Page 6 of Witch Please
All the energy I had while adrenaline was rushing through my veins drained the moment the Mazzikin started shrieking. It felt like someone shoved me inside a washing machine and put me on spin for an hour. Everything hurt.
Ignoring blondie, I turned my head in search of Sissily and found her pressing both of her ears with her hands while bright red blood trickled between her fingers down her neck. With how pale River looked while he shook me, I guessed I didn’t look any better either. I could feel the warm blood gliding over my clammy skin and drenching my tank top.
“Hazel?” speech finally penetrated the thudding in my ears, and River sounded like he was calling my name from underwater. “Can you hear me? Where are you hurt?”
Summoning all the strength I could, I glared at him, but he was unperturbed.
“Please talk to me.” Blondie ran his hands over my shoulders down my arms and up as if that would improve my ability to speak. Quite the opposite really but I’d die before I admit that to him.
“I’ve never been better.” My rasp was followed by a forced smile, and I cringed when I saw the reflection of my bloodied teeth in his expanded irises. His forehead wrinkled as if I spoke in tongues, so I turned away from him. I had more important things to do than worry about River.
“Well, that didn’t go as planned, huh?” I muttered to my best friend who clawed her way closer to me. “Can you hear?”
Sissily nodded, wincing from the movement, and then proceeded to stare at her bloodied fingers with outer terror. “You?” A coughing fit racked her frame when she attempted to speak.
“I’m great.” My friend gave me a worried look when I answered her in a cheerful tone. “I bleed all over the place on regular basis. This is my norm now.”
“Did she hit her head?” River asked Sissily to which she answered with a shrug. Both ignored my unimpressed stare. “What were you two doing?” He had to raise his voice because the shrieking was going up in volume by the second.
“We thought we could banish the Mazzikin.” Sissily waved a hand at the flickering spirits zooming around us in a zig zag fashion. “They should’ve gone back to their realm, but something is wrong.”
“You think?” River snapped at her angrily and my heart picked up speed. “What gave it away that something is wrong? The way demons used blood magic last time we had to fight our way out of the coven building or…?”
“I’d tread very carefully with how you speak to her, Blackman.” Pushing off the leaf-covered ground I got up on my knees forgetting all about the pounding headache doing its best to crack open my skull. “It’ll be such a shame for someone to accidentally turn you into an overcooked shish kebab.”
“That was reckless, Miss Byrne.” The condescending tone he used made me want to punch him in the nose.
“You think?” I barked at him fed up with the lectures. As if I couldn’t see that I messed up. “You’re still here so that can’t be what made my recklessness obvious. What gave it away? Do tell me so I don’t repeat that mistake again.”
We glared at each other until Sissily tugged on my arm like a toddler trying to get the parents’ attention. The constant screaming from the Mazzikin was driving me nuts and wasn’t helping matters either. A second later I realized what my friend was warning me about.
“Hazel?” Alex stepped in between the trees; his chest bare as he yanked the sweats up his hips.
“She’s fine.” River squeezed between his teeth; you’d think I committed the greatest offense by being unharmed.
“Do I want to know?” the alpha cocked an eyebrow at Sissily who was still sitting on the ground in front of me.
“Nope.” She didn’t even look up, methodically cleaning up the blood from her skin with a handful of leaves. Her ponytail shifted to the side of her head in our one on one with the Mazzikin and a small twig with a few leaves was sticking out of it as if she was an Indian chief.
I plucked it out of her hair, ripping a few strands along with it.
“Thanks.” She hissed at me baring her teeth.
“Don’t mention it.” I bared mine like a fiend.
“Ladies, ladies.” Alex shuffled closer both his hands raised to the side in a placating gesture. His tone was hesitant as if he couldn’t believe his own ears that he was talking like that. It sounded alarms in my head immediately. “Let’s not argue with ourselves. Someone needs to stop all this screaming before we turn on each other. My pack is getting agitated from the high-pitched tones.”
That’s when I noticed we were acting aggressively toward each other as well. Well, more so than normal. I don’t need demons to want to sock River in his smug handsome face. He does have a very punchable one, and it wasn’t Maybelline for sure. He was born with it.
“The demons should’ve been gone by now.” I told the alpha as I took hold of Sissily’s arm and pulled her up on her feet. “We used an exorcism chant that is infallible. There is something wrong with this whole thing.” Jabbing both hands on my hips I looked around at the erratic spirits in confusion. “I don’t get it.”
“Danika Byrne has used the same banishing to send demonic forces back to Hell. It always works.” Sissily told the two males as if I needed Danika’s reference to prove I was telling them the truth.
I was ready to argue that point too when I caught myself and clamped my mouth shut. Whatever it was that the Mazzikin were doing it was making us all aggressive. And River, Sissily and I were standing between a bunch of trees with an entire pack of shifters running around on four legs. Just as the thought occurred to me, I heard the first growl from behind me.
“How fast can you two get to the house?” I asked airily, my gaze jumping from Sissily’s face to River’s. Cold sweat trickled between my shoulder blades when both of them frowned as if debating my sanity.
Not that we couldn’t fight our way out of the situation. I would bet my life that my friend and Blondie didn’t want to fight the pack as much as I didn’t. Alex was dealing with attacks and his mate and child were taken because he was protecting me. There was no way any of us would fight or harm his pack if we could help it. It was time to scram while we still had control over our actions.
