Page 4 of Discord and Cinder (Fire Witches of Salem #7)

CINDER

Y ou know those hairless Sphinx cats that look like they just crawled out of an alien egg? Imagine that, but five feet long and in dog form. That was the beastie that awaited me.

Its yellow eyes glowed in the dim firelight, and ashy skin stretched taut over its bones. It snarled again, saliva dripping from long, pointed teeth. The poor thing must’ve been starving, but I wasn’t about to become dinner for a hellhound.

“Hey, buddy. I just need that box over there, and I’ll be on my way.” I touched the flame to each of my sigils, activating them before extinguishing it and clutching a dagger in each hand. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

Normally, my voice was soothing enough to calm upset animals and humans alike, especially when I laced it with magic.

But not this time. The hellhound stomped a massive paw next to the two-foot wooden box at the back of the small room, and dirt rained from the walls around us.

It peeled its lips even farther back, showing me the full length of its teeth as it crouched, shifting its weight to its back legs as if it were ready to lunge.

Well, crap. It looked like I would be hurting the beastie after all. I blew out a hard breath. “I refuse to watch movies where the dog dies, yet here I am, about to unalive you. This is so messed up.”

The beast sprang, massive cat claws extending from its doggy paws as it soared toward me. I parried, flattening myself against the wall to slide by it.

It snarled and leaped again. At the back of the room, I had nowhere to go but down, so I ducked. The hellhound landed on my back, its razor-sharp claws cutting through my shirt as it snapped at my head.

Ash’s protection sigil did its thing, thankfully, and though the back of my shirt probably looked like jagged ribbons, the hellhound’s claws and teeth didn’t penetrate my skin. I grunted and threw the beastie off me, slamming it into the wall before grabbing the box o’ skull and darting away.

Well, I tried to grab the box and run, but the damn thing was rooted to the ground.

The hellhound plowed toward me, headbutting me and knocking me onto my back. It grabbed my forearm in its massive teeth, and though it still couldn’t break skin, the strength of its jaws kept it locked onto me like a vise.

I swung my arm, the strength sigil allowing me to slam the one-hundred-plus-pound beastie into the ground, but still it didn’t let go. It hopped to its feet, digging its paws into the dirt and yanking me away from the box.

“I know you’re just doing your job, but can you lay off? I’m not leaving here without that skull, and I’ve got six hours of speed, strength, and protection. Do you really want to do this for that long?”

I jerked my arm from its mouth and felt the first rip of flesh. Its longest canine pierced my skin, creating a three-inch gash as I freed myself from the beastie’s jaws. Shit. The protection sigil was already wearing off. How could a few bites unravel it so quickly?

I didn’t have time to ponder it. The beastie lunged again, this time latching onto my other arm. A fang sliced through my strength sigil, weakening the magic Ash had infused and leaving me no other choice but to unalive the dog.

My fingers tightened around my dagger, and I jabbed it between the hellhound’s ribs. The beast yelped and released me. I scrambled to my hands and knees, but before I could get my feet beneath me, it chomped onto my calf.

A flash of heat spread up my leg like my blood cells had turned into razor blades. Every nerve in my body fired at once, the electrical shock making me convulse and bite my tongue.

“Son of a banshee.” I’d forgotten to activate the resistance to poison sigil.

The razor blade blood cells crawled up to my glutes, making the muscles contract hard enough to crack a macadamia nut between my butt cheeks. I groaned and shot a stream of fire onto the dormant sigil, and it pulsed on my arm, sending a wave of magic toward the bite.

That was how the hellhound had unraveled the protection magic so quickly. It was strong and venomous. Fabulous.

I shot another stream of fire at the beastie’s eyes.

It yelped and let me go. With the speed magic still intact, I grabbed another dagger and jammed it into the hellhound’s neck.

Black blood spouted from the wound. It was no doubt a fatal blow, but if I’d learned anything from the horror movies I loved, it was to always double tap.

I yanked both daggers from the beast, and it stumbled, catching itself against the wall. I swung my blade again and pierced its neck, the tip extending into the dirt wall, pinning the dying beast in place.

