wrong.
Focus, Sherwood!
Yes. I need to focus on the grumpy part of him that’s wrong, not the sexy part that delivers many orgasms.
“I remember all right,” I say, crossing my arms right under my boobs, lifting them upward and outward like nature’s underwire, because two can play that distraction game.
“And I also remember that you told me you have to find your way through these woods using skill and instinct. Is that what you’re doing? ”
He doesn’t bother to drag his attention up from my chest. “I’ll find the way back to Arcadia without letting my wolf out. I always do.”
“All by yourself?” I scoff.
That gets his focus moving up to my face. “Why are you a navigator all of a sudden?”
It isn’t fair that he can look so sexy and gruff at the same time. The man is acting like a jackass, and the background noise in my mind is all about how good a hate fuck with him would be. Seriously, I’m beginning to think the wires in my head are shorting out.
Still, that doesn’t mean I’m going to let him get away with that little clapback of his.
“I’m talking about your wolf,” I say, speaking each word extra slow as if he’s a child—and not a very bright one—because I know it will annoy him, especially when he’s already fed up because I’m right. “That is the instinct part of things when it comes to getting through the woods, isn’t it?”
“I can do it myself,” he grumbles. “Things are just off with you here.”
I let out a squawk of laughter. “Oh yeah, you’re doing a great job so far.”
“Come on,” he says as he turns away from me and starts walking. “We keep going.”
I lean my back against the tree with the red balloon. “No.”
Darius snaps back around, obviously unused to having his direct orders ignored.
Well, too bad, so sad. I am not his fated mate or a member of his pack.
I’m just his pseudo fiancée, and I’ve had enough of his attitude.
And judging by the fact that his whole aura is sparking with pissed-off energy—so much so that there might actually be flames—he’s had enough of mine too.
Can alphas spontaneously combust? I sure hope not.
“You heard me,” I say, refusing to be intimidated by his alphaness (at least on the outside). “Just because last night happened doesn’t mean I’ll do whatever you say—especially when it’s completely illogical.”
He shoots me the smarmiest of smirks as he closes the distance between us. “Unlucky for you, then, because we both know as soon as I get far enough away from you, you’ll just sail through space and time to be right by my side.”
It’s all I can do not to scream in frustration. The absolute ego of this guy. “I can’t believe I fucked you last night.”
He lifts an arm so it’s pressed against the tree over my head. “And had multiple orgasms, don’t forget that part.”
Then he winks.
Winks!
I mean, what he said is true, yes, but that doesn’t mean he needs to actually say it out loud or sexy wink at me.
“I’m super responsive,” I tell him, wrapping whatever pride I have around me like a moth-eaten blanket. “I could climax right now if the wind blew a certain way. It wasn’t anything you did.”
He steps back and shrugs one shoulder. “Whatever you say, witch.”
Heat blasts through me as I do exactly what he wants—follow after him as he casually strolls through the clearing to yell at him some more—but I’m too mad to stop myself.
“You are the most egotis—”
Darius jolts to a stop. He curves an arm around me and sweeps me behind him, effectively shutting me up a second before I hear a twig snap to our left.
His body goes scary still, as if he’s listening to something a witch can’t hear.
There’s a rustle of leaves on the right, and then the birds in the trees directly in front of us take off in a rush.
You don’t need shifter instincts to know something bad is coming.
Darius stands perfectly still except for the twitching his nose does as he sniffs the air and then lets out a seriously scary growl.
“Whatever happens,” he says, his voice low, “stay behind me.”
As if I’m some kind of damsel in distress.
Fuck that shit.
“Why would I do that?”
I feel more than I see him grit his teeth and quick count to twenty. “Because for once, you’re not going to do whatever you want to in the moment, and you are going to follow the rule of doing exactly what I say, when I say it.”
“That’s only gonna happen when we’re both naked and there are orgasms on the line,” I tell him as my magic builds inside of me in response to whatever shitstorm is coming.
Darius sniffs the air again as if to confirm something. “These guys who are coming aren’t from the Aetos pack.”
I have just enough time to register that the oh-shit level of this is not just bad but really, really bad, before a massive werewolf with long white-blond hair and a neck tattoo of the Council’s sigil bursts into the clearing.
Darius shifts his stance, going full protector mode, even as he lets out an I-will-destroy-you growl that comes from somewhere scary as fuck deep inside him.
If he only had to deal with one Council-sworn werewolf, that would be one thing, but there are at least a half dozen more lurking in the trees’ shadows. There’s no time to plan or talk over options.
A honeysuckle-scented burst of power flows up from some mystical place inside of me, and I wrap both of my arms around Darius from behind.
Mentally centering my magic, I chant volare three times and then jump.
The first leap takes us to the top of one of the pines.
I pause just long enough to see the half dozen werewolves rush into the clearing where we’d stood a moment ago.
Then, before Darius can launch into a whole “I’m an alpha.
I can take care of myself” rant, I take the next leap.
You see, there’s a reason why we witches use brooms. We don’t fly like a bird or a magic carpet, but we can jump gracefully and really fucking far.
We bounce from the top of one pine tree to another until we’ve put enough of the woods between us and the Council werewolves that it’s safe to go back to ground level.
“Go loose when we land,” I tell Darius as we fall. “Otherwise you might fuck up a knee or an ankle.”
He grunts in acknowledgment and then lands like he’s been flying with witches his whole life—hitting the dirt with bent legs and then folding into a forward roll before standing back up. He doesn’t even pause for half a second before he’s striding over to me, his aura a pure angry red.
“What in the fuck was that,” he hollers right in my face.
“Me saving your hairy ass.”