1. Witch of the Demesne

one

“Come on, you piece-of-shit chain.”

Milla focused on the tingle in her fingertips and the warmth pooling in her palm, easing her Way out bit by bit. Too much, and she would pass out again. Too little, and she’d end yet another day screaming her frustrations at the palm trees and startling the birds.

Patience was key. Patience and focusing on the ritual.

All magick was a ritual, from major castings requiring full covens to minor summons any witch could perform without thought, and a ritual required three things: intent, desire, and sacrifice.

Her desire was clear: rust the iron link without tipping headfirst into her Way and waking up with a hangover. But metal was tricky, and her Way worked best with organic matter. She could do it, rust was within her Way, but the purpose of this exercise wasn’t to get blackout drunk before noon. It was to control her Way, rust the iron, and reverse the corrosion.

And as for the sacrifice, Horned God, hadn’t she sacrificed enough time to this Goddess-forsaken swamp?

So it was the intent she was missing. Intent was tricky—it had to be tied to the desire, but it could not be the desire. It was the core of the ritual, the aim, the goal for which a witch stepped into her Way and appealed to the Triple Goddess.

And Milla’s intent was to rust the chain.

“Wait.” She sat back on her heels and swept lank bangs from her forehead. “I’m sacrificing time, and my desire is to rust this iron so I can leave the swamp. Or—no, my desire is to leave to swamp, and the intent is to rust the chain …” Which she could do. She’d done it before, again and again over the last few days, suffering headaches and nausea and all the other fun after-effects of stepping too deeply into her Way, so was her intent to rust it slowly? To avoid the hangover?

She dragged her hands down her face and glared at the fat chain strung between hefty wooden posts. The unrusted chain.

Heat fizzed in her arms, sizzling and burning into her palms as her frustration rose.

All she intended was to rust that chain and be standing afterward. All she desired was to leave this swamp without flinching in fear anytime anybody got too close to her. And Horned GOD, hadn’t she already sacrificed enough?

“ Koroze. ” Milla flexed her fingers, palms hovering over the iron links, letting her frustration fuel the corrosive hex. Magick coursed through every vein in her body, and as she channeled it into her hands, heat rushed down her arms, flooding her palms. She clenched her teeth, restraining the tide of magick to a fine trickle—slow and steady like Darkly had advised. Too fast, and she’d burn through her Way, but if she kept control, she could rust the iron, reverse the corrosion, and argue her way out of this tick-infested swamp.

She was sick of hiding, sick of day after boring day in the sweltering heat, and the nights weren’t any better. The hut had not been that oppressively warm in her memory. It had been cute and quaint and welcoming, hidden from prying mortal eyes by the look-away hexes Ezra had cast on the walls and roof. A witch would have to know the hut was there to find it, making it the perfect hideaway for two witches looking to lay low and get to know one another.

But Darkly wasn’t here, and Milla would be stuck here unless she could rust this stupid chain and reverse the damage without passing out.

“ Koroze. ” She released her hold, just a little, just enough, to eke out more of her Way. The tips of her fingers grayed with ash, the skin withering to decayed, blackened points. Magick burned in her veins and still that Horned God-damned iron link remained untouched. “ Koroze .”

A bird chirped overhead. Palms rustled in a sticky-thick breeze. Sweat trickled down her spine, collecting on the waistband of her shorts, and the damn iron did nothing but remain completely oblivious to the witch trying not to corrode it into a pile of oxidized dust.

“ Koroze! ” Magick filled her palm as Milla’s frustration finally won over her patience. The ash crawled down her fingers, bony tips revealed beneath the rot, and finally— finally —a speck of flaking brown appeared on the iron, crawling outward like lichen over a stone. She gnashed her teeth as Way bled from her veins. Fast, too fast, heat dripped from her arm, and her head grew light, but she was doing it. It was working. She had control of her Way, she was rusting the iron.

