Page 39 of Witch Queen

Astarte slowed at the sound of the Reaper queen’s snarl and stared in their direction. She scowled. “Wait. Don’t tell me that’s?—?!”

A dark helldragon dove toward her, claws extended to tear her apart. Astarte flashed out of the path of its talons and kicked it in the face.

“I’m trying to have a conversation here, asshat!” she hissed.

The dragon went flying backward into a hellmammoth and took it to the ground, crushing some hundred demons and smaller hellbeasts in the process.

Vlad flinched when Astarte’s scarlet gaze pierced them where they floated inside Mae’s spell.

“I see that we’re going to need to have a nice, long chat when this is over.”

The Goddess cracked her knuckles in a way that made it clear that words were not the only things that would be exchanged in said heart-to-heart.

“Are we sure she’s on our side?” Cortes said dubiously. “She looks like she wants to kill us.”

Popo fidgeted nervously on his shoulder. “I can sense her murderous intent from here, my Enrique.”

Vozgan scratched his snout with a claw. “Father said Aunt Astarte had a nasty temper even when she was in Heaven.”

A surprised “Ooof!” left the helldragon as a hellmammoth slammed into his flank.

Tension knotted Vlad’s shoulders. Dozens of demons and hellbeasts had surrounded them.

“Well, what are you waiting for, you fools?!” Astarte shouted from the other side of the battleground. “Use your damn magic and fight them!”

“Anyone else get the feeling she’s going to be a major pain in our ass?” Cortes said leadenly.

CHAPTERFOURTEEN

Mae’s pulseraced as she studied the demonic horde fixing them with ravenous stares. Her heightened senses and the power bubbling inside her raised the hairs on the back of her neck.

“I guess we should do as she says.”

Cortes unleashed his sword and whip and gave her a dark look. “I can’t believe we almost got eaten by a dragon the second we arrived in Hell.”

“I said I was sorry!” Vozgan protested where he was clashing horns with the hellmammoth.

“You know you’re the one who brought us to this exact location, right?” Vlad pointed out to the sorcerer.

Cortes scowled.

Nikolai watched a demon wipe drool from its chin.

“I bet we look like meat on a stick to them,” he said flatly.

Alastair squawked uneasily on his shoulder.

Mae sighed. “On the count of three?”

A haze of Hellfire Magic licked Nikolai’s frame and flashed in his crow familiar’s eyes. The veneer of incubus energy coating Vlad’s flesh and Tarang’s fur thickened. Cortes dipped his head.

Mae drew on her cores as she brought her barrier down. The demons and hellbeasts charged the instantContainvanished.

“Wind Fury!”

The blaze that filled her veins when the spell left her lips made the air lock in her throat. A veritable tempest of crimson and black detonated around her.

Cortes cursed as he was pushed back some dozen feet. Nikolai stabbed his spear into the ground and hung on grimly to the weapon.

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