The Family Spells: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance

by C. M. Stunich

  “No,” Monster said, moving forward dressed in nothing but silver plate armor on his legs, no shirt. His wings were like shadows, wispy and incorporeal as smoke. He folded them up, and they flickered away as if they’d never been. “You think I’m capable of such malice?” He cocked his head at me, glowing white lines criss-crossing his flesh. Each one of those contained a powerful aphrodisiac that, once touched, cursed the recipient with violent, painful need. It was a biological adaptation to help him catch prey, but I hated him for it.

  I remembered what it felt like to be pulled under that sway.

  “Then who did it?” I asked, and he shrugged, tearing off a strip of bark and waltzing across the forest floor, but not really standing on it. No, he was hovering just a few inches above it.

  “How the hell should I know?” Monster asked, padding forward and dropping the bark at my feet. My husbands were not happy to see him, and neither was I. It’d been years since he’d made an appearance in my life, and I didn’t like it.

  I didn’t believe in coincidences.

  “Did you send those demons to my house? The ones with the pumpkins?” I asked, and I felt like the whole mystery was starting to come together. It’d make sense if he had; Monster had been known to stalk me in the past. “You put that jack-o’-lantern path up, too, didn’t you?”

  He just stared at me from copper eyes, like I was a crazy person.

  “Actually no,” he said with a shrug of his massive shoulders. “I came here to warn you.”

  “And why would you do that?” I asked as Hex knelt down in the dirt, and touched two fingers to the wet earth. A spell circle shimmered into place around the tree, and I saw his nostrils flare. There was a spark of recognition in his eyes that scared the crap out of me.

  “Just for fun,” Monster said, flashing a white grin in my direction. He glanced over his shoulder as Hex stood up suddenly, sweat beading on the sides of his face.

  “This is my grandmother’s signature,” he said, turning around to look at me. For a moment there, I forgot that I hated him, that I was mad at him, that he was never going to be mine. For just a brief second, it felt like we really were a unit. “She cast this.”

  “That’s impossible,” I said, but I felt a cold fear start to take root inside of me. “Why would she do that?”

  “Because,” Monster said, and Caine snapped at him, his jaws wet with slaver. “No demon is happy being trapped in Hael. We want to be free to explore the wide, wide world above.” He smiled at me again, but it was not a pleasant look. When he stared at me like that, I was trapped in the memory of our final parting—and it was not a happy one. “Cabal Ungeist, Coven Wyrmwood. Don’t tell me you’re so dense you haven’t figured it out?”

  My heart began to thunder, and I felt sick.

  “Hex,” I started, but from the look on his face, I didn’t think he knew. I really didn’t.

  A spell circle appeared at Hex’s feet, a very familiar looking spell circle.

  To be specific, it was a summoning circle.

  Somebody was summoning Hex Sorciere.

  Shackles appeared on his wrists as his body began to sink into the earth. The last thing I saw before it swallowed him up were his eyes.

  He was fucking terrified, and so was I.

  “Well, that was unexpected,” Monster said, as a second spell circle went up around us. I could feel the magic, trapping me in place.

  “Gods above and below,” Argent snarled, as he stepped forward and put his palm up against the magical shield. Monster, of course, waltzed right through it and paused over to the other side.

  As if things couldn’t get any worse, I finally heard back from Bast.

  Coven Northbank has bailed, Grace. They are not going to do the spell.

  My heart was thundering, and I felt like I might pass out.

  “What the hell do you want, because I know you didn’t just show up here without an agenda?” Caine snarled as he shifted back into human form. I felt like someone had just turned over an hourglass full of sand, and my mother’s—as well as our—time was running out.

  Monster grinned, leveling his copper gaze on me.

  “You know what I want,” he said, reaching through the spell circle as Spectre swung his scythe through the demon’s arm. Well, where his arm would’ve been if he hadn’t snatched it back with preternatural speed. He growled at the vampire, and they exchanged a long, angry look.

