Chapter 11

Kate

Tanner's hot hands are on my waist, and his lips are near my ear.

"I warned you, didn't I?" he whispers, pressing his mouth over the bite mark that he left on my neck. A groan escapes me that I seem to have no control over, but I quickly get my hands up and put them between us. "You touched me, Kate."

"That was a handshake; that doesn't count." I don't know why I'm arguing. If I tell him not to touch me, he should just fuck off.

"Sure it does." Tanner licks a hot line of fire from my throat to my ear, taking the lobe between his teeth. He sucks on it before releasing me, dropping one hand down to find my pussy. I'm still a little worked up from last night, and the rough scrape of his fingers over my soft body has me writhing. "Besides, the spell requires a moan of pleasure from a woman's lips. I've got a bottle right here, so let's make it happen."

I can hear the sound of glass hitting the wood table beside me and glance down to see the little stoppered vial. A moan of pleasure trapped in glass? Does that make any sense?

Brooks makes a sound of annoyance, but he doesn't intervene, collecting the bowls and tossing them into a wooden washbasin before seemingly realizing that there's no reason to do that.

Cleaning up is irrelevant because he's leaving this place.

I turn my attention back to Tanner as he lifts me up on the table and steps between my legs.

"I can give you a moan of pleasure without sex," I assure him, but while his eyes aren't the black of a demon, his pupils are blown wide, and he looks like something feral and untamed.

"If you don't want to get fucked, just don't touch me. It's that easy." He's still naked—only Brooks is wearing pants—and it's just a matter of tugging my ass forward so that my hips are tilted in the right way. Which ... he does. The tip of him brushes against the swollen, overheated parts of me, and I press my tongue against the inside of my cheek.

The wildfire from last night's spell is gone, but he feels good anyway. I wish that he didn't. I could tell him to stop. But for some reason ... I don't. Should, but don't. Almost, but don't.

"Just so we have an understanding," I start, putting a hand on his chest. It's hard to focus, to remember why we even need to have this conversation. Tanner is handsome, and I enjoyed last night, but he seems to think he has some sort of claim on me; I don't want to give him the wrong idea. "I'm doing this because I want to, not because you have some sort of right."

The way his lip edges up on one side, the tug of that scar across the side of his face, like a silver stripe over his right eye and through his perfect mouth, is a silent disagreement. Fortunately for him, he doesn't bother to voice his thoughts aloud.

Once we leave the Witchwoods, I'm ditching these guys in the park and letting them figure out what to do from there. If I'd ended up here by accident, if they'd actually explained to me what was going on last night, I would've never dreamed of doing something like that.

These men are going to be completely lost in the modern world. Not only are they missing people, but they're missing people who've only aged a couple of years when they should've aged decades. No family to fall back on, no money, no identification.

But that's their problem. Not mine.

Guilt trickles through me as I wrap my arms around Tanner's neck, the silken brush of his gold-and-black hair against my forearms an intriguing contrast to the roughness of his hands on my thighs as he spreads them wide.

Tanner slides inside of me as easily as he did last night, and my body turns boneless under his touch. Could be leftover magic from that spell ... could be that I'm just attracted to him ... could be that I haven't had sex in four years ...

Doesn't fucking matter.

" Oh my God," I groan, clutching at him as he both laughs and grunts at the same time, pushing as deeply into me as he did last night. Tanner ends up snatching the edge of the heavy wood table to keep it from sliding across the floor. There's no give as he buries himself to the hilt, nosing my throat and that bite mark that blooms with petals of pleasure every single time he touches it.

Does that mean ... Marlowe bit my mouth. Brooks bit my fucking boob. Not that I'll ever get the chance to find out, but hopefully the wounds heal up and they're not like, laced with magic or anything.

Tanner pushes himself even harder against me, trying to hold the table in place but growing frustrated that he only has one hand left to touch me. He leans back and our eyes meet as he caresses my waist, slides his palm over my breast, tangles his fingers in my hair.

"Fuck this stupid shit," he grumbles after a moment, and then he's hauling me into his harms and kicking the table across the room. It slides across the floor with an agonizing scratch of the wood legs on those beautiful polished floors.

Tanner takes us to the ground and puts me on my back, shoving my knees open so that I'm spread nice and wide around him. When he rocks his hips, I'm so lost to the sensations that I forget to be embarrassed by Brooks' presence.

