Doing It To Death

by Kaia Bennett

  Two female witches kissed fervently, while a pair of male vampires lapped at each of their bleeding cunts, each vampire’s hands scouring every curve and line of the witches’ writhing bodies.

  Fading into the background of this spectacle were the priest and priestess, rocking their hips against each other like a tantric metronome under the blaze of pyres.

  I felt a hand on my back, fingers combing through my hair and down my spine to brush my ass. A sigh pierced the air, and I knew even with my eyes closed, even with the surge of heat and the scent of dozens of bleeding witches distracting me, that the lips on my shoulder belonged to her.

  I’d waited for Evie to come to me, to let me drink from her. Relief flowed through me because she’d finally taken that step. I turned into her embrace and her kiss greeted me. Heat devoured me, the waves of the sensation flowing over the skin and penetrating every tissue. For the first time in my life, a kiss, a simple press of lips and tongues, fed me like blood.

  She lifted the weight of my hair in her hands and pulled me harder into her greedy mouth. Our bodies writhed to a rhythm set by the drums, to the rhythm of the earth, thirsty for a sacrifice. Wolves beyond the circle howled and ran with the moon, while the wolves within mated with each other, with witches, with vampires. Evie twisted my face, arching my neck into her attack, and took blood from my straining throat. She gripped my cock while she drank from me, slicking the iron flesh with my pre-come. As if I could be more ready.

  A moan, urgent and feminine, rose up to my left. My heavy-lidded eyes opened on the scene of a witch feeding a female vampire from her womb. Her pale skin glowed red, and her brown hair caught the light like a flame wavering down her back. She reached behind her to pet a wolfman’s furry head as he licked the curve of her spine. The wolfman bowed his head and licked her palm in thanks, in service, before surging to take his place behind the vampire. He slid into the vampire with all the feral urgency he’d use on a wolfwoman, and all three cried out in ecstasy.

  Worship. Reverence.

  Permission.

  I’d always taken. I’d never asked. I took Evie from her home, I took her body, I took her sanity, and in the end, I took her life. I took everything, but still, when my brother lay dying on a dark night with the moon riding high, she knelt beside me and gave. She gave me strength. She gave me comfort. She gave me her blood and a gentle touch I hadn’t known I needed. She brought back even the gentleness I’d forgotten, the memories and love my father had stolen from me.

  Now, she took my blood, finally her turn to take. But, she’d never had to ask. I’d always had the choice to give her this fire inside me. Until her, I didn’t know I could give anything more than protection and a prolonged death.

  When she came up for air with a shuddery sigh, savoring my taste I knelt at her feet. With tears in my eyes, I readied myself to give her what I couldn’t offer, until now.

  I had no right to claim you. I’m ashamed.

  She swayed, her black eyes staring down with trance-like intensity.

  I lifted my hands, palms up, and asked with tears streaming down my face. Tell me where, tell me where to touch you, Evie. You’re not mine. I’m yours.

  Her eyes gleamed with unshed tears.

  I’m yours, Evie. Tell me how to hold you, then tell me how to let you go.

  As I lowered my head, my hair fell away from my shoulders and skimmed the grass, the bridges of her feet. I bowed my head like a wolf, like a supplicant. I bowed my head like the first vampire from thousands of years ago, the one seen in the vision we’d shared a month ago in Allamuchy, who kneeled before a goddess in the flesh and played his part. A predator who’d become prey. He quenched his thirst, took away a witch’s pain, and then gave her a taste of his own life-giving venom. He’d known to ask permission. He’d known how to give instead of taking.

  I’d done everything backwards, but now, I would untangle the knot I’d made of us.

  In her mind, she said nothing. The silence rocked me. I stared at her bare feet and thought of a river of blood kicked up by her toes in my dream, of rivulets of blood traveling down her calves. I thought of the moment I carried her into Lake Austin and how my fingers caressed the dimples in her lower back. Stealing touches before the end, even then stealing, taking, hoarding, feeding.

  Never before had I hesitated when struck with an urge this deep. I wanted to kiss her feet, to feel the skin on her legs slide across my lips the way blood had in my dream. I wanted to wrap my arms around her waist, dip my fingertips into the dimples at her back, and hold her one last time before the end.

