by Domini, Sage
She said nothing, did not accept his hand. He sighed. Time was essential. The elders will have been informed by now. Deston was unsure what they would order. The witch must cooperate if she wished to live. Yet he knew they were trained throughout their long apprentice years to be cold, unfeeling. He had heard of their trials, of the privation they inflicted upon their novitiates to toughen them into full witches.
“My name is Alicia.” Her throat was terribly dry. The words came out as a cough. She touched her chest and realized how exposed she was. Deston again felt a deep tug of wanting. Her face was beautiful, crowned by waves of dark hair, her body an ample collection of interests which begged exploration. Still, he would need to treat her carefully. No matter how he desired her, he was still in the company of an enemy. He brought her a glass of water and a flannel shirt.
“Cover up and drink. Then we absolutely need to leave.”
She took a sip and spoke again. “My name is Alicia. You know what I am so you would also know that is the only name I have.” She did not seem to remember him. He could forgive that. To her, beasts were likely all one and the same. She looked down. “I don’t know why you did it but I am thankful for my life.”
Deston found the keys to his ancient Chevy pickup. “You know what your sisters would have done had you been killed here.”
She spoke truthfully. “Yes. Even the youngest would not have been spared.”
Deston nodded. “So I made the rational choice.”
“Beasts aren’t necessarily known for their reason.” She spat the word. It was what her people called his, and he recalled how she saw him, what he was in her calculated witch mind. He turned away, willing his anger to subside. There was no point in raging against the inevitable. He knew what witches thought of werewolves.
I am not an animal.
***
Yes, Alicia did remember him. Her sleep had many times been haunted by the memory of the boy whose life she’d had every reason to take that night long ago. But her heart then was still of a young girl. Now she was a full witch. No man had ever been able to breach her cool distance. Thought they tried to entice her with their hard willing bodies, she resisted as was the witch way. Such indulgences led to weakness and Alicia was not weak. She was full witch. So why did she have to force herself to cease trembling under the scrutiny of this beast? Across the dark cab of the pickup truck she skimmed the wide plane of his shoulders. He still wore no shirt and he was magnificent, firm and chiseled.
She said. “I know you.”
He drove quickly. They hurtled through the dark desert. Flashes of summer lightening lit up the sky and the sweet honey smell of desert creosote foretold rain. “I know you too.”
She swallowed. Her throat was still dry and raw. “I have often wondered if I would regret that moment of failure.”
He was angry. “Do you consider it a failure when I have just saved your life?”
She did not answer. Miles of darkness passed. Thunder rumbled. Once she tried to speak but her words fell away, her feelings suddenly uncertain, confused in a way she had long been spared since mastering the witch ways. Dimly she realized he had stopped the truck. They were far off a main road. Drops of rain began to dot the windshield. Deston slammed the driver’s door shut. Warily she watched him cross the front of the vehicle. He stood for a brief moment staring into the night, and then seemed to come to a decision. He tore open the passenger door with such ferocity it nearly fell from the hinges.
Alicia gasped. The rain dripped from his broad shoulders; his eyes lapped at her hungrily. She knew what he wanted. He pulled her from the truck, her arms crushed between them. With one held he held her still and with the other he unfastened his jeans. The throbbing enormous pipe between his legs pressed against her and sought entry. She opened her mouth to begin a chant which would send him to the hell his kind belonged to, but her body betrayed her. When he tore at the fabric covering her wide hips, she feverishly helped remove any trace of those weak cotton obstacles from what he wanted, what she wanted as well.
Madness.