What the hell is this, Kate? You're not the kinky one in your friend group—that's Fernanda's job.

When Tanner starts to move, my thoughts are knocked loose from my head. I'm the type to get lost in thoughts, to bury myself so deeply inside my own brain that I have trouble getting off. With a man. By myself. Doesn't matter. My problem is that I think too much.

Tanner doesn't let me think at all.

He takes that imperfectly beautiful mouth to my neck, licking and sucking and biting. The design on my chest still hurts, but I like the rough brush of his body against it anyway as he drives into me. It's clear that he likes to go deep, deep, deep. Likes to sit there as he lavishes my body with the pleasure of his tongue, one hand braced on the floor while the other slips a big thumb over my furled nipple.

I usually don't like my nipples touched. Too sensitive. Last night, everything was heady and wild and strange, so it worked. Today? I ... Tanner draws his thumb back, circling the soft pale pink of my areola, teasing the edges.

"My God, you're high-strung, aren't you?" he murmurs, tracing his thumb down to stroke my rib cage underneath my breast. That smile of his twists a little more, into something that's so disturbingly wicked that my breath catches.

"High-strung?" I repeat, taking offense. Tanner snatches my wrists and pins them together over my stomach, like I'm in handcuffs. His fingers are long enough to hold them both together and still touch.

"Mm. Relax. You want me to take control, but you have no idea how to do that." He leans closer and puts his mouth near my ear. "Don't worry, North. I won't hurt you." A pause. "Don't worry, Kate. I take care of my own."

My own. Shit. I struggle for a moment, but unless Tanner lets me go, I'm not leaving. Do I tell him to get off? What if I do, and he doesn't listen?

"If I asked you to get off of me, would you?" I whisper, but he just keeps smiling.

"You don't want me to get off though, do you, Kate?" Tanner murmurs, putting his other hand on the side of my neck. He uses his thumb to stroke my racing pulse. "Shh, just relax. Relax for me, North." As he whispers to me in that gruff voice of his, as he pets me, I can feel power shifting from his body into mine.

Magic.

It's an electric current from him to me, lighting me up from the inside out. My skin starts to glow, and the design on my chest flickers with silver fire. The ink in my skin twists and moves, a living thing burned into my flesh, a little piece of the Witchwoods that I can never extricate.

With a massive exhale, I let it all go and collapse into the floor underneath him.

"There we go, North. You've got this baby. I'll make you feel good, so don't stress." Tanner releases one of my wrists and uses the other to draw my hand down to where we're joined, positioning my fingers on my own clit.

When he adjusts himself, he keeps that one hand on my neck, puts the other on the floor and raises his body just enough that I can rub my clit without the weight of him on it. Tanner watches my face as he thrusts into me, adjusting his rhythm and his speed until I'm gasping for breath, frantically rubbing myself toward an orgasm.

"There's no rush. Take your time." Once again, Tanner takes my wrist, slowing me down but keeping the same pattern, the same pressure that I was applying before.

"There is a rush. Do not take your time." Pretty sure that's Brooks, but Tanner gives him such a nasty look that I don't worry about it. He's got it handled. "You're doing such a good job, Katelynn." The sound of my full name on his lips has my back arching with pleasure. "You feel so good on my cock, nice and tight and bearing down. I love that. I love the way you pulse around me when I say your name."

I close my eyes, but then I realize that I'm missing the expression on his face. While his words are nice, almost tender, the look in his eyes certainly is not. Yeah, this was a bad idea. I am giving him the wrong impression.

Don't care.

I put one hand on his shoulder, kneading the strong muscles there. He's a woodsman, that's for sure. Scarred and strong. More than that with the way he's glowing too, a green fire taking over the design on his chest. His ink twists and writhes as much as mine does, vines flowing and runes cascading.

Not a woodsman—a witch.

"Oh yeah, right there," Tanner moans, stroking my wrist as I pinch my clit between my fingers. "When you touch yourself like that, you constrict around me. Do it again. Make yourself come for me."

Because I'm not thinking about it, because he's pulled me out of the mess inside my head, it happens. I'm almost shocked by it because it's never been this easy for me. I gasp and choke on my own breaths, my fingers faltering on my clit as I lose control of my fine motor skills.

Tanner sneaks his own hand down, and he's already seemed to memorize exactly what I like.

"I'm gonna come, I'm ... I'm coming," I grab onto Tanner's shoulders and cling on for dear life, arching my back and pressing my hips into his.

