Chapter 26
Raven
Greeting my father-in-law while naked was up there on the top ten highlights of my miserable life. Along with that fun time when I met the mer queen. Oh, and the other majorly fun time when I melted the sea witch.
My life was rapidly turning into a daytime soap filled with ludicrous plot arcs and implausible disasters.
Cum still trickled down my thighs as I snatched the torn robe to cover my breasts. Alaric had moved so his body was in front of me, blocking my view of his odious father. He was lucky enough to still have his pants on.
“What exactly do you mean by useful?” Alaric asked Tiberius while I had a mini-meltdown.
Losing my amulet, the last link to my mother, haunted me. A tear slid down my cheek, but I brushed it away and attempted to focus. Now was not the time to lose my shit.
“The cavalry is on its way,” Kenji announced in my head. “So you can quit blubbering.”
I jumped in shock at my familiar’s sweet voice. How I’d missed my kitsune!
“KENJI! You’re alive!”
“Wow, you must have gained a few IQ points during our vacation from each other. I’m impressed.”
I brushed his sarcastic riposte aside to preserve my delicate mental health. “Are my mates safe?” Goddess save us all if Tiberius had harmed one hair on any of their heads.
“Maybe ask them while I plan your escape. I’m kind of busy right now.”
“Oh my goddess, are they here already?” I usually couldn’t talk to them unless they were in the same local area. Then I froze. If Kenji was talking to me, he had to be inside the facility. “Are you here?”
“No. You leveled up, so we can communicate no matter where you end up trapped. Good to know, eh?” I pictured him rolling his eyes because he was almost certainly rolling his eyes about now. “Seeing as you get kidnapped more often than the average witch.”
“Are witches kidnapped a lot?” I wondered if Glynda had ever been kidnapped. GLYNDA! “Oh my goddess, where’s Glynda? Is she safe?”
“No idea. Now concentrate!”
Alaric pulled a sheet over my legs.
“You did exactly as I intended, Alaric. Fucking the witch was the key to unlocking her magic.”
“She already had magic,” Alaric scoffed. “You’re losing the plot, old man.”
I focused on the magic kernel inside my chest and tensed. It felt different. Colder than my usual fire magic. Less witchy, if that was a thing. Oh my goddess, what was I?
“A hybrid,” Kenji said. “Get over yourself.”
“She had witch magic; now she has demon magic too.” Tiberius beamed like someone had just published a super flattering article about his rise to fame and fortune.
For the record, a biography on his life to date hit the bestseller list the previous year.
I’d scanned the Look Inside feature on Magizon and concluded it was a pile of…
Demon magic?
Oh my goddess, was my witch-melting magic demon magic?
I supposed I could thank my deadbeat dad of the year for such a useful addition to my gene pool. It was the only thing he had given me, aside from PTSD from repeated exposure to ugly-ass demons.
“Guards, take the hybrid witch to the lab.”
“You’re not taking my mate anywhere!” My jaw gaped open at Alaric’s tone. Did that mean he actually liked me?
“Of course I like you,” he huffed. “We’re soul-bonded mates. I am programmed to like you.” Then he stiffened at the realization he’d read my mind. Oh great. Now I had another eavesdropper in my head, listening to all my cringeworthy thoughts.
“I advise you to maintain a strong mental shield,” Kenji told Alaric in our now group chat. “The witch has no filter, and her random musings are often deeply disturbing.”
“Can you read my mind too?” Alaric asked in my head as two guards appeared in the doorway, both armed with automatic weapons. My magic flared in alarm. Shit was about to go sideways.
“No time,” I squeaked, wishing I had pants on. Being dragged away with nothing on was embarrassing. Dammit, I needed to ask Rasmus to teach me how to conjure clothes. It was a skill I could use about now.
Speaking of…
“Can you all hear me?!”
I waited for my mates to respond, but there was nothing but static. “You told me they were safe!” I cried to Kenji.
“They’re busy. We’ll be there in…”
I blocked him out as a guard tried to grab me. Alaric punched the mage in the face, sending him to the floor bleeding. When the second mage raised his weapon at my grumpy storm mage, I saw red.
“Touch him and you die!” I growled, not sounding at all like myself. Thick shadows burst from my chest. The guard fell backward, but it was too late. The moment the shadows touched his exposed skin, he screamed.
I watched in horrified fascination as the mage melted before my eyes, his body collapsing like a cake removed from the oven too soon.
Tiberius watched, also surprised, before his lips twisted into a gleeful smile. “How…interesting,” he hummed before calling for reinforcements.
“Sir, we’re under attack!”
Shouts and screams echoed from beyond the room. Before I could throw my shadow magic at Alaric’s father, the wily fucker vanished.
“We need to get out of here before more guards arrive!” Alaric grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the door.
“Not yet! There are others trapped in this place!”
He frowned. “Others?”
“Yes, others! There’s a vampire. She said there are more rare magicals here, including kitsunes!”
Alaric’s jaw tensed. “We can come back for them later. I need to make sure you’re safe first.”
I shook my head. “No, we rescue the others and then leave. I’m not abandoning my people.”
“Your people? What the fuck are you on about, you crazy witch?” Great. Asshole Alaric was back.
“We’re all victims of your father’s evil empire, so that makes them my people. Now, are you going to help me, or do I need to do everything myself?” I stamped my foot while channeling my inner badass hybrid witch with a shitty attitude.
Alaric huffed and grumbled before sighing as if my very existence caused him pain.
Honestly, I could relate. Now that the dark magic infecting me had faded and we weren’t fucking like feral bunnies, I wasn’t sure I liked him.
Talk about a red-flag soul-bonded mate. What in the realm was the goddess thinking when she gifted me with such a bad-tempered mage?
