He reached out, grabbing my white dress with his teeth and ripping it open down the front.
“Hey,” I yelled, smacking his cheek with my bleeding palm.
His teeth yanked again, and the lace tore further, revealing my breasts. His eyes on me made my whole body ignite, and I remembered the way he’d made me feel, the way they all had. That animal inside me woke to meet his.
I grabbed his head between my hands and pulled his muzzle up to my face. “Shift,” I commanded.
He obeyed. For a second, we stood staring at each other, our breath coming fast and hard in the cold air. My pulse began to race wildly as I took in his form, fully human and fully ready, his body demanding mine. I leapt at him like a cat, knocking him backwards, not sure what I wanted more—to destroy him or devour him. He stumbled, and his arms wrapped around me, dragging me to the ground with him. I rolled over onto him, yanking at my torn dress, trying to free myself of the last thing that stood between us. Efrain grabbed it with both hands and shredded it as easily as he shredded his own clothes when he shifted, tossing into the grass beside us.
He took one look at me, flipped me onto my back, and with one powerful thrust, took my virginity. I cried out in shock and pain, and Efrain growled, biting down on my shoulder as he erased my innocence one sure stroke at a time. After a minute, the pleasure overtook the pain, and I dug my nails deep into his skin, shredding it like he’d shredded my dress. I pulled him closer, deeper, harder, until we couldn’t bear another moment, and we were both lost to each other. My magic pulsed out, shimmering around us for a second before swallowing him in one giant gulp.
19
“You made me bleed, you little devil,” Efrain said, reaching around his thick body to swipe at a drop running down his back.
“Then consider us even,” I said, pointing to a scarlet splotch in the smashed, papery grass where we’d lain, now bleached to the color of bones. “What do you think that is?”
“Oh, shit,” Efrain said, his brows drawing together. “Sorry. I forgot about that.”
“I’m fine,” I said, rolling my eyes as I drew on my tattered dress. “Thanks for asking.”
“Oh,” Efrain said again. “Right. So…am I supposed to get you roses or something?”
I closed my eyes for a second before answering. “Do shifters have some special deflowering ritual that requires you to provide me with literal flowers in return for my virginity?”
He scowled. “No.”
“Neither do witches,” I said. “Though I would ordinarily ask you to join my collective at this point if not sooner.”
“Wait, you’re asking me to marry you?”
“Is that a problem?” I asked, tossing my tangled hair back.
“I… No,” Efrain said, looking a bit bewildered by his own answer.
“Good,” I said.
“It’s not a problem for me,” Efrain said. “I can’t speak for your other husband.”
“Malik wants me to be happy,” I said. “He’ll accept my choices. And so will the rest of the coven.” It was true. They believed in free will. No one got married against their will in the Winslow Witch coven.
Efrain shook his head. “He’s a bigger man than me, then.”
“I don’t think that’s possible,” I said, my eyes lingering on the menagerie of tattoos across his chest. I reached out and traced my fingertips along the serpent that climbed his ribs. A tremor went through his skin, and a chill swept over him at my touch. My own familiar stirred sleepily against my neck, content now that I’d claimed Efrain with my magic.
“Your brothers,” I said, guilt suddenly flaring inside me. “They’re both…Did they survive?”
“They’re alive,” he said. “They’ll be fine with it. But are your parents really going to be okay with this?”
“They might not be very happy about it,” I admitted. “We don’t have to get married right away, though. You can be my intended as long as you want.”
“We don’t have to wait until then to be together again, right? Because I’m not really into the whole delayed gratification thing.”
“Obviously,” I said. “And no. I’m not trying make you a gentleman. But you do know I’ll be with the others, too. Not just you. And you can’t be with other women.”
“Who are the others?”
Now it was my turn to hesitate. Somehow, I’d thought it was assumed that if I took him, I was taking them all. But I would have to ask them each individually, of course.
“Malik and your brothers,” I said. “If you think they’ll have me.”
