Page 13 of Hellish Witch

These living corpses blamed the temporary look on a quirk of being hybrids, but I knew better.

Which unlucky soul had they already hurt tonight?

“Even a whore witch like you couldn’t summon us for that,” Jessa huffed, flipping her straight raven hair over a bony shoulder. Her thick tail rose high over it, and she slid her stinger from the pale arrowhead, liquid sparkling from the sharp tip like a diamond.

Menace rolled off each of the fine-boned monsters.

They may look skeletal, but as a half-mage, I still couldn’t compete physically. Over the years, it had been one of their favourite things to remind me of, their subtle taunts and “accidental” blows always carefully orchestrated for whenever they caught me alone.

Rex had trained me to fight the moment he’d taken me in, though, and I’d been crafting poisons to lace my knives with for almost as long.

I hadn’t been an easy meal in years.

“I’m telling you now, you don’t want to fuck with me tonight.” I met Vanita’s bottomless-pit eyes, holding steady.

Don’t warn your prey. Just make them bleed.

I desperately pretended I wasn’t being scolded by the voice in my head.

“Aww, little witchy witch spends some time with her own kind topside, and now what? You think you can take on three demons?” Vanita chuckled. “I think someone needs to be shown their place.”

Pain exploded through my back, screaming down my spine. I stumbled forward with the hit, right into Vanita’s waiting claws.

Silver agony pierced my upper chest. She dug deep, curled her fingertips around my collarbones, and slammed me to my knees. I choked back the scream they craved, frantically blocking out the pain radiating through my chest and hammering at my mind. Hot liquid ran down my front, streaming between my cleavage to soak my dress.

The blood. The pain.

My captivity came rushing back, until I was nothing but a battered demoness in a cell, trying not to bleed out on a filthy concrete floor.

Reach up and snap her wrists! Slit her arteries and wear her blood.

My hands lifted with the encouragement of the voice. I grabbed the thin wrists holding me, giving them a sharp jerk, but they didn’t budge. The tug under my flesh only brought fresh agony, and with it dark memories took hold, freezing me in place.

It felt like a basilisk wrapped my chest, crushing my lungs until I could hardly breathe.

“Pathetic.” Vanita smirked down at where I held her. “Delicious.”

Pain pulsed through my front and back. The demon’s eyes sparkled brighter as she fed with sick delight. My own darkness writhed beneath my flesh, slithering from the cage I tried to bury it in, dividing my attention at the worst possible time.

The stinger in my back wrenched out, and I couldn’t hold back the whimper as bloodthirsty need expanded inside me.

Some of my training finally kicked in, and my hand dropped to the poisoned blade strapped to my thigh through the slit in my dress.

Heated ropes lashed my wrists, locking my arms out wide before I could even graze the handle. I hissed, uselesslystruggling to free myself from Murag’s tails tightening around my wrists like shackles.

Jessa stepped into view beside Vanita, wide eyes just as bright. She reached up, running the bone spikes jutting from her knuckles along my cheek. “Poor little witchy. It hurts, doesn’t it?”

A gleeful cackle spilled from her chapped lips as she wound her tail around my throat, tightening her noose.

“We can make it all go away,” Murag whispered behind me, her third tail edging into my peripheral vision, the spike-covered ball on the end flinging drops of my blood. “An abomination like you never deserved to live in the first place.”

Her words dug into scabbed wounds buried deep inside me. My aunts had told me something similar all my life. Every day until I’d fled.

I hadn’t survived so much torment to succumb to a few peckish bullies.

“Sh-Shut…u-up,” I croaked, the air barely able to slip past my crushed throat. “Y-You’re so b-boring.”

“Insolent witch,” Murag hissed at my back, fisting my hair with a vicious tug. “The entire kingdom celebrated when we found out you’d been taken.”

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