I wanted to pull out my cock, get down on the floor, yank her legs up onto my thighs, and slam inside her.
Mingled with that desire was something else.
A certain level of, I don't know, concern, for the fact that she was asleep on the cold, hard floor.
I didn't do concern.
I actually didn't even recognize it for what it was at first. Which was why I had yelled at her, had grabbed at her, had tossed her onto the bed.
But as I lay there in the dark, wanting to sleep, my mind was flopping around, going over the reaction to finding her there. Which was when I finally saw my emotions for what they were.
Concern.
Maybe even care?
I cared?
That didn't seem like me, but it was also undeniable.
Because when her stomach started growling, I might have snapped at her again, but what was inside was concern over the last time she had a full meal, that she was uncomfortable, that she wasn't getting the nutrients she needed.
What the fuck was wrong with me?
That was what was rolling through my mind as I led her down the stairs and into the kitchen.
I never spent much time in that room. We didn't need to consume much to stay alive. When we did it, it was usually more for pleasure than necessity.
Which was why the witch's stomach was probably so empty. Yeah, Minos brought her food. But what? And how much? Not enough if her stomach was making that noise.
"Wow." The word rushed out of her before she could stop it as she walked in. She didn't want to be impressed by the home of her captors', but there was also no denying that she was. Most people were.
It was a massive place, once built by some oil tycoon as a third or fourth estate. It was a sprawling stone Tudor-style home sitting on ten acres of mostly-wooded land.
The inside had changed through the decades. Ace was the one of us who stayed up-to-date on human trends, knowing things needed to be right if we were going to do our jobs properly. The humans had to accept us as sone of their own. So our home had to reflect that we were.
At present, the kitchen was a massive, open space. The appliances were stainless steel, the cabinets a cream color, and the countertops everywhere—including on the giant island—were wooden.
To the side was a breakfast area with floor-to-ceiling windows that let you see the river that skirted the tree line that was flanked with ancient Weeping Willows.
"But where is the fire?" she asked, her brows drawing together.
"Mostly, we don't need it," I admitted, but waved her over toward the range, turning the knob, making the gas flames ignite.
"Oh, wow."
"You think that is impressive, you got something to learn about ovens," I informed her, taking a certain sort of pleasure in watching her warm her hands over the flame, her eyes wide with wonder.
We'd been around when the humans first invented indoor stoves. I couldn't remember ever feeling as entranced by their discovery as I felt right now.
Maybe that was simply because it had been so long. All humans, in this country at least, had seen a range before, knew how an oven worked. It was novel to see one who didn't.
I had a strange urge to bring her over to the microwave and the coffee pot and show her how those made life easier as well.
Watching her watch TV for the first time would be interesting as well.
"If you don't, may I?" the witch asked, turning a slightly hopeful gaze toward me.
"May you what?"
"Cook?" she asked, waving toward the flames.
"If you can find something in the fridge to cook, go right ahead."
"The... fridge," she repeated, glancing around, not wanting to ask.
"Refrigerator. They even used to call them ice boxes. Keeps the food cold," I added, pointing toward it.
"Right. Yes. Refrigerator. I know about those," she told me, nodding as she made her way toward it, opening it up.
"What's the problem?"
"This is a lot of flesh," she informed me, her voice sounding pained. Then, under her breath, I could have sworn to whisper to the chicken breasts I knew were in there, "Oh, you poor babies."
Fuck.
What did I get myself into, taking her out of the basement? Now she was going to cry over tomorrow's fucking dinner.
"There is some grass and twigs outside, if you'd prefer."
"I would, actually, prefer grass to flesh," she told me, shooting me a steely-eyed glare. "But there are some root vegetables here that are passable. Do you never tend your garden? Why is nothing fresh?"
"Garden," I scoffed. "Whatever is there comes from the store. Do we look like the gardening sort to you?"
"Do you plan to kill me in the near future?" the witch asked, making me jolt back.
The witches, in my experience, were all about beating-around-the-bush, and pleading, and crying. Never point-blank questions.
"I, ah, we have no immediate plans to kill you," I told her.
"Would I be permitted to start a garden?" she asked. "If you can not or will not supply fresh fruits, vegetables, and grains, I could provide my own, should I have the seeds. Which would be much less expensive for you, as well, than buying fresh foods to keep me alive."
"Money is not an issue. But if tending a garden would keep you from getting sad, I am sure Ace will be fine with it."
"I will be fine with what?" Ace said from behind me, making his way into the kitchen.
"With the witch growing a garden to provide for her meals. So she doesn't continue to get sad and make it rain."
"What an irritating power to possess," he said, shaking his head.
Even though the rain had cleared up, he was still wearing multiple layers—an ancient hand-knitted charcoal sweater over a hooded sweatshirt. He was the oldest of all of us. I wondered if that was why he struggled more with the cold and damp than we did, because he had spent so much more time in hell than any of the rest of us.
