Love Me Madly

by Lidiya Foxglove

  I let out a shriek of pleasure as I learned that night how it really felt to be impaled—in the best way. Jie was holding me up like I was an offering to a god, and in that moment, Thom felt like a god—looked like one, too. As the weight of me settled onto his thick, stiff cock and he had a hold on my hips, Jie moved even closer behind me, his arms around me, and he played with my breasts and then would slip his hand down to spread my pussy lips wider and tease my clit. They both moved together, finding such a rhythm that it was like they were having sex with each other through me and I was just the channel of their passion.

  No, that would be ignoring how much they were both enthralled by me.

  I’ve just never felt anything like this. I never imagined in a million years—anything like this.

  Moans started coming out of me, uncontrolled and faster.

  “When you moan like that…” Thom groaned with pleasure. “It’s over too fast.”

  “Go ahead, Thom,” Jie said. “Just let it go.”

  “Oh, shit,” Thom said, as he started fucking me fast and came hard, trying and failing to keep his expressions under control as his eyes nearly rolled back into his head. “What you do to me, Alissa…”

  When Thom pulled out, Jie immediately took over where he left off and by this time I was on the very brink. That single moment when Thom pulled out and left me empty seemed like eternity and I needed more, so when Jie filled me again my whole body immediately started convulsing with so much pleasure I thought I would die. I started screaming and twisting as the orgasm faded and left me so sensitive, and Jie slowed down and held me.

  Thom lifted me off of Jie, and then he closed his hand around Jie’s cock. Jie drank in the sight of me but he also lifted a hand, casually, to tousle Thom’s hair, as Thom worked him until he was coming all over my stomach and thighs. Jie bared his fangs in a low cry of pleasure and then his shoulders slumped with satisfaction.

  “You enjoy that,” Thom said to me, patting his back and then he started to release me. Just when I thought it was all over, it was a fresh pleasure to be freed from the bonds as Thom caressed every muscle and woke up every tingling nerve with a deep, soothing massage.

  “I’m not sure I’ll ever move again,” I groaned.

  “You get a break tomorrow,” Jie said, which sounded like a devilishly short reprieve, and he sounded like he knew it too.

  I fell asleep while he was touching me, and briefly woke to Thom and Jie talking to each other softly, each holding a cup of tea before they went to sleep beside me.

  It seemed like the sweetest thing I had ever seen.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Silvus

  Watching children trick-or-treat on Halloween night was a pleasant balm after the difficult days we had experienced. They were so innocent, small town children, polyester faeries and Jedi running along with their sacks of candy. Our hosts handed out candy, and I would have liked to do the same, like Bertie and Thom and I gave out candy apples in San Francisco in the 1920s.

  But after burying Paola and the warlock from the Order, I felt too tainted to deal with children. The smallest humans were still quite sensitive.

  I need…

  The feeling was left unfinished. I tried not to be a man of needs, not when everyone needed me. I had spent my afternoon draping additional protection spells on the house. The Order was after us and I was the defensive wall that stood between them and my clan.

  I was the bow and Rayner was the arrow. He needed Lisbeth, and I was the one who got him there. Whenever he found her again, I was left alone with my string quivering for a moment, and then my work was done.

  What a naughty metaphor when you put it that way…

  This was our understanding.

  Of course, I loved our girl as much as I had ever loved anyone, but I tried to make sure I never loved her as much as he did. I couldn’t afford that sort of thing. Someone had to keep everything under control.

  My feet led me to his room, to his doorway. To check on him. He was alone tonight, sitting on the bed sketching.

  “You look ready for Hawaii,” I said dryly. He was wearing a black turtleneck sweater and tan corduroys, and I knew he wouldn’t be surfing there.

  “Well, at least the kids will have fun,” he said.

  “The land will be beautiful. It’ll be good for all of us.” I sat down next to him and saw that he was sketching out some shoes, with a one-inch heel and a buckle like the 18th century French shoes he made for Meg, but he was detailing an embroidery pattern that had echoes of Li Mei’s delicate Chinese needlework.

