Hexed and Vexed

by Rebecca Royce

  * * *

  Kim handed Ava an orange juice. It amazed her how often sugar turned out to be the fix to all things that went astray with magic. She drank it down, her head suddenly feeling clearer. Both Kim and Lawson had survived what she’d only felt the smallest touch of. They were strong beyond her understanding

  Lawson knelt in front of her. “Stefan and I knew it had to be one of three people. Ryan was never on our list. Until an hour ago. I’m so sorry. Are you okay?” He placed his hand on her knee, and she almost melted into him. She loved this man.

  But nothing had changed, not really.

  “I’m okay. Are you?”

  He nodded. “Stronger every day. I… I can’t believe I let him get this far. He was my teacher, my mentor. Forgive me, love.”

  She wanted to. It would have been so easy to. This was Lawson, and he was… everything.

  The door to the shop opened and they all turned to look at the customer. She groaned. Mitchell Sharpe had come through the door. If ever she needed a reminder of why she could never let her guard down, there he was.

  Lawson winced. “Get out.”

  “I need a moisturizer from Ava. She can manage that much, right?”

  The Enforcer whirled around. “Want to try that again?”

  “I need…”

  “Damn.” Kim stormed forward. “Who did this to you?”

  Ava fell silent. “What does she mean?”

  “I don’t know.” Lawson looked between them. “What do you mean, Kim?”

  “Well, this guy is hexed.”

  The door opened, and Monica stormed in. “Did you get the moisturizer or not?”

  Every bit of air in Ava’s lungs seemed to be sucked out into the room. What had Kim just said? Mitchell was what? Hexed?

  Lawson stood, his gaze moving between Ava and Mitchell and back again. And then again. Kim was talking, and Monica grabbed Mitchell’s arm, pulling him to the door. Stefan grabbed onto Monica, not letting her go.

  Kim raised her arm and snapped her fingers. Ava jumped to her feet just as Mitchell fell to the ground.

  What was happening? What was happening? She rushed to Mitchell where he lay prone on the floor. He’d been hexed? What did that mean? How and what and when and…

  His eyes flew open. “Ava, is it time to get married? I don’t want to oversleep.” Mitchell’s eyes rolled to the back of his head.

  She gasped, some sense finally flying into her brain. How long ago had someone taken control of Mitchell’s mind? She turned around. Kim and Stefan were still there, but not Lawson.

  He was gone, like he’d never been in the room at all.

  * * *

  Ava packed another box. It had taken all week for her to sort through her terrible apartment to try to figure out what she was keeping and what had to go. Melanie had come to help and then left again. Apparently, Ava was being difficult. She shook her head. If that was true, then so be it. As far as Ava was concerned, it was beyond time.

  A knock sounded on the door, and she rose to answer it. Her family was coming and going a lot. Her parents did not know what to do with the fact Ava was moving to human land without consulting them at all. Her mother had even dropped off a bag of cookies before she’d wept and left.

  She sighed. If there was one thing Ava had learned over time—and it had probably taken her too long—it was that she wasn’t responsible for other people’s feelings on her life decisions. She never wanted to hurt anyone, but she wouldn’t live her life like that.

  Ava swung open the door. Mitchell, pale and ten pounds thinner than at the shop, leaned against the doorframe. She gasped and pulled him inside.

  “What are you doing here?”

  He walked unsteadily to her couch and sat down on it. “I had to see you.”

  Ava grabbed a glass of water and walked over to him, handing it to him when she did. “You should be in bed.”

  “I had to talk to you.” He rubbed his eyes. “Ava, this last year, I can hardly remember it. My last clear memory was picking up my tuxedo so we could get married. My mother tells me that… that I left you at the altar and became immediately engaged to Monica. It seems she hexed me?”

  She nodded. “That is the story that the Enforcers…” Kim. “…have explained.”

  He leaned forward. “My darling girl. I would never have left you at the altar. I love you. I’ve always loved you. Since we were fourteen years old. I’m so sorry.”

