Page 117 of Hellish Witch

And then everything went black.

Chapter 41

The feel of being pulled into someone’s arms dragged me from the abyss.

My rouge lashes fluttered until I was staring up into Killian’s stunning features. He watched with a mixture of fear and relief that reflected my own heart.

“You’re alive,” I croaked.

“Because of you,” he whispered, eyes raking over me as he slowly set me on my feet. His wings curled around my back, holding me steady against his front.

Hishealedfront.

I marvelled at the smooth plum perfection of his skin, absent of ink. The lines of his tattoos turned to wisps around the edges of where a crater of flesh had once ravaged him.

A single claw tipped my chin up, forcing my gaze from the evidence of his near-death and up to his gleaming silver eyes instead. “Eve… What did you do?”

A hollow ache lurked deep in my chest. Right where the warmth of my magic, roiling and swirling like the core of a volcano, had used to live. The mark on my wrist, freshly anchoring me to the Sage Coven, was just as absent.

The destruction of my powers must have broken the mystical tie to a family that had never been mine to begin with. Somehow, I felt lighter without it.

But maybe that was the blood loss.

“What I had to.” I met my demon’s intensity, unblinking. “You’re worth any price, Killian. You always have been.”

A small line formed between his brows, something vulnerable in his eyes making my heart break all over again. His words were soft, drifting through the cocoon he’d created with his wings. “All these years… I thought you were rejecting me. I’ve been drowning you in energy for a long time, sweetness, and you never once mentioned it. You never even touched it. I couldn’t blame you either. You’ve always been too good for a monster like me.”

“Fires, Kill.” A breathy laugh escaped me. “We’re so stupid… I fell in love with you the moment I saw you.” I swallowed, throat thickening at the memory. “Standing there battered and bruised, a million cuts across your malnourished frame and barely a handful of feathers left. Then you looked at me, and you lifted your damn chin. You dared me to think less of you. And I… I just knew you had the kind of strength I’d always craved. People have beaten me down my whole life, and I just thought tomyself, if I was like him, it wouldn’t matter what they did. I’d be unbreakable too.”

Tears filled my vision, spilling over to wet my cheeks.

“Youareunbreakable, Eve.” He cupped my face in both palms and captured me with silvered eyes drenched in emotion. “You’re stronger than I’ll ever be. You saved me then, and every damn day since.”

His words pierced my chest, and then he was closing the scant inches between us, lips fusing to mine.

It drugged me.

I couldn’t think of anything but him. The feel of his tongue slipping past my defences. His body heat warming me. The scent of seared sweetness. The silk of his feathers shielding me from the world.

Even with the hollow where my magic used to live, my heart had never felt more full.

“That swine!” The coven elder’s voice boomed through the woods.

Killian tore his mouth from mine, glaring in the direction the voice had come from. I followed his gaze as best I could with his wings and arms trapping me against him, refusing to let me so much as turn in his grip.

My father stormed down the path towards us, but his attention wasn’t on me. It locked onto the mage I’d killed.

Sage Coven members already swarmed the area, standing over the bodies of downed hunters. They must have subdued the injured stragglers while I’d healed Killian and made out with him like nothing else existed.

My cheeks warmed as I realised anyone could have snuck up and tried to murder us both while I’d been absorbed in him. Knowing Killian, though, even half-dead, the enforcer wouldn’t have been as easily caught off guard.

He was always protecting me.

The coven elder drew up beside us, glaring at Alvie’s dead body like he could resurrect the mage and then kill him all over again.

“Apparently, my bloodthirsty side isn’t all demonic,” I mused, breathing in Killian’s warming burned-caramel scent.

My father’s expression pinched as he turned his attention to Killian and me, merlot eyes glowing bright in the dim forest now Alvie’s light had been extinguished. Permanently.

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