Chapter 18 #2
“Please. Whatever this is, it’s harming you.”
“You don’t understand.” She clenches her fists. “For the first time in my life, I feel truly alive. I feel powerful. I feel—”
“Drained,” I finish. And then the pieces click together—her nightly absences, her weakening state, the way she smells faintly of cinnamon and… “Oh God. Sanguine magic.”
Her silence is answer enough. The truth hits me like a slap, forcing me back a step. Then fury hits me, hot and ferocious.
Julia. How dare she.
“Charlotte, no. Sanguine witches feed on life force. You are not experiencing magic, you are giving Julia your life—”
“I know what I’m doing!”
“Do you? Look at yourself!” I drag her to the mirror. “You’re wasting away. You can scarcely stand—”
“I don’t care.” She meets my eyes in the reflection, defiant. “Being with her is worth it.”
“She’s killing you.”
“She loves me.”
“She is using you—”
Charlotte spins around and strikes me across the face. The crack echoes in our small room.
“You’re jealous,” she hisses. “You possess magic, and still you would deny me this. But I won’t let you.” She pushes past me toward the door. “I would sooner die than give her up.”
I cup my stinging cheek and watch her go, helpless to stop her.
I’m Charlotte, sitting at the supper table while my parents loom over me. The dining room is suffocating. Heavy velvet curtains block out the evening light, and the air is thick with the smell of roasted meat I cannot bring myself to eat.
“We have spoken to the doctor,” Mother says, her voice tight with fear. “He warned us that if you don’t eat properly—”
“I am fine.”
Father slams his hand on the table, making the dishes rattle. “You are not fine! You’re skin and bones. You won’t tell us where you go at night. You look half-dead—”
“My life is not your concern!” I shove back from the table, and the effort makes me dizzy. I grip the edge to stay upright.
Tears spill down Mother’s cheeks. “Please, Charlotte. Tell us what’s wrong. We can help you.”
“You cannot help me. You have never helped me.” My voice breaks. “You have only kept me locked up like a doll in a box, too precious to touch, too delicate to live. I’m done being your perfect, protected daughter. I’m done being powerless.”
I storm out, ignoring their pleas.
That night, I spread my legs beneath Julia, taking her hand firmly and guiding her fingers where I want them. This is my choice, my body, my pleasure. She is who I want, not some husband chosen by Father who will force me to be obedient and dutiful.
Julia obeys, her eyes darkening with hunger. I see in her eyes that she needs me as much as I need her.
“Inside me,” I whisper.
As she slides her fingers into me, my breath hitches, and I rock my hips against her hand.
“Yes. Just like that.” I arch into her touch, fisting my hands in her dark hair, pulling her closer and claiming her lips.
She makes a small sound of pleasure, kissing me harder.
The room spins as her body presses against mine, her skin hot through the thin fabric of our chemises. Her breath caresses my lips as she whispers the incantation.
She feeds from me for longer than ever. The temperature in the cottage drops, but even as I shiver on her bed, sweat beads along my hairline.
This is the only time I have had control over my life. I am choosing this pleasure, this purpose, and I will not let anyone take it from me.
I’m Julia, watching Charlotte crawl into my bed. She’s so thin I can see every rib and vertebra. The lamplight casts shadows in the hollows of her collarbones, and her skin is pale as milk. Her beautiful blonde hair comes out in clumps on my pillow.
I ought to send her away and tell her not to come back until she’s recovered. “You should not be here tonight. You need to—”
But she’s already kissing me, pressing against me, and my hunger rises to meet her desperation.
“I need you.” Her skeletal fingers fumble with the buttons on my blouse. “Please, Julia. I need to feel it again. I cannot bear another night without it.”
“Charlotte…”
“Do you not want me anymore?” Her eyes fill with tears. “Am I too unsightly now?”
“No.” I cup her hollow cheek. “You’re still beautiful.”
“Then feed on me.” She pulls me down and kisses me desperately. “Make love to me. I can’t sleep without it. Can’t breathe without you. Please.”
I should refuse. I should send her home before…
But she’s begging so sweetly, and I’m so hungry, and her essence still calls to me like nothing else in this world.
