Chapter 18 #2
I remove a piece of fabric that’s draped over his erect cock.
Slowly, my gaze travels back to his eyes, which have darkened to black, coiling voids filled with lust. I let out a deep sigh, allowing the yearning for Emrys to take over, and a strange sensation spreads across my skin, as my gown dissolves into ash.
My flesh is bare. Slightly shocked, I glance up at Emrys, who takes me in.
“I am not complaining,” he says mischievously.
His fingers wrap around my neck, and he pulls me in for another kiss.
One that is demanding and possessive, and I revel in it.
His cock finds its way between the wetness of my slit, and I slowly begin to grind.
Emrys groans approvingly against my mouth.
I lift my hips slightly, position myself, and the moment his tip presses against my entrance, I let myself sink down.
Emrys swallows the gasps I release at the sensation of my vaginal walls sucking in his erect member with trembling urgency as if it's our first time. The way my body folds into his shows we are two souls sculpted from the same dark celestial marrow. I begin to roll my hips, the obscene squelching sound of his cock entering my cunt fills the room. Emrys kisses me feverishly, his fingers bruising my hips, as he increases our rhythm. His thrusts become faster, unrestrained. I moan loudly, but I barely have time to breathe before his lips find mine once more. The pressure builds inside of me, heat spreading throughout my body. Emrys trembles slightly, his body melted into mine. It’s magical, there’s no other way to describe it.
The moment we both orgasm, our souls conjoin, cementing the transformation.
My canines elongate, and I whisk my tongue against my sharp teeth.
I want to taste Emrys, bite him, but instead, I break the skin of his lower lip.
Feeling my teeth puncturing his flesh is sensational, and he does the same with mine.
Contented, we suckle on each other's lips, kiss, and feed.
“You’re lucent, it’s beautiful,” he murmurs.
With my nails still deeply embedded in his flesh, Emrys’s body stiffens as if the air itself shifts, and he breaks our kiss. Blood drips across his chin onto his collarbone, and I lick my lips at the sight. His gaze drifts across the room, staring into nothingness.
“This can’t be true,” he whispers.
I raise my eyes to him, forgetting the blood, and I seek the shadowed planes of his face.
I place a hand on the side of his temple.
That’s when I hear it too, a faint murmur, a distant whisper I fail to understand.
Unable to decipher what my own markings try to let through, I ask Emrys what’s happening.
“What is wrong, my love?”
“My shadows… Our shadows, they return to me the news that your brother, Fynn… He’s dead.”
I furrow my brows, our bodies still intertwined.
“How did that happen?”
Emrys tilts his head, tuning in with his powers, listening to their story, and I do my best to do the same. Yet, none of it makes sense. Words flutter through my mind, but I am unable to turn them into cohesive sentences.
“Emrys,” I whisper softly. “What happened?”
His eyes snap back to mine, the black replaced with our color, anthracite.
“The youngling, the death witch, it seems her intentions weren’t as sincere as we thought… He was never to make it out alive; all she and the quarter witch wanted was to use his blood. It was the plan from the beginning, it seems… She didn’t have an ounce of love for your brother.”
Part of me knew it; I could tell from the way she glanced at Fynn, the subtle shudders that rolled over her skin when she was near him. Yet, I don’t feel remorse for handing him over to Caria, even though I knew this was a possible outcome. Perhaps part of me had even hoped for it.
“Does it make me a monster to feel no regret for the choice I made that day?”
“No, Tempest, it doesn’t.”
Emrys braids his fingers through mine and kisses my knuckles gently, leaving behind smears of blood.
“No one can blame you for the choice you made, the constant angst you endured, the dread that terrorized you. You had a slight hope the witch had some sincerity left in her bones. If anything, that makes you a saint, my Lucem mei.”
“How do I tell my mother?” My voice is barely audible.
Part of me hopes she will accept it for what it is, a gamble that went wrong, but I know my mother.
I’m uncertain whether she can handle Fynn’s death after everything she went through.
A lost part of my heart weeps for her and the loss of my brother, but truthfully, the news feels like a slow unfurling of dread’s grip.
It’s deliverance after all these years of creeping anxiety and fear.
“I like those fangs on you, Tempest,” Emrys smirks, and I give him a soft push.
“This is serious, Emrys.”
“I know, my love, but there’s nothing we can do about it. The witches have what they wanted, magical blood.”
“Were they aware of our nature from the beginning?” I wonder.
“No, their initial want was for the cursed blood. Blood witches need to obtain their blood violently, and it being cursed makes it even more potent, but I assume once they learned his blood had been purified, White witch blood… Wait…”
Emrys tilts his head again, concentration on his face as he listens. Then he nods in understanding.
“He tried to attack them. Caria and Reiner assaulted him to get his essence, and it awakened his witch side… Now I understand their reasoning. He was too dangerous for them to keep alive…”
“Perhaps that will make it easier to tell the story to my mother.”
