“You have truly lost your mind.” Middy knew that she was the one who’d lost her mind. This wasn’t playing dress up anymore. The Fuck Me Ken doll was a real person.
“So Paris is out?” Dred asked, totally missing her point.
Middy wanted to shriek at him that it was all out, but she’d given her witch’s word. She couldn’t go back on it.
Could she? A cold prickle went up her spine at the thought.
No, she couldn’t. She wondered for a moment that if she slapped him really hard, whether that would rattle the sense back into his head. Hell, maybe she should slap herself.
“Paris is fine. What witch could ever say no to Paris? By Morrigan, while we’re at it, why don’t we have the ceremony in front of the Eiffel Tower? I’m thinking evening, white candles, rose petals. . . .” she said sarcastically.
“Yes! Indulge your every whim. Just not the Cinderella carriage. I hate those damn things.”
“You don’t have the sense Merlin gave a zephyr.” Middy sighed and turned away from him.
“What did I do?” he asked her retreating form.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Cock Talk
Dred Shadowins was to find out exactly what he’d done that had Middy in a snit. It came to him in a dream.
He knew he was dreaming because when he became aware of himself, he was skipping. Dark warlocks, master spies, and Dred Shadowins in particular, did not skip. Nor did they take the time to notice that everything smelled like honey.
He was sure that honey did not have a scent, but here, in this fucked-up version of the world that had been rotting in his subconscious, it did. Dred knew it was honey, but it was Midnight Cherrywood, too. It was what her pink petals had tasted like. He was smelling tastes, so yes, this was definitely a dream.
After gaining control of his traitorous limbs, he stalked down the path that had been set before him. He wondered briefly if this was a magickal dream, a trap of some sort that he could never escape from like Chaldonean Hall.
He thought he saw Middy, her dark cascade of hair brushing the tops of her naked thighs and he heard her laughter, sweet and pure. Dred was given visions of a waterfall, of Middy waiting for him, wet and pliant.
Leaves fell like rain all around him; golden coins that crunched beneath his feet, reds that burned like the early hours of dawn, sharp and bright against the dark browns that were the color of death and shadow. Dred felt as if he’d moved through miles of forest when the swirling, misty cover receded.
It was almost like he was on some sort of pilgrimage and Dred wondered what dark things he might find at the end of this dream sequence or if he’d wake up in time to escape them.
He was plotting how to escape, to wake up, to leave the darkness. Dred was very aware that back in the physical realm, Middy was sleeping next to him and trusting that he would protect her.
“There is no escape. Not for you. Not for her,” a voice whispered from the shadows.
“Show yourself.”
“You know me,” the voice said.
“Then show me.”
The sight that greeted him when the waves of darkness retreated like the tide was nothing short of a bad acid trip.
Dred was now certain that his scotch had been laced with some hallucinogen.
It was the biggest specimen he’d ever seen; there was no doubt about that. Then, of course, it would be. It was as tall as he was, but its girth was enormous. Again, that should have been expected, given the proportionate size ratio.
What topped it off was the head. It was purple and he could have sworn that it throbbed.
Then, there was a face. A face that he knew and loved dearly.
It was his own.
But this doppelganger was indeed a fright. What was wearing his face was his very own penis.
“I know, I know. Don’t freak out.”
“I’m standing here in the middle of fucking nowhere talking to my own cock. I’d say I was already past freaked out and maybe a couple of eggs short of a meringue.”
“Sorry I had to resort to such drastic measures; nothing else would have made an impression.” It shrugged.
Dred found himself nodding along and then shook himself out of it. “So, uh, what do you want?”
“I know tings, they’ve been tough lately.” It shrugged again.
He said “tings.” Was that a Brooklyn accent? What, was his cock the godfather cock of all cocks? Dred was sure he’d just gone snap, crackle, and fuck you. He was right out to lunch. With his cock, apparently. Middy had been right, he’d lost his mind. Utterly.