  “I’m planning my wedding gift,” he said. “It’s a tradition at this point, to make her a pair of shoes. Except Bertie. He would let me resole his boots and that’s about it.”

  I sat on the bed next to him, watching his hand detail a pattern of tulips of Holland, the lavender of Provence, the plum blossoms of China.

  “Do you need something, Silvus?”

  “No.”

  He tucked the pencil behind his ear. “Are you…lonely?”

  “Is that what it is? I’m troubled, I think. I didn’t like laying Paola to rest with that warlock. And that’s just the beginning of it.”

  “Not ‘with’, really. She is under an apple tree and he’s outside the cemetery entirely.” He tossed down the sketchpad and straightened up. “We’re very close to getting it all sorted out, so try not to worry.”

  “I just hope I’m able to protect her.”

  “You are surely one of the most skilled warlocks in the world, and certainly one of the oldest,” Rayner said. “Johannes is older but doesn’t have your discipline. Calm wins out. Try to get some sleep.”

  I need you, Rayner.

  I want you, too.

  I felt it now, the full force of it. I loved Alissa and I saw so much of Meg in her, just waiting to be teased out. But she had left us so many times. For ninety years, I had this man and no one else. I thought I was letting him have me to keep his own emotions under control, and along the way…

  I have fallen in love with you, Rayner.

  I would like to share that with Alissa…with you…as Jie and Thom do…

  In fact, I realized that I had wanted this for a long time, but I could ignore it when our girl was gone.

  Rayner, I feared, only had eyes for Alissa. He was thinking of her all the time. When he made love to me he was really just thinking of her.

  I couldn’t even get mad about it, because I thought of Meg too.

  I wasn’t sure how to explain this need that wasn’t so much jealousy as it was just a wish that he would comfort me, and let me in to what he shared with Alissa—as I would. I guess I wanted my mind read—and then I was a little disgusted at myself. I couldn’t let things get complicated between us, no, not at a time like this. I was the most powerful man in the clan. This sense of emptiness was unbecoming.

  “You can sleep there if you want,” Rayner finally offered, nodding at the other half of the bed. “If it helps not to be alone. You’re the driver, so I don’t want you to be tired tomorrow.”

  “I don’t mind being alone. I have my own work to do. I just thought I should check in, but if all’s well, I’ll see you in the morning.”

  The next day was a busy one. I had to drive us all the way back to Atlanta where our flight departed, since we had booked them while thinking we would still be in Savannah, and when we got to our airport hotel and Rayner asked Alissa whether she wanted her own room or would rather choose one of us, she looked to me.

  “Silvus, you said you could teach me some magic… Is it possible to learn any magic at a hotel or is there some rule against that?”

  “Of course I can teach you a spell,” I said. It didn’t matter how tired I was; her wishes would all be granted.

  But this time I would be careful. Very careful.

  The curtains were firmly drawn, the door bolted. “Now, pet, tell me what you learned in the Order. Anything at all? You had no wand…no familiar…but you aren’t e
ntirely void of skill.”

  “We learned a little healing, and we learned that magic comes from nature and our minds. And about the difference between Ethereal and Sinistral. Things like that. But mostly a little healing. The boys got to learn a tiny bit more. When I cast the spell to keep Rayner from touching me, I had to just make it up on the spot, but I knew that antlers were defense for a deer, so that’s why I drew energy from the antlers and made them into a defensive spell.”

  “Good instincts,” I said. “It’s interesting that you were not a witch in any of your in-between lives. Humans can also become witches, however, so that was why I tried to teach some magic to Meg. But you won’t have those instincts and it is much, much harder to break human law. Meg wouldn’t have been able to cast a spell like that, an invisible force that pierces skin. Many of the laws are the same for both, they’re just stronger with born witches. There are two things I want you to promise me before anything else.”

  “Yes?”