"Yes, please," he growls at me, laughing as I climax with his body forcing its way through tight, pulsing muscles and my unconsciously thrashing form. He accepts the little glass vial from Brooks' outstretched hand and then carefully tips it against my lips. My breath fogs the inside as my eyes roll back from the toe-curling sensation of his cock pounding into me.

I wind tighter, tighter, tighter, and then I unravel completely beneath him, letting out a sob as a wash of relief and satisfaction sweeps over me. My body unclenches, giving Tanner the room to fuck himself to his own orgasm.

He finishes with his toes digging into the floor, every ounce of his strength focused on pushing his body as deeply into mine as he can get it. And then he corks the vial and sets it aside, panting as he captures my face between his huge hands.

"You're so good, Kate," he breathes, eyes shining even as the glow in both his body and mine fades away along with our slowing heartbeats. "We're lucky men to have a woman like you in our coven."

I don't have a response for that. I don't have a response for anything. I throw an arm across my forehead with a groan, panting and wondering why my ex, Nathan, was never this good. Never.

There's just something about sexy, sweaty sex with a stranger, right? I tell myself, but that isn't true. I've never had sexy, sweaty sex with a stranger. Until now.

And that ritual from last night? It ended up being more than just a necessary item on my checklist of getting home. I pretend like that's not the case. Escaping the Witchwoods is my only focus. I'll worry about this coven stuff later.

Tanner moves my arm away from my face just as Marlowe reenters the room, pausing in the doorway to stare at us.

His eyes flash—literally flash —and he turns away sharply, putting his hand up to his face.

"First Dennis and now this?" is what I think he says, but I'm still naked and lying underneath Tanner. He's holding my wrist above my head and studying my expression. My cheeks heat which is a bit of a strange reaction after the fact.

I clear my throat.

"Could you ... move?" I ask, and Brooks makes a sound of annoyance from somewhere in the room.

"Really, could you, Tanner? For fuck's sake. We've got the pleasured breath now, but we need moss, fern fronds, a slug, a fresh kill, and a corpse pumpkin." Brooks moves over to the doorway that Marlowe just exited and disappears into it.

Tanner stays where he is. Brooks might have started the coven, might've been here first, but I'm not sure that Tanner respects authority very well.

Or at all.

"I'm possessive," is what he says to me, and then his mouth takes a wicked crescent shape that reminds me of the moon. "A cuddler, if you will. I know it's hard to believe, given this gruff exterior." His eyes narrow slightly, and I shift upward to get away from him.

He lets me move, but only a little, rising up to all fours above me and staring down as I try to slide my body across the floor and between his palms.

"So you're clingy then? No thanks. I'm not a cuddler, sorry," I tell him, but that isn't true at all. I am. Nathan never was, so it's more like an I think I'm a cuddler sort of thing. I've never really had the chance to try it out.

"We can fix that." Tanner moves forward, keeping me underneath him. He never lets me get far enough away to close my thighs, using his body to ensure they stay nice and wide. His mouth twitches in amusement. "We will fix that."

"Get away from me." I use my heels to shove backward, scrambling out from underneath him as he laughs and sits back, rubbing his hand over his chin.

"You know the deal," he murmurs as I crawl over to the discarded robe and snatch it up, yanking it over my shoulders as my face blazes with heat. Why did I just do that? Um. Because he's gorgeous. Because he's fit. Because he's huge. Pretty eyes, beautiful hair, perfect cock. Why wouldn't I?

This is going to make things hard when we get back home.

If. If we get back home.

Marlowe is sitting in a chair at the table, head in his hands, eyes closed.

I wait for Tanner to get to his feet, scarred and inked and naked and supernaturally cocky.

"I'd rather you walked around all day with my cum inside of you, but I guess that's a treat for another day. I'll show you to the bathroom." He holds out his arm, but I shy away from it, and he laughs. "Look at you. Already figured out my tricks."

"I need to pee," I tell him, hoping to douse some of the fire in his eyes. Doesn't work.

Tanner is completely confident in his nudity which isn't much of a surprise. There's nothing on display that a person wouldn't be confident about—exceedingly so. I pause once at the doorway to glance back at Marlowe, surprised to find him staring at me, too.

If he weren't the one directly responsible for my being here, I might've apologized to him. Offered some sort of comfort. As it is, I just wait there to see if he has something to say.

