Page 38 of Hellish Witch

Death arced through the air. Killian stepped between me and the leaping beast, obsidian blade flashing.

Heat splashed my back as momentum carried me forward. The beast’s skull severed from its body before it hit the ground.

Killian hissed as another monster clawed him, and I slid to a stop, turning back.

“Go!” he snarled, sword ripping through another bone-kin’s throat and lurching towards me. “I’m right behind you.”

I had barely a second to take in the claw-marks gouging his chest before I sprinted for the river, taking the threat of my vicious magic with me. I burst through the tree-line, the river a pink serpent winding before me.

Something slammed into my back.

I hissed, tumbling to the grass. The heavy thing landed on top of me, crushing the air from my lungs, and we rolled.

Right over the bank.

I hit the water with a splash. Pink liquid closed over my head, drowning out the monster’s snarling. A bone-kin raked claws through my side as I struggled to untangle myself from it. Boned jaws snapped inches from my face in a burst of bubbles. I turned in the dark water, kicking my boots into its middle.

My head broke the surface, and I gulped in air, swimming towards the riverbank. Mud sucked at my feet as I hit the shallows, stumbling for the grassy verge.

An enraged roar shook the night.

A dark blur soared overhead, landing with a splash behind me. I spun, gaping as Killian tackled the beast hunting me through the water.

His fist smashed into the creature’s skull, shattering the protective mask. Its pained whine sliced my eardrums. Killian swatted away its claws and buried his own in its throat, ripping through flesh with a vicious growl.

Blood spilled into the river, eddying darkness into the dusky pink.

Killian’s chest heaved. He’d lost his sword at some point while I’d been trying not to drown. He bled in too many places, the crimson diluted by drops of water streaming down his front. His eyes locked onto mine, silvered like a blade.

They flicked to something above me and hardened. “Get behind me. Now.”

He was already reaching for me. His tail caught my wrist and yanked me into deeper waters. The river tugged at my body, urging me downstream as it swallowed my torso, but Killian anchored me to him.

He raised his claws to face the threat, shielding me with his body.

Bone-kin lined up along the riverbank, low growls rumbling like thunder.

Chapter 14

My heart fluttered as I stared down the pack of hungry bone-kin.

We were fucked.

Even a wingless mutt like me knew Killian couldn’t take off with wet feathers in dead air carrying my dead weight before we became dinner.

“Kill…go,” I whispered, voice cracking. “Leave me.”

“Never.” His voice was soft, barely audible over the bone-kin, snapping and snarling only a few paces away on the grassy bank.

Any second, they’d go fishing for their meal.

A yowling roar pierced the low snarls.

Blood and darkness collided with the pale monsters, tumbling in a ball of flashing fangs and fur, knocking three bone-kin aside before they could escape.

My mouth popped open.

A familiar hellcat tore into the bone-kin like one of the chocolate chip cookies she’d stolen from me.

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