Page 43 of Hellish Witch

Every second crawled by as I desperately clung to the most unsexy thoughts I could summon while rubbing in the medicine.

The pus that came out of Hubert’s crusty horn after a nasty infection.

The hunter that tried to seduce me while I was in captivity.

That furball Cookie coughed up in my sink.

Rex in big frilly knickers.

“I know what you’re doing, sweetness,” he murmured, his attention on the side of my face like a warm palm cupping my cheek.

I swallowed thickly, fighting a one-sided blush. “I’m putting a salve on your open wounds so you don’t get necrosis. You already smell bad enough.”

His lips twitched, kicking up into a smirk with his unshakeable confidence. “You don’t have to keep giving me handouts.”

I stilled, and some of the chalky paste dropped from my hovering finger to splat against the log beside his hip.

He cocked a brow, that infuriating smirk still gracing his lips.

“What?”

“You’re throwing off enough sexual energy that I’d almost think it was more than just a healer helping her patient.” His eyes glinted with a dangerous edge. His forked tongue swiped his lower lip as if he were wondering how I’d taste if he ever got his teeth into me. “But I know you’re just being nice. Good girls don’t tease monsters. Do they, sweetness?”

Even my heart stopped. For a single moment, reality suspended and I could have sworn there was an invitation in his words. A hunger in his demonic eyes.

The faintest hint of burned caramel traced my tongue. Energy teased through me with the lightest charge in the air.

Heavy silence dragged on, and the stormy oceans shuttered a breath later, averting from me.

Whatever madness gripped me shattered.

He was giving me an out. A way for us both to shrug off my embarrassing crush.

A forced laugh spilled from my lips, the sound raking my skin like claws. “Well, I can’t help you heal in my usual way…”

I could have choked on my own bitterness. I just hoped it hadn’t leaked into my tone. My cheeks probably rouged enough to match my hair though.

He was literally telling me to stop salivating over him like the prime cut he was. Despite how it was strengthening him with every sip he took.

Even for me, that was a new level of embarrassment.

I pressed the salve a little harder than necessary into the next set of fang marks on his bicep, ignoring the way his muscles flexed under my touch.

“There.” I swiped one final smear on the top of his forearm before peering around his wing to check his back. I’d noticed it was unscathed when I was ogling him earlier, but I was meant to be a professional healer, dammit, and he already thought my crush was pathetic. “All done.”

“Not going to kiss it all better?” he purred.

I pulled a sour face at his taunting. “In your dreams.”

“And yours.” He smirked.

I rolled my eyes so hard I almost fell off the log.

He leaned back on his palms, showing off his toned abs like that was meant to help me stop doing his energy levels a favour. “We need to talk about your new gifts.”

I fumbled with the ties to the leather pouch, stowing it in my bag to give myself a second to get composed before meeting his intense stare. “Whatgifts?”

The word tasted foul in my mouth. I knew exactly what he was referring to, and you’d have to be an unhinged lunatic like Killian to consider it anything close to a blessing.

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