by R. L. Weeks
It was too much for him, and I hadn’t had enough. He pulled down his pants and boxers, threw them to the other side of the room, and pulled my top off. “Fuck, Kate. You make me crazy.”
He kissed my neck, and shockwaves danced through my body. I needed him. I wanted him more than anything. He rolled my nipple between his fingers. “Don’t stop,” I begged.
He purred into my ear, licking the lobe. I licked my lips and snaked my hand to his length. He was so hard for me. It was exuberating.
We heard noise coming from the living room. Joshua was home. Nicholas placed his finger against my lips. “Shh.”
His eyes were wild. They gazed into mine with a primal lust that only I could satisfy. My legs twitched. He grabbed a condom from his drawer and pulled it on before pushing himself inside of me.
A smirk played on my lips. I loved that he wanted me. I rocked my body, forcing him to go in as deep as he could go, and dragged my hands down his back
“Fuck!” he yelled.
Feeling his hot cum inside of me sent me over the edge into a second, more powerful orgasm. He was still coming when my orgasm finished. We both lay on the bed, panting.
“That was a long time coming,” I said breathlessly, mentally high fiving myself at my pun.
He laughed, sounding so carefree. “You’ve no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that.” He turned on his side and looked at me. “With you, it meant so much more.”
He wiped the sweat from his forehead and kissed mine. He held his lips against my skin and spoke. “I will always be yours.”
I nestled into him. “And I yours.”
Chapter Ten
He smelled like leather, stale beer, and coffee. I leaned into him. “Morning.” I closed my eyes so I could steady myself. When I opened them, he was staring at me. Our gaze connected and he smiled. He shook his head in disbelief and looked me up and down. “You are so beautiful.”
I flushed red. “You’re such a charmer.”
“I’m just lucky.”
The scent of hazelnut cream filled the air. A yellow candle was burning on the side table. “I love that smell.” I remarked.
“So do I.”
I felt our bond return. Ever since he had shown it to me when he reached into my mind, it had only grown stronger. Now I could read his thoughts like I was reading a book. He was keeping something dark locked away from me. I attentively reached through the bond to figure out what it was.
He shot away from me like I was a rattlesnake. “I’m going to shower.”
“Oh… uh.”
He hurried out and closed the door behind him before I got a chance to say anything else to him. What could be so important that he would hide it from me like that?
Thirty minutes later, there was a knock at the bedroom door.
“Come in,” I answered from beneath the covers.
Joshua looked like hell. “Nicki told me to tell you he left to get breakfast.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled, feeling embarrassed at the obviousness surrounding us. Our clothes lay scattered across the floor.
He turned to close the door.
“Wait,” I called.
He looked at me with raised eyebrows.
“How did it go with Vanessa?”
He shrugged. “She was great, but nothing can happen. I have to go back home after we kill the wendigo. There have been more problems with the coven, and with you and Nicholas coming with me—”
“What?” I asked, wide-eyed.
“Didn’t he tell you? We need you with us. It’s important. I already have a plan to tell your mom you’re going away to college. You graduate soon anyway.”
A lump rose in my throat. “Is that why Nicholas was suddenly okay with me again?”
“Well…” He looked around the room and smirked. “He wanted to be anyway, plus, this”—he gestured at the sprawling clothing—“was all him. Besides, better to enjoy it now. Remember the book. If it is you two that are promised to one another, it also means you’ll end up killing the other. If you come with me, then we might be able to find a loophole out of that.”
“What if it’s not us?”
“You’re dark,” he told me bluntly. “You’ve killed once. You could do it again—”
“Whoa,” I said, interrupting him. “Killed once? What do you mean?”
He looked at me indifferently. “Just do the right thing if you want to repent and come back with us. I don’t agree with building relationships based on deceit.”
I furrowed my brows. “I haven’t killed anyone!”
He didn’t respond. “You’ll find out sooner or later anyway.”
***
Nicholas returned, and he and Joshua sat me on Nicholas’s bed. “Is this an intervention?”
Nicholas looked sad.
“What is this?” I asked, getting more and more nervous with each passing second.”
“I am sorry,” Nicholas said. “I wish I didn’t have to do this.” He growled under his breath. “But my cousin thinks it’s the right time.”
Joshua pushed. “It’s better now than later.”
Nicholas disagreed. “Or never.”
Joshua shook his head. “We both know it will come out. Better now.”
I stared at them both in turn. “Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on?”
“You killed Amara,” Joshua blurted, knowing that Nicholas wouldn’t.
Nicholas closed his eyes. “Thanks for being tactful, cousin.” His tone thick with annoyance.
My heart skipped a beat. “Excuse me?”
Nicholas repeated him, in a lower tone. “You did kill Amara.” He sighed. “But it wasn’t your fault. You didn’t know what you were doing. Your powers were new…”
It was real, then. What they were saying. “But it was an earthquake,” I stated, confused.
Nicholas pinched his lips. “Caused by you.”
I looked at them both in disbelief. Joshua muttered something about it being better if Nicholas and I spoke alone and left the room.
