Page 20 of Trickery

Silently, stealthily, Midea began preparing her spell. It formed into a snarling ball in her hand.

The tension in the air shifted as Azreal realized what Midea was doing. The old witch glared at him. Dare to stop me.

And, holy hell. He did. He stepped between his son and Midea’s hissing, spitting incantation.

“Damien.” His voice, dark and deep, oozed command. It even nudged past the passion swirling on the other side of the room. “Release her.”

“I won’t.”

Midea raised the spell, narrowed her gaze. Azreal, reading the mounting menace, turned to Willow instead. “Girl. Do you care at all for my son?”

Willow glanced from the Great Warlock to Damien and then back again. She nodded.

“Then you need to leave with your mistress, and leave now.” He nodded at Midea and, for the first time, Willow saw the spell crackling there in her hand. “She will destroy him.”

“No.”

“Yes. She will.”

Midea snorted. “In a heartbeat. Now. Willow, walk over here. Slowly. You two,” she waggled a finger at Azreal and his son, “don’t move a muscle.”

With a woebegone glance at Damien—the heartless rake who had seduced her with magic and ruined her chances in the Circle—Willow made her way across the room. And then before Azreal or Damien could stop them, Midea dropped the hissing ball and, in a cloud of obscuring smoke, yanked herself, Skylar and Willow from the realm, through an infinitesimal tear in the Fabric, to the only place a witch could truly be safe from a warlock. The heart of her coven.