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"It should leave the house and make the person that's your mate's body glow,” she explains.

“What?”

“Like the mixture should crash into them and make them light up," she explains.

The air thickens, and my hairs stand up on the nape of my neck. Yue's hair, already glowing, adds another layer. Silver light outlines her white coils. She whispers words in Nacht, a dead language that only the most powerful witches know as she opens the container. Salt piled high lies inside. She sprinkles it about, her eyes changing to a light purple hue as she does.

Magic crashes into the room, ripping and roaring. Yue places the copper pan in the center and lifts the knife. She pricks her finger, and the odor of iron floods the area. She drips a few drops of blood into the pan. It glows, each one changing into a different hue of purple. She reaches for my hand, raising it into the air. Power from her body slams into mine. My dick jolts, jerking and filling in seconds. My wings tense under my flesh, threatening to burst through my shirt. Yue's magic pours into me, hot and cold at the same time, and I have to grit my teeth to keep from groaning. Pleasure dances along my spin.

Using the knife, Yue cuts my finger as well. I barely feel it. With her assistance, I drop a few droplets into the pan. Each one changes to silver the moment they hit the mixture. Yue starts chanting again, her voice rising and falling. The rhythm makes my bones vibrate. The blood in the pan glows brighter and brighter.

Magic flows through her, lighting her up from the inside. More salt leaves her fingertips, hitting the wide arc around the pentagram. Grains scatter across the chalk lines, sticking to the dark chalk powder. The pentagram in front of me inhales the salt, pulling it further into the circle. Then, the air in the room snaps.

The thick air crashes, rushing into the center of the pentagram. My ears pop, and the salt on the table leaps. They freeze in mid-air, hanging there suspended. Out of nowhere, every single grain of salt, including the pile still left in the original container, explodes upward in a white geyser. It goes straight into the air, hitting the ceiling, and ricocheting in every direction. Plaster cracks, adding to the mess. It rains down on us in a high-pressure spray, coating everything in sight.

"What the fuck!" Yue screams when a chunk of it smacks her in the face. She throws her hands up to shield her face.

A barrel of laughter roars from my chest. Salt is everywhere on my body. It's in my hair, my mouth, and in my clothes. The geyser keeps going, pulsing like a broken fire hydrant, and Yue scrambles, nearly falling out of her chair. She catches herself and stumbles, feet scraping against the salty ass floor.

"Stop laughing and help me!" she yells.

"I can't—" My head falls, and my shoulders shake as I wheeze. "Your damn face."

Yue's usually dark and luminous skin is dusted white, covered in a thick layer of salt. Her coils are stiff with it.

"This is your fault," she hisses, slipping again while her arms windmill.

Without a thought, I rise and catch her before she falls. Salt splashes between the two of us, raining in slow-mo as the geyser dies down. It sputters and hisses before going still.

We stand there in the wreckage of her home, breathing hard while covered in salt. The shit is over every damn piece of her furniture.

“So… I’m assuming that means it didn’t work," I say after a while.

"Hush."

"I’ve never seen it snow salt..."

"Don't."

"Especially not indoors."

"Ekon, I swear if you say another word…” she trails off, licking the salt off her bottom lip.

I snicker.

She shoves me away. "That wasn't supposed to happen."

"You think?"

"I used too much magic last night." She wipes salt from her eyes, glaring at me. "Thanks to someone making me expand the ceiling every five minutes."

"You're saying this is my fault?"

"Didn't I already say that?" She stomps her foot, damn near gliding again.

"Listen, you should stop adding to the ceiling just because I fly against it."

"If I don't and you crash through the roof, that will be your ass and mine."