There was no point in replying to Belinda. It had already been made abundantly clear that Belinda wasn’t aware of anything that was actually going on in this room. Felicity still frowned and asked, “What the hell are you talking about?”

  A creeping sensation was marching up her spine. It reminded her of the book she’d taken from Eleanor’s lab. And she didn’t know why.

  Belinda suddenly laughed. “You want to know what I’m talking about, don’t you?”

  Felicity didn’t stiffen. Belinda had not just heard her. That was evidenced by her tone. She was just doing a relatively okay job of predicting what Felicity would say.

  “We who are born into privilege have it literally written into our blood.”

  Felicity hadn’t attacked the smoke spell. She did now – on the premise that privilege was stamped into their blood. It had to be a veiled comment about the blood spell haunting Broadstone.

  “The truly powerful families have the capacity to take the sacrifices of those around them, reuse their blood, and create powerful, permanent spells.”

  Felicity reached a hand out. She grabbed the root of the smoke spell, and she practically snapped its neck. One minute it was raging through the room – the next it fizzled out.

  Felicity took a violent step forward. “What the hell are you talking about, Belinda? What the hell are you talking about?” Felicity roared.

  Belinda let out another laugh, indicating she had no clue that Felicity had just blasted through two of her spells.

  “My four things,” Belinda said, her voice somehow dismissive yet full of pride, “were gifted to me from childhood. They came from men who gave their loyalty to my father. In return for that loyalty, he gave them immortality by turning them into spells.”

  Felicity couldn’t move – even as another spell started to shift through the room. This one tried to wrap around her like a boa constrictor. It went for her throat. She let it take root and twist. All the while, she just stared.

  “Sorry, I tell a lie. I didn’t inherit one of my spells. I created the last. Aaron Whiting was his name. He thought he loved me. And he did – he must’ve done – because I managed to create a powerful blood contract with him.”

  “You killed your boyfriend?” Felicity spat at the room.

  That spell was still trying to strangle her. It just kept squeezing against her protection spell and getting nowhere.

  “That’s why you have no chance, Mary,” Belinda snarled. “Because you have no right to have a chance. It’s a shame to waste you, really. You should have given me your loyalty – then I could’ve immortalized you.”

  “Like hell – that would never have happened.” Felicity finally reacted. She locked her fingers around the constriction spell and yanked it off her throat. She held the magic stiffly until it was her turn to squeeze. There was nothing the spell could do. It shattered.

  It was seriously stronger than the previous two spells. As it broke apart, the room shook.

  “You should never have gotten ideas above your station,” Belinda snarled. “If you’d just kept your head down, I wouldn’t have had to do this to you.”

  Felicity felt the final spell starting to pick up through the room. Horror gripped her – and it wasn’t at the prospect that this spell would be more powerful than the previous three. It was at the promise of what she would soon see.

  Sure enough, an environmental spell didn’t appear this time. Several meters behind her, she started to feel a body forming.

  Slowly, as if a little part of her had died at the prospect of what she would see, she turned.

  And there was a student.

  He had a kind, broad smile, wide eyes, and floppy hair.

  He was also clearly dead. What Felicity was looking at was nothing more than a magical imprint.

  “Aaron?” she tried.

  He didn’t react.

  “I’m going to let you in on a little secret that very few mundane witches like you know. It is the right of every truly privileged elite to create their own blood contracts. It is a rite of passage, if you will. The more you can get someone to fall in love with you, the more magic you can get from them when you ultimately sign them over to the blood contract. And Aaron? He was foolish enough to love me with all his heart. I can still remember the day I picked him out of a crowd. He looked like he’d won the lottery.” Belinda laughed.

  Felicity stood there, cold and dead. She stared at Aaron, and this niggling thought rose.

  She had to push it away. Because it had to be wrong.

  It had to be.

  “Can you believe that Jake didn’t want me to do this?” Belinda continued her one-sided conversation. “He actually wanted to make you fall in love with him. He thought you’d make an excellent blood pact. But I don’t think you’re even worth that. It’s time to wipe you from the face of Bridgestone’s history.”

  Aaron hadn’t done anything but stand there. Now, he thrust forward. He still had exactly the same expression. It was easy, almost caring, almost loving. It was completely disassociated from his actions.

  He came for Felicity’s throat.

  She ducked back.

  Just before he could reach her, she rolled onto her back, punched to her feet, flipped, and put some distance between them. She landed with one hand on the ground. She tipped her head back and stared into Aaron’s dead gaze as he came at her again.

  “Fools like you always think you can take on this school and its grand heritage. You think you can usurp the natural order,” Belinda growled. “You have no idea what you’re up against. Now, enjoy your death. This is my first time killing, believe it or not. It was you who drove me to it. It was you who finally made me understand that the order of things must always be kept, regardless of how much blood you have to get on your hands.”

  With that, Belinda’s voice cut out.

  Aaron threw himself at Felicity again.

