Page 9 of The Fate of Black Hearts

Few mages existed. Those who did were far more powerful than a witch. They could wield all the elements at will, unlike witches, whose magic relied on spells and potions.

He might kill her regardless of the rescue based on inherent interspecies hate.

She kept the dagger in her hand. No one knew she’d trained in secret with her brother to learn combat. Tutoring a female to fight was an act punishable by death according to the Lycan Council. The secret had died with her brother several months ago.

I should run.

Yet, she remained frozen. He appealed to her on levels that defied self-preservation. She had nothing to lose by tempting him to kill her. Death would spare her from the fate of the mating that loomed ahead of her like a dark void.

“Do you think rescuing me is like saving a pixie? I don’t grant wishes.” His accent was unfamiliar to her. Eastern European, perhaps.

He stood to tower over her, not that she was short, but she also wasn’t considered tall for her kind. All humans and lycans she’d known seemed painfully mundane in comparison to the aura and strength of this exceptional being.

His eyes sparkled as if they’d captured all the nearby light…dark and frighteningly alive. “I won’t be the one to spare you from your future. We’re doomed to play out the rubbish the Fates set in motion for us.” His voice trailed off. He squinted at her as if she’d suddenly become a curiosity. “Like you being here at this precise moment.”

Had he read her mind about her future?

With a slow turn, he scrutinized their surroundings. “It’s not gone.”

He ducked down to grab a white rock. With it, he drew a circle around them. The line barely registered on the wet cobbled road.

“What’s not gone?”

“The demon those reckless witches conjured.” He pushed her behind him. “Stay in the circle. Don’t talk to it.”

The wraith-like creature appeared. It cocked its head and stalked halfway around the circle. Then it disappeared.

The two of them spun, but he kept her behind him.

“Are you sure it’s a demon and not a wraith?” she whispered. Wraiths were the afterlife incarnation of a witch who attempted to achieve immortality by use of dark magic. Instead of moving on to the spirit world, the witch’s soul became confiscated for casting the forbidden. Most wraiths were consumed by anger and hatred.

It reappeared on the other side of the circle and laughed. “You wish me to look like a wraith?” It cackled and changed to have a skeletal face with corpse-like legs and hands.

“I asked that younotspeak to it,” he snapped.

“I was talking to you, not it.”

“It’s a demon.” He rotated to keep her behind him as the demon paced around the circle. The stench of rotting sewage rolled her stomach. She couldn’t get a good look at it from her post behind the mage, but everything turned colder to the point her extremities tingled with numbness. Shivers took over. A sense of desolation settled into her gut. To distract herself, she stared at the white circle that the rain did its best to wash away.

“I need your knife,” the mage whispered out of the corner of his mouth. “You might want to die, but this would be a bad death.”

She handed him the blade.

He chanted in Latin.

“Hunc daemonem unde exiit.” Banish this demon from whence it came.

“Sanguinem eius accipias tesseram ad solam lucem prolatam.”Accept its blood as a token to bring forth only the light as spoken.

The demon thrashed and emitted high-pitched noises.

The mage took a step that almost put him over the edge of the circle. She grabbed him around the waist to hold him in the circle. Everything about him was solid and warm to the point of being nearlytoohot.

“What are you doing?” He pushed on her hold around him.

“You almost stepped outside the circle.” She banded her arms tight around his waist.

“Are you…” He craned back to stared wide-eyed ather. “Are you worried about me?”