  But, I didn’t touch her.

  I waited as the world spun around me with everything I’d ever wanted and needed. Sex, blood, heat, power. I could earn my father’s forgiveness and approval if he ever found out about the witches in these woods. But, I wanted only Evie’s forgiveness now.

  I waited for her to reject me, to let me drown this time. I could almost taste the savage flavor of my own comeuppance and I knew that the priestess had spoken cryptic truth to Stark two weeks ago. This last ritual would set everything right.

  I sensed a kind of death coming for me, the bony fingertips of the grim reaper clutching my shoulders like Father had done when I was a child. Maybe Masilda made sure we came here so I’d be trapped in a circle of power, fully at Evie’s will. My mate had already pushed me from her mind and had me kneeling at her feet. She’d be able to kill me, and I’d beg her to do so, just to feel her hands on me. One last time.

  I smiled, then laughed, while the world around me moaned. Tears streamed down my face and my hands trembled. Off to my right, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a wolfman in a fighting crouch. Vaughn mirrored his aggressive stance. They snarled at one another, and when Vaughn tried to reach me, the wolfman tackled Vaughn, dragging him to the ground with a mighty howl of outrage.

  My poor, stupid brother. No one to look after him now. No one to help him, and he’s so lost. He can’t stop trying to kill the human he used to be.

  I’d always thought Vaughn a normal vampire, but I knew better now. He hid behind bloodlust. He’d come into this circle full of rage and a need to prove his dominance over something weak. He’d probably die tonight, because the wolves weren’t just here to fuck. They were here to supervise. Their presence ratcheted up the power in the circle. This had to be why no one gained admittance until the full moon. The witches made sure there were double the number of wolves to vampires, and I couldn’t blame them. I knew my kind. I spied several vampires doing the same dance with a wolf as Vaughn, predators circling for dominance.

  I didn’t have the gall to ask mercy for my brother. I didn’t want another young vampire dead, but better here than out there. Better at the hands of the people who deserved to feel our spines in their hands, than dead from V-Sep, or at the hands of my father. I wouldn’t leave this circle, but at least—

  Evie’s hand touched my head. Not a mother’s caress. Not the rough wrench of a lover seeking to play.

  A soft touch, one from a hand that didn’t fear me or want to hurt me.

  Her fingers caressed my scalp. Heat and gentleness touched my brow, my jaw. Her other hand, just as gentle, tracked the lines of my other cheek. Soft thumbs swept my tears away as she lifted my head. Evie’s true eyes stared back at me, her tears matching mine.

  I realized, in that moment, that I had died. A thousand shards of memory had pierced my skin, a thousand moments with this woman had led me here. When I left this circle, I wouldn’t be the same vampire. Down to my marrow, I knew this truth. I’d already begun to catch fire with my own transformation.

  Here, her mind whispered to mine. She pressed her palm to my lips. Kiss me here.

  I didn’t touch, only closed my eyes and kissed the lines of her palm with gratitude.

  And here.

  The wrist Liam had broken before feeding that first night. She showed me the spot, and I kissed away the lingering ache, trying to burn away the memory with my love.

&nb
sp; Forgive me.

  She took one of my shaking hands in hers and guided my fingertips down the inner thigh I’d bitten. The first bite.

  I kissed the invisible wound, so close to the sweetness that made my mouth water.

  Forgive me, Evie.

  She brought my other hand up to her breast, where Vaughn’s bite had pierced the skin after Ruby Falls. I swept my fingers over the long-since healed wound, and swept away the ghostly pain like mist in front of me. She sighed and molded my palm to her breast. I grasped the full curve, thumbing and pinching her erect nipple to the point of painful stiffness.

  She made me grasp the other breast and pressed me to her sex by the back of my head.

  Kiss me here. Kiss me again and again, like the first time. The first time you really saw me.

  I sobbed and tasted tears as I kissed her navel. Then her mound. This time I tasted my tears instead of her sweat. She brought my hands to her waist and made me hold her while I caressed, not a wound, but a bittersweet ache, a beautiful memory in the midst of all my cruelty. A moment of tenderness. I kissed her like a lover. And she sighed and caressed my hair like she had that night.

  Now, she had a choice. She chose me again and I sobbed in gratitude and looked up at her.

