Chaos and Ash, page 16
When the last fae hit the ground, its body shriveling and turning to dust, Chaos extinguished our arms and heaved in a breath. “Your body can’t take much more.”
“No kidding.” Fatigue replaced all the excitement. He heaved another ragged breath.
“I’m trying, Ash. I’m trying, but I’m failing.” He scooped his skull from the hatch and tucked it under his arm.
“You’re doing great. Look, you’ve got your skull. Let’s put you back together.”
He huffed. “Ember, you can break the circle now.”
“Can I? It seemed pretty adamant to keep me out.” She rummaged through my satchel for a dissolving spell.
“While she does that, let’s exorcise you.”
“We can’t do it here. You must cast me out in the same place I possessed you if you want to survive the exorcism.”
“Well, shit.”
“Well said.”
The drive home would be forty-five minutes at best. “How much time do we have?”
He hesitated to answer. “Not enough.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“What’s not enough?” Ember cast the dissolving spell and tore through the circle.
Chaos stumbled, and she clutched our arm, sending sharp pain shooting all the way past our shoulder, up the side of our neck, and into our head. He groaned. “Not enough. Time,” he said through clenched teeth. “Get back…to house.” Our knees buckled.
Ember clutched our shoulders, holding us upright. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. You are not burning through my sister right here in the field. You’ve got your skull. Do your thing.”
“Can’t do it here.” He curled our hand, our nails digging into our palm.
My sister’s lips parted, and her head wobbled like a bobblehead doll as she put the pieces together. “Right. Okay, you have to return to the place where you two were bound in order for you to separate completely. We need the spell book too, though it wouldn’t surprise me if Ash had it memorized. Let’s go.”
“I can’t.” We dropped to our knees. Pain ripped through us. Not hot. Not cold. Searing.
“Oh, yes you can.” She tried to drag us up, but the pain overwhelmed us.
I could not go out this way. We’d come too far. We had the friggin’ skull for Hecate’s sake. If only Ember had teleportation powers, we could…wait.
“Can’t demons portal through space?” My voice sounded strained even though my failing body didn’t utter the words.
“Not in this condition.” We dug our fingers into the dirt as another wave of pain crashed through us.
Ember paced in front of us. “C’mon, Ash. You’re a problem solver. How do we fix this?” She dropped to her knees in front of us, pleading with her gaze. “How, Ash? Please?”
“Okay. Umm…” My thoughts swirled, scattering like billiard balls every time I tried to grab hold of one. If only I could freeze them in place for half a second so I could pluck a useful one from the fray. Yes! That was it!
“Tell her to freeze us.”
“Will that work?” he asked, his voice thin.
“It’s the only idea I’ve got, so let her have it.”
“She says freeze us.” We collapsed onto our side and curled like a fetus. I could feel his effort. The strain. He really was trying not to split me open and crawl out of my belly like an alien.
“Right. Of course.” Ember turned my satchel upside down and shook it. Bottles clattered to the ground, and she spread them out. “I’ll never make fun of your label maker again.” She uncorked the bottle, said the incantation, and tossed the dust onto us.
Normally, the binding spell stilled the mind along with the body. I assumed since I was three-quarters of the way to becoming a full-blown demon, Chaos’s magic fought against the enchantment. I wasn’t completely coherent, but the feel of dirt and grass across my backside as Ember dragged us to the van set my nerves on edge. Too many friggin’ fae bites to count sent screams of agony to my brain. I’d need to bathe in antibiotic ointment when this was done.
If I survived.
Ember leaned us against the front tire and opened the van door. Hooking her arms beneath our pits, she hauled us into the backseat. Bottles clanked against bone as she dropped my satchel, filled with potions and Chaos’s skull, on the floorboard, and if I could have winced, I would have. No doubt she’d dumped everything into the center pouch, not bothering to organize anything, but I would deal with that mess later. Hopefully.
“Please let this spell last.” She peeled out of the field, flinging gravel in her wake, and floored it.
“How’s it going?” I asked Chaos, but he didn’t respond. Ember’s spell had rendered him mute like it should have, which was a good thing. The fact I was coherent enough to see the streetlights pulsing through the windows as we whizzed past, not so much.
It should have been a forty-five-minute drive back to Salem. Ember made it in thirty and thank the goddess she did. Right when she stopped in the alley behind our building, my pinkie twitched.
“Just hold on a little longer, Chaos.” I had no idea if my words could soothe the savage beast he—we—were about to become, but I had to hold on to myself too. Talking in my head was the only thing I could do, so I turned into a chatterbox. “Once this is done, I’ll take you out for a steak dinner. Your resurrected body will be starving, right? Do you like beef? We could do seafood if you prefer, but I figure there aren’t any oceans across the veil. Or are there?”
