Poison's Kiss (Deadly Beauties 2)

"I'll take you up on your offer," Kane says, bringing my eyes away from Gage and to him.

"My what?" I ask skeptically.

He smiles, taking a step closer as he does. "Your offer to help me. I'll take you up on it. I'll need to be at my strongest when we face whoever this is. Walking through your barricade was harder than it should have been. When do you want to do it? And how?"

He would pick right now to do this. This air is already too thick to breathe as it is.

"Um, it's actually simple. I'll give you a little bit of my blood, and then I'll cast the spell that will free you. We can do it early tomorrow or now. Whichever you prefer."

That leaves me squirming, considering the intimacy required to complete the spell.

"We can do it now and get it over with."

"Your spells won't work on him, Alyssa. He's immune to your magic," Gage quickly interjects, eyeing the night stalker with his best I-want-you-dead glare.

"This one will. It's not from light or dark magic, but from unaligned. I found it in Drackus's library," I insert, deliberately refraining from meeting his eyes.

Gage's jaw tenses, his mind racing to find a way to counter that. He knows he can't. If Drackus's magic worked on Castine, then it'll work on Kane.

"Let's go to the kitchen," I mumble, growing tired of the stifling silence and all the eyes on me.

"Or we could go to my room," Kane seductively releases, bringing me back to a time when I would just dissolve from that tone.

Damn it. I'm still dissolving.

"Hell no," Gage asserts, coming to step between us.

"The last I checked, you blew your chances," Kane quips. "Therefore, you lost your right to object."

"The last I checked, you blew your chances first," Gage growls.

Dray smirks as he leans against the wall, seeming to enjoy this. A dark user and a night stalker are fighting over a light witch. Usually when such a thing is going on, it's because they're fighting about which dark force gets to kill the light one. This is so messed up.

"The kitchen will be fine for this. Stop fighting or I'll kick you both back out."

They both cease fire and Kane trails me as I head into the

kitchen. I turn around to see Gage propping up against the wall, his eyes not moving from me.

"Do we need an audience for this?" Kane asks, his head motioning to a glaring Gage.

"Gage can stay until it's time for the spell, then he has to leave. Otherwise, it could hurt him."

"How?" Gage grumbles. "I've never heard of such a thing, and I've been using magic for a while."

"Have you been around spells thought up by Drackus?" I ask, looking up from the table where I'm assembling the necessary supplies - knife, silver, and a candle.

I know candles are so cliché as far as "witchcraft" goes, but Drackus has a flare for such things. I wasn't surprised when I saw it on the list of ingredients.

Holding the knife to my hand, I shake a little. I look up to see Gage concentrating far too hard on me, making me nervous.

"I changed my mind. You can go ahead and go. I can't do this when you're staring at me."

He huffs slightly and then walks out, disappearing from sight as he goes to rejoin the others. Kane stifles a grin, but I pretend not to notice.

I waft the candle flame, per Drackus's instructions - again, with the cliché theatrics. I let the cool steel bite my soft, still mortal flesh.

The blade burns against my skin as the pain sinks in, but I block it out as the blood pours. The silver - a solid silver coin I keep on hand - goes into my hand so I can cover it in my blood.