“Hoookay,” Milla exhaled, focusing on maintaining the flow. “Nice and easy.”

That was the trick and where she’d failed time and time again. Nice and easy. Slow going. Channel the magick to her hands, but don’t let it slip through. She could almost hear Darkly whispering in her ear, his rolling accent, and the thick slang she was just beginning to understand.

“Hold on,” he would say. “Dinnae get excited, hold your Way, and let it out easy.”

But Darkly wasn’t here. He was elsewhere as he’d been all week, only to show up at the most random times to lecture her on magick.

This was not what she’d had in mind when she told their vampire detective-turned-chauffeur Dies-well to head south, but neither had she anticipated her magick going weird and that weirdness stemming from the Dark Witch. But it had, and it did, and Milla wanted to go home.

“Easy,” she repeated. “Easier said than done.”

Still, the circle of rust spread, crawling steadily across the surface of the iron. Milla curled her fingers, frowning at the bony tips. Her Way frothed in her palm, pressing against the webbed scars, wanting to burst free and consume the metal, corroding the iron and dragging Milla down with it.

“You control your Way, leannán .” Darkly’s repeated words ran through her mind. “It doesnae control you.”

“No, it doesn’t,” she muttered.

As if needing to prove her wrong, a rush of heat bled down her arm, boiling in her veins and leaving her hand before Milla could form a fist. As fast as it had every damn day since the Loa, and the Fountain of Youth. Since she’d taken hold of Darkly’s Shades and hauled them from the Neitherworld, summoning the only thing she could to destroy a revenge-bent Voodoo spirit and spare the women of St. Augustine from untimely death and a multi-level marketing scheme.

The rust surged outward, engulfing the link in flakes of reddish-brown. A divot appeared, deepening to a saddle in the ever-thinning metal. Thin flecks fell to the sandy earth as the iron crumbled beneath her Way.

“No! Nononono.” She gripped her wrist, the gesture useless. She needed to reverse the hex. To switch her intent and re-focus her desire before the link rusted through. This was what she had been trained to do. By the Morgenhexe and a revolving cast of would-be Enforcers. It was the groundwork Ezra had worked off of, molding Milla into a witch of his own making. She could do this. She needed to do this, needed to control her Way, or else what was the freaking point?

The world blurred into swathes of muted browns and greens. Sour spit pooled on her tongue, and her stomach gave one warning swoop.

“ Obnovit, ” she grunted. Restore. Renew. Triple Goddess’s tits, reverse!

The saddle of rust collapsed on itself, a cloud of dusted metal rising as the link tipped to the side, barely balanced on the next link in the thick chain.

Her head spun, the ground tipping off-kilter as Milla’s Way took its cost. She grunted, dropping to one knee. Bile rose in her throat as she forced out one last, “Horned God-dammit, obnovit! ”

Magick rushed into her leg, up her thigh, searing through her belly and torso before surging down her arm into her casting hand as the reversal took hold. It was too much, too fast, and Milla could not catch hold. Like a weighted rope slipping through her palms, the renewal allure ran free, winding around the link and, just as quickly, reversing the damage of the hex. Flecks of rust rose from the dirt, the brownish cloud sank back into the iron. The saddle filled until it was a divot, a dent, and then nothing at all. Not a seam or a speck of rust to be seen on that link, or the one next to it, or the one after that.

Milla staggered to her feet, clenching her fist to cut off the flow of magick. Goddess, it was too much. It was the Shades all over again. Her Way had taken control, using Milla as a vessel to be filled until it overflowed, uncontrolled.

She stumbled back, too Waydrunk to think of a hex, an allure, anything to seize control and stop her Way from rotting the world. An impossibly cool breeze licked up her spine, and a hoarse cry tore free—from relief, from fear. She had no idea other than the world tipped to the side, her legs turned to jelly, and the last thing she thought before hitting the ground was, “This’s gonna hurt .”

