9 - Paul
This is where the magic lives
Kael is an exceptionally fast driver , which I appreciate because we make the drive down into White River in record time.
“This is it,” I say, pointing to a sign announcing White River as we flash by.
Kael slows down the truck, kind of squinting his eyes as he looks around. “Here?”
“That’s right. White River is one of my towns.”
“What the hell do you do out here ?” He sneers these words out. But the sneer seems to be his default setting, so it has little impact.
“You’re about to find out. See that church up ahead? Pull in the back. By the food pantry door.”
“Church?” He’s still sneering, but this time it comes with a chuckle laced with a healthy dose of ridicule. He looks at me, amused with himself. “What is it? Satanic or something?”
I offer him a patient smile. “Something like that.”
He pulls the truck into the parking lot of the First Methodist Church and slides up next to the pantry door, slamming on the brakes so we both jerk forward.
I take a deep breath and do a very good job of controlling myself while I side-eye him. “Wait right here.”
He snickers now—“Yes, sir”—and pops off a mock salute.
I get out of the truck, close the door, and enter the pantry, welcomed by the jingling of bells above the door. I look up at them just as a familiar voice says, “My lord! You’re here? You didn’t even call!”
My smile is immediate because Joshua Reed comes out from behind a curtain-covered doorway and he is a complete delight. He’s submissive, accommodating, and clever too. It’s a rare combination that I value. Especially his cleverness. And when you add in his deceptive clean-cut good looks, it makes him downright dangerous. Beauty and danger are both things I value. “I didn’t have time,” I say. “Things are moving quickly now, Joshua. We’re nearly done.”
“Already?” He makes a face of surprise, which looks very good on him. Though he looks good all the time by my standards. Blond hair, blue eyes, that square jaw that is mostly clean-shaven. He was a very pretty child and his beauty did not abandon him as he grew.
“Yes. Already. It’s gone better than I’d hoped, with one tiny exception.”
Joshua smiles at me. “You’re having second thoughts, aren’t you?”
“Second thoughts?” I ponder the idea. Briefly. “No. Not quite anyway.”
“It’s Ryet. You love him.”
Which I cannot deny, so I don’t. “I do.” And these words come out as a sigh, forcing Joshua and me to take a moment to appreciate my unlikely regrets. “But”—I rally, of course—“it needs to be done. And anyway, I have a plan and that plan is sitting in the truck outside.”
Joshua snickers. Which is an entirely different kind of snicker than the one Kael snorted at me mere seconds ago. Then he walks over to the window behind the front desk that acts like a checkout stand—though there is no checking out happening here, all the food is free—and pulls a light blue curtain aside. After a moment, he turns back to me. “He looks…”
“Dangerous?”
Joshua points to me. “That.”
“He is. That’s why I came to the pantry instead of the coven.”
“Oh!” Joshua gets it. “Emily’s not here, but let me give her a call. She’ll know what to do.” Then he turns back the way he came and disappears behind the door curtain.
“I’m sure she will,” I absently say, tracing my finger along the side of a large wooden crate holding watermelons. Which are way out of season, especially for Idaho, but, of course, they were grown in the greenhouse, so they are not out of place.
Then I wander down a narrow hallway until I reach a long set of shelves filled with jars of herbs. I study Emily’s stock for a moment. I’ve never been curious about kitchen magic since I have the Darkness inside me, but now, I find myself reading labels.
All of the jars contain a specific dried herb. These jars hold ingredients, not potions. Which is a quaint word that I quite like, but Emily calls what she cooks up with them ‘teas.’ It’s a human-friendly word, so she says.
Joshua comes back. “OK. She gave me a list of options. Not these,” he says, pointing to the jars. “Back here.” Then he leads me deeper into the innards of the church and we stop in front of a locked room. He keys in a code, opens the door, and invites me to go inside.
Which I do.
Now here… here is where Emily keeps all her incredible and innate talent tightly sealed up in little vials. The White River coven is the only one I have, but there are many other kitchen-witch covens in this part of the world and we do trades with them. The church pantry isn’t actually a food bank, it’s the storefront for my very lucrative apothecary.
Joshua follows me in, closes the door, and starts reading off the list he made, adding a question mark after each statement. “Dizzy? Sleepy? Exposed? Living Dead?”
“Hmmm.” I ponder these options. “What is ‘exposed’?”