  She rolled back and dodged. She didn’t bother trying to reason with him. He was nothing more than an imprint.

  She also didn’t bother fighting. She knew she would have to destroy the spell to get out of here. But she just… she couldn’t.

  She was stuck on what Belinda had said.

  Rite of passage…. Each of the truly privileged went through a right of damn passage….

  Felicity had never been able to understand why Damien had picked her. It had just suddenly happened. And she’d been so thankful.

  She’d never received love like his before. It had given her wings when all the rest of the school had wanted to do was kick her down.

  She’d lain awake so many nights wondering what he’d seen in her. She hadn’t been pretty, she certainly hadn’t been rich, and she hadn’t been powerful, but—

  Aaron suddenly changed direction. He did it with no warning. He was beside her, then he twisted in an expert move that would make even a demon blush, and he came at her from the left.

  There was nothing Felicity could do, and she was struck across the side of her face. She went flying. She smashed into the floor. She didn’t have time to get up – Aaron was already upon her.

  He secured his ghostly hands either side of her body, and he brought his face down. His expression hadn’t changed at all. It was still blankly polite and loving. It was as if Belinda had frozen him in that state like a photograph.

  Magic started to discharge out of him. It was seriously powerful – enough that it didn’t just pulverize the floor beneath her, but it frigging atomized it. Heat and force blasted around Felicity. If it weren’t for her protection spell, she would’ve received critical burns.

  She brought her knee up. She had to use all of her magic to sink it into his chest and thrust him back. Even then, she only just managed to break his grip. He buckled forward and locked his hands back into the gouged-out holes in the floor beside her.

  Felicity could feel her seals vibrating. It would be Lucifer reminding her to call on him. He’d said as much earlier when he’d helped her break through that spell.

  Felicity just had the room to bring her hand up and breathe on her seal.

  She had an opportunity, too.

  … Yet she didn’t.

  She screamed. She tried to push him off again, but Aaron was stronger. He wasn’t a person. He was a form imprinted over a spell, so he didn’t have the same weaknesses she did. As she kicked him hard in the chest, he did nothing but tighten his grip.

  Again magic surged out of him.

  Her protection spell broke. The force of his attack slammed into her.

  At first, her uniform valiantly tried to protect her, but when the brunt of the force became far too much for it, it began to sizzle and burn right against her skin.

  Her seals vibrated with even more power. Lucifer was now practically begging her to call on him.

  … And yet she still didn’t. She tried to push Aaron off again.

  But again it didn’t work.

  Felicity hadn’t been properly injured in a fight for a long time. Her record streak ended right then and there as magic rocketed into her chest.

  Burns blasted up her cheeks, spread down her neck, covered her chest, and rose up her arms like flame marching along a wick.

  She screamed.

  Her seals felt like they would tear her wrists in two. But she still didn’t call on Lucifer’s power.

  What… what if the thing she was trying not to face was true? What if she’d never meant anything to Damien and she’d only ever been there for his blood contract?

  Though Felicity had just learned about blood contracts, she knew one thing that was germane to all types of magical contracts – if you had any kind of contract on you, a demon would know. It was part of their business. They couldn’t contract someone who already had an existing deal with another demon.

  Felicity didn’t understand how it worked, but when someone had a contract on them, they just knew.

  They also knew when someone had dibs on someone else and they planned to create a contract on them.

  Before you contracted someone, you had to cast certain invisible prep spells on them. It would allow the contract to be written into their very body.

  If Damien… if Damien really had approached Felicity simply to create a blood contract out of her after he’d made her fall in love with him, then Lucifer would’ve known. He would’ve been able to smell the prep spell.

  Aaron suddenly jolted forward and wrapped his hands around Felicity’s throat. She tried to throw him off – she couldn’t.

  He just had so much concentrated magic.

  The burns started to eat deeply into her skin. Her body began to shake. She could barely breathe anymore.

  Yet all the while, she didn’t call on Lucifer.

  He wouldn’t have known, right? And if he had known, he would’ve told her, right?

  Right?

  Thus far, Aaron hadn’t said a word. Now he shifted forward just before he choked the very life out of Felicity. “My love says you cannot live. You have wronged her, and all who wrong her deserve to die. No one must stand in her way.” His voice was empty. There was no life there. He was worse than an artificially generated voice.

  As Felicity stared up into his face, tears streaming down her cheeks and sizzling against her hot skin, she wondered if she would’ve turned out just like Aaron. If Damien had had his way, would she have stuck by his side as a powerful spell that would emptily pronounce his every word as she meted out punishment to his enemies?

  No. Not Damien.

  He’d loved her, right?

  “No one can stand in my love’s way,” Aaron stated. He twitched his fingers all the way in.

  The fear of imminent death blasted through Felicity. She wasn’t aware of her seals at all anymore. Heck, her whole body felt as if it was being pulled in one direction as her mind was disappearing off in another.

  No one could stand in Belinda’s way?

  No one could stand in the elites’ way?

