Chapter 8

Kate

We spend the day collecting spell ingredients—earthworms that’ve been dried up by the sun, herbs that I can’t pronounce and never heard of (collected at the Arcata Community Forest), brooms from a local shop in the Old Town area.

The men remain unfazed by their leap forward in time. Or … they pretend to be unfazed. Brooks frowns at all the people walking by who are immersed in their phones. Tanner takes note of the changes in fashion. Marlowe … is a sulky Marlowe. I give him grace, figuring that he’s still processing what happened with Dennis and Miriam.

“Are we going to visit your parents?” I ask as we walk from the shop to the truck with four brooms in hand. They’re all carved out of wood, made by a local artist, with these fancy bristles at the end that are hand-dyed in various colors. Orange. Black. Gold. Red. I didn’t explicitly ask Brooks if he was choosing them to match our hair colors, but … come on.

“My parents?” Marlowe repeats, like I’ve just sucker-punched him in the stomach. “When should I do that, Kate? Before or after the candlelight vigil?”

“Respect, Marlowe,” Brooks growls out at him, tossing a nasty look over his shoulder. “It goes a long way. Treat her like a lady or I’ll put you over my knee next.”

Big talk coming from him. Bastard.

“I could fucking kill you with the way you talk to me,” Marlowe spits back, his attention skipping over to Tanner like that comment was meant for the both of them. He turns to me next, and his expression is almost apologetic. “We’ll go see them, just not yet.”

We. We’ll go see them. I clutch the brooms close, despite Tanner’s earlier insistence that he carry them. And then Brooks’ insistence that he carry them. And then Marlowe. Yeah, no. I can carry four brooms with my fragile lady hands.

We take them home with few words exchanged between us. What was effortlessly casual between us when we were fighting is suddenly tense and strange now that we’re making progress in our shiny new relationships.

I screwed Tanner while he was sleeping. I made amends with Marlowe (sort of). I … argued with Brooks and called him my husband?

I try not to think about it, but then things get really weird when we get home.

“We need the topmost branch of a tree that’s at least two-hundred feet in height,” Brooks declares as I lay the brooms down on the surface of my kitchen table.

Stix hisses at us from her position on the top of the fridge, and Flick bounces near the back door like he’s already anticipating playing frisbee with Tanner. Ebon lands … on my shoulder? Oh. Hi.

“Do we hire an arborist or something?” I ask, knowing that even my scaffolding won’t reach that far up. “Spell the branch to detach and float down to us?”

“We’re going to fly,” Brooks declares, fingering the bristles at the end of the orange broom. He looks up, and I feel a bit like those dried-out earthworm carcasses that we scraped off the pavement earlier. “Which isn’t a difficult spell, provided we consecrate the brooms first.” He’s rubbing his thumb over the smooth wooden tip of the broom, but he’s looking at me.

“Okay, so how do we consecrate the brooms?” I ask, getting this weird chill when I notice Tanner and Marlowe circling the table. They come to stand on either side of me, both of them looking down. Hard blue eyes and a suggestive half-smile from Tanner. A deep frown and eyes like a pair of empty wells out of Marlowe.

“Most spells require about fifty-fifty work when it comes to chalices and athames,” Brooks continues, picking up the broom and putting the bristled end on the floor. “Unfortunately for you, we only have one chalice.”

“What if we had no chalices?” I ask, getting a little nervous with the way Brooks is caressing that broomstick.

“Then we’d have to get the branch off that tree the hard way,” Marlowe says with a harsh, little laugh. “The way we did things in the woods before you showed up.”

“You could’ve just fucked each other and made it easy,” I quip, but Tanner’s leaning down and putting his palms on the table. I turn toward him, finding that fancy brow raised, those smirking lips twisted to the side in wry amusement.

“If I could stick a broomstick up my ass and make it fly, I’d do it for ya. Can’t though. We need the blessing of a chalice.” He sounds way too excited when he says that.

“I have to stick a broom up my …” I don’t even finish that sentence. I’m eyeing the smooth supple wood tip. It’s all polished and shined up, like a wooden dildo. “Absolutely not.”