"It's quite useful when it is applied appropriately," the witch shot back, getting a raised brow from Ace.
"This one is mouthy," he observed.
"Apparently, they only send us the rejects," I informed him.
"That makes a certain kind of sense, I guess," Ace agreed, moving over toward the coffee machine. Again, we never got a jolt from the caffeine, but like Drex with his liquor, I think Ace liked the warmth. "What?" he snapped, making the witch jolt back from where she had been peering over his shoulder.
"She isn't familiar with appliances," I explained. "And she seems curious in nature."
"That will become irritating," Ace decided, but didn't push her away as he went about making the coffee. "Ever have coffee, witch?" he asked.
"Caffeine is off-limits for us."
"Of course it is," he scoffed. "You truly are an archaic clan."
"We believe in the old ways."
"Only because you haven't experienced the new ones," he shot back.
Ace had always been the most adaptable of all of us. Maybe because he had always been our leader, he felt it was his job to lead us into the future. Until, eventually, we could possibly go back home.
He brought back all the new electronics along with a book to learn to use them, then explained them all to the rest of us who were often not the most captive of audiences.
"Will I be allowed to open a garden?" she asked, ignoring his jab.
To that, Ace sighed, reaching to grab two mugs out of the cabinet.
"If Ly will handle the ordering of supplies as well as babysitting you while you work in said garden, I have no current objections. She should get a kick out of ordering seeds online," he added, shooting me a smirk as he pressed a mug full of hot coffee into the witch's hands before making his way out of the kitchen.
"You can drink it," I told her, moving to grab a cup for myself, switching off the range as I went. "No one here is going to tell on you," I added.
"As if that would stop me," she mumbled into the cup. "It does smell divine
." Or at least she thought so until she took a sip and spat it out onto my bare chest. "Oh, oh my. That is... that is awful," she declared, scraping her tongue over the roof of her mouth.
I was not, in general, a man who found humor easily. But I felt a chuckle move up through me at her reaction, as I reached back into a cabinet to produce some sugar—Minos's guilty pleasure—and dropped a couple teaspoons into her cup, giving it a mix. "Try it now," I suggested.
She shot me a distrustful look, but took another sip. "Oh, that is like magic," she declared, giving me a warm smile.
"That is like sugar, actually," I corrected, putting a teaspoon in my mug. "Sugar is natural. How have you ever experienced it?"
"We have honey and fruit sugars," she told me.
"It's not the same."
"No," she agreed, taking another sip. "It is not. But the objection to sugar is the same to alcohol, I believe. They can cause addictions. Addictions make our magic work differently."
"That won't be a concern right now," I told her, leaving off that in a future, when her spirit was broken down a bit, when she was over her objections to being here, her magic would become a big factor.
We'd decided long ago that not telling the witches their fate was the best way to get the results we wanted down the road.
In the past, all that meant was keeping them in the basement, throwing food down to them until they submitted. Which made the whole process all but effortless for us.
This time around, though, there seemed already to be a lot of effort. Bathing and temptation and babysitting and helping the woman pick out fucking garden seeds.
I should have been pissed.
But what I felt, instead, was something akin to eagerness.
It wasn't an unfamiliar emotion. We all felt it leading up to the parties we threw for the MC. When we anticipated finally getting back to our work, our passions, our missions on this earthly plane.
But I rarely felt it outside of those nights.
I stood there watching as the witch moved around the space, chopping up our meager vegetable supply, tssking over our lack of spices, and making the saddest-looking soup I'd ever seen.
"Bring it upstairs," I demanded, already walking in that direction, waiting to make sure she followed behind.
"Eating should be done communally and at a table," she complained as I pointed toward my bed as I went to grab my laptop.
"Tough shit," I said, shrugging. "Here. Seeds," I told her, bringing up the website, turning the screen half toward her.
Her brows furrowed as she looked. "But these are just pictures."
"Yes. And when you hit this button," I said, clicking the 'add to cart,' "those pictures get sent as an order to the person who has the seeds who then packages them up, and sends them here."
"Wouldn't it be easier to save your own seeds?"
"No."
"But—"
"For fuck's sake, just pick the foods you want to grow so I can place the order. It will take a couple days to get here."
I should have known better than to show the internet to someone who had never seen it before. Because an hour later, the cart had over two-hundred dollars worth of seeds collected. I didn't even fucking object when the witch added things like asparagus that took years to grow.
She would be here, after all.
And, I reminded myself, it was all a one-time purchase if she knew how to do shit like save her seeds. She could even build up a seed vault for future witches.
Why the idea of future witches sent a strange, sharp pang through my system was beyond me, though.
"I need to rest if I am going to start the garden tomorrow," the witch declared, taking a deep breath, making her tits press up against the thin material of her cloak, her nipples hardened from the chill in the room. "Are you bringing me back to the basement?"
"No. Just sleep here."
What the fuck?
She belonged in the basement.
