Page 59 of Song of the Hell Witch

He smirked, and lightning danced between her legs.

“My point is, she is a hell of a kid. And I think, with another strong woman in her life, she might become even more incredible. So yes, she might come first.” He pushed himself up so she was underneath him, and when he tucked her hair behind her ear, she leaned into his touch.

“But I choose you. To be in my life. To be in hers. And that is no small thing.”

There was probably more to say, but Pru couldn’t find the words—and she didn’t want to. She pushed her legs against his sides and rolled until she was straddling him. He laughed, surprised, and when she pinned his hands over his head, he cocked a brow.

“Find some more fire, did you?” he asked.

“Oh yes.” She bent low, kissing him before pulling away. “And I intend to torture you with it.”

“Do with me what you will, Your Grace.”

For the second time that night, the world disappeared. They drifted into a universe of their own making, and she was all too happy to get lost with him.

Pru wanted to wake in Puck’s embrace, to open her eyes and find him teasing his fingers through her hair, like he used to when they were younger.

She wanted him to kiss her cheeks and the tip of her nose, bring his mouth to her ear and whisper I love you, Spitfire .

She wanted to look at him, take all of him in, and know for the first time in years she’d made the right choice.

Excruciating pain woke her instead.

It started in her shins, a violent vibration that split through her bones, branching up her spine, into her teeth. Screaming, she threw her eyes open, forgetting where she was, who she was with, what had happened in the moments before she fell asleep.

You’re not alone. Ask for help.

“Puck! Help, help me—” The cries cemented in her throat.

Because beside her, in the sliver of moonlight peeking through the bedroom curtains, Puck writhed like a man on fire.

His head jerked back like his neck was determined to snap.

One arm pressed hard against his chest, wrist curled like some broken thing while the other arm grabbed at the mattress.

His eyes rolled back, and his hair stuck to his sweat-drenched forehead.

Pink foam bubbled from his lips, spilling down his chin.

The gurgling started and stopped, like his lungs couldn’t decide whether to keep fighting or give up entirely.

She reached for his flailing hand, desperate to pull him back to her.

“Help us!” she screamed until her lungs ached, over and over again until her voice shredded. “Help!”

Her eyes caught on his stab wound, and she choked on her own gasp. The scabbed red was now a stark white, like the trunks of ghostwood trees. A web of white veins erupted from the center, stretching over his scarred chest, down the side of his rib cage, curving around his back.

“Puck, wake up! Puck!” She slapped him hard across the face, pleading with everything she had.

The bedroom door burst open.

“Thank the Spheres, someone—” Pru wheezed at the same time Marigold shouted, “We have to go right—”

Marigold stopped, stumbling back against the wall in shock. “What’s … w-what’s wrong with him?”

Puck’s eyes snapped open, wide as Pru had ever seen them.

His jaw was locked, muscles bulging as he bit down hard.

She moved to palm his cheek, let him know she was there.

He grabbed hold of her wrist. His grip was iron, hard enough to bruise, his skin ice cold.

His entire body quivered as he held her gaze, tears curling toward his chin.

She’d never seen anyone so scared before.

“They’re here.” His voice was a ragged, battered thing.

“Who?” Pru cupped his face in her hands, trying to keep him focused. “Puck, who’s—”

“The Zeraphel, Pru!” Marigold shouted in answer. “They’ve broken into the manor; they’ve come for us!”

“H-how did they find us?” She could feel the fear tugging at her seams, threatening to undo her.

“M … m …” Puck tried, but his jaw locked again. His screams beat against the back of his teeth as he convulsed on the mattress, then fell limp as a dead fish.

“No, no, come on, Puck, don’t do this.” Pru slapped him again, but he didn’t stir. “Open your eyes, open—”

The bedroom window shattered, jagged pieces of glass flying through the air.

Pru dove on top of Puck. Her wings tore out of her back, sluggish and heavy, a consequence of the alien vibration still branching through her marrow.

She found her strength as Marigold screamed.

Vaulting out of bed, Pru threw her wings wide to shield her friend from the Zeraph landing on all fours before them.

“Stay behind me,” Pru told Mari, slinging her talons loose.

Pain cracked through her knuckles. It was like her magic had turned against her, like the transformation was a punishment rather than a gift.

Her instincts told her to pull her power back in, save herself from the pain—but she didn’t stand a chance in her human form.

The Zeraph picked his head up. He was twenty, maybe twenty-one, with cherub cheeks and strawberry ringlets that coiled tight around his head.

His skin gleamed like polished marble. Two dimples formed at the corners of his lips.

And Pru thought of Brom, how impressionable and devout he’d been, so devout.

What had Hale said to this young man to get him to join his legion?

“Hell Witch.” The boy’s hiss killed the illusion of innocence. “The Duke of Talonsbury and the Order of the Zeraphel, ordained by the Lightbringer and blessed to do His will, sentence you and your Sisters to—”

She flew at him, talons poised to shred, and while she couldn’t gain the momentum she needed to force him out the window, her nails pierced his chain mail–like skin. His howl rent the night in two.

On the bed, Puck howled too . Marigold lunged for him, collapsing on top of him right as another Zeraph soared through the window. He barreled into Pru, knocking her sideways with the strength of five men, wrenching her talons out of his companion’s flesh.

Her head cracked into the far wall, and the world blinked black.

She tried to push off the floor—and then pain ripped across her scalp.

The redheaded Zeraph had her by the hair, and he was dragging her toward the window.

Broken glass tore through her nightdress, digging into her back.

She kicked, scraped, clawed, but it got her nowhere.

Blood pounded against the sides of her skull, a cruel drum blurring her vision.

On the other side of the room, she heard a gurgle, the sound of someone choking on their own blood. Someone dying.

Puck. Marigold.

“No!”

