Chapter 199

Chapter 199
Livia frowned. She picked up on that apparently being a bad thing easily enough, but why he thought she would care was beyond her. When she voiced as much, he just blinked at her like she’d stunned him speechless; at first, she was sure.

 

Peering between the two of them, she took in the tense set of their shoulders and the tightness in their expressions that lingered, despite her assurance that she didn’t care about their lack of purity.

 

Deciding to fix the problem she’d inadvertently caused, Livia smiled softly at them. "I don’t care if you’re pure or as mixed as milk and coffee, but I’ve obviously stepped on a sore point, so I rescind my invitation." Hoping to lighten the mood, she ended with a haughty sniff and an imperious wave of her hand.




Joseph’s eyes narrowed to suspicious slits. "Well! Now that you don’t want to see, I want to show you. What is this witchery?"




Leon made a low sound and nodded, mimicking Joseph’s suspicious expression, though his grey eyes were dancing with amusement. "I’ve heard of this. Reverse psychology. Devious stuff, that."

 

Livia sputtered, "I didn’t—"

 

"It’s too late!" Joseph interrupted. "I’ve already decided. Prepare yourself! You'll see my beautiful lycan self, and you'll see Leon the warrior wolf," he winked.

 

Rhye growled as if to lament or warn Joseph.

 

With that, he whipped his shirt over his head, giving her a lovely view of hard muscle and colorful tattoos before he was enveloped in a soft, golden glow. When it faded away, the real Joseph was standing before her, shoulders set, eyes nervous.




He was... magnificent.




Pale gold, his smooth tail arched high above his head, and his head morphed into something almost identical to Rhye but smaller, the hooked claws in the middle as black as his fingernails. Patterning the insides of those paws was fur in every shade of gold, from the lightest champagne to the darkest bronze.




Like Rhye, his skin had become gilded gold, metallic, and shimmery. Scattered across his chest and shoulders were more of that beautiful fur, glinting like polished copper in the weak light. She thought they were textured at first before realizing what she was seeing were his tattoos faintly patterning the fur.

Letting her admiration travel farther up his body and went still when she met his eyes.

Like molten gold, they almost perfectly matched the color of his wings, and the pupils were no longer round but slit. Like a snake’s.

"Shit, little sis… Say something," Joseph rasped.

 

Rhye just rolled his eyes.

 

Livia wanted to say something eloquent or, at the very least, something reassuring to erase the insecure look she hated seeing in his eyes.

What came out was a breathy, "Oh my god, I hope I have fur like you."

"What?"

"What?" she echoed.

 

Livia tried to focus on his face to read his expression, but her envious gaze kept sliding back to those pretty furs. She wanted to slide her hands up his chest and across his biceps so badly that her fingers began to tingle with it. Then, she wanted to journey farther to touch the insides of his fur.

Would the fur on his chest feel different from the one decorating his beautiful tail? Or would they feel the same? Would they be hard like armor or supple like a snake’s? Tempering her wild curiosity, she held herself back from reaching out to explore, to find out if they’d be warm or cool beneath her fingers.

It’d be rude to paw at him, right?

Not that she truly believed Joseph would object. She had the keen feeling he’d welcome any and all advances she made.

As she stared, Joseph flexed his arms and gave them a little shimmy, which made Rhye growl and Leon dying of envy. But the beta held himself back, not wanting to show how jealous and angry he was; he was immobilized by fury and was brimming with hostility as he gritted his teeth.

 

Joseph growled… loving how the little witch seemed curious as he made his fur glitter brilliantly in the dull light of the single bulb.

"Ooh," she exhaled, eyes wide and transfixed. "Wow, Joseph… You are magical, just wow!"

Joseph gave a low, pained groan and whispered, not quite softly enough, "If you were prey, I could totally eat you right now, and you wouldn’t even run, but you aren’t my type."

Blinking free of her daze, she whipped an alarmed look up at him. "What?!"

He blinked back at her, eyes wide. "What?"

"You just said you could eat me."

"Pffft. No, I didn’t." He paused a beat and glanced at Leon. "Did I?"

Leon had the side of his fist pressed to his lips to hide his fake smile—not that it was working—and coughed, "You did."

 

"Oh. Well, shit." Eyes wide and guileless, Joseph lied, "I didn’t mean the chompy kind of eating. What I had meant was the uhh, the sexy kind of eating." He nodded quickly, agreeing with himself, and smiled a little too widely, showing off suspiciously fang-like teeth. RHye growled again… "Come on, brother, she isn't my type, and you bloody know that… stop the growling, you are making the witch uncomfortable."

 

Livia gave him a raised brow, but chuckled, "You most definitely did not mean the sexy kind of eating."

 

"You’ve got no proof," he sniffed haughtily, then waved a hand. "Anyway! Back to the important stuff." Tilting his head down, he gave her a look halfway between coy and shy as he twisted the toe of his motorcycle boot on the floor. "You think I’m pretty?"

 

"I think you’re gorgeous," she grinned, charmed by his adorable insanity. "Gold is my new favorite color."

 

If hearts could have flown out of his eyes, she was sure they would’ve.

Joseph stage-whispered to Rhye, "She called me gorgeous." His expression changing from delighted to devious, he added, "She only called you beautiful." "I win, brother."

 

Rhye didn’t seem to take exception to that. The opposite, in point of fact. He was smiling, watching her, like she’d just done something he found incredibly pleasing.

Looking away before she got lost in his eyes, Livia turned to peer up at Leon, trying to keep her expression open, but neutral, so he didn’t feel pressured. If he chose to show her his warrior wolf self, she wanted it to be wholly his choice, not because Rhye and Joseph had done so.

"You don’t have to—"

"Oh, but I want to, Livia," he rumbled softly, his focus steady and intense on hers. "I can’t let these two receive all those ego-boosting, doe-eyed looks of yours, now can I?"

 

That was all the warning he gave her. His grey eyes and wicked smile were the last things she saw before darkness cloaked him.

Having expected the golden glow that Rhye and Joseph had, the darkness caught her off guard. Just as she took an alarmed step toward him with her heart in her throat, thinking something had gone wrong, the shadow receded.

Stopping as quickly as if she’d run into a wall, Livia tilted her head all the way back, eyes as wide as saucers.

 

"Oh my fucking gods," she choked out as she gawked, unabashedly, at what Leon had become. "You said two-headed wolves weren’t real!"