Page 27 of Hellish Witch

I could practically feel the rage sparking off Zoella. It wouldn’t be long before I saw actual black-and-purple flames in her hands. She’d come a long way in controlling her magic, but it was still new to her.

She was handling it all with the grace of a warrior queen.

“What happened?” she asked, tone soft, but beneath it lingered enough lethal promise to put any demon to shame.

I forced down a nervous giggle. “I…reached a limit. Too battered and drained. I thought I was going to die down there. And… I couldn’t watch them hurt anyone else.” I swallowedthickly, refusing to give in to the dark memories of how I’d ended up in solitary confinement.

Two months had passed since Rex, Zoella, and the enforcers had freed me from the hunters’ not-so-tender care. The memories still hadn’t dulled.

My gaze dropped to my hands. Sometimes, I’d still catch them covered in cuts and bruises from the corner of my eye. But I barely had a single scar on the outside.

A perk of innate healing magic, I supposed.

“And then?” she prompted, voice gentle as she set her cup on the table between us.

“I broke,” I said, shutting down all emotions to hold my sanity together. “My magic bled. Corrupted. It lashed out, past their suppressor spells, and clawed open every hunter in the room.” The heavy scent of gore filled my nose, and I had to swallow back bile before continuing. “It was a massacre.”

My eyes found her lilac ones, and she nodded slowly, nowhere near as horrified by that as she should have been.

“I’m glad they’re dead.” Purple flames licked her fingertips before she squeezed her hands into fists to extinguish them. “Nothing is wrong with your magic, Eve. It’s just different. You’re only twenty-one. Your powers are still developing.”

The conviction in her tone gave me hope. I didn’t believe that was true, but it sounded like a problem that could be fixed, at least.

“So… You can make it stop? I can barely heal, and it’s lashed out again since. Last night… I hurt some of our own,” I said, voice strangling tight.

The pain trio may be hateful bullies, but I’d almost killed them.

“It was an accident, Eve. It’s going to be okay, you hear?” Her hand gripped mine, an antique silver ring glinting on her finger. “Powers are always hard to control at our age, especiallywhile we’re relatively untrained and don’t have a large coven to anchor us. But we can seek a specialist coven for advice.” She nodded as if to herself, brows creasing in thought. “The Sage Coven in England is famous for its skilled healers. They’ve probably had all kinds of fun offshoots and quirks of your affinity over the years. I bet they’ve seen something like this before, or they’ll at least know the best way to control your power as it grows.”

Fuck.

I hadn’t even thought about that. My magic was still growing, so whateverthiswas, it was only going to get stronger.

Everyone around me was going to die a bloody, painful death.

I flashed her a watery smile, blinking back the moisture I refused to let fall. “Great, so I don’t have to exile myself from the kingdom of exiles.”

She squeezed my palm tighter, the ache in my bones grounding me. “Never. Your brother and I would never cast you aside when you needed us most.” Her voice cracked at the end.

There was a reason she was a lone witch in hell, and I squeezed her hand back just as hard.

Her throat bobbed as she swallowed. “Plus, you’re half of the coven here. I can’t lose my only sister in magic.”

A genuine smile broke through at that. Zoella was kind, and so fiercely loyal when she finally let someone in. She’d been a tough nut to crack, but now I couldn’t imagine our kingdom without her.

The sound of a door banging open had us both swivelling in our seats.

“Oh, honey, I’m hoooome!” Rex called out in a sing-song voice a second before he slid through the doorway into the jungle library.

The Hybrid King looked as psychotically happy as always these days, with a huge fanged grin like a white slash through his dove-grey lips.

He’d let his fire-ombre hair grow out to his chin, the thick waves falling messily into his face before he brushed them back between his vertical pair of waved horns, knocking free a stray leaf that somehow clung to the lower pair curving around his ears.

The hulking grey demon clapped his palms together as he spotted me. “Ohhh, am I interrupting a super-secret coven meeting, hmm?”

His arrowhead tail flicked back and forth behind him with his teasing mirth.

“Yes. Actually,Uncle. Now be a dear and leave before we turn you into a toad.” I flicked my claws, adding a snooty sniff for good measure.

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