My stomach lurched, the bond I’d created with Discord pulling me to the box. As I reached for it, the beast groaned and lashed out a clawed paw, striking me in my lower back.

I couldn’t tell you what came over me in that moment, but I’d like to blame it on the demon I was about to summon…because I lost all control. Even with its dying breaths, that hellhound stood in the way of me getting to my demon, and that just wouldn’t do.

I slammed a second dagger into the beastie’s side before grabbing a knife from my holster and pinning the offending paw against the wall.

Reason should have told me not to impale the nearly-dead beast with every weapon I’d brought in, but not a single shred of logic remained in my brain at that moment.

I had to get that skull.

The beast exhaled its final breath, and I turned my attention to the wooden box lying on the floor. It was plain and brown, with no markings or sigils to indicate what lay inside. A pair of hinges lined one side of the lid, but there was no lock or latch keeping it closed.

I laid my hand atop it, searching for signs of magic, but all I felt was a low vibration that begged…no, commanded…me to open it.

So I did.

Inside lay the skull, though it looked nothing like I’d expected. Discord was a demon, so I’d assumed the skull would have horns or tusks or sharp, pointy teeth. Instead, it looked human. Absolutely mundane.

Had I been wrong? Was it possible I’d bound myself to a trickster, and he’d led me to a trap? Dropped me into a hellhound’s lair to feed the beast?

My stomach lurched again, the pull demanding I pick it up. The moment my skin touched bone, the vibration seeped into me, making my entire body hum. I jerked my hand away, and the sensation dissipated.

“It’s really you, isn’t it?” I tilted my head, studying the skull. “Is this a shroud, or do you really look like a human?”

I reached into the box, slipping my hands beneath the jaw and lifting the skull. The vibration penetrated my skin, rolling up my arms and settling in my chest, taking root at the base of my sternum where I’d felt the tug since I’d created the bond.

“I guess we’re about to find out, aren’t we?” I crouched and duck-walked through the tunnel, rising to my full height as I returned to the church basement.

The preacher, still frozen on the stairs, sucked in a breath. “How?” He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them wide, the only movement the spell allowed. “You passed through the wall.”

I scrunched my brow and looked from the tunnel to the preacher. “You don’t see the door there?”

He cut his gaze to the wall before looking at me, bewildered. “What door?”

“Interesting.” Isabel’s cloaking spell was even stronger than I’d thought. It appeared the mundane still couldn’t see through it.

I turned toward the exit, and my head spun. “Whoa.”

“Are you a ghost?” the preacher asked.

I rested my hand on the shelf to steady myself and cradled Discord’s skull in the crook of my left arm. Blood dripped from the three-inch hellhound gash, and though the resistance to venom sigil had done its job, as the adrenaline left my system, I felt every bite the beast had made. Ouch.

I cleared my throat. “Yes, I’m a ghost. You’ll be stuck there for another five minutes or so, and then you won’t remember any of this. Have a nice night.”

I limped up the stairs, my injured leg screaming at me with each step, and made my way to the car. My left arm stung like ants were gnawing at the wound, so I set the skull on the hood of my car and grabbed my bag to find a healing salve.

My wounds weren’t terribly deep, thanks to the protection sigil, so I rinsed them with a bottle of water and smeared on the salve. The bleeding stopped instantly.

I’d gotten a little blood on Discord’s skull, so I poured water over it and was about to set it in the passenger seat next to my bag when the ant bite sensation returned to my arm at triple strength.

“Ow.” I ran my finger through the salve, spreading it around on the sting, but it didn’t help.

The cut mended itself before my eyes, which was absolutely nuts.

Our healer, Patrice, was good, but not that good.

The type of salve she gave us to carry around wasn’t nearly as potent as something made fresh and specific to the wound.

I checked my right arm, and while the bleeding had stopped, the wounds from the hellhound’s teeth remained red and angry.

The sensation of a few hundred insects biting my left arm turned into one giant fire ant chomping all the way to my bone.

I grunted and was about to smear on the rest of the salve when a series of deep red lines spiraled out from the center of my forearm.

