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 haveconcerned 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?”
