The moon was full, high up in the black sky full of stars. Ruby guessed that the magic of the resort made it so that the moon was always full. It would be terribly inconvenient for a werewolf to stay here, but that wasn’t her problem.
At that precise moment, Ruby had a whole different dilemma to contend with.
After convincing Portia that she wanted to go for a moonlit walk with Ethan on the beach, they were finally allowed to leave the beach bar and the terrible speed dating activity. Ruby wasn’t too sure they had actually managed to sell their lie to Portia, but she would make a better liar in the morning.Hopefully.
“Are you gonna tell me about this witch now?”
Ethan sighed profoundly. “Jazmin Lovelace. That’s the witch I wish I could find, but I haven’t been able to get a line on her.”
“Lovelace? You’re telling me you messed with the Lovelace coven? You know they’re all insane, right? Other witches don’t mess with them. Ever. At all.”
Ethan shook his head. “It wasn’t me whomessedwith Lovelace. You know I’m a wolf shifter, but I’m also the alpha.”
“That makes you king of your pack, huh?”
He chuckled. “I like that. I am gonna use that next time my pack gives me a hard time.”
“Do it. Then get back to me on how well it works to assert your dominance with a kingship.”
“Probably not as well as I would want it to, unfortunately. The pack doesn’t do well with change. Anyway, this young guy from my pack, Gus, fell in love with Jazmin Lovelace.”
“Uh-oh.” She winced, sensing the danger of falling in love with a witch.
“Uh-oh is right,” he grumbled.
“Did he piss her off? You should never piss off a witch. That’s basically a death wish.”
“I know. I know. I did try to warn the poor idiot when he told us who he was in love with, but there was nothing to do. It was too late. He had already made Jazmin some promises.”
“Okay, back up a second. This shifter made promises to a witch? Did he break her heart?”
Ethan flinched before nodding.
“Ah, fuck.”
“He fell for her hard and fast. I’m still not sure how they crossed paths, but I guess that doesn’t matter. Gus met Jazmin, and the next thing I knew, he was asking me for permission to marry her. I warned him off, of course.”
“Because she’s a witch?” Ruby asked. “If you were against her simply because she was a witch …”
“No! I just knew that it was young love. Powerful but easy to fade. Besides, we didn’t know anything about her or her people. I thought it best if he took things slow. He disobeyed. Proposed to her anyway. A few days before the wedding, Gus came to see me. He told me he had met his true fated mate.”
“It wasn’t Jaz, was it?”
He shook his head. “Why would it be? That would have made my life entirely too simple.”
“Right. So how did Jazmin the witch react?”
“How do you think?” he grumbled.
“She went apeshit and cursed him into the next century.”
“Again, that would have been too easy. She didn’t only curse Gus. She cursed the whole pack.”
“What?” Ruby gasped. “No! She didn’t.”
“Oh, but she did. She cursed all of the Adair wolf pack.”
Ruby nodded. “Wow. Note to self, do not mess with witches. Though I could have told you that without that nice little cautionary tale of yours.”