Page 5 of Do You Even Hex, Bro?
UNKNOWN: Rebecca says hi. She's been very helpful tracking you.
Rebecca. Of course. A finder witch who specializes in locating people and objects. She must have tagged me.
I guess that would be easy enough, considering how much time she apparently spent in my bed.
UNKNOWN: I'm being generous, offering you a way back on your own. 24 hours. Don't make me come get you. You won't like the consequences.
I power down the phone, resisting the urge to smash it. That would feel good and all, but I need it, and I can't afford a burner when I don't know how the hell I'm going to afford to eat. Instead, I close my eyes, trying to control my breathing, stomping down the panic.
I need to break the coven bond.
Today.
Before Kyle delivers on his threat.
Breaking a coven bond isn't easy. It requires either the coven leader's consent—which I definitely don't have—or bonding with another structured group to overwrite the existing connection. And as appealing as an unbonded siphon is to most covens, few are going to be willing to risk it when they find out who I'm running from.
Or what I look like beneath the glamour.
I lie back, staring at the ceiling crystal. Its magic pulses weakly, matching my fading power. I reach up with my senses, feeling its energy. Not much, as the clerk said. But even though I can't draw power from it, I can still perform a spell without siphoning. Manual magic, if you will.
Tonight, though, I need the old-fashioned kind of recharging.
Sleep.
I close my eyes and let my glamour slip for the first time in months. Even when I was asleep in my own bed, my ownthoroughly defiledbed, Kyle made me wear it. The last time I let it slip during a nightmare,hewas the one who woke up screaming.
My eyes grow heavy, the room blurring. Sleep takes me again, dreamless this time.
Look at that.
Some luck.
Chapter
Two
KILLIAN
"Bro, I'm so fuckin' horny, I could bang the lamp at this point."
I follow Sean's longing gaze to the hideous floor lamp my aunt insisted on gifting us. It's some antique monstrosity with a hollow center and ugly tassels that are impossible to dust, not that anyone does. Perfect for a house full of wolves who occasionally destroy furniture during full moons.
Too bad the lamp isalwaysthe sole survivor.
"That's nasty, even for you." I line up my shot, squinting down the cue. The eight ball sits tantalizingly close to the corner pocket. "Find someone with standards as low as yours. Can't bethathard on this campus."
Rowan chuckles across the pool table, leaning on his cue. His eyes, amber and alert even when he's relaxed, track the shot I'm about to make. He's still sore about losing fifty bucks to me last week. Not my fault he can't hold his liquor and tries to play pool buzzed.
"I've tried, man." Sean flops dramatically onto our ratty couch, springs groaning under his substantial bulk. "The chicks I've tried to get with have all been taken or psycho. Or both."
Micah doesn't look up from his textbook spread across the coffee table. "Some of us are trying to pass chem, dickhead. Your blue balls aren't helping my equilibrium equations."
I sink the eight ball with a satisfying crack. Rowan mutters something in Arabic that I'm pretty sure questions my parentage. I've picked up enough of his native tongue over the years to know when he's cursing me out. I just flash him a grin.
"You know what would help, though?" Sean sits up, eyes bright with another genius idea. "A hot tutor. Kill two birds with one stone."
The cue nearly snaps in my grip. "We're not getting sidetracked by pussy when we're at fucking war with Villeneuve. And we still haven't found a Bonded." I rack the balls again with more force than necessary. "Or did you forget the dean is breathing down our necks about that?"