Milla jolted awake, hurtling upright and caught by strong hands at her shoulders. She gripped the worn blanket, her brain only half-registering that she wasn’t lying in the dirt beneath the palms but in a bed, in the ramshackle hut she called a safe house.

Hidden deep in Tomoka State Park, north of Daytona, the one-bedroom fisherman’s shack was not much, but it was hers. Restored by bored adolescent witches, it had an artesian well for fresh water and a gasoline-powered generator she had added on a weekend camping trip during college. For all it lacked in luxury, it had been comfortable enough for Milla and Ezra and now secretive enough for her and Darkly.

“Easy,” Darkly soothed. “Hasnae been near long enough to sleep off the effects.”

“Darkly?” His name was thick on her tongue, and a troubling roil in her stomach followed. Soft flannel crumpled in her palm, disintegrating to nothing until her nails pinched the scars on her palms. She groaned and dropped her head, leaning into his comforting grip. “Didn’t think you’d be back today.”

“Got here just in time,” he answered, his voice tight. His right hand slid along her shoulder to cup her neck, thumb and forefinger gently massaging the tendons. “Hate to think how long you’d be laying in the dirt if I hadnae.”

“I had it,” she mumbled.

“As well as a slotted spoon holds water.”

Milla snorted and raised her head, sending Darkly a bleary smile. Dim light bled through narrow cracks in the western wall and cheap curtains, but not so dim she didn’t notice the strain on his face and firm set of his mouth. His eyes were trained on her, the green obscured by wafting shadows, and his normally styled hair hung in lank waves as though the witch had been repeatedly running his hand through the ginger mop.

His eyes darted over her face, lingering on her eyes. He frowned at whatever he saw there, and tipped his head forward.

“Alright, leannán? ” he asked, voice dropping into a low rumble.

Milla’s belly flipped and she nodded. “Better,” she answered, turning her head to press a kiss to the back of the hand still at her shoulder. “Now that you’re here.”

Darkly hissed, a sharp, pained sound. His fingers flexed against her arm, and the motion snapped Milla out of her drunken haze, awareness rushing in all at once and far too late.

“Horned God, Darkly!” She scurried away from him, legs tangling in what was left of the flannel blanket. “Do you have a death wish?”

“There’s a joke there.” He straightened and flexed his hands, unable to hide his wince or the rising blisters. “Ken it’s something like, ‘nae, but I’ve got a death witch ’.”

“This isn’t funny,” she snapped. “You can’t keep doing that.”

“Doing what?” He dropped his arms, eyes darkening. “Helping you? Keeping you from passing out drunk in the dirt?”

“ Touching me .” She threw a hand in his direction, and this time, Darkly couldn’t hide his flinch. It hurt, but nowhere near as much as the hurt she’d caused him. He wore the same black v-neck she’d last seen him in but had traded his Enforcer blacks—tactical pants fitted with an absurd amount of zippers and pockets—for a pair of grey joggers. His shirt was rotted through, a diagonal swathe of moldered cotton from the top of one shoulder down across his chest and torso, and the skin she could see through the desecration was raw and red, rotted everywhere her body must have pressed because, of course, the idiot witch wouldn’t leave her lying in the dirt.

Her eyes dropped to his palms and the inside of his arms, the skin there a puffy, swollen violet speckled in pale blisters. Evidence that he had hoisted Milla into his arms and brought her back to the hut. “Look at you.”

“I’d rather not,” he said.

“Goddess, what were you thinking?”

“I was thinking that my Death Witch pushed herself too far, again , and that she might prefer waking up in a bed rather than a festering crater.”

“Yeah, well, what did you expect me to do?”

He stared at her. A long, hard stare silently implying all of the things he had expected her to do, like not overexert herself while stranded in a swamp at the ass-end of Daytona while he was off in St. Augustine doing Horned God knew what. “Milla…”

“I’m fine, Darkly.”

