by Briar, Robin
“Jessica, I want you to think very hard about this,” Saffron says. “The last time we saw Trent, he was trying to kill us.”
“And there was a post running through him,” Candice adds. “He was none too happy about that either."
“I know. When he activated that teleportation circle, we ended up in a dark stone room. No electricity whatsoever. There were torches, but only if you could find them in the dark. Without the post running through him, he healed pretty quickly.”
I am definitely leaving the sex part out for now.
“That’s when Felix showed up and opened the room. Not by opening a door, mind you. He removed a slab in the wall. I really don’t think he was expecting to see me there.”
“Why do you say that?” Saffron asks.
“Because I saw something very unusual down there. It was at the end of the hallway. Felix tried to hide it, but he really didn’t want me looking at anything too closely.”
“What did you see?” Candice asks.
“Two sets of steel doors with a battle depicted on them. There was a demonic swordsman on one side and a giant made out of fire and wind on the other.”
Silence on the other side of the line, from both of them this time.
I can’t help but picture the two of them looking back and forth across at each other.
“You’re right, Jessica,” Saffron finally says. “Felix wasn’t expecting you to be there. He never would have let you get away after seeing those doors. If Trent is helping you, keep working with him. We’ll get there as fast as we can. You can fill us in about the rest once we arrive.”
That was a complete change of heart. Cautioning me against Trent one moment, and trusting him the next.
“How soon can you be here?” I ask.
“Not for several hours,” Candice answers.
“Why? Can’t you just teleport here? I could really use your help. Sooner rather than later.”
“Have you checked the quicksilver pool lately, Jessica?” Saffron asks. “It’s empty.”
6. Witch with a Task
Candice and Saffron have given me a mission, one that I feel oddly giddy about. They still don’t know what happened between Trent and I back in The Vault. I was completely cut off from the quicksilver pool. They gave me this task thinking that they were asking a lot of me.
They couldn’t be more wrong, and I feel a little guilty about that.
There it is. Honesty.
I know why they asked. It’s an emergency and I’m the Maiden. I gather the rosebuds, as it were. It’s my role to keep the quicksilver pool full, and the most efficient way of doing is that is by siphoning the lust of men.
An even better way is by siphoning the lust of werewolves, as I found out with Mason.
But Mason isn’t here right now, Trent is. Mason is several hours away with Candice and Saffron, but my coven needs access to magic right now. Especially with Felix in play.
Candice was so tentative on the phone. So… would you say you and Trent are allies right now? Her meaning was clear. The quicksilver pool is virtually empty. That means I need to do what they trained me to do. I need to fill it up again.
I could have told them that Trent and I already had sex back in that stone room. I could have, but I didn’t. I omitted that not so little detail and I’m not sure why. Perhaps I still want to keep that moment to myself, the privacy of it. The vulnerability we shared.
A moment between Trent and I alone, at least until Felix opened the room.
For that matter, I also haven’t told anybody how aroused I get around Trent, like when he was going to mark me back at Sylvia’s place, me on my hand and knees, knickers down, ass in the air. It was meant as a distraction, but if Candice and Saffron had been even a few seconds later, I would have gone through with it.
Heck, I almost wanted them to be late.
None of which is to say I’ve stopped loving Mason. Not even the least little bit. I’ve never felt so ease with somebody, so comfortable in my own skin. There’s no guile between us whatsoever. Mason loves me for who I am and I feel the same way about him.
With Trent, well, I’m also myself, but it’s a completely different part than Mason sees. It’s much more mischievous. I’ve been seducing men as the Maiden for decades. Sometimes I play submissive and sometimes I play dominant. I am neither with Trent.
I am, however, in his face. Challenging both him and his authority. Vying to be put on equal footing with a werewolf. Holding my own with Trent, demanding equality of status, is enormously exciting for me. Him too.
Near as I can tell, Trent really likes it when I kick his hornet’s nest and refuse to back down to him. The relationship between him and Sylvia is clearly dominant and submissive, like any pack hierarchy.
I exist outside of that, formidable in my own right and shameless about my sexuality. I offer no hang-ups whatsoever. It’s what I do, after all. It just so happens that I enjoy my work. The fringe benefits as being a Maiden in a coven.
I make my way back down to the basement.
Candice and Saffron realize that gathering lust requires finesse sometimes, but they are counting on me more than usual right now. I don’t want to let them down. They need me to fill the quicksilver pool, and so fill it I shall, dutifully.
That being said, I can’t even pretend that my personal enjoyment is secondary to the job. The more I genuinely enjoy myself the better, after all, especially if my pleasure drives men to greater heights of their own, thereby creating more lust for me to leech.
The real trick is keeping them going, storing up their lust for an even bigger release. With Trent, I don’t know how that is going to work. He has so much control over himself already.
First things first. I have to separate Trent from his daughter. Turns out that won’t be quite so hard as I thought.
When I arrive back in the basement, Piper is fast asleep in her father’s arms. Poor thing is exhausted. Still, the timing is fortunate. This will make my task even easier.
Trent looks up at me while cradling Piper, who has reverted to being human again.