“No, you don’t have to stick it up there,” Marlowe corrects. “ We do. Your pussy, not your ass.”

I look at the three other brooms on the table.

“We only need one for right now,” Brooks assures me, as if that makes this all better. He’s leaning against the broom, hands folded on the tip. “I promise that my cock is bigger than this; it’ll feel good at best and inadequate at worst. It’s not going to hurt you. We don’t have to go deep.”

“We just have to make you come.” Tanner stands up, moving to the back door and opening it so that Flick can escape into the backyard like a bat out of hell. There’s a glowing pink porcupine sitting on the railing of my deck. We all ignore it. The porcupine is one thing, but the Hag Wytch is a whole other monster.

We need this branch; we have to close the gate.

I sigh and push my hair back from my face.

“Fine. Just … let me have a minute, okay? I need to come to terms with a broom being shoved up my cunt.”

“Oh, don’t worry. We’ll make it real good for you, Kate,” Tanner assures me, giving my shoulder a squeeze before slipping outside with the dog. What the hell? He is absolutely doing this on purpose. Why? I ask for a minute alone and he takes off like he’s relieved?

I’m annoyed.

I look back at Marlowe and Brooks. The former I can handle, but the latter? I keep hearing my own voice shouting a€?husband’ at him, and I want to crawl into a hole.

“You should listen to your husband,” Marlowe teases me, as if he can read my thoughts. His gaze is intense. Deep space irises with no stars. “One of them anyway. Take your pick. We all have to come in you if we want to consecrate that broom.”

I flee that room like it’s on fire, locking myself in my bedroom and feeling grateful that they don’t immediately kick the door in. Sitting down on my bed, I close my eyes and lean my head back.

“I can do this,” I murmur, opening my eyes and then digging around in my nightstand for some lube that I bought off the internet. For the last five years, I’ve taken care of myself sexually. This is quite a change to that routine. “I can fuck a broom and like it.”

I open the door to find Brooks waiting for me, and I curse, trying to hide the lube from him. He snatches my wrist and steals it from my hand in much the same way these men have been doing to me from moment one.

“God, you three are horrible pains in my ass,” I growl out, but I let him inspect the bottle. Might as well because we’re going to use it. I’m not having sex with a broom unless there’s plenty of lubrication involved.

“You don’t need this. Tanner brewed some special lubricant.” Brooks hands me the bottle back, and I narrow my eyes. I take it, but I don’t put it away. Instead, I slip it into my pocket with our gazes locked together.

“Special lube?” I pause. “Magic lube?”

He nods.

“Made with our cum, some blood, and a little bit of sweat.” He says that with a straight face, and my eye twitches.

“That’s disgusting,” I tell him, even though I’m a little turned-on by the idea. That’s ridiculous, right? “What, no spit this time?”

“There’s some spit in there,” Brooks adds, studying me. It feels like my rant maybe got through to him? I don’t know. His expression is odd and hard to read. “Coconut oil. Vitamin E.”

“Fine. Whatever. I assume that’s a part of the consecration?”

Brooks nods again, and I exhale, finally pulling the bottle from my pocket and turning to toss it into my room. It hits the mattress and bounces before settling down. I feel Brooks move behind me, his antler-topped shadow stretching over me and across the bed.

I turn around and there he is, standing way too close to me.

“You’re right,” he tells me, and I choke on a gasp as he slides his hand against the side of my face. He’s dead serious right now, and for some reason, that freaks me out. “I’m treating you the way I treat Marlowe and Tanner, but you’re a woman.”

I scoff and reach up to shove his hand away from my face. It’s like swatting at a statue. I can’t move him at all, so I just wrap my fingers around his wrist and squeeze.

“That’s not what I meant,” I say, but I guess it is. Didn’t I tell him that I wanted a man? I should’ve said partner or something. This is getting very 1950s in this hallway.

“ I want a man, Brooks, ” he parrots back at me, cocking his head to one side. “I’m confused then. Didn’t you refer to the ritual as a wedding? You’re right about that, too. It was. It is. When I brought Tanner and Marlowe into the coven, it felt like camaraderie, like men-at-arms. When we brought you on, the spell was completely different.”

