The hybrids offer me a quick thanks, then speed off in search of another target. A few feet away, three Panthera citizens face off against a witch, her all-black leathers shielding her from everything they fire at her. I watch in horror as she hurls a writhing ball of black magic at the group and finds her mark, catching a female hybrid in the gut. Her body thuds as it hits the ground.
Asmo leaps into the air and shifts into his serpent form. He races to the witch and rips her head from her body. I blink. Between the shadow sword and whatever that was, just how powerful is Asmo? Someone screams for help, and it snaps me out of my thoughts. I rush to the fallen female, who now lays still. I close her eyes and commit her face to memory.
“Watch out!” someone shrieks. Two cambions race toward me. These fucking things.
I summon water and douse them, then summon an icy wind to freeze them. I stab both of them where their eyes should be, and they explode into icy shards.
A witch jumps from a nearby roof and lands directly on Asmo’sserpentine back. He thrashes, but it’s no use. Her sharp nails are embedded into his scales. If she summons her magic…
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
The square blurs past me and I jump onto Asmo’s back, then pounce on the witch’s. She wrenches herself from Asmo’s scales and reaches back for me, razor-sharp nails grazing my cheek. I hiss as pain erupts and the warmth of blood spreads. Asmo writhes beneath me, and the witch and I go flying.
My head smacks onto the street with a burst of pain. I blink furiously, hot blood pouring down my face. The witch reaches for me, and I brace for the feeling of her nails raking across my skin again. But it doesn’t come. A sword slashes through her neck, and her head goes flying. A blond Fae male stands behind her, holding an enormous sword, now covered in the witch’s blood. His golden hair reminds me of August, but his eyes are pits of black. He offers me a bloodstained hand and helps me to my feet.
Four witches down.
“You okay?” he asks.
I nod. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it,” he says before taking off and disappearing into the crowd.
Nearby, a Lower House hybrid is in a losing battle against another witch, barely able to fend off the her blows as she advances upon him. Asmo slithers toward them, unlocking his massive jaw and sinking his teeth into the witch’s side. She shrieks and tries to turn, to escape, but she can’t.
Her shriek turns into a full-blown scream when she sees me running toward them. Music to my ears. My flames already burn on my palms. I shove them down her throat, suffocating her and burning her from the inside out. She stops squirming, and I pull back my fire before it reaches Asmo. It wouldn’t be very helpful if I set him on fire before we had a chance to figure out what’s between us. He shifts back into his human form. The witch tumbles to the ground as his fangs disappear.
His hands fly to cup my face. “Shit,” he curses as he surveys the cut on my cheek.
“I’m fine,” I say, shaking his hands off me, but the movement makes my cheek throb. “Only five more,” I say.
“You’ve been keeping count, princess?” he asks with a smirk, but he watches me carefully.
A massive black bat shrieks through the air, swooping down with large, membranous wings. Asmo and I duck, narrowly avoiding his reaching claws. If I were in my actual body, he would have struck my antlers.
“What the fuck are those things?” I hiss as I watch it circle the sky.
“Drabar,” Asmo says grimly.
It swoops from the sky and hovers over two witches standing on a nearby roof, who both fire at citizens on the ground.
“Cowards,” I mutter as I scan the scene. “They won’t even come down and fight.”
“Then let’s go to them,” Asmo says with a wicked grin.
My eyes catch on a group of cambions surrounding three Lower House members. They stand with their backs against each other as they try to fight the cambions off, but there are too many. They’re going to be overwhelmed in a matter of seconds.
“Meet you there,” I say, leaving him and rushing toward the crowd of devil children, daggers drawn.
I slash the necks of two cambions simultaneously, then stab two more. Some of the hollow-eyed freaks turn to me, giving the Lower House hybrids the perfect opportunity to strike with their backs turned. More cambions fall to the ground. I summon fire and torch them, risking no chances of them popping back up.
One of them leaps up and sinks its sharp teeth around a female hybrid’s exposed arm. She screams and tries to pull it from her arm, but the cambion is latched onto her.
A flash of red hair flits in my mind, but it’s not Elle being bitten this time. I shake the memory away and rush to the hybrid. The cambion dies with a burst of ice and the kiss of my dagger.
It crumbles away from her. “Thanks,” she says, exhaustion lining her voice. She turns away from me and strikes another cambion, sword embedding in its neck.
I scan the scene. Asmo is locked in battle with the two witches on the roof, but I don’t see the remaining witches.
