Chapter 3
THREE
Joss’s answering smile could have warmed the coldest night.
Her lips spread wide and wonderful, and the juxtaposition of teeth against rich dark skin, purpled by moonlight, gave the witch an ethereal, otherworldly appearance.
Blaire’s breath caught, unable to pass through her lungs as Joss guided her to the center of the ritual circle and turned away, assembling her potions from the cauldrons, flasks, and vials.
As she worked, she murmured under her breath, speaking the intent they had designed so long ago.
Blaire joined in, closing her eyes and letting the early stages of the ritual wash over her.
She centered herself in the sound of Joss’s voice and the music of the mountain: the rustle of wind through the pines.
The hoot of an owl and the soft scuffle of a possum in the undergrowth.
Earth shifted and rolled beneath her bare feet, the magick rising to their joined summons and burying Blaire’s toes.
Thin roots snaked up her ankles to circle her calves, and she welcomed the green, lowering her arms and turning her wrists out to be bound.
Gentle hands pulled her robes away, leaving Blaire bared to the moonlight as vines and roots twisted around her thighs and hips, cuffing her wrists and bracing the hedge witch for what came next.
Theirs was a ritual of connection, of joining. A giving over of self and every ritual required three things: intent, desire, and sacrifice.
Where Joss paid her sacrifice into the potion with blood, hair, nails, and spit, Blaire’s was a sacrifice of self. The earth gave to the witch, and the witch gave to the earth, and so, bound by twists of ivy and roots, Blaire gave herself to Joss.
“You’re lovely like this.” Joss dabbed Blaire’s eyelids with something warm and wet, her breath teasing against her neck. Goosebumps erupted, her nipples tightened, and a shiver trembled through her limbs. “Bound in your magick, bare for me.”
“Joss,” she sighed, aching to lean into her voice, her warmth.
“Open your eyes.” Again, she thumbed Blaire’s lower lip, the soft press replaced by the cool rim of a vial. “We must be connected in all ways for this to work.”
As bidden, she met Joss’s gaze, swallowing the potion raised to her lips.
Tepid liquid hit her tongue, astringent and sharp at first taste. And then a dormant familiarity blossomed. Mallow and a hint of powder, salt, and soft florals. Blaire swallowed a groan with the potion, eyes fluttering closed as a low ache built deep in her core.
“Eyes on me, baby,” Joss murmured, her gaze fixed on Blaire’s mouth. The fingers of one hand worked the clasp on the front of her robes. Silk slipped away, baring Joss to the night, and Blaire would have fallen to her knees if the roots and ivy allowed.
The years had been kind, so kind, to her witch, carving a leanly muscled beauty from the softness of youth.
Pert breasts limned in moonlight held dark nipples tightened to delectable points.
The slope of her ribs gave way to her waist, the gentle curve widening ever so slightly at her hips.
A thatch of dark curls nestled at the crown of her thighs, and Blaire’s knees trembled with want.
“Goddess, Joss.”
She smiled then, a soft, shy curl of her lips, and lowered her lashes.
Joss traced the heavy curve of Blaire’s breast with a knuckle, trailing the slight swell of her belly and back up again.
“No.” She cupped both breasts, lips parting at the heft.
A soft sigh escaped, and she met Blaire’s gaze, her eyes heated and dark.
“You’re the Goddess.” Thumbs traced her nipples, and pleasure tingled through the tissue, clenching her pussy with need. “Look at you.”
And look she did, lowering to her knees, hands still cupping Blaire’s breasts, to gaze up at her like a supplicant. “Let me worship you.”
Blaire strained against the greenlife holding her in place, flexing her fingers and reaching for Joss, but her magick, the earth, did not yield.
This was the ritual. This was what it meant to give oneself over entirely to the magick. The witch. Willing and free, trusting and consenting to be worshipped, as was her due.
“You may,” Blaire spoke with a surety at odds with the trembling of her body. Every inch of her skin, every cell, reached for Joss, begging to be touched, pleasured, devoured.
Joss exhaled, her breath warm against Blaire’s belly, and then her mouth was on her, kissing their twinned intent into her skin.
Her palms slid down Blaire’s sides, wrapping around her thick thighs to hold her close.
Roots and ivy strained forward at her touch, and Blaire gave herself over to the motion, the pleasure of being restrained.
She gripped the corded roots cuffing her wrists, and gasped as Joss took her nipple between her lips, picking up the song of their ritual where the other witch had left off.
