Charming the Alphas (Hex My Heart, #5) Read Online Free Page A

she couldn’t place the broken enunciations from the list of people she knew within the High Council. Whoever was on her tail packed one helluva punch with their spellwork.
    She hugged the wall for any kind of protection between her and the crazed warlock and told herself not to overreact. She strained her ears for approaching footfalls to pinpoint his location, but found only silence. Maybe she’d managed to ditch him? Peering around the corner, a bright burst of light caught her shoulder, and she ducked around the corner.
    Whew . Marabelle blew out a couple of breaths. That almost took my damn eyelashes!
    A few milliseconds slower and it would have probably taken more than just hair.
    Another ball of flaming magick barreled toward her and slammed into the tall pine bookshelf, which knocked her backward into another shelf with large tomes and countless smaller parchments. Book after book crashed to the floor with a loud thud. Way to reveal your location, Mara! Shit, she was so screwed. Did anyone know how to write in shorthand? These big ass books were going to be the death of her.
    On one hand, the spell thrown at her provided enough light to see where her next move would lead her. The only problem was the little ball of light happened to be a very displeased orb of magick, hocked up with enough juice to power a small town and had a very ticked-off warlock behind the wheel with a bone to pick. So maybe, hijacking a couple of books from the High Council’s vault was a big no-no after all. By now, she supposed an apology and a smile wouldn’t help her cause any. Hitting her pursuer’s teammate over the head with a brass divider didn’t exactly say hello in the right tone.
    She dived to the side, barely missing the massive thousand-page tome that landed with a thud on the marble flooring in the spot she’d vacated only a second before. It took her twice as long to realize it missed and she hadn’t turned ghost.
    Black and ivory tentacle-looking fumes of magick burst three feet from the center of the book before taking a nosedive, effectively slamming the pages closed. Eyes wide, she stared at the book. “That’s new.” She’d seen magick do a lot of things, but whipping out of a book was up there with aliens and ET. She edged closer for a peek at the title.
    “You gotta be kidding.” She cracked a smile and shook her head. Lucian and Zane would get a kick out of that. Irony, the tricky bitch, had a sense of humor and she never failed. Staring back at her in a flourish of fourteenth-century gold and scarlet calligraphy read: “How to Protect Against Wards and Black Magick.”
    Pressed flat against the floor-to-ceiling bookshelf, Marabelle peeled her back off the wood far enough to steal a peek around the corner, her new location half masked by the cart of library books she’d abandoned before clocking out of work earlier that evening. Score one for the librarian.
    A deep hum filled the room. “WTF was that?”
    A massive army of tiny golden balls zoomed beneath the arched entryway and fanned out. No way! She knew better than to ask. Never ask. The answer is always shitty.
    The spheres filled the large chamber. Probably on the orders of the very pissed off warlock she’d picked up between slipping out of the High Council’s secret vault and tripping the ward she’d somehow missed.
    Which was a puzzle in itself. She never missed wards. They were her thing along with healing potions and spellwork.
    Rookie move, sweet pea! Her father’s words played in her head.
    Wards served as alarms for the magick folk. Pre-made spellwork, when done right, hid things from the humans, such as the actual gigantic size of the High Council’s palace to the smaller things such as hidden sections within the palace that held books the High Council would rather keep hidden. But they’d left her with no choice. If she wanted her magick back, this was the only way even if it all stood a good chance of blowing up in her face! Maybe