“You’re nae fine, leannán . It’s been days, and I cannae touch you without risking my hand rotting off.”

“It’s not my fault your Way is a freaking battery for mine.” And who in the nine rings could have predicted that? Like, what were the odds? “Which,” she raised her voice, “one hundred percent, would have been nice to know before I summoned those Shades!”

“And how was I supposed to know?” he hollered back. “Even if you had warned me what you were gonnae do, which, one hundred percent, you didnae, how was I to know how our Ways worked together?”

“And you think I knew ? Neither of us is supposed to exist!” She threw her arms wide, swaying slightly. Darkly darted forward, reaching out, ready to catch her, and Milla pulled away. “I don’t understand why it’s so hard .”

“It’s only been a week, Milla. Seven days, and you’re attempting to master what takes a witchling months to get ahold of. This is normal, so normal that C.R.O.W. has legislation protecting witches in your circumstance.” He sent her a soft smile, and she scowled in reply. “It will come, Milla. You just need to be patient.” Her scowl deepened. Darkly put up his hands in surrender. “Though it is surprising the Morgenhexe never taught you how to do it.”

“Morgen taught me how to hide my Way beneath hand-to-hex, not how to maintain a delicate balance of self and magick to keep from rotting a fencepost.” She curled over her knees and buried her face in her hands. “This would be easier if I had my tea.”

“No.” He stepped close, looming over her. She splayed her fingers, watching his shadow extend beyond his person, wrapping around her ankles and crawling up her legs to hold her in the only way he could. “That shite’s poison, Milla. I cannae watch you do that to yourself again.”

Again.

“There’s no need to keep drowning your Way.” A wisp of cold traced her chin, urging her to look up. She did, her anger washing away under his gaze. Absent the smoke, jade green gleamed brightly at her, and a faint smile curled the corner of his mouth. “It will get better.”

“When?” It was unfair of her to expect him to have an answer, but she’d been gone from her demesne for a week. She needed to get home and run the streets, tending the Ancient City as only she could. She had sacrificed her anonymity to protect St. Augustine, calling every Enforcer in the region to her city when she’d dropped headfirst into the furthest reaches of her Way. But she’d done it to save Darkly and countless women from a vengeful Loa running a pyramid scheme. The idea of losing her demesne now, after giving so much to keep St. Augustine safe and hers , was unfathomable.

“Cannae say.” The shade at her chin wafted lower and curled around her throat, tracing a lazy path along her collarbones. “From what I saw, you rusted that chain thoroughly.”

“How long were you there?”

“Long enough to see you fight against your Way.” More shadows stretched across the floor, crawling up Milla’s legs, soft as moth wings fluttering against her skin. A sigh escaped, and she edged back onto the mattress, meeting Darkly’s heated gaze.

It was a distraction and a welcome one. The few moments they spent together in this hut had been filled with bickering, sleep, and distraction. Then the sun rose, and Darkly was called away by his Enforcer sister, leaving Milla alone to fight with her Way. So she’d take the distraction, embracing a few moments of ill-advised peace before it all started over again.

He stepped closer, green eyes bleeding black. “Long enough to see you call it back faster than you did yesterday.”

“Not fast enough.”

“Still an improvement, Ludmilla.” He rolled her name over his tongue. A shiver that had nothing to do with the Shades pawing at her knees and tracing her thighs ran down her spine. “You cannae push this too quickly. Endurance is earned over time; move too fast, and you’ll continue to burn out.”

“How am I supposed to gain endurance if I don’t push myself?” she argued. His Shades gathered at her waist, prodding gently until she lay back and stretched out on the bed. The edge of the mattress dipped under Darkly’s weight as he knelt, a knee on either side of her leg, careful not to touch her skin.

“A drained aquifer refills all the more quickly, leannán .”

“Oh, my Goddess.” She rolled her eyes. “Do not start with that Mister Miyagi bullshit.”

