Chapter 4
SILAS
Mercy stares up at me, radiating coiled tension, her inner walls flexing around my shaft.
"Because, dear husband, they burned and salted your bones. It was all I could do to pull this Cast off," she huffs, and the movement makes us both groan.
My head spins as I try to reconcile so many sensations at once, the power of Mercy's Cast flowing through my veins, the tight, warmth of her body, but one look at her pursed lips and I know I have foolishly broken the joyful reunion between us.
She looks beautiful like this, ethereal with her hair fanned like flames in a halo, chest heaving, my cock—or what she provided as a passable length—buried inside her but those cheeks flame as hurt flashes in her eyes.
I want to keep her pinned here, to rut inside her until the magic of the Cast is spent, but I can feel the sands slipping through the hourglass.
She whimpers when I reluctantly pull free of her body as gently as I am able.
Mercy sits up, hastily brushing the tangle of curls back over her shoulder and I rest back on my haunches and tuck myself away, content to just look at her.
My Mercy. My Bonded.
But she fusses over her skirts, forcefully lacing up the loose ties ripped open in our haste to touch and feel her flesh against mine.
"Is it permanent?" I ask. In her glassy blue eyes I see my reflection mirrored back to me like dancing firelight.
The visage is ghastly, haunting, and though for the purposes tonight it will serve well, I fear for what it could complicate.
I bring my fingers to the pumpkin flesh where my lips would be, feel the jagged edges instead.
Flames lick at the pad of my thumb, and though all I want is to kiss her, I know I cannot.
Not yet.
"If we complete the ritual tonight, in theory, your body should solidify to this realm." Her tone is curt as I stand, her glare daggers as I offer her my hand and though she is cross with me, she takes it, allowing me to bring her to her feet.
"Witchling—" I begin, ready to apologize, but her hands find her hips and she glares at me, full of fury and what must be turns of pent frustration.
"No, you will not Witchling me, Silas Bennet Cohen,” she scoffs, “We labored for three turns in this backwater to orchestrate your return, you have no idea what indignities have been suffered to endure these insufferable people! Traced down every hint of a Cast we ever heard, and some we had not. I researched the lunar cycles, I became a Goody,” she spits, her finger jutting in my direction as indignation rolls from her.
“And all because someone had to go and get themselves caught by Witch hunters who just happened to know to consecrate a Witch's bones!
This is a patchwork Cast, so no, Silas, I do not yet know if this is a passing effect! "
"Come now, Mercy, they got lucky," I defend, "I believe one time out of nine hundred years is an acceptable margin of error!
Let us not act as though we are holier than thou.
I recall having to dive the entire London Channel to find your sunken Iron Maiden, after your stint with that charlatan, John Dee, or do you not recall the barnacles we spent weeks prying from your skin?
Not even witch-hazel removed the stench from your hair. " I fire back.
"You said it was not that bad!" she gasps.
"Mayhaps, I lied!"
She rears back, indignant, mouth twisted in an adorable pout.
"I could have been far less generous with the more delicate appendages, husband," her scandalized eyes narrow dangerously, dropping down to my crotch. I cock my head to the side, cross my arms over my chest.
"If you had gone with a more modest portion, it would have been only a punishment to yourself, wife.
We both know that as impressive as this.
..gourd is, it does not come close to the real thing," I challenge.
We stare at one another, the space between us too far, but I wait until her full lips tip into a sly smile to cross the distance and pull her into my arms.
"I suppose that is true, on both accounts," she concedes with a quirk of her eyebrow.
I pull the tangled twigs and leaves from her hair, keeping her pinned against me with one arm.
Her hand splays over my chest, and when she looks up into my eyes, I ache for her.
Thousands of turns of the Wheel together, and though I love the softer side of her, the spark that burns to wildfire inside my Bonded brings me to my knees every time.
"I am appreciative of all you have worked to bring into fruition for me.
I am just cross that I cannot kiss you, Witchling.
You know how ravenous I am for these," my voice drops as her breathing quickens, the pad of my thumb tracing over her soft, precious lips.