Somehow, despite the distraction of Joss’s mouth, despite the pleasure stealing her breath, she continued in a steady voice.
Joss flicked her tongue across Blaire’s nipple, taking her breast into her mouth and sucking as she stroked her hands up the length of her legs.
A thrum of magick built in the soles of Blaire’s feet, pulsing up her shins and into her calves with every encouraging stroke of Joss’s palms.
Intent rose in her throat as heat rose in her belly. A song of the Blue Ridge, the holler, and the people and witches cradled in their valley. A melody of love, loss, and life lived in the shadow of Roan Mountain. Of longing and sorrow and the peace found in coming home.
Through it all, Joss worshipped her body with her lips, her tongue, her teeth. Heat boiled in Blaire’s veins as the intent in Joss’s potion caught, the sacrifice of self Joss had paid to the magick Blaire imbibed, connecting them as one.
On her knees, Joss cried out as Blaire’s pleasure became hers.
The flick of her tongue against Blaire’s clit was frantic, sending bolts of heat and bliss to white out her vision.
She bucked against the roots, and Joss’s nails drove into the soft flesh of her thighs, sweeping her tongue through her folds and grazing her clit again. Again.
The muscles in Joss’s thighs tensed and danced as she rolled her hips, seeking friction Blaire was all too happy to give.
Later. Next time, every other time but this time. This was a ritual of connection, of giving oneself over entirely.
A ritual of joining.
A finger swept through her arousal, teasing her clit as Joss sucked on the inside of her thigh, marking Blaire with a heated kiss.
Her lean thighs clenched, the pain and the pleasure shared between them.
With a flick of her eyes up to Blaire’s face, Joss plunged her finger deep.
A guttural groan strained from her throat, and with a crook of Joss’s finger, both witches panted in unison.
“More,” Blaire demanded. Joss obliged, adding a second finger. A third. A throaty gasp left her lips, and she dropped her forehead against Blaire’s hip.
“Baby…”
“Keep going, Joss,” Blaire begged. “Don’t stop; I can—Goddess, this feels—”
“I know.” She bent her fingers, striking a place that had Blaire moaning and writhing against the vines. “Goddess, I know, baby.”
“Please.”
“Always,” Joss promised, kissing the underswell of her belly. “Always,” and again before she closed her lips over Blaire’s clit and sucked.
Her orgasm swelled and burst without warning, pleasure crashing over them both with the force of an avalanche.
Blaire threw her head back, calling out Joss’s name as magick coursed behind her bliss.
Heat suffused her veins and welded itself to her bones.
The roots and ivy slid away, coiling around Joss and binding the witch to Blaire.
To the earth. Witch and demesne, demesne and witch, together as one.
Free to move, Blaire dropped to her knees, clasping Joss’s cheeks and hauling her in for a hard, bruising kiss.
Coarse, knotted roots scraped against tender flesh as their tongues danced, their bodies pressed together as hard as they could be, as if each witch desired only to be in and of the other.
Blaire’s softer, plusher curves melded around Joss’s lean figure as the euphoria of their joining fizzled and calmed, leaving a low, kindling warmth in its absence.
Blaire leaned back, drinking in the stunned expression Joss wore. Bee-stung lips parted, the pink tip of her tongue just visible as she panted in the comedown. Dazed, Joss swallowed and whispered, “Did it work?”
In reply, Blaire cupped her own breast, tweaking the nipple until Joss’s eyes widened and a cry of surprised pleasure escaped. “Yeah.” She huffed a laugh. “I’d say it worked.”
“Oh, my Goddess.” Joss collapsed against her; her body sheened in a flash sweat, limbs liquid. “You’re going to abuse this, aren’t you?”
“Never.” She kissed her temple, cupping the back of Joss’s head to keep her right where she was—home, with Blaire. “Unless you want me to.”
Joss’s laughter rang out from the mountain, a joyous, bubbling sound trickling into the earth and the streams, braiding into the roots of Hexen Holler. “And the magick?” she asked when her giggles died away. “It’s not too much?”
Blaire closed her eyes, feeling the pulse of a new, foreign power in her limbs, knowing without looking that Joss was doing the same.
The earth rumbled beneath their knees, and magick lapped like a wave at her limbs.
“No,” she said, opening her eyes to find Joss gazing lovingly back at her. “It feels like coming home.”