Spells of Blood and Kin Read Online Free PDF Page A

fingertip over the split knuckles of Maksim’s right hand.
    â€œI broke your door.”
    â€œHaven’t seen you lose your temper in so long, I didn’t know if you were capable of it anymore,” Augusta said. “It’s kind of a relief. You’re not so much better than me, after all.” She raised Maksim’s hand to her mouth and licked gently over the raw, broken skin, soothing it with her tongue.
    â€œI have never been better than you,” Maksim murmured. “I have been so, so much worse. You should turn from me. Maybe you will yet.”
    Augusta reared away from him. “What the fuck?” she snapped. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” She emphasized it with a sharp smack from the flat of her hand across Maksim’s chest.
    Maksim felt his mouth snarl. “I need help,” he said again. “Something is wrong. I feel like … something is wrong.”
    â€œYou smell different,” Augusta said. She leaned in again and sniffed at his neck. “Better.”
    He could smell himself: sweat and blood and rust from the fire escape, and none of that was what Augusta meant.
    â€œWhat did you do?” she said. “You gave up the curse, didn’t you? About fucking time!”
    His hand wrapped around her throat, silencing her, before he had even thought. “It is a balm, not a curse, and I did not give it up,” he said. “I cannot. I would not.”
    Augusta shoved his hand away. “Then what?”
    Maksim was on his feet, turning. “I wish I knew. All I know is that I feel wrong.” Wrong, or all too right. The last couple of days had been too delicious, too much like the old days. The miles he had felt the need to run, the sweet ache in his calves only spurring him on faster. The hot sweat sliding down the hollow of his spine. The way he had not been able to resist that young man. All the pleasures Iadviga’s invocation had blunted.
    More than any of those, the craving for harm.
    He should have thought of it right away, of course; only he had been drunk with it as he had not been in years. He should have known his pleasure for the ill omen it was.
    â€œI must go to the witch,” he said.
    Augusta scowled. “No.”
    â€œYou may not command me,” Maksim said, fisting both hands in the denim of his jeans to stop himself lashing out.
    â€œI know I can’t. But you never fight me anymore,” Augusta said and grinned through a yawn.
    Maksim tipped her chin up to see her face in the angle of brightness from the streetlight outside. Her eyes looked puffy, lined, older than the rest of her.
    â€œYou are too foxed to fight,” he said. “Go back to sleep.”
    â€œYou were the one who woke me up, breaking shit,” Augusta said. She tugged free of his hand. “Come on. Let’s put some coffee on, and then you can punch my lights out. Just tell me you’ll stay away from that unnatural piece of work.”
    Maksim hesitated for a second. Didn’t he usually want to be kind? But Augusta’s tone was too much to swallow when his body thrummed with this urge to move. He slapped her openhanded across the ear.
    Augusta laughed and surged to her feet, butting her forehead right into Maksim’s chin, knocking his cap off. “Yeah! Let’s go. Come on.”
    He came back with a messy uppercut, catching her in the ribs and making her grunt. At the gym Maksim owned, he taught students of all levels, but none of them were kin, and Maksim was always pulling his punches. Here, and only here, he could let fly with close to his full strength.
    â€œSee?” Augusta gasped, ducking to let Maksim’s fist overshoot her head and smack into the door frame. “That’s it!” And he took her full in the cheek with his other fist, splitting the skin.
    But she had been passed out drunk earlier while he was furious and on edge, and he shortly sent Augusta reeling