Page 34 of Hellish Witch (Playing with Demons #3)

Chapter 33

A lvie shot me a shy smile. “My coven isn’t far. Really, you’ve managed to get so close on your own. Perhaps the sister goddesses were guiding your steps when you fled that demon.” He waved a dismissive hand toward Killian, menacing just behind him.

I stifled a snort at Killian’s intensity, falling in step with the mage as he led us off the path, walking deeper into the thick woods of the national park.

“I wasn’t fleeing Killian.” I was fleeing myself. “Hunters found us.” My voice strangled as terror gripped me by the throat.

Alvie almost missed a stride, eyes widening in alarm. “ Demon hunters?”

With the immediate danger over, my brain tried to drag me back into the darkness of my memories.

I nodded mutely, airways too tight to breathe.

Warmth brushed my back. Killian’s arrow tail stroked along my spine a second time, and my lungs finally remembered how to inflate as his touch anchored me in the present.

This comforting, touchy side of Killian was throwing me off. Maybe the recent blood loss was just making him loopy. He still had bullet holes in his arms and legs, after all.

“Don’t worry, Sparkles,” the incubus drawled. “I’ve already taken care of your pest problem.”

Of course he’d have killed them all before chasing me down. Killian didn’t run from a fight. Unlike the new, broken me.

“Thank you,” I murmured, offering him a grateful smile.

His tail gave me one final soothing stroke before returning to sway lightly behind him with each prowling step.

A furrow dug between Alvie’s narrow brows, an almost brooding silence falling over the group as we walked.

There were so many types of trees around us—silvered birches, broad ash, rough beeches, proud oaks—some of which resembled the types we had in the Bloodwood, only without blood-like sap and luminescent moss. Probably fewer poison wildflowers too.

Killian radiated intensity, stalking right behind Alvie in obvious threat. His feathered wings were semi-flared, ready to shoot out and slam the mage at any moment. At least they were back to their angelic white beneath the rust-coloured splatters.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the mage could feel Killian’s breath on the back of his neck though.

“Good.” Alvie seemed to shake himself after a long moment, clearing his throat. “That’s very good. Given my offensive affinity, I’m one of the chief protectors of the Sage Coven.”

I frowned at his odd pause. But then again, who knew what kind of blood-soaked history he had with the hunters himself? He was probably frazzled at how close the hunters had come to his coven.

I wasn’t exactly a model for healthy reactions myself.

I’d mistaken the psychotic voice in my head telling me to disembowel my enemies and feast on their organs as a fun form of trauma response. But really, my death-kitty familiar was just being a helpful cutie like that.

My heart ached to see her again. To at least know she was okay.

Killian rolled his stormy eyes at the mage but kept quiet.

“Can you tell me about your magic?” I asked, curiosity getting the better of me.

“Of course.” He preened under the attention, a bright smile helping me push back dark thoughts of the hunters dragging me back to their lab of nightmares. “I’m a nature mage, like most of my coven. They’re mostly healers, like yourself, but my affinity lies with the sun.”

He tipped his face back, angled towards where the sun must be, hidden by the thick canopy and thicker clouds of the late afternoon.

“You can conjure sunlight as a weapon?” I asked.

What would it be like to hold that kind of power in your hands?

As if he heard my thoughts, he lifted a hand with a dramatic flourish. Light coalesced above his flat palm, and a warm glow bathed my face like I peered into a fireplace.

“Wow,” I breathed. “No wonder you’re so tanned in this icebox.”

He chuckled, the sound as warm as his magic. “I know, I make a great sunbed. Don’t worry, my services are free for a witch as pretty as you.” He wagged his golden brows at me playfully, even as faint wisps of soapy desire seeped towards me.

A surprised snort had me sounding like a spike boar. I could just make out Killian’s eyes narrowing in my periphery as he stalked behind us.

It was like the mage wanted to get his tongue ripped out.

“Enough about me, tell me about you, Eve.” Alvie closed his fist around the sunbeam, extinguishing it. He steered us around a fallen oak, angling us through a denser patch of trees, and tucked a golden curl behind his ear.

They were rounded, just like mine.

“Well…my mother was a succubus, which I guess means my father was a mage, but he didn’t stick around long enough for me to find out. I was born in Hell and live in the Hybrid Kingdom, but I love visiting the human realm when I can.”

Or I had before I’d been sold to hunters on my last trip.

“How did you learn magic without your father to teach you?” he asked, his attention riveted to my face, hanging on my every word. The intensity would almost be flattering, if not for the uncomfortable topic.

“Mostly trial and error.” I shrugged, lips twitching as a hundred memories bubbled up. “I threw whatever power I could at my poor brother until something happened. But now my friend and I have started our own grimoire. She’s a nature mage, but from the Quartz Coven up in Riverside.”

