Page 33 of To Hunt a Demon King

“You’ll be okay,” I whispered, putting my hands on the wolf and silently praying to the Goddess to save my friend and guardian, trying to shake that silvery magic awake and make it do my bidding. Akela let out a rasping breath, and his chest stopped moving.

“Red,” Hunt croaked out, reaching to cover my hands with his. They were covered in Akela’s blood, and I shook my head fiercely as a tear escaped, tugging on the bright magic to move faster.

“Just wait,” I snapped, looking up at his somber face. I looked back down, trying to focus on the magic; to focus on that bright thing that felt like warmth and light and life. Akela whined as I felt him take a deep breath.

“Holy shit,” Hunt said, staring at me wide eyed. “That is not witch magic. What the fuck are you, Red?”

Chapter 13

Akela whined again as I struggled to find the words to explain.

“Well?” Hunt asked, glaring at me from across Akela, who was still lying where he had fallen. His breathing had become steadier, and he whined again, moving his head slightly as if in search of someone to scratch it. I didn’t dare oblige when Hunt was looking at me like I might attack him.

“It’s why I had to run,” I choked out finally, scooting back a foot to give him some space to process. “On the night of my birthday, I used it to save a child. It was an accident. I didn’t know I could do it. My mother told me I had to run.”

“Run from what?” Hunt asked, uncapping his waterskin and bringing the spout to Akela. The wolf drank, and Hunt poured the rest of the water over his bloody hands, wiping them on his trousers. He was glaring at me as if I had lied to him, which I technically had, I supposed.

“The Crone,” I said, deciding it would be best not to mention I was her granddaughter on top of everything else. “Mama said I was cursed and blessed with life and death. It’s why she sent me to the Darklands, I think. So I can try to break the curse.”

“Holy shit,” Hunt murmured, scrubbing a hand over his jaw and looking at me in bewilderment. Something like realization seemed to strike him, but he didn’t share whatever he had just discovered.

“Well that certainly is a neat trick,” he said, scratching Akela’s ears. The wolf whined pathetically, and Hunt chuckled, lifting the animal up over his shoulder to carry him like a child who was too tired to walk. “Coming, Red?”

“That’s it?” I asked, shocked that Hunt hadn’t run far, far away from me already. “Just ‘neat trick, let’s go’?”

Hunt shrugged. “You saved Akela,” he said seriously, looking down at me where I still sat. “I owe you a life debt for it.”

“So you’re still going to take me to the Darklands?” I asked, standing slowly and taking a step toward the pair. A hoot in the distance told me that Artemis had already taken off, and I sighed in relief that she was okay too.

“I promised to take you where you need to go,” Hunt said patiently, as if I were a child arguing with him about eating my vegetables. “Can you do any other magic, besides the healing?”

“I managed to rot an apple on my first day,” I confessed, feeling sheepish about it. Hunt raised a brow skeptically, and I continued, “But I haven’t been able to do it since.”

Hunt pursed his lips, looking thoughtful, before nodding decidedly.

“Then let’s go,” he said, turning back in the direction we had been heading before the leshy attack.

“Seriously?” I asked, jogging to catch up with him. My skirts were in terrible shape from all the hiking through the forest, and I had never been more envious of men’s trousers. “I just brought your pet back to life and you don’t have any more questions?”

“Oh, I do,” Hunt said, turning to look at me over Akela’s legs. “But I work for demons, remember? I’ve seen this kind of magic before.”

“Really?” I asked. “Is life and death magic common?”

“No,” he said, hesitating as if deciding how much to divulge. “But I’ve seen it used before.”

“Mama called it a gift,” I said darkly.

“You don’t agree?” Hunt asked, looking down at me. “You just brought my best friend back from the dead. Seems like a gift to me.”

“Your best friend is a wolf?” I asked.

“That’s beside the point,” Hunt growled. “I’m with your mother on this one.”

“Yes, but it feels…” I hesitated, throwing my hands up in frustration, “unnatural.”

“If it’sdemonmagic,” Hunt said slowly, as if pondering the way the blessing or curse or whatever it was might work, “then it’s probably instinctual, not unnatural. Demon magic is as much a gift from the gods as witch magic, there are just no incantations or pentagrams or any of your witch rituals to make it work. You wanted Akela to live, so you made it happen.”

“That makes no sense to me,” I said, my logical witchy mind needing spells and altars and ceremony to make sense of magic. “And it’s terrifying. There’s no balance!”

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