“I have four other mates, remember?” I reminded him. “So I can afford to lose one.”
He sneered. “Yeah, but I bet none of them made you come as hard as I did, witch!”
“Yummy, all that lust is delicious, pet,” drawled a familiar voice. “Please continue.”
Hearing Zane shocked me out of my murderous fantasies involving Alaric chained to a bed while I whipped his irritating ass into submission. If any of my mates deserved to have a ball gag shoved in his mouth, it was him.
My sexy incubus leaned against the wall with his arms folded, covered in blood and unmentionable substances. I melted at the sight of his familiar smirk.
“Zane! I missed you so much,” I sobbed before leaping into his arms.
“And I missed you too, my adorable little psycho witch.” He blinked me away from Alaric before I could explain my plan for rescuing all the other trapped magicals. When the world had stopped spinning, I thumped him as hard as I could without breaking anything.
“We can’t leave! I have trafficking victims to rescue!” Then I looked around and realized we were in some kind of enclosed, pitch-black space. “What’s going on? Where are we?”
“A store cupboard, pet. I need your sweet pussy wrapped around my cock right the fuck now,” he groaned before he picked me up and slammed me against a wall.
My pathetic robe fell apart as I wrapped my legs around Zane’s waist. This was insane. We should have been escaping, not fucking.
“No, pet, we need to fuck first, escape second.” Dammit, Zane must have read my mind.
The door flew open just as Zane notched himself at my shamefully wet entrance and thrust inside.
“Get your fucking hands off her!” Alaric roared.
“Jealous, sparky boy?”
“She’s mine!”
“I’m not a possession!” I shrieked before Zane’s pierced cock hit me in exactly the right place. A soft moan escaped as my eyes rolled back in my head. Stars above, I’d missed my incubus.
“That’s right, you love my pretty cock, don’t you, pet?” he cooed while rocking deeper inside me. Sparks flew from Alaric’s fingers as his magic exploded.
A stack of paper towels caught fire, and, in seconds, smoke filled the small space. Dammit, I didn’t have water magic! Luckily for us, a sprinkler burst into life and drenched the hell out of me and the fire. I sort of needed a shower, but I’d have preferred a hot one.
Shaking the water from his head, Zane carried me out of the smoky cupboard and slammed me against another wall, still locked inside me while Alaric watched, eyes raging.
“Be a good boy and kill the mage heading our way,” he told Alaric. Oh my goddess, dying while having sex was not on my to-do list. I tried to extricate myself from Zane’s arms, but with each slow drag of his cock, my willpower waned.
“Come for me, pet,” he crooned in my ear. “Fuck, you feel like hot, wet velvet around my cock.”
“That sounds…” I gasped. “Unpleasant?”
“Not at all,” he chuckled. “Fucking perfect, like you, boo.”
“I’m going to kill you, asshole,” Alaric seethed, his eyes glued to my wet tits. From the obscenely large tent in his sweats, he was enjoying the show, despite his complaints.
A blast of magic hit the wall next to my head, making me shriek.
“Incoming!” Zane yelled, thrusting faster as I unraveled around him, coming so hard I saw stars.
Pleasure ripped through me, leaving me boneless and sated as Zane chased his own orgasm.
Behind us, Alaric blasted the mage who’d fired magic at me. I heard a scream followed by deathly silence. Zane grunted and sighed in satisfaction.
“I love you, cherry pie,” he murmured in my ear.
“Love you too,” I replied.
Thick smoke billowed out of the cupboard as the fire took hold.
“I fucking hate you,” the storm mage hissed as more mage guards flooded the corridor.
Did he hate me? Or was that aimed at Zane?
To my surprise, I didn’t want either of those things to be true.
“Surrender!” the lead mage yelled. “We have you surrounded! You can’t escape!”
Zane kissed my cheek and put me down. I tugged my cheap-ass robe back in place, but the tie was missing and it barely covered anything.
“No surrender!” my incubus hollered, shielding me with his body as the mage security guards edged closer.
“We’ve captured your friends,” the leader said with a sneer. “You won’t get away.”
They had my guys?
I was done with this bullshit.
I needed a change of clothes, some hot food, and a long nap in a comfortable bed. The thought of being thrown back inside a shitty windowless cell did not appeal in the slightest.
Alaric blasted the mages heading our way with lightning, but more kept coming.
“Stay here and let us deal with this,” Zane told me, grinning as he pulled a long blade from the ether. “Brenda has a plan.”
The old me would have happily let my males protect me, but the new me wasn’t about to sit on the sidelines while her mates fought on her behalf. I had no fighting skills, but I did have badass magic at my disposal, and it was about time I tested my demonic powers.
The shadow magic in my chest surged forward, eager to escape and cause chaos. A storm of fire and shadows burst free and filled the corridor.
Darkness rolled over every living being in the immediate area. I felt my mates close by but could no longer see them.
“Raven, what the fuck?” Alaric sounded panicked, but I blocked him out.
The sentient magic locked inside me purred in excitement. It knew exactly what to do.
I stood, eyes closed, as my hybrid magic read the intentions of those who wanted to hurt me and mine and acted accordingly.
Horrified screams filled the darkness.
I pushed my magic further, sensing those who lurked out of sight and dealing with them too. Eventually my energy faded and I stumbled, but muscular arms caught me.
“They’re all dead,” Alaric said, his mouth agape. “What kind of magic does this?” Goddess, was that fear I heard in his voice?
I tried to open my eyes to see what he saw, but exhaustion cloaked me like a heavy blanket.
“Rest, little mate.” The scent of my bear—damp forest and fresh pine—filled my nose. “Let us take care of you.”