Chapter 13
Hexes and Oh's
MAX
I’m in a dark bedroom where the windows are boarded shut. The metallic heads of the many, many nails catch the faint flicker of candlelight in nefarious patterns. The stale air tickles my nostrils, but that discomfort is nothing in comparison to the roar in my chest.
He’s here again—the man with wings. His face is hidden, his body haloed by a light that pulses around him. Shadows shift across his bare chest, tracing the rise of muscle and bone as he breathes. He wraps a hand around my long side braid and slides down its length.
I’m almost certain it’s E, or at least the person I imagine him to be. If I could see his face, I’d know the truth. Eyes are windows to the soul. If I could see him, I’d know whether he’s some devil sent to steal my soul, or a kindred spirit.
He moves closer. The floorboards creak under my weight as his fingers brush the top button of my nightgown, undoing it, then the next. The sound of my ragged breaths fills the room.
“Your secret is safe with me, witch,” he murmurs.
“You could have any woman you want. Why me?” I squeak.
He kisses my neck and slips my nightgown off. “Because you like fucking the dead. And now that I know your filthy little secret, you belong to me.”
I hate him, but it doesn’t stop me from lusting for him. For his power. When I kiss him, there’s no hesitation in me, no restraint. I was waiting for him long before I ever learned his name, even though he’s dangerous.
When I’m in his arms, I’m his queen. The queen of a world where only he makes the rules, and that’s intoxicating.
I wake with a start, the sort of false awakening that sends my heart straight to my throat. I’m on the cliffs now, with my beloved pressed at my back, his arm wrapped around my midriff.
“What is it, little fox?” E whispers. “Another nightmare?”
I nod.
He tucks his chin in the crook of my neck. “You’re safe, now. It wasn’t real.”
I shift in his embrace. “I shouldn’t stay.”
He keeps me captive, denying me the chance to see his face. “Shh. Isn’t it sweet for us here, in the Dreaming? To have someplace to meet, across time?”
A pout twists my lips. “I wish I could see your eyes. I want to know your name—”
He covers my mouth with one finger, cutting me off, and snakes his other hand down my stomach. His tongue darts out to taste my shoulder as he drags his fingers past my navel to the seam between my legs. I’m wet and ready for him, as I am always, and my lids flutter.
“Don’t you like this place?” He nibbles my shoulder, the hand covering my mouth dipping down to knead my breasts. “And what I do to you?”
“Yes.”
He grazes and pinches and teases, exactly the way I like it. Exactly the way I need him to. When the thick head of his cock slips between my ass cheeks and enters me from behind, I gasp.
He makes love to me again and again, never in reality but for all eternity. Every golden morning, on this cliff, where I get to fuck a ghost without shame or regret. Because that’s the only time of day I feel truly alive.
He always knows how to please me. My dream-husband.
My mouth parts on a sweet, sweet sigh. “With dreams like you haunting me, it’s a cold, slow death to wake up.”
He bites my earlobe at that, hooking a finger to rub that deep, sensitive space behind my pubic bone. “I should punish you for bringing him up.”
He hates it when I mention Death, but lately, I’ve thought of nothing else. I can’t help but squint at the exact point where the waterfall meets the clouds, and wonder what would happen to me if I jumped. Would I go home, then? And who would be waiting for me there?
“You’re distracted,” my lover muses, his thumb rubbing my clit in a scolding, delicious manner. “Have you kissed him yet. Your ghost? Is it his cock you want between your legs?” he chuckles darkly, as though this is all a big joke.
I pant out a curse and a blessing. “Fuck, don’t stop.”
He stops. “I’m jealous of him.”
“Why?” I cry out, dangling on the edge.
“Because he’s not broken, like me. And he gets to love you regardless.”
“I won’t fall for him,” I say, trying to appease my lover.
His laugh grows louder, almost joyful, but also incredibly condescending. “Oh, little fox… You already have.”
The dream shifts again, keeping me enthralled, pushing back against morning. Devouring my sanity.