At first, it looked like my capillaries were protesting the venom, but as they began to take shape, my stomach dropped so hard, it could have taken my bladder, my intestines, and everything else beneath it right out through my hoo-ha.

I clenched my pelvic floor muscles and ground my teeth until sharp pain shot from my temple to the middle of my cranium. My eyes blinked rapidly of their own accord before I squeezed them shut and opened them one at a time.

Damnit, they didn’t deceive me.

Smack in the middle of my forearm, right where the skull had touched my wound, lay a three-inch-long sigil that my sister did not design. Ash would never even doodle a demonic mark onto a napkin, much less tattoo one onto somebody’s skin.

Yet, there it was. Discord’s sigil on my arm.

I rubbed it with my thumb, hoping to wipe it away, but it felt as much a part of my skin as the freckles the sun brought out in the summer. “What the hell?”

I grabbed another bottle of water and poured it over the symbol before using the hem of my shirt to wipe it dry. The sigil pulsed a deeper red.

Eff me . This was not good. The little binding spell I’d cast to join me to Discord wasn’t supposed to be permanent.

It shouldn’t have lasted more than forty-eight hours, and my time was almost up.

Of course there was a way to make it stronger, more permanent.

It was dark magic, after all, but I hadn’t done that.

I’d used the simple, temporary, beginner version of the spell. His sigil on my arm meant…

I whirled toward the skull sitting on my hood and froze. “Oh no.”

I ripped off what was left of my shirt, doused it with water, and rubbed it on the blood stain. “Oh, shit.”

My heart joined my stomach, dropping below my navel, and I swallowed hard as I tossed my shirt into the car and fumbled blindly through my bag for the spare I’d packed, my gaze never straying from Discord’s skull.

I pulled the garment over my head and cradled the skull in my hands, lifting it into the moonlight to see it better. On the left side, right above the temple, lay a blueish design that wasn’t there before.

A triangle situated in the center of a triquetra, a trinity knot. The symbol for an elemental fire witch.

For me .

Holy Hecate in heels. “Blood magic.”

I’d made the bind permanent. I, the acting High Priestess of the Salem coven—a coven of light witches—had pledged myself to a demon. Permanently.

Maybe.

Truthfully, I didn’t know exactly what this meant. The golem guarding the dark witch library hadn’t given me enough time to truly research the spell, but I was sure as shit certain having his mark on my body meant something bad.

I closed my eyes and took two deep breaths before opening them and staring into the empty sockets of the demon whom I’d… What exactly had I done?

Had I pledged myself to be his servant? His consort? His bride? I shuddered at the thought.

Maybe it was the opposite. He bore my mark too, so maybe he was mine to command. That sounded like something a dark witch would do. She’d bind herself to a demon so she could control him. She wouldn’t choose to be his minion, right?

Ugh! All I knew was that I had accidentally practiced blood magic. This was so not like me. With the weight of the entire coven resting on my shoulders, I couldn’t afford the luxury of making mistakes…especially ones like this. I never could.

Being High Priestess is a solitary job , my mom always said. You must be capable of doing it all on your own, and there is no room for errors.

Well, shit.

“What’s done is done. We’ll find out soon enough.” I climbed into the car and set the skull on my passenger seat before strapping a pair of daggers to my thighs.

Maybe this was a good thing. I was planning to travel to Hell and back, so maybe having a demon prince in my back pocket would come in handy. Or maybe it would be the death of me. Who knew?

Mine was the only mark on his skull, so whatever bond I had accidentally created, he didn’t share with anyone else. I could use it to my advantage…as soon as I figured out what it was.

I buckled my seatbelt and headed back to Salem. I would summon Discord in the sacred clearing where my parents had summoned the trickster. The veil would still be thinner there, and it was far enough away from home that no one would notice if it formed a little rift.

After leaving my car in a lot half a mile out, I slipped the skull into my bag and hiked the rest of the way.

I wanted to run. My leg muscles tightened, begging me to sprint, but I refrained.

I walked with long strides and entered the forest, my pulse thrumming as I set down my bag and retrieved everything I needed to summon the Prince of Hell.