Hexed

kitchen, but they only stopped and watched in alarm.
    Coyote bit Mick on the shoulder, and blood blossomed on Mick’s shirt. Mick’s hands filled with fire, and Coyote’s fur began to smolder.
    No way should I shove myself between the ripping, clawing, and fire-striking males, and Coyote had just scared the shit out of me about using my Beneath magic. But I didn’t see that I had any choice. I couldn’t let Coyote kill Mick, the man I loved, and if Mick killed Coyote, I didn’t want to imagine the consequences.
    I drew on my Beneath magic, finding it scarily close to the surface. Just a little bit, I thought, nothing like what I’d done when I’d tried to break the wards. The tiniest amount was all I needed. I would separate the two wrestling alpha males and then shut it off.
    What rushed up from inside me was a huge blast of otherworldly power that made me gasp with its intensity. I desperately held on to the magic, sweat pouring from me, knowing that if I let the magic go, it would blow off the roof.
    “I can’t,” I babbled, the sweat freezing on my face. My breath fogged out. “I can’t.”
    I didn’t have to. A pair of thin, but incredibly strong, arms locked around Mick’s waist, tore him from Coyote, and tossed Mick aside. Coyote, still in his fighting frenzy, went for Mick’s assailant, but I leapt between them and yelled at Coyote, “Stop!”
    Coyote skidded to a halt, his eyes yellow with rage. The tall, slender man stepped beside me and fixed Coyote with a steady gaze.
    “Hey, Ansel,” I said. “Thank you.”
    “Mind telling me what is going on?”
    Ansel’s voice was calm and matter-of-fact, and that made me edgy. Ansel, an Englishman who’d been turned Nightwalker at age twenty-three when he’d been a prisoner during World War II, was quiet, soft-spoken, and a little nervous. He collected stamps, watched lots of television, and generally kept to himself.
    What he was unlikely to do was throw Mick across a room—he was afraid of Mick—and then calmly ask me what was the matter.
    “Hex,” I told him. “You all right?”
    The night-dark eyes Ansel turned on me smoldered with a deep hunger. Once you’ve been given the once-over by a ravenous Nightwalker, you don’t forget it. Or you die.
    “I am a little peckish, my dear,” he said.
    And Ansel never called me “my dear.”
    “There’s blood for you in the refrigerator. But the electricity’s out, so please keep the door closed.”
    Ansel reached out and traced my cheek with an ice-cold fingertip. “Anything you say, darling.”
    Mick started for him. I got myself between Ansel and Mick’s headlong rush, a frightening place to be. “Mick, no! ”
    “Let him come,” Ansel almost purred. “I’m hungry, and dragon blood would be delicious.”
    “Mick,” I said in warning.
    Mick stopped, but his eyes flashed fire. “Touch Janet again, Nightwalker, and I tear your head off.”
    Ansel gave him a derisive look and turned away, only to have his attention arrested by Maya. Maya self-consciously tugged the hem of her skirt down her thighs.
    “Ansel,” she said, not sounding pleased to see him.
    “Maya.” Ansel gave her a smile full of teeth. “Want to raid the fridge with me?”
    “No.” Maya looked away, a woman’s universal signal for “Get lost.”
    “You go alone,” I said to Ansel. “Drink at least half that gallon jug of blood, and then come back in here and help us figure out how to break this hex.”
    Ansel turned the smile on me. “Anything you say, mistress .”
    Gods, he sounded like the mirror. Ansel finally went off to the kitchen. Fremont and Cassandra got out of his way as he went by, and no one followed him.
    Coyote, still a coyote, growled at Mick. I planted myself in front of Coyote and raised my hand, palm out.
    “Sit!” I commanded. “Stay!”
    Coyote gave me a look that said “Fuck you” and then sauntered over to the sofa, climbed up next to Maya, and lay down.
    I drew a long breath. “All right. It looks like the hex is working to bring out the worst in us—or at least release that part of us we try hardest to control. Ansel, bloodlust; me, my Beneath magic; Mick, his dragon instincts; Cassandra, it’s messing with her emotional control. Coyote—I don’t know what’s going on with Coyote.”
    Coyote growled again. I was aware of Mick at my back, right against my back, pressed all the way along me. His arm stole around my waist, strong and possessive.
    “It hasn’t affected