Playing With Monsters

by Amelia Hutchins

  “You’re so sure she’s not Katarina, but what if that’s the plan? What if she is and you’re falling right into a fucking trap.”

  “And what will she do? Fuck me to death? She can’t hurt me; curse me, yes but the runes will take care of it. That’s all she has the power to do, and most are easily undone. When it’s time, she’ll come to me, and it will end. Besides, they’ve just been awakened and you know we normally do not find her before she’s received her powers.”

  “You tire of the games,” he said leaning against the rail. “I know I’ve said it many times, but this time seems different. You haven’t even asked what I found in the woods when I captured the demons.”

  “I know what you found,” I growled pushing my fingers through my hair. “You found Lucifer’s watchdogs.”

  “I did,” he replied, not surprised that I already knew. I knew who the fuck it was when I sensed them outside the cottage. “I also learned he’s put a price on Magdalena’s head, because your attention to her hasn’t gone unnoticed by the prince of darkness. Tonight’s activities drew in a less-than-saintly crowd, and he was there when Elaine turned the mirror and allowed everyone to watch you claim ownership of your pretty little new toy, which was quite the show. Others are going to want her now, especially since you claimed her and did so publicly. While most wouldn’t touch anything you laid claim to, some are going to want her as a fucking trophy.”

  “It wasn’t meant to be that way,” I snapped. My hands crushed the wooden rail and I kicked it, watching as the wood hit the ground below. “Triple the price on Lena’s head that way those soulless fucks bring her to me. Make it known she’s to be unharmed, and untouched. If one fucking hair is harmed, they’ll pay for it in spades as I wipe their existence from this plane.”

  “And what will you do when they drop her at your feet?” he asked, laughing as I smiled coldly.

  “Claim what’s rightfully mine. She willingly chose to become mine tonight, and she’ll do it again,” I whispered, listening as he hissed.

  “What?” he asked, shaking his head.

  “I gave her a choice, to leave or stay. She stayed, she’s rightfully mine. Even if she didn’t understand it, she agreed. Lena is innocent, uneducated of the ways of the world we live in. It had to be done; you think Lucifer didn’t plan to try for her soul? I took that card away from him, and I’ll keep snatching it from his grasp. Besides, she’s the first woman I’ve thoroughly enjoyed fucking in centuries; you think I’m giving that up?”

  He snorted, but dropped the subject.

  “You want them gone?” he asked, his eyes taking in the swarm of un-hosted demons that she wouldn’t be able to see without enhanced sight.

  “Indeed; let’s send Lucifer a message he won’t forget. Obviously he needs a reminder of who the fuck I am and why you don’t cross my path.”

  “Every time you two fight, people die, Lucian. Let’s hope not too many innocent people get killed in the crossfire.”

  “He’s after something that belongs to me; it’s not something I’ll ignore. Call the men to us; to secure peace one has to prepare for war. Bring in hellhounds, give them Lena’s scent; they’ll protect her when I cannot.”

  “Unless she senses them, and destroys them,” he argued, his eyes moving to the demon that toed the salt, and watching as fire consumed him painfully. “You’re already protecting her.”

  “You doubted that I would after watching me with her tonight?” I questioned. “No one woman has ever given me what she did, and I don’t care if I have to throw her over my shoulder and keep her locked away; the moment she agreed to be mine, it was sealed. She’s different than anyone I’ve ever met. She’s a puzzle. Nothing about her makes sense. She wasn’t selected by the ancestors, and yet she took what was rightfully hers regardless of tradition. How many witches have ever done that? Not even Katarina could manage that one. Lena defies logic; what should break her only makes her stronger. Imagine it, Spyder, an awakened witch who has no bond or loyalty to a coven. She’s a fucking unicorn.”

  “It’s a new world, as you reminded me. Maybe they are evolving as well?”

  “Witches cling to tradition; they think it makes them stronger. Did you see her at the selection?” I asked, turning my head without looking directly at him.

  “I saw her, the original witch, blessing the selection. Did you notice that they looked through Lena, as if they couldn’t see her, or if she was invisible to them?”

  “I noticed that too. As if she wasn’t there. It’s just another piece of the puzzle. I just need to figure where it fits,” I whispered, considering it odd that not a single one of the coven exhibited any trace of Katarina. I’d watched them, studied them, and tested every fucking one of them, even Lena, and nothing.

  Either she was getting better at hiding, or someone was helping her this time. A few times it had been easy to find her, but the last time, she’d laughed as she died, as if she knew something I didn’t. As if dying had been her plan.

  Most of the time, I’d find her soon after the Awakening, which meant I should be out hunting for her now. Ending the fucking game before it could begin. With the witches locked up inside the abbey, though, it would be a little difficult. Sooner or later, they’d have to come out. I jumped from the porch, landing lightly on the ground and looked up at Spyder, who smiled at me.

  “Going somewhere without me?” he asked as he jumped to the ground, already pulling his daggers out. “You force this mask on us; it’s the least you could do to let us be ourselves when the need arises.”