“I wanted to keep it from you.” He grappled for the words. I had none. “It wasn’t your fault. That’s why I was hanging out with Jayde. I was making her forget what she had seen.”
The color drained from his face as he carefully watched me, waiting for me to respond. I didn’t know what to say, except that my life was over. I couldn’t live with myself knowing what I had done. I gathered my thoughts and finally spoke. “Show me.”
He replied hesitantly. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“Show me,” I growled. “Now.”
“Then it will all be over,” he confessed. “I almost lost you when it happened.”
“I don’t care.” I extended my hand for him to take.
He took it in his and closed his eyes. I closed mine in turn and opened up to him.
A cloud of fog lifted, and a skull-crunching sound blared in my mind. Jerimiah watched us darkly from the window as it unfolded. The finale of the body bag. Then the aftermath. Me holding a shard of glass, ready to end it all. Nicholas rocking me as I cried the whole night.
We broke our connection. He waited patiently for me to break, but I didn’t. Instead, I felt something else shoot through me. I cocked my head, curious to why he was so upset.
Why had I been so weak to try to kill myself over a girl who had done nothing but make my life hell?
I shouldn’t have let those thoughts cloud my better judgement, but it was better to own it than let it tear me apart. The tattoo on my back burned, and magic spiraled inside of me. It was different than the magic I felt when I was out in nature. It was more synthetic, powerful, easier to use at a moment’s notice.
I stood. Nicholas stood too, and I looked at the window. “Let’s go kill that wendigo,” I growled. “I want to kill it.”
He put his hands in the air. “Whoa, no.” He looked at the door. “Joshua!”
Joshua opened the door. They both looked at me with fear. I wonder
ed why… until I saw my reflection in the glass. My eyes had turned matte black.
They blocked the door. A voice tinkered in my head—a dark, alluring, male voice. You could hurt them.
I dismissed the calling, but I did want them out of the way. “Move, or I’ll make you.”
Nicholas shook his head. “You’ll have to make me then.”
Joshua looked at him wide-eyed. “What did you do to her?”
“I’m no different!” I growled. “I am fed up of being scolded for being a bad person when I didn’t really do anything wrong! So what if she died. She deserved it.”
Nicholas looked at me squarely. “You don’t mean that.”
“I do.”
Joshua shook his head. “She’s growing into her darker powers.”
Nicholas stood up straight. “Then I guess I’m her only match.”
I squinted. “You couldn’t. You wouldn’t.”
“Try me.”
I lifted my hands and forced a strong vibration through the air. It felt good to let it out of me. It was as easy as breathing. The magic wasn’t only in my eyes and on my heart but embedded into my soul. It flickered in shades of red and blue and shot like electricity, able to influence everything around me. It was more satisfying than sex, more alluring than the promise of love, and more addicting than heroin. It beckoned me with delicious promises of power beyond anything I had imagined.
Seeing the atoms, I vibrated them with ease. All were at the mercy of the magic I had been blessed with. I forced my will out to the universe. I sent shockwaves through the room, and Nicholas and Joshua flew back. Joshua tried to combat it, but his light magic was nothing compared to my dark magic.
Nicholas coughed, dusting himself off. He was more resilient than Joshua. He stood and blocked the door again. “You’ll have to kill me,” he warned.
I strutted toward him and held out my hand. I closed my eyes and let the magic come out of me. These powers I could control easily. They wanted to do my bidding, but with each pulsation, I felt them snaking around my core.
I faltered, only for a moment, before pushing another vibration his way.
Shock rippled through me as he directed it away from him. His eyes took shape, looking feline in nature, and darkened into two bottomless pits. I wasn’t afraid.
“Don’t make me do this,” he begged and pushed me back using his powers.
I could hardly breathe. The air was being squeezed out of my lungs. I held my hand up in surrender, and he stopped.
“Let me go,” I ordered.
“You can’t kill that thing alone.” He hurried to my side and took a different approach. His eyes swirled back to their original color. “Let us go with you and help you, at least. You don’t need to stay angry, Kate. No one is blaming for you what happened to Amara.”
Gazing into my warm eyes, he tamed the beast inside of me. I retreated. The energy dispelled, and I became aware of how heavy the energy had been. I took a deep breath, gasping for air. “I’m sorry.” I stumbled. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he said, looking wounded.
Seeing him like that snapped me out of any residual darkness. I covered my eyes and burst into tears. I hurried out of the door. What had come over me? Amara’s face occupied my thoughts as I ran home. Something was wrong with me. Perhaps I was better off dead.
***
“I told Mom no visitors,” I grumbled as Joshua walked into my room.
“Oh, come now,” he said. “You owe me a chat, at the least. You could’ve killed me back there.”
I hiccupped and turned over. I didn’t want to look at him. The guilt was too much. “Please, just go. You and Nicholas are better away from me.”
“You can’t really believe that he’s better without you. He l—”
“Don’t say it!” I shouted and turned to look at him. “I can’t live with myself.”
“You can repent.”