"At least tell me that my dog ..." he starts, and then it's like he doesn't have the energy to finish his question. I suppose it's one thing to know that a month passes back home for every day lived here, but it's another to face the reality. It's been twenty years since Marlowe left. His life as he knew it is over.

"I know all about your dog," I admit, even though I should rightfully tell him to piss off. "Fly, right?" He nods, but he's staring at the surface of the table instead of at me. "Miriam and Dennis adopted her after you left. She lived with them until she was seventeen years old, passed away peacefully, and her ashes were scattered at the base of the Witch's Tree during your candlelight vigil."

Marlowe shoves up from the chair and stomps past me, raking the fingers of both hands through his hair. He says nothing, shouldering past Tanner to get down a set of spiral stairs with a bannister that's carved with extraordinarily detailed cats.

I pause at the top to brush a thumb over a tabby cat that stands vigil on the newel post.

Ebon lands on Tanner's bare shoulder, turning her head completely around to stare at me. She has one normal set of eyes, and then two smaller ascending sets that climb diagonally up her sleek forehead. I dig out a nut that I hid in the pocket of my robe, offering it to her.

Tanner lifts that fancy brow of his again, but doesn't comment on it.

"You sure know a hell of a lot about the Witchwoods," he remarks instead, waiting to descend the steps until I follow him. I got the idea that he was the quiet, brooding type, but maybe he was just taking my measure.

Taking and taking and taking my measure, I think, and exhale to push the feelings aside. It's not like I'm unaware that his seed is dripping out of me.

"My grandmother visited the Witchwoods once and came back. Said it was the single most beautiful moment of her life—even over giving birth to my mom." I finish my descent down the stairs, finding a reading nook on my right with two cozy velvet armchairs and a scattering of books on a small table with clawed feet. On my left, there's a curved hallway that looks like it follows the shape of the tree trunk walls upstairs.

"When was that?" Tanner asks, like he's racking his memory for something. He has a rough voice, a rolling purr with the sprinkle of a growl. I study his broad back, trying to summon up the missing picture of him with curly hair and a hideous outfit. The math just isn't mathing.

"Eighteen years ago, so—" I try to do the calculations in my head, but Tanner beats me to it. Eighteen years ago times twelve days per year ...

"Seven months ago. Yeah, okay, I remember her." He turns over his shoulder, raising a brow as if asking why I'm so far behind him. I ease closer, but keep my distance, careful not to touch him again. "Oh come on, Kate. You're not skittish, so why act like it?"

"No, I'm not skittish, you're right. I just don't want to touch you." I make myself smile back at him, but it's tight. "You saw my grandma, huh? Didn't assault her for whatever reason?"

"Older lady with long, silver hair and a mustard-colored skirt. Lots of flower tattoos." My heart clenches as Tanner describes my grandmother to a T. I nod. "She was Southwoods. Lucky her." His gaze skips over me, but the fur robe I'm wearing doesn't show much. "Lucky us, too."

I scoff at him and shake my head, but he just keeps walking, past several doors that I'm itching to explore but know that I won't get the chance to.

Southwoods. Is that the official title of a South? My grandma had the same magic as Brooks?

"Your grandma visited the Witchwoods, told you stories, made you want to see for yourself, huh?" Tanner laughs at that as the hallway curves even more, leading us nearly in a circle. When we come around the bend, I see the mouth of a cave at the end of the hallway, the entrance strung with vines and flowers and bones dangling from ropes. "Wish my story was as whimsical. My friends and I got drunk, and someone dared me to stick my hand in the tree."

Tanner continues on into the cave without pausing, so I do the same, my feet finding a sturdy wooden platform that leads to the edge of an underground stream.

"I knew that already," I tell him with a shrug, pausing on the platform and looking around for a toilet. There has to be a toilet around here, right? I have to pee so bad. Worse than that, I sort of have to ... well, I can wait until I get home for that. "Brooks was looking for someone, and Marlowe was trying to make a YouTube video."

"Can you stop with that?" Marlowe growls, stalking up to me in a robe not dissimilar to the one I'm wearing. "It's creepy as hell. You've memorized the details of our lives like they're just trivia facts."

"If you hadn't trapped me here, I might say that you had a point. As of right now, I don't care what you think. Yes, I know more about your families' lives than you do. But whose fault is that? How did you end up in the Witchwoods? Like, why did you talk?" I cross my arms, and I don't even care if Marlowe was trapped here by Brooks or Tanner. He did the same to me, so fuck him.