  “Every spell that is ever cast demands a price. For most simple spells, it’s just a little of your energy. But powerful spells will demand more than that. Before you cast any spell, ask yourself what the price will be. For example, we vampires pay for our immortality with the curse of our blood lust. I know a girl who brought back a boy she loves by giving up her own magic forever. Magic that deals with life and death demands a very high price.”

  “Yes, I understand. I won’t mess with any of that.”

  “Famous last words, my dear. The second part of this is that you must cast magic from a place of love, hope, and generosity. Never anger. Never fear. Never jealousy or selfishness. This can be very difficult because the times when we most reach for magic is when we’re angry and scared. You don’t have to tamp down every bit of those feelings, of course. That would be impossible. But before you cast a spell, take one second to compose yourself and think of someone you love. Something you want to protect. A vision of hope. Anything but those dark feelings.”

  “And if I don’t do that…”

  “The aim is to keep you from black magic,” I said. “The magic that twists you and hurts the people around you.”

  “I was always told that vampires are black magic,” she said.

  “That’s true. Vampires are banished from Etherium, with a few rare exceptions. Our existence defies order and is inherently selfish, since we must live on blood.”

  “Is that really different than eating meat, if you eat animal blood?”

  “Yes. We can’t use the whole animal. But no vampire ever survived long on animal blood alone.”

  “Or if you only drink from thralls? They enjoy it too.”

  “Still selfish. A thrall can only truly consent in the beginning. Our venom is so compelling that you will never again be sure of your own desire. Thralls don’t leave their masters.”

  Her face flushed. “I see.”

  “Yes, you see the trouble, don’t you? There is no such thing as a good vampire, really. Even if we try.”

  “When Alice visited her thrall at his job, he told her to leave.”

  “I bet he was knocking on her door that very night,” I said.

  She looked pensive. “If I become a vampire…I’ll have a lot of power.”

  “Yes, pet. That’s right.”

  Her eyes were large and glittering. She was apprehensive. She didn’t want to be wicked. But…she also did.

  I knew that feeling. I was once a man sworn to order. Rayner turned me and I could never go back.

  I was furious at him, but…I didn’t hate him for it.

  “Okay. Well…do you think you could teach me a spell that would hurt the Order? In case they ever attack us again? I was just lucky this time that we were in my mother’s house and Waldemar was there.”

  “Waldemar…” I rapped my fingers on the table between the two hotel beds. “Call him.”

  “Call him here? She said he doesn’t like people…”

  “He’s your familiar. He’ll like you. He was born to like you. And he can help you cast more powerful, more controlled spells.”

  He will also die if you become a vampire, I thought with a wince. Probably not a relationship I should be encouraging. The only way around it was to strip his magic first and give him a human life, but a five hundred year old antisocial familiar didn’t strike me as the type to enjoy that.

  “Waldemar!” she called. “Is that it?”

  “Yes…that is it,” Waldemar said, appearing behind her. Now he wasn’t a dancing light, but a pale teenage boy with ancient eyes and crossed arms. If he was of the clan of the whale, that must mean his animal form was a whale, and I didn’t doubt it. Although he was dry and well dressed, he still had the aspect of a deep sea creature that had been washed up on a beach and was not happy about being on dry land. His scent was like seaweed.

  “Oh! Hi—hello. Thank you for helping me with the scrimshaw spells,” Alissa said. “It worked.”

  “Good,” Waldemar said.

  “This is Silvus,” she said. “He’s a warlock and he’s teaching me magic. That’s why I called you. We’re supposed to…work together…isn’t that how it works?”

  I nodded as Waldemar’s hands uncrossed and moved to his hips. “Yes. That is…how it works,” he said.

  “You don’t really want to help me,” Alissa said.

  “I do. I suppose I must. I was supposed to die centuries ago, but here I am.”

  “Oh, you’re…tired?” Alissa asked.