“That’s one of the most inspiring stories I’ve ever heard. Not only is your magical intuition strong, but I can feel the energy radiating off you. You’re incredibly powerful.” The honesty in his golden eyes shone a light on something I’d buried long ago.

I’d never been called powerful before.

I wasn’t a force to be reckoned with. Not like Killian, with his mastery of violence, or Alvie throwing literal sunbeams.

I was the outcast service provider people hoped never to see.

And now I wasn’t even that.

“What’s your coven like?” I blurted the first thing I could think of.

“Amazing.” He flashed me a dazzling smile. “I’d do anything to protect my brothers and sisters in magic. Here in the Sage Coven, we have some of the most powerful healers in the world. We respect all life.”

A sense of pride seemed to puff up his chest, and the picture he painted drew me in more than I’d have cared to admit.

“So…they’re not going to try to murder me and Killian for being demons?” I asked, wondering again if following a random mage was a smart idea.

It hadn’t exactly panned out well for me last time. Plus, Zoella’s coven had been run by some evil dictator.

“What? No!” Alvie shook his head, aghast. “We’re more open-minded than those other stuck-up covens.” He gave me a subtle look from under his long lashes, leaking wisps of lavender desire for me to soak up. “Summoning isn’t forbidden here. In fact, I know of a few coven members who’ve dated demons…”

“How very scandalous,” I mock-gasped, clutching imaginary pearls at my jumper’s collar.

Liquid gold eyes caught mine. “Yes, well, the boost of magic from demons can be…tempting.”

Killian’s growl was deep enough to rumble the earth beneath our feet.

My cheeks flamed, and it took everything in me to keep my gaze from raking the incubus. That carved door in my mind threatened to swing wide open and let my craving for him smack him right in his pretty face.

Even now, my core tingled from the… power he’d gifted me during my heat.

“Yup,” I coughed, looking anywhere but at the two men looming closer. “I guess your coven’s welcome policy is why my friend suggested I seek you out. Since my magic has started…acting up, I’m hoping someone in your coven has similar magic to teach me to contain it. Or well, just to heal me, I guess.”

Killian scowled at the back of Alvie’s angelic curls. “There’s nothing to fix, sweetness. You’re perfect just the way you are.”

I shot him a look.

The enforcer was as confusing as he was frustrating.

I’d tried to squash my dumb obsession when I’d stabbed him in the Bloodwood, but since last night, he’d been saying cute shit and wasn’t even fucked up on haze.

Alvie glanced over his shoulder at the demon, features pinching, before his attention returned to me. “Whatever is going on with your magic, I’m sure someone in my coven can help. I’ll make sure of it. You’re not alone anymore.”

I felt more than saw Killian bristle. The demon was a second away from murdering our one chance at finding this coven.

“Thank you,” I said, stepping closer to the mage in case I needed to protect him from Killian’s irrational need for violence. The psycho was still covered in blood from his last fight. “We really appreciate you helping us like this.”

“Yes, Sparkles,” Killian drawled, a lethal bite underscoring his tone. “Thank you ever so much.”

An awareness soared through my subconscious with a faint pulse of magic.

I held up a palm. “Wait a sec.”

Killian was instantly on high alert, scanning the forest. “What is it?”

I cocked my head, trying to extend my newfound intangible sense outwards. A small smile tugged at my lips. “It’s not danger.”

Alvie squinted between the trees before resting his attention on me. “What can you sense? Did you hear something?”

A goshawk flew overhead, but that wasn’t what I’d been waiting for.

Pounding thuds grew louder until a herd of wild horses raced by the forest boundary, metres from where we lingered out of sight through the tree-line.

I shrugged at Alvie, lips crooked into a sheepish smile. “I…can sometimes feel beings around me.”

“An animal mage and a healer.” He whistled low. “That’s a strong, and rare, combination. Do you have your familiar yet?”

My thoughts leaped to the hellcat I’d left behind. “I think so.”

Killian’s gaze found mine, and genuine delight curved his full lips. “That pretty kitty.”

The bastard was truly stunning when he smiled for real, his dusky purple features carved into heart-stopping perfection.

I fanged my lower lip, warmth suffusing my cheeks. “Guess having a psychotic hellcat breaking in all the time makes a bit more sense now, huh?”

Alvie paled to a chalky hue. “A hellcat ?!”

Unease squirmed through me. I was already different enough without revealing all the little quirks that made me a hellish witch rather than a normal one.

“Yeah, she’s kind of an arsehole, but cute enough to get away with it,” I said.

Killian snorted, wings fluttering with the movement.

The mage continued to gawp at me before seeming to shake himself. “Wow. What other amazing powers are you hiding?”

My thoughts dipped to the vile darkness I harboured, and the bloodthirsty monster cracked open its eyes.

I swallowed thickly, frantically trying to shove it deeper into the abyss. “Nothing.”