The Ex Hex (Ex Hex #1)(15)

It helped that the rest of his outfit was equally great. Gray trousers, a white button-down unbuttoned just so, a deep charcoal vest and around his neck, a silver pendant with a dark purple jewel.

Vivi had a sudden, explicit memory of that same pendant dangling against her chest as he’d moved above her, inside her, and felt her face flame hot.

She hadn’t even liked jewelry on men before him, but that necklace suited him, the delicacy of the chain emphasizing the width of his chest, the adornment making him somehow more masculine, not less.

Rhys sipped his coffee and didn’t say anything, but she felt like he probably knew what she was thinking.

Which might have been why her tone was a little sharp when she said, “You need to go to the welcome booth.”

He pulled a face. “The fuck is that?”

Rolling her eyes, Vivi took him by the elbow, steering him away from the coffee shop and toward the row of tents set up in the side street between Something Wicked and The Written Wyrd.

“The mayor is freaking out that you haven’t checked in yet, so go check in.”

“Were you worried?” he asked, and she didn’t like how delighted he sounded. “Did you think I’d died? Did you think your callous actions had resulted in my death?”

“I think you need to go check in, make your speech and go home, Rhys.”

He stopped, pulling them up short, and as he turned to look at her, Rhys reached up to slide his sunglasses down his nose.

“I need to check in, make my speech and charge the ley lines. Then I can go home.”

Vivi could feel a few heads turn their way. She only spotted a handful of other witches in the crowd, people she knew from the college, so most of the people looking at them had no idea who Rhys was. He was just the kind of person who attracted stares.

She’d really liked that about him. Once.

Now, she leaned in and said, “Okay, maybe don’t announce that to the whole town and half the tourists in Georgia, but yes, that, and then home. The going home part is really what I want you to focus on.”

Vivi went to tug him back down the street again, but he stood firm, and she’d forgotten that for someone who looked so rangy, he was a pretty solid guy. He definitely wasn’t moving.

“Come with me.”

She blinked. “To Wales?”

That slow smile had once completely undone her, and now made her want to smack it off his face.

Or kiss it.

One or the other.

“I certainly wouldn’t object to that, but what I meant was to the lines. After my speech, after this . . . charming festival is over.”

In spite of herself, Vivi felt a little thrill at that. She’d never visited the ley lines, which lay in a cave on the mountain opposite from Elaine’s mountain. The cave was a sacred space, only ever visited, as far as she knew, by Penhallows.

She’d be lying if she said she’d never wanted to see them. To get close to that kind of power.

“You said you wanted to. Before,” Rhys went on, pushing his sunglasses back into place.

And then she remembered it. The Solstice Revel, the two of them in a tent, her head spinning with magic and desire and the sheer thrill of this man, that night.

You know, we’re not far from the ley lines here, he’d said, kissing the tip of her nose. The source of all the magic in this valley. My ancestor laid them down himself.

Oh, I didn’t realize I was making out with visiting royalty, she’d teased, and he’d smiled at her, kissed her again.

I’ve always wanted to see those. Later, whispered against the warm skin of his neck.

I’ll take you there.

He hadn’t. They hadn’t lasted long enough for that little trip.

But now he was offering it again.

Was it a peace offering? Or a deeply misguided seduction attempt?

She looked into his blue eyes, and realized she really had no idea.

And at the same moment, she realized she also didn’t care. Getting up close and personal with the ley lines was an honor few witches got, and she was taking it.

“Okay, sure,” she said, and then, just in case he got the wrong idea, she added a poke to his chest. “Besides, you owe me.”

“I don’t know, after the attempted murder, I’d say we’re at the very least even,” Rhys replied, and then, when he saw her look, drained the rest of his coffee. “Fine. I owe you. Now, show me to this ‘welcome booth,’ and let’s get this over with.”





Chapter 7




“You don’t think we have the same nose, do you?”

Rhys studied the head of his ancestor, currently lying at the base of its statue. Whoever had sculpted the unfortunate Gryffud Penhallow had gone into a lot of detail—the curling hair over the brow, the slight frown and expression of Noble Suffering in the eyes, and an absolute beast of a nose.

The mayor, Jane, was still unspooling a line of caution tape around the broken statue with one hand, and barking into a cell phone held in the other, so she didn’t answer, and Rhys sighed, touching the bridge of his own nose.

“Bad luck, old man,” he said to Gryffud’s head, then looked back up at the top of the plinth.

The speech had been going so well, all things considered. Rhys figured the accent did most of the heavy lifting for him, plus the novelty of having an actual Penhallow, all the way from Wales. And he’d understood that this was the kind of thing people liked kept brief—let’s be honest, they were really here to buy candied apples and hand-dipped candles, not listen to him blather on about his dead ancestor.