I’m a prisoner of these visions, where cottony clouds and bare skin and the mouth of a stranger make me forget to wake up. I’d rather count the feathers on his wings than return to my life, and that’s not only foolish, it’s insidious.
When I finally manage to peel my eyes open, the memory of his touch lingers on my skin.
My heart beats wildly in the shameful space between my legs, the orgasms he gave me all too real.
I know it won’t be the last time he finds me in the Dreaming, but is it E, truly?
Or some twisted version of him that exists only in my brain?
He was jealous of my ghost, but I don’t see who else he could be. Not with a voice like that… I comb my hair back, pressing hard against my scalp to ground myself in the present and resist the temptation to slip back into sleep.
“E?” I call to the bedroom.
“I’m here.”
The sound comes from the window, calming the whoosh of blood at my temples.
I nod and ponder whether to ask if he’s influencing my dreams, if he’s somehow to blame for my predicament and those long, heated visions, but I’m not sure I’d believe him if he denied it.
“You looked like you were battling demons in your sleep,” he murmurs, hovering closer.
“That’s about right,” I croak.
I can’t tell if he’s teasing me or not, but his tone sounds perfectly innocent.
If it didn’t make sense for me to accept a proposal from a mortal I barely knew, it makes even less sense to lust for a dead man. I have to get my act together, and quickly.
I tear the covers off my body, ignoring the mess between my legs, and pull on fresh clothes. The sooner I do this séance and get into the attic, the sooner I’ll get clarity, whatever the outcome.
I wouldn’t be the first witch to be overcome by a dark spirit, but if E were a devil, Mabel would have warned me against him.
Only, I never told her about the dreams. Maybe I’m wrong, and the man who made love to me all night isn’t the same person as the spirit who lingers close now.
Maybe I’ve got two different entities vying for my soul.
I close the heavy drapes and push the sofa against the wall, making space in the living room for a grander, better-equipped version of the spell I tried last time.
Using Mabel’s books as a guide, I draw a circle and an eight-pointed star in chalk before covering the lines with salt, leaving room for two people at the heart of the star.
I gather black nightshade flowers and stick them in a vase, watering them with my blood.
“Do you always have to hurt yourself?” E asks in that gruff, possessive tone that sends a shiver through me.
I add sticks of incense to the mix. “Blood is power.”
I cover each point of the star with three candles—one for the flesh, one for the blood, and one for the bones.
My lips press together as I pick up the lantern.
The damn antique is messing with my head.
Whenever I touch it, a hot flash rushes through me, followed by a maddening sizzle.
It glides softly over my arms, my legs, my chest. It teases my navel, lingers along the curve of my hips, and slips between my thighs.
It feels like I’m sunbathing naked on that rock I keep dreaming about.
It’s as if E’s very soul is brushing against mine.
I bite my bottom lip and quickly set the lantern down in the very center of the circle next to the vase, then sit cross-legged on one side. I rub my hands together, sweat gathering over my brows.
Here goes.
“Dark One, heed my prayers,” I chant as I light the incense. “What’s hidden in shadow may be revealed in light. What was lost can be found. What was flesh can become flesh once more.”
The air thickens with the scent of iron and burnt rose petals. The flames waver, bending toward me, and the magic coils around my ribs like a living thing ready to break free.
The black nightshade spontaneously combusts.
Its stems curl, crumbling to ash in seconds with a faint, hissing sigh.
Smoke fills my lungs. The glass vase splinters with a sharp crack, and blood seeps through the fracture.
It drips down the sides of the broken vase and pools along the hardwood in bright crimson lines, creeping toward E.
“What should I do?” he asks.
“Stay put,” I manage, even as the candles flare around us, the fire leaping higher than my head. The air drums in a feverish rhythm that makes my pulse stutter, then race. Magic floods through me—hot, sweet, and wild.
I rise tentatively to my feet, the room spinning with heat and light.
“Your eyes…” E whispers.
The flames from the candles stretch toward me, and the roar of my heart thunders—too large for one body to contain. The skin of my chest, arms, and hands prickles from the heat.
“You’re catching fire, little fox,” E says, his voice full of awe.
