Chapter Ten
Senán
Once the Agent leaves, I wait, check the hall to make sure he’s really gone, then close the door to my studio.
Fuck. I need a minute. I sorely wish I could have more than that, the better to deal with the distracting ache between my legs, but I’ve waited too long already.
After a few deep breaths, I pull the sheets from the laundry hamper and check them—they’re still charged with latent energy from my last client.
I quickly whisper an incantation and tear the fabric into strips, then wrap them together with two stems of dried woundwort flowers and the ankle bone of a rabbit.
Hecaterina is waiting for me when I arrive at our pre-arranged meeting place and time.
“These are for binding,” I tell her as I place the bundle in her hands.
It’s only a temporary solution, but the potion I’m working on is complex and will take several days to complete.
She’ll need something to hold everything off until it’s finished.
Hecaterina nods tensely. She looks stiff, and her skirts are traced with mud as though she’s been walking all morning—something is wrong, visibly making her even more apprehensive than usual. “Is everything alright out there?”
“Yes! Yeah, I mean, as well as can be expected under the circumstances.” She pauses, then, “Have you, um. Have you seen Malachi anywhere?”
So that’s what the problem is. I give her a stern look. “What was the first thing I told you about your familiar?”
“You don’t choose your familiar, your familiar chooses you?”
“Not that—”
“Don’t call it a ‘spirit animal’ because that’s cultural appropriation?”
“ No, Cat, I mean what did I tell you about amphibian familiars specifically?”
Hecaterina sighs with the energy of a child being chastised by a well-meaning parent. “‘Always keep a close eye on amphibian familiars, they get stuck places when the sun is out.’ But he’s been so good about staying with me!”
“They all wander off eventually, love.”
“You don’t keep a close eye on yours,” she mutters.
I purse my lips, but I don’t let the impertinence vex me too badly.
Hecaterina is already under a significant amount of pressure for a Witch her age, and losing a familiar is as heartbreaking as losing a family member, regardless of which animal kingdom they fall under.
“ Gretchyn is a nocturnal mammal—she’s much more independent than Malachi is.
She’s also been a familiar much longer than he has.
” Hecaterina’s face twists, looking even more anxious than before, and I feel a twinge of guilt.
“They all wander off, but they always wander back eventually as well. He’ll find his way to you come sundown. ”
The Coven is a quick one, as I expected.
Hecaterina knows better than to ask what the charm will do for them or how it works.
She’s green in her practice, but she’s been in the game long enough to understand that every word spoken about a spell lessens its potency.
Magick is like wishes, in that way—never tell someone a wish or it won’t come true.
Explaining the function of the energy-laden bindings would make their power even less effective than they already will be, and we simply can’t risk it.
I take my time walking back toward the resort, stopping here and there to gather moss and mushrooms, necessary components for the work I’ll be doing in the coming days.
But, in all honesty, I’m also walking slowly so that I have a chance to gather my thoughts in one of the few places where I feel comfortably alone.
The Agent—Ryder—wasn’t fooled by my alternate presentation.
Glamour spells aren’t easy by any means, but after centuries of changing my outward appearance to match how the world ought to see me on any given day, I’ve gotten quite good at them.
My feminine body is just as real as my masculine one, to the point that even I sometimes forget which was the original.
It’s rare, nearly unheard of, that anyone recognizes the two versions of me as the same person.
When I first stepped out of the treatment room today and noticed him hovering in the reception area, it hadn’t occurred to me that he might recognize me.
But when I saw the way he stared at me, shocked and fascinated and full of baffled awareness, looking like a child waking from a dream only to find that the dream is real, I knew that he knew.
The question of “how” doesn’t make much of a difference—even with a different body and a different face, he recognized me.
Admitting to working under-the-table is a “red herring” tactic I’ve employed many times with Agents in the past: confessing to a small transgression in order to hide a much larger one.
What had possessed me to reveal my specific occupation to a Bureau Agent, however, I couldn’t say.
Was it merely a slip of the tongue, an accidental spill of incrimination which could have easily been cleaned up with a memory wipe?
