Untethering Dark

Chapter Fifty-Two

The night was silent.

Astrid collapsed into her rocking chair with an exhausted huff. Everyone had gone home, leaving her cottage quiet and still once more. Almost eerily so. She’d grown accustomed to the forest rangers’ company and their steady flow of chatter.

She threaded her fingers over her stomach, staring at the dying embers of the hearth fire. More wood was needed, but the cold didn’t touch her like it used to, its embrace now a source of comfort and strength. She needed to get up and wash though. Her bloodstained nightdress was dried stiff, crackling every time she moved.

The tub was ready. Waiting.

Just a few minutes of rest first.

Eyes heavy and drooping, she settled further into her chair.

As sleep curled its tendrils around her consciousness, Astrid dimly noted the sound of snow crunching outside, just beyond her cottage gate. Back already? Did one of the forest rangers forget something?

Nails drummed against her front door. “Little witch, little witch. Let me in.”

Astrid jolted upright, startled from sleep. She clasped the armrests so hard they creaked and splintered under her new hag strength. She snatched her hands away, eyeing the damaged wood. Schei?e! She loved this chair.

“You smell so delicious.” The voice was dark and decadent, deep like the bowels of a cave. It sent delicious shivers up her spine. “Just a little taste?”

Astrid padded over to the door, heart fluttering in her chest. She curled her claws around the handle. “Are you threatening me with a good time?”

A mirthful rumble followed. “Always.”

Astrid opened the door.

Bloodred eyes met hers, glinting in the dark. It was a cloudy, moonless night, but Astrid saw Gudarīks just fine, crouched on her front stoop with his long arms draped over his knees. Bone and antlers caught the barest snatches of warm hue from her fading fire. To a human’s eye, and even a witch’s, it was a negligible amount of light. Hag life, it turned out, came with more than a few helpful perks—better night vision being one of them.

The sweet scent of night blooms wafted between them.

Gudarīks’s fur was clean, albeit a bit patchy in places where it was growing back from Heldin’s flames. His skin thankfully no longer looked raw, just red.

“Guten Abend, Liebe.” She smiled, stepping aside. “Would you like to come in?”

“Yes.” Gudarīks tilted his head just so, keeping his antlers from catching on the doorframe as he ducked inside. “I’ve waited all week for you to ask.”

“So long?” she teased.

“Forever.” He looped an arm around her waist and bent to flick his tongue against her cheek. “Mmm, tasty.”

Laughing, Astrid pushed away and added kindling to the fire, more for light than warmth. “I’m a mess.”

“A very pretty mess.” He wandered the inside of her cottage, taking it in for the first time—but slowly and carefully. For Astrid, her home was cozy. For him, cramped. There was so much he could bump into or knock over with his large form.

In the kitchen, he took a teacup off a shelf, pinching the handle between two claws. His fuzzy, short white tail gave a happy little wag. “It’s so tiny.”

Ach. Her terrifying lover had no right to be this cute.

He pointed at a bottle of healing potion left out on the counter. “How is your throat, Liebling?”

“Sore,” she answered truthfully. But at least she no longer tasted ash every time she breathed. Perchta’s skill as a potion-maker and Astrid’s new hag metabolism were working wonders. “Please help yourself.”

“I’ll take all the help I can get.”

Astrid smiled behind her hand as she watched him pour a portion into the teacup and daintily lift it, tipping the liquid into his mouth. All these unexpected little things endeared him to her. What more might she discover in the centuries to come?

Amusement twinkled in his gaze. He set down the cup and prowled toward her on all fours. “What’s so funny, meine Hexechen?”

He backed her into the next room, where her clawfoot tub awaited.

“Nothing,” she squeaked, the backs of her legs hitting the edge. Water steamed off the surface, spelled to stay heated. Home and hearth magic wasn’t something she lost when she became a hag.

He plucked at the hem of her nightdress. “Will you miss this?”

“There’s no saving it...”

Fabric tore. The rounded backs of Gudarīks’s claws coasted down her skin as he ripped the ruined garment away. Tenderness and hunger lived side by side in his touch.

She cupped his bony cheek, marveling how he felt warmer to her now. There had always been a lovely contrast between them—his heat to her cold—but it was starker now. Though, no less pleasant.

His tongue flicked against her bare belly. “Get in the tub, Liebe. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

The water hissed and crackled as she sank into the tub. Cold as ice wasn’t an exaggeration... Astrid leaned back and sighed, relieved that hot water was still enjoyable. As powerful and invigorating as the winter elements made her feel, this was so very good in a different way.

Muscles relaxed. Cares fell away. Aches and pains dulled.

Gudarīks’s hands smoothed over her tired body. Washed away the blood of their enemies. The stubborn traces of blue paint that survived everything following the final hag ritual. The toils and hardships they endured. The people they almost lost. And the ones they did.

Hands gentle and trembling, he lingered over her throat and the circular scar that now marked her chest. No words passed between them. None needed to be said. She clasped her hands over his and squeezed her eyes shut as tears rolled down her cheeks. Their shared grief burned fiercely, and Astrid thought that maybe it always would, when they looked back and remembered how close they came to never having a future. Fracture points forever etched on their hearts.

But they survived. And they were here. Together.

Astrid unstopped the tub, leaving it all behind.

Gudarīks helped her out, helped her towel off. Doing all the things she was too tired to do alone. Near death, the transformation, all the new magic she expended in such a short period of time... Powerful didn’t mean invincible. She knew that now. And it wasn’t the disappointment it might’ve once been.

All things had their limits. Seasons came and went. Storms blew hard and fast. Night gave way to day. Winter didn’t last forever, but it always cycled back around.