  “I’m going to watch my little witch sleep, to see what she dreams of this night,” I replied, giving him an evil grin, already smelling her wetness as I walked through the demons that couldn’t sense my presence. Lucifer wanted to fuck around, I’d fuck back, and this time, I’d give no fucking mercy and there would be no lube. “Slice them into fucking pieces, send what’s left to Lucifer, and do it quietly. She sleeps, and I need her well rested.”

  “As you wish, but tonight we need to hunt for Katarina,” he said, already slicing into two demons that got too close. “Lucian, I’ll kill her if it means protecting what we’ve tried to guard for centuries. I know you deserve whatever happiness you can get from her pretty lips, lord knows after watching her with you, I wouldn’t mind a little piece of her myself, but the fact remains, if that thing gets out, there will be nowhere safe from the ruin and devastation left behind from the evil that will be released.”

  “I’d kill her myself if for one second I thought she was the key to ending this.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  ~Magdalena

  There was no worse feeling in the world than knowing I was alone. I felt the emptiness deep in my soul. The silence. Three days had passed since the Awakening, three long days of silence with only Luna to keep me company. If I hadn’t come back, it wouldn’t have been such a slap in the face. Living alone was something I could handle; knowing I was cut off hurt.

  I moved through the small grocery store, putting things in the cart absently. I had to focus on keeping the power inside of me around the town’s people. Feeling the buzzing in my ears constantly reminded me that I needed to contain it. My head hurt, my body ached in ways it shouldn’t, and there was a pain in my stomach that seemed to be getting worse. Occasionally, I had listened in on what Kendra was up to, and noted that they were all still under the Harvest spell, but I didn’t have the convenience of a partner to help take the edge off.

  Lucian had been silent since he’d left me three days ago. I’d locked myself in the house, listening to music, watching Netflix, anything to keep my mind from what was happening to me. I was always horny, as if he’d awoken a monster who couldn’t think of anything else but his cock and figuring out how to get it. I didn’t need it; I fucking craved it, more than food, more than air. It was pathetic, considering he�
�d actually had the balls to think I’d wanted his pretty babies.

  The cash register was loud; each code she punched in grated on my nerves. The fact that I was being followed by Lucian’s guy grated even more. I slipped my card in the device and punched in my pin, only to watch the cashier shake her head.

  “Have another card? This one was declined.”

  “What?” I whispered as I ran it through again, and punched in the pin.

  “Still declined,” she said with a frown.

  I pulled out the emergency card that each coven member carried and slipped it through. “The first card should have money on it,” I replied, knowing I had at least a few hundred dollars left.

  “I’m sorry; it’s not allowing the transaction to go through. Do you have cash?” she asked as I eyed the food and I was fairly sure my head was going to erupt. “This card declined too, so unless you have cash...”

  “Of course it did,” I whispered as I continued eyeing the food. I dug through my purse, and found twenty three cents. I tossed the change in the jar on the counter and started out of the store. How fucking embarrassing. I took one last longing look at the groceries and then to where Lucian’s guy, ‘Man-bun’ as I’d dubbed him, was leaning against a car across the street and thumbing through an edition of Cosmopolitan he must have picked up. “I’m sorry; I can put it all back, Becky,” I whispered.

  “No, we pay Kevin to do it,” she replied with a frown. “I haven’t seen your mom or sister in days, Magdalena, everything alright? I know the store closed down; money must be tight.”

  “Fine,” I said awkwardly, “everything is fine.”

  I walked out, my stomach growling with hunger, my emotions swirling inside of me as pain tried to rip me apart. Life was just freaking amazingly fine. I’d put off going to the store until I’d had no choice, and now, I had no food, no nothing. I slipped into baby and headed home, ignoring the sleek car that followed me to the road and then disappeared as the driveway split in different directions.

  I stopped off at the manor house and dug through the cellar before moving on to the kitchen. I only found a can of string beans and two cans of creamed corn. The food from the cupboards had been removed, along with anything that the fire had damaged.

  Back at the cottage, I called the bank, and listened as they ticked off charges for transaction fees and apparently my student loan payment had been pulled along with a payment that shouldn’t have been pulled due to a computer glitch, and then everything else continued to accumulate until I’d earned a negative balance. The loan officer I spoke to about my student loan apologized profusely, and said it might be eight to ten days for the charges to be reversed. I called the company that managed the MasterCard from the coven, and found out my account had been frozen by Helen herself. That bitch was on a serious power trip, go figure.

  I turned off the TV, and wondered how desperate I’d have to be before the cans of vegetables looked appetizing. I left the cans on the coffee table and moved through the house numbly, until I decided it might be a good idea to see if there might be anything edible in the garden.

  The garden was destroyed, almost as much as my life was. Something had gotten into it, and dug holes that had killed a lot of the plants. Winter was coming, and the coven…Wait, I needed herbs. I went through the motions, picking, replanting the annual plants, and dropping things into a basket as I tried to ignore the heavy gaze I felt with every move I made.

