Free Some Like it Wicked by Stacey Kennedy Page A

when Layton stated, “I don’t want to know what
happened between you and the demon. You are lucky I love you enough to forgive
you.”
    She glanced sideways, regarding him. Why would he forgive
cheating so easily?She wouldn’t have; her past actions showed that.
She’d left him once for something not nearly as common. Witches broke up with
warlocks all the time for cheating, so why would Layton forgive that without a
single demand to understand why?
    The answer was glaringly obvious.
    As was the reason Zeke didn’t ask her to stay.
    “Stop the car!” she shouted at the top of her lungs,
grabbing the door handle. “Right now.”
    Her door flew open and Layton slammed on the brakes. When
the car stopped, she jumped out. “Bryanna,” he roared after her.
    Not wanting to hear any more of his lies, making her so
blind to his real intentions, she ran forward. Layton called out her name
again, but when she ignored him, energy vibrated through the air and raised
every hair on her body. Her heart hammered as time slowed around her. Now she
knew the daunting truth, that Layton would never allow her to leave him.
    He didn’t find her out of love. He asked the coven to locate
her because he needed her money. Money was power, and without it, Layton
was only a typical warlock. As the realization haunted her, a loud whoosh in
the air came above her before she lost her footing, tumbling face-first to the
ground.
    She cried out as her palms scraped against the rocky gravel
road. Turning onto her side, she noticed the rope binding her feet and quickly
reached to remove it. But Layton’s magic had tight knots she couldn’t undo.
    As she fought with one of the knots, Layton’s hard footsteps
indicated he approached. “You’ve left me no choice, Bryanna.”
    Choice?
    At one time, she didn’t have any choices. She never chose to
have unruly magic, she never chose to have shitty parents and she certainly
never chose to find love with someone only after her money.
    What Layton didn’t know, and even to her own surprise, with
one decision to leave him, fate stepped in and gave her the taste of freedom.
She chose to leave her car when it had broken down, she chose to
stay in the car with a demon and she chose to rent a home in Charmstone.
    The road to making her own choices led to her left, not to
the right toward Shreveport.
    Layton squatted in front of her and didn’t hide the coldness
or the greed from his gaze. But she’d seen eyes far scarier than the ones
gazing at her now and she glared back. “You have one chance to remove the rope
and leave.”
    “Or what?” He snorted. “Who’s going to stop me?”
    “Zeke!” she screamed.
     
    The red car lights faded and Zeke exhaled, fighting against
the hollowness in his chest. He and Bryanna had such a short time together and
she had forever changed him. Perhaps his original intention had been to save a
soul worth saving. Now, at the loss of her, a pain so profound filled him that
he could barely breathe.
    She made the choice to leave him.
    He’d seen the question in her eyes, begging him to tell her
to stay, but he wouldn’t. For too long, everyone told her how to act and what
to do. He decided not to be one of them, no matter that his heart disagreed. He
had hoped she’d see past Layton’s deceit.
    She didn’t.
    Now she was gone.
    He inhaled, swearing he could still smell her flowery scent
drifting in the wind around him. While his sense of smell, if he concentrated,
did carry into a far distance, he suspected his recollection of her had been
forever burned into his memory. She was in a car with Layton, now far away from
him.
    Turning away from the long, dark road, he looked at Arlo.
His friend sighed, sounding more like a grunt. Zeke strode forward to thank him
for keeping Bryanna safe during the fight with Layton, when suddenly, he heard
his name and froze.
    Terrific. He wasn’t only catching whiffs of Bryanna’s scent.
Now he was hearing her call his damn name. He