I exhale and close my eyes, still clinging to his wrist. I’d meant to pry him off, but I’m just sort of hanging onto it.

“I didn’t mean that you needed to spurt testosterone from your pores. I was just trying to say that if you want to keep … doing sex stuff, then we have to rethink our dynamic. Yeah, I slept with you in order to get out of the Witchwoods. Fine. I didn’t know we’d be living together and fucking on the regular.” I open my eyes again, trying to fortify myself against his brilliant green eyes and stern lips. There’s something commanding about Brooks, something that even Tanner and Marlowe can sense. “You can be the leader. I don’t want to be the coven leader. But I also don’t want to be treated so coldly and so clinically.”

He smiles at me then, and it’s honestly a pretty nice goddamn smile. The glint in his eyes? Not so nice.

“Exactly. You want me to treat you like a woman. You were right, North—Kate.” He slides his thumb over my lips, and I have no idea how to react.

“You … we just had this conversation, like five minutes ago.”

“It was five hours, and five hours is a long time to think about something so obvious.” Brooks hesitates, like he isn’t sure whether to tell me this or not. In the end, he just shakes his head and murmurs something like honesty, Brooks under his breath. He studies me, unflinching and unashamed. “I wasn’t sure if I liked you at first. And then I was sure that I didn’t like you. Now, I’m sure that with time, I could probably fall in love with you, Kate.”

I duck under his arm and take off down the hallway at a power walk, fly down the stairs, find myself on the deck in the sun beside Tanner. I spot Marlowe in the grass, near the edge of the woods. Petting my pussy —cat. Petting my cat. He’s petting my mean-ass cat.

“You look pale, kitten. You alright?” Tanner asks me, and then Brooks is right there , like he didn’t get the message. He comes over to stand beside me, and Tanner tenses up. But only for a second. As I look on, he visibly forces himself to relax.

Not Brooks though. He’s not relaxed at all.

“Regardless of your reaction to my statement, we have to consecrate that broom, Kate. ” Brooks’ eyes are like lightning, striking me with a crack of thunder when they connect with mine. No, no, no. I can’t handle Brooks like this. He isn’t allowed to use his powers as coven leader to force this!

“I don’t care if it takes longer; I want to consecrate the broom another way.” I fold my arms and Tanner chuckles, rubbing his hand across his mouth.

Brooks stares at me like I’ve lost my mind.

“ You were the one that insisted on urgency. This is more important to you than to anyone else. If you want people to stay away from that gate …” He leans in and smirks meanly at me. “You’re getting fucked with that broom. What a goddamn brat.”

“Hey!” I shout as Brooks tosses me over his shoulder and carries me bodily into the house.

We’re just in time for the doorbell to ring.

Brooks swings me down and sets me on my feet, giving me a gentle push in the direction of the front door. I’m huffing as I stalk toward it, unsure if I’m angry or if I’m turned-on. I might be both things. I totally wanted him to spank me, and he knows it.

“Who’s interrupting my hot spanking?” I snap as I rip the door open and choke on my next words. “Oh, hey Dad.”

My uptight father and his wife-who-also-went-to-high-school-with-me are standing on the porch, staring at me. No sign of my siblings though. Of course not. That would be absurd, to bring my sister and brother by to see me.

“Katie,” Dad says, and I fucking hate to be called Katie, but he doesn’t know that because we have no relationship. He has zero power over you, Katelynn, I remind myself, standing here with Brooks at my back. Extra brawn, remember? Magic, too.

Nobody has power over me if I’m a part of this coven.

“Dad?” Brooks repeats, moving up to stand beside me and leaning his shoulder against the doorjamb. He’s not wearing his witch hat, but his own two eyes are enough to cast a hot, dismissive glare across the porch and its double occupants.

My father gapes up at him, and his wife, Jada, lets out a shocked, little gasp that’s disturbingly dark with envy. Not that I can blame her. She sleeps with the old lying lawyer that’s standing on my porch, and I’m … “I could probably fall in love with you, Kate.”

“Yeah, this is Darrin, my sperm donor,” I admit, almost like I’m embarrassed. Wait. No, exactly like I’m embarrassed. Not of Brooks, but of the dad who abandoned me and Mom. Not that she stuck around either, but he’s worse. She kept in contact with me until she died.

