Page 72 of Rites of Passage

Their expressions grew heated.

“Sure, cupcake.” Vlad’s lips tilted in a smile that made Mae’s mouth go dry. He cut his eyes to Nikolai. “Does this mean you’re thinking of a threesome? Not that I mind.” He shrugged, still smirking. “I mean, he’s kinda passable for a human.”

The sorcerer recoiled. “Fuck no! Keep your incubus dick away from me, you hear?!”

Barquiel’s enraged snarl focused their attention. Magic charged the air as the Council members prepared to join the attack.

The power of Hell prickled Mae’s skin with her next heartbeat.

CHAPTER31

She lookedup in time to see the ceiling rip apart. A dark portal opened in the concrete. It discharged a horde of black-magic users and demons.

“Dammit!” Mae scowled at the witches and sorcerers behind her. “You guys deal with them! Barquiel is ours!”

They nodded, their familiars’ eyes aglow with their magic.

“You think me so easy to defeat, witch?!”Barquiel spat, incensed.

Mae’s gaze clashed with the demon’s. She gritted her teeth. “I don’t doubt your strength. I just think it’s a shame you’re playing for the wrong side. That’s why you and the Sorcerer King will lose.”

Her veins swelled with magic in response to the anger burning through her. She jumped, twisted in mid-air, and back-kicked the demon viciously.

Barquiel’s eyes bulged. He flew off his feet, sailed across the chamber, and smashed through the wall. A harsh grunt left him as he crash-landed inside an empty conference room.

Vlad grimaced. “Ouch.”

“Did you just strike a demon in the balls?” Raven asked Mae woodenly.

She deflected a Dark Council witch’s attack and slashed the woman’s throat with her magic-wreathed, twin short blades, her vine snake hissing where he coiled around her arm.

Mae slowly lowered her leg. “The bastard had it coming.”

The conference door slammed open. Violet and Miles stormed inside.

“What’d we miss?!” Miles asked jovially.

Millie bobbed enthusiastically around his shoulders.

Miles’s smile slipped as he scanned the room. “Well, shit. Leave some for us, won’tcha?”

He unleashed his saber and a sphere of golden, crackling magic.

Violet narrowed her eyes at the sight of Barquiel. “I see the scumbag of the Underworld is back.” Purple light flared on her fingertips and in Trixie’s pupils. “Is that Redheaded Toad here too?”

“Redheaded Toad?” Derrick asked, confused.

“She means Oscar,” Miles explained.

Nikolai lowered his brows. “No, we haven’t seen my brother.”

Barquiel rose from the pulverized remains of the table he’d destroyed. He shook his head dazedly and leveled a crimson glare at Mae. He headed for the hole in the wall, his claws clinking resolutely on the floor as he closed the distance to them.

Mae startled, feeling Brimstone’s sudden agitation.

The demon fox stepped in front of her. “Get back, Mae!”

A grunt of pain tore from the familiar the next instant. The floor shuddered as he collapsed, his massive body almost filling the circle. Fear squeezed Mae’s heart.

---