Joshua’s eyes flick up to the ceiling like he’s thinking. Then he looks back at me. “It makes you kind of… impressionable? But with a healthy dose of ‘don’t give a fuck.’”
“What do you suggest?”
“Well.” He takes a moment to think again. “Are we going to kill him?”
“Definitely.”
“Milk him?”
“Yes.”
“Sex?”
“Orgy.”
Joshua smirks. “Well, that’s fun.”
“I certainly hope so. He’s kind of a dick.”
“And what are we harvesting? Liver? Heart? Gonads?”
“All three, I think. But we’ll let Emily decide once we get up to the coven.”
Joshua nods, collecting the jars off the shelf. “OK. Well, if Emily’s tweaking, let’s just take all four.”
“Perfect,” I say. “Do you want to ride with me? Or meet us up there?”
Joshua glances in the direction of the pantry, then looks at me. “I’ll meet you there. He’s…”
“Scary?”
He points at me. “That.”
“Well, you won’t have to worry about him, Joshua.” Then I reach over and place a loving hand on his cheek. “He’ll never touch you. He’ll never even get the chance.”
The entire town of White River is mine. All of it, including the people. They are all part of the coven of witches I’ve been breeding for the last hundred and twenty years, give or take. But they are nothing like the line of witches that Syrsee comes from. There is no Black blood running through my women. In fact, it’s the men who have most of the power in my line.
The women, like Emily and all the cooks who came before her, are good at manipulating the inherent properties of plants and mixing them all together in certain proportions using recipes passed down through generations of mothers and daughters. But the potions can only do so much. They help things along.
All the real magic is in the secretions. And manipulating secretions is the magic of men.
Which is why I keep an ample supply of scions. It wasn’t a hedge against Ryet. Well, maybe a tiny hedge. But I knew he was going to work.
No. I keep the scions, like Kael here, for his blood. Blood that is half mine. Which makes it all mine. And then, should I ever need some help to move things along, I come up here with a scion, have a little ritual, kill him, milk him, harvest him, and give that all to Emily—or whoever was in charge of the kitchen at the time, which hasn’t always been Emily, but nonetheless, it is now— and this little kitchen witch will cook me up a custom potion and put it in a vial, or cook me up a pudding and put it in a jar.
Most of the time I take the potion or eat the pudding myself and then I offer Ryet a drink. This is how I slowly, slowly changed him over the last several decades.
It wasn’t the Darkness.
It was me using the Darkness and the men of the White River Coven to create a special kind of magic that I call the Dusk.
I smile at the wordplay, amused at my own cleverness.
If the Dusk was a beer, it would be called Darkness Lite. It takes a little more to get the same buzz, but I’m not looking for the Darkness kind of buzz. I’m going to kill this man. I only need him cooperative and willing until the ritual is over.
I go back outside and get in the truck.
Kael looks at me expectantly, waiting for some kind of explanation. When all I do is stare back at him, he becomes agitated. “ Well ?”
I smile, picturing him naked. “You have a nice body, you know that, Kael?”
He snorts a little. “Yeah. So?”
“I’m going to enjoy it.”
Now he smirks, confident in his own sex appeal. “Is that what this is about? Sex?”
“It’s always about sex, Kael.”
“Well, for me it’s about blood. So… when do I get some?”
I chuckle and grin. “You’re gonna get some all right.” Then I point at Joshua’s beat-up silver Chevy pick-up as he comes around the side of the church. Joshua smiles at me from the other side of the windshield, then nods his head towards the road.
“I’m going to take you somewhere now, Kael. Somewhere Ryet has never been.”
Kael side-eyes me. “What kind of place?”
“A place where magic is made.”
“Do I get blood at this place?”
“You do.” I picture how this will go down and grin. “You’re gonna get more blood today than I’ve given you before.”
“And sex too, huh?”
“Oh, yes. There will be lots of that as well. It’s going to be a pile of sweaty, bloody bodies, Kael. All fucking, and sucking, and getting off. Me, and you, and him.” I jut my chin at the waiting Joshua. “Plus many others.”
“Any women involved in this?”
“If you want one, sure. There are plenty of women.”
He nods a little, probably picturing all this in his head. “All right. So what’s the catch?”
Kael is smart. There’s always a catch. But he’s nearly twenty in scion years if I recall correctly, so he understands how I work. I do not lie. I always tell him what’s going to happen. So he knows there’s a tradeoff coming.
