Wicked Hex (The Royals: Witch Court Book 3)

by Megan Montero

  Beside me, Zinnia let silver tendrils of her magic seep down her arms. “I’m ready. On the count of three.”

  I nodded. “One.”

  Brax charged at Tuck in his full tiger form, tackling him to the ground. Tuck swung out with his elbow, catching Brax in the side of his head. Fire boomed from his fist, and Brax soared across the room and slammed into the wall. He slowly morphed from tiger back to man as he slid down the wall. His cat-like green eyes rolled into the back of his head, and he fell into a heap on the floor.

  Ophelia rushed to my side. “Are we gonna do this or what?”

  “ On the count of three.” I nodded. “Two.”

  “What happened to one?” Black smoke billowed from her hand across the floor.

  “Three!” I screamed, and we all ran at Tuck at the same time.

  He spread his legs apart, and I fired my magic into the ground, willing the dead to rise up and take ahold of him. Skelton arms shot from the ground and wound around his ankles and feet. No matter where I was when I called the dead they answered, even if I wasn’t on a burial ground. He was rooted in place. Ophelia grabbed a staff from the floor and launched it at him. Tuck swung his sword up, slicing it in midair before it reached him.

  Zinnia skidded to his side, and tears streamed down her face. “I’m sorry about this.”

  Silver magic wrapped around his whole body, and he bellowed to the ceiling. Flames flowed over every inch of his skin and into those silver streams. It was as if his shifter magic was lighting hers on fire or using it to get back to her. I waved my hand, and the skeletons holding him down shifted to try and knock him off balance. “Zinnia, drop your magic...or he’ll.”

  “Ow!” She waved her hand back and forth as if she’d put her fingers on a hot stove. The magic she had surrounding him fizzed away, and Tuck slashed out with his sword, chopping the skeletons limb from limb. He spun on his heels and headed straight for her like a machine.

  Ophelia ran up and jumped on his back, wrapping his head in a sleeper hold. “Stop or I will kill you.”

  Zinnia hunched over, holding her burned hand in the other. “No, don’t kill him. He doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

  Tuck reached up and grabbed Ophelia’s arm. He spun around and tossed her right at me. She tumbled in midair and slammed into my body, knocking the wind from my lungs. Black dots swarmed my vision, and I tried to sit up. Ophelia lay on top of me, pinning me to the floor.

  Tuck chuckled. “Who’s asleep now?” He held his sword high and took a step in Zinnia’s direction.

  Cross and Beckett charged into the room. Blue orbs floated around Beckett’s fingers.

  Crimson smoke poured from Cross. He shot Beckett a look. “Only you can stop this.”

  Tucker was only mere feet from Zinnia. He held his sword to her throat. “Destroy that which you hold as your dearest mate.”

  Blue fog spread across the floor and up the walls of the training area. Fog? Smoke? He’s a warlock. Beckett hovered up off the ground, blue light shining from his eyes. “Stop!”

  The command was instant, and Tucker froze, unable to move. Every muscle in his body tensed to strike, yet the sword didn’t budge. My eyes widened. I’d always thought Beckett was a witch, a practitioner of white magic. But this, the smoky magic seeping from his body, the power to control another’s will, it was dark magic, powerful dark magic. Beckett expanded his hand, and everyone in the room floated up off the floor, suspended.

  Ophelia was removed from my body, and I felt weightless like I could fly. Blue fog covered everything, putting out every single fire. Beckett raised his hand up over his head, and it all gathered like a tornado around Tuck, holding him prisoner.

  When my feet touch down on the ground, I rushed to Zinnia’s side. “Are you okay?”

  “I think so.” She was shaken, of that I was sure. She wavered on her feet yet she faced Tucker head on.

  Tucker struggled against Beckett’s hold. “I will have her. I will carry it out.” The magic was so thick around his body that I could only see the top of his head and nothing more. He struggled and thrashed.

  Zinnia opened her hands and silver sparling magic unfurled and mixed with Beckett’s magic. Zinnia closed her eyes sucked in a deep breath. “Moon above shine bright and take his mind to the middle of the night. Relax your mind and let your body flow free until the moment you’re locked away safely.”

