“Wow,” I gasped, doing a grand job of acting impressed. The demon folded his arms across his scaly chest and threw me a smug look.
“This makes you a princess of the realm, and the heir to the throne.” The demon’s smile turned into a sneer. It was pretty obvious he didn’t see me as the next ruler of hell. Well neither did I, so it seemed we were on the same page.
I pretended to consider his statement while frantically trying to figure a way out of this mess. Only I couldn’t hear anything beyond my own chaotic heartbeat pounding inside my chest. No yelling or screaming. Not even the roar of a hellhound.
Were Adam, Zane, and Willow dead? My lip wobbled, but I pushed that thought down. Now was not the time to havea breakdown. The demon already thought I was pathetic and weak. Okay, so I was both those things, but fake it until you make it, right?
“And what if I choose not to be the next ruler of the hell realm?” I hummed thoughtfully, as if it was a rhetorical question. “I mean…” I ran my eyes down the demon’s body. “You guys arenotmy type, so opportunities for,um, fun, will be limited.”
The demon hissed at my insult. “How dare you!” he seethed. “I am much in demand with the females in the hell realm!”
“Really?” I scoffed. “I find that hard to believe given your questionable level of oral hygiene. Bad breath kills the mood, dude.”
The demon frowned and poked at his teeth before hissing again.
“Enough! I don’t have time for this impudence!” He lunged forward to grab me at the exact moment Kenji blinked into view, landing in my arms with a huff. The demon’s claws hit an invisible barrier. The look of confusion on his face would have been comical if not for the extreme danger I faced.
“You need to channel my power and blast that ugly cuntosaurus with your fire magic,” Kenji advised in a way more serious tone than I was used to. Kenji rarely did serious. Mostly he just mocked me.
“I already tried! It didn’t work!” The demon launched another attack at us, growing angrier by the second. I guessed his all-access pass to the human realm was about to expire. I hoped that meant he’d soon explode and die horribly, but it didn’t seem like the goddess was on my side right now.
“Try again, witch, before we both become demon chow!”
I focused on the magic kernel in my chest. It sputtered into life, and with Kenji in my arms, it burst out in a chaotic fiery tsunami.
The demon turned into a flaming torch. He screamed and flapped around, desperately trying to extinguish the flames.
“At least I didn’t flay you first!” It wasn’t my proudest moment. Kicking a demon while he was down was the sort of thing a witch like Demelza would do. But he deserved it. He’d called me a cunt indemonish. At least I thought he had.
The demon was too busy melting like a wax candle in a heatwave to reply. Kenji and I both watched in horrified fascination while he sank to the ground in a puddle of goo.
It reminded me of a children’s movie Willow and I had watched, where a wicked witch melted. I’d complained at the time that it was liable to give human children PTSD, but Willow had claimed it was a classic much loved by human children.
It was obvious human kids were psychopaths in training if they enjoyed watching witches melt.
By the time the demon fire died, leaving nothing but an oily stain on the ground, I felt sick.
“Are there more demons to melt?” I asked Kenji, but he didn’t reply. I looked down to see he’d fallen unconscious in my arms. “Kenji?” I whispered, praying there were no more demons. I didn’t feel so good.
Kenji didn’t move.
The shadows shielding me faded, revealing a grassy plain strewn with dead hellhounds and demon corpses. But I could barely summon the energy to care about any of that. Not with my familiar lying in my arms, faking death.
At least he better be faking it!
I refused to accept Kenji had sacrificed himself to save me.
“Kenji!” I collapsed to my knees in the charred grass. Rain joined the tears trickling down my cheeks. “Don’t leave me, Kenji!”
My familiar stirred. “Goddess, save me from dramatic witches,” he muttered before opening his eyes and stretching. “Iwas just taking a nap. You took a lot of my magic. A kitsune battery has its limits, you know.” Then he peered down at himself and preened. “Ooh, I leveled up!”
“Oh my goddess, Kenji, I thought you were dead!”
“Pfft. It would take a lot more than you stealing all my power to kill me, witch.”
“I didn’t steal your power; you offered it to me!” I grumbled, squeezing my familiar so tightly he squealed.
“Put me down before you squash my poor bruised body! I need food. Expending this much magical energy has left me weak.”