"Me?" he asks, and then he laughs. And laughs. And laughs some more. He's doubled over, tears pooling at the edges of his eyes. "Let me tell you: Tanner beat the fuck out of me until I begged for mercy. Begged, sweetheart. So what if I shoved my fingers in your hungry, little cunt? You got off easy. "

I throw an elbow into his face, but he catches it, jerks my arm around to my lower back and slams me face-first into the wall.

"You think this is bad for you , do you?" Lo whispers, putting his mouth beside my ear. "You'll only miss a month or two of your life, your friends, your family. I came here having no fucking idea when I would get out. Twenty years have come and gone. Twenty years. "

"Hands off my fucking woman, Lo," Tanner demands, and he's right there, untangling me from that mess and shoving Marlowe back a few steps. The two men look to be on the verge of a full-on brawl.

"Your woman?" I shiver in disgust. "I know you went missing in the eighties, but there've been some changes in society you might want to research when we get back."

"I don't care what society says," Tanner replies, his cool anger dissipating in an instant. Can't say the same for Marlowe. He looks the type to hold a grudge. Tanner throws a hot look over his shoulder, one that clamps my entire body in a vise-grip. "A man and a woman, that's primal. Ancient. I don't care if we're flying cars in the year five-thousand. This shit is instinctual."

I choke on a disbelieving laugh.

I'm trapped in the Witchwoods with three overbearing dickheads. Why not a coven of fearless women? Because they would never have doomed you to share their fate, that's why. I sigh, but I don't argue. Doesn't matter. My relationship with these men ends when we get home.

Brooks makes a sound of disgust from the direction of the stream.

"You're all so determined to waste time that it's fucking mind-boggling. My God. North, take your robe off and get in the water, so I can consecrate you."

I'm red all over with embarrassment. I'm not a ninja, but it sure seems like Marlowe is. He cracks his knuckles and sneers at me. I fucking hate him. I hate him so much that I wish I didn't want to go home, so that I could forgo the spell and trap him here forever.

"Consecrate me?" I look around again, at the gnarled roots hanging from the ceiling, the constant drip-drip of cool water, the conspicuous curtain of vines in the corner that has to be a toilet. Salamanders in rainbow colors skitter up the wall, and a fat-bodied frog sits on a rock. No, not a frog ... a toad. "Can I just fucking pee first?"

I make my way over to the curtain and fling it back, finding a little wooden toilet that disappears into the bowels of the earth. It's like a pit toilet without the nasty smell. My bladder shrieks in excitement at the sight, and I disappear behind the curtain, swinging it shut and taking a seat before I realize that there's no toilet paper.

Of course there isn't; we're in the woods.

"Um, what's the wiping situation like?" I ask, hating that I even have to bring up the question. I don't see any conveniently placed leaves or anything back here.

"Marlowe will take care of that for you," Brooks calls back, and I let out a small scream as ice-cold water strikes my tender pussy. Instead of a bidet, it's witch water magic. Another burst of water smacks me, and I fly up off the toilet to my feet, yanking the robe tightly around me before I skirt the curtain to glare at him.

He isn't looking at me, lounging on a bench in the corner with a tight jaw and narrowed eyes.

"Consecration, now." Brooks snaps his fingers which only makes me want to drag my feet. He notices right away, raking those poison ivy eyes of his over my body before bringing them to rest on my face. "Or not. You know what? I don't give a fuck if we stay another night. Take your time, North."

"Are you sure you can hack it in the regular world? The three of you seem to have devolved during your time here. I find it hard to believe you ever talked like that to people back home." I move over to the edge of the wooden platform to find that Brooks is naked in the stream and waiting. Tanner comes up behind me and slips past, close enough that I can feel his heat but without breaking our little 'deal'.

"Don't I at least deserve privacy to bathe?" I ask, but Brooks just flares his nostrils and shakes a little glass bottle at me.

"No." Great. Another complete sentence.

My cheeks are still flushed from my confrontation with Marlowe as I drop the robe on the ground and ease my way into the water. I expected it to be cold, but it's not. It's honestly the perfect temperature, nice and steamy and hot.

I quickly submerge myself to hide my body, pausing beside Brooks so that he can dump the oil in the bottle onto his hands. His expression is disturbingly neutral as he spreads the golden liquid across my chest. I have to clench my jaw against the pain, even if his touch is relatively light, perfunctory. Nothing at all like last night when he was an unhinged animal in the woods.