  The hex on him couldn’t fight both Tucker’s inner strength and Beckett’s black magic mixed with Zinnia’s spell. Tuck’s head slumped to the side, and his body went limp.

  Becket spun his hands in a circle, and his magic seeped back toward him. A large smile spread on Cross’ face, and he clapped Beckett on the shoulder. “Good job.”

  “Good job?” Beckett marched over to where Tuck lay motionless on the ground. “Is this why you came to Evermore Academy, to force my hand? For my warlock side to come out?”

  “I don’t know what you’re so pissed off about. You saved them all.” Cross motioned to the charred room, Grayson and Brax lying unconscious and O, Zinnia and I standing in utter shock.

  “Sometimes the end doesn’t justify the means.” Beck stomped toward the door. “You know where the jail is. Lock him up.” Beckett left the room angrier than I’d ever seen him before.

  Beckett a warlock? What the hell?

  Cross turned back toward the three of us. “I seriously have no idea where the dungeon is in this place.”

  Ophelia walked over to Tuck and squatted down beside him. “I know where it is. I’ll help you get him there.”

  Zinnia dropped down onto the ground and sat cross-legged, watching with wide eyes.

  I sat down next to her. “Are you okay?” I wanted to reach out and hug her, but my gloves were in the corner of the room somewhere and I didn’t want to see any part of her future. So I sat with my hands folded in my lap.

  Tears spilled down her cheeks, her hair was mess, her dress was in tatters and she was covered in black soot. She shook her head. “No, I’m really not.”

  Chapter 29

  Zinnia

  Tuck attacked me, but he hadn’t hurt me, not really. What was a cut and a few bruised between eternal soulmates? That wasn’t Tucker, the Tucker I knew would never hurt me. I was shocked. My body was shaking from head to toe, and I couldn’t get it to stop. Cross and Ophelia labored under Tucker’s unconscious weight. They each had one of his arms draped around their shoulders, and when they finally dragged him into the cell, they placed him on the floor flat on his back. He only wore black pants and his combat boots. His chest was bare and covered in soot. Sweat dripped from him, and though his eyes were closed, he shivered there on the cold stones.

  Cross held his hand out to Ophelia. “Come on, we should get you to the infirmary to have a look at that bump on your head.”

  She shook her head. “I have to talk to Zinnia.”

  I wanted to hear everything she said, but I was only focused on Tuck. I watched the steady rise and fall of his chest. It soothed me in a way I couldn’t describe. “I’ll just be a minute. I need to talk to Nova…alone.”

  Cross stepped out of the cell with Ophelia’s hand in his. With his other hand, his slid the door shut. The metal bars clinked and raddled as he slammed it shut and locked it. “He’ll be out for about another half hour or so.”

  “How do you know?” Nova’s gaze never left Tuck.

  Cross shrugged. “Because I’ve seen this magic at work before.” Without another word, he pulled Ophelia out of the room and I was left alone with Nova. I wanted to harden my heart against the pain I was feeling. I wanted to think logically, not emotionally.

  But this was Tuck, and logic would never dictate how I could act when it came to him. Tears fell from eyes in rapid succession, and I didn’t even try to stop them. My throat felt thick, and I couldn’t swallow it down. “Nova, I’m going to ask you to do something for me, and I know it’s not right, but I have to prepare myself.”

  “Please don’t a
sk me.” She turned to look at me, and in that look, she pleaded for me not to ask this, but I had to.

  I unfastened the bracelet around my wrist and held the mark out to her. Nova sucked in a shocked breath, and I pulled my arm back in. When I tried to fasten the clip of my bracelet, my hand shook so hard I nearly dropped it. “I have to know.” I swallowed down a sob. “I have to know if I need to prepare myself. Is he going to die, Nova?”

  She took a small step toward the bars. “I don’t want to see.”

  “Normally, I would never ask, but this time.” I moved closer to the cell and opened the door. As I stepped inside, she followed me in and knelt beside him. One by one she plucked the fingertips of her gloves off, then slid the whole thing from her hand. She held her palm over his bare chest.