Alicia cast her shirt aside and reveled in the feel of large raindrops on her tender skin. Her innermost secret places yawned open, pleading, begging to be filled. Deston pushed her backwards onto the wide hood of the Chevy. Her back slid along the slick surface and she pulled herself higher. Her arms stretched, heavy breasts spilling, she clung to the slippery sides of the truck as her creamy thighs were gruffly spread, exposing her honeyed sex to the chaos of the night. She felt him, readying his entry, and hung on as her hips were roughly grasped. The first thrust was unlike anything she’d ever felt. Mildly painful at the first and then sweet deliciousness. He filled her; it was as if a hot cannon were inside. All those years of careful training fled and she was reduced to this grunting, needing female body who had invited the unimaginable. The rational parts of Alicia’s mind ceased. She arched her back, allowing him to plow deeper yet and there was nothing on earth but satisfaction of that primal need as they shuddered together in a forbidden pose, werewolf and witch, as the summer monsoon storm beat the desert down around them.
There were no words after the first time. Or the second, or the third. She took his raw organ in her mouth and licked it gently. He groaned with the thunder as she grew rougher, tongue seeking the length of the wide shaft, then finally she enveloped the entirety of him in her hot mouth. He came on her tongue and she swallowed eagerly. The he grasped her by the shoulders and raised her up. It was her turn. Alicia begged his touch in places she had never known. He pleasured her with the impossible hot span of his tongue until she shuddered to conclusion and yet he kept that instrument of torture deep inside her until she came yet again.
The rain washed them clean and finally, spent, Alicia climbed back into the cab of the truck. Her legs shook. Abused muscles from her knees to her belly popped and fizzed. She looked for her lover. His head was down as he gripped the hood of the truck where they had first joined. He climbed into the seat beside her and sighed, closing his eyes.
This was the ultimate trust, Alicia knew. He was counting on the impossible wild union of their bodies to be enough to still her witch’s duty. Alicia laid the gentlest of touches across his half parted lips and Magda’s raspy voice hissed, Girl, what have you done??
No. Magda was not here and Magda need never know. Magda was the oldest among the sisters and many years since had mastered the art of mind intrusions which told her what she needed when the mind’s owner wouldn’t cooperate. But Alicia had learned how to seal her mind to Magda when it suited her. Magda knew, and grumbled, but Alicia was one of the coven’s most powerful and Magda would not drive her away.
And now?
The idea of Magda discovering that one of her witches had copulated with a werewolf was terrifying. She and the sisters would not be tolerant, Alicia was sure. She couldn’t guess what her own punishment would be, perhaps banishment, maybe even death. But Deston…they would call the fire for him for certain. They would kill him immediately.
As if sensing the distress of her thoughts, Deston moaned lightly in his uneasy sleep. Alicia felt pain twist in her gut. She had saved him once and she would not allow him to be destroyed now. She laid her head on his chest and listened to the strong virile heartbeat. They slept until the first curls of light began to lighten in the east.
Deston had searched through a bag which he stored behind the seats and found some spare dry clothes; a long t-shirt for her, a pair of denim shorts for himself. Alicia struggled to keep her eyes from his chiseled body. She wanted him again. But he frowned when she reached for him. His voice was dry, rough. “Not now. Sunrise. We need to move.”
She touched him anyway, whispered, “I don’t think I can wait.”
He looked at her. “ And what will your sisters do when they catch you mounted by a beast?”
She swallowed. “I don’t care.” It was insane; she could scarcely believe the words out of her mouth. Yet they were true. Whatever her life was before
, her cozy apartment in Phoenix, her nearby sisters of the coven, all those long years of punishing witch training, they were all utterly unimportant. She straddled him abruptly. She let the moist warmth of her sensitive opening graze the tip of his hardness and felt him grow instantly rigid. Alicia licked his neck and whispered, “Wolf.” Deston panted, brusquely turned her back to his chest, and gave her what she wanted. He entered her from behind there on the front seat. Alicia raised her hands above her head and bayed at the rising sun as she rode the werewolf.
***
His belly rumbled for something other than frenzied lovemaking. Yet every time he glanced across the seat to her, Alicia, the witch, a fierce urge bubbled from within. He’d had females before of course, but of them he could remember nothing. There was only Alicia, the round swells of her thighs and her incredibly ripe ass as she opened herself to him. He could still feel the generous outline of the soft, ready breasts which melted under his rough touch. She played with her dark hair, a small smile on her lips and he dared believe it all been as shattering for her, a vortex of heady pleasure which had taught them that their bodies were sculpted for one another. After tasting the wild delights of the witch, Rick Deston seriously doubted he would ever want a female other than her.