  “For a little while longer, I’m your mate.” Her voice cracked. Fresh tears fell from her eyes and dripped off her chin. The drops burst against my cheeks to mingle with my own. “Drink, Jesse. Kiss me. Make me forget.”

  She kissed me with those words deeper than her lips ever could.

  No more accidents this time, no more flowing in and out of each other’s heads without permission. Her voice in my mind became a gift I didn’t deserve.

  Make me forget how much it hurts to want you. Make me forget why I should hate you. One last time, Jesse. One last time, stall death with me.

  I obeyed, and kissed her again and again, traveling down her body until I could dip my tongue into her pussy. I licked and nipped her clit, dragging blood to her nub before sucking hard enough to wrench a cry from her throat. She offered her voice up to the sky, arched her back, and gave. Gave everything to me.

  I slid a hand up her ankle, up her calf, reached the back of her knee and tugged her leg over my shoulder. She cried out, and her mind flashed with white and red, a room where she’d stalled death with me yet again. I’d lifted her up against a wall and drank deep the sweet poison of her blood.

  A growl erupted from my throat as I drove the memory away. My mate, my mistress, had asked me to make her forget. I wouldn’t stop until her mind hummed with contentment and closure. I wouldn’t stop until only I felt the pain of our broken bond.

  I kissed her pussy like I would her mouth, ravaging the tender flesh guarding the flow of blood. I sucked, I bit, I groaned at the honeyed tang of witch blood mixed with my mate’s singular taste, the musk of her sex.

  She rode my face with her perfect pussy, giving me freedom I’d only ever dreamed about. Freedom from the bloodlust and pain and doubt. Freedom from a vengeful father who’d kill and torture and lie to hide the power housed in one witch.

  A snarl and a thud on the ground beside drew our attention. No one else seemed to notice as the orgy raged on, but Evie and I turned instantly to see Vaughn restrained at our side underneath a powerful wolfman. He tried and failed to bite and kick, but the wolfman squeezed his wrists in a vice. The wolf forced Vaughn’s thighs apart, splaying them wide before pinning them with powerful knees, leaving him helpless. Powerless.

  My brother screamed, crazed eyes glittering like obsidian in the firelight. The wolfman turned to look at us. At Evie. My brother was in a fight that he might not win, but I couldn’t stop feeding. I licked and stroked Evie’s cunt with my fingers, while trying to process the glowing wolf eyes watching us expectantly, electric in intensity and color. Slate gray fur prickled over the beast’s massive form. Muscles rippled in the wolfman’s arms, back, and buttocks as he strained to hold an increasingly panicked vampire.

  Stark tilted his head toward Evie, his body a stony slab of power holding Vaughn down.

  Evie halted me with a tug of my hair and pulled her leg off my shoulder. She wiped away my tears with a benevolent smile. With a stroke of my face as if to say, “I’ll be right back,” she leaned over screaming Vaughn and the wolf who could’ve shattered my brother’s neck with one snap of his massive jaws.

  I rested my weight on the balls of my feet, just in case, and studied the wolf, who watched Evie’s approach, ears pricked.

  I marveled at the shape of Stark’s face, his familiar features rearranged into the countenance of a beast. His predatory gaze softened as Evie drew closer, but he licked his chops repeatedly, studying her nakedness. When she petted the curve of his head and the pointed tips of his large, human-esque ears, those killer’s eyes closed and he nuzzled her palm. The wolf man’s hips pumped as he licked Evie’s palm. The thick red cock bobbing between his legs speared the air just over top of Vaughn’s shaft.

  I should’ve moved to help. I should’ve been defending Vaughn, protecting him in case any other wolf stepped in to finish what Stark started. I couldn’t move. I felt trapped on the outside of my brother’s struggle. I didn’t have the tools to heal him, but Evie did. She’d told me to wait here, and I obeyed.

  Stark hummed that wolf tune of healing and tilted his head to the side as Evie circled Vaughn’s head. She studied him while Stark and I studied her. She knelt facing at Vaughn’s left side, at my twelve o’clock and, adjacent to the straining bodies of wolf and struggling vampire. With two fingers, she reached between her legs, gathered blood on the tips, and swiped Vaughn’s bottom lip with a swiftness he couldn’t dodge.