  “Zin, I can’t.” Her voice wavered, and I knew I was pushing her too hard, but this was Tuck, and if I only had hours left with him, I wanted to be ready.

  I dropped down on my knees beside her and placed my hand over hers. Then slowly I lowered her palm onto his chest. Nova sucked in a shocked breath and scrambled back on her hands away from him. Panicked breaths huffed in and out of her chest.

  I crawled up next to her. “What did you see?”

  Nova snatched her gloves from the floor and shoved her hand back into it. “He’s not going to die.” I let out a sigh of relief, and then she looked away from me. “You are.”

  Chapter 30

  Tuck

  The haziness around my eyes dissipated ever so slowly, letting the world come into view, though there wasn’t much to see. My whole body felt like it’d been put through the wringer. My face was tender, and when I reached up and pressed my fingers to my eye, I stifled a wince. With my other hand, I patted the cold ground. Dirt and stone scrapped my palm. As I sat up, a sharp pain shot through my rib cage. I tiled my head back and looked around at the three thick stone walls and set of bars containing me. I groaned. “Where am I?”

  “You’re in the dungeon of Evermore Academy. Now answer me this. Are you, you?”

  I tilted to the side, and every bone in my body felt like it was broken and mended back together like the first time I shifted into my phoenix form. Beckett sat on a bench outside the cell hunched over with his elbows on his knees and his hands folded under his chin. There was no smile on his face. Instead, his ocean-blue eyes were grave and serious.

  I gingerly rose to my feet and hobbled over to the bars. “It’s me, Tuck.”

  “Good.” He made no move to release me.

  I wrapped my hand around the bar and leaned my body up against them. “What happened?”

  Beckett sat back against the wall, then kicked his legs out in front of him. “Before or after you attacked all of us?”

  “Wait, I did what?” I shook my head. “No, there’s no way I could’ve attacked you guys.”

  “Tell that to Brax and Grayson. They’re both in the infirmary with concussions.” He sighed.

  “You’re joking. This is some kind of mistake.” It had to be. I would never in a million years hurt my friends, my fellow Knights in the fight against Alataris.

  Beckett shook his head. “I wish it were, my man. Whatever hex is inside you is dangerous, and we were lucky this time. Next time we might not be.”

  Alataris did this to me. There was no way I would ever hurt any of our crew. They were my friends and damn near the closest thing I had to a family. Mine had let me go long ago and forced me into this life. But now that I had it, I didn’t ever want to let it go. I didn’t want to let any of them go. “Then keep me in here.”

  “My friend, I couldn’t let you out even if I wanted to. The simple fact is you’re not safe to be around.” Beckett looked up at me with desolation in his eyes. “Until we figure out exactly what this hex is, you have to be contained from now on.”

  What if they never figured it out? What if they sent me away from here, away from Zinnia? Zinnia!

  The last thing I remembered was being in the training room with Zinnia. Her sweet taste on my lips, her warm vanilla scent invading my nose, her soft skin under my touch. She was everything to me. One second we’d been dressed up for the Solstice Ball. Now I was shirtless and trapped in a jail. Zinnia? My eyes shot wide. “Zinnia? Is she hurt?”

  Beckett rubbed his thumb over his bottom lip. “Just a couple scrapes and bruises. Nothing serious. I think she’s more shaken up than anything.”

  Scrapes and Bruises? I staggered back from the bars and fell onto my ass. “Shaken up? What happened, Beck?”

  Beckett sighed and looked down at the floor. “I think it’s better if you don’t know.”

  If she had to live through it, then I would bear the knowledge of what I’d done to her. She was my soulmate. What happened to her happened to me. I shook my head, and I could feel the darkness stirring in my chest. “Tell me.”

  “She was the one you were after… You tried to kill her, Tuck.”

  I could feel the dark hex rumbling to come out, wanting to take over my body. Before, I hadn’t known what it was. Now I knew. But there was something in me that would always be stronger than any black magic living there. The pain of what I’d done to her hit me full force, and I couldn’t breath. My Zinnia, my everything. I’d hurt her. There was nothing anyone could say or do to make me forgive myself.

