Page 31 of Witch Queen

“We should go, my Enrique.”

Mae blinked.

Popo fluttered onto Cortes’s lap and studied his sorcerer solemnly, his eyes bright. “We are the only ones who can help our queen right now. And our fates very much depend on her success in overcoming our foes.”

Mae’s pulse raced. She had never heard Popo sound so serious.

A muscle jumped in Cortes’s cheek as he watched his familiar.

Anya shuddered and closed her eyes briefly before fixing her boyfriend with a steady look. “As much as it pains me to say this, Popo is right. If it helps Mae defeat our enemy, then I won’t stop you.” The witch’s gaze shifted to Mae. Her voice turned steely. “You better make sure he comes back alive and with all his body parts intact.”

Mae swallowed and dipped her head, her mouth dry.

Vlad grimaced. “So, we’re really doing this, huh?” The incubus rubbed the back of his neck. “I guess I’ll go say farewell to my uncle.”

“You should visit with your family,” Nikolai told Mae.

“I will. I have something to take care of first.”

A low rumble reached them. They turned and stared at the back of the ballroom.

The giant flinched where he was kneeling quietly in a corner. He’d managed to squeeze his body inside the building through the terrace doors. He lifted a hesitant hand and mumbled something shyly.

Mae glanced at Brimstone.

He says he needs to pee,the fox translated.

“What’s the matter?” Bryony asked suspiciously at her awkward expression.

Mae looked hopefully outside the window. “He needs the rest room.”

Bryony followed her gaze to a flowerbed in the garden.

“He’s not relieving himself in my petunias!” the witch snapped.

* * *

It waslate by the time they entered the residential area where the Jins lived. Nikolai maneuvered the SUV down the road, parked in the driveway, and turned to Mae.

“Was that really the right thing to do?”

She met his troubled gaze steadily. “I believe so.”

The something Mae had wanted to take care of before leaving the coven headquarters had been Drabek.

The heaviness that had weighed on Nikolai’s heart since he’d first witnessed the distressing stateSubjugatehad left his brother’s familiar in had almost choked his breath when they’d descended into the basement with Abraham and made their way to the cell where the lynx was being kept prisoner.

Drabek had lifted her head weakly off the bed of straw she’d been lying on when Mae had opened the cell door and wandered inside. She’d greeted the witch with a feeble swing of her tail, her eyes dull with pain.

Mae had sat on the ground and lifted the familiar’s head onto her lap so she could stroke her. Brimstone had lain down beside them and licked the lynx’s gaunt face, his crimson gaze full of sorrow.

Nikolai had fisted his hands where he’d stood in the doorway of the prison.

“Are you really going to do this? Are you—” he’d stopped and swallowed, “are you going to kill her?”

He hadn’t been able to stop his voice from shaking.

“It will feel like death,” Mae said quietly. “But she will still be alive.”

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