“Here we go.” Ember slid open the door and scooped me into her arms like a baby. If I’d had the use of my words, I’d have asked her why the hell she dragged me across the field if she was strong enough to carry me like this.
She finagled her arm just right so she could punch in the unlock code on the back door. She shoved it open and stepped through, but she didn’t take my lolling head into account. My temple slammed against the jamb, and man, I wished I could groan.
“Sorry.” She turned sideways and slipped inside, slamming the door shut with her foot before carrying me through the library and into my sigil studio.
Ember laid me and the skull on the floor and disappeared into the library before returning with her arms loaded down with supplies. “I’m going to put you in a circle before I unfreeze you.”
Smart move. Who knew what condition Chaos would be in when he was finally free?
“I have to grab the exorcism grimoire. Give me two seconds.” She darted out of the room again.
“One Witchissippi. Two Witchissippi. Huh. She’s late.” Three fingers on my left hand twitched. Sadly, I was not the one controlling them.
My hand curled into a fist. “Chaos…” Molten lava churned in my chest. “Please hold on.” Hellfire rolled through my veins.
“Got it!” Ember raced in and opened the book on the table before flipping through the pages. “Here we go.” She tapped the book and grabbed a canister of salt.
Speaking in Latin, she poured a ring around me, and I prayed to Hecate she was pronouncing the words right. Heaviness built inside the circle as she lit a bundle of sage and wafted it into the four corners of the room. Her voice grew in intensity. The energy inside the circle was suffocating.
“Okay.” She set down the book and her supplies. “That should keep the demon in, but allow a witch to pass through. Is this the exorcism spell?” She held the book toward me, but I couldn’t respond. “I’m unfreezing you in three, two…one.”
She drew her magic inward, and we gasped. “Yes, that’s the spell.”
Dammit. Chaos was still in control. “Let me take over.”
He groaned, tensing every muscle in our body. “I can’t. I can’t stop it.”
“Then I will.” I focused on whatever energy I had left. My own magic mixed with his, making it nearly impossible to tell my fire from the demon’s. Maybe I could use that to my advantage. Did it really matter where the power came from as long as I could claw my way to the top?
No. No, it didn’t.
I latched onto the heat, letting it fuel my consciousness. The hellfire raged, trying to consume me, but I rode it like a wave, letting it raise me higher.
“What. Are you. Doing, Ash?” Chaos ground out.
Ember lips curved into a half-smile. “She’s digging her way to the top.”
“Don’t fight it. Let go.”
“If I let go…” he said through teeth clenched like a vise. “You’ll die.”
“You’re forgetting I’m a Holland witch. Let go.”
He stopped straining. Our breath came out in a rush, and our body sagged. He sucked in a deep breath. The inferno roared.
I took the next breath. And the one after that. I scrambled to my knees, and Ember shoved the book toward me. I recited the words to rip him from my body, my mouth moving so fast I could have been speaking in tongues.
My muscles seized. I couldn’t breathe for one second, two, three, four. Finally I exhaled and drew in another breath. I said the spell again. Then a third time, putting more vim than I had ever dared into the incantation.
A boom so loud it shook the house sounded from somewhere…inside me, outside, I couldn’t tell. The sigil on my arm burned down to my bones, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d have said my entire body turned inside out before righting itself again.
I gasped, my lungs tightening like I’d inhaled fiberglass, and when I exhaled, billowing black smoke rolled out of my mouth and nostrils to swirl around the skull lying on the floor.
Ember grabbed my arm and yanked me out of the circle while a storm brewed inside. Flashes of electricity pulsed and crackled. The dark cloud thickened, spinning like a tornado and gathering above the skull.
My sister’s nails dug into my arm as we both stood there staring, unable to move.
The skull levitated, the tornado drawing it upward into the storm. The cloud took the shape of a man as the skull ascended. It billowed around the bone, and lightning cracked, blinding me for half a second. My vision wavered. The cloud dissipated.
My mouth dropped open at the sight of the demon.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Release me!” Chaos boomed.
I needed to close my mouth, but my muscles wouldn’t obey the command from my brain. Not because the demon had control, but because holy Hecate he was huge.
He stood seven and a half feet tall, with broad shoulders and a barrel of a chest. His skin, the color of red brick, stretched taut over the most defined muscles I’d ever seen. And his horns!
Thick, textured horns extended upward before curling around the sides of his head like a ram. My gaze drifted down his body to his… Oh, my. I swallowed hard, finally regaining my motor skills.
“Holy shit,” Ember said. “That’s what has been inside you all this time?”
I smiled. Hecate knew why, but I smiled. “Isn’t he magnificent?”
“More like the stuff of nightmares.” She clutched her sword and took two steps backward.
I moved toward the circle. “Chaos?”
“Don’t get too close. That perimeter won’t hold him forever.”