Darrin and I didn’t reconnect until Grandma Annie died—and reconnect is a very strong word.

Brooks scoffs and shakes his head, running his tongue over his lip and then sweeping his fingers through his red hair. That black stripe near the front catches my attention the way it always does.

“This is the bastard that hasn’t bothered to check on you since you came home?” Brooks blusters in moral outrage, taking a step onto the porch to loom over my father. His expression is silver shadows and cold justice. He’s not even human. Witch. “If my daughter went missing for an entire month, I’d tear the world in half to find her. Where the fuck have you been?”

“Excuse me?” Darrin bumbles, chest puffing out with rage. He’s always been the meanest, toughest one in the room. I’m sure that’s made it easy for him to get his way like he always has, leaving my mother for my classmate and taking everything in the process, every red cent.

I hate him. I don’t want him in my life. He disgusts me.

I’ve been so lonely, so desperate not to lose one of the few people I know in this world, that I failed to take out the trash the way it should’ve been a long time ago.

“You heard me.” Brooks folds his arms and tilts his head, his shadow mimicking him. “You’re not even a man. I’m not about to let some scumbag who knows absolutely nothing about responsibility or family show up on our doorstep uninvited. Scram.” He gestures with his chin, like that’s that.

Oh. Dad is furious . His face is red, eyes wide, slack-jawed and dark-haired and maybe not as much of an alpha male as he’s always wanted to be. Beneath Brook’s shadow, he looks like a mouse.

Speaking of, a bright purple Witchwoods mouse with two tails scurries up the porch post behind Jada. If she could see it, she’d probably scream. I saw her climb on a picnic table at school once and shriek over a squirrel.

“Excuse me, young man—” Dad starts, but Brooks only laughs, letting his head fall back and his eyes slide shut for a few seconds. His laugh is more than enough to silence my father.

“Young man?” Brooks murmurs, chuckling again. “When I was working two jobs to put food on the table for my sisters, you were barely a twinkle in your granddaddy’s eye.” He cracks his gaze and drops his head back down, propping his hands on his hips as his expression slides over to me.

I’m starstruck. I know that I shouldn’t be. Brooks is once again acting like my house is his house. But I do love the idea of him standing up for me, the way Marlowe did with Nathan. I feel so much less alone with these guys around, and I can’t tell if that’s because they’re awesome or because I’m so desperate for family that I’m imagining it. They’re dicks, Kate. Dicks who won’t give you a single second to breathe.

That is, unless they’re Tanner and running away. Maybe he’s already regretting his decision to commit to me? Like a girl he’d look at and know he’d never date. Won’t know unless I talk it out with him, now will I?

“Twinkle?” Jada asks, reaching up to adjust her perfectly austere bun. She’s a trad wife influencer who speaks in soft whispers and bakes things her young kids will never eat, all the while racking up millions of views online. I didn’t like her in high school, and I like her even less now. She’s ogling Brooks like she wants to leap on his dick.

He hasn’t looked at her once, and she’s hot as hell.

“Katie, come outside right now and explain yourself.” Darrin’s teeth are gritted, and I figure all this social media attention is probably embarrassing for him. That must be why he’s here. Not out of concern for me, but because the guys and I are breaking the internet. As much as my dad’s tried to distance himself from me, Humboldt County is small enough for people to know that their district attorney has a daughter from a previous marriage.

“Heavens to Betsy, do you want me to kick your fucking ass?” Brooks asks, stepping between me and my dad. My blood turns to champagne when Brooks mixes his crude Witchwoods speech with some obscure 1950’s phrase. Bubbly. Intoxicating.

“Get out of my way before I call the police.” Darrin isn’t joking. He knows plenty of cops who owe him favors.

Brooks’ attention shifts over to Jada, and she flushes, tucking a loose strand of dark hair behind her ear.

“You bring one daughter with you and act like the other doesn’t exist?” Brooks shakes his head as he looks back at Darrin. There’s a good ten inches of height difference between them. A mountain of muscle. Darrin with his dark hair and brown eyes and perfect suit. Brooks with his unbuttoned blue plaid flannel, tattoos, scars, and unerring presence.