  By the next day, the cans of vegetables were empty. The herbs I’d picked had died overnight, and I’d discovered by accident that I could ‘see’ through Kendra. It had to be from the Awakening, a boost to the connection we shared, or, knowing my luck, it was some freakish accident that would kick me in the ass. I peeked through Kendra’s eyes, watching as she rode some guy, and groaned. How much Harvesting were we supposed to do? It was getting tedious watching my sister with her guy, who was actually getting better at making her scream, when I was so horny I thought I was going to die. She’d tried talking to me a few times, but I’d closed her down before she could. I wondered if she could see how shitty I was doing through my eyes, if I allowed her to get through. In retrospect, I should have let her know what was happening so perhaps my mother or grandmother might help, but stubborn pride got in the way. I really didn’t want to face another rejection from them.

  Five days later, I was becoming delusional. I’d begun to dream about Lucian watching me sleep, and hearing monsters around me that couldn’t possibly be there, hissing and cursing as they tried to get in. It was probably because I was living off of the scant berries that could be found in the forest. To make things worse, I’d fallen asleep with my phone one night, only to find it on the floor with a cracked screen. It made it hard to identify plants, or what was safe to eat from the surrounding forest.

  Nine days after the Awakening ceremony, I was desperate. I stood on the front porch as my eyes scanned the huge house that Lucian owned and I knew there was plenty of food there. I was going to go insane without food, and my body was aching, craved him painfully. Like he was a drug, and I needed a fix. Without thinking, I moved towards the house, but the moment the door opened and Elaine walked out with a wicked smile, I paused. Lucian walked out behind her, pulling his shirt on as he swung his arms around as if he was arguing with her.

  I stood rooted to the spot, my stomach clenching with hunger and need as well as a new spasm of jealousy. I knew the pain was a byproduct of the Harvest spell that was still driving my body to what it needed the most: to be fucked. I turned towards my house, hating that she was with him, but mad enough at the sight of them together, to ignore the pain. Apparently my presence didn’t go unnoticed, and as if I wasn’t having enough shit go wrong, the bitch screamed my name.

  “Lena, is it?” she taunted and I turned to look past her to where Lucian stood. His eyes looked me over slowly, hunger banked in them, visible even from where I stood, and I wondered if I looked as bad as I felt. I felt weak, starved, and my body didn’t care. It wanted him.

  I flipped her off, mostly because talking took effort, and I couldn’t be bothered. I started back towards the cottage, dismissing them both. Screw them; I had enough on my plate, or more to the point, I needed to deal with my shit to get food on my plate.

  “Stupid child, you think you can just take what doesn’t belong to you? He’s mine!”

  “Have him!” I yelled and the wind whipped my hair violently as I turned to face her. “Keep him, I don’t fucking care!” My words came out as a whispered hiss, which was weak.

  “Lena,” Lucian growled, and heat erupted inside of me as my name left his lips.

  I tried to go back to the cottage, but it was as if something took control over my body, and before I could stop myself, I was striding towards him. My clothes were in the way, and I was taking them off as other people came out of his house and stood on his porch to get a better view of what was going on, and I didn’t fucking care. My shoes left my feet, my shirt was lifted and tossed to the ground and I started removing my shorts, and he smiled as I growled like some wild thing who was hunting her prey. I didn’t care that we had an audience, didn’t care if they watched as I took what I wanted. Nothing mattered except getting him naked, and getting him inside of me.

  I knew everyone was watching us. I heard gasping and comments as I stripped down to nothing but my tiny lace panties and bra, and slammed him against the wall of the entryway hard. I enjoyed the sound of his head hitting the door as I slammed against him. My lips found his and I moaned from deep in my throat. He kissed me back; even as I pulled away, ripping his shirt from his body, needing him naked and ready for what I needed him to give me. I tried to move back, but his hands buried in my hair, pulling my mouth back to his. I worked his jeans, and he growled as the people around us catcalled and made comments. I was too distracted to hear. I was fucking starving, and he was about to be devoured.
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  “I hate you!” I hissed as I pulled my mouth away to get air, crushing it against his before he could reply. He laughed against my mouth, reaching for my jaw as he pulled it away, even as his other hand pushed the door open and he walked us through the doorway.

  “Good,” he growled. “I hate you, too, little witch,” he smirked as he slammed the door behind us when we entered the house, the small window embedded in the door shattering with the force of him slamming it.

  I ripped at his pants, enjoying the sound of tearing fabric as it gave under the pressure and the sting of my skin as he tore my panties off without a thought. He pushed the glasses, silverware, and china off the dining room table with his arm, and slammed me against it. He lifted my legs as he entered my body hard, painfully, and so fucking deliciously. I arched my back, spreading for more, even as I screamed for him to move faster. I didn’t need soft; I needed hard, and right now. The table cracked as he slammed his hands down beside my head, and then we were falling. The sound was blissful, and his body pounded into mine even as we fell to the floor. He picked me up, still inside of me as he moved me against the wall.