Lethal Blow: (Succubus Hitwoman Book 2) by Eliza Hendrix (best motivational books to read TXT) 📗

and Veerka, in preparation for a fight. She parts her crimson lips, a catlike hiss aimed at Drax. The moment he sees her, he instinctively pulls his upper lip over his giant row of incisors—a look I rarely have the pleasure of seeing.

“Guys!” I shout, and Veerka and Drax turn toward me, the aggression on their faces vanishing as fast as it appeared.

Slowly, Veerka unclenches her fists, no doubt sensing that I know him.

But before she can interrogate me on who this lizard-man is, I throw my arms over my head. “What the hell are you doing here, Drax?”

He gasps hard to catch his breath and points backward into the portal. But before he can explain anything, a thick leather book comes hurling out of the portal and hits him square in the face. His big head rocks back and his eyes go crossed, then the stumbling starts up again.

The book lands hard on the floor, making a smacking sound.

Shit.

The Book of Origin.

The same book I may or may not have stolen from Rachel, the inexperienced teenage witch. I promised to give it back to her if she helped me reach Veerka with her portal. She did exactly that, so Drax gave her the book about a week ago. So what the fuck is going on? Why is he stumbling out of one of Rachel’s portals with her book?

A high-pitched scream fills the air around us and out from the portal comes Rachel. I’d recognize that wiry, port-red hair anywhere, along with that little minion of hers, Riskus.

She waves a stick in the air—maybe it’s a wand—and shouts something that sounds like a mixture of Latin and Russian. Maybe it’s Witch Speak. Who knows? Beside her, Riskus does the same, only without a wand. He reaches into a leather pouch on his belt, extracts a purple powder, and throws the dust at the swirling portal.

Rachel jabs her wand into the gaping hole and shouts, “Exitrus!”

At once, the portal flickers, but right before it’s about to close, a huge red talon comes reaching through it, its massive claw catching Rachel’s shirt.

Holy mother of…

One of its claws alone is half the size of Rachel’s body. She screams as the tip of it pulls her by the shirt, dragging her backward and into the closing portal.

“Master!” Riskus shouts.

He throws himself at her leg, but he’s too small and light to be of any help at all. Instead, he gets dragged along with her, squealing and kicking his tiny childlike legs.

Drax and I bolt toward them. As I extract my wrist blades, Drax grabs Rachel around the torso, digs his feet claws into the roof’s cement, and pulls back as hard as he can as if playing a game of tug-of-war. It doesn’t do much, but it’s enough to slow everything down.

With my blade, I slice downward through Rachel’s shirt right before she disappears into the swirling hole. She falls flat on her butt, as do Riskus and Drax, and with a soft swoosh, the portal disappears, along with the monstrous talon.

Before any of them can go on about how none of this was their fault, I slap one hand on my right hip and glare down at all three of them. “What in the actual fuck?”

Veerka’s eyes narrow on me. “For Christ’s sake, Alexis, she’s only a child.”

“Only a child?” I say, mimicking her British accent. At once, I realize how petty and condescending this is, so I stop doing it. “She’s a fuckin’ witch is what she is!”

Veerka hisses, her lips curling over her upper teeth.

“Oh, right,” I say. “I forgot how witches and vampires are taught to hate each other.”

Rachel crosses her arms over her chest and stares back at Veerka like she’s trying to challenge her. I don’t get what her deal is. It’s not like she knows anything about vampires, so she has no reason to hate them. But I suppose Veerka’s aggressive stance is enough to put Rachel on guard.

“Would you two relax?” I say. “We’re all on the same page. And speaking of pages, what the fuck, Rachel? What’re you doing here, and why’s your stupid book at my feet?”

“It isn’t stupid,” she says, her voice full of her typical teenage attitude. She reaches down, scoops up her book with both arms, and scowls at me.

My gaze shifts over to Drax, who raises his hands to either side of his face as if to say, I didn’t do anything.

“Would someone please tell me what the hell’s going on?” I snap.

Rachel points a finger at Drax. “It’s his fault!”

Drax crosses his arms and scowls like a five-year-old.

“Drax?” I say, trying hard to keep calm.

He throws a hand toward Rachel. “One of the pages fell out of the book in your apartment. It must have come out when I pulled it out of your closet last week. So she”—he narrows his eyes with even more intensity at Rachel—“decides to come looking for it with no warning. I was in the middle of watching Breaking Bad, high out of my mind, when she appeared in front of the fucking television. Scared the shit out of me.”

I turn to Rachel. “You portaled into my apartment uninvited?”

She shrugs. “It’s an important page. I couldn’t find it anywhere in my room, so I figured maybe it fell out at your place.”

Pinching the bridge of my nose, I sigh and turn back to Drax.

“Anyways, I found it,” he continues. “The paper was blank and old-looking, so I don’t get what she was freaking out about.”

“It wasn’t blank,” Rachel says coldly. “It was a protection spell.”

“No, it was bl—”

“Maybe to you, because you’re a freaking lizard demon who can’t read magic!”

“Guys!” I shout.

“Someone started knocking hard on your door,” Drax continues. “I mean, it