The axis of everything my life has become. If Brooks hadn’t chased his missing sister into the Witchwoods, we wouldn’t be standing here right now. It’s a dizzying thought.

“Daughter?” Jada squeaks, giving Brooks a nasty look. “I’m his wife. ”

I wish I could explain the look on Brooks’ face.

“Not a fan of age-gap romances?” I whisper, and he looks at me in such a way that I know I’m in trouble. My breath catches. Remember what I said? There’s nothing Brooks can’t do because there’s nothing Brooks won’t do.

Including falling in love with me.

I want him to like me. I want them all to like me, and I hate that. But it’s normal, isn’t it? Searching for connection and praying you’ll find it with someone who likes you back.

“I’m speechless.” Brooks’ voice is dry but derisive, like a cutting wind. “What can I do to make this better, Kate?” he asks, and there’s just something about him actually asking me a question for once that does it.

I feel empowered.

I put a hand on Brooks’ massive bicep, and his gaze falls to the spot where my fingers brush lightly against his arm. He’s got incredible definition, something that Nathan never had.

It isn’t easy to break that stare, like we’re standing in the foyer of the Pink Lady all over again. That energy rides the air between us, the sticky static of attraction. I don’t know Brooks, and he doesn’t know me, but we’ve got something brewing—physically anyway.

I turn back to my dad and his young wife. I don’t see Jada as a victim in this at all, though their thirty-year age gap is jarring. She married Darrin for money and status. He married her for her good looks and for sex. Transactional.

That’s exactly what I don’t want in a relationship. Probably why I told Brooks I wanted a partner and not just a coven member with an obligation.

“Brooks has a point. I want you to leave.” My words are firm, absolute. I’m not smiling at all, and I hope I look the way Brooks does, like I’m not human. I don’t feel human when I assert myself like that. I feel powerful. “If you want to arrange a get-together where I can actually spend some time with the kids, then we can do that. Otherwise, get lost.”

“We drove all the way down here because you couldn’t be bothered to call us up,” my father continues, looking from Brooks to me like he’s found an easier target. “Do you have any idea what’s going around the internet? All the rumors and the videos and this … occult garbage that you’re participating in. How do you think that reflects on me and your stepmother? Where have you been ?”

I stare him straight in the face as Brooks shifts, throwing his shadow across the pair of them. The air smells like sparks and violence. If I don’t end this now, Brooks will end it for all of us.

“I was pledging my soul to three witches in the woods,” I say, and then I yank on Brooks so that he’ll step back, and I slam the door in both of their stupid, stunned faces.

I slide the dead bolt in place as my father pounds his fist on the door, screaming hurtful things at me. When I turn around, I find Brooks looking back at me. He has the barest edge of a smile brushing his lips, but there’s a tightness to his jaw that says he was this close to taking control of that situation.

“We’ll give him time to cool off,” I say, my voice an odd, reverent whisper. “And then we can invite him to dinner and make him impotent.”

“I know a spell for that,” Brooks tells me, and there’s something in the cadence of his voice that makes me realize that he did listen to me today. That he heard me. That he thought about it. Brooks took the whole day to ensure that he understood my needs—and then he took steps to start meeting them.

Action driven. Focused. Determined.

Yeah. It’s hard for me to admit it, but he’s a natural leader.

I swallow and take a step back, putting a bit of extra space between us that he doesn’t allow me to have. He’s right there, pressing his palm against the inside of the stained-glass window on the door. My dad and his wife can probably see our silhouettes, but I don’t care.

The horned shadow on the wall to my left is arching her back and pushing her breasts into the antlered monster towering over her.

“I’m glad you told that fucker off.” Brooks smiles gently as he leans down, but his eyes are fierce. Embers and ash. Smoke. Flames. “But we’re still consecrating that broomstick—and I’m still going to spank you.”

“I’m not going to like it—” I start, and then Brooks is spinning me around and yanking my pants down. His hot palm cracks right over my ass, and I let out a sharp sound that embarasses the hell out of me. Not when they’re still on the porch!

