Free SweetlyBad by Anya Breton Page B

was no closer to an answer when he disappeared into the
brush. It wouldn’t be a good idea to follow him. No. Definitely not.

Chapter Six
     
    Drew punched Steven in the head for
the third time. He shook the sting out of his knuckles, whimpering at the pain.
Babysitting an unconscious Air witch wasn’t what he’d hoped to be doing
Saturday morning. Not to mention dodging assassination attempts.
    He fished his phone out of his pocket, thumbing the number
for their housekeeper.
    “Ellen.” Drew rushed the words out as soon as the ringback
cut off. “I need to talk to my mother. Someone just tried to kill me. I really am kill-on-sight!”
    “You’re not kill-on-sight,” the family’s housekeeper said in
a dry tone to rival his mother’s. “She made sure it was clear that you’re
simply rogue until you clean up your act. No one will try to kill you.”
    “Really?” He forced a sardonic laugh. “Strange considering
I’m sitting on the guy who nearly choked the life out of me. He also
used an Air pressure move on me and the helpful vanilla mechanic. We were
almost crushed ! Now let me talk to her or I’ll have the mechanic drive
me there so I can make her listen to me.”
    Ellen exhaled noisily into the receiver. “I’ll try.”
    “You do that.”
    Steven wiggled his right leg. Drew elbowed him in the
forehead.
    He should just kill Steven. The guy wouldn’t have hesitated
to finish what he’d started. But Drew wasn’t a killer. The Cleaners could deal
with Steven.
    “Your fiancée called me ,” he muttered to the asshole
on the ground. “I was her bachelorette party.”
    The muffled words he heard in the phone’s background implied
Ellen had successfully gotten his mother. He sat upright even though she
wouldn’t see him doing it.
    “Andrew,” his mother said by way of a greeting. “I’m not
retracting the designation no matter how many grand tales of attacks you come
up with.”
    “Grand tales ? It isn’t a story, Mother. I’m sitting
on Steven Brand’s unconscious figure—unconscious because I had to knock him out
before he murdered me.”
    She snorted. “No one would dare attack a Haizea. Our family
is too powerful.”
    Was powerful. The Haizea brood had been powerful when
Aston was still priest and in the running for the position of regional high
priest. And when his mother had been relevant instead of the joke she’d become.
    He couldn’t say any of that. Instead he said, “Steven
doesn’t care about our family’s power—”
    “Steven Brand did not attack you. This is a cry for
attention. I’m not falling for it. Turn your life around, Drew, and then you
can come home. Until then, you’re rogue.”
    “Can’t we work out—”
    Silence.
    Drew nearly threw his phone again. Instead he got to his
feet simply so he could kick Steven.
    Where were the Cleaners? How long did it take to drive…
    To the middle of nowhere.
    He slumped. It would be another twenty minutes at the
earliest before they arrived. Until then he had to keep Steven quiet or the
mechanic would ask more questions than she already had.
    There was nothing to do but think while he waited.
    His mother had discounted everything he’d said. She’d marked
him as rogue and then refused to believe he was in danger.
    How in the hell had Steven even found him? Had his mother
broadcasted his location to the covens? Drew barely knew where he was!
    “Did you kill him?”
    His head snapped toward the female beyond the tree line.
Erica. What was she doing? He’d told her to let him handle this his way.
    “Go back to the garage,” he called out.
    “I can’t let you murder someone, Drew.”
    “I’m not going to murder anyone—”
    “Then how are you going to ‘deal’ with him?”
    He could hear the quotations in her voice. “I called someone
for help. But you can’t be here when they get here.”
    “They? Is it a group, or a woman you don’t want me to know
about?”
    “You insisted we could only have a one-night