“Yeah, with the broad. That’s what we’s gotta get straight.”
“Midnight?”
“That’s the one.” His cock exhaled a huge breath and it seemed to shrivel a bit and then perk back up. “Get me?”
“Uh, no.”
“The one, genius. She’s it for us. That’s the only entree we’ll be eatin’ for breakfast, lunch, and dinner here on out.”
Dred was sure he hadn’t heard it correctly. That was tan-tamount to saying that he’d never fuck another witch so long as he lived. That knowledge settled like dirt on a gravel road. It wasn’t heavy, but damn, it dusted everything.
“Merlin’s balls!” he swore.
“Look here, buddy!” a voice interrupted what had promised to be a most satisfying stream of profanity.
Dred turned to see the source of the new voice that had entered his Sybil-scape. Because that’s what it was, it was certainly not a dreamscape. He had two different things talking to him and one was his cock. Oh, yes, he was definitely what they called fucked up. A split personality would be a welcome and classifiable bit of insanity. But this? Now he thought he was seeing Merlin, which was just stupid.
The next thing he knew, he’d be sitting in a double-wide broom on blocks watching selkies and mermaids talking about interracial dating. Those people were always the first to admit they saw Merlin and Elvis. Usually at a Waffle House for the all-you-can-eat special.
Dred decided that yes, he might have just reached his breaking point.
“Hey, man.” This was from his cock.
He wanted to reach down and grab for it, to see if it was still there, but he had a feeling that when he realized it wasn’t, there’d be no surfacing from the deep end for him.
“You know him?” Dred asked.
“Yeah, and you do, too.”
“Mordred Arthur Shadowins,” the man with the long, white beard pronounced.
“Who wants to know?” Dred smirked, unable to do anything at this point, but rely on his attitude to get him through.
“My balls! I’m sick unto death of being startled out of my daily activity every time something doesn’t go your way.”
“And how do I have anything to do with that?”
“My name, boy! Stop taking it vain. I think you’re the worst culprit in the warlockian world. If it was just, ‘by Merlin’ or ‘Merlin bless’ or whatever else, it wouldn’t bother me. But always, it’s about my balls. I’ve had enough. And they’re not blue, thank you very much. I’ve pounded the backside out of Nimue three times today,” the old man said, looking very proud of himself.
Yet another visual that Dred Shadowins could have gone the rest of his life without having plastered behind his eyeballs.
Balls.
Merlin. Merlin’s hairy, old, shriveled, but not blue . . .
“Watch it! Don’t even think it!” Merlin corrected him.
“And why do you always make me look old? Magickal folk should know better.”
“Um, while I’ve got you here . . .”
“Your damned mission? Me on a horse! You’re a stubborn one, aren’t you? We give you the one, and all you can worry about is—” Merlin broke off, a little confused. He seemed to be talking to someone that Dred couldn’t see.
“Oh, well that guy’s a douche bag. Yes, I’ll tell him. In a minute. No. Really? Damn it.”
“Looks like the two of yous have some bu
siness to handle, so I’ll be leaving. But remember what I said, Dred.
Don’t park me in any other garage because the engine ain’t gonna start, if you get my drift.” It winked at him.
Dred would have been more comfortable if the thing had just disappeared, but no, it had to skip merrily along the path that led out of the clearing. So Dred was treated to the lovely, unforgettable image of the backside of his cock skipping down a path. If only it had a cape, it would have given a whole new definition to Red Riding Hood.
“Okay, boy. Looks like I’m going to give you a break. I didn’t want to, but here it is. You and your witch need to leave the house party and get to Loudun.”
“France?” Dred asked. “She said something about Paris in the spring. . . .”
“Yes, yes. Stick to that. But for now, Loudun.”
“Dare I even ask what waits for me in Loudun?”
Merlin looked at him, the lines around his eyes crinkling with amusement. “You shouldn’t, but you will anyway. So I’ll save you the trouble. In the 1600s, Loudun was the site of a huge clusterfuck.”