Without a word, Brooks grabs a handful of my hair and dunks me under the water.

And there's his dick, right there in my goddamn face.

I'm just barely able to keep water from rushing up my nose, and I come up sputtering.

"What the hell is wrong with all of you?" I growl at him, but he doesn't seem to understand what he's done wrong. " Tell me what's going to happen before it happens! "

"You are in us, and we are in you," Brooks intones mechanically, like he has to say the words but doesn't mean them. I can feel the wound on my chest itching horribly, like it's knitting itself back together.

"You are in us, and we were definitely in you," Tanner adds from behind me, and I look back to see him washing his body with his eyes on me. I turn back to Brooks, reaching up to push wet hair from my forehead.

"You are in us, and we are in you." That from Marlowe. He sounds like he's spitting the words.

"Say it," Brooks commands, waiting in the water with his arms crossed. I look past him to the wooden grates on the wall. He follows my gaze and then turns back to me. "We learned real quick after someone got swept into the underwater cave that we should install grates. Now, say it. You are in me, and I am in all of you. "

Swept into an underwater cave? My God.

"You are in me, and I am in all of you," I repeat, suddenly wary of the stream I'm standing in. Guess the guys were right: everything in the Witchwoods is trying to kill you.

"Blessed fucking be," Brooks mutters, and then he's moving around me and out of the water. Tanner rinses the soap from his body and follows after him.

I make my way over to his spot beside the platform, reaching down to pick up the bar of soap from its little wooden tray. I'm trying to cover my breasts with one arm, but the rest of me is still exposed. I pretend like I don't notice Tanner watching.

He's the only one that seems to care that I'm naked and for some reason, that really, really bothers me. They both fucked me last night, too, didn't they? When I think about it, my feelings for them shift oddly in my chest, like they're more than just strangers. It's ridiculous, a waste of energy. I shove those emotions aside.

And then the water goes ice-cold in an instant, and I gasp in shock, chilled to the bone in seconds.

"Oops," Marlowe says, pausing near the end of the platform as he stares down at me. A horrible smile tilts his lips. "My bad. I'm the one who keeps the water warm while we bathe, but I guess I got complacent."

"Petty and pathetic," Brooks adds, walking right up to Marlowe, snagging him around the waist, and chucking him into the icy water alongside me while Tanner howls with laughter.

The water goes warm as fast as it went cold, and Lo comes to the surface, his fur robe floating around him. He shoves it off his shoulders, and I watch in horror as it's sucked between the slates of the wooden grate. Yikes.

Marlowe doesn't move, naked and vibrating with rage just a few inches from me.

"Were you raised in a barn? You don't treat a lady like that," Brooks grumbles, as if he didn't shove my head underwater for a view of his dick. I suppose he thinks it's different somehow when it has to do with magic or spells. Well, fuck him. Fuck Marlowe. Fuck all three of them.

My brain chimes in unhelpfully: yeah, like you did last night? Ouch.

"Need help washing all that cum off?" is what Marlowe says to me, under his breath to keep Tanner and Brooks from hearing it. He turns those dark eyes my way.

"Need help finding Miriam when we get out of here? The Internet was sort of basic when you disappeared; it's different now. I can help you contact her and buy you some My Chemical Romance tickets." I pause, tapping my chin with a finger. "Actually, never mind. I think I'll just leave you in the park alone with no money, no ID, and no girlfriend."

Marlowe sweeps his hair back from his face with both of his inked hands.

"You don't get it, do you? You're a part of the coven now, Kate. There's no escaping us." He smirks at me, letting his gaze drop to my breasts before returning it to my face. "Nice tits, by the way."

He storms out of the water, leaving violent wakes behind him that have me struggling to keep my feet. I wait it out, watching as he disappears from the room. Brooks and Tanner are drying themselves off, unconcerned with their own nudity.

I turn away and wade deeper into the water, trying to surreptitiously clean myself.

"Need help washing that pussy, baby?" Tanner asks, and he is right fucking behind me. I whirl around in a spray of water, slapping him in the face with my hair. Um. So that's grown out a bit. More than just a bit—like several inches. The Witchwoods are changing me just like they changed the men.

The smile on Tanner's face is its own heat source, warming my skin and ... other parts.