“Stop lying, Kate. I want nothing but truth from those pretty lips.” There’s a rustling from behind me as Brooks pushes his pants down. The best I can do is seal my lips shut on a sound as he presses his way inside of me with his massive cock. He’s right: I am lying. I love that initial breaching of my snug body, the way he stretches me wide around his girth.

Definitely bigger than that broomstick handle.

I spread my legs as wide as I can, but my jeans tangle around my ankles, trapping me.

Brooks eases his way in until he’s bottomed-out, pressed tight against my ass with his flannel shirt brushing my naked skin.

“There we go. You’re so sweet and willing, Katelynn. I love that.” He rubs a hand up my back, and I dig my teeth into my lip until it hurts. Don’t speak, Kate. It’s just like the woods. Don’t say a word. Brooks doesn’t make it easy, sliding out until only the tip of him is inside of me, and then slamming his way back in. Hard.

I manage to keep quiet until I hear Darrin’s car pull out of the driveway.

How did they get here with the spell of foreboding in place? I wonder, but then, that’s the positive of Brooks being the leader. It’s not my problem to worry about it.

Brooks sweeps my braided hair off the back of my neck and kisses my nape with a possessiveness that I didn’t see coming. The other two, I guess it makes sense. But this? I didn’t think he wanted me this way. That he only wanted me for the coven, for spells.

That kiss hits different. There’s a tenderness to it, an attempt on his part to give me what I asked for. The touch of his hands, the feel of his lips, the thickness of his body inside mine … it feels like he really wants me this way.

Like a woman and not just a North.

Next step: if he could want me as Kate, and not just as a woman.

“You’ll like it,” Brooks tells me, and then he fists my hair and slaps my ass with his other hand. “Consecrating that broom. I’ll make sure of that.”

“I don’t remember telling you that you could fuck me,” I whisper, and he laughs, pressing his cheek against mine and trapping my face against the glass of the front door.

“Kate, I’m not playing that game with you until you admit that you like me back. It’s alright. I can wait.”

And he does. He just stands there, waiting to see if I’ll crack. It takes a few minutes, the pair of us frozen against the front door, his body trapping mine. Our shadows don’t seem to be having the same issue, writhing together like animals.

“Shit, you’re so mean. Yes, I’m interested in seeing what it’s like if … you’re not actively treating me like garbage.”

“God, you have a way of making me feel guilty,” he murmurs, turning his head so that his lips are pressed against the back of my neck again. “I never feel guilty about Tanner or Marlowe.”

“Liar,” I whisper back, and then he’s pulling my hair and spanking me again. He does it a third time, before I can say anything else. A fourth time. Fifth. My cheeks—both sets—are red, my body pushing back against him in search of relief from this frantic need for friction.

“No. I hate liars. I’m not going to lie to you.” Brooks pins me there, a commanding presence at my back. He fucks that way, too, like he’s giving orders. I like it—love it—but one day, wouldn’t it be interesting to see if he’d give in to me the way Tanner did this morning?

His cock glides easily inside of me, fueled by my own lubricant and resisted only by the natural clenching of my inner muscles. My body is slammed into the wood door repeatedly, making my legs go weak, forcing my hands to claw at the door in search of something to hold onto.

The sensation is overwhelming, this full, satisfied feeling between my legs. It’s a warm relief that covers up both the physical ache, that base need, but also the one in my heart. I’m all alone in the world. I have nobody to catch me if I fall.

Had. Had nobody to catch me if I fell.

Literally.

I’m going to fall right now if Brooks doesn’t catch me. He’s turned my knees to jelly.

He snags the fabric of my shirt, shoving it up in the front. I moan so loudly that I’m sure if we hadn’t cast a spell on our house, that someone would’ve heard. He yanks my bra down, my breasts slipping from the holey fabric of my shitty sports bra. They bounce as he ruts me into that door, nipples aching for a touch he won’t give just yet.

Brooks doesn’t hold back on the hard, punchy movements of his hips, and I end up collapsing. He snags my waist as I go, but doesn’t stop the fall, lowering me to my hands and knees in the hallway.

He pulls out of me, and I let out a groan that echoes painfully around the foyer.