“She passed out right after you left. Now she’s utterly gone,” he says without lowering his voice. He shakes her body playfully. “I couldn’t wake her up if I tried.”
“I’m not surprised. She was tired before turning into a werewolf. I’m guessing the transformation took a lot out of her.”
“I really had no idea she could change, Jess. It’s rare at her age. She has the makings of a strong wolf.”
Trent is so proud of his little girl. Seeing him with Piper makes my stomach flip-flop. It’s so endearing coming from Trent for some reason. The cruel, red-eyed man I took to be an egotistical villain, now a doting father with strong paternal instincts.
His underbelly is showing again and he doesn’t even know it.
“There’s a daybed upstairs on the first floor. Let me tuck her in. You can clean up down here,” I say, inclining my head toward his blood on the floor.
Trent nods and hands Piper over to me, still sleeping. He wasn’t kidding. She’s completely knocked out.
I take Piper upstairs and lay her down on a daybed that I keep made up for guests. She takes to it right away, and I close the door quietly. The floorboards creak loudly under my feet as I pad away. I hope it doesn’t wake her up.
I stop in front of a hallway mirror near the front entranceway. The same mirror I’ve stopped in front of countless times while living here for decades. I’m filthy, but not in a bad way. More disheveled than unkempt. Dried blood on my shirt.
There’s a bullet hole through my shirt on two sides, indicating the entry and exit wounds. Trent and I have come through slaughter together in a very short period of time, but now it’s time to work. I adjust my hair without fixing it—can’t be too obvious—and then make my way downstairs.
The first-aid kit is already packed up when I return to the meditation room, and Trent is toweling his blood off the floor, making sure to get every drop.<
br />
Seeing him bent over the ground, muscles rippling as he scrubs the floor, wearing a shirt that is entirely too small for him… my libido is tweaked wide awake.
Yeah, this is going to be so difficult, I tell myself sarcastically.
“Well, aren’t you fastidious,” I remark, placing one of my arms on the doorframe. “Do you clean like this all the time? Or just when it’s your blood on the floor?” I say with a grin.
“Would you think less of me if I said all the time? I’ve been accused of being a neat freak.”
Trent stands up and walks over to me. I’m standing by the downstairs bathroom door, where he stops short of me, towering over my height, fully restored to health and no less robust than ever, despite all of his near-brushes with death. Trent throws the bunched-up towel into the bathroom sink and then looks down at me.
“I wouldn’t think any less of you, but I will say that I’m surprised.”
“What can I say? I like paying attention to the little details.”
“Well, that part makes sense.”
Trent stands close me. The length of him across from the length of me. It practically feels like we’re already touching. It’s not hard for me to remember what his hands feel like on me, or to recall what our bodies have already done to each other.
I think Trent feels it too. Heck, maybe he even knows what I’m thinking. Can smell the arousal on my body.
“Candice and Saffron are on their way. It’ll be several hours before they get here. Piper will sleep for at least that long.”
Trent’s eyes widen. I can’t stop mine from doing the same.
“And Kumi?” he asks.
“I have no doubt that she’ll be at work for quite some time.”
That last piece of information was all Trent needed to hear. He knows that we’re all alone now. I couldn’t spell it out any more if I tried.
Candice and Saffron thought this would be an awkward assignment. The only difference between the last time Trent and I were together and now is that we can see other clearly.
Actually, that’s not true. There’s another important difference. The last time was right after we stopped trying to kill each other. This time is right after we survived keeping each other alive. Trent smiles at me and shakes his head slightly.
“You’re unbelievable,” he says.
I pull the meditation door closed behind me as my other arm falls from the doorframe to the back of his neck. A light touch, intimate. I’ll have to deal with the tattoo on his neck if my spell is going to work on him, but it can’t be obvious.
My eyes lazily half close as he wraps his arms around my back and lifts me up into an effortless kiss. No fumbling. No searching for lips. We get there at the same time, and it’s so intensely satisfying.
We endured a terrible ordeal together and lived. This is the reward, the most basic act of being alive. The pleasure of sharing our bodies. The little shocks that flesh is wont to have.
I wrap my legs around his side and grip him tightly. Trent is almost impossibly solid, and thicker than I’m accustomed. The density of his muscles is unyielding. I can squeeze him with all of my strength and never worry about hurting him. I love that. The power in his body.
His hands grip my waist and painlessly hold me up.
I want his shirt off, to see his chest, and feel the hairiness of him against me. I want to be smothered his rippling build.
I pull away from the kiss and grab his undersized shirt, yanking on the neck. The fabric tears easily, exposing his torso. The destructive act sends a jolt of adrenaline through my body. My fingers plunge into his hair, and I kiss him again. I grab the back of his head and clutch him toward me.
I’m more voracious than I thought—starving, in fact. I didn’t realize how eager I was for human contact. It’s not as if there’s been a shortage of sex in my day, but there has been a wealth of danger. I almost died, Trent almost died, and we’re still not in the clear.
It all led to us to this point, where we can finally catch our breath. Where we can celebrate not dying in the most carnal way possible.
Candice and Saffron told me that the pool is empty. They weren’t kidding, except for the smallest amount of quicksilver. Enough to cast Preserve the Lust, but only once. The spell doesn’t use up much, after all, but I’ll have to cast it out loud.