  Flashes of my sword to her neck appeared in my mind. Then like a firing squad, they played one after the other—my sword to her neck, me flying over her and swinging my blade in her direction, her hiding in a smoke-filled room, her desperate coughs as she fought to breathe. Her blood pouring down her neck and coating the tip of my sword. My hand around her neck squeezing the life out of her. They flickered like lightning flashes in my mind. I couldn’t see them happening at the time, nor could I stop them. It was as if the hex was showing them to me now just to torture me. It was my job to protect Zinnia, both as a knight and as her soulmate. I failed.

  I pressed my hands to my temples to try and stop the images from invading me. But they wouldn’t stop. I was there. The sounds, the smells and her terror in each moment were as real as the cell I was sitting in right this second. I rocked back and forth. “Stop, stop, just stop!” I bellowed at the top of my lungs.

  Beckett shot up and ran toward the bars. “Tuck, what is it?”

  “Oh god.” Pain shot through my head, and I felt like someone had taken an ax to it. I fell onto my back, and my body writhed on the floor as I tried to fight off the visions of Zinnia being hurt.

  Beckett banged on the bars. “Tell me how to help you.”

  You can’t. No one can. The phoenix mark on my neck burned hotter than I’d ever felt it before, and I let it. I threw myself over to the fire in my veins, letting it burn me from the soul out toward my skin. My arms turned to wings, my body shrunk down, and my face morphed. The pain in my head subsided as I let my phoenix out. I still saw all the things I’d done to Zinnia and the terror I’d rained down on the rest of my friends. I gave one last look at Beckett, then turned from him and moved to the corner of my cell. Here, I was safe. Here, they were safe from me. And here is where I would stay until this hex finally drew the last breath from my lips.

  Chapter 31

  Zinnia

  It’d been a full day since the dance happened and Nova’s prediction about my death. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. I wanted to sit and think about what she’d told me, but Tuck was in trouble and so were the rest of my friends. Even now, I marched down the long corridor toward the dungeons to meet Nova and see Tuck. Old rectangular stones lined the walls, ceiling, and floor. Lanterns hung sporadically down the hall, giving it an eerie haunted effect. None of the other students dared to venture down here. Not even the nosey school pixies would come this way. It smelled of damp earth and reminded me of a basement in an old house. Kumi trotted along by my side. In truth, she hadn’t left me since everything happened at the dance.

  As if reading my thoughts, her words huffed through my mind. I leave you alone for one night an
d you nearly get yourself killed. If something happens to you, who am I going to talk to? Definitely not your cat friend. Cats are shady. They push stuff of the counter for no reason.

  You won’t have to. You can go back to the beach and chillax.

  Kumi groaned, and I could picture her rolling her eyes. I reached out and brushed my hand through her midnight fur. It soothed my nerves. I hadn’t seen Tuck since I left him unconscious on the floor. Now I was worried seeing me would send him reeling once more. It’d taken time to get cleaned up and explain things to Niche, who even now was buried under a stack of books searching for anything to help him. After Niche and the good Doc did a small healing spell on my neck my wound now looked three days old. Even so it was four inches long and deep. The bruises on my skin turned to dark purple finger prints that would match Tuck’s hand. Not everything could be healed with magic. I wanted to see him, but I stayed away, hoping if he didn’t see me, he might miraculously get better.

  Ophelia turned the corner and nearly collided with me. She pressed her hand to her chest and jumped back. “A little warning next time, sis. You scared the crap out of me.”

  “It’s not like I was sneaking around.” I took a step to the side to go around her.

  Ophelia stepped in front of me, blocking my path. “I have to talk to you.”

  Kumi’s lips pulled back from her teeth. Do we like her?

  Sometimes.

  Can I bite her?

  Not today. I kept on petting her to keep myself from losing my patience.

  “Whoa there. Back off, Lassie. I gotta talk to Zin. It’s important.” Ophelia was the only one of my friends I thought truly wasn’t afraid of Kumi. Sure, the others had tried to stand up to her, but they hadn’t scolded her with a pointed finger wagging in her face the way O did.

  “Can it wait? I’m meeting Nova and we’re visiting Tuck.” I walked past her.