Page 40 of Hellish Witch

Darkness reached back.

I slammed the connection closed, breathing hard, and wrenched back from Killian. I shook my horns fast enough to make myself dizzy, clutching my chest where something evil lurked.

Killian watched me with a quiet understanding I didn’t deserve. I swallowed the lump in my throat, unable to face his intensity.

“It’s okay, Eve. Really. This is nothing. You’ve seen me more battered just this week. I’m barely even bleeding,” he murmured, edging closer.

I edged back. But he was right. Killian was no stranger to pain.

And I hated it.

“You shouldn’t have to suffer. Not for anyone, and especially not for me,” I muttered, running a hand through the pink water, like it could wash away the sensation of something crawling beneath my skin.

His eyes bored into me, silvery flecks through the stormy blue, some intensity I couldn’t name filling them.

I looked away first. “At least I didn’t rip you apart any further.”

He chuckled. “At least you’d be touching me.”

“Really, Kill?” I levelled a flat look his way. “What happened to ‘you shouldn’t touch me’?” I did my best impression of his raspy, lilting voice.

He smirked, unapologetic and incessantly flirty. A true incubus. “That wasbefore.”

“Before what?”

His lips split into a wide grin, showing off wicked fangs and more than a hint of crazy.

“Fine, be all cryptic and weird.” I barely suppressed an eye-roll. “There’s a salve in my pack that should kill off any nasties from those bone-kin claws. We just need to find it back in the woods.”

His smile turned wry. “Sure, kid. If you insist.”

My eyes narrowed on the infuriatingly calm demon.

Alpha yipped, drawing my attention back to the hellcat and hellhound watching us. They stared like we’d been putting on quite the show.

Alpha’s canine features pinched like a disapproving parent. His fiery eyes bored into me, seeming to judge my reckless behaviour. Somehow, the hellhound was both stern and sarcastic, all in one look.

Cookie just grinned, loaded with pointy fangs and smugness. I couldn’t tell if the stalker cat was mocking me or not.

Probably safe to assume she was.

Killian grabbed the black cloth wrapping his torso and ripped the shredded remains free, chucking the material onto the bank.

Thick muscular pectorals and carved abs revealed themselves in my periphery. I did everything in my power not to react.

Inky tattoos graced his slate-purple skin, flowing into stunning predatory birds in flight, their feathers wrapping his ribs and up over his chest to grace his neck and shoulders. Scars accented the feathers, adding a texture that only made them more realistic. Silvery chains of ink wrapped around his forearms, a reminder of his past.

I’d seen him topless before.

It never failed to floor me.

I battled to hold back my attraction to him, but desire wisped through my mental grasp, an intangible pull on my reserves as I unintentionally fed Killian my desire. His eyes glowed brighter, the silver so piercing it stabbed my heart.

He moistened his lower lip, forked tongue tracing it erotically slow. I swallowed thickly, battling to think unsexy thoughts as I greedily drank in his powerful frame and sinful features caressed by moonlight.

Just when I thought I’d combust from need, he dipped below the surface, the pink river swallowing him entirely.

My cheeks flamed as reality bitch-slapped me. He knew how much I craved him. He could literally taste my desire for him. There was no doubt about how I felt.

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