She takes my hand, guiding it to her breasts.
“Just a little,” I whisper, smiling against her lips.
I tug at her skirts, sliding the cotton up her thighs. She parts her legs for me eagerly, moaning in relief.
When I slide my fingers between her legs, she’s already wet. She clutches my neck as I start to feed, my magic and touch working together to pleasure her in every way possible.
“Yes, yes…” she gasps, arching beneath me with a broken cry.
I work her with practiced fingers, knowing how she likes to be touched after all these weeks. Her thighs tremble, and I drink deeper as her pleasure builds, the two sensations intertwining until she cannot tell where one ends and the other begins.
“Julia…” She whimpers my name over and over, begging me to keep going.
Her body tenses, tightening around my fingers, and when she comes undone, it’s with a strangled cry that she buries against my shoulder. The rush of her climax floods through our connection, her life force pouring into me in a torrent of pure bliss.
Just a little, I tell myself.
But it’s never just a little. Her essence is too sweet and intoxicating. She is weakening beneath me, her heartbeat becoming erratic, and some distant part of me knows I should stop.
Just a bit more. She is still breathing. Still conscious.
I take and take until she goes limp in my arms, until her breathing becomes shallow and her heartbeat flutters like a dying bird.
When she collapses in ecstasy, I prop myself up on my elbow at her side, stroking her hair and kissing her softly, until her eyes flutter open again.
She turns her head and smiles drunkenly at me. “You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Julia Moreau.”
I’m Rebecca, storming toward Julia’s cottage with fear gripping my chest.
Something is wrong.
Charlotte never came home last night, and Julia missed this evening’s coven circle.
I push through the trees, and her cottage comes into view, overgrown with thorny vines and dark flowers. The door is standing open.
That’s odd. Julia never leaves her door open, not even in high summer.
The night air is cold against my face, carrying the scent of woodsmoke and something else that makes my stomach clench with dread.
I push the door wider, peering into the darkness.
“Julia?”
No answer. The house is frigid, the fire long dead. Shadows crowd the corners, thick and menacing.
I step inside, and that’s when I see her.
Charlotte lies on Julia’s bed, her body limp and lifeless, her skirts rumpled. Her skin is the color of old parchment, waxy and translucent in the dim light. Her lips are blue. Her green eyes stare sightlessly at the ceiling.
“No.” The word comes out as a whisper, then louder. “No, no, no!”
I rush over, pressing my fingers to Charlotte’s throat even though I know it’s useless. She is as cold as marble beneath my touch. She’s been dead for hours. A whole day. My beautiful sister who only wanted freedom, who wanted a way out of the cage the world had built around her…
Dead. Because of Julia. Because I didn’t stop this when I should have.
The truth winds me, and I fall to my knees, gripping the bed for support. I saw Charlotte wasting away. I saw the obsession in her eyes, the way she became thinner and paler and more desperate. I knew what Julia was doing to her, knew the feeding had gone too far.
And I didn’t do enough to stop it.
I told myself it was Charlotte’s choice. That she was willing. That Julia, my coven sister, would end the feedings before this happened.
But she didn’t, and now my sister—my brave, foolish sister—is dead.
Rage rises in me like a red tide, hot and terrible and all-consuming. My hands shake with fury. The air around me crackles with heat as my magic responds to my emotion, wild and uncontrolled.
Julia did this. Julia, who I’ve known for decades, whose hands I’ve held during countless coven circles. Julia, who I trusted to know her limits, to control her hunger.
Julia, who ran like a coward and left Charlotte’s corpse in her bed like discarded refuse.
I stand straight, my vision blurred. This cottage is filled with Julia’s books, her jars and herbs, her clothes folded neatly in a trunk, her dishes on the shelves. Evidence of a life of comfort and power while Charlotte withered away for her pleasure.
My fingers ignite.
The flames are red-gold at first, then white-hot as my rage feeds them.
They leap from my hands to the bedsheets, and I watch with savage satisfaction as they catch and spread.
Charlotte’s body will burn too, but at least she’ll have a pyre.
At least there will be nothing left for Julia to come back to.
“You took everything from her,” I say to the empty room, my voice shaking. “So I’ll take everything from you.”
