Page 96 of Witch Queen

Na Ri’s fury scorched her insides.Don’t give up, Mae.

She is right, my witch, Brimstone growled.

That guy hasn’t seen what we can do yet!Hellraiser snarled.

Mae’s shoulders knotted.

Vedran was approaching Cortes. He gazed at the sorcerer where he floated, frozen in midair, jaw clenched and face tight with fury. Fear chilled her to the bone at the look in the Sorcerer King’s eyes.

She could tell there was not a single drop of humanity left in him.

Cortes’s gasp made her stomach clench.

Vedran had pressed the tip of a finger to his chest.

“The name of the spell that currently has you in its grip, the spell that will bring about your demise, isVortex,” the Sorcerer King told Mae casually. “No one who has borne witness to it has lived past its incantation to tell the tale.”

Horror rounded Mae’s eyes. Black magic was spreading across Cortes’s skin, turning it into a macabre map. The dark lines sliced into his flesh and stained his shirt with blood. Popo trembled on his shoulder, his feathers growing dull as Vedran’s vile power invaded his and his sorcerer’s cores, the golden light in his pupils quivering brightly before dying out. They fell unconscious, chests barely moving with their breaths.

Tears distorted Mae’s vision.No. This isn’t happening!

Vedran moved to Vlad.

Blood pounded loudly in Mae’s ears. The Sorcerer King touched the incubus. Tendons corded in Vlad’s neck as black magic seared his flesh. His face flushed a bright red.

The scream lodged in his throat never left his lips.

Vlad ground his teeth, crimson lines blooming on his skin, his blood steaming where it dripped heavily and struck the asphalt. Brimstone roared silently inside Mae’s mind when Tarang went limp beside the near senseless incubus.

Mae’s breath shuddered out of her. Her next inhale brought with it a torrent of rage that seared her soul and obliterated all trace of fear.

She had to stop Vedran and Davor Lazar.

We cannot let them walk off this bridge alive.Her face hardened as she sought the strength of the ones who stood with her.Together!

The power of four roared through Mae, raising all the hairs on her body. Na Ri warmed her ice-cold flesh as she poured all her magic into their cores. Brimstone and Hellreaver directed their demonic energy into their bond.

Heat flowed sluggishly through Mae’s veins.

Soul Guard!Augment!

She panted, the effort of manifesting the wordless spells rendering her so weak she would have fallen to her knees had her limbs not been immobilized by the Sorcerer King’s dark magic. Mae clenched her jaw until she tasted blood and invoked the third and fourth incantations.

Assimilate!Absorb!

Vedran stilled. The black lines mapping Cortes and Vlad’s faces vanished with a hiss of crimson. He scowled.

Mae knew he’d just realized she’d shielded the two men’s souls and those of their familiars.

Vlad and Cortes’s wounds started to heal. The incubus’s eyelids fluttered slightly. He mumbled her name. Cortes groaned.

The Sorcerer King cut his eyes to Mae. “What have you done, little girl?!”

His pupils widened at the sight of the blood soaking her T-shirt.

My witch, Brimstone whimpered.

Hellreaver made a wretched sound.

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