Through all his brothers judging by the grunts that sounded around him.
And Meadow shrieked.
Keras’s gaze darted to her.
To the gate.
Green lightning arced across the rings, sending them haywire. The colours shifted faster and faster, the rings spinning faster with them as bolts of magic chased over them, had some of the glyphs blazing white as others turned black.
“Look what you fucking did, you stupid bitch!” Meadow snapped, her violet eyes blazing as they landed on her witch.
A sizzling bolt of green shot from the gate.
Struck the furie in her back and hurled her forwards. She slammed into the fractured barrier, a pained grunt bursting from her lips. The three demonic brutes were quick to rush to her side, hauling her onto her feet as she muttered things Keras couldn’t quite hear. Violet-black smoke billowed close to her, spreading outwards to form a portal large enough for her and the males.
The redheaded witch made a break for it too, panic lighting her features as she rushed to reach the portal, her fear tainting the air as she reached for Meadow and her demonic bodyguards. “Don’t leave me. It wasn’t my fault.”
Cass raised her hand and a barrier shot up in front of the witch, cutting off her escape.
The witch turned with a snarl and threw her hands towards Cass.
Green lightning shot from the sky, rocketing towards Cass.
Daimon lunged for her as she stared at it.
Keras stepped.
He roared as he appeared in front of her and shoved her backwards, as the bolt struck him and an inferno swept through him.
Followed by darkness.
Beautiful darkness.
He turned on the witch with a snarl, baring his fangs, and launched at her. Her eyes widened and she stumbled backwards, mouthed something that had magic charging the air around her. She didn’t get a chance to finish the spell.
Keras slammed into her, knocking her off her feet, and grinned as his right hand closed around her throat. He shoved her to the ground, his grin only widening as her cry filled his ears, sweet music to his soul. He bore down on her, pinning her with one hand as she struggled, slapping at him, harder and harder, each blow laced with magic that only fed the darkness pouring through him.
Only made him want more.
He slashed at her chest, slicing the shoulders of her black dress, cutting grooves in her flesh that spilled crimson.
Her panic swept over him, a delicious drug that had him clawing at her, grinning as she tried to fight him. She would pay for striking him.
He raised his hand to strike her back, to punch a hole in her pretty skull.
A strong hand gripped his wrist, holding back his blow.
He looked up with a snarl pealing from his lips.
A snarl that died as his eyes met soft jade ones.
“We can use her.” Her voice curled around him, sank deep into his flesh and burrowed into his bones, warming them and chasing away the numbing cold.
The darkness.
He looked back down at the witch as she gasped beneath him, her face reddening as he continued to hold her throat.
Keras yanked his arm free of Enyo’s grip and felt the weight of her gaze on him. Not only hers. His brothers and Cass were watching him too, waiting to see what he would do.
He planted his left hand on the witch’s forehead, splayed his fingers and gripped her hard.
“Sleep.”
The moment that command left his lips, he felt the connection form between them, felt the power flow from him into her, and felt her suddenly relax beneath him.
He released her and sank back, glared down at her as he battled the lingering darkness, fighting to subdue it again.
Enyo was right. The witch was more useful to him alive than dead. Alive she might be able to tell him how to break the spells she had carved into the daemons who protected the furie. Or at least she could tell Cass.
Keras looked at his brothers. Frowned. Daimon clutched his arm as Cass fussed over it, crimson rolling from the long sleeve of his navy roll-neck to drip from his fingers. He wasn’t the only one who had bled. Ares bore a few cuts on his left shoulder that looked like claw marks. Esher had a laceration across his thigh that might have been dealt by either a sword or an axe. Valen sported several wounds, including a nasty looking one that slashed across the side of his neck.
His violet-haired brother placed his hand over it and crimson was quick to squeeze from between his fingers.
The only one who hadn’t bled was Enyo.
He looked down at the tears in his black shirt. He didn’t think the daemons had caused the cuts, felt sure it had been the witch beneath him, but he couldn’t be sure.
He pushed off the witch, pulled his phone from his pocket and messaged Marek. His brother appeared a split-second later with Aiko and Caterina.
Aiko hurried to Valen, clutching a small medical box in front of her, her black pigtails bouncing with each step. Esher growled when she touched Valen’s hand to ease it away from his neck, and she hesitated.
“Sorry,” Esher muttered and scrubbed the back of his neck as he closed the gap between them.
She smiled softly and touched his hand. “I will tend to you next. You look tired.”
He nodded, his face sombre, his blue eyes dull with the fatigue Keras could feel in him.
His brother looked as if he needed a distraction while Aiko tended to Valen, so Keras turned to him and said, “Do you have enough power left to make it rain? We need to clear any blood from this place.”
Esher nodded and a gentle rain began to fall. Ares stepped in to help, burning sections of the grass to destroy not only the daemon bodies that were littered everywhere, but the blood that was soaking into the ground too.
“Take the witch to Scotland.” Keras looked at Marek.
Marek nodded and stooped, grabbed the witch and hauled her over his shoulder.
Cass pointed to a thick leather band around the woman’s wrist, one that had silver metal scrollwork running around it, forming leaves and branches, and ornate clasps that held blue stones that shone faintly in their hearts.
“I would say she is with a Swedish coven. I met a witch once who wore such a protective trinket and she hailed from one deep in the north of that country.” Cass shook her head, her pale blue eyes grave as they shifted from the witch to Daimon. “I worry she is not the only witch seduced by the thought of gaining power and a place in the new world the enemy wants to create.”
“Do you think she can use necromancy?” Keras looked from the unconscious redhead to Cass.
Cass was still for a moment, a thoughtful edge to her expression, and then she shook her head again. “I do not think so. Very few have dared to seek information on the art and I never came across anyone who was looking into it in the time I was studying it.”
“I don’t think so either,” Daimon put in as he frowned at the place where the portal had been and was now gone. “The daemons seemed pretty intent on grabbing Cass.”
That was true.
“I’ll go with you.” Cass took a step towards Marek. “We need to make sure her powers are sufficiently contained so no one can find her and she cannot escape.”
Marek nodded.
Daimon took hold of Cass’s arm and stepped with her at the same time as Marek teleported with Caterina and the witch.
Esher’s blue gaze narrowed on the gate. Keras looked there too. Grimaced at the sight of it.
Glyphs sparked and sent rainbow light arcing across the surface of the half-open gate, and he could feel the power leaking from it. Power that had the grass beneath it blackening.