  For over a year, Ava had been waiting to hear those words. Tears slipped from her eyes. She was so glad she hadn’t been crazy and her belief that their love had been true had been real. “Mitchell, I’m so sorry this happened to you. It must feel like the biggest invasion, destruction, and violation imaginable. What do you remember?”

  “Very little.” He cleared his throat. “You’re mine. You always have been. We’re Ava and Mitchell. Whatever pain we’ve both had… and yours must have been immense… can we get married tomorrow?”

  Ava couldn’t have been more shocked if he’d sprouted wings or become a unicorn. This was the Mitchell she’d known, loved, and understood forever. You made a promise, you kept it. You loved someone, you always did. You didn’t play games or keep secrets. And yet…

  “I’m sorry, Mitchell. When I think back on the last year? I think I should have known something horrible happened to you, that you weren’t behaving like yourself.”

  He furrowed his brow. “Why didn’t you?”

  “Because the truth is that I’ve always been Ava Blakely, the worst witch in witching school who somehow Mitchell Sharpe still loved.”

  He shook his head. “I hate that phrase. Don’t say that.”

  Yes, he’d returned to himself. She almost smiled. “That’s who I was. That’s who I would always have been. So when it looked like you’d finally come to your senses and wanted a woman with power, talent and beauty, I believed it.”

  “Ava.” He grabbed his head. “What did I ever do to make you think you weren’t those things? You are all those things. You always were.”

  She leaned back, staring down at the floor. “Well, maybe that’s true. But I didn’t know it. I didn’t feel it. I always felt less than worthy of you. That wasn’t about you. It was about me.” It was hard sometimes to speak the truth. “You were a wonderful fiancé. I was just a lousy one in return. I let you be… used for a year. I’m sorry.”

  He took her hand in his. “We can work this out.”

  “We can’t, Mitchell. I’ve changed and… I’m in love with someone else. Not someone I can be with. There are reasons. They have nothing to do with you and me. The point is that I failed you, and the reason I did that is because I wasn’t who I should have been. I own that. Please forgive me, Mitchell. I can’t be the Ava I would have been as your wife because I never should have been that person. I wanted to be.”

  He put his head in his hands. “I lost everything. Everything.” When he raised his head it was with tears in his eyes. “What am I supposed to do now, Ava? I feel like I’m supposed to get married tomorrow. I’m still in love with the sweet, brave girl who somehow found a way even though everything was so hard for her all the time. I was going to make the world better for you. Who is this guy that replaced me in one fucking year?” She winced at his language but didn’t resent him his rage.

  Maybe he had seen her better than she thought he had. Tears flooded her eyes. “I’m sorry, Mitchell.”

  There would never be enough words. In her heart, even as he sat next to her, just as she had in her most desperate moments wanted him to, he was no more than a memory she knew she couldn’t go back to.

  She wasn’t just his Ava anymore. She was the woman who had removed two hexes and would have found a way to remove her own. She was the woman who survived Henry Howard. She made trips to the human world and found information she needed. She survived being left at the altar.

  She loved Lawson Abramowitz with all her heart. And yet… she’d given him up because she knew herself. For the
first time ever, she knew who she was.

  And she had the spine to say that even though loved someone, it might not be enough.

  “I’m leaving. I’m going to the human world. That is probably where I always should have been.”

  Her new home was quiet. Three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen, dining room, and living room. When she’d sold Pure Luck, she had been lucky to make a hefty profit. Now she had to figure out what was next. Her human neighbors didn’t suspect she was a witch, and if she played her cards right, they’d never have any reason to look deeper.

  She stared at the living room walls. They were white. She hated white walls, but she wouldn’t be painting in the middle of the night. All she had to do was decide what color she wanted and get started on the project in the middle of the day.

  A pop sounded, and she whirled around. Lawson stood in her living room, his hands in his pockets. It had been a month since she’d seen him, and she almost sighed in relief, as though her eyes needed to take him in regularly simply to return to some semblance of okay. She didn’t say that, instead remaining very still.

