Page 49 of Of Flames and Crows

“Get out of here!” the sorcerer shouted, his face red and the tendons in his neck cording as he struggled to suppress his core.

Alastair shuddered on the ground beside him.

Brimstone shielded Mae with his massive frame a second before Nikolai and his familiar’s new powers surged from within them and blasted through the threeContainspells, shattering them.

Vlad cursed, his incubus energy wrapping him and Tarang in a scarlet veneer that protected them from the flames. Violet and Miles scowled where they stood behind the magic shields screening them and their familiars from the Hellfire filling the suite.

The smoke alarm came to life. Sprinklers opened in the ceiling and soaked them with a fine spray of water.

Ilya and Milo burst through the door.

Vlad cursed. “Stay back!”

The bodyguards froze in the face of the blaze rushing toward them.

“Shield!” Mae shouted.

Her magic rose before the two men. Hellfire crashed into the crimson wall. It held.

Mae’s heart slammed against her ribs as she focused her attention on Nikolai once more, heedless of the flames warming her flesh.

Thank God for Azazel’s blood!

“We need to break whatever is linking him and Alastair to Filomena!” Brimstone growled. “It’s the only way they’ll be able to make that Hellfire Magic their own!”

Mae nodded shakily, blood thundering in her ears.

A crack appeared in Miles’s shield. Violet cursed as a strand of Hellfire pierced her barrier and danced near her face.

Mae closed the distance to Nikolai, dropped down before him, and shut her eyes. She took a shallow breath and focused inward, looking for the repertoire of magic hidden deep within her subconscious.

For a moment, all she saw was darkness.

A rune flickered faintly in the inky pool after what felt like a lifetime. It was followed by another.

They gained in brightness as more joined them.

Nikolai screamed in pain. The sound had Mae digging her nails into her palms.

Faster!

Hellreaver quivered against her chest as she drew on their bond. Brimstone pressed his leg against her flank, the fox lending her his power.

She grasped the runes as they finally emerged from the depths of her awareness, melded them into a conjuration, and opened her eyes.

Nikolai’s hair and clothes fluttered wildly amidst the flames engulfing him. He blinked at her, barely holding on to his consciousness.

She pressed her hand to his belly and invoked the spell. “Sever!”

Nikolai gasped. Alastair squawked weakly.

Mae felt a bright cord snap within them.

The Hellfire brimming from their souls abated as they regained control over their cores. Nikolai swallowed convulsively and fisted his hands where he’d braced them on the floor. Brightness replaced the crimson flames in his pupils.

Mae sucked in air as Moon Magic and white magic washed across the suite, extinguishing the inferno roaring around them in a flash.

“Mae,” Brimstone warned.

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