The magic inside me immediately swirls up and pain tears into my fingers.
“Do not touch him,” Torin growls as he races toward the monster, but he can’t do anything to stop it. When I look over at the Door, the man is dragging himself through it, like he’s fighting against something trying to keep him inside.
Hurriedly backing away from the wolf, I turn to the Door, holding my hand out with the intention of trying to destroy the Door with my magic. The vines wrap around me as I realize that they’re planning on dragging me through the Door. My hand slams against the edge of the Door that feels solid, created entirely by magic, and I press my finger against the third notch in my pendant, hoping that my ice shards can shatter the Door before I’m dragged even farther.
I know that I need to do something and I need to do it now, but my fear over leveling the building makes me hesitate. Kit cries out and tries biting the vines, but even her sharp teeth can’t get through them.
The man’s hand wraps around my neck, and the magic that hits me is nothing like it was before. The previous magic that invaded me was a joke compared to what’s flowing inside me. It swells up until I feel like I’m drowning beneath its power. I feel like I could level the entire city with this much magic flooding through my body. Thankfully, my finger is already on that third notch because I’m not sure I could have pulled my pendant free in this state.
But it’s as though my own magic is unreachable, and the man pulls me toward the Door a second before that scythe rips through the air in front of us. The Doorshatters,and the magic is torn from this room as the man is driven back. The vines that were wrapped around me are severed and turn to dust when they hit the ground, and the wolf dissipates into nothing. The Door shuts and turns to dust with the man nowhere in sight.
The lights flicker back on and my legs give out.
“Fuck, fuck,” I mutter as Torin eases me down while I shake. “I need to get rid of this magic. Quickly.” My hands are shaking as the magic pulses through me.
He picks me up and rushes out into the hallway where we damn near slam into Ms. Percy. I grab her, positive the last thing I want to do is seduce someone, but if it means washing away this other magic, I’ll take it. The magic hangs on tight, but after a moment it finally loosens its grip on me and I can breathe again.
“Dammit,” I mumble as I drop from Torin’s arms, pleased when my legs can hold my weight.
“What the hell happened?” Ms. Percy asks.
“Something not good,” I say as my fingers ache, but not as badly as they would if I’d used the foreign magic. “Is everyone okay?”
“They seem to be. I’m evacuating the building.”
“Good,” I reply.
We don’t even make it up to the ground floor before the Magical Interference Unit is on the scene. Always too late to help but right on time to clean up my mess.
“What happened?” Imani asks me.
“Another Door was opening up. Same person was trying to get through. Do you know who they are or what they want with our realm?”
Imani shakes her head as Vinny hurries up and looks me over. “You’re bleeding.”
“It’s just a scratch.”
He cocks his head and then smiles fondly at me. “I wouldn’t mind playing doctor with you.”
Imani appears offended, glowering at Vinny and shoving him back before looking at me. “Only if I can be your nurse.”
Torin snatches me up before either of them can touch me. “I read this in one of your sex books! They are trying to fuck you!”
“No, they’re not, they’re…” I… don’t actually know what they’re doing. And then it dawns on me why two of my closest friends who haveneverexpressed any sexual interest in me are now looking at me with half-lidded eyes, which I guess… is their attempt at looking sexy?
“I will nurse your body back to health and make you beg. I know just how you like it,” Imani says.
“Oh, they’re horny,” Torin unhelpfully adds in English.
“Not before I give you a nice big poke with my needle right in your perfect ass,” Vinny says with a leer. I hastily smack a hand down on Vinny, who has one too many buttons open on his shirt.
His magic erases the succubus magic, and I’m left staring at two rather ashamed people. Oddly enough, neither seem to want to look me in the eyes.
“What was that… what were you going to do to me? Vinny? Vinny, what were you going to do to my ass? Imani, how were you going to make me beg? What was I begging for, exactly? How exactly do I like it?”
Vinny, who has apparently decided that he hasn’t even seen me yet today, goes, “Oh! Riley! There you are! Good to see you for the first time today.”
“After you made the entire unit proposition you just last year, you promised us you’d never borrow the succubus’s power again,” Imani says.