  “Well, you ain’t gettin’ that, so what else can we offer for you to get us out of this mess?” Caine snarled, but Monster didn’t answer. Instead, he paused as another summoning circle opened up and a female demon rose from the ground, her lavender hair and silver eyes gleaming in the unnatural red light of Hael.

  “You can’t offer him anything,” she said, stepping up close to the spell circle and looking me dead in the face. “Because we already have everything we want.” She reached through the magic, brushing the side of my face with her fingertips just before Spectre swung his scythe again, and she was forced to back up.

  The expression on her face, however, was one of surprise.

  Something about me had thrown a wrench into whatever her plans were. That was a good sign, right?”

  “Who the fuck are you?” Argent asked, standing on my left side and looking confident as all hell. I wasn’t sure if it was a front or not, but I appreciated it immensely.

  “Allow me to introduce myself,” she said, clutching the fingers she’d touched my face with close to her chest. “My name is Violet Enfer, and I’m Hex’s fiancée.”

  She grinned at me, but there was a crack in that smile. Something about me was bothering her, and I needed to figure it out fast.

  “Twenty-four hours until Samhain is officially over,” Monster said, bending down to pick up the piece of reaping willow bark. He stood up and handed it out to me, but I wouldn’t take it. “I wonder if your mother will survive the night?”

  I gritted my teeth, but I didn’t panic.

  I had my husbands by my side, and together, I knew we could face anything.

  But I was worried about Hex, worried about Mom, worried about my kids.

  I was worried that the Spells family would come to an end right here and now, and I’d have to watch it happen.

  “No?” Monster teased, dangling the bark in front of my face. Something flashed in his eyes, and before I realized what he was up to, he was grabbing me hard around my wrist, pumping that aphrodisiac into my body.

  He tore me from the spell circle and then dropped us right down into a summoning circle that led to goddess only knew where.

  Yet … the only thing that that crossed my mind when I opened my eyes was him.

  He’d poisoned me again, and now, I was all alone with nobody to snap me out of it.

  “Hello, Graceley,” he said, leaning down to kiss me.

  I found myself powerless to stop him.

  To Be Continued…

  Hey there, dear reader! If you’ve made it this far, you probably finished the book. Or, you could be a weirdo like me who skips to the end of book stuff to see if there are any interesting sneak-peeks. Well, at least in this one—there is! Book #2 in “The Family Spells” Series releases in 2018. I don’t have an exact date nailed down, but once it’s live, you’ll be able to find it here: books2read.com/tfswhatthehex

  Also, feel free to turn the page for a look at the gorgeous cover. ;)

  I hope you enjoyed the story of the Spells family, and I cannot wait to show you what happens next …

  -Love, Caitlin

  What The Hex? The Family Spells, Book #2 is coming soon!

  Every motorcycle club has its old ladies. These guys ... they share one. Death By Daybreak MC #1, Coming Soon.

  Need a fun steamy read? Hijinks Harem, Book #1!

  Coming Soon. Join the Bookish Bat Cave to learn more about upcoming releases.

  The Seven Mates of Zara Wolf, Book #1

  Flip the page for an excerpt of chapter one.

 
Chapter One

  They were coming for me.

  I knew it; I could smell it. The metallic copper tang of blood came to me on the wind, like pennies and citrus, mixing with the ever present sweetness of pine. I paused, the fingers of one bare hand brushing gently down the rough bark of a tree, the other still warmly encased in a mitten and tucked in my pocket. Except for the slow, deliberate movement of my hand, I was completely still, listening, waiting.

  The soft whisper of boots warned me that Nic was coming. If he hadn't wanted me to know he was behind me, I probably wouldn't.

  “How many?” he asked, coming to stand beside me, close but not too close. It didn't pay to get too close to the next alpha unless you'd been chosen.

  My heart sunk as I glanced over at Nic, at the proud, straight ridge of his nose and those high, sculpted cheeks. Everything about him said Ebon Red, said too close to home to be chosen. I dropped my hand from the tree and curled my fingers into a fist at my side.

