The Ex Hex (Ex Hex #1)(34)

Simon would know what to do. He always did. But that didn’t mean Rhys was ready to talk to him about this yet.

Was that because he was afraid of his father’s reaction when he learned he’d actually been wrong about something?

Or was it because of Vivienne?

Rhys groaned and closed the book in front of him, reaching up to rub his eyes with one hand.

What a fucking mess this all was.

How could he explain to Simon that this wasn’t some act of war on Vivienne’s part, but just a teenage girl who’d been hurt—hurt by him being a complete dickhead—and a spell that had gotten out of hand? Simon wouldn’t understand that. Simon had not, to Rhys’s knowledge, ever even been a teenager, probably. Seemed likely he’d just sprung fully formed and terrifying out of a cloud or something.

And then Rhys realized who he could call.

Simon was out, but there was the younger, slightly less terrifying version of Simon.

Pulling out his phone, Rhys quickly did the math on what time it was back home, and dialed.

Within about five minutes, he was deeply regretting that decision.

“You have to come home.”

“Come home? All cursed and such? Wells, I know I’m not your favorite person in the world, but wishing me dead seems a bit much.”

“I don’t wish you dead, you git, but it’s obvious that you can’t stay there with a coven of witches who cursed you.”

Sighing, Rhys closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. This was what he’d been worried about.

“You’re making it sound worse than it is. It wasn’t like that, it was—”

“I don’t care what it was like,” Wells said, and Rhys could almost see him there behind the bar at the pub, glowering at his mobile. “You need to come home, and you need to talk to Father about this.”

“Or,” Rhys suggested, “secondary, also solid plan: I do neither of those things, and you help me think of some way to break this curse without having to involve Da.”

On the other end of the line, Llewellyn blew out a breath that Rhys could practically feel.

“I can ask around.”

“Discreetly.”

Wells made a rude noise. “The day I need directions from you on how to be discreet is the day I fling myself off the top of Mount Snowdon.”

“Something to look forward to, then,” Rhys replied, cheerful, and there was a pause on the other end of the line before Wells said, “Seriously, mate. Be careful. It would . . . if something were to ever happen to you . . . I know we . . .”

Sitting up straighter, Rhys looked in horror at his phone. “Oh my god, Wells, please stop.”

“Too right,” Wells agreed, clearing his throat. “Anyway, try not to die. As your older brother, I get the first shot at taking you down, Bowen the second, so it would be very unfair if you perished there in the wilds of America without letting us have our chance.”

Relieved to be back to taking the piss and not actually sharing feelings, Rhys nodded and tapped his pen on the desk. “Fair enough, old man.”

He ended the call and slid his phone back into his pocket, wishing he felt better about this whole thing. Having Wells on his side was definitely a boon, but it wasn’t going to be enough. Rhys needed to figure out how to break this curse as fast as possible, and so far, the books weren’t exactly helping.

Oh, there was information on curses, but mostly how to lay one. Apparently no witch ever wanted to break a curse.

Typical.

By the time Vivienne slid into the research room an hour or so later, Rhys’s eyes ached from trying to parse out tiny script, his brain hurt from all the translating and his hand was cramped from writing down every little bit of information that might be useful.

And he still didn’t feel like he had learned any more than he’d already known when he’d come in here.

“I don’t suppose you brought coffee,” he asked Vivienne, not looking up. He’d just come across an anecdote about a Scottish farmer who suspected his crops were cursed and had attempted to reverse the spell.

Going by the illustration, it seemed to have ended with him turning into a rather large cat, but it was still better than nothing.

“If I tried to bring coffee into this part of the library, Dr. Fulke would hang me up by my toenails, so no,” Vivienne replied, coming to perch on the edge of the table.

As she did, Rhys caught that scent again, that sweet, almost sugary smell that clung to her skin, and his fingers tightened around his pen.

“How goes it?” she asked, leaning in to see what he was writing, and Rhys sat back in his chair, rolling his shoulders to alleviate some of the tension that had gathered there.

“Not well,” he admitted. “But to be fair, I’ve only been at it for a little while. And of course, since I can’t alert the other witches here as to what I’m doing, I’m stumbling in the dark a little bit.”

Vivienne frowned, a wrinkle appearing over her nose, and Rhys wanted to reach out and smooth it away with his thumb.

Then she stood up. “Well, I’m here now, and I can help. What books haven’t you looked at yet?”

Thirty minutes later, she sighed and closed the last book, its spine creaking ominously.

“So this one is useless.” Leaning across the table, she reached for another from the stack, but even as her fingers closed over the cover, Rhys shook his head.