“What the fuck, South?” I whine, letting my head fall, breaths wild and frantic.

“Shh. I want that, too, just me and you. Sex for pleasure. Sex for connection. But we have to deal with that goddamn gate.” He cups my pussy hard from behind, a big hand owning me with a single firm grip. With the heel of his hand, he rubs lube into me and massages me at the same time.

Is this the lube that Tanner made?

It feels good, a nice warm-up that precedes his fingers slipping inside of me. Brooks works that sweet-smelling lubricant into my pussy, ensuring I’m nice and wet before he draws away again.

I feel something else touch me, and then he’s pressing an unyielding hardness inside of me and I’m consecrating the broom.

“Sto—” I never finish the word, fingers digging at the carpet as I come to pieces, orgasming hard around that smooth, wooden shape as he moves it rapidly in and out of me. The miraculous part of that is he never exceeds the depth at which he just fucked me with his cock.

Oh.

I fall onto my elbows and Brooks withdraws the broom. I can feel him studying me, my tits out, my breathing rapid and husky. I look at him over my shoulder, his pants undone, cock hard and wet, witch hat back on his head. All six red eyes on the cone blink rapidly at me.

Tanner and Marlowe stand on either side of him, also wearing their hats.

I roll onto my back, kick off my jeans, and then sit up on my elbows, looking up at them.

“Spell’s not done yet,” Brooks informs me, almost apologetically.

Marlowe steps forward and then squats in front of me, putting the final witch hat on my head.

His eyes are black pits, his lips in a neutral frown. I’m not sure he knows what to do with me now that I’ve slipped past the first of his walls. That hatred he was flinging my way was like a shield around his heart. I don’t know what to expect from him now.

There are red roses on his hat again, tangled thorny brambles around the cone.

I open my legs, and he wets his lips as he looks between them.

“Shit.” Marlowe crawls over me, slotting his cock against my wetness and then pushing the rest of himself inside. It feels different now, looking into his eyes, my hand on his shoulder. “Wow, Kate,” is all he says, and then he’s rutting me into the runner rug on the hallway floor and burying his face against the side of my neck.

I can see Brooks on his knees behind Marlowe, both his eyes and the ones on his hat locked on my face and waiting. That’s what really does it for me, the waiting. Tense. Poised. Watchful. His shadow antlers look like they’re sprouting directly from his head.

Marlowe is rough and messy and fast, filling me with his cum and biting onto my neck at the same time. My eyes stay locked with Brooks, aware that this doesn’t end until he decides it ends.

My fingers tangle in Marlowe’s dark hair as he draws away from me, fingertips stroking over his scalp and giving him goose bumps. He pauses to study me, silky red petals falling from his hat and drifting over my breasts.

We have a lot of talking to do, but neither of us is very good at that.

“ God .” Marlowe stumbles to his feet, slamming a hand into the wall and closing his eyes as he tries to get himself together.

Tanner eyes him as he crawls over to me, pausing on all-fours above me. Our eyes meet, and he offers a comforting half-smile, cocking that fancy brow in a silent question. Ready for me? My hands lace together behind his neck as my legs circle around him, drawing him close.

“Hello again, kitten,” he grumbles, that growly, scratchy voice doing all sorts of wonderful things for me. Chills. Goose bumps. A tightness in my lower belly. Tanner rubs his stubbled cheek against my smooth one, and I make a sweet sound.

He covers my mouth with his, pushing my right thigh open for better access and slipping inside of me like I’m not still dripping Lo’s cum down my cheeks.

We kiss frantically while we rut, but I don’t close my eyes.

I steal glimpses of Brooks from around Tanner’s broad shoulders, nearly knocking the latter’s hat off as I play with his gold-and-black hair. He draws back, putting a palm on the wall just above my head and using his body to block my view. Like he knows. A tight pursing of his lips is the only challenge he issues.

Tanner fucks me nice and hard, the muscles in his lower belly tightening as he comes with the full length of his shaft buried between my legs.

“A pleasure, as always,” he growls, but like he’s angrier about having to move than he wants to admit.

And then Tanner is gone, and I’m looking into Brooks’ eyes again.

