Chapter 18
Marta
“So, how’d you two make out?” Wes asked when we got back to the estate. He leaned against the doorjamb to the library, his arms crossed, a smug smile on his pouty lips.
I paused and straightened, trying to figure out how to respond. He already knew, so why would I lie?
Atlas barked a laugh and stepped around me, grabbing onto his brother’s shoulder to give him a shake. “A little on the nose, brother, but I’ll allow it.”
Wes raised an eyebrow and smirked.
“I just…” I didn’t have the words to describe the way I needed Atlas in that moment. On the ride home, I’d tried to make sense of it, but the truth was, I couldn’t.
“What can I say?” Atlas held his hands out to either side. “I’m irresistible.”
Wes rolled his eyes and laughed, playfully hitting his brother in the stomach. “Don’t gloat. You’re hot, but our witch is hotter. If she were desperate enough to fuck you—”
“We saw the demon,” I cut in, hoping to avoid the heat snaking into my cheeks and down my neck. I wasn’t ashamed of what I’d done. Hell, I’d done way worse before I’d gotten stuck here with them. But the shame of Wes’s FOMO snuck into my heart, and I didn’t want to make it worse.
“What?” That got his attention.
We walked into the library as I explained what happened, making sure to detail it as specifically as I could remember it.
“I think she heard me. I think she understood me, and if she did, she’ll get the coven involved.
They might be able to pull from their side as we push from this side, and maybe… ”
“That’s good,” Wes said. “We’ll keep trying.”
“Wes, I’m sorry. I panicked, thinking the demon must have gotten to Tita. Atlas calmed me down, and it just…escalated.”
“Hey,” Wes said, reaching out to grab my hand and give it a tender, reassuring squeeze. “It’s okay. What happens in the liminal, stays in the liminal, right?”
I nodded and pulled him in, rising on my toes to give him a quick kiss. His surprise and delight rattled down to my bones, but before I pulled away, he leaned into my ear.
“Prepare yourself, witch,” he said. “It’s my turn.”
I’d be lying if I said that didn’t make my cunt pulse and shiver. I smiled as I stepped back, and he winked.
“How’d you do?” Atlas said from the table where Wes had spread out his research. “Find anything good?”
“Yeah, actually,” Wes said, walking over to his brother. “I think I found Constance’s death record.”
“What?” I hadn’t been expecting that. “Where?”
“It’s in the coven cemetery back in Scotland,” he said.
“But I can’t be sure. Constance was a popular name at the time, and there are at least five others it could be.
But look.” He held out a notebook containing a list of names and dates next to them.
“Constance Clearwater, date of death 31st of July, 1592. Jonathan Woods, date of death 31st of July, 1592. Xavier Woods, date of death 31st of July 1592. It’s the only entry with a witch and two warriors passing on the same date. ”
“Woods,” Atlas said. “They were brothers.”
“Possibly,” Wes added.
“This is twenty years after her last entry in the journal,” I said, skimming my fingers over the letters like touching them would tell me something more.
“Exactly,” Wes said. “If it is her, and those are her two warriors, then they made it. They completed the soul ritual and lived another twenty years before they died together.”
“Cause of death…” I squinted to try to read the words, but they were faded and nearly illegible. “I can’t make it out.”
“I can’t either,” Wes said. “But it doesn’t really matter, does it? They survived the rituals.”
“I don’t know,” Atlas cut in, rubbing the back of his head. “This doesn’t prove they fixed the bond, only that they died at the same time. What if it was the plague or being burned at the stake or some other wild medieval shit?”
“It could be,” Wes said. “But we’ve been researching for weeks. We could spend years digging through this library and still find nothing. I think this means something. I think we should keep going.”
Atlas pursed his lips and took a deep breath. “Whatever you say, brother.”
We debated and researched until dinnertime, and then I made abuelita’s tamales for the guys at Atlas’s request. He nearly moaned when he took his first bite, and the sound rattled loose that deliciously perverted side of me that lived to draw that noise out of him.
I was wiped after the visit today, so I wanted to head to bed. But Atlas convinced me to have a drink with Wes and him in the parlor, saying it would soothe my nerves and I deserved it. My bones were heavy, but when Wes pouted and gave me the puppy-dog eyes, how could I say no?
“What are you drinking, witch?” Atlas asked.
“Whiskey,” I said. “Three fingers, neat. And I’m only having one. Then it’s time to go to sleep.”