"I'm just fine, thanks." I give him a quippy response and a roll of my eyes, but then I trip and he reaches out to catch my elbow.

Our eyes meet.

"I said if you touched me , I'd fuck you," he reminds me, letting go of my elbow. "I'm a man of my word."

Tanner releases me, but he doesn't go anywhere. I can feel his gaze on my naked skin, tracking up from my half-submerged hips all the way to the crown of my head. Absorbing. Memorizing. Appreciating.

"Get your ass out of there," Brooks demands from the edge of the wooden platform. "Were you raised in a fucking barn, too?"

Tanner's smile is unapologetic, and I mentally kick myself for fucking him this morning.

"Am I an animal, is that what you're asking?" Tanner tilts his head to look at Brooks, but I can see that he has zero intention of leaving me alone to bathe in peace. As soon as we get home, I should run from these men. They can't know my address. I shouldn't have even told them my name. "Because if so, then the answer is yes. "

I can feel the tension between Brooks and Tanner. Frankly, I'm not interested in getting involved with any of it. I rush out of the water and snatch a towel that isn't really a towel at all. It's some sort of soft suede-like material that I wrap around myself as quickly as I can.

"Not on my watch you're not," Brooks tells him, cracking his knuckles. "We do what we have to do, I get that. But there's no need to turn this into something it's not. Unless this woman wants your attention, leave her the fuck alone."

"Didn't you hear what I said? Unless she touches me, I won't touch her." Tanner shrugs, following me and pausing on my left side. Brooks is on my right. It's far too warm between the two of them, and I'm acutely aware that they're nude, I'm nude, and we're in a lawless place.

Whatever they wanted to do with me, they could do it with zero repercussions.

They could try. The knife that Tanner gave me earlier is in the pocket of my discarded robe; I could have it in my hand in seconds. How did my birthday gift to myself turn into such a nightmare?

"If you fuck this spell up, I'll cut your dick off." With that threat dropped, Brooks stalks off to follow Marlowe, rivulets of water clinging to the strong muscles in his back and the taut shape of his ass.

Tanner drops his head, like he's acquiescing to Brooks' demands. When he scrubs his hand over his jaw and snorts, I can see that's far from the case.

"He wouldn't dare: he needs my dick to escape this place." I have no idea what Tanner means unless ... today's spell is similar to the one we performed last night. His silver-blue eyes return to mine, and he licks his lips. "Brooks and Marlowe aside, this is the best damn day I've had since I found myself trapped in this hellhole."

"Because you finally get to leave?" I ask, trying to redirect the conversation to what's important.

Tanner offers me a feral look and sweeps his fingers through his blond-and-black hair. It's darker now that it's wet, falling across his forehead in these enticing little waves.

"Because you barely washed. Guess you will be wearing my cum for the rest of the day." He chucks my chin with his fingers, and I jerk away from him, clenching my hands into fists. He notices and smirks at me, lifting his hand for Ebon. Her, I like. Him, not so much. "Last chance: you sure you don't want help cleaning up?"

"Just stay away from me." I take off through the mouth of the cave, down the curved hallway, and up the stairs to the main living area.

There's already a set of clothes waiting for me on the table.

"Get dressed," Brooks says without even glancing my way. Marlowe is already fully dressed in the outfit I saw him in yesterday: leather pants, long-sleeved black jacket with feather and fur trim, boots with bones sewn into the thick hide, metal face mask.

I turn to my outfit and find that my leather pants—the ones I shirked last night to have animalistic forest sex with a bunch of strangers—are in the stack. Someone—probably Marlowe—must've gone outside to retrieve them.

He tugs his mask down when he sees me staring at him.

"Hurry up," he growls at me, and I clench my fists twice as hard as I did for Tanner. "When we get back, you can fuck Tanner day in and day out for all I give a shit. I want to go home. "

"After twenty years?" I retort with a cold laugh that isn't me. I'm not that person. I swear, I'm really not. Something about Marlowe brings it out of me. "You don't have a home to go back to, so don't kid yourself."

I turn away from him, close my eyes, and take a deep breath.

Drop my towel to the floor.

Quickly dress myself.

The faster I do this, the faster I leave, the faster I get home.

It feels like with every passing second, the Witchwoods gets deeper into my blood. Changing my hair. Changing my skin. Changing my heart.

If I stay any longer, I'll end up like the feral men in this room with me.

And I can't. I won't. I refuse to do that.