“You won’t have to ask Oral twice,” he said. “But Nelson…he might play hard to get. He was injured pretty bad in the fight.”
I held my dress closed, as if it could keep my heart in my chest. “How bad?” I whispered, remembering the boar I’d seen lying on the ground near the fire.
“He lost one arm clear up to the elbow,” Efrain said. “And his leg’s pretty torn up, too, but Dr. Golden thinks he’ll be able to walk again.”
I sucked in a breath, not just because something so gruesome had happened. The way Efrain said it, as if it were commonplace, made me both sick and sad for them. They hadn’t lived easy, peaceful lives like I had.
“Let’s see about your granny,” Efrain said, turning to the tower.
“You were serious?”
“Did you think I came to kidnap you from your wedding just so I could ravish you?”
“Well…”
He gave me a mean side-eye. “I’m not that bad.”
I matched his look with one of my own.
“Okay, I’m that bad,” he said. “But I know where I went wrong. The old lady witch came to me and told me her granddaughter lives in this tower. So when I saw you outside it, I thought you were her.”
“No one lives here. There’s no door.”
Dad had gone to see Yvonne, but she’d denied having anything to do with what had happened. She said she’d gone by Granny’s and no one was home, and that was the end of her story. We still had no idea who the old witch was.
“Maybe she wants you to think that,” Efrain said.
“If it’s Yvonne, I know where she lives.”
“This could be where she keeps things she doesn’t want you to know about.”
We studied the lighthouse. The doors had been sealed, with only the empty windows looking down on us from above.
“Are you hoping Violet’s in there?”
“No.” He scowled at me. “You really think that I’d have brought you up here if I thought that? I told you, I made a mistake. I let myself get obsessed with finding her, but the truth is, we weren’t in love when she left. I just didn’t want to be the guy who dumps his girlfriend she day after she’s abducted.”
“Look at you,” I said. “You do care what people think.”
“Shut up,” Efrain said. “I’m going to fly up and check in the tower.”
“Wait,” I said, striding to the willow tree. I picked up a broken limb and closed my eyes, feeding air magic into it.
“What are you doing?” Efrain said as I straddled the stick.
“I’m a witch,” I said, tossing my hair back. “I find alternatives when I don’t have a broomstick on hand.”
Efrain stretched up on tiptoes, aiming his arms upwards like he was above to execute a dive into the sky. His muscles bunched and bulged, and I let myself openly admire him this time. Seconds later, his body seemed to explode into blackness, and a hawk emerged from the spot where he’d been. I sucked in a breath even though I’d known it was coming. He circled me, showing off his sleek feathers and mastery of wings.
Robin took off, swooping around Efrain, dancing with him in the air.
I ignored them and summoned more magic. Witches didn’t really fly—not often. It took a lot of magic to lift an entire person. The wind around us began to swirl, and slowly, I lifted off the ground, buffeted by the air current I was creating. When we reached the window, Efrain swooped inside.
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Irritation rose in me. I wished I could fly so easily, go check out the room before him. Instead, I had to grip the edge of the window and keep myself airborne at the same time. Before I could climb inside, Efrain appeared at the window in human form, grabbing both my hands and pulling me up and in. I crashed against his muscled body then pulled away, tossing my hair back and trying to catch my breath.
Efrain smirked. “You okay there, Little Red?”
“Fine,” I said. “Don’t gloat. And if you’re planning to lock me in here—” I broke off when I saw the room behind him. Shoving him out of the way, I ran to the bed. “Granny,” I cried, throwing myself onto her. Her body was limp under mine, heavy and unmoving. Tears ached behind my eyes as I sat up and looked at her ancient, wrinkled face that had known so much heartbreak—her husband’s betrayal, then his evil, the extinguishing of her internal flame which fueled a witch’s magic.
“Granny?” I whispered, touching her cold cheek. “No…” I shook her, hard, but her body barely moved. Her eyelids were still, her lips slightly parted and pulled down at the corners by gravity. She didn’t even look like my granny.