“Sure,” he said with a wink. “You just want to get me flat on my back again, huh?”
I raised an eyebrow and tilted my head as he flashed that adorable grin.
Reminding myself I was still supposed to hate him, even if I didn’t, I accepted my drink and went to sit next to Wes on the couch, who was currently sipping on a twenty-year scotch.
He’d been hesitant to open it at first, but like Atlas said, what was real in the liminal?
Did our decisions here affect the other side?
So I said fuck it and welcomed him to it.
“Cheers to blood bonds and dead witches from the 1500s,” Atlas said, slumping down on the other couch across from us.
I snorted and held my glass up before taking a sip, relishing the burn that slid down my throat.
“So I have a question,” Atlas said, “now that we’re lubing up our inhibitions.”
A spark of his devilish playfulness twisted in my sternum, and I took another drink in anticipation of where this was going.
“When we hooked up earlier…did you feel it?” he asked, glancing at Wes.
Wes choked on his scotch next to me and wiped his mouth before licking his lips. I focused on that beautiful tongue, recalling how it felt between my legs. Atlas glanced at me with a smirk as if he knew exactly what I was thinking. Maybe he remembered it, too.
“Uh…yeah.” Wes rubbed his index finger over his eyebrow.
That, too, brought back the sensation of him sliding it inside me.
He had beautiful hands, so strong and callused and talented.
Truthfully, both of them did. Their fingers had been honed through years of combat training and precise knife work.
“What did you feel?” I asked more to distract myself than to get an answer.
“It was this sensation in my gut, at first,” Wes explained. “And then I got hard, just out of nowhere. I was confused. I didn’t know where it was coming from. I mean, I was looking through death records. Not exactly the sexiest thing in the world.”
He paused to clear his throat and shift his hips, looking between the two of us.
“And then?” Atlas asked, goading him on.
“And then, I couldn’t help myself. I had my dick out in the library and I was stroking it before I knew what I was doing.” Wes smiled and looked at me. “I sensed you first. I could feel something inside me…kind of how it was at the ritual when I…when we…”
A faint blush graced his cheeks. For being as forward as he was last night and earlier today, the sight of his bashfulness was almost endearing.
“Go on,” I said, nudging him with my shoulder. The whiskey hit me harder than I thought it would, but I was a lightweight, so I shouldn’t have been that surprised.
“I realized the two of you must have been up to something because by the time I was three pumps in, I was ready to explode. It was compulsive, like I didn’t have any control over it. I had to do it.”
That was how I felt in the moment. That must have been why Atlas tried to yank the emergency brake but couldn’t.
“I thought it was the demon’s influence,” Atlas said, confirming my suspicion. “That feeling of not being in control.”
“The demon in the mirror said it could see me, that it saw us in the woods last night. It tasted my magic and said it was delicious.” I looked between them as Atlas swirled his whiskey and Wes sipped his scotch. “It was stupid to leave the estate.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Wes said. “You got in touch with Tita. We know what we have to do, now.”
A small part of me worried that might have been the demon, too. But no, I’d sensed the connection in my blood. I knew it was her.
I hadn’t forgotten her other advice. You need to pray.
Even as angry at God as I was, I couldn’t deny that I would need all the help I could get. Could I put that aside for the sake of getting out of here?
Anger into faith, faith into action.
“Did you happen to find anything else in the library about how to get out of the liminal?” I redirected the conversation, hoping to distract myself.
Wes shook his head. “I think rewiring the warrior bond is still our best bet.”
“If we could share magic…if we could pull from the earth together…”
“I don’t know of any other witches that can give their magic to their warriors,” Atlas said. “Then again, I don’t know of anyone who’s seen the other side of a liminal and lived to tell the tale.”
“True enough,” Wes said. “But that doesn’t mean we won’t be first.”
I appreciated his optimism, now more than ever.
Despite saying I would only have one drink, I was obviously full of shit because after my glass was empty, Atlas refilled it.
The conversation continued, somehow veering into a memory of the night they’d snuck out while their dad was on a hunt and nearly got chewed up by the same demon their dad had been looking for.
“So then this idiot tosses a salt grenade at the son of a bitch, and it fucking catches it!” Wes was laughing so hard at the story, he almost couldn’t get the words out. “Boom! It explodes in the demon’s face. We run like hell out of there, only to smack face-first into Dad.”
“God, he was pissed,” Atlas said, shaking his head as he drank his scotch. “I got my ass handed to me that night.”