That was where all the generations of witches went. That was where we'd agreed they belonged. To help the transition, to make sure they became compliant, to break their spirits enough to have them do what needed to be done.
If I allowed her to walk around the estate, make demands, sleeping in my fucking bed, what were the chances that we could break her spirit enough to bend her to our will?
She shifted down in the bed, one of her hands pressed to her full stomach, the other over her head, toying with her hair a bit, the cloak slipping open down to her navel, revealing the outline of her tits. Her eyes drifted closed as she hummed something soothing and ancient—some song of her coven—and I had a startling realization.
I didn't want to break her spirit.
I wanted her to stay just as she was.
What the fuck was that about?
Chapter Five
Lenore
The days stretched long even as the sun moved further away.
On my first full day out of the basement, I opened up a large garden under the watchful eye of Ly. And, as it turned out, I caught most of his demon friends glancing out of windows as I dug up the weedy grass and turned the dirt, sprinkling the grounds of coffee from the kitchen into the soil after asking Ace if it would work like tea did, adding needed elements to the dirt.
It was far too late, of course, to plant a summer garden, but it was early enough in this climate to plant various fall and winter vegetables.
Beets, carrots, onions, broccoli, bush beans, small cucumbers, and salad greens.
Everything else would need to wait until the spring unless I could convince the demons that I could plant some crops in front of the massive windows they had in each of the rooms of their home.
At the very least, some herbs.
I didn't know if the issue was their demonic nature, or simply not knowing how to cook and therefore, what tasted good, but I could not wrap my head around the fact that they did not even have basil or oregano stored for cooking.
Aside from my garden, I wasn't given much to do. There were no elderly to care for, no babies or children to teach, no chores to be carried out.
So on the third day, while Ly was watching something bloody and horrific on that awful television set of his in the living room, I took myself down to the basement, sorting through all the books left there over the years by Ace who, as I learned, was a lover of reading and learning.
True, it made him smug and superior-sounding when you tried to discuss a topic with him, but I was not opposed to learning the ways of this new world I had never known.
I tossed books to the side about governments and economics, choosing instead to read the guides about electronics, about how appliances worked, what the internet was, how the heating worked without fireplaces. I also became fascinated by a thick, old tome with browning pages and patchy ink that talked about The Burning Times and the Inquisition and about how the Old Ways got hidden away. How, over time, humans not only forgot that witches and demons and other creatures existed, but vehemently denied their reality, calling them figments of writers' imaginations, the stuff of children's stories.
No wonder the women of my coven got such strange looks when we went to town, why Marianne had insisted on silence from us if we accompanied her on a trip. Unless we were visiting the stores with the crystals and talismans, incense and candles, where people seemed fascinated by us. Marianne would take a place in a back room and shuffle her cards for waiting women, telling them of their best paths in life, getting money in return, which we used to purchase items we couldn't provide for ourselves. Materials and needles, things of that nature.
But aside from a small niche of women who believed in the cards and gemstones, but not magic in general, everyone else thought witches and our lifestyles were fairy tales.
It was startling to realize the world didn't know you existed. More so, that if they knew you did, they would consider you evil, on par with the demons, not a source of light and good that we truly were.
But I devoured the books Ace had
provided. I read until my eyes went blurry, and my head started to hurt, a part of me worried that I would run out of space in my mind to store all this new information.
I was ravenous.
Each day, after working in the garden and bathing, I curled up with a book until I couldn't read anymore.
"Are we sure it's a good idea that the witch learns things?" Drex asked as he walked into the room, going straight to the bottle of whiskey I came to relate to him.
"The witches have always had access to the books," Ace said, looking up from his book.
"Yeah, but none of them used them. Too busy crying or screaming at us."
My heart ached whenever they mentioned the other Sacrifices that came before me. I didn't know them personally, of course. They lived before I was even born. But they had lived here with these demons. And from what I could tell, they were not treated the same way I was being treated. They lived for years in the basement before they were permitted up.
That led me to believe they weren't ever given a chance to bathe fully, had to endure plates full of meat and sad vegetables, they never got to walk outdoors, breathe in fresh air.
I didn't understand why my treatment was so different. Why I had been pulled out of the basement. Why I was allowed to tend a garden, cook my own meals, bathe in Ly's tub.
Things had changed, though.
I didn't understand why, but after three nights of sleeping in Ly's bed, I was banished back to the basement for the evening hours. After the sun went down, and after dinner was made, eaten, and cleaned up after, he snapped at me and led me to the basement, locking me down there.
After being upstairs and allowed to walk mostly free—though Ly's gaze followed me everywhere—it had been easy to forget that I wasn't a guest here. I was a prisoner. I was The Sacrifice. And I still had no idea what that meant to these demons.
I'd heard them speaking of the other Sacrifices. About how long they stayed in the basement. Years, it seemed, before they were permitted upstairs. And, I figured, they were only let up for whatever purpose the demons had for them.
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