Chapter 5 #2
She bites down on her bottom lip, looking both fierce and innocent, her confident movements undercut by the heavy blush rising to her cheeks and the slight tremor in her voice.
“This kind of spell doesn’t call for talent,” she murmurs. “Just rigorous preparation. I can do this.” She nods a few times, as though she’s trying to summon the courage she needs to succeed.
The crack of a match raises goosebumps along my arms as Max lights one of her candles, the scent of sulphur and smoke flooding my senses. I expect her to use it to light the others, but instead she holds a giant needle over the flame.
“What are you—”
Before I can finish, she sinks the tip into the heel of her palm without a flicker of hesitation. “I need blood for the spell.”
“Don’t hurt yourself on my account,” I ground out.
“I’m a witch. A bad one, maybe, but I don’t fret at the sight of blood. Believe me.”
Red drops fall into the shallow bowl of water at her feet.
She adds dark ink to the mixture, and the liquid blooms into a deep crimson.
With a paintbrush, she divides the circle into four neat quarters, her hand steady as she paints symbols with careful strokes, copying patterns from the spellbook.
The grace in her movements steals my breath.
“What are those?”
“Runes,” she says. “They should help you focus your energy.”
The red ink shimmers. I drift closer to the circle, my gaze tracing the slope of her neck and the elegant curve of her back. I imagine what it would feel like for our knees to brush. To taste the warmth of her pulse.
Her bite of power coats my skin, teasing, like the echo of a touch I’ll never have. I hover there, caught between fantasy and desire, knowing every second I linger pulls me deeper into a longing I cannot satisfy, a fire that can never burn me.
When she serves two cups of tea and sets them in front of her, I cross the line of salt and settle myself in front of her in the circle.
“Are you ready?” Her eyes shine with excitement—forest green, deep and endless, like staring into an enchanted woodland.
“Always.”
A soft, playful laugh pops out of her mouth and shivers down my spine.
“Dark One, heed my prayers,” she declares, her voice smooth and commanding.
“Grant sight to those lost in the dark.
Grant strength to the weary and worn.
Grant blood to the desperate and thirsty.
Let your mercy answer their call.”
Her pupils dilate, and she curls a hand around the bronze handle of my lantern—my cage, my home, my prison—the only tangible part of me. The sight is erotic as fuck.
Warmth tickles the length of my spine, as though she’s actually touching me. The sensation of human touch spears through me, as sharp and intense as a lightning bolt. She’s radiant, magnetic, utterly intoxicating.
“The void hungers.
The grave awaits.
But not tonight.
I offer blood in death’s stead.”
The star-shaped freckle at the corner of her mouth beckons.
I want to reach out, press my lips to hers, and feel her pulse.
I want to curl my fingers into her fiery hair and press her closer, feel the brush of her lips against mine.
This is impossible, and yet, I crave it beyond reason.
I can’t stop picturing my hands on her body.
I’m hard. Dizzy. Desperate.
I feel more alive than ever.
That little dent I made in her mattress wasn’t nearly enough. I want to spread her out over the bloody runes and feel her tremble beneath me, mark every inch of her skin with my mouth, my tongue, my teeth.
I can imagine a life where she’d strip for me, begging for my hands to learn the shape of her flesh and draw a moan from her lips.
I’d be good at it, too. I’d know exactly where to graze and where to pinch, how to adjust the pressure to quicken her breath until her body softened with sweetness and longing.
Max sets the lantern carefully next to the teacups, oblivious to the turn my thoughts have taken.
In a single heartbeat, I shift from a jaded, incorporeal ghost to something that hungers for more—craving the joys stolen from me in death, willing to kill for a moment in this woman’s arms. I might not remember my own name, but I’d know how to make her scream in pleasure and beg for more.
Maybe I was stuck in this purgatory to find a way to atone for the sins I committed, but I want to double down on them. My head is full of sweet ways I could torture Max, if she let me, and all the ways devils like me worship angels like her.
A sudden wind blows the fine hairs framing her face forward, and the other candles flare to life. Salt scrapes across the floorboards, poking holes in the circle.
“Fuck. It’s working.” Her eyes bulge, and her blush deepens. She sounds surprised and proud and terrified all at once. “How are you feeling?”
“Delirious and hungry,” I whisper darkly.
Goosebumps rise along her lower arms, and she rubs the chill off. Her cheeks are so red, I could just take a bite out of them.
“How about that cane? Could you move it now?” she asks.
Right. She’s not trying to give me strength because she wants me to kiss the life out of her. She needs me to open the hatch for her. The realization pops the dangerously heated bubble I was caught in.
A pang of regret twists my chest as I float upward to the attic.
My newfound strength tapers off too quickly, leaving me just enough time to wrench the cane away.
The wooden stick hits the floor a heartbeat later, marking the moment I become fully ghost again.
I make peace with my decision not to kiss Max, because that stolen second would never have been enough.
But now that I know it’s possible, I’ll practice—every waking hour of every day, if that’s what it takes.
“I did it!” I announce proudly.
Max pulls the attic’s trapdoor down and unfolds the ladder tucked between the two floors.
I’m grinning from ear to ear, which she can’t see, but she mirrors that grin right back anyway and starts to climb.
“Well done, boo,” she teases.
Just as she’s about to step off the folding ladder, a powerful gush of air rustles the papers on the desk. The drawings on the walls glow blood-red. Magic snaps in the air like elastic stretched too far, and shoves Max back violently.
She falls to her bum on the floor below. “Ow.”
The elation from the séance drains out of me as I zoom to her side. “Flaming hells. Are you alright? I should have realized what those drawings were—or at least slowed down your fall.”
“No, it’s my own fault. I should have known Mabel would have warded the place.”
Without thinking, I offer a hand to help her up.
She takes it without seeing it and springs to her feet, my hand clenching around her knuckles in surprise.
Fuuuuck.
Shock widens her eyes and shortens her breaths. We remain locked in that touch, her green gaze searching the empty space in front of her. She blinks at the deep grooves left by my fingers on her skin before I soften my hold, but if I listened to the roar in my ears, I’d only grip her tighter.
With a nervous laugh, she slinks away and brings her hand to her chest.
I touched her. Actually touched her.
Her hand was so small in mine…
“How did you know my hand was there?” I croak.
“I didn’t—” Another stifled laugh quakes her throat, her cheeks flushed with the deepest blush yet. Lovely. Full of life. “Instinct, I guess.”
Max rubs her knuckles down with her thumb and tilts her head toward the attic. Her pupils are huge, her wild pulse visible at the angle of her neck. “Wait here. I’m going to get my sketchbook so you can describe the runes Mabel used.”
She veers off toward the stairs, racing down. I can’t shake the sense she wants me to stay behind, to give her space, as though she caught a glimpse of my wretched soul and needed to get away.
The way she flees, so quick, so deliberate, only sharpens my need to chase.
I’m losing control. I shouldn’t want this. Shouldn’t want her. And yet every instinct screams to hunt her down, to take what I cannot, to pull her close and never let go. The impossibility of it only feeds my hunger. Forget the ring, forget her dumb fiancé, forget the life she had before we met.
Max will be mine—whatever the cost.