Chapter 8 Alaric
Alaric
My phone buzzed with messages from Dad, but I ignored it. I’d told him I had to return to campus this evening, so the fact I left a bit earlier than expected was tough shit. He’d get over it.
Uncle Adam muttered an incantation under his breath before sitting back. The little witch made a small, pained sound, and then her features relaxed.
“I’ve cast a protection spell, which should stop the dark magic from doing any further damage, but it’s only a short-term fix. I need to break the spell permanently.”
“Then do it,” the bear snapped. The stupid incubus had finally stopped being an ass. The gravity of the situation must have penetrated his thick skull at last.
He caught me watching him and smirked.
Goddess, I hated the fucker. How the bear shifter put up with him was beyond me. He must have the patience of a troll.
“I need some specific ingredients, none of which I have with me.”
“Like what? The spellcasting lab has most things apart from the rarest ingredients.” I could head back home, if I needed to. What the Starfall magic store lacked, my father or Brianna would have.
Adam pulled a notes app up on his phone and typed out a list. I peeked over his shoulder.
“There won’t be any demon blood here,” I told him.
“Or powdered brimstone.” Both were impossible to get.
The demons we’d killed before solstice had been incinerated at my father’s behest to prevent evidence of their incursion from entering the public domain.
Though it hadn’t worked, if what Rink said earlier was true.
“Demon blood?” Zane tapped his thigh. “I can get some of that. How fresh does it need to be?” He bounced on his toes in excitement. “Fresh from the source?”
“It doesn’t need to be fresh,” Adam said. “A few dried flakes will be sufficient.”
Zane pouted in disappointment. “Okay, fiiiine. I’ll scrape some up from my last kill.” I shuddered in disgust, the memory of the demon I'd killed still fresh in my mind.
“My father has some powdered brimstone,” I said to Adam before slanting a glare at the incubus. “But feel free to teleport into hell for the solid kind and don’t bother returning.”
The asshole grinned before grabbing my arm. “Hold on, vanilla popsicle.”
Before I could protest, he’d blinked me away.
I landed a few feet from the stone wall that surrounded my father’s lavish estate. Zane knowing exactly where to drop us should have concerned me, but I didn’t give a single fuck if he returned and murdered my father and stepmother in their beds one dark and stormy night.
Good riddance to the pair of them.
The ground continued to shift for several seconds while I dry heaved my guts up. I swear he made these trips as unpleasant as possible, purely to piss me off.
“Get your shit together, sparky. My mate doesn’t have time for your drama.” Despite his incessant taunts, it was obvious the incubus was worried about the witch.
As he should be.
Dark magic was lethal and definitely no joking matter.
“Give me a minute,” I wheezed. Goddess, I fucking hated teleporting.
“Time’s up,” he snapped, unceremoniously yanking me to my feet. “Now where does your father keep his brimstone? I’m hoping it’s not in his sex dungeon, stashed away with his dragon dildos and unicorn-horn butt plugs.”
“Eww, what the fuck, Zane?”
I half expected him to laugh, but he said it with a straight face. “Let’s just say I’ve had the displeasure of spending time in a sex club while your father was on a jolly. Trust me when I say there wasn’t much lust recharging going on that night.”
Goddess, I didn’t want to think about what my father got up to with his favorite sirens. Ugh.
I coughed and sucked in a lungful of cold air to quell the nausea from the trip, which cleared my head.
While I could enter and leave my father’s estate, Zane would trigger the wards. He’d have to stay here.
“I’ll go in, grab what we need, and be back soon.”
“No.”
“No?” Damn it to hell. “There are wards, moron. You’ll fry if you try to cross them without my father’s permission.” And I knew damn well hell would freeze over before Dad gave a pass to the incubus.
He opened his mouth to utter more bullshit, but before he could say a word, the witch’s kitsune blinked into view.
I jumped back in surprise, promptly landing in some animal shit. A toxic stench filled the air as my leather shoe squelched and I nearly slid on my ass.
The kitsune bared his teeth at me and made a chuffing sound that sounded a lot like a laugh.
I hated the fucking creature but decided not to air my thoughts.
I didn’t trust the little bastard. He had more power than any of us knew.
Kitsunes were rare for a reason. Mages like my father had hunted them to near extinction over the years, eager to harness their magic.
“Have you come to help us pass through the wards?” Zane addressed his question to the kitsune. I wasn’t sure why, since the witch’s familiar couldn’t communicate with us.
“Can you talk kitsune?” I asked out of curiosity.
Zane threw me a derisive look. “Have you had a knock on the head?”
“No?”
“Oh. Then you’re just stupid. Of course I can’t talk kitsune!”
“Then why ask him a question?!”
The incubus rolled his eyes and turned back to the foul creature.
“Can you?”
Kenji twitched his tails and barked once. I assumed that meant yes, but what did I know, since I couldn’t speak fucking kitsune?
The irritating creature jumped into Zane’s arms and hissed at me.
“Yeah, I don’t like you either,” I muttered.
“Picture one of your father’s guards,” Zane said. “An ugly as fuck one.”
“Why?” My brows knitted together. This night was getting weirder by the second.
“Just do it.” My mind jumped to Tomas, the asshole in charge of the cells beneath the house. The ugly bastard had contracted mage pox as a kid and still had the scarred, pitted face to show for it.
To my absolute horror, Zane vanished, replaced by a grinning Tomas. I leaped back in shock. The kitsune in his arms chuffed and jumped down. He looked at the wall and then at us.
“Let’s go, sparky,” Tomas grunted. I wondered if my father knew Zane could shapeshift. I doubted he’d be pleased about it.
“Dad keeps his most expensive and rare spellcasting ingredients in a locked store in the cellar,” I said in a low voice.
“Lead the way, Fritz.” Tomas/Zane smirked. The sight of Tomas smirking was enough to make any sane magical vomit. The mage’s potato-like nose glowed in the dark, red and raw from the cold.
“Fuck me, you’re ugly.” I grimaced.
Zane tugged his pants away from his barrel-shaped body and examined his cock with interest. “Poor fuck,” he said after a moment. “I bet this dude doesn’t get laid much.”
“I don’t give a fuck about Tomas’s sex life. Now fucking move before we’re caught by my father’s guards!”
The sound of heavy footsteps propelled me into motion. Not waiting for Zane or the kitsune, I pulled open the heavy metal door that led down into the cellar. The kitsune brushed past me, scampering down the stone steps.
With a bit of luck, the two guards that patrolled this part of the house would be somewhere else, or else we’d have a problem.
Mage lights came on as I reached the bottom of the stairs. The kitsune dashed ahead and then vanished into thin air just before Tomas’s equally ugly cousin appeared carrying a dusty crate of elkwine.
He stopped in surprise when he saw me, but when he spotted Zane, his jaw dropped.
“Tomas? What the fuck are you doing here?”