  Bullshit.

  Goddammit, that was wrong – because everything about this situation was just so wrong.

  Before Felicity could completely give up, she traveled right down to the depths of her anger. Rage had always been her realist friend. It had gotten her through a lot in the last three years. And if she really ticked her mind back and surveyed her life before she’d fled Broadstone, she realized that rage had always been her constant companion. She’d just never found a way to express it until Damien’s death.

  Now it rose in her like an unstoppable fire.

  One more time she sunk her knee into Aaron’s chest. This time she put every single gram of energy she had into the move, and she screamed.

  All the bullshit that had happened to her – and all the lies that she’d been told – traveled into that scream.

  She threw Aaron off.

  This time he didn’t jolt back a few mere centimeters and come at her again. He was thrown clear across the other side of the room.

  Felicity pushed to her feet. She should be shaking. Critical burns covered her entire torso, arms, and face.

  She wouldn’t let herself shake yet.

  She’d dropped her wand when Aaron had attacked. She didn’t bother to pluck it up.

  She opened her mouth, and she screamed again. She let it all out until the room pulsed with the energy of her rage. It was her turn to throw herself forward.

  Aaron wasn’t real. So what she was about to do would not be killing him. Hell, it would be setting his memory free. His family would presumably have been told some lie that he’d died in an accident. They’d have no clue that the memory of their son was being used to protect the very person who’d condemned him.

  Enough. It would end today.

  Felicity didn’t bother to dodge to the side even as Aaron swiped a hand at her and a magical wave blasted through the room. She took it right on her chest even though it did more damage.

  She reached him.

  She rolled her shoulder, smashed into his side, and knocked him back onto the floor.

  He just spread his fingers and sent magic pulsing out in all directions. Again, Felicity just took it. It blasted into her chest, ricocheted up her throat, and blistered her cheeks.

  If she hadn’t taken that exact moment to squeeze her eyes closed, she would’ve been blinded.

  Aaron brought his hands up and locked them around her throat. She didn’t shrug his move off. She reached down and locked her hands around his throat.

  The rage just built and built. It sailed through Felicity, reaching a height she’d never thought possible. Different creatures felt different emotions. And the purity of their emotions depended on how powerful they were. As Felicity had already said, the last three years of her life had been built on nothing but anger. But what she felt now was in a different category. It was like she’d tuned in to the injustice felt by every single human being – the historic storehouse of all of humanity’s wrongs.

  She let it feed her, even as Aaron’s fingers tightened around her throat then tightened more.

  She couldn’t breathe. She didn’t need to. In that moment, she honestly didn’t care if she went out killing him. She wouldn’t let Broadstone screw with another person’s life.

  Not. Ever. Again.

  With one earsplitting scream, Felicity focused all her mind on her anger. It rushed through her. It reached a level of magic she’d never known she’d had. Just before Aaron could snap her neck, she snapped his.

  This dull click echoed through the room.

  His hands fell off her. They didn’t flop limply to his sides – they just started to disappear.

  She’d reached right in and snapped the root of the spell.

  Now right beneath her, it was just erased as if someone was washing paint off the wall.

  She just kneeled there over him as his body disappeared. The last thing to go was his placid, loving smile. As soon as it disappeared, Felicity flopped back.

  She started to breathe. It was almost impossible. Her throat was half closed off. She brought up a shaking hand and let her fingers trail down her skin. It was so raw and blistered, it was like it was wood someone had set a blowtorch against.

  Felicity’s seals were hot as if they’d been vibrating with all their might. A second later, she felt something start to appear beside her.

  It wasn’t Lucifer, even though she could tell he wanted to come in person. Perhaps even he couldn’t blast through the magical defenses of Broadstone’s basements.

  She turned and stared at his phone as it began to ring. She watched it as tears trailed down her face. It rang out. Immediately, it began to ring again.

  Felicity knew how her life worked now. She belonged to Lucifer. All of the junk about her being attracted to him aside, he was her demon and she was his witch. She had to do what he said, or there would be consequences. Deadly ones.

  But Felicity Smith could not pick up the phone. She pushed to her feet.

  And she staggered away.

  Everyone had been lying to her, and at the heart of those lies was Lucifer himself.

  The end of The Demon’s Witch Book Two.

  The Demon’s Witch Book Three

  The Demon’s Witch Book Three

  Felicity has no clue who to trust anymore. If she makes a mistake, it will get her killed. Or worse – she’ll let herself be used.

  She can’t stop, and she can’t run away – Magnum Optimus won’t let her. It senses her strength, and it will do anything it can to acquire her, no matter the costs.

  1

  Felicity had precious little magic left. She was also injured, she could barely think. But that did not mean she turned around, brought her wrist up, and breathed on her seals.

  She staggered back in the direction of where the stairs had once been. The moment she’d fallen into this basement level, they’d disappeared. That didn’t mean they’d been completely written out of the room’s structure. Something was just obscuring them.

 

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