  “Lawson?”

  “Ava.” His voice was low. He looked stronger than the last time she’d seen him, returned from his ordeal to his normal strength.

  She set down her paintbrush. “Are you okay?”

  “No.” He rocked back on his feet. “I’ve been trying to be. I’ve been working on it. I really have. But I can’t. I don’t accept it. He can’t have you back.” He pounded on his chest. “Let me tell you something. I remember being hexed. At no time did I lose myself. At no time could they have made me not love you. I would have died.” He stepped forward and then stopped. “I… I made a lot of mistakes, but I am not getting out of the way. Fine. He has had a month to insert himself back in. I can compete for you. I swear I can. I love you as much as he does. Fine. He’s been together with you since you were fourteen. Well, I was there loving you, too. Silently. Not anymore. I love you, and I’m not a Sharpe, but I can be whatever you need. I can…”

  “Lawson,” she cried out, emotion threatening to drown her. He had to stop. “There’s no competition.”

  “Yes. There. Is. I fucked up. I know it. I didn’t tell you that I’d do anything. I didn’t even understand it myself. I do now. Ava, please. You have to give me a chance to try.”

  She rushed to him, stopping right before she would have touched him. “Lawson, I’m not back with Mitchell.”

  He blinked rapidly. “What?”

  “I am not with Mitchell. It’s terrible what happened to him and frankly—this is terrible—but a relief to not have been thrown over. But I am not with him. Not now. Not ever. I am in love with you. We can’t be together. That doesn’t mean I turned around and…”

  He kissed her, so gently she almost didn’t feel it until he pressed harder. Was this some kind of dream? “Ava, we can be together.”

  Tears slipped down both her cheeks, and then she sucked in the rest. This couldn’t keep happening. “Lawson, I am just finding my equilibrium. Look where we are. I’ve moved to the human world. I’m not going to survive this again. Please, go. I can’t. I just can’t. You have a whole world. You’ll never be able to tell me about it. And I am not a witch, not in the ways that matter. You let yourself be hexed and…”

  “I’m sorry.” He held both of her cheeks until she looked at him. “I didn’t understand. I’m so used to doing just as I please. Who was really going to care if I died? Oh sure, my friends would miss me, but not like what it felt like to be loved. I made you promises, and I meant them only, I didn’t understand. You’re a witch. You are. We share our souls. I gave you half of mine. Screw the ceremony. You gave me half of yours. My mother died from heartbreak. And when I stopped trying to survive without you, I realized what had happened. I can’t be reckless with my life. Half of it is yours.”

  She shook, and she didn’t think she could ever stop. “I’m not enough. If I was stronger, I would understand. I’d weather the fear.”

  “Ava, look at me. Ryan is gone. He’s dead. Not by my doing. Stefan got him. Someone had to take his role. He was not a hunter. He managed us, helped. Or at least we thought he did. I’m him. I mean, I took his old job. I’m not going to be in the field like I had been. Most nights, I’ll be home.”

  She threw her arms around him before he even stopped speaking. “Lawson, I can’t ask you to do this. You’re brave, smart, you keep us all safe. I can’t ask you to do this. I won’t. You’ll live to resent me.”

  He was silent but she felt him shake as hard in her arms as she did in his. “No. Love. There has never been a person on this planet who knows himself as well as I do. I am yours. Trust me to know my own mind and my own heart. I’ll still be helping and there will be times when things are dangerous. We can’t have missing prisoners. That is going to be my agenda—find the missing. But what I want is you and our time and our babies.”

  She pulled back to look at him. “I have said this before. I don’t have good genes.”

  “You have the only ones I would ever want. We don’t have to have kids if you don’t want them. But if you do, I want your children, Ava Blakely. I love you. You’re mine.”

  She kissed him. Again and then again. His tongue thrust out, plunging into her mouth and dancing with her own. They both fell backward, and she would have hit the floor except that the next second she floated. She grinned against his mouth. He was so powerful, he’d never let her hit the floor.

