Chapter 22
Adriel's POV
“How old are you?” Rami asks, looking up from where he’s pulling weeds. I open my mouth to tell him when his eyes grow comically large. “Oh shit! That’s probably not a kind thing to ask.”
I can’t help the chuckle that escapes my lips.
The past three days that he’s been here have truly been sensational.
He has such a zest for life that I can’t help but be drawn in by him.
Part of me wishes this will never end, but then I remind myself that he’s mortal and everything must end eventually. A life without Rami in it isn’t living.
Ludo gently touches my arm, reminding me that Rami had asked me a question.
“I don’t know my age,” I answer.
Rami’s brows pinch together, creating an adorable line between them. “Is that part of your curse too?”
“No,” I reply, shaking my head and chuckling lightly. “I don’t know how many years have passed. Time feels different since I’ve been here.” The admission likely should make me uncomfortable, but it is something I’ve come to terms with long ago. Time stopped mattering a long time ago.
“Let’s see.” I scratch the scruff along my jawline. “I left home around the late 1620s.” My voice trails off, trying to remember that long ago to make sure my timing is accurate.
“Holy fucking shit, dude!” I sit back on my heels to see what has upset him. It takes me several seconds to realize it’s only shock and not something more nefarious. “I mean, I don’t know what I was expecting, but not four hundred. Wait!”
Rami sits up taller, staring directly into my eyes. My hands run along my thighs to keep them busy so I don’t reach out and touch him again. Now that I’ve learned I can handle contact through our clothes, I have a hard time keeping my hands to myself.
“That means you were alive during the Salem Witch Trials, right?” he asks, wonder sparkling in his brilliant blue eyes.
“I’m not familiar with what that is.” It can’t be good, though.
“It’s where they burned a bunch of women, and a few men, at the stake. Accused them of being witches.”
The breath in my lungs turns stale, and I find it troublesome to breathe properly. “Why would anyone do such a thing?”
Rami’s shoulders lift toward his ears in an exaggerated shrug. “Mass hysteria mostly. Or bigots unwilling to understand people who were different from them. History believes that most of them weren’t even witches. Not that being a witch is grounds for murder. It happened in the late 17th century.”
“Then I suppose I was safe here by then.” I glance down at my markings, clearly labeling me as a witch.
If I were free from this curse, perhaps I would also have been murdered in such a way.
If nature hadn’t claimed my body before then, that is.
“How old are you, sweet Rami?” I ask, in hopes of changing the subject.
“Twenty-one. I have one more year left in college, and hopefully, with my high grades, I can prove myself worthy and regain my freedom.”
“How does one’s education determine their worth?” I really don’t understand this world he lives in.
“It doesn’t,” he admits with a weighted sigh. “But the courts deemed me unfit to care for myself, which is why I was forced to live with my grandmother.”
“And that is why you cannot leave?”
His head nods, but the dour expression makes my chest ache. I want to ask more, but he continues and cuts me off. So, I offer him the ear I’m not certain he has in his life.
“Honestly, I’m not sure how that’s going to work even once I graduate if they don’t release me,” he groans and runs his fingers through his long hair.
My brows steadily lift, taking in his crestfallen face as he dives deeper into his pain. My hands rub along my thighs, once again itching to touch him. I’ve barely made contact with him tonight, so I will continue to be patient.
“I mean. Shit. What am I gonna say if I get a job? ‘Hang on, let me ask my grandmother for permission, ‘cause I'm a grown-ass man-child.’ ”
I don’t realize he’s crying until he wipes away the tears from his eyes, and I feel like the biggest twat. He pushes up from the ground and storms away, hugging his middle. The soft sobs that follow him tear my heart in two.
I follow after him. The need to console him is overpowering. But anytime I attempt to form the words in my head, they never sound like enough. What can I say to him? I don’t know enough about the world today, and he’s clearly holding back information. So, my words are useless.
I follow anyway.
The roiling in my gut steadily increases as I unknowingly approach the border of my territory. It’s not enough to double me over or halt my steps. Yet. In fact, my sole focus is on the retreating form of the man I’ve come to grow fond of.
I don’t realize how far we’ve traveled until my feet lock into place and refuse to move. The lack of movement would likely be more disconcerting if I wasn’t accustomed to it and what it means.
“Fuck,” I mumble.
Do I call after him and beg him to return to me, or allow him the space he so clearly desires?
With no answer, I pace like a caged animal. My body senses the invisible border, allowing me to skirt it easily.
Not able to handle the space, feeling more like a chasm opening between us. And I hate it. My power begins to spike.
“Rami!” I call out, hating how my voice breaks on his precious name.
Thankfully, he stops and glances at me over his shoulder.
When he realizes I followed him only part way, he turns entirely toward me.
One brow rises as he looks all around, like he’s piecing together a puzzle to my predicament.
I love how clever he is. His curiosity has made my inability to explain the components of my curse so much easier.
“Why did you follow me just to stop way over there?” The arms that were around his middle, as if he needed to physically hold himself together, are now across his chest. The tears created track marks down his cheek and I itch to wipe them away. But here I am, stuck.
“I c-can’t,” I stammer.
Rami closes most of the space between us, and I can feel my shoulders lower from my ears. “The curse traps you here.”
It’s not a question, but I nod anyway.
“Can you show me?” His eyes sparkle in the torchlight, pleading. Begging me not to deny the distraction disguised as a request.
“As you wish.”
We walk the perimeter in a content silence.
He never closes the distance between us; remaining just outside of my range.
His arms have returned to around his middle, and I hate the discomfort I see on his face.
It’s not until we’re almost back to where we started that I finally get the nerve to ask him something.