  “Sixteen, at least,” I said and then sighed, reaching into my left pocket for my phone. It was doubtful I'd get any reception out here, but it was worth a try. “And they've killed something,” I said, paused, pursed my lips. “Recently.”

  Nic let out a low growl that curled my fingers tight around my cell, made my throat go dry. I shouldn't let myself be so affected by him; it would only end in heartbreak and pain. I knew firsthand how dangerous it was. I was daughter to a woman who'd literally killed the man she'd loved most.

  I wouldn't find any sympathy back home.

  “Are they trying to cause trouble?” Nic asked, reaching up to grab the zipper on his jacket. “Or are they just too inbred to realize that Friday means Friday. Your mother,” he continued because nobody who'd ever met the woman would call her 'Mom'—least of all me, “will probably cut them out of the ceremony altogether when she hears about this.”

  I shook my head, my heart fluttering with hope and dropping just as fast.

  “No,” I said, thinking aloud, watching with a practiced detachment as Nic shrugged his coat to the forest floor and sat down on it to start taking off his boots. If I listened carefully, I could hear my professor and my fellow Intro to Wildflowers classmates chatting about a mile off. The pack—whoever they were, I didn't recognize their scent—was farther off, maybe three or four miles out. If Nic and I stood here and waited, they'd be on us in minutes. “She needs this alliance. We need this alliance,” I said, a thousand reprimands rolling through my head all at once. It's always us and we, Zara, not me and I. “It would take a serious breach of etiquette for her to even consider cutting anyone out.”

  I took a deep breath and tried dialing my mother's phone—no reception. Ridiculous. I kept trying to explain how important satellite phones would be for communication. Spending as much time as we did in remote wilderness, I felt like they were essential. But … old habits die hard. The pack—and especially my mother—they didn't trust technology.

  I glanced down at Nic—shoeless, sock-less, shirtless. I had to swallow hard and glance away as he stood up and dropped his jeans to the moist dirt beneath our feet. Nakedness was as easy as breathing for me, for all of us, but when it came to Nic … I felt the undertones there, the unspoken things we'd both like to do to each other in the dark. It made it hard, really hard. And then to stand here and talk about the ceremony? The implications of what, exactly, that ceremony meant were hard to ignore. Five suitors, five possible mates, five guys that I'd be doing things in the dark with that weren't Nic.

  “Yeah, well,” he said, pushing a hand through his dark red hair as I looked back at him, carefully avoiding looking at anything below his waist. “If forcing me to get naked in the middle of class doesn't count as a breach of etiquette, I don't know what does. Wait here, I'll be back.”

  Nic flashed a tight smile at me before taking a breath and shaking out his hands, fingers curling as the wolf reared to the surface, desperate to get out, to run, to chase, to fight. I stepped back, the nearness between us too much for me to handle. It was hard to watch anyone shift, to let them morph and meld and melt while I was stuck standing still, encased in a single form, skin itching for release. But with Nic? It was like there was this pull between us, this irresistible urge to touch and feel, to lay my hands on his bare chest and feel the change happen beneath my fingers.

  I turned away fully and leaned my right shoulder against the tree, waiting for the quiet whisper of paw pads before I looked back. I only caught the tail end—quite literally—of Nic before he disappeared into the trees, his auburn fur whipping past the brown and green and blending into the shadows.

  He'd find this pack, whoever they were, and he'd turn them back. Or at the very least, he'd lead them somewhere safe, somewhere with reception where they could shift and he could get a hold of my mother. For now, I'd wait. If he wasn't back in ten, I'd leave his clothes here and I'd go.

  I leaned my back against the trunk of the ponderosa pine and stared back up the gentle slope of the mountain we were on, at the shadows of the trees and the damp earth that was still partially crystallized from last night's freeze. It was pretty here, sure, but it was hard to relax knowing a group of thirty people was just around the corner, guidebooks open and phones snapping photos of half-dead flowers. Winter had come early this year and stayed late, messing with the spring term and the offered classes. It was hard to study wildflowers when most of them were either frozen or had yet to spring up at all.

