Page 96 of Hellish Witch

Deep worry lines creased between Alvie’s golden brows.

It was entirely justified.

Chapter 33

Alvie shot me a shy smile. “My coven isn’t far. Really, you’ve managed to get so close on your own. Perhaps the sister goddesses were guiding your steps when you fled that demon.” He waved a dismissive hand toward Killian, menacing just behind him.

I stifled a snort at Killian’s intensity, falling in step with the mage as he led us off the path, walking deeper into the thick woods of the national park.

“I wasn’t fleeing Killian.”I was fleeing myself.“Hunters found us.” My voice strangled as terror gripped me by the throat.

Alvie almost missed a stride, eyes widening in alarm. “Demonhunters?”

With the immediate danger over, my brain tried to drag me back into the darkness of my memories.

I nodded mutely, airways too tight to breathe.

Warmth brushed my back. Killian’s arrow tail stroked along my spine a second time, and my lungs finally remembered how to inflate as his touch anchored me in the present.

This comforting, touchy side of Killian was throwing me off. Maybe the recent blood loss was just making him loopy. He still had bullet holes in his arms and legs, after all.

“Don’t worry, Sparkles,” the incubus drawled. “I’ve already taken care of your pest problem.”

Of course he’d have killed them all before chasing me down. Killian didn’t run from a fight. Unlike the new, broken me.

“Thank you,” I murmured, offering him a grateful smile.

His tail gave me one final soothing stroke before returning to sway lightly behind him with each prowling step.

A furrow dug between Alvie’s narrow brows, an almost brooding silence falling over the group as we walked.

There were so many types of trees around us—silvered birches, broad ash, rough beeches, proud oaks—some of which resembled the types we had in the Bloodwood, only without blood-like sap and luminescent moss. Probably fewer poison wildflowers too.

Killian radiated intensity, stalking right behind Alvie in obvious threat. His feathered wings were semi-flared, ready to shoot out and slam the mage at any moment. At least they were back to their angelic white beneath the rust-coloured splatters.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the mage could feel Killian’s breath on the back of his neck though.

“Good.” Alvie seemed to shake himself after a long moment, clearing his throat. “That’s very good. Given my offensive affinity, I’m one of the chief protectors of the Sage Coven.”

I frowned at his odd pause. But then again, who knew what kind of blood-soaked history he had with the hunters himself? He was probably frazzled at how close the hunters had come to his coven.

I wasn’t exactly a model for healthy reactions myself.

I’d mistaken the psychotic voice in my head telling me to disembowel my enemies and feast on their organs as a fun form of trauma response. But really, my death-kitty familiar was just being a helpful cutie like that.

My heart ached to see her again. To at least know she was okay.

Killian rolled his stormy eyes at the mage but kept quiet.

“Can you tell me about your magic?” I asked, curiosity getting the better of me.

“Of course.” He preened under the attention, a bright smile helping me push back dark thoughts of the hunters dragging me back to their lab of nightmares. “I’m a nature mage, like most of my coven. They’re mostly healers, like yourself, but my affinity lies with the sun.”

He tipped his face back, angled towards where the sun must be, hidden by the thick canopy and thicker clouds of the late afternoon.

“You can conjure sunlight as a weapon?” I asked.

What would it be like to hold that kind of power in your hands?

---