  There was a pop and then she was on his bed, in his home. She closed her eyes, and he sighed against her. “I need you here. I love you.”

  “I love you, too, Lawson.”

  He trembled on top of her. Not once but twice. He was hard muscle but so soft inside. She stared into his dark eyes. “Lawson, I’m so raw right now, I might…”

  He nodded. “I know. I didn’t think we’d be right back here. I was going to wage a war for you, Ava. Ava. Ava. Ava. I have to keep saying your name. I love you.”

  She wrapped her legs around him, drawing him down. “Every night I cried myself to sleep. I was never going to be okay.”

  “No more tears. Ever.”

  Her clothes were gone, and she gasped. “Lawson!” She pinched his shoulder. “Little warning.”

  “No. Why would I want to do that?” His clothes followed hers, and then they were nothing more than joined bodies. She touched him, and he stroked her. Reaching between them, she cupped his erection, feeling it throb against him. He moaned. “More, please.”

  She stroked him, a long movement until he pushed against her fingers. “More. I just want more from you. It’ll never be enough.”

  Ava guided him toward her core, and he pushed inside. He wasn’t steady, but jerky this time, as though he barely held on to his control. He placed a hand on her stomach, and she was glad he remembered when she felt the tickling that said he’d taken care to make sure they were safe. Her Lawson. She’d never thought to be back here with him.

  He came fast, a few seconds before she did, and he bit down on her shoulder as though he needed to mark her as his right at the same time. They were both drenched in sweat, and she’d never felt so beautiful.

  She clung to him, keeping him on top of her, and he made no move to indicate he wanted a change in position at all. He was heavy, and she relished the feeling of his body on hers. His heart slowed as she listened to it.

  Eventually, he raised his head to look at her. “Never again.”

  She nodded. “It might kill me.”

  He lowered his head again but only for a second before he turned her over and then covered them both in his dark sheets. “Love. You.”

  That was the last thing Lawson said that night. In the darkness, her lover, who never slept and had shown back up prepared to battle for her heart, slept deeply. She held onto him, and when the deep sounds of his breathing called her own sleep, she followed him into a dreamless slumber.

  Light awoke her too soon, and she rolled over. Lawson’
s eyes flickered open. He grinned at her. “Hi.”

  “Hi.” She kissed his shoulder. “Morning. Do you have to go?”

  He shook his head. “No, love. I’m good for a while. Hey, I was wondering. Do you want to get married?”

  “Do you promise to show up?”

  Chapter 16

  “Do I promise to show up?” Lawson rolled over until he was on top of her. She grinned up at him, but he didn’t smile back. “I’d have to be dead not to be there.”

  She touched his lips with her fingers. “It was a bad joke.”

  “You haven’t answered me, tiny. I asked you an important question.”

  Ava wrapped her arms around his neck. “I will.”

  Finally, Lawson gifted her with a huge grin that she couldn’t help meeting. Happiness seemed to light up the room.

  “I’m going to make you so happy. I promise you.”

  She leaned up to kiss him. “I didn’t think this was possible. I was trying to set up my life so I could function alone, somehow exist without you. I didn’t think I’d ever be back here or that this conversation would ever…”

  Lawson pressed his forehead to hers. “We have to get you out of the human world. We could live here, or we could find a new place.”

  “I like it here. It’s homey. I’d like to be here.”

  He leaned up on his elbow. “I suppose I have to meet your family.”

  “Well.” She sat up and watched the way his gaze followed the movements of her body. Her cheeks heated. This would be a wonderful way to wake up every day. Or at least some of them. “You met Zoe and Elijah.”

  He nodded. “I mean Mom and Dad. They’re not going to love this.”

  “They might.” She had to touch him, so she let her hands run down the side of his arm. “I moved away. Left the witch world. You’re going to bring me back. That might make you a hero.”

  Lawson snorted. “Ava, I can promise you that isn’t going to be how this works.” He tugged her to him. “But we will deal with that. Later.”