Read [Corine Solomon 5] Agave Kiss for Free Online

this? Really? As I rose to try to patch myself together, the strange face in the mirror haunted me. This woman was thin and sickly, her skin nearly green in its pallor. By sharp contrast, my red hair seemed out of place, like a whore selling her wares on the cathedral steps.
    “Corine!” Booke rapped sharply on the door.
    “I’m all right,” I answered.
    By the time I opened the door, he was pacing. “Is this some residual sickness from your trip to Sheol? I’ve never known anyone who went . . . and returned.”
    “Gods, I never thought of that.” Maybe I’d caught some demonic plague while I was there.
    “How long have you been ill?”
    “A day or so. I’m sure it’ll pass. Touch of flu.” Waving a hand, I dismissed the concern in his eyes.
    He didn’t like it but he let me change the subject. “You were about to tell me about your magick, I think.”
    Taking a breath to brace, I related the gist of events since I’d talked to him last: how demons had kidnapped Shannon to draw me into a trap, at which point I followed her to Sheol, and a latent demon queen in my bloodline woke up, controlled me, staged a coup in hell, and then it all went sideways. My throat was hoarse by the time I finished, and I was choking back tears when I concluded with what happened to Chance. Shan had mentioned as much the night before, but she hadn’t provided context. I ended with, “And now my mother’s magick isn’t working. I think I burned it out with demon magick in Sheol. And I don’t know anything about using that for anything but summonings.”
    While it was true that I still had Solomon blood, I wasn’t sure it was a good idea to summon something to break the spell. It might have dreadful consequences, to say nothing of the cost to my soul. But if Booke asked that of me, well . . . at this point, what did it matter? He’d helped me so often . . . and without question, that I wanted to give back. Just . . . not like this. I had some training from Tia in witch magick, but I couldn’t use demon magick to break the curse; I could only summon.
    “That’s a potential solution,” he said, after a long pause. I could see he was weighing the cost to me versus the benefit of ending his long incarceration.
    But it wasn’t the price. Hell, other practitioners already thought I was a black witch. What was one more deal with a demon to help a friend?
    “I have a contact, but I’d rather not call her, as she tends to . . . well, devour people’s souls.”
    Unfortunately, I didn’t have Maury’s true name, or I could summon him to make a deal. But I didn’t know if he had the power to break the spell, and I was unclear on what kind of energy his mate, Dumah, could consume. I was positive she could eat human energy, but what about spells? It seemed like a bad idea to summon her until I did a little research. Fortunately, Booke had an impressive, if untidy, arcane library right at my fingertips.
    “Take your time. It’s rather nice to have company after all these years.”
    “You don’t mind if I do some reading?”
    “Help yourself. Are you hungry?”
    “Not really.”
    “You should eat.” Now he sounded how I imagined my dad would, if he hadn’t gone to Sheol in my place.
    All my life, I thought my father abandoned my mother and me. Instead, he went to the demon realm in my place to protect me from the demons who wanted to use my blood. They’d tortured him in my stead, working to make the ultimate soulstone from the Solomon line; with it, they would’ve had the power to use it to open the gate to this world repeatedly. No limitations. So Albie Solomon bargained for my sake . . . and died in my arms once I freed him from bondage.
    That was another loss, so many— too many. I didn’t welcome this heritage. Kel—a fast-healing, super-strong Nephilim who claimed to be God’s Hand—had said I was destined to be “important,” and I didn’t want that either. On two separate occasions, his