Page 7 of Mayhem and Ember

“All three of us together?’ Ash asked.

“It’s worth a shot.” I sent out another flame, giving it all the heat I had, and Chaos and my sister did the same. The exoskeleton burned a bit, flaking like the wings had done when Chaos hit them earlier, but it would take us an hour to turn the giant cockroach to ash.

Sweat beaded on my forehead, and my breaths became labored. Fire was my inborn gift, so it didn’t tax my vim, but this much exertion took a physical toll on my body.

And that pissed me off royally.

“Burn you overgrown insect.” My anger sparked more flames inside me, and I pushed out another heatwave. Dead or alive, this sucker would not get the best of me.

“You’re wearing yourselves out,” Shade said. “And I can’t keep us cloaked forever. Let’s push him into the crevice and be done.”

“Works for me.” Ash extinguished her fire like she’d had control of it her entire life, and Chaos followed suit.

My nostrils flared on an irritated exhale, but he was right. We had too much shit to do to waste our energy on a dead fae. “All right, but I get the honors.”

I stomped toward the roach and rolled him to the crevice. With my boot against his shoulder, I shoved him over the edge. He hit the ground with a satisfying thud, and I wiped my hands on my jeans.

“Let’s go summon a demon prince.” The words barely had time to cross my lips before my phone buzzed. I swiped open the screen and groaned. “There’s another rift.”

3

MAYHEM

All I saw was darkness. All I heard was silence.

All I felt was pure primal rage.

I was finally free of my prison, my spirit possessing a witch of such immense power I could move earth, making it swallow my enemies whole. Burning through her body and claiming it as my own would have allowed me to keep her magic, adding it to mine and becoming more powerful than Chaos and Discord combined. I could have rivaled Lucifer himself.

But the blue-haired witch…the one they called Ash…ruined it all. My host’s body was no match for the binding spells she’d cast on us. If my vessel had given up control when I demanded it, I could have broken free. But my insolent human receptacle had refused.

She was a witch after all, and witches were the vilest creatures to ever walk the earth. I would be freed from this dark prison sooner or later, and when I was, I would find a way to their side of the veil and kill them all for what they’d done.

And my brother…

I imagined my hands curling into fists at the thought of the traitorous bastard, my talons digging into my wrists, the phantom pain the only thing reminding me I still existed in this realm of sensory deprivation.

Chaos would pay for his betrayal. Whether he’d willingly gone along with their subterfuge or he’d been bound under a spell didn’t matter. I would take revenge, and I would start by killing the one he claimed to love.

4

EMBER

“It’s a good thing the rift happened in a witch’s backyard.” Ash set black candles around the circle of salt she’d poured while I eyed the skull.

It looked like a regular human, yet the energy it exuded felt like pinpricks running through my muscles when I touched it. “Right? Monkeys can only escape from the zoo so many times before the humans get suspicious.”

Police Chief Higgins, one of the few mundane in Salem who knew real magic existed, had explained away an imp attack in a hardware store by calling them monkeys. Today, a trio of the buggers had made it through a tiny rift in Inga’s yard, and thankfully, she’d messaged me before getting anyone else involved.

Dragging my gaze away from Mayhem’s severed head, I admired the near-perfect ring Ash had poured. We’d decided to perform the summoning in her studio, away from the windows of the storefront—and the prying eyes of passersby—and far from the irreplaceable grimoires in the library.

Her tattoo equipment sat on a counter against the wall, and a wooden storage unit stood in the corner. LED track lighting hung from the ceiling, casting the room in artificial brightness, but we’d be dimming those soon. Magic worked better in candlelight…especially for fire witches.

Clutching the salt in both hands, my sister bounced her gaze from the floor to me three times before she finally held eye contact. “At the rate the veil is thinning, we’ll need to bring in more of the coven to help keep the beasties at bay. You know that, right?”

I clenched my jaw. She was right. I knew she was, but it didn’t make it any easier to admit. “If we tell them everything…” I blew out a hard breath. “They’re going to blame me. I’m responsible for this coven, and everything is going to shit.”

“No one will blame you.”

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