A jolt up her spine. Renewed energy, filling her up until she was nothing but untamed power.

There was another Hell Witch in the room, Rita or Florence, Naomi or Cressida, and their tune was sweet in her ears.

She fed off their shared magic, let it fuse with her own.

Reaching up between the Zeraph’s hands, she punched him square in the nose.

Bone crunched under her fist. Her knuckles splintered, but her power acted as a buffer.

It was as if the pain belonged to someone else.

Flinging herself to her feet, she spied the dagger on the Zeraph’s belt.

She ripped the blade out of its sheath, and he snarled, readying himself to come at her again.

When he did, she plunged the dagger into the side of his throat.

Blood spurted across her ruined nightgown, thick and warm from the artery.

The Zeraph reached for the dagger, as though surprised and ashamed a woman like her would dare to kill him.

As he began to sputter and gurgle, Pru realized the other sound—Puck or Marigold choking on their own blood—was gone. She whipped around, her heart hammering.

On the bed, Puck’s eyes were shut tight. His mouth was open, and he was breathing hard. She went to him, took his arm. He was cold as a stone in winter.

A figure stood at the foot of the bed, hunched and shaking, face shielded by the dark.

“Mari?”

Marigold lifted her chin slowly, and Pru bit back the scream.

Her mouth had stretched wider to make room for two new rows of fangs, bladed and dripping with blood.

A corpse’s worth of blood drenched her white nightgown, and her hands, usually a smooth, cinnamon brown, had knotted into claws.

Her eyes glittered like jet stones, the black of her pupils crowding out the amber and the white.

“Pru?” She licked her teeth, like she couldn’t believe they belonged to her. “What … what …”

It killed Pru to let go of Puck, but she had to. She ran to Marigold—and nearly tripped over the body on the floor.

The young Zeraph stared up at the ceiling, his eyes wide and blank. His throat gaped like a second mouth, a maw bloodied by battle, so wide that she could see his spinal column, like Frederick in her nightmares.

“W-what’s …” Marigold trembled, and understanding hit Pru like a rogue carriage. Emmaline had been dead all of five minutes when her wings sprang forth, fully formed and ready to carry her away. And if a person had been training for over a month to listen for her tune, to welcome the change …

“It wasn’t s’posed to be … it … oh my god, oh my …” Marigold was spiraling, and Pru couldn’t let her. They wouldn’t survive, not with a half-mad Hell Witch.

“Hey, look at me. Look at me, Marigold.” Mari looked. “There will be time later, okay? Time to scream and cry and process all of this—I swear I will get you that time. But right now, I need you to keep your shit together, you hear me?”

“How do I do that? My body’s humming, and I … I killed …”

“That humming you feel? That’s power, Mari.” Pru planted both of her thumbs on Mari’s cheeks and shook her once. “Use it.” She hated turning away, but she did, back to the bed. The white veins marching across Puck’s chest had doubled, and they were the same color as …

As the Zeraph’s skin.

How did Paris find us?

How …

A horrible thought began to take root inside her.

No. No, it’s not that.

“Help me with him,” she said to Mari.

“What’s wrong with him?”

She didn’t dare breathe her theory into existence. “I’m not sure. But I can’t do this on my own. You said the Zeraphel are in the manor, right?”

Mari’s nod looked more like a spasm. “We have to get to the river. Florence and Rita, they said there’s a safe place in the caverns.”

“Okay, so let’s go, then.”

“Pru?”

She slipped her boots over her feet, the pain that woke her still branching through her ankles, into her toes. Paris. Paris and more of his men were somewhere in the house, their tunes determined to crush hers out of existence.

Gritting her teeth, she pushed through the pain.

“Pru!” Mari called.

“Hmm?”

“Don’t … don’t let me hurt anyone.”

Pru gave Marigold an encouraging smile as she made for the edge of the bed. “Only people who need hurting, how’s that?”

Like he could sense her, Puck opened his eyes. His pupils were the size of planets. “What’s h-happening to me?”

“I don’t know, love.” She brushed his hair back, and her heart broke as he leaned into her touch. “Can you stand?”

“Bea.” He lifted his head, peering toward the door. “Where’s Bea?”

“Puck.” Again she took his face in her hands, made him look at her. “Right now, I need you to focus, okay? We’ll get Bea, I promise.”

He swallowed and nodded, teeth chattering.

“Are you cold?” she asked.

“F-freezing.” But he forced himself to sit up, swung his legs over the side of the bed. He was so pale, like the white in his veins had bled into his skin. Dread tangled like briars in her gut.

Together, she and Marigold hoisted Puck’s arms over their shoulders. He shivered but stayed upright, and the three of them started for the bedroom door. Out in the stairwell, smoke coiled up the steps, drying out Pru’s lungs, stinging her eyes.

“Fire.” Marigold’s face was blank, the shock giving way to numbness. “And I feel …”

“Pain,” Pru finished for her. “Me too. I think … I think it’s Hale.” A terrible fear, unlike anything she’d ever felt before, tore through her.

“He has that kind of power?” Mari asked her.

“It’s not Hale,” Puck answered, and the reply speared her through the chest like a blade of ice. He picked his head up, and Pru saw the same fear polluting her blood etched on his face as he met their gazes. “But whoever it is … he wants you, Pru.”

The spear of ice sent a shock of cold straight through her. “How do you know that?”

He pinched his eyes shut, readying himself to answer her—and then screams broke out from some distant part of the house. “Beatrice.”

Suddenly, whatever was happening inside Puck didn’t matter. He was Bea’s father again, and no amount of agony or fear or weakness was going to stop him saving her.

“No …” Pru started to say, but it was already too late.

Newly steady on his feet—or bolstered by sheer force of will—Puck took off down the stairs.

Cursing his name and everything else in her life, Pru tore after him.