“Do you have no other family you could turn to?” I’ve heard him speak about how horrendous his grandmother is, and hope he has someone willing to fight for him. Well, someone not trapped in the woods by a curse.
He shakes his head, dropping his gaze to nudge some dirt with his boot.
Shame emanates from him in cloying waves.
“My mother was quite promiscuous. She claimed she never knew who my dad was. Based on the number of boyfriends she bounced between when I was a kid, I don’t doubt that.
We moved around a lot between boyfriends.
It always felt like an adventure each time.
Until one boyfriend, when I was about ten, got her addicted to drugs.
Things spiraled pretty quickly then, leaving me to raise myself.
I filed for emancipation when I was fifteen, and Mom died of an overdose when I was seventeen. ”
The pain this poor man has been through is choking. My need to touch him grows exponentially.
“In college, I fell for a sweet older man at a gay bar. Turns out he was a professor at the college I was attending. So we had to keep our relationship quiet. But I fell hard for him. Life was good, and everything was easy.”
His voice trails off as his fingers absently run along the raised pink scar across his wrist, and I know there’s more, but the pain pinching his features tells me now is not the time to pry. I grit my teeth as I attempt to step closer and don’t even budge.
“I’m so sorry, Rami. The last time I saw my family was when I left home at eighteen. It was common back then for witches to branch out and travel. To help those in need. It, unfortunately, made it rather difficult to build any sort of relationship.”
I couldn’t help but picture the handsome young man who was the first one to really pay me any attention when I arrived in Sabletown. His affections were almost enough to make me give up my life.
“If it’s any consolation, I’m here now. As much as I can be, anyway,” I admit.
His red, puffy eyes finally meet mine. The fresh tears sparkle in the moonlight.
My powers surge beneath my fingertips, once again fighting to break free and reach out to him.
And then it hits me, leaving me wondering why I hadn’t thought of it sooner.
My powers could touch him, surround him, comfort him, ease his mind in a way.
But would he feel appreciated or violated?
My eyes fall to the boulder I shattered with my powers several days ago after Rami had left me. I know it won’t be so destructive with Rami. Despite being out of practice with much of my magic, I feel drawn to the young man and would never willingly hurt him.
Rami wipes the tears away with the backs of his hands. “It means more than you could probably understand,” he mumbles, which breaks my resolve.
The golden aether spreads out from my fingertips as I swirl it around to form a powerful sigil for love. Words are unnecessary because the most powerful spells come from your emotions.
I can tell when Rami feels the caress of my powers as his eyes widen and then become half-lidded, his pupils increasing and darkening his lovely blue gaze.
“I understand more than you know.” My voice drops an octave, sounding more sultry than I realize I am capable of.
Slowly, Rami steps closer and closer to me, finally ending my torture. Once he’s within arm's reach, I latch onto the soft shirt covering his chest and yank him toward me. He crashes into me with a soft oof.
“Wh-What was that?” His breath blows against my face as he lifts his chin to stare at me. His eyes blown wide, nearly blocking the beautiful blue tint from my view.
“It was my magic.” With my free hand, I run it along the soft tresses of his blonde hair, loving the silkiness against my roughened fingers. “Did you like it?” I purr.
He nods, barely missing touching the peak of skin on my chest with his chin. But I don’t flinch away. “I find it easier to think out there,” he whispers, his cheeks turning a lovely shade of pink. “In here, it’s filled with your essence, and it makes me want things I can’t have.”
Slowly, I back him toward a nearby tree.
I refuse to put any further space between us, needing to maintain our contact as I crowd in closely.
“What makes you think you can’t have it?
” I ask as I press his back into the rough bark of the tree.
With our bodies aligned, our engorged cocks rub against each other, and stars burst through my vision.
Rami releases the most delicious moan, encouraging me to press myself against him harder.
“When you were out of reach,” I begin, rocking our dicks together again. “It was pure torture. I find myself drawn to you, sweet Rami. When you’re gone, I think of only you.”
The fabric trapping our members away from each other’s is constrictive and a hindrance. Skin on skin is what I crave, but cannot stand. My need is so great, though, that I’d risk insurmountable pain just to touch him for real.
Rami rocks his hips against me, drawing my attention to the sweet man in my clutches.
I move my thigh between his legs and allow him to seek his pleasure against me.
Closing my eyes, I envision the way his hole would stretch to fit my cock.
How he might mewl beneath me as I take him under the stars.
I want to paint the inside of his body while he paints my outside, as we claim each other as one in front of the gods.
When I open my eyes, Rami is staring up at me with his mouth open in a silent moan.
I slowly lower my face until there’s barely room for a breath between us.
As we breathe in the other’s breath. The sensations go straight to my head, forcing my powers to surge around us in a maelstrom of gold, heightening our pleasure until we’re both crying out our finish together.
Neither of us breaks apart, our chests rising and falling rapidly, and our lips nearly touching. “You finish so beautifully,” I whisper. “I wish I could show you real pleasure.” Shame floods through my system as I step away, instantly hating the distance.
Rami closes the space again, placing his palm over my heart. “That was real pleasure, Adriel. More than I’ve felt in a really long time. This relationship may not be conventional, but it is ours, and that’s all that matters.”
I nod, lower my forehead until we’re nearly touching, and close my eyes. Breathing in this smart, sweet man. “You are right. I’m sorry. I did not mean to diminish what we did. It was more pleasure than I’ve ever known. I wish I could give you more.”
A soft chuckle has me opening my eyes and seeing the sparkle of delight in Rami’s blue gaze. “It may take some trial and error, but you’re worth it, Adriel.”
I’m worth it?
His words make me giddy. He’s right, of course. I can’t focus on what we can’t do or what I can’t offer him, but on what we do have.