I feel the long, hardened cock hanging between my legs stir, feeding off the energy she provides.
"I missed you," she admits, and beneath her ire, I see the pain.
The fear and loneliness. Our kind are not meant to be parted from our Bonded, to walk this world untethered, with no one to catch us, with no one to share the passage of time and when I left that night, I abandoned her by not returning.
I swallow as her nails dig crescents into the flesh of my chest, anointing this body as hers.
"I heard your voice in the darkness. I clung to it, suspended behind the Veil. I do not intend to leave you again, my love.” I promise, as a questions burns through me, the events of that night returning with clarity.
I am almost fearful to ask, but I do, because I must know. “Did she make it? The youngling."
Mercy smiles, warm and loving. "Yes. She is well hidden, thanks to your efforts. I have taken her as our own,” she informs me, and I feel my chest swell with contentment.
“I am relieved beyond measure to hear that,” I sigh, meaning it, but she chews the inside of her cheek guiltily.
“I could not help but wonder if I had come with you, if I could have interfered.
" Her blue eyes, the color of oceans sparkling in the twilight before dawn, turn wet in the light of the moon and the fire keeping this body upright.
"It was agony, feeling you die that way.
By our own element..." her voice trails into a hushed whisper.
"You were there?" I ask, mortified. She shakes her head, reaches into the pocket of her skirts and produces my talisman of now mottled amber, one that burned against my chest as the flames seared my skin and peeled the flesh from my bones. My hand closes around it, eyes fluttering closed.
"I am sorry you had to witness that, Mercy, but if you had been, we would have both been lost. I do not know where these people procured those shackles, but they were imbued with heavy power.
We will make them pay. I will take our pound of flesh and then some, for the other innocents burned that night.
" I vow and she nods, turning her face to press a kiss to the flesh of my palm.
"We should begin. The moon will wane faster, this night, and I have promised five offerings in exchange for your return.
" She sniffs as she swipes her hands under her leaking eyes, sucking in a shaky breath.
I reluctantly release her and she steps from my embrace, making her way to the Ash wood.
I follow behind, bound by the tether on my soul and the one around my heart.
She works over the altar, braiding strands of graying hair around a Wyrmwood twig before pressing a sharp sliver of the wand to her thumb.
The puncture wells crimson that she slathers over the totem, lips spilling Cast in a low, rapid cadence.
With a flick of her wrist, the candles on the altar spark back to flame, illuminating the ancient pages of her grimoire.
She reads and recites an incantation, and then the twig is snapped between steady fingers, the crack a whip splitting the silence.
My body thrums with her power, with her will.
I have known Mercy as many names over the centuries, each one branded on my soul in forged power, but I have never felt her magic like this.
Inside of me, around my body, dancing over my tongue, filling my lungs with every breath.
The door to a house bangs open in the distance, and I become vigilant, aware of every shift of the scented air, of a sluggish heartbeat and shallow pants.
Benjamin Hawthorne's atrophied body shambles into the field, a moth called to flame, just as I was.
Only I can taste his sins, the same as she can.
I suck in a lungful of terrorized panic as his body and mind become aware that he moves deeper into the field, body tugged by a tether he could never be strong enough to understand.
Mercy beckons me to her, and with a pass of her palm over the raised scarification of my chest, I see.
I witness the deepest, darkest sins of Benjamin Hawthorne, recognize the crying woman begging for absolution who burned next to me.
She called out for salvation, and at the time I mistook it for a plea for intercession from her God, but it was to him.
Her husband. A man who beat her, beat the child from her in a drunken stupor, then had her burned as a heretic so he could take on a younger bride.
Fury blooms in my chest, drawing on the fires of the Hells, the divine retribution of my Bonded.
Flames crackle and roar in my mind, every muscle in my body stretched taunt.
As a hellhound on a leash I thrash against my constraints, eager to claim my kill of the man who dared to claim my wife as his own.
In her memory, I see the weave trap she stuck him in, and I revel knowing that his suffering has been immense, yet it is not enough penance in my eyes.