Page 147 of Bedeviled

I tilt my head back up to meet his gaze.

“Friends?” I ask, raising my eyebrows.

A muscle in Kane’s jaw flutters. “Friends,” he agrees.

I smile a little. “Yeah, I’d like that, Candy Kane.”

He groans. “Fuck, please, as your friend, I am begging you to kill that nickname.”

“I’ll consider it.”

“Good.” He pulls me in for a hug, and the two of us stay like that for a few moments. “And Selene?” he adds against me. “Be careful out there.”

I don’t get a chance to respond.

Screams rise up from the dining room below, filling the house with an unholy sound.

The two of us meet each other’s eyes, and then we run down the hall. I take the final flights of stairs two at a time, Nero bounding alongside me, until we hit the foyer.

The screams are louder and dread is already coiling in my belly.

What I see in the dining hall nearly brings me to my knees.

Across the room, blood coats the faces of every single person in it.

CHAPTER 36

Poisoned. My coven sisters and their guests have been poisoned.

For a moment, all I can do is take it all in. Blood is pouring from ears and eyes, mouths and noses. It drips on the table, on clothes, onto the food and the floor.

The only creatures that don’t seem to have been affected by it are the familiars. Many of them now dart between tables and chairs, clearly distressed, or else they’re circling in the air above. Merlin is one of them.

My eyes drop from him, and I choke on a cry when I see Sybil, who has fallen out of her seat several tables away.

I run to her, my feet crunching over broken glasses and plates that have shattered in the melee.

Behind me, Kane and Nero follow, and I have a brief moment where I hope my panther can avoid the jagged edges of the smashed dinnerware before I fall to my knees next to my best friend.

“Sybil, I’m right here,” I say as my hands find her body. “I’m going to heal you.”

She chokes out a response, blinking away blood from her eyes as she tries to see me.

“Sawyer,” Kane says dropping to his knees next to me and clasping his fallen packmate’s hand, “I’ve got you.”

Kane glances over at me. “Can you heal them?”

I swallow, taking in Sybil’s bloody face.

“Yes,” I vow as Nero moves to my other side.

Another quick scan of the room makes it clear that I’m the only witch at the moment able to help.

I call on my power, forcing it down my arms and out through my palms.

“Heal,” I incant in Sarmatian as I press my magic into Sybil, willing her body to purge the poison and mend itself.

I sense it sink in, feel it swarm where she’s hemorrhaging, but…