Trent apparently knows a little Latin, but that can’t be helped. I’ll tell him it’s to heighten the passion. He’ll have no problem believing that.
That’s when I realize something unusual. The tendrils are already there, waiting for me to command them. Hovering around my body. Tendrils that I can see, but Trent can’t. When did that happen?
I cast the spell without even saying the words.
What? How did that happen?
Candice and Saffron told me how wordless spellcasting works for me. It’s only possible at very specific times for the Maiden, and not for every Maiden who becomes a witch. It’s a rare ability, but when it does happen, it requires one unmistakable emotion in particular to be in play.
An emotion that I feel for Mason. Not Trent.
I look down at Trent holding me in his arms and he looks up at me. We’re both excited, but I’m trying to make sense of this moment, trying to figure it out. His ruby eyes sense the change in my mood. He wants to know what I’m thinking. An expression that is both caring and inquisitive. He communicates it all without saying a word.
I hold the sides of his head gently.
“Rip me out of these clothes,” I tell him.
Trent smiles, and then a growl rumbles out of his throat. His face begins to shift, but just a little. The slightest hint of a wolf. Not a half-man, half-wolf. Not even close. The earliest stage of a change. No more. Trent really does have complete control over himself.
I hold on to him with my inner thighs as he reaches under me. Trent tears the crotch of my shorts open. There wasn’t much fabric there to begin with, but he doesn’t stop. He keeps tearing my shorts until they completely rip off my backside.
And just like that, I’m naked from the waist down.
Trent throws the remnants of my cutoffs aside and pushes down the shorts he’s wearing. They fall to his ankles as he springs up beneath me and past my nethers. Brushing my lips. His length slaps against the crack of my backside.
It’s like I’m straddling the thick branch of a tree and Trent is the trunk.
I grip his back for support as he grabs the front of my shirt and tears, launching buttons in every direction, sending them across the floor. Trent peels me out of the shirt and then lifts me up for a moment, handling himself beneath me.
I can feel him growing into an inflated toadstool as he swipes the head back and forth across my breach. A gentleman even now. Warming me up.
I want him crazy stupid, the rigidness of Trent inside of me. I can’t go without him for much longer, but the wordless Preserve the Lust spell I cast won’t work on him while his tattoo protects him from my magic.
I grab his neck and pull myself toward him, kissing him hungrily. Trent drinks in my lips, no less eager as I lean back, lost in the moment, but also conscious of dragging my nails across the ward on his neck.
I scratch the design of his tattoo just enough to make him susceptible to my magic. He might heal right away from such a superficial cut, but I only need him to be vulnerable for a moment.
The tendrils from the quicksilver pool go to work immediately, no command given, no words spoken. They read my intentions with thought alone as I slide myself down his prodigious stave.
He tunnels up my shaft as I widen to accommodate his girth and we both lose our breath at the same time, giving ourselves over to wild instinct.
The sudden hunger of my tendrils catches us both off guard. Trent doesn’t know what’s going on, and neither do I. The spell has never felt this intense before. I can barely keep ahead of it. Indeed, I feel myself slipping behind. That’s when I put it together.
The quicksilver pool was pra
ctically empty. Then I cast Preserve the Lust. That spent the final drop of quicksilver. Now the tendrils are ravenous, famished for Trent’s lust, except it has to be conducted through my body first.
The tendrils aren’t merely asking to be fed right now. They’re demanding it, and I just let them take over control of my body.
I’ve never siphoned lust from a man when the pool was near empty before, let alone completely dry. Its appetite is monstrous in this state of hunger, vampiric even.
It feels like Jess and Trent are redundant now, insignificant hurdles for the tendrils to overcome. Only their bodies matter now. The personalities within are simply along for the ride, spectators to our lovemaking.
What have I done, Trent? What have I set loose today upon us?
7. Puppets on a Stage
I can’t tell if Trent if alarmed or thrilled by his sudden lack of control. For that matter, I can’t tell if he’s even aware of losing control. There’s a look of concentration on his face, eyes closed, straining to focus. It’s like he’s trying to gather his wits about him.
His hands tell a different story. They grab my waist with the strength of a vise and bounce me up and down, driving inside of me forcefully. The attentive lover I discovered in Trent beneath The Vault is gone, but I know better than to think this is all his doing.
The tendrils have taken over, reaching through me to him. His urges have been replaced with the arcane hunger of a magical reservoir. The pool from which Candice, Saffron, and I cast our spells. It appears to have a mind of its own.
I had no idea something like this could happen. Nature abhors a vacuum. I guess magic does too. The tendrils attached to my body urge Trent to abandon himself through a connection. To fuck my brains out while siphoning his lust at the same time.
That’s when Trent growls again, but low and subdued this time, as if stifling the sound in his throat. Then it dawns on me why Trent is concentrating so much.
He’s struggling against himself. The tendrils want him to change, but he’s fighting it. They want him to become a werewolf. Not a half-man, half-wolf. A fully formed wolf. That would definitely tear me apart. It would rip me open, and Trent knows that.