When she was dry, Gudarīks pulled her into an embrace, holding her as tightly as their tired, aching bodies allowed. She pressed her cheek to his warm fur, scented sweetly of night blooms and soap, and inhaled deeply, comforted by their mingled scents. This creature was hers, and she was his for however long they had. Today. Tomorrow. Until the end of time.

Cradling Astrid to his chest with one arm, Gudarīks climbed the ladder to her loft and laid her on her bed. He felt the weariness in his limbs, the toll of their ordeal straining even his few limits. Muscles so used to easy grace and strength, quivered. Perchta’s brew was doing wonders, but he needed rest. They both did.

In other times he might have retreated into the depths of the forest, burrowed inside his den, and slept for an age. Let oblivion soften the edges of grief and memory. Not now. Not without her. He wouldn’t waste a single moment of the ages to come, ages almost lost to old hate.

What happened today and two thousand years ago would always haunt him. As much as he wished it wouldn’t claim a second more of his peace, memory didn’t work that way. But the difference this time was it didn’t have to rule him. It didn’t have to steal his happiness or the joys of living.

He wasn’t alone anymore.

Gathering what remained of his usual grace, he climbed onto the bed, taking care not to crush the beautiful creature beneath him. Astrid pulled him into her arms, and between her thighs, tethering him to the present.

With her, the endless days ahead seemed more like a gift than a curse. He wanted to live every single second of them.

Astrid gazed up at him with half-lidded eyes, a strange tension welling within. Fear he knew, pain as well. In her eyes he found both, but it took such a tender, intimate form. She placed a hand on his chest just beneath an angry red gouge— where that cursed, twice-dead Wiederg?nger had cruelly flayed his skin. He would love to see his ferocious little witch rip out the man’s heart again. Watch it stutter one last beat in her hand.

Tears rolled down her cheeks.

A stronger, deeper emotion clogged his throat. “Shh, it’s done,” he soothed, threading his arms beneath her, holding her close.

She buried her face in his fur and clung to him with desperate strength. “I know, I just... I’m reminding myself that this is real. That you’re safe.” Hearing her short, gasping breaths as her body shook clawed his heart apart.

“I’m here. I’m safe.”

You saved me.

Gudarīks held her until her breath evened, and the awareness of her body against his shifted. Her breasts pressed to his chest. Her thighs tight over his hips.

Never mind that his body ached in an entirely different way, he felt himself hardening between them. “Liebe, I’m sorry. I...”

Astrid placed a claw over his bony muzzle. “I think we both need this.”

Deft fingers guided him between her legs. Already warm. Already wet. Internal heat remained, mercifully unclaimed by Winter’s cold touch. She eased him inside, and he let out a guttural moan as he sank into her embrace.

“The past is best left there.” She placed her hands on his hips, tugging him closer, sliding him in deeper still. A soft gasp escaped her lips. “Move forward with me.”

They clung to each other, hips rolling in tandem. Striving, yearning, pleading.

Her hands gripped his backside, claws digging, but not piercing, his flesh. Pulling him deeper, harder. Her quiet gasps and moans drove him wild. And the way she clenched around his cock, like her body wanted to keep him right there...

Stars above, she was getting wetter. Their combined breath grew ragged, their flesh slapping as the pace quickened. This began as a need for comfort, but now he wanted more.

He needed to rut.

“Liebe,” he growled. “Let me fuck you.”

Astrid stared up at him, her pale, mismatched eyes reflecting his hunger. A wicked smile crept across her lips. “You are fucking me.”

“On your knees .” He pulled out, heavy, aching, and practically dripping with her pleasure. “Now.”

Sweet, obedient creature flipped over for him. Not a second’s hesitation.

He hiked her up by the hips, nice and high, and met no resistance remounting her. Astrid’s soft, pliable body was so eager to have him back.

“Show me how you rut, beast.” One part challenge, one part permission, and his witch didn’t need to ask twice.

Gudarīks pounded into her as his body demanded. Watched her take his every thrust. The way she stretched to accommodate his length. The smooth slope of her back and snow-white hair that felt like silk in his hands. But what he liked most was the new set of antlers crowning her head, so like his own.

A fierce pride filled him. That he had any part to play in unlocking the truest version of herself was an honor, and now, a piece of himself marked her forever. If this forest was his kingdom, Astrid was its queen.

“Mine,” he growled into her ear, plowing her again and again.

Astrid slammed back on him, matching him thrust for thrust. The wooden bed frame creaked from their combined efforts. “ Mine ,” she echoed with a growl of her own.

So pretty, so feral. Such a perfect match.

“Yes, witch.” He chuckled darkly. “Yours.”

Choose me, claim me. Until time ceases to exist.

They gave each other all they had, their bodies aching and trembling, even as they quaked in pleasure. Barely hanging on, barely staying upright. Only powered by mutual desperate need.

Gudarīks applied his fingers to the sensitive bundle of nerves at the juncture of her thighs. Made them vibrate for her as he rubbed. She got wetter. Louder. Squirming against him, so deliciously needy. “That’s it, Liebe. Come for me.”

Crying out as her pleasure peaked, Astrid buckled beneath him, channel clamping him tightly.

His own dam broke.

He wanted to fill her up and watch his cum leak down her legs, but she hadn’t cast her spell, so he yanked away, keeping a firm hand on her hip. He thrust into his hand once, twice, then stilled as his own release shuddered through him, painting her snow-white skin.

The crimson color his cum took made such a lovely contrast. He skated a claw along her inner thigh, up the round curve of her ass, catching it as it dripped.

Exhaustion would claim him soon—his witch too—its tendrils already hooked in. But there was one last thing he needed to say before they collapsed into deep sleep, utterly spent. Nuzzling into the back of her neck, he murmured, “You look so good in red.”

Her sharp laugh was music to his ears.