  I was getting irritated with this familiar’s attitude. If my familiar was still around, she would have given this boy a piece of her mind. “You are her helper,” I said. “She’s been trapped in a cult, and she’s way behind, and if you want to protect her, you might want to start by at least pretending you enjoy the only job you have in this whole world.”

  “When you turn her into a vampire, I’ll die anyway,” Waldemar said.

  “You will!? Oh—no!” Alissa said.

  I glared at him. “Now she isn’t going to want to do anything.”

  “I don’t mind,” Waldemar said. “As established, I’m old. I’ve had nothing to do. It’s just ironic that my witch has finally returned and her task is to kill me.”

  “I don’t want to kill you!”

  Waldemar shrugged.

  “Are all clan familiars this peevish?” I asked him.

  He shrugged again, like he was tired of talking.

  “I suppose we’ll see if he is any help at all,” I told Alissa. “Maybe we could try to replicate that drowning spell.”

  “But—ooh, I didn’t want to kill Father Bogdan, I just—”

  “Yes, you did,” I said, firmly. “You accomplished it easily. That wouldn’t have been possible if you didn’t want to kill him.”

  She went pale. Her mouth opened to protest. Then she said, “You’re right, Silvus…”

  “It’s a family spell, clearly,” I said. “So that’s a good one to practice.”

  “But I don’t have anyone to kill.”

  “You can practice on me,” Waldemar said.

  “It won’t kill you?”

  He shook his head and went to go stand in the bathtub without another word. He turned on the faucet.

  “Well, we might as well follow the little imp,” I muttered. “I wish you could have met my familiar. She was a sweet little toad and very encouraging.”

  When we walked in, Waldemar said, “I’m older than you, Silvus, and older than Rayner, too. I appear like this because men make Alissa nervous.”

  “Clearly, she can handle men,” I said.

  “My job isn’t to give her something she can…handle,” Waldemar said, looking at me like he thought I was trouble, and I had to bite my tongue not to ask where he’d been for her last five lives. He was acting protective and he had literally just appeared two days ago after centuries of absence. It wasn’t worth fighting with a magical creature that would probably be dead soon. It wasn’t good form to talk to another witches’ familiar a
nyway.

  “How do I do the spell now?” Alissa asked. The tub was filling with water up to Waldemar’s ankles. “Before, the spell was already there, written into the scrimshaw.”

  “I think you don’t really have to ask that question. You explained it to me yourself, just moments ago,” I pointed out.

  “Oh. Like the antlers,” she said. “I have to harness the magic of the water.”

  “Exactly. You don’t even have to move the water physically. Just catch its properties.”

  She stood there and focused for a long moment, but I could already tell she was having a hard time.

  “I was scared when I did it before. You told me not to cast magic from fear…but how do I do it when I don’t want to hurt him?”

  “This is actually an excellent way to practice discipline,” I said. “You have to learn to separate the spell from the emotion. It’s something I learned when I was young and as you can tell…I don’t really have emotions anymore.” I smirked, thinking of my own stupid lovesick yearning last night for Rayner to reach over and caress and comfort me. When I was with Alissa, I could scoff at myself. i didn’t need him. Hell, our entire relationship existed because he needed me.

  “I don’t think I want to go that far,” Alissa said, but she understood what needed to be done. She shut her eyes and took a few deep breaths, flexing her hands over the water. After a moment, she made another attempt. The water in the tub churned.

  “No—lost it. Shh, shh, I’ll try again,” she said.

  It took her nearly an hour of trying to pull it off, which was very normal for a novice witch trying to cast a spell without any adrenaline to fuel her. But when she did manage it, it was a beautiful thing—clean and controlled.

  What a relief that was.

  I thought I might never teach her magic again, but maybe I shouldn’t have worried.

  Waldemar started to choke on the water, and she actually held onto the spell and didn’t panic right away—not until he pushed back himself, and then he spit out water and said, “Good job.”

  “Good? It took forever.”

  “Very good,” I said. “Your control is excellent this time.”