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

she should have waited until Lucian and Zane could have helped. At least they could have taken out the dude trying to take her out!
    Her nails bit into the wood as one of the orbs drifted down the opposite aisle within feet of her position. She clung to the rapidly reducing amount of shadows to hide in. Ignoring the fact her lungs cried for a deep gulp of air, she froze. If luck had any say in tonight’s events, the nasty bugger of a ward would confuse her for one of the many statues scattered throughout the library.
    The magick may seem pretty on the outside, all sparkles and glitter. The truth of the matter was those things went off at the slightest twitch of movement and would send you on a nice, long trip with the reaper. That cloaked bastard didn’t know the meaning of second chances either.
    Despite her less than noble actions tonight, kicking the cauldron didn’t have a slot on her agenda of sticking it to the rat-faced Royals. Marabelle squished her panic into the tiny black box it had come from in the corner of her heart and let her eyes slip closed.
    Inhale. Exhale. Goddesses she wished she’d waited for her guys. Three were better than one.
    Chocolate cherries, strawberry tarts, raspberry squares...
    Her heart slowed and her breathing plateaued.
    One by one, she rattled off her favorite childhood treats as she followed the shadow of the guard out of the corner of her eye.
    Her mom had taught her as a girl to think of something that made her happy when an ugly situation knotted up her insides. She liked sweets, and chocolate always made her happy. It was that or tick off every place she’d gone down on her men or them on her. That list was shorter, even if more interesting.
    With her eyes closed, Marabelle listened as Zane had shown her, which heightened her senses. Silence. Not a good sign.
    In the past more often than not that obstacle had been her father’s protective wards.
    Every Sunday they would spend a few hours practicing her spellwork. If she’d done well, afterward he’d let her have a go at counter-spelling his wards. She loved every minute of their time together and loved to push her skills at conjuring protection spells. Now... not so much. The lack of possessing any said magick, thanks to the High Council, had a big something to do with that.
    She shoved the thought aside. Memories of her father only led to darker thoughts. She couldn’t prove it, yet, but the High Council irrevocably had a shady hand in his untimely death. Tonight was not about that though. Not entirely. First things first. Her magick.
    Her fingers flexed around the green satchel slung across her body, the weight heavier than she’d calculated but manageable. Tonight was about taking back her powers from the thieving warlocks who’d stolen it from her.
    Marabelle sucked in her breath and held it for a count of five, calculating the distance between her position and her next target. Since curiosity had a tendency to kill witches who went snooping, sticking around to uncover the current warlock’s next move could mean her last.
    On hands and knees, she crawled to the next shelf that led her closer to freedom and the second phase of her great plan, which didn’t seem so great at the moment.
    Wood splintered, followed by a booming shockwave that rocked her so hard her back teeth rattled. Bits and pieces of wood rained down. One large spike caught her along the check as another scraped the tender flesh of her chest despite the thick pullover she wore as a disguise. For a split second, all she could do was thank the goddesses she wasn’t a vampire. Silver linings had a way of showing themselves.
    Tucked into the smallest ball she could manage, Marabelle rolled to the right and waited for the dust to settle. Before the other orbs could get in on the act of taking a shot at her, she lunged forward, dragging the satchel along the floor behind her.
    Kneeling by the back stone wall, she chanced another glance at her watch. It