She smiled at him. “I’m hungry.”
He arched a brow and she laughed, reading his thoughts. “Well yes, that would be nice too. But before that, a bite of something edible. And by the way, I’m a vegetarian.”
He chuckled. “All witches are.”
Deston had been driving aimlessly east and they were getting close to the New Mexico border. A mottled billboard advertised a local diner and so Deston pulled off the highway and found the squat, greasy building which strangely advertised “Donuts and Salad”.
They were able to cobble together enough articles of clothing to appear decent, though a bit disheveled. The lone waitress, a tired and bleached sad sack, was slung over one of the stools at the breakfast bar, but her eyes lit up when she saw Deston. He was used to this, and it neither flattered nor troubled him.
Alicia sidled quietly by his side. Deston noticed that a lonely trucker at a back table gave every generous curve of her body a long, sordid appraisal. The man shifted in his seat and began to stroke himself discreetly.
Mine.
Deston glared at the man through narrowed eyes, holding the wolf inside, but emitting no small amount of silent ferocity. It worked; the man cowered and returned his hand the business of forking up limp lettuce.
Alicia was watching Deston and she did not accept the seat at the table across from him. She pushed her chair close to his and looked soulfully into his eyes. The waitress, ‘Toni’ her tag said, issued a small mew of annoyance, or jealousy. She slapped a pair of oily menus on the table and muttered something about taking their order when they were ready.
Deston gathered one of Alicia’s warm hands in his own. He spoke very low. “I don’t know what this is. All I know is that I want you.” He touched his forehead to hers. “I need you.”
Her breath was sweet. “I know,” she whispered. “It’s been so long since I felt at all. And now this.” Her eyes were brown, flecked with green. They bore into him. “You are mine.”
He wanted to fall into her soft lap and find her with his tongue. But he only softly repeated her words. “You are mine.”
Deston figured that Toni, or the sleazy trucker, or any casual passerby might have looked at their intense figures and been full of wonder, or perhaps envy. That here were two people sunk deeply in the haze of love. But they would know nothing of shape-shifting creatures and supernatural magic, of ancient grudges and looming battles. They would not know of the inner torture born of this forbidden pleasure.
***
“Where will we go?” Alicia asked him when they had returned to the road. Though the answer mattered little; she would go wherever he was. The sisters would not have her back for she could never have hidden this lust sickness which had overtaken her body and soul.
What a shitty witch I turned out to be.
Yet the thought of all those years lost to training didn’t bother her. She should have known from the moment all those years ago when she allowed her wolf to escape into the night. She could not do her duty, not then and certainly not now. She was not one of them.
“East, I suppose.” He sounded wistful. “What do you think of Florida? I’ve always had a weird dream of living by the water.”
“Florida.” Alicia tasted the word. She thought of the lapping ferocious ocean which she had been too long away from. She thought of the steady pounding of waves at night, of reveling in a warm mattress of sand as her werewolf lover spread her legs in the moonlight and slid himself inside of her, mixing his hot seed with her secret juices. And yes, she would lick every bit of that mixed cocktail off his hard body as he recovered more quickly than any mortal man was capable of and then slammed into her again.
“Florida sounds…nice,” she managed.
Deston stopped the truck on the shoulder of the highway. Without a word he thrust his head between her soft legs and began a searing, wild dance with his tongue. Alicia saw the cars continue to whiz past them as the heat of the early afternoon sun bore down. He didn’t acknowledge her touch; he held himself back as he brought her to that shocking crescendo and the only sound she heard was the roaring in her own head.