“Hey, it’s gonna be okay,” Efrain said, resting his huge hands on my shoulders. He gently drew me back and bent over her, pulling her arm from under the quilt. She was tucked into the bed, which was a wooden frame holding a soft, slightly lumpy mattress and covered with the most intricate quilt I’d ever seen. I hadn’t even noticed it when I’d seen her face peeking out from under it. But now, as I waited for Efrain to find her pulse, my eyes fell on the scene. It was one giant scene instead of patchwork, depicting what looked like the summertime view of one of the valleys from above. Each tree was individually cut and sewn with the kind of tiny, even stitch that a machine would make—but there was no way it could stitch around each puffy green tree.
“She’s got a pulse,” Efrain said, sinking onto the edge of the bed. His relief was so evident it made tears blur over my eyes again. I scooted over, curling my body against his as we sat looking down at her.
“Why won’t she wake up?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe we should go get Dr. G.”
“I’m not leaving her.”
“Okay, okay,” he said, holding up both hands. “We’ll wait for her to wake up.”
I shifted, and as I did, something grated strangely under my boot. I looked down to see my foot resting on a pile of…human hair. “Ew,” I cried, kicking it under the bed. Who would need a wig in a place like this?
“I’ll wait,” I said, an uneasy feeling rising in my belly. “I can’t leave her alone. You go get Dr. G.”
“I can’t leave you alone,” he said.
“I have my magic,” I said, though I’d felt a little less confident since he’d bound it so easily. But that was my mistake. I’d trusted him, and he’d betrayed me. No one could overpower me here if they came back and found me with Granny. The only way to defeat me was to gain my trust, like Efrain had. And it would take a long time before I trusted a stranger again.
He frowned and glanced around the room. “I don’t like it.”
“If you want to prove to me that I can trust you, then bring the doctor,” I said. “And don’t worry about me. Half the coven is outside this tower.”
“What?” His eyes popped wide and his nostrils flared.
I gave him a smug smile. “You don’t think they’d just let you run off with me,” I said. “They came after us. You’d better go explain yourself to them before they decide to shoot you with magical fireballs first and ask questions later.”
“Would they do that?”
“Trust me, you don’t want them to,” I said. “It hurts a lot.”
“Well, shit,” Efrain said, standing and looking down at his naked body. “Are they going to see me and think I raped you? Your dress is all torn.”
“I’ll give them a wave while you fly down,” I said.
“Can you tell them what happened, too, so they don’t burn me into crispy bacon?”
“I’ll leave you to do the explaining,” I said. “It’ll be your first test as my intended. You’ve got to win over my parents, you know. Oh, and my other fiancé. You’ll need to be on good terms with him before you join my collective.”
“So that’s how this is going to be.”
“Yep,” I said. “Welcome to married life.”
“Shit,” he said, hooking a finger in the tear in my dress and tugging it aside. “Can’t we just keep each other happy at night? And let one of the other husbands cook for you and all that shit?”
“That’s how you did it before, right? You and Nelson got the ladies at night, and Oral got to cook for them in the morning?”
“Trust me, he did more than cook for them.”
“And how many of those women stuck around?” I asked.
“Fine,” he said. “You signal them that I’m okay, and I’ll go talk to them.”
“Get the doctor first,” I said. “You can talk to them later.”
I went to the window and waved to Malik and my parents, who all stood below the tower. A handful of other witches and warlocks stood in the clearing, waiting.
“We found Granny,” I hollered down to them. “Efrain’s going to fly to get Dr. Golden.”
“Is she okay?” Quill called up.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“I’m coming up,” he said.
“You better go,” I said to Efrain as I stood on tiptoes to kiss him.
“You better stop kissing me,” he said. “There’s no hiding anything when I’m naked.”
“Go on,” I said, swatting his muscular backside. “Oh, and by the way, I’m going to need you to get that tattoo removed from your ass.”
20
After Efrain shifted and flew out the window, I returned to the bed and took Granny’s hand. A minute later, Quill scrambled through the window.
“How is she?” He looked around the room. “What is this place?”