“I told you that you’d like it,” he says, and I let my head fall back as he climbs over me like he was always meant to be there. Like he never left. Our hands are all over each other, searching and testing new boundaries, discovering new things.

The hair at the back of his head is so soft. An incredibly intimate detail that I never knew I needed. Brooks draws back slightly, looking down at my dirty pussy and the puddle of cum on the floor beneath me.

His lip hooks up on one side, a very confident but enigmatic sort of smile.

“Ahh, Kate.” He lifts his eyes back to mine again, like looking away for even a few seconds is too long. Brooks puts the head of his cock against me, pushing between my fuck-swollen folds and dirtying himself up with the mess his coven left behind.

I’m gathered into his arms, consumed by his heat and size. Brooks finds the bite mark that Marlowe left on the side of my throat, and bites right over it. Claiming me. It’s a hard bite, sharp witch canines puncturing my skin and making me dizzy.

It feels amazing, and I never want him to let go.

Don’t make drastic decisions during sex. Don’t fall too fast. Don’t give too much up to people you don’t even know.

I hear my own warnings, but I’m not sure that I heed them.

Brooks is slow and intense, driving deep and hard, and then holding it there. Kissing me sparingly, making me lift my head and work for it. He’s so good at that, I forget that time is passing.

It’s just him and me and a foyer that’s filled with stained-glass sunlight and, as time passes, growing shadows. Our shadows. Shadows from outside. A mix of hazy black shapes and sharp, feral ones.

I’ve never quite been fucked like this, not by any of the Witchwood men and certainly not by Nathan. Brooks has taken over, like there isn’t a part of me he isn’t touching or kissing or rubbing against, his huge body contracting and moving above me.

He orgasms, but doesn’t stop, slipping two fingers in beside his own spent cock and using them on me until he’s hard again. Over and over and over he does this. Never stops. Never gives either of us a chance to breathe. He makes me come, too, nuzzling my neck and sighing as he enjoys the quivering and the thrashing of my body beneath him. Not once, but a few times.

I lose count. It’s hard to tell where one climax ends and another begins. It’s just me and Brooks, our bodies tangled.

We end up spending so much time in the hallway that it’s dark when we finally roll apart.

Hours have passed.

“What the fuck?” I ask as I stare up at the ceiling. There’s a pool of blood next to my neck that sure as hell wouldn’t be normal if I were human. A pool of cum and magic lube and witch cum underneath my rug-sore ass.

I touch my fingers to my throat, but Brooks stops me with a hand on my wrist. He turns onto his side and leans over me, putting my fingers into his mouth and sucking the blood off them. His green eyes close in bliss, but the ones on his hat go all loopy and half-lidded with pleasure.

“Mm. Let me take care of that for you.” He reaches past me for the jar of salve that’s sitting on the entryway bench. There are so many shoes under that bench now, shoes that aren’t mine. A strange warmth curls through me, like a promise.

I blush as Brooks rubs minty salve into my neck. He moves back, giving me space for the first time in hours and watching as I touch my fingers to my neck again.

There’s no wound there.

My creepy shadow looks down at me, cuddled up next to Brooks’ with the massive antlers.

“What did we just do?” I whisper, knowing that a single orgasm from each of us would’ve been enough to finish the broom consecration. Tanner and Marlowe only had one climax each. That means the rest were … extras.

“Like you said.” Brooks turns to me and narrows his eyes. “A wedding.” He sits up and his creepy shadow slides down the ceiling and across the wall, long and weird and dark, so much darker than the shadows cast by the porch lights through the stained-glass windows. “I haven’t been acting like a husband should, but I’m going to start right this very second.”

“How so?” I ask groggily, rolling onto my side and trying to remember how to stand up and walk.

I’m wrecked. I’m thoroughly wrecked, and it’s amazing.

“Hm.” Brooks makes a sound and then he turns and scoops me up, rising to his feet and trailing his monster shadow behind him. He walks me up the stairs to the bedroom, puts me on the mattress, and then climbs over me. “Just relax and fall asleep.”

He puts his mouth between my legs to clean me up (my cum, his cum, their cum), and then stays there until I’ve climaxed again and finally drifted into a peaceful sleep.