***
They had returned to the road hours ago. He could have driven for longer but he wanted her. About sixty miles outside of Albuquerque he saw billboards for a campground which offered small cabins. The place was blissfully empty and the aged proprietor suffered with a severe case of cataracts. If he were to see a wolf casually wandering about he would surely believe it to be a trick of failing vision.
There was a small market about five miles down the road and so they were able to stock up on provisions. Deston fairly itched as he watched her body, and imagined it underneath him, on top of him, surrounding him.
Fuck. Oh holy fuck.
It required supreme effort not to tackle her right there in the dingy aisle surrounded by toothpaste and Ritz crackers. And damn but she knew it too as she hiked her skirt up higher and furtively touched her own rising nipples. Deston knew she wanted him just as badly and that truth was sweet delight.
The sun was descending and the cabin was dark. He swatted her hand away from the light switch and brought it to the dire fullness between his legs. Her breath was quick and she slid out of her clothing, turning her back to him, rubbing her bare ass against his body. Deston shoved his jeans away, threw his head backwards and let ripe instinct dominate. He lifted her up and crashed into her roughly but she was ready for him, moist and open. His hands clutched at her large breasts which caused her to moan more deeply and she bent lower as he plunged higher into those warm depths until his body loosed its essence.
But she wasn’t done with him. Their mingled passion was spilling down her legs and she caught it with her fingers. He watched her tongue taste what they had made and he felt himself getting ready to want yet again. She kissed him sweetly, then abruptly bit into the smooth skin of his neck while he roared with feral desire and roughly sought her backside. She resisted and backed into a wall, bidding him to follow, then leapt up to snake her legs around his muscled torso. And yes, he was fully in her again, thrusting, pounding, shaking the walls of the cabin and the soul of the earth.
Deston awoke with a start. He could not have told how many times they had joined or when they had finally fallen into a tangled sleep. His keen eyes could see fairly well, though he knew it was still the thick of the night. Alicia sighed lightly in her sleep, one arm flung over her serene face. He knew why he had woken.
She stirred, reached for him in sleepy reassurance. “What is it?”
He didn’t want to ask her why she had been snooping around at the pack’s perimeters. He wanted to continue to push away the intrusion of reality forever and just escape with her. Deston punched a fist into the
floor. All that messy ugly history of her people and his people, all the blood grudges and futile wars, what had it to do with them?
Everything.
Alicia sat up, fully awake. He knew she was waiting for him to speak. “Why were you there?”
She wasn’t hesitant with the truth. “Scouting. They know, you see. About the murders. They know the pack elders are losing control.” She sighed. “If the pack goes wild, the truce is dead. That was always the case.”
Deston felt bleak. Loyalty and guilt tugged at him. What was left of his family was back there in the desert. He could barely force himself to ask the question. “What will they do?”
This time she didn’t want to answer. “You know.”
Something else occurred to him. “They will assume you were murdered. By the beasts.”
She shook her head. “No. Magda will sense that I am still alive.” She sighed. “But it won’t make any difference.”
“They will come anyway, to avenge you and to dispose of the threat.” He spat. “Witches. Great protectors of mankind and all that high minded bullshit.”
Alicia was silent. Deston needed to say the words. “I need to go back.”
She gave a little cry and he smothered her mouth with a desperate kiss. He felt her tears and licked them from her cheeks. “Just to warn them. The elders need to hear it from me. Kristoff, he can’t be trusted not to use the situation to his advantage.”
Her voice had a wry edge. “Can’t you call them on the phone like a normal person?”
Deston chuckled and drew her close. “My sweet love, we are not normal. Nor are we people.”
***
Alicia awoke in his arms and was sorry to see the first light of the day’s sun. Deston could not be dissuaded. He would also not allow her to accompany him, promising he would return by the next moon rising. She lay still as Deston breathed evenly beside her. She would not deprive him of his rest. When she had finally slipped into an edgy sleep, her slumber had been poor. Magda’s cold, disapproving eyes swam before her. Magda had always had little patience for witches who succumbed to the baser needs of nature. This clandestine affair would be indefensible.
