Page 10 of Speak No Evil

“We’ve been patient, Jade. But we cannot allow your insubordination to go on any longer. You must take a mage. Tonight.”

I remember every detail of the unspoken ultimatum, and with it, every stuck, helpless emotion from then slams into me as if I had truly portaled back in time.

My chest turns to cement, and I scan the witches, eyes darting furiously from one to the next, searching for an escape route.

I have to get out of here, as far away from the caged-in feeling that drove me to leave in the first place.

I’m losing it, chest tighter with each second until I can’t get a full breath, just like before. Only now, I don’t have a demon here to help me keep my shit together.

Get it together, Jade. You’re not a new witch. You’re not the same girl they tried to turn into a broodmare.

And the truth of that sinks in, maybe for the first time.

I’mnotthe same girl who fled these people.

I’m a woman, fully in control of her magic and armed to the teeth with demon power.

I let myself chew onthatand not that I’m in the middle of the toxic coven I abandoned a decade ago. And definitely not that they could take my fucking teeth for doing so, right before assigning me a mage to...

I shake the thought out of my head, and my breathing calms, giving way to the low-level hum of anxious dread droning in the background of my thoughts. I take a steading breath and focus on the coven leader a mere six feet in front of me.

I swore to myself if I ever saw her again...

Things really went to shit when she came into power. She was only the coven leader for the Demonic Bloodline witches, but her ideology had a ripple effect throughout all twelve covens. Even Claudia, the Supreme Coven leader, did nothing about Kayla’s extremist methods.

She comes closer, meeting my gaze before surveying me fully.

“Kayla.” It’s a greeting, a threat, and a promise, all wrapped up in the two simple syllables of her name.

She stares at me, saying nothing.

Kayla has always been a beauty, with honey-blonde hair and striking feminine features that match her soft, feminine name.

Such a shame she only wears her lovely face in a mask of arrogant superiority. Like now, she surveys me with a curled lip and raised brow, disdain so clear, she has me looking down to make sure I don’t have a tit out.

I don’t. She’s just appalled by the silk robe I’d thrown on to get breakfast.

I give her a one shoulder shrug and roll my eyes. “If I had known my former coven planned to hijack my portal, I would have put on my Sunday best,” I say with a hefty slathering of venom, despite still wanting to crawl out of my skin to get away from her.

Kayla ignores me to eye my neck, her lips pressing together with more disapproval.

I can’t help the hard swallow that follows, or keep my hands from twitching behind me as my body floods with adrenaline.

As if she can sense it, Kayla steps forward, her black lace chemise billowing out behind her. “You reek of demons and sex, Jade.”

“A well-known side effect of fucking demons,” I say, hoping the sharpness covers the quiver in my voice I can’t quell. Because even after all this time, and even with a truck-load of demon magic, Kayla still scares the shit out of me.

She sucks in a melodramatic gasp and grabs my chin. “Goddess, what have you done to yourself?” Her repeated words grate me the exact wrong way, and I twist my face out of her grasp.

“Oh, come on. Don’t tell me you’ve never fucked a demon. We are demonic witches, after all.”

“I’m not talking about the bruises, Jade.”

I don’t engage, opting instead for a dead-eyed stare.

“Your teeth, witch! What have you done to your beautiful teeth?”

“Oh, that.” I smile, running my tongue along the blunted top row. “I did that so long ago, I hardly think about it anymore.”