I pick at my nails, restlessness coiling inside me, forming a knot in my stomach. She’s going to be upset regardless, about my turning… I’ll find her early in the morning.
“Mother?”
I glance at her warily. She sits at the kitchen table, taking small sips from her own herbal tea. She looks up and meets my gaze. My mother narrows her eyes at me. Excruciatingly slow, she puts down her cup, steam billowing from the hot fluid.
“What did you do?” she asks with a croaked voice, as if her throat is dry as parchment.
I arch an eyebrow at her. When I stay silent and move toward her, her eyes are glued to my every step. The moment I open my mouth to speak, her eyes widen. She pushes her chair back and almost tumbles to the floor due to her erratic movement.
“You… No, no, Harlot tell me you didn’t!”
Tears start to well in the corners of her eyes. I close my eyes in defiance, as I understand she noticed my teeth. My very sharp teeth.
“Mother… This is my choice; one I stand by.”
I straighten my shoulders and stare back at her.
“He did this to you, that monster did this. My sweet girl. Oh, what did he do to you!” Wet streaks trail across her cheeks as she sobs loudly.
“Emrys is not a monster, Mother. I did this. I chose this for myself. I don’t want to discuss it either; it’s my life. I want this for me.”
“You’re young, Harlot. You don’t know what you want from life. But he, that monster, corrupted you!”
“ENOUGH, Mother!”
Shocked, she stares at me. Part of me wants to hiss at her, bare my teeth, but all it will do is solidify what she exclaims, and I refuse to give her more ammunition.
“We need to discuss more urgent matters. Emrys received word that…” I pause.
I take a deep breath to refrain from throwing the words into her face. It’s hard to keep my desires caged, especially when taunted.
“Fynnigan… Mother… he died…”
Her head snaps up. “How?” she hisses at me.
“It appears he tried to attack the witch in whose care he was left… It was… self-defense.”
A white lie to keep her from further hurt. I watch my mother crumble as the words sink in. Her shoulders hunch forward, her breath hitches, and her sobs turn into hysterical tears. I walk over toward my mother, but the moment I lay my hand on her shoulder, she jerks away.
“Stay away from me, you are a monstrosity now, Harlot. You are no daughter of mine no more.”
The words almost spill from my lips, that our bloodline descends from witches, that we, too, are supernatural, but I don’t say anything. The lost part of my heart closes at the sight of her hatred for me, finding its way back to the other remains and knitting itself together.
“Pack your belongings and leave this fortress, Mother.” My voice is cold and without emotion.
The transformation has heightened my inner tides, and her resentful behavior evaporated all the last bits of love I clung to. My mother blinks at me, then wipes away her tears.
“As you wish.”
The following day, my mother is nowhere to be found—not a goodbye, she just left.
All her stuff is gone, including the books, which I guess are comfort items for her.
There’s not a trace of her left—nothing palpable.
Her presence here was almost a dream. I glance into the empty room, the bed made tightly and neatly.
Instead of a pang of guilt or sorrow, all I feel is a quieting in my chest. Emrys embraces me, and a ghost of calm brushes my soul as I lean into him. He kisses my temple.
I’m proud of you, my little tempest.
I close the door of the room, and with that motion, I surrender all her promises that she never kept. That part of my life was a strange blur of uncertainty and a tangled web of lies and unmet vows.
I twirl the piece of Aurum between my fingers, as a White witch, its magic is part of my heritage. It’s strangely heavy, like metal, but it has a silky gloss, while the color reminds me of milk, a pasty white.
“Are you sure you want to carry out your plan?” Emrys asks.
“I do,” I say, with a small smile.
“Then let's get to work.”
When I told Emrys last night that I wanted to turn the Aurum into small pieces and hand them out in human towns, he didn’t oppose or reject it.
Even though I feel conflicted about humankind, children don’t deserve to be brutally sacrificed the way they are now.
Or only to know the four walls of their home, as it's too dangerous to go outside. It might be a single drop cast into a burning world, but it’s better than nothing.
A fighting chance is sometimes all that's needed to tip the odds in a direction no one sees coming. And I am willing to give it.
Emrys glances at me lovingly, his pride in me palpable as I begin to break up the Aurum carefully.
I can’t believe you’re mine, Lucem mei. Calling you that is an honor, and my heart swells with pride just at the sight of you. I am stitched to you by fate and shadows, my tempest. You haunt me in the sweetest way.
I smile at my monster—the one who saved me from a life of falseness and loneliness, my salvation.
I put the Aurum aside and cup his face, my yearning for him alive in the air.
“You’re the reason I still breathe. My heart beats in the shape of your name, as my soul recognizes you as its own. I love you, Emrys.”
“And I love you, Tempest.”