Page 14 of Hellish Witch (Playing with Demons #3)

Chapter 13

K illian and I weaved through the trees, beneath the darkened canopy high above. Twigs and dried leaves crunched beneath my boots.

The incubus might as well be floating with those pretty wings for all the noise he made, just a ghost of temptation gliding along beside me in the night.

I peered at him through my lashes, trying to process the fact that the most bloodthirsty and unhinged enforcer of the Hybrid Kingdom was apparently following me to the human realm.

I didn’t know what to do about it.

I’d never spent so much time alone with him. Maybe because he didn’t have much interest in getting to know me, or maybe because he just saw me as his best friend’s annoying little sister.

Either way, it was going to be a long trip.

But I had to get my magic fixed. I couldn’t go around hurting people. I was meant to help them.

If I wasn’t a healer, then who was I?

“I can hear your inner monologue from here,” Killian drawled, knocking me from my thoughts.

I scowled at the side of his stupidly carved face, picking my feet up over a fallen branch laden with glowing mushrooms the colour of rust.

“At least I have deep thoughts,” I said. “What’s going on between those horns, hmm? Just saucy images of Zahara naked?”

Gah. Why was I bringing her up again!?

I glanced around as if I was scanning our dangerous surroundings like a competent warrior, not avoiding his gaze so I didn’t die of embarrassment.

“You’ve got a real issue with her, huh?” he asked, wry tone laced with amusement.

I supposed he wouldn’t understand why seeing her practically naked and salivating over him would be a problem for me.

“Me? An issue with her ? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” My voice came out a little too high-pitched to be convincing.

I wanted to swipe my claws at him in annoyance.

He chuckled, letting me know he’d seen right through my not-so-convincing act.

“Sweetness… This wouldn’t have anything to do with what she was planning to do to me, would it?” His low purr was somehow so suave, I almost missed what he’d actually said.

Heat singed my cheeks. “What? No. I…”

He waved me off, and the chain tattoo wrapping his forearm winked at me. “I’m just teasing. You’re a succubus. I know you’re not afraid of a little sexual tension. If anything, I’m sure you were snacking on her lust like I was.”

“Right. So tasty.” I forced a wide smile onto my face, like I could totally just skim energy from anyone feeling intense lust.

Another oddity that I kept to myself.

Most demons fed on heightened emotions. They tuned in to the specific frequencies they gave out. Sexual demon types, like Zahara and Killian, fed on the energy of someone feeling lust, no matter who it was they desired.

Me, I could only strengthen myself with powerful desire aimed right at me, and even then, for demons, I had to be touching them to feel it.

It was no wonder I was barely stronger than a human. My demonic side was practically malnourished.

His brows drew closer. “Eve… You do feed on lust, right?”

I nodded quickly. “Oh yeah, big lust eater right here.” I pointed both crimson-clawed thumbs at myself and turned up the brightness on my fake smile.

His textured horns canted aside. “What aren’t you telling me?”

I tucked a stray blood-red wave behind my ear. “I usually need direct touch to feed.”

“What?” He stilled, regarding me with a shocked intensity that made me squirm.

He’d found me with a dead body last week and shown less emotion.

Warmth lit my cheeks like a blast of hell-fire. “It’s not that big a deal.”

“Maybe not to you…,” he murmured, something unreadable yet strangely intense swirling through the stormy depths in his eyes.

Before I could question the cagey incubus, a low snarl ripped through the woods. It echoed oddly, bouncing from random points between the trees.

My magic pulsed. Multiple glowing points dotted around in my mind’s eye. Surrounding us.

It wasn’t an echo.

It was an ambush.

My gaze slammed into Killian’s.

His wings blackened, aura darkening with violence. “Eve, run.”

“You run.” I drew my poisoned daggers, eyes narrowing as I scanned the trees.

“Stubborn witch,” he muttered, unsheathing the sword strapped between his wings. “It’s bone-kin.”

Somehow, I already knew that, even though the bright-white beasts had cloaked themselves. Now they hinted at their presence in order to terrify their prey. Us.

More snarls ricocheted through the forest, every patch of darkness heavy with the monsters hiding within.

Between two thick redwoods, an unnatural group of shadows parted like a curtain. A furred beast stepped out on all fours. An external skull protected the outside of its face like a mask. Long fangs greeted us as bloodless lips peeled back in a silent snarl. A whole mouth full of blades dripped a violet liquid that glowed eerily, brighter for being the only colour to paint the beast.

