The Ex Hex (Ex Hex #1)(23)

“And you agreed to come with me!”

“Right, because apparently I didn’t learn my lesson about trusting you nine years ago.”

They stood there, staring at one another, and suddenly Vivi wanted nothing more than to be back in her own bed, sitting in her pajamas and catching up on grading, Rhys Penhallow nothing more than a faint memory of a misspent summer.

Then Rhys sniffed, shrugging his shoulders. “Fine,” he said. “I am, as always, a feckless idiot who throws himself into things, so let me go ahead and finish throwing myself into this, shall I?”

“Rhys,” she started, but he had already turned away, crouching down by the lines on the floor, his arms extended, and Vivi swallowed hard.

This was for the best. He might not exactly be a “feckless idiot,” but he’d always be reckless, always leap without looking.

Vivi thought again of Gwyn’s card of him. The Fool. The card of chances and risks.

And Gwyn had painted Vivi as The Star—peace, serenity. Steadfastness.

She and Rhys had been doomed from the start.

At least this time there wouldn’t be any screaming or crying. They could go their separate ways, maybe not as friends, but at least as adults, people who knew who they were and what they wanted and where they belonged.

Which was definitely not together.

In front of her, Rhys flexed his fingers, and Vivi could feel a slight change in the air. Where it had been cold before, now it felt warmer, like someone had just opened an oven door nearby.

Vivi’s hair blew back slightly from her face, and Rhys lowered his head, his hands still held out over the pulsing purple lines, his lips moving, but the hum of magic too loud for Vivi to make out any words.

Under her feet, the ground gave a slight tremor, and a flash of light shot out from Rhys’s fingers.

Vivi shivered, wrapping her arms around herself, her own magic tingling in her veins as she watched the light race along the rivers of purple.

For a moment, the lines on the floor glowed even brighter, so bright it almost hurt to look at them, and Vivi lifted her hand to shield her eyes.

And then there was a sudden crack!, a shower of pebbles raining down as Rhys shot to his feet.

Vivi looked down.

The lines on the floor were still purple, but they were growing darker now, a black crust slowly oozing along the sides, blotting out the color.

The ground was still shaking.

She looked at Rhys, confused, as the temperature in the cave plummeted again, colder this time, so cold it almost hurt, and as the ley lines began to writhe on the floor like snakes, Rhys grabbed her hand.

“Run!”

She didn’t have to be told twice.

They made their way through the narrow passage back to the main cave, the ground still trembling underneath her feet, and while Vivi watched lines of purple and black steam as they hit the pools of water.

When she and Rhys ran back out into the night, they both stood and watched as the magic raced past them.

Toward Graves Glen.

The shaking had stopped, and the night was suddenly very quiet in the wake of all that chaos, the only sound the occasional hooting of an owl and Rhys’s and Vivi’s rasping breath.

Stepping in front of her, Rhys stared off down the hill, shoving a hand through his hair. “The fuck was that?” he gasped, and then turned and looked at her. “You may have had a point about me not being all that clear as to what I was up to here, but I’m pretty sure that”—he jabbed a finger in the direction of the stream—“was a massive cock-up.”

Vivi looked up the stream, then up at the sky, where the moon seemed even bigger and brighter now, remembering that night with Gwyn, the same moon, the candle flame shooting high, and a cold sort of weight settled in her chest.

Rhiannon’s tits.

“So, um. Rhys.”

He turned and faced her, his eyes still wide, his chest still heaving, and Vivi offered up a shaky smile.

“Funny story for you.”





Chapter 10




She’d fucking cursed him.

As Vivi sped back toward Graves Glen, Rhys sat in the passenger seat, staring out into the dark, still trying to wrap his mind around it.

“So you took a bath,” he said slowly, and next to him, Vivi made a frustrated sound.

“I told you,” she said. “I took a bath, lit some candles, and then Gwyn and I said a whole bunch of silly stuff about your hair and clitorises that was obviously not a real curse—your hair looks really good, by the way, and I don’t actually want to know about the rest of it—but at one point, there was, like, this whoosh of flame, and I might have said, ‘I curse you, Rhys Penhallow,’ but I didn’t mean it.”

Vivi’s hands were gripped tight around the wheel, her eyes wide, and Rhys looked at her. “You . . . literally said, ‘I curse you, Rhys Penhallow,’ and now you’re surprised that I, Rhys Penhallow, am cursed? Also, I’m sorry, what was that about clitorises?”

Vivi rolled her eyes as she turned back onto the highway. “The point is, we were just being drunk and stupid. No attempt at actual magic was being made.”

“And yet actual magic has been done,” Rhys muttered, settling back into his seat.

His skin still itched from the aftereffects of charging the lines, fingers tingling, and there was a strange cold sensation at the back of his neck. Was that normal, or was it part of whatever had just gone so spectacularly wrong back there?