“He won’t hurt me. Will you, Chaos?” I didn’t know why, but the temptation to step inside the circle and run my hand over his chest had me toeing the salt line.
“We had a deal, Ash. Let me go.” His eyes glowed green, and his lips peeled back over pointy teeth.
“We need to vanquish him.” Ember paced the perimeter of the circle. “It’s too dangerous. I can feel his power from here.”
He roared and lunged at my sister. She jumped like a frightened cat, but thankfully the circle held him in. “We had a deal.”
“Okay, both of you, take a breath.” I held up my hands. “Nobody’s vanquishing anyone. We did have a deal, and I will uphold my end of the bargain once I’m sure you’ll hold up yours.”
His nostrils flared. “Of course I will.”
“Don’t trust him, Ash.” Ember continued pacing. “Demons are liars.”
“I’m not lying.”
“How do we know?” I crossed my arms.
He closed his eyes like he was trying to calm himself down before he spoke. “We’ve been through this. You released me from prison. I am in your debt.”
“Uh-huh.” Ember stopped in front of him. “How do we know you won’t be like Isabel and kill us so we can’t collect?”
If looks could kill, Ember would’ve been nothing more than a heap of flesh. Chaos grunted at her and then looked at me. “Your arm.”
The sigil pulsed deep red. “Why is that still there?”
“We are still bonded.”
I rubbed the design as if it were drawn on with marker and I could smear it. Needless to say, my effort was fruitless. “Take it off.”
He waited a beat, two, three before he said, “As long as it’s there, I belong to you. If you’re so concerned about me going back on my word, I suggest you keep it intact until this is over.”
I laughed. “You belong to me? As in…”
“I serve you.” He said it matter-of-factly like it didn’t bother him the slightest that he was mine.
For some reason, it didn’t bother me either. I had my very own demon. Woo hoo! “I believe him.”
Ember looked at me like I was the one with horns. “He’s manipulating you. He’s been in your head too long.”
“I’m not,” he growled.
“He’s not.” I tilted my head at Ember. “Trust me.”
“But how do you know?”
“I just do.”
She waved one hand flippantly. “Whatever. But he better find Cinder, or I’m sending him back across the veil where he belongs.”
“Great. Now there’s just one more issue.” I put my hands on my hips. “You’re not going anywhere looking like that. You said you’re a prince, right? Is there a human form lurking anywhere in there?”
He glanced down at his body, curled his meaty hands into fists, and smoke billowed around him again. When it dissipated, he’d shrunk to only six-foot-five. Thick, black hair replaced his horns, and sun-kissed skin covered his muscled frame.
My gaze wandered down his naked form, taking in the perfection that was Chaos. Heat pooled in my lady bits, and my stomach fluttered. When my eyes met his, I forgot to breathe. Emerald green with the same primal intensity as my dreams… Holy mother of magic, he was hot.
And, at least for the time being, he was mine.
A smirk lifted one corner of his mouth, and he arched a brow. “Is this better?”
I licked my lips. “Much.”
Don’t miss Commanding Chaos, Book 2 in the Fire Witches of Salem Series.
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ALSO BY CARRIE PULKINEN
Fire Witches of Salem Series
Chaos and Ash
Commanding Chaos
Claiming Chaos
New Orleans Nocturnes Series
License to Bite
Shift Happens
Life’s a Witch
Santa Got Run Over by a Vampire
Finders Reapers
Swipe Right to Bite
Batshift Crazy
Collection One: Books 1-3
Collection Two: Books 4 - 7
Crescent City Wolf Pack Series
Werewolves Only
Beneath a Blue Moon
Bound by Blood
A Deal with Death
A Song to Remember
Shifting Fate
Collection One: Books 1-3
Collection Two: Books 4-6
Haunted Ever After Series
Love at First Haunt
Second Chance Spirit
Third Time’s a Ghost
Love and Ghosts
Love and Omens
Love and Curses
Collection One: Books 1 - 3
Collection Two: Books 4 - 6
Stand Alone Books
Flipping the Bird
Sign Steal Deliver
Azrael
Lilith
The Rest of Forever
Soul Catchers
Bewitching the Vampire
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Carrie Pulkinen is a paranormal romance author who has always been fascinated with things that go bump in the night. Of course, when you grow up next door to a cemetery, the dead (and the undead) are hard to ignore. Pair that with her passion for writing and her love of a good happily-ever-after, and becoming a paranormal romance author seems like the only logical career choice.
Before she decided to turn her love of the written word into a career, Carrie spent the first part of her professional life as a high school journalism and yearbook teacher. She loves good chocolate and bad puns, and in her free time, she likes to read, drink wine, and travel with her family.
Connect with Carrie online:
www.CarriePulkinen.com
Carrie Pulkinen, Chaos and Ash