Dred’s chi was irretrievably porked. Merlin was supposed to be a holy man. He wasn’t supposed to say “fuck.” Of course, he wasn’t supposed to be hanging around in the ether “pounding the backside out of Nimue” either. Or so he’d always been taught.
“The possessions at Loudun, right? That was all just a power grab: Cardinal Richelieu wanted to oust Father Grandier because he opposed him politically. The cardinal convinced the nuns to say they were possessed, but it may well have been born from sexual frustration on their part. Or so some scholars say. Grandier was said to be handsome. . . .”
“Blah, blah, whatever, Dred. It doesn’t matter that it was all unicorn piss to start with. You of all people, should know that when you fart around with powers unknown, even in jest, Bad Things ensue.”
“What do I want with the evil that’s there then? I’d do better to stay home.”
“Yes, you would at that, my boy. You would at that, but you won’t because Loudon is where you will find clues to the lamia you’re hunting. As trite as it sounds, only you and Middy can stop this. Make no mistake, you must!”
“Why can’t you do it? I thought you were all powerful or some rot?”
“I am all powerful, the gods’ god. The Bigger Boss. But I can’t interfere.” Merlin shrugged. “All this cross-pantheon nonsense has our hands tied with red tape. You know how it is. Warlock’s Council, Gods’ Council . . . the bureaucracy never ends.”
“Aren’t you interfering now?”
“Not really. This is a dream. You could have made this up yourself.” Merlin leaned in. “But if you did make this up, you’d be a little wrong in the head if you ask me.”
“I didn’t ask you.”
“That’s the beauty of it.” Merlin looked very pleased with himself. “Anyway, you’re going to wake up in about five seconds. Take Middy to Loudun by way of the broom.
You should stop and enjoy the sights on your way, if you know what I’m saying.” Merlin winked and nudged him so hard, Dred was sure he’d broken a rib. He was still rubbing the spot when he woke up. He turned to Middy, but her place in the bed was empty.
Dred found he didn’t care for that empty spot. It was bullshit. He was the one who crawled out of bed in the early dawn, and it was the witches who woke up alone. In fact, this had never happened to him before.
Ever.
He wrinkled his nose with displeasure and decided that he’d have to make her come twice to keep her in bed until he was ready to get up. That was the only solution. At least until they no longer had to share a bed.
Dred thought of his cock again. That seemed to be all that he could think about lately. Middy’s fault, of course. He supposed it would be the gentlemanly thing to do if he checked on it. Just to make sure it didn’t have anything else to do today. Or perhaps Middy had been correct in her as-sumption that he was barking mad.
He lifted the blanket, but his eyes were closed. Dred didn’t know if he could take it if his long-time carousing companion really did say something to him in the here and now.
It was standing tall and proud, jutting even. He eyed it carefully. Then he poked it. Finally, he grasped it firmly and still found it had no input of any kind.
That was more like it!
He gave it a few strokes for good measure and found it to be the same pleasant sensation as always. Now that he’d started, he might as well finish. Dred was sure after the previous night’s activity that Middy wouldn’t be up for another round of polish the wand.
Dred gave over to the tried and true fantasy that he often fell into when he was looking for a quick one-off with himself. His cock went limper than an overcooked green bean. When he peeked at it under the sheet, it looked just as sad.
This was unacceptable.
And yet, before he tried anything else, he knew what was wrong with him. Still, he tried imagining his weekend on the yacht with the Pearcy twins. Merlin, but were they ever hot little witches. They’d done things that . . .
Nothing.
Perhaps he just wasn’t remembering correctly. The one had sat on his face while the other had—if it was possible, the skulking flesh shrank farther.
He went through the seven stages of grief there in the span of about ten minutes. First, he couldn’t believe it. No, a more apt description would be that he refused to believe it. It just couldn’t be true. That had been a dream. His penis didn’t have any choice in the matter. It went where he told it to. It was the bitch, not him. NO!