I felt like I was talking to a priest. “There is no coming back from this.” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “I killed her.”
He sat on the end of my bed. “Look, sweetheart, you’re terrified. I understand, but you are not alone in this.”
My eyes were so tired. “I am. Who did you kill?”
“He was called Jason.”
“Wait, what?” I pushed myself back into my headboard.
“It was an accident.” His eyes closed for a moment as he took a long breath. “I was new to my powers and I was angry. The car swerved off the road, and a part of me wanted it…” His voice cracked. “It was the worst day of my life.”
My lips parted. “How did you live with that?”
“I’m still learning,” he answered honestly. “But it gets easier. All I can do now is try to do the right thing.” He paused. “It will be easier to give into the dark side. They will comfort you there, tell you that you did nothing wrong, and make you feel okay, but when you come back from it one day, it will destroy you. There are two paths, Kate. The easy one and the hard one. Doing the right thing isn’t always easy.”
I sniffled. “How can I make that up to her? She’s gone. I can never atone for what happened.”
He rubbed the bottom of my leg. “I’ll be right here, helping you every step of the way. There will be hard times where it will feel impossible to breathe, but over time, they will become less and less. Magic can be beautiful.”
I disagreed. “It’s evil.”
“No,” he said with conviction. “People are evil; magic is not.” He realized his words and backstepped. “You are not evil. You just need our help.”
I cast my eyes downward and fiddled my fingers. “Fine. I’ll go with you.” I gazed at him with an appreciation, a sense of belonging. He had gone through what I was going through, and it connected me to him in some way. After a moment’s reflection, I noticed a tattoo on the back of his neck.
“Hey, your tattoo, what was it?”
“It’s the mark of a high priest.”
“I didn’t know.”
He smiled. “Well, there are still the elders.”
“How did you get to be one so young?” I questioned. I didn’t know much about it, sure. But I did guess that you had to work your way up over a long time to get promoted to that level.
“I got my powers when I was thirteen. The first out of all my friends.”
“Impressive.”
He shrugged nonchalantly. “Not really. Trauma, remember? My sister died.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Killed by a wendigo.”
No wonder he was so intent on going out to the forest to kill the creature. My dad, who may or may not have been killed by one too, was in my mind. Joshua and I were kindred spirits. I could sense it.
“Let me go with you.” I pleaded with him. “I need to do something good. I need a distraction.”
He seemed uncertain but agreed regardless. “You have to follow my orders. Wendigos are the spawn of the devil. They mimic sounds to lure you in. They’re adept at hiding and hunting, especially at night. Their insatiable hunger makes them much more dangerous than a hundred tigers, and to them, we are nothing but a tasty meal. They will not hesitate.”
I shuddered, but I needed to do something. I thought back to the house in the woods, and a curiosity burned at the corners of my mind. “Joshua, can you use the residue energy of a place—say one where hundreds of people died violently—and channel it?”
“I’ve never tried, but it could work.” He stood. “Why?”
“I have an idea.”
***
The old house was at the forefront of my mind. I remembered when I had visited as a child. Jerimiah, of all people, had taken me there. I hadn’t remembered hanging out with him until now. Had he always had his powers?
I had decided to pay Jerimiah a visit. I had a lot of questions.
I looked nervously at the window of Jerimiah’s house. It was in the poorer part of town. A bald guy stood outside the house next door, drinking a beer. Kids’
toys littered their grass. I looked away and back at Jerimiah’s house. The lawn hadn’t been mowed. I made my way through the tall grass toward the front door.
I pinched my nose when I reached the doorstep. The most awful smell was protruding from under the cracks of the door. “Ew.”
Poor Jerimiah—even if he was a member of an evil coven—having to have lived in that state. Were his mom and dad even around?
Cautiously, I knocked on the door three times. The wood cracked when I did. The house was in terrible condition. On the white netting inside the window, I saw… was that blood? I gasped. Why is there blood on the drapes?
I felt uneasy. No one answered. I walked away quickly and pulled out my phone to text Vanessa. There was no way Nicholas would give me Jerimiah’s number. I was sure he would kill me if he found out what I was doing.
Hey Nessie. I was wondering, do you have Jerimiah’s number? It’s important. Explain later.
I tucked my phone away and walked to the other side of the street to get a better look at the house as a whole. The concrete was as cracked as an old lady’s face. The windows were grimy—not to mention the blood—and one was smashed.
My phone buzzed with a “sure” and Jerimiah’s number from Vanessa. I punched the number in and waited for him to answer. No such luck. I typed out a message.
Jerimiah, it’s Kate from school. I need to talk to you. It’s important. I’m outside your house.
I decided to give it a few more minutes before giving up and returning to Nicholas and Joshua’s. They were waiting to hunt the wendigo. Joshua knew what I was up to. I was hoping I could coax Jerimiah into taking me to the old house in the woods and helping me channel the deceased’s powers so I could use them against the wendigo. I couldn’t judge him for being with the Black Rose Coven; I was too. Or for killing that boy. I had done the same thing.