I hadn’t taken time to look around. Efrain had swept the room as a bird, but he’d just checked that it was safe. Now, as I studied the weird room, prickles crawled up my spine. I was inside the lighthouse with no door. It wasn’t the usual upstairs of a lighthouse, with a light, though. It had been made into a large bedroom, and the light was gone. As I took in the clothes hanging on pegs along a section of wall, a counter with a small sink and a few dishes in a rack beside it, and a bookshelf with creased paperbacks, my stomach began to shake.
“Daddy,” I whispered. “Efrain’s right. Someone lives here.”
“Yeah,” he said, his voice quiet. Soberly, we surveyed the paintings on the walls—elaborate, detailed, if slightly repetitive scenes of the Ozark Mountains. If I was going to paint something up here, I wouldn’t paint what I could see out the window. I’d paint where the lighthouse came from. There were so many things I wanted to see that I hadn’t, places I wanted to go again, and things that drew my interest more than the valleys around me—the beach with its hot sand and strange smells, cities with their lights twinkling like stars close enough to reach out and touch, craggy mountains that jutted so far into the sky they had their own climate.
And people. So many people I didn’t know.
“Dad,” I said. “I want to travel.”
He sank to the edge of the bed and touched Granny’s forehead. “Sure, Caye,” he said. “Where do you want to go? You know summer’s not the best time since the gardens need tending, but we could go somewhere this fall.”
“Not with the family,” I said, swallowing hard. “I love you guys, but I’m not a kid anymore, Dad.”
His eyes skittered over my torn dress, and he stiffened. “I see.”
“I want to do more than I can in this valley,” I said. “Just for a few years.”
“I’ll talk to the collective.”
“Okay,” I said. “Thanks, Dad. But it’s really not up to them anymore.”
“Just be careful.”
; “I will,” I said. “We will. I want to take my own collective.”
“Malik?”
“And Efrain,” I said, feeling shy suddenly. I picked up Granny’s hand and closed my fingers around hers. “And his brothers.”
Before Dad could answer, Granny’s eyes flew open. She blinked at us blindly for a second.
“Granny,” I said. “You’re awake.”
“How did you get up here?” she asked, pushing herself up on her elbows.
My familiar stirred, going on alert, as if it didn’t know her. I shushed him with calming magic and gripped Granny’s hand. “We flew,” I said. “I’m so glad you’re awake. What happened? How did you get here? I went to your house and you were gone.”
She narrowed her eyes, studying us for a minute. I’d never seen that look in her eyes before, like she was calculating something. Granny’s spaciness could be frustrating. Sometimes she blurted out the wrong things or changed topic with no warning in the middle of a conversation. But she never looked like that.
“Gran,” I said. “Why are you looking at us like that?”
“Like what?” she asked with a jolt.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Sorry. Let’s get you out of here.”
“Yes, let’s,” she said, her face brightening. “Will you carry me out? Gosh, this body is a dump. It barely works.”
That wasn’t something Granny Golden would say.
Dad frowned, patting his own familiar, a mink that was baring her teeth. “Did you hit your head?”
Granny laughed, a weird, high-pitched laugh that I’d never heard before. “Of course not,” she said, swatting his arm in a way that was almost flirtatious.
Which was extra creepy, since she was his mom.
“I’ll carry you down,” he said, was still watching her.
“No, I want you to do it, dear,” she said, her hand closing around my arm with unusual strength.
“What a strong grip you’ve developed,” I said. “But I don’t think I can lift you.”
“Your magic can, though,” she said, sliding her arm around my shoulder. I tried not to wrinkle my nose—it was obvious she hadn’t bathed since coming here. I used some more air magic to help lift her from the bed. Dad went to the window, watching warily as I approached carrying Granny. He slipped out in front of me and hovered there, waiting to catch her if she slipped. I was halfway out when the realization of what was wrong hit me like a magical fireball.
Realms and Rebels: A Paranormal and Fantasy Reverse Harem Collection Page 48