Or was it the way that something in the Agent pulls at me, as though each interaction is a loose thread threatening to unravel my years and centuries of defenses kept so tightly wound?
Once unraveled, could he knit me back together with his broad, careful hands?
Or would I rather stay a loose body of fiber, waiting to knot myself around his fingers when they beg for my warmth again?
It’s all very strange, and a little unsettling. Which means it’s also thrilling and fantastically unfamiliar, because I am not, nor have I ever been, easily surprised. Least of all by men, and least least of all by men who work for the government. But Ryder keeps managing to surprise me.
I’m still musing when I cross the tree line onto the grassy lawns at the edge of the resort property and hear a frightened squeal emanating from the pool area.
A young woman there is on her feet, pointing at a lounge chair like it’s about to attack, while a man nearby picks up one of his shoes and lifts it in one hand as though he’s about to smash something.
A spider, perhaps? Quotidians do seem to love smashing spiders with shoes for some reason.
Before the man can do any smashing, however, someone steps in to stop him. Someone with dark, curly hair and a familiar-looking camp shirt.
Ryder holds his hand between the shoe and whatever it was meant to come into contact with, stopping the makeshift weapon in its path.
He exchanges a few words with the spider-fearing couple, then leans down and scoops the creature off the surface of the chaise lounge.
He cups it carefully in both hands as he carries it to the other side of the pool area, just past the gazebo, and sets it down gently by the koi pond.
I watch curiously as he stays crouched for a few moments, smiling down at whatever he’s just freed there, then stands up and walks back toward the poolside bathrooms, presumably to wash his hands.
I wait until he’s out of sight to stride over to the koi pond, and can’t help but laugh at what I find there.
“You’re in big trouble, little one,” I say with no malice whatsoever. “Running away like that.”
Malachi flicks his tongue at me remorsefully.
“You can save your apologies for your Witch. I trust you’ll be able to find your way back to her, since you found your way here.”
Malachi wriggles himself into the moss growing at the edge of the pond and closes his eyes to rest. I smile to myself.
Witchfinder Ryder keeps managing to surprise me.
Back in my studio, I shut the door behind me and lean against it to steady myself.
The Witchfinder is stubborn and pushy and just generally rude, he has no fashion sense whatsoever, and he doesn’t seem to have any hobbies or interests beyond following me around like a pigeon follows a popcorn salesman.
But he’s also intriguing and charming and has shown a sum of kindness and empathy which ought to be considered shameful for a BSCO Agent.
I close my eyes and remember the edacious looks he gave me in this very room not hours ago.
How close I came to touching him, to dragging him to the floor and discovering what his firm arms and chest would feel like against my softer form.
I let my hand drift down, pressing the heel of my palm against myself through the fabric of my trousers.
It brings on a rush of memories of yesterday, of heat and friction and filthy glances, of shortened breath on my neck and the strong body pinning me against the rough cement wall.
I can barely get my hand in place fast enough, fumbling over the button and zipper to shove the layers of cotton and nylon and history out of the way so that I can slip two fingers into the warmth between my legs, letting out a moan as I do.
Picturing his hands instead of my own, I move my fingers in circles, remembering the fire of his skin, his eyes, his words. My knees begin to shake, fingers moving faster, imagining his naked shoulders between my thighs, his mouth on my flesh, the lewd sounds he’ll make as he finishes me…
My knees buckle under the weight of my climax, and I sink to the floor with gasping breaths, fingers moving by instinct and imagination running wild. I can still feel his skin against mine when I open my eyes.
I sigh and reach for the box of tissues on a nearby counter. Some relief is better than none—at least, that’s what I tell myself.
After cleaning myself up, I open my satchel and begin to lay out the flora I gathered in the woods so that they have space to dry.
As I open a drawer for a sheet of butcher paper, I notice a forgotten stack of cards and envelopes that were given to me by the spa manager when I signed the contract for use of this treatment room.
My face warms as I examine the cards and an idea begins to form. Ryder has surprised me enough times—perhaps it’s my turn to surprise him.