The Ex Hex (Ex Hex #1)(11)

Vivi had just reached down to slip on her boots when Gwyn’s bedroom door flew open.

“Mom!” Gwyn yelped, leaping to her feet. “Did the Daniel Spencer Incident teach you nothing?”

Elaine just waved a hand at that even as Sir Purrcival lurched into the room, meowing balefully at all of them. “Well?” she asked, and Vivi walked over to Gwyn’s desk, leaning against it.

“Cards say yes,” she said, and Elaine looked briefly at the ceiling, muttering something under her breath.

“But,” Vivi said, pointing with her empty wineglass, “as I was just telling Gwyn, it’s actually not that big of a deal. We’re all grown-ups here, and it’s not like he’ll stay long. I’m telling you, I bet I won’t even see him.”





Chapter 5




Rhys wasn’t sure what he’d done to the universe to deserve this day.

First there’d been the flight. That had gone well enough, but it had been long, and getting a rental car in Atlanta had been frustrating, though no more so than navigating Atlanta traffic to make his way north had been. There had been one point, feeling profoundly discombobulated on the wrong side of the car on the wrong side of the road, staring at the back of a semitruck in front of him, that Rhys had nearly broken and called his father to grudgingly ask for a Traveling Stone for his return journey.

He hadn’t ended up sacrificing his pride on that particular altar and had survived the drive to Graves Glen with his sanity intact, but once he’d gotten into the town, it had been one clusterfuck after another.

He’d gotten a speeding ticket roughly five seconds after he’d passed the sign welcoming him to Graves Glen. Annoying and expensive (and, to his mind, slightly unjust, given that he was only going ten miles over and the town wouldn’t bloody well exist without his family), but not enough to ruin his day.

No, that had come just half an hour ago when, halfway up the hillside leading to the Penhallow home, he’d blown a tire.

By that point, his patience had been too low to do something so perverse as change it himself, so he’d waved his hand at the thing to repair it only to have the tire blow up to twice its normal size before popping like a goddamn balloon.

And when he’d attempted to float the spare out of the boot of the car, it had gone madly spinning into a tree before rolling down the hill.

Which meant that he was stuck in the woods at night, a good half mile from the house, mud covering his best boots, and his magic apparently on the fritz.

Marvelous.

This, Rhys thought as he reached into the back seat to pull out his bag, was why he should’ve stayed in Wales. Hell, he could’ve run the pub while Llewellyn dealt with all of this. Wells probably wouldn’t have insisted on flying and driving. Wells would’ve been sensible and used the Traveling Stone, been in and out in a flash, and Rhys might have discovered some heretofore undiscovered talent for pulling pints. Might’ve changed his whole life.

But no, Wells was back at The Raven and Crown, and Rhys was here, on a hillside in Georgia with a completely useless car, and he would bet the entire contents of his wallet that his father hadn’t seen fit to stock the house with any kind of alcohol.

He had just started the trudge up the hill when he heard the sound of a car approaching.

Sending up a prayer to the goddess that his luck had actually turned for the better, Rhys shouldered his bag, waving his arms over his head as the headlights coming down the hill nearly blinded him.

Rhys made sure to stand near the edge of the road and look as affable as possible, smiling even as he squinted in the glare, and he was still smiling even as the car . . . didn’t stop.

And not only did it not stop, it seemed to be veering slightly to the right.

He was on the right.

Rhys had only a moment of dazed thought—this person is going to hit me, I am going to die on a hill in Georgia, what an utterly shite way to go—before he dove out of the way. Distantly, he heard the squeal of brakes, smelled burning rubber, but given that he had just thrown himself down the side of a steep hill, he had slightly more pressing concerns.

Like stopping this slide into darkness and, if possible, saving his leather jacket.

The jacket was clearly not going to make it—he heard a truly awful tearing sound as he threw one arm out and clutched at a stray root—but the rest of him was all in one piece as he came to a stop several yards down the hill from the road.

Above him, he could still see the glow of headlights, and he heard a car door open and slam shut, and then the crunching of leaves underfoot as someone rushed toward the hill he was currently at the bottom of.

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” a very familiar voice breathed, and ah, yes, yes, of course.

The universe still clearly hated him.

“I am so sorry!” Vivienne cried as she made her way down the hill, and Rhys turned his head to see her making her way toward him, her arms out to one side. She was just a silhouette, a dark figure against even more darkness, but even if he hadn’t heard her voice, he would’ve recognized her, would’ve known that shape anywhere.

Even after nine years.

Even in the dark.

Fuck’s sake.

Rhys let his head drop back to the ground as he studied the sky above him and waited for the inevitable moment when she’d figure out who she’d almost hit and possibly get back in her car and finish the job.