“There’re too many,” Killian growled low, eyes tracing the heavy shadows creeping towards us. “On my signal, we run past the beast for the river. I can fly us from there. Stay close.”

Barely a day from home, and I was already in over my head.

“You can’t just flap us to safety now?” I muttered under my breath, edging closer to Killian and gripping my blades tighter.

He shot a bemused look over a wing arch. “They’re very good at jumping.”

Right. Shit. Given the dense canopy and wide trees, they’d be tearing us out of the air before we got more than a few spans up.

“Okay,” I breathed, trusting Killian’s judgement like the wingless peasant I was.

Killian eased his sword aside, ready. “On three.”

Stand your ground and show them the meaning of fear. Carve your name into their dumb skulls.

I furiously ignored the voice in my head. The adrenaline must be making me jittery.

“One… Two… Now!” Killian hissed.

He surged towards the single visible beast, and I was right on his heels.

It roared at our approach, and chaos erupted.

All at once, the beasts dropped their shadowed cloaks.

A sea of bright-white monsters surrounded us, skulls gleaming in the moonlight. Reinforced ribs curved along their sides like armour between dense fur. They looked like the biologically challenged love-children of a snow bear and an anaemic hellhound.

They descended on us in the next breath, and my world narrowed to the pale creatures charging after me on all fours.

I was a hybrid in Hell. I’d had to learn to defend myself by any means, but I was not a trained warrior.

Not like Killian.

He swept forward to meet the danger in our path, slicing his broadsword right through a bone-kin’s throat in an arc of dark blood, ending his swing through the eye of another as he streamed past.

He eyed me over his shoulder, and his tail wrapped around my wrist, urging me in front of him.

My poisoned dagger nicked a bone-kin between its ribs as I dashed past, leaping to stay ahead of snapping jaws. I heard the creature thud to the ground behind us a second after.

Killian and I darted between the bleeding trees, bone-kin howling too close for comfort. My thighs burned as I pushed myself to match Killian’s speed, to not be the reason he got mauled to death.

Pale moonlight appeared between the thick trunks ahead. The rushing of a river was barely audible over my pounding heart and the scrape of my boots against the leaf litter.

“Almost there!” Killian yelled, upping his pace and pulling me onwards.

One of the pale beasts snarled, gaining on us with a thunderous gait.

It drew level.

Darkness writhed in my chest, an angry pit of snakes hissing and snapping at me.

I stumbled, fighting to hold back the vile hunger.

“Eve!” Killian roared, righting me with his tail and swinging me out of the way.

Death arced through the air. Killian stepped between me and the leaping beast, obsidian blade flashing.

Heat splashed my back as momentum carried me forward. The beast’s skull severed from its body before it hit the ground.

Killian hissed as another monster clawed him, and I slid to a stop, turning back.

“Go!” he snarled, sword ripping through another bone-kin’s throat and lurching towards me. “I’m right behind you.”

I had barely a second to take in the claw-marks gouging his chest before I sprinted for the river, taking the threat of my vicious magic with me. I burst through the tree-line, the river a pink serpent winding before me.

Something slammed into my back.

I hissed, tumbling to the grass. The heavy thing landed on top of me, crushing the air from my lungs, and we rolled.

Right over the bank.

I hit the water with a splash. Pink liquid closed over my head, drowning out the monster’s snarling. A bone-kin raked claws through my side as I struggled to untangle myself from it. Boned jaws snapped inches from my face in a burst of bubbles. I turned in the dark water, kicking my boots into its middle.

My head broke the surface, and I gulped in air, swimming towards the riverbank. Mud sucked at my feet as I hit the shallows, stumbling for the grassy verge.

An enraged roar shook the night.

A dark blur soared overhead, landing with a splash behind me. I spun, gaping as Killian tackled the beast hunting me through the water.

His fist smashed into the creature’s skull, shattering the protective mask. Its pained whine sliced my eardrums. Killian swatted away its claws and buried his own in its throat, ripping through flesh with a vicious growl.

Blood spilled into the river, eddying darkness into the dusky pink.

Killian’s chest heaved. He’d lost his sword at some point while I’d been trying not to drown. He bled in too many places, the crimson diluted by drops of water streaming down his front. His eyes locked onto mine, silvered like a blade.

They flicked to something above me and hardened. “Get behind me. Now.”

He was already reaching for me. His tail caught my wrist and yanked me into deeper waters. The river tugged at my body, urging me downstream as it swallowed my torso, but Killian anchored me to him.

He raised his claws to face the threat, shielding me with his body.

Bone-kin lined up along the riverbank, low growls rumbling like thunder.