  Vaughn snapped at her fingers, but not with the same vigor as he snapped at Stark. The wolf hum and the blood Vaughn licked off his lip left him seething with fangs bared, but now he wanted to fuck and feed. He couldn’t even pump his hips with the joints stretched to their limit under Stark’s thick knees.

  When my brother sucked his bottom lip into his mouth I knew he wanted more of Evie’s blood. When tears fell from the corner of his eyes and down into his ears, I realized why. A witch’s womb had the power to heal a broken man. Evie’s blood had the power to heal us.

  She regarded me for one moment, gave me admittance into her mind, then turned her attention back to Vaughn. She touched his face. He snarled but Stark snapped his jaws near Vaughn’s chin. Behave yourself, he seemed to say. Vaughn fell into belligerent submission.

  Evie closed her eyes and sank into my brother’s mind with an effortlessness that startled me.

  Darkness. A shifting light illuminating only Vaughn’s chained and naked body.

  He begged a vampire to let him go. He promised not to fight or tell.

  “Such pretty pale hair,” Eamon whispered. “And such pretty eyes. Keep them open while I fuck your mouth, or I’ll cut them out and feed them to you.”

  Vaughn’s maker wrenched a handful of that platinum hair, until Vaughn’s neck bowed at a painful angle, and his Adam’s apple bobbed.

  I clenched my fists at the image of Eamon’s cock shoved into Vaughn’s mouth, while he cried. The sound faded into an echo, as we returned to the present. But the haunting still lingered. I spied Evie’s jaw working with anger.

  Anger at Eamon, anger at Vaughn and Liam and me for doing the same thing to her thirty years later. Anger at the cycle of violence, the gift the past continued to force on us.

  Well, fuck that. I’m returning that gift. I’ll give you something better, Vaughn. I’ll give us both something better.

  This time, a turned witch touched Vaughn’s hair, as gentle as his maker had been cruel. The voice of a tormentor in the dark cell of his past became the voice of a healer in a circle blazing with nourishment and freedom.

  Such pretty pale hair, Evie’s mind cooed with sincerity. And such beautiful eyes. Such a beautiful face.

  Vaughn closed his eyes and shuddered as Evie tended the festering wound in his mind. She menta
lly—emotionally—patted around the memory like she patted his hair and tear-streaked face.

  Vaughn cried like a child and went limp. He turned his head away from Evie, trying to hide in the face of her gift.

  “Get out of my fucking head, bitch!”

  Let me see your eyes, Vaughn. I’m not him. He can’t hurt you anymore. I won’t hurt you.

  The last time she’d uttered words like those, Vaughn had been raping her. He’d ended up with a slit throat. He growled in Evie’s face as she lowered her face to his, readying himself for her bite.

  He stared wide-eyed at my mate as she touched her lips to his cheek, then when his features softened, to his mouth. She kissed away a memory of Eamon’s brutal kiss, when Vaughn had bitten his maker’s tongue. She ran a hand down Vaughn’s throat to take away the sting of Eamon’s grip when the vampire had pushed my brother to the floor. She leaned over and kissed the artery in Vaughn’s neck where Eamon’s venom had rendered him inhuman. Her hand snaked down his heaving stomach, to his cock, and the harsh squeeze of a rapist became the grazing touch of a woman he desired.

  Vaughn bucked as much as possible in Stark’s relentless hold. He groaned into Evie’s mouth when she kissed him again. Stark’s hips pumped against the back of Evie’s hand as she stroked Vaughn. My breath quickened as the fog of anguish gave way to the potent hunger of the circle. Like waves lapping at the shore, sex and healing swelled over us, sifted us into separate grains of sand, then lay us together again, reformed by a wash of pleasure and understanding.

  Evie broke the kiss. Vaughn’s eyes opened, filled with the sight of my mate.

  Ask for help, Vaughn. He fed on your pain and you feed on the pain of others, but you’re never full. Let me feed you. Let me soothe some of the hurt, like I did for Liam.

  Vaughn cried silently now, but he cried. Endless tears rained down from the corners of his eyes, down his hair and into the warm earth. Evie glanced in Stark’s direction, and as if in response, the wolf dropped his humming sound a full octave. That healing hum must be reserved for painful transformation.