My insides fill with heat, my throat bobbing at the nickname. “What did you call me?”
It’s him. It has to be. The mysterious man making love to me on the cliffs.
But E doesn’t answer, probably too busy watching the flames spreading over my skin.
To my surprise, the fire doesn’t burn—it caresses. Crimson flames coil around my wrists and shoulders like a feral beast tearing free of its cage for the first time. My chest rises and falls, euphoria flooding my veins until I feel untethered. Weightless.
“Dark One, heed my prayers,” I repeat, digging my toes into the floor. “What’s hidden in shadow may be revealed in light. What was lost can be found. What was flesh can become flesh once more.”
A strong wind blows out the candles, and a white light shivers across the walls, rippling upward toward the ceiling. In front of me now stands a man-shaped shadow, haloed in rich, golden rays.
The light is so clear and bright it aches, and I angle my gaze to the ground, blinking furiously as water spills from my eyes. I can almost see him. He’s awfully tall.
Intense pain rewards my efforts to look at him, and I squeeze my eyes shut.
A rush of tears from the too-bright light slips between my closed lids as disappointment curls low in my gut.
I’ve tried to pass it off as a distraction from my current predicament, but I’m desperate to know what he looks like, as if that somehow matters.
“I feel…different,” E croaks.
“Now, try to touch something.” I wrestle my hands still, trying to tame the excitement in my voice.
I don’t dare open my eyes again, in fear of going blind.
“Alright,” he croaks.
His breath hits my cheeks. Like he’s a living person.
Long fingers cup my face—warmer than I ever imagined a ghost could be. His other hand curves around the back of my neck, and what begins as a tentative, ghostly touch deepens into a confident, possessive hold.
I didn’t mean this. I didn’t mean me.
Didn’t you? that pesky inner voice asks.
E bends down to kiss me, and unlike the strange energy coming from the lantern—thrilling in a distant, unfocused way—his touch is vivid.
I performed this ritual and the last under the pretense of getting into the attic, but I got caught up in E’s ghostliness along the way. I was desperate to summon him and get answers.
And summon him I have.
Maxine Bloodsinger, you’re engaged.
I can’t be kissing a ghost. After a split second, short enough to ease my shame, I try to shove him back, but my fingers collide with a broad, hard chest.
E’s chest.
I’m unravelling.
I freeze at how solid he feels, my mouth parting in surprise, and he takes it as an invitation.
The fullness of lips that haven’t touched or been touched in decades rattles me, the brush of his tongue melting my insides.
It isn’t smooth or soft like in the dreams. This isn’t some blurred, imaginary man drifting among weightless clouds under a sunny sky.
This kiss is anything but safe. It’s a blood-pumping, nail-dragging, mouth-devouring catastrophe.
E drinks my soul through this cursed, impossible connection as though I’m a maiden he dragged to his lair and refuses to surrender—as though shattering my senses and driving me to betray every promise I ever made could somehow bring him back to life.
I let out a wounded moan and grip his shoulders, finally tearing myself away. “Stop!”
I’m terrified by the cravings he’s incited in me in so short a time.
A shard of my soul has come loose, a chasm opening inside my body, a hollow space I’d boarded over and forgotten about.
This dark crevasse inside my heart is desperate to kiss him back, to throw it all to hells and feel something true.
He called me little fox, which confirms he’s also been invading my dreams. I stumble backward, out of the circle, and the magic snaps.
The ethereal light that was still visible through my closed lids vanishes as I turn away from him, away from the delirious current of energy thrumming between us.
I need to sever it now, before it swallows me whole.
“I— I have to go.”
“Max, wait!” His voice is urgent but dark. Hungry. “Max! Come back!”
He gives chase, but his presence fades as I reach the outside, running past the front door and beyond the iron gates.
Cold spreads through me as I flee, the sun rays filtering through the clouds, unable to warm my skin. It feels like punishment from some higher power for running away, but I couldn’t stay.
There’s no denying it anymore. I don’t know how it started, or why I haven’t stopped it before now, but I’m developing very real, immensely inconvenient feelings for someone who isn’t my fiancé. For a ghost.