“We’re going to use you, Kael. Your blood. I need to make some magic. So we’re going to feed and fuck and then I’m going to take your blood and your seed and mix it up with all of ours to make this magic. Does that sound acceptable?”
He stares at me for a few moments, eyes narrowing. “That’s it? Feed and fuck and make some magic?”
“That’s literally it.”
“And Ryet has never been here? Or done anything like this?”
This is Kael’s fatal flaw. Jealousy. He hates Ryet. He’s always hated Ryet. He wants to be my blood lover. My one and only. Not because he loves me—Kael here is a psychopath, he’s not capable of love. He wants to be my one and only because he has grand dreams of usurping me.
Which is ludicrous. I have more Darkness in a single strand of hair than he does in his whole body. But you don’t know what you don’t know, so I can’t fault him for dreaming big. And anyway, these big dreams of his are the whole reason he’s going to say yes to this offer.
“Is this guy a vampire?” Kael nods to Joshua.
“No. He’s a witch.”
Kael snorts. “A witch, huh? Aren’t witches women?”
“They can be. But mine are men. They’re more… agreeable when it comes to the blood loving. Easier to convince, if you will. More inclined towards the debauchery that comes with it.”
He huffs. “Debauchery. What a word.”
I smile patiently. “So. Are you in?”
He side-eyes me. “Fuck yeah, I’m in.”
I pan a hand at him and grin. “See? So easy to convince.”
We follow Joshua out of White River and turn onto a little gravel road that leads up the mountain. Everything is wet and muddy with snowmelt, so it takes a while to weave our way through the forest, but eventually we arrive at the top where there is a collection of charming A-frame houses and buildings reminiscent of Old Europe and all made of wood hewn from this very forest, as if Zecharyet Wagner handcrafted this village himself.
I love it mostly for this reason. It reminds me of Ryet.
Of course, he’s never been up here. He will never come up here. Even if my plans had worked out and he and Syrsee had stayed in White River for their transformation, he would never have seen this place.
Because he was meant to die in a grand scheme of world domination and not some simplistic sex ritual to make a potion or a pudding. And that’s the only reason a scion of mine would ever come up here.
To die.
There are lots of people around when we get out of the truck. All the women and girls are wearing long, linen dresses with a traditional feel to them. Mostly light blue—they love that color for some reason—but there are several dozen wearing undyed off-white or mustard-yellow dresses as well. A small handful of them are wearing peach, which only started showing up a few years ago when Emily took over, so it must be a special dye she cooked up.
All the men are wearing brown trousers and blue or undyed work shirts with suspenders and boots.
Only Joshua, and Kael, and myself are wearing outsider clothes. All of us in jeans, boots, and flannel shirts.
It’s very charming, but it has to be, doesn’t it? I mean, this is a place of dark death and I want my scions to feel comfortable when I kill them to cook up the kitchen magic.
Kael comes around the truck to stand next to me. When I give him a sideways glance, I find him leering at the women. “You like them?” I ask.
“What?” He’s not even paying attention to me.
“The women? You’d prefer one of them?”
He looks at me now, suspicion on his face. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m asking you a question about your preferences, Kael. Clearly, you like women.”
“Of course. But if you’re asking if I want to trade one of those stupid whores for your blood, the answer is no.”
That wasn’t what I was asking, obviously. But I don’t bother explaining. Kael here might be cunning, but he’s also very primitive and I’m kind of in a hurry, so not in the mood to humor him. “Take your pick,” is what I say as a reply. “Which one do you like?” I point to a young woman who was much younger the last time I was here. Rachel, I think her name is. “I’ve had my eye on that one there for years now. How about her?”
Kael looks at the woman with a critical eye. She’s in her early twenties and wearing one of the peach dresses and it’s got a yellow apron, so she’s festive. Her face is round and welcoming once she realizes we’re looking at her. She’s got dark hair, so she comes from the oldest line of breeding, but while she’s nice to look at, she’s not much of a cook. Which is fine. Emily’s our chef so this one’s only job, literally, is to tantalize. And she does it well, cocking a hip and her head as she lifts her chin up, daring someone to approach.
All of this is directed at Kael, not me. And Kael responds. “All right,” he says, a little bit breathless. Like the few moments he took to study the woman were spent in fantasy. “Yeah, she’ll do.” Then he turns to me. “And you. You’re not gettin’ out of this, Paul. I want the blood.”
