Chapter 28
the shape of want
The basement of the sanctuary was quiet and dark. Then a match was struck, and the flare of sulfur seemed appropriate. It was Isabel. She lit a candle, then another.
The protective runes placed around the breach in the foundation wall glowed as they detected movement in the Veil.
These were the same candles used in Virelich’s summoning ritual; they cast a warm, almost romantic glow over the dank basement. Quietly, Isabel crossed the protection ring and stood before the crack in the wall.
Barefoot, clad in a long cloak that swept to the floor, she moved slowly, then moved closer to the wall. Close enough for Virelich to sense her.
“Still watching me from the dark, Sire?”
The runes pulsed, and the soft pink film of the Veil trembled as Virelich stirred. A faint trace of a hand touched the other side of the Veil, then a limb. Finally, the Harbinger king’s face pressed into the film, “You return,” he muttered, then saw her quiet, shy smile, “You ache,” he rasped, his face filling the gap between the old stones.
“Do you wish to be known again?”
“I’ve been wondering,” she said, walking slowly around the edge of the protection circle, “Are you still capable?”
“Of what?”
Isabel undid the clasp at her throat, “Of this.”
Her robe fell to the floor, her fingers trailing after it in a false attempt at modesty. The candles cast shadows across her gleaming body, Pale gold where the sun had touched her, cool alabaster in the hollows. Her breasts were full and unapologetic. Neither coy nor offered, simply there for his gaze.
A slight scar across her left side, a reminder of an old battle. She thought it gave her character, and her fingers stroked across the cauterized wound. She had known violence and survived.
Virelich’s twisted features pushed against the membrane, turning his good eye for a better look. “Turn,” he said quietly, “show me.”
“As you wish,” she replied, cocking a hip to strengthen her stance. She pushed her hand across her belly, then down, lower to follow a dark, sinuous tattoo that wrapped her hip before disappearing between her legs. The ink wasn’t for protection. It was for provocation.
Isabel’s hand returned to her breasts, “Do you remember touching these?” she asked, “all those many years ago, all shapes and sizes, all with one intent?” She rolled a nipple between her fingers, “Did they respond to your touch, an ache to be consumed?
Virelich groaned through the Veil, low and guttural, monstrous.
“I remember how they tasted. Salt and power, the gasps and moaning when I bit down.”
Her fingers slid lower, down the curve of her ribs again, over her belly. A gasp escaped Isable’s lips, just enough to ripple the silence.
“And there,” he observed, calling from a collective memory, “You like pressure. Firm, but not cruel. You want to be touched like you might break, but never do.” His commentary became personal toward Isabel, and she nodded, “Yes, Sire, I am what they once were, but much more than you remember.”
She spread her stance, parting her legs, and dragged her fingers down past her navel to tug at a proud tuft of hair. Her message was clear.
“Touch yourself for me,” Virelich said, his voice growing hurried. It was more of a command, and Isabel was happy to comply, “Show me,” he said, his greed beginning to show, “Show me how you are more.”
She did. A second hand joined the first, her knee lifting. First above, circling, teasing. Her eyes rolled, and her breath was getting hoarse as she dipped, just barely.
Virelich moaned louder than Isabel, “You are exquisite. Needing me. Knowing I was the only one who understood what it took to pleasure you…to make you-”
Isabel cut in, panting, “Come undone?”
“Yes,” he crowed, “You could be one of the Queens that forgot their crowns on my tongue.”
Her thighs trembling, Isabel lurched dangerously close to the wall. She cried out, half moaning, half laughing.
‘Then show yourself,” She gasped, close to release, “Let me see what you still are.”
The light behind him flared. Shapes moved against the membrane. Muscles, limbs, then something serpentine. Virelich was straining to cross over, driven not by ritual now but carnal need.
“I could split the Veil for you,” he growled, “I will tear the sky to be inside you again.”
She was gripping herself, pulling and beckoning, tugging roughly at her breasts, “Come through, Sire,” the witch begged, “Come show me.”
Virelich’s power surged; his fingers tore at the thin but relentless partition, one breath away from breaking through.
She started laughing, drunk from anticipation, her moans echoing in the dark space. Virelich was ready to join with her and drink up her passion.
Then it all snapped. A whisper came from the shadows, from behind the writhing witch, “You poor, dumb bastard.”
The real Isabel stepped from the corner of the room. The same cloak, also barefoot, the same clasp at her throat. She was calm and certainly amused.
Her other self began to unravel. Feet, then knees, broke away into a charcoal mist, and arms and shoulders followed. The figure’s hands continued to work away, squeezing and thrusting until they, too, vanished, along with a final cry that signaled her seduction was complete.
Virelich screamed, his eyes bulging horribly, then fixed on Isabel as she walked towards him. His sniveling features froze long enough to take a breath, and the screech that followed wasn’t from rage but something worse. Shame. He had come so close to begging.
Isabel walked toward the trembling Veil, pausing only to undo the clasp at her throat. Her real fingers trailed the edge of her chest, then along the curve of one breast, slow and mocking.
“When you are finally free,” she purred, her voice was velvet and fire, “we’ll play for real.”
She leaned in close enough to see the Harbinger King looking away from her, angry, but he knew he had been tricked, “Though,” Isabel continued, “Were I you? I wouldn’t mention this little talk to Max.”
The witch turned, walking slowly away, each step haltingly deliberate, the elegance of her bare back the final act in a performance designed to haunt him. The curve of her spine, the sway of her hips, was etched into Virelich’s mind like a brand.
He didn’t scream this time. He seethed because he knew the next time, he’d beg for it to be real.
The moment the door closed behind her, Isabel lurched ahead, steadying herself against the wall. Her body was shaking, and tears and sweat poured down. Her knees gave way, and she caught herself with one trembling hand, sobbing into her cloak. It had been too much.
The magic consumed to create the illusion, to fool a banished king who knew how she thought, how she felt, had taken more than she dared to admit. The echo of it still burned along her shoulder blades, pulsing heavily in her chest, and the throbbing matched the racing heartbeat between her thighs. And that glitch. The mimic’s pleasure had nearly become her own.
Pressing her head against the cool stone wall, she gulped for relief and gathered her cloak, hoping to make it out of the basement with minimal interaction with the few guards Max had stationed outside the sanctuary. She needed to leave. Now.
At the hotel, too tired to accelerate to her room, Isabel forced herself to take the stairs and snuck into her room. After preparing a weak sigil to seal her door, she drew a bath and slipped into the tub.
Three drops of a sleep potion were added to the lukewarm water, and she soaked for as long as she dared. It was all she could do to drag herself out of the tub and into bed. It was rare that Isabel was taxed to this level of weakness. It would take something more to heal quickly, and having provoked Virelich, she knew time was running short. It was down to only a few days.
A second potion followed, a necessary sleep agent but also a healing accelerator. Not a strong one, but enough to deepen her rest, slow her pulse, and give her the calm she needed.
The time slid sideways, and Isabel woke the next morning as the clock neared noon. She had just begun to stir, soothed but limbs heavy, when her burner phone began to buzz on the nightstand.
One word buzzed on the screen. Callie. Then her voice, “Shield seeks counsel.” Isabel’s heart pulsed, hearing the fear in Callie’s breaking voice. Then again, “Desperate shield…seeks-”
Isabel had no idea what it meant, only that the sound of Callie’s voice, a woman that she had dared take an uncommon liking to, was in trouble. Trouble meant Jess.
“Behind your tea shop, at six. There’s a lovely garden.”