A vague voice in the back of his head told him that he’d already reached the anger stage, but he’d never been very good at punishing himself, so that one passed quickly.
He thought about Middy and the thing sprang to life like a fork shot from a toaster. Okay, fine. Middy was hot. That wasn’t really a compromise. He thought about her with the Pearcy twins.
It was like letting the air out of a balloon.
Then he felt guilty that he’d had such crass thoughts about her. One wasn’t supposed to objectify someone one liked. Right? Dred didn’t know. He’d never really liked a witch as a person before. Sure, he’d liked Karla well enough, but . . . He really hadn’t. She had just been filler, like frosting in those tea cakes he liked so much.
Damn it, but Dred still hated these epiphany moments.
They were balls. All of them.
What the fuck was he going to do? It wasn’t right lusting after just one witch. It wasn’t how things were done in the world of Dred. He released his rebellious cock and if he’d been a witch, he might have shoved both of those chocolates that had been on the nightstand right into his mouth.
He might anyway.
Barista had been thoughtful of her guests’ comfort and provided each one with a small box of Godiva chocolates on each nightstand. Dred’s were all in his mouth. As the chocolate divinity, not to be confused with the old spinster witch candy, melted across his tongue he was momentarily soothed. There was one answer to this conundrum.
That answer being to knock the backside out of her, as Merlin had seemed so pleased to put it. He’d drill her like an oil field until she ran dry. He’d been looking at the situation all wrong. It wasn’t less he needed, but more. Lots more. Then perhaps, he could get on with the business of being Dred Shadowins, cavalier and contented playboy. He liked that much better than this new girl creature she’d turned him into. His cock didn’t work because he had sand in his vagina. That was the only possible explanation. The sooner he got rid of that, the sooner all of this would go away.
But he was beginning to wonder why everything about this mission had to have something to do with his cock.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Harpy Breakfast Tea
“Why me?” Ginger Butterbean whined.
Midnight Cherrywood had come to the quick and painful realization that she would much rather be in her warm bed next to Dred than sitting there, at butt-thirty in the morning lis
tening to Ginger Butterbean waxing poetic about her sad state of affairs. Or more correctly, her husband’s state of many affairs.
Her voice was like that of a songbird that’d been sucking on helium. It wasn’t a sound that she found compatible with breathing. Middy sipped her tea and waited patiently to die.
She wasn’t sure what she could learn from this inanity, but sat dutifully through the thing. The lace edge of her napkin had become fascinating. She was afraid that if she looked any of these women in the face, they’d speak to her directly.
“Well, I’m still concerned about that empty cell in Chaldonean Hall,” Aradia Shadowins said, changing the subject from poor, victimized Ginger.
Finally, something interesting!
Ginger gasped. “Aradia! Can’t you see I’m still upset and I need the support of my friends?”
Aradia looked as if she was hard put not to roll her eyes like bowling balls. “Well, I suppose I should thank you. Some good has come from your tragedy.”
“Oh, and what is that?” Ginger asked unhappily.
“My son fell in love,” Aradia said and turned her attention, along with that of the rest of the flock, to Middy.
They all looked as if they expected her to say something.
“It’s true. If you hadn’t cut off Gavin’s donation”—she almost tripped over the chancellor’s first name—“then I never would have had to go see Dred.”
“Well, I for one am glad that you did. Although shame on him for not bringing you home to meet me. Our first meeting shouldn’t have been at a witches’ tea at my sister’s house party. I should have liked to fuss over you in private first.” Aradia smiled warmly.
Middy had thought for sure Aradia would have hated her. Would have seen her as some gold-digging schemer because Middy didn’t run in the same social circles they did.
Her family was comfortable, but they didn’t have any of the money or prestige that the Shadowins did. And everything had happened so fast. Although, she wondered if it was telling that Barista hadn’t come to the tea. She’d pleaded a headache. It made Middy wonder if what Tally said about her had been true.
How to Marry a Warlock in 10 Days Page 13