“Isnae bullshit.” His eyes dropped to her chest, and his Shades followed, rolling over the curve of her breast. She gasped as they slipped beneath the low neck of her tanktop, teasing her nipples until they tightened into buds. A whisper of pleasure, the suggestion of a pinch. Enough to have a low throbbing build between her hips, but not enough.

It was never enough.

These ghostly touches, his intense, hungry gaze, only left her wanting more.

He inched further onto the bed and Milla widened her legs, easily falling into the motions they had discovered days ago. The only way to sate the need to touch, to feel, to be together when she couldn’t hold him close. Couldn’t feel his strong hands on her hips and her waist or those clever fingers driving deep into her, for fear of losing control of her Way.

His knee pressed against her groin, and Milla gasped at the delicious friction—tangible and real when the Shades were a cruel tease. She rolled her hips, a whimper building in her throat and escaping when he asked, “This alright?”

“Yes,” she hissed. They would have to strip the bed. Her tank top was going to be a wreck. Already she could feel the heat building in her veins, but Goddess, she wanted more. She wanted him to throw her further into the bed. Wanted his fingers digging into her hips, her arms, her wrists, but this would have to do. The blanket and her clothes would rot, and the mattress would decay, but she wanted this too badly to care.

Shades trailed her jaw and traced her lips, engulfing Milla in Darkly’s phantom touch. Over her, he bit his lip, flexing a hand at his side. Every muscle taut, as though he employed all of his restraint to keep from reaching out and touching her.

“ Leannán .” His voice deepened to a growl, rolling over the walls of the hut and vibrating through her bones. A demand that Milla was all too happy to obey. She cupped her breast, rolling the nipple between her thumb and forefinger as she slid her other hand down her front. Shades followed, teasing Milla’s exposed midriff and swirling between her thighs. A muscle twitched in his jaw, those black eyes trained on her every move and gasp as she drove her hand beneath the waistband of her shorts, circling her clit as Darkly watched on. “Good witch.”

Milla shivered at his praise and the caress of his Shades rolling against her. She moaned, and Darkly tipped his head back, cupping himself as he cursed. He spat into his palm, nudging Milla’s legs further apart as he thrust his hand into his joggers. Color rose in his cheeks. More Shades wafted from his body, writhing over her thighs and into her shorts, joining her fingers and the Shades already lapping against her center.

“Darkly,” she pleaded, knowing he couldn’t give her what she wanted and asking all the same. “More.”

“Demanding,” he half groaned, working his cock in slow, steady strokes. Milla reached for him, her fingertips barely dusting his thigh and leaving streaks of decayed cotton in their wake. “Touch yourself, Milla.”

“Controlling little witch.” She half-heartedly glared at him, slipping her hand beneath the waist of her underwear and swallowing a cry at the zing of pleasure.

His Shades kept their steady pulse and roll. She circled her clit, hips twitching, seeking out more touch, more pressure, and Darkly answered her silent need. Shadows shot from his person, blanketing the hut in midnight and driving against her pussy, their cold chill pressing against Milla’s fingers. Urging them to dive deeper and seek out the wicked spot that had her crying out his name.

On and on, they drove against her, throbbing and pulsing, imitating the flick of a tongue against her clit as Milla’s fingers crooked and bent until the heat in her arms puddled in her belly. Her core tightened, the tidal wave of sensation too much to contain, and she burst, pleasure tipping her over the edge right as Darkly grunted and gasped, “Milla.”

He tipped forward, catching himself with a hand at the last moment. They held there gasping and staring at each other, the comedown bittersweet without his arms wrapping around her. Without his touch.

Slowly, the Shades retreated, bringing the room back into early twilight. Slowly, the green reclaimed his eyes. Darkly gazed down at her, his hand curled into a fist beside her head.

“Too much?”

Milla pressed her lips together and shook her head, willing her heart rate to settle and slow before she answered, “Not enough.”