I place a hand on his cheek, much like the one I placed on Joshua’s, but without the care or concern. “It’s yours, blood lover.” I point to Rachel. “Would you like to join us?”
She smiles, knowingly, then does a little curtsey and bows her head. “Of course, my lord.”
When she meets my gaze again, I point to Kael. “Make him happy for me.”
She curtsies again and then comes over and hooks her arm into his. Kael smiles, despite his misgivings. He knows something’s going on here, but the promise of blood and sex with me and a pretty woman seems to have alleviated his initial suspicions.
“Let’s go.” Then I nod my head in the direction of a large A-frame building that is used as a gathering house.
This building is where all the rituals are done. Inside it’s dark because there are no windows, but it’s not inhospitable. In fact, it’s quite the opposite of inhospitable. It’s inviting.
On the far end is where all the business is done. There is a depression in the center of this space with four stone steps leading down to the grand altar made of Nero Marquina marble quarried in Spain that has been so meticulously polished, it gleams like obsidian.
The altar is on the same spatial plane as the floor so as to offer up the perfect view of what takes place on top of it for those watching from a distance, and at seven feet long and three feet wide, it’s impressive.
On either side of the altar are dozens of candelabras. Three women are lighting them now, but there are so many candles, it will probably take another ten minutes before they’re all ablaze.
Behind the altar—where one might find a crucifix if this were that kind of holy place—there is a font of the baptismal variety. Though it’s genuine, it’s not used for baptism. Which makes it more of a crucible, I suppose.
On this end, where Kael and I are standing, is the wall of cutlery where every kind of knife you can dream up has been arranged on the wall for easy access so anyone who wants to can use the altar for an impromptu ritual or whatever. Though they don’t carve up scions, obviously. Mostly likely rabbits or… I dunno, perhaps a goat?
The middle of the room is where all the fun happens. A massive patchwork of feather beds covers the floor from edge to edge. The duvets are light blue, or off-white, or mustard yellow, or peach linen, just like the dresses of the women outside. The pillows that line the edges of the feather beds are the same color, and this whole scene gives off a vibe of whimsy.
It’s lovely. Absolutely lovely. Much, much nicer than the clearing in the woods where we used to do these ceremonies in the early days.
Kael is studying the beds as I watch him. Then he turns to me with eyebrows raised. “How many people are you expecting?”
As if on cue, the double doors behind us open and every grown man under the age of thirty enters, already unbuttoning shirts or loosening trousers. They don’t say anything as we watch them undress.
Once they are naked, they go to the center of the room and start touching each other. Caressing each other. Kissing. And there’s a little bit of grinding as they work themselves up.
This time when Kael looks at me, he’s grinning. “You’re sick.”
I shrug. “It’s why you like me, Kael. It’s why you agreed to be my blood bitch in the first place.”
He actually laughs. “Let’s go then.” He turns to the woman, eyes narrowed, giving her the first glimpse of his deranged madness. “Undress me, whore. And lick me while you do it.”
This woman, she’s gonna get a big reward from me later. Because she doesn’t even blink. Just curtseys, like he’s her lord now, and eases his jacket off his shoulders, then pulls his shirt up over his head. She pauses for a moment, maybe admiring the lust in his eyes, then drops to her knees as her fingers begin unbuttoning his jeans. She looks up at him as she wriggles them down his hips and dutifully licks his stomach while staring him in the eyes.
I let out a breath, very, very satisfied with what I have built up here with the coven and the kitchen witches who populate it. This is gonna be fun. And I have to be honest, it’s been all work and no play for months now and I’m looking forward to the respite.
But in Kael, I find myself slightly disappointed. Not about bringing him here, he is the perfect choice for what comes next. But about his reaction.
Usually, when I bring a scion up to meet the coven and take them inside this building they begin to panic. Not a lot, not usually. But they at least glance questioningly at the cutlery displayed artfully on the wall behind us, and they often pay more attention to the altar than Kael has. They notice things about it. Like how it’s just big enough to spread out a man. They notice the leather straps in the perfect position to tie down said man. And they notice how there are little grooves along the edges of the polished, black marble to catch his blood.
Situational awareness. Kael has none of it. And I’m disappointed. I feel like maybe, somewhere along the way, I failed him. So I let out a sigh.
