Vivi looked up the stream, then up at the sky, where the moon seemed even bigger and brighter now, remembering that night with Gwyn, the same moon, the candle flame shooting high, and a cold sort of weight settled in her chest.
Rhiannon’s tits.
“So, um. Rhys.”
He turned and faced her, his eyes still wide, his chest still heaving, and Vivi offered up a shaky smile.
“Funny story for you.”
Chapter 10
She’d fucking cursed him.
As Vivi sped back toward Graves Glen, Rhys sat in the passenger seat, staring out into the dark, still trying to wrap his mind around it.
“So you took a bath,” he said slowly, and next to him, Vivi made a frustrated sound.
“I told you,” she said. “I took a bath, lit some candles, and then Gwyn and I said a whole bunch of silly stuff about your hair and clitorises that was obviously not a real curse—your hair looks really good, by the way, and I don’t actually want to know about the rest of it—but at one point, there was, like, this whoosh of flame, and I might have said, ‘I curse you, Rhys Penhallow,’ but I didn’t mean it.”
Vivi’s hands were gripped tight around the wheel, her eyes wide, and Rhys looked at her. “You . . . literally said, ‘I curse you, Rhys Penhallow,’ and now you’re surprised that I, Rhys Penhallow, am cursed? Also, I’m sorry, what was that about clitorises?”
Vivi rolled her eyes as she turned back onto the highway. “The point is, we were just being drunk and stupid. No attempt at actual magic was being made.”
“And yet actual magic has been done,” Rhys muttered, settling back into his seat.
His skin still itched from the aftereffects of charging the lines, fingers tingling, and there was a strange cold sensation at the back of his neck. Was that normal, or was it part of whatever had just gone so spectacularly wrong back there?
Narrowing his eyes, Rhys peered into the darkness as though he might be able to see that racing spark of magic still making its way down the mountain. All he could see, though, was the ribbon of road unfurling in front of them, and for a second, just the barest of moments, Rhys let himself believe that nothing bad had actually happened. His father had seemed so confident he hadn’t been cursed, after all, and when was Simon Penhallow ever wrong? Maybe this is what it was always like, charging the lines.
And then Vivi’s phone rang.
Sang, actually. The Eagles’ “Witchy Woman” wailed from Vivi’s purse, shoved between the front seats, and Vivi barely glanced at it, her fingers tightening on the steering wheel.
“Gwyn,” she said, but didn’t reach for her bag. “It’s probably nothing.”
“No doubt,” Rhys said, hoping more than he’d ever hoped for anything in his life that she was right.
“Wanting you to pick up pizza and cheeseburgers for dinner,” he added, and Vivi looked over at him.
“What?” he asked to her look, shrugging. “America.”
The phone went silent, and Rhys sensed that Vivi was holding her breath.
Fuck, he was holding his.
And then the song started up again.
Fumbling in her bag, Vivi pulled out her phone, sliding a thumb across the screen, and before she even had the phone up to her ear, Rhys could hear chaos. People shouting, someone screaming, and Gwyn yelling Vivi’s name, and Rhys sank back in his seat, covering his eyes with one hand.
“Gwyn, calm down!” Vivi was saying. “I can’t understand you—”
The phone was firmly pressed against her ear now, and Rhys watched her, actually saw the blood drain from her face as she said, “We’ll be there in two minutes.”