  I checked the time on my phone. Two minutes. Nic should be with the pack now, drawing their bloodied scent away from me and the classmates moving steadily in my direction. It wasn't like wolves were extinct in Oregon or anything, but a large group of really big wolves stinking of copper, mouths tinged pink with a recent kill? I did not want to see the confrontation between the two groups.

  I closed my eyes, listened carefully, past the gentle rustle of branches overhead and the whistle of the wind in the valley. If I really concentrated, I could hear my professor's ongoing lecture, the excited perk in his voice that said he really truly loved his job.

  I wished I was as big a fan of mine.

  Then again, my professor chose his job; I was assigned mine. It wasn't that I didn't want to be alpha, that I didn't care about my people, it was the lack of choice involved in all of it. My mother didn't sit me down one day and ask how I felt about being her heir. No, I was born into it. Instead of coming into the world with a sibling or two, a litter that could be picked and chosen from, I came alone. Okay, well that's not exactly true—I had sisters in the womb with me, three of them actually, but they were all born dead.

  So. First litter, one pup. One alpha.

  “Daydreaming again?” a voice asked from behind me, startling me so bad that when I spun around, I was ready to fight. I fell into a crouch and rose just as quickly, hoping that Julian wouldn't comment on the move. How the hell did he manage to sneak up on me? I wondered with no small amount of awe. It shouldn't have been possible, but there he was, six feet away and smiling like he had no idea the start he'd just given me. I took note of the moment, filed it away, but decided that I was too caught up in my own head, wasn't paying attention. At this point, it was the only explanation I had.

  “Sorry?” I asked, running my fingers through the burning brightness of my hair, hair that was hardly unique in my pack. Ebon Red was famous for our flaming red hair and pale skin, the purple-raven color of our eyes, eyes that had gotten more than one of us into an awkward situation or two, barely explained away with the mention of colored contact lenses. At least most people were just too polite to ask.

  “You seem to daydream a lot,” Julian said with a shrug, tucking his hands into his pockets and then glancing down at Nic's discarded pile of clothes. His black and white checkered boxers were sitting right on top. Of course they were.

  “Nic'll do anything for a bet,” I said with a wild smile, knowing how ridiculous and unbelievable it sounded. But when you grew up in an entire community
of werewolves, you learned that stupid and believable lies were better than impossible truths. “Especially if it involves money,” I added with a sly smile, putting my cell back in my pocket and withdrawing my loose mitten. My younger sister, Aria, knitted the pair for me as a Christmas present, passing the package to me with a nervous smile that said while she loved me, she feared me just like everyone else.

  “Um,” Julian began as I tugged the wool over my fingers and pretended to be cold, shivering and forcing my smile into a grin. I could only pray that Nic didn't come back until I'd gotten rid of Julian. He'd hear him, sure, even from several miles away, but I had this feeling that if he got a whiff of this guy and me together, he'd come charging over here, hackles raised.

  “Fifty bucks,” I added with a shake of my head. If I'd learned anything over the years, it was that money can get people to believe the unbelievable. One of my aunts getting caught naked in the garden center at the hardware store? A friend bet her a thousand bucks to do it. Seriously, works every time. It's better than trying to claim the person you're covering for—or worse, you—is a nudist. Or that they're deranged. Or both. “Honestly, I'd thought he negotiate for at least a hundred.” I glanced over my shoulder and then shrugged, looking back at Julian's wide brown eyes and raised blonde brows.

  “Where did he go?” he asked with a nervous laugh, keeping his hands tucked into his pockets and attempting a nervous smile. Crap. I had a feeling he wasn't going to leave without some prompting.

  “Who the hell knows?” I said with an exaggerated eye roll. “He can be weird sometimes.” I kept smiling and focused my attention on Julian. I knew he had a crush on me, from day one, and he was cute and all, but my life was about more than that. As an alpha, I had responsibilities. And a damn good sense of smell. Julian always had this air of mint and apples about him, this bright note weighted down with the heaviness of copper.