“What’s wrong with you?” Kael snaps. He’s fisting the woman’s hair now, grinding his cock into her mouth.
I simply smile in response. But it’s kind of a sad smile. Then I notice that Emily has entered the building. I watch as Joshua greets her, leaning in to her ear to whisper something, spurring a chuckle out of his wife. Her eyes dart over to me and she nods, letting me know she’s ready.
In that same moment Joshua turns in my direction and starts walking towards me, pulling off his shirt as he closes the space between us. I keep my eyes on him and only him because in him, and all these people who live in the White River coven, I got it right.
I love them. And while I say I love them all, I don’t. Not like this. Ryet is the only one I ever put before these witches. The only one I ever put before myself. But the most remarkable thing about the people of White River is that they love me back. Truly love me in a way no one else ever has, and since this is my moment of illumination in regards to my buried emotional attachments, this is also the moment when I realize that this little village is… my home .
The Montana lodge is lovely and I like it, but mostly because Ryet built it for me. When I’m at the lodge everything around me is a memory of him and, as my first true offspring, it’s natural to be irrationally drawn to him because of what he means to me and my future.
But Ryet doesn’t love me back. Not really. He needs me, he likes me— maybe . I grew on him, I suppose. Became a fixture in his life. Something that was always there so he cannot imagine existing without me.
So it’s different.
I had intended to have my fun with Kael today. He’s attractive and he likes to do lots of nasty things with me that Ryet never would. But when Joshua reaches me, it’s him I want to spend this day with. It’s him I want to hold on to in my memories, not something disposable like Kael. So that, in a thousand years, when I think back on this day and how it all started, it will be Joshua I see. It will be Emily, and Rachel, and all the other lovely little snakes in my den of vipers.
Joshua stands before me, unafraid to meet my gaze. And why should he be afraid of me? I’ve never been anything but good to him. Yes, we sacrifice scions here to make Black magic, but he knows, with one hundred percent certainty, that he is not, and never will be, something I sacrifice.
So I place my hands on his cheeks, lean in, and kiss his mouth. I watch as his eyes close and his body gives in to me. Then I start walking backwards, still kissing him, until we’re next to the other men in the village who are already lying down, jerking on each other’s cocks.
The kiss ends and Joshua opens his eyes. They are a little glassy, like he might want to cry. “Don’t,” I tell him. “Don’t be sad.”
His smile is immediate. “Oh, I’m not sad, my lord. I’m full of happiness. So full, I’m overflowing. This is all I ever wanted. To be yours .” And then he gazes up at me with complete adoration as he drops to his knees and pops the button on my jeans.
The true ritual begins the moment Joshua’s lips wrap around my cock and I rip off my shirt. My pants come off next in a hurried rush, as do Joshua’s. And then that’s all there is. Twenty or thirty men in the middle of a large room, teasing the seed of Darkness out each other in every erotic way possible.
It’s beautiful, and intoxicating, and, obviously, magical.
Until Kael interrupts the moment. “Where the fuck is the blood, vampire? Give me the blood!”
He’s taking Rachel doggie-style a few feet away from me, his hips slapping against her ass with each hard thrust.
I smile. Not the same smile I gave Joshua just a few minutes ago, but a deliciously wicked smile. Because while I don’t normally relish killing my potential offspring for the greater good, I’m going to get a lot of pleasure out of Kael when he meets his true maker.
But first, my Joshua.
I’m lying back on the floor now, the feather bed underneath me hugging my body in soft comfort. “Lie down, Joshua.” He does this, placing his long, lean, naked body next to mine. I turn my head as he turns his and we smile at each other. He knows what’s coming. And while witches don’t crave the blood the way scions do, he likes it.
It will be Joshua that I feed first. And even though this isn’t how we normally do it, I want him on my neck. So I reach up and slash my jugular open with a clawed fingernail and blood begins to flow in great pulsating bursts.
A moment later, Kael is nearly on top of me, trying to get his drink. But I simply fling him off, sending him careening across the room and slamming into the wall, my gaze still locked with Joshua’s. “Climb on,” I tell him.
Joshua straddles my body without hesitation, his blue eyes bright with excitement, his large hands splayed out and pressing into the featherbed on either side of my shoulders, his cock hard against my stomach as his hips grind against mine. Then I turn my neck, baring myself to him, and a moment later, he’s feeding on me.