The fire spreads faster than natural flame could, racing up the walls and across the floor.
It devours Julia’s furniture, clothing, and every trace of the life she built.
The intense heat drives me back toward the door.
Smoke billows thick and black, carrying the smell of burning wood and cloth and fragrant dried herbs.
I step outside and watch it burn. The flames roar up through the thatched roof, sending sparks into the night sky like angry stars. The windows shatter from the heat, glass exploding outward in glittering shards.
I back away. I must disappear before anyone connects me to this.
But first, I press my still-burning hand to my chest, letting the pain sear through me and brand this moment into my memory. “I will make you pay for this, Julia,” I whisper to the roaring flames. “I will not rest until you’ve suffered.”
The fire answers me with a crackling roar, as if sealing my oath.
I will have vengeance for Charlotte, and for every life Julia will ever destroy.
I turn and leave Julia’s cottage—now Charlotte’s funeral pyre—blazing behind me.
The night swallows me whole, but the rage in my heart burns as bright as the flames.
I slam back into my own body with a gasp, stumbling backward. Riley catches me before I fall.
I can still feel Julia’s hunger and taste Charlotte’s essence. I can still feel the agony in my heart from when Rebecca found her corpse.
Worse, Charlotte’s desperation is still there, dark and suffocating. Her hunger for magic, for freedom, for something beyond the cage she grew up in. Her willingness to die rather than go back to being powerless.
“I filled in the gaps with Charlotte’s diary,” Rebecca says, lowering her hands. The glow fades from her palms. “Now you know what Julia is.”
I cover my mouth, fighting nausea.
The way Charlotte begged her for that moment of ecstasy was too familiar. Just like I begged in the forest. Just like I spread my legs and offered her everything, knowing the dangers.
“M-Maybe it was an accident,” I say, my voice shaking.
“Maybe. But Charlotte died believing Julia loved her, and Julia ran. She disappeared for three years after that. Didn’t even stay to close Charlotte’s eyes. When she finally returned, she never mentioned Charlotte’s name again. As if it hadn’t happened.”
My chest is tight. “Do you think she ever cared about Charlotte?”
“Does it matter? Whatever she felt, it wasn’t enough to stop her from draining her.”
My breaths come faster. The woman who touched me everywhere last night, who made me feel cherished and wanted, killed someone who loved her and walked away after.
Riley takes my hands. “We see the way you look at her, Hannah. If you don’t step back soon, you’re going to become another Charlotte.”
“She’ll do it to you too,” Rebecca says. “Maybe not tonight. Maybe not tomorrow. But eventually, she won’t be able to stop herself. It’s her nature.”
Shame burns through me. She’s right. I offered myself to Julia completely last night, begged her to take what she needed, and she nearly killed me.
Upstairs, a door creaks open.
Riley and I flinch at the sound. Rebecca just keeps staring at me with those knowing, pitiless eyes as footsteps thump closer overhead.
My mouth is dry. I swallow hard. “I won’t let that happen,” I whisper.
I’d rather die than surrender to Julia again. I’d rather let this spell kill us both than become another one of her victims who wasted away believing a monster cared about her.
Satisfaction flashes across Rebecca’s face. Riley slumps in relief, squeezing my hand.
But realization crashes over me like an icy wave. By showing me what happened to Charlotte, Rebecca has guaranteed I’ll never surrender to Julia again. And without surrendering, we can’t break the binding spell.
We’re stuck. Julia is bound to someone who knows exactly what she’s capable of, and I’m bound to a monster who will slowly drain me dry without remorse. Neither of us is going to give the other what she needs, but we can’t escape each other either.
Rebecca has gotten her perfect revenge. Julia will be helpless, just like Rebecca was when she found Charlotte on the bed. And I’m the sacrifice caught in the middle, destined to waste away no matter what I choose.
The binding spell pulses behind my ribs, ticking closer to the moment I’m trapped forever.
Unless I can find another way out of this nightmare.
There has to be a way to break this spell that doesn’t require me to trust a woman who kills the people who love her. I have four hours to figure it out, and I’m not giving up until I’m free—or dead.