Page 72 of Hellish Witch

I let it all go.

We wouldn’t have worked out, anyway.

He was a blood-soaked enforcer, and I was a healer. He was an incubus who loved to feed. He’d never give up sleeping around to settle down with one person. He was my brother’s closest comrade. They were practically brothers.

We weren’t even friends.

But a small voice in the back of my mind screamed at me to return to his side. He’d doled out brutal justice to anyone who’d hurt me. He’d buried a body for me, no questions asked. He’d carried me home and stayed to make sure I was okay. He’d visited me in my dreams. Ripped a man’s tongue out for insulting me. Remembered my birthday. Made me a cake in the middle of the Bloodwood.

He’d always protected me. No matter what it cost him.

If I’d just told him how I’d felt all these years, could we have made it work? Maybe he felt something for me too.

But how could he?

I was barely even his kind. I most certainly wasn’t his type. And he’d never tried anything with me before this cursed trip, despite the countless times he’d have felt my desire for him over the years.

My chest heaved. Tears fled down my cheeks. I furiously swiped them away as I hurried amongst the sea of trees, angling towards the border of the dark forest. I needed to focus, or I was going to end up as dead as my dumb dreams of being with Killian.

The bleeding bark suited my mood as I swept between the slender redwoods in the heavy night. This close to the edge, they were getting fewer, some of the smaller trees taking their place in sparse copses.

Undulating plains opened in the gaps, spreading far into the distance. Short grasses had dried out to a crisp wheat with the warmth of summer, but some patches of green still hid near the edges, the colours barely visible under the light of the full moon.

A flat swirl of colour, the size of a small cabin, smudged the air about half a mile beyond the last tree. It glowed with ribbons of pinks, blues and golds, all merging in a beautiful eddy that called out like a siren’s song.

I ducked behind a trunk just wide enough to conceal myself and scanned the dangerous territory between the forest and the portal.

The pretty smear tearing between realms sat in a hundred-metre radius of nothing. Just bare earth surrounded it on all sides until it met the dead grass beyond the barren circle, swaying lightly in the breeze.

It may seem abandoned, but it was a blood-soaked graveyard. There were always demons watching this place.

The shadow-walker kingdom lay beyond the plains, a dark beast crouched on the horizon, visible only in the red flames guarding their walls. They were our closest neighbours, and we’d only just brokered a trade agreement to allow safe passage for all hybrids crossing past their lands or using the portal.

Ironically, we traded life for death. Each month, we delivered a cart-load of our finest poisons from the Bloodwood. Half of which I’d designed myself.

Everything was quiet now though. I’d run out of reasons to stall, but the last I’d been to Earth, it hadn’t exactly gone well for me.

Taking a deep breath, I rechecked my poisoned daggers, securely sheathed at my hips and down my outer thighs, and took the plunge.

The grass gave way beneath my pounding boots as I sprinted from the trees, thuds echoing through the night. Wind whipped my crimson hair behind me as I ran.

The portal loomed closer.

Silver flashed on my right.

Instinct had me ducking into a roll. Something thumped into my shoulder blade, knocking me askew. Pain throbbed down my back as I caught sight of the feathered shaft sticking out behind me.

Yank it free and stab out your enemies’ eyes!

I sprang to my feet with gritted fangs, ignoring the arrow embedded in my flesh as much as the violent voice, and focused on survival. I weaved as I ran, trying to shake the archer’s aim.

I wasn’t too keen on getting a second arrow I’d have to rip from my flesh, even if I should be able to heal the damage.

Unless I was dead before I knew it.

I ran faster.

The portal loomed closer, pretty colours beckoning me. The air buzzed with power, even with the long metres between me and the dead zone.

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