Automatically, my eyes close. It doesn’t feel the same as when Ryet, or Josep, or Syrsee feed—it’s better .
Kael must be passed out and concussed, because he doesn’t interrupt us again. Joshua drinks, and drinks, and drinks until he literally passes out and falls off of me.
Then Emily is there, milking her husband as his cock spits out magic. When he’s depleted, she and the rest of the women pull Joshua away from me, and, already understanding my plan, start directing the other men to climb on and have their drink too. The closest one does, grinding against me to get himself off.
He is milked for magic as well. And then the next man climbs on. I slash my own throat dozens of times as each of the men takes their drink and spills their seed into a chalice that Emily holds. She chants things as she collects. It’s Latin, and though I am fluent, of course, I don’t pay attention to what she’s saying because I don’t have to.
When all the men are spent and satisfied, I get up, covered in my own blood in various stages of coagulation, and walk over to Kael’s body, still slumped against the wall.
I actually chuckle as I look down at him. He didn’t even finish his fuck.
Which doesn’t matter. We’ll make sure he’s satisfied before we kill him. That’s the whole reason he’s here. I look at Emily as I nod at Kael. “Let’s get him on the altar and tie him down before he wakes up.”
Immediately, every woman in the room is grabbing at his body, lifting it up and carrying it to the other end of the room. They place it on the altar and tie him down.
They are just buckling the last restraint into place when Kael begins to moan, his head jerking back and forth as his hips rise up from the marble slab in protest. It takes a few more minutes before he is capable of opening his eyes. He must’ve hit his head hard when I threw him aside, but it’s not concerning.
“Kael,” I say as I lean down into his face. “Can you hear me?”
He groans and spits out croaky words. “What the fuck?”
My smile is genuine and big. “You tried to cut in line, little friend. Which is against the rules. You are not in charge and you’ve always had a problem with that.”
“What the fuck is going on?” He’s mostly back now, his voice stronger, his struggle more forceful. “ Where’s my blood !”
“It’s my blood, Kael. Not yours. But don’t worry. I need you euphoric when we take your seed, so even though you don’t deserve it, you’ll get the blood.” I look at Emily. “Are we ready?”
She’s holding the four vials we brought with us from the apothecary and she lifts them up. “Let’s use them all.”
“You’re the boss.” Then I take a step back and the women come forward and start caressing the loud and objectionable Kael. He lifts his head up, looking down the length of his body at all the women. He’s breathing heavy with fear, but it immediately turns to lust.
God, he’s so predictable.
They are touching him. Dozens of hands caressing his body. They slide up his legs and down his arms. They pump his cock and play with his hair. One fingers his mouth and he begins to suck. This finger is laced with the first potion. And I watch as this woman teases his mouth with her finger and he comes for the first time. There is a chalice waiting to catch what he spills. And then it repeats. Fingers in his mouth, fists on his cock, tits in his face, and Kael sucks down all the potions and becomes more pliable and happier.
So happy, he stops struggling and just lies there as the women take his seed over and over again. His eyes have been closed for several minutes now, but they lazily open, trying to focus on me. “Blood,” he whispers.
I nod my head and smile. “It’s time, blood lover. It’s time.” Then I slash open my wrist with a claw and let the blood flow into his mouth. There’s no way this animal will feed on my neck the way my witches did. He doesn’t deserve it. He is nothing but a little factory to me.
As soon as the blood hits his mouth, his soft cock becomes erect again.
This is the seed we need. What we already took was just the milking. The emptying of the tainted, worthless semen.
This now? This is where the magic lives.
The women pump him one final time and when he spills again, his seed is purple.
In that same moment, Emily’s scalpel slices him open from throat to groin. His blood spills out, drips down his body, and flows into the channels cut into the marble, forming a river that empties into the baptismal font that has been moved into position.
Kael is so happy, and satiated, and, let’s face it, drugged, he doesn’t even flinch when she begins to remove his organs.
I take Joshua’s hand and lead him back over to the bloody featherbed to join the rest of the men, who are now waking up from their drink, and we insert ourselves into the pile of sweaty bodies and begin touching each other for pleasure this time. We writhe together in lust and sin, until, hours later, the magic has been made.
Then I get up, shower with Emily and Joshua, let the women dress me in clean clothes, and leave the White River coven with the magic I need to change the course of everything.