Chapter 9

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Everything is different when I open my eyes on this particular morning.

The despair is gone and in its place, I have a naked young woman snoring on my lap and drooling on my dick. My fingers sweep through her hair as I yawn and blink my way back to consciousness, exhausted from the ritual last night but satisfied that we've finally completed our fucking coven.

I knew we'd find ourselves a wife, but a woman as beautiful as this? What a lucky break. I wet my lips and try to push back the urge to roll her onto her back and mount her. Better yet, I could just shove my dick in her mouth and wake her up that way. She's already drooled all the hell over it.

I don't do anything but sit there, undoing her braid and combing her hair with my fingers.

"Just because she's in the coven doesn't mean she's going to like you," Brooks offers, sitting up and swiping his arm across his dirty, bloodstained mouth. "If being in the coven meant liking one another, the three of us would be best friends."

"I don't give a fuck if she likes me," I state plainly, and Brooks gives his most broken, degrading laugh, the one that used to send us both into fistfights when we were the only ones living in this cottage. Marlowe helped a lot, but he didn't fix everything.

Maybe this woman will fix it all for us?

"Sure thing." Brooks leans back against the wall, closing his eyes and throwing his arm across his bent knee. His other leg is extended out, toes nearly touching North's plump, white ass. I almost growl, but I know that I have to share. My nostrils flare as I exhale. "I can't believe we pulled that off."

"Maybe we should take a rest day and do the other spell tomorrow?" My suggestion is met with Brooks' wide eyes and wild, angry stare. I'm not sure why he cares so much. We've both been in here long enough that our lives are ruined, that our friends and family are decrepit or dead. Even if anyone we knew is still alive, they won't believe the young faces and bullshit stories that we might give them in explanation for our absence.

Not to mention the physical changes. The muscles. The scars. The tattoos. The hair. The eyes. Our bodies have been consumed by the Witchwoods, chewed up, and spit back out looking entirely different than when they went in. If I hadn't been trapped here for forty years, I might've enjoyed that part of the deal.

I toy with North's hair, that coppery orange-brown flushed with new color, orange as a pumpkin. Underneath, she's got a layer of raven-black hair. I'm curious to see what her hazel eyes will look like now that the spell is complete.

She exhales and mews softly in her sleep, and her lips brush my already hard cock. The urge to take her mouth is there, but I know better. She's the type that might wake up by clamping her teeth down tight.

I grin because I love that sort of fire in a woman.

"If North has a house and money and a job, she might still have those things if she's only gone for thirty days. If we turn her into a social pariah like the rest of us, where are we going to live? How are we going to get by?" Brooks shoves up to his feet with a scowl directed down at me, one that he quickly smooths over because he's the 'leader' and has to act like it.

I wish I could blame him for trapping me in the Witchwoods, the way Marlowe blames me. The way that Katelynn is certain to blame Marlowe. But it's not entirely Brooks' fault. I saw him first. I approached him. It was my mistake, and that one stupid decision cost me my life, whatever it was worth.

I had nothing until she showed up here.

Now that I have Katelynn, I'm not letting her out of my sight. From this moment on, she's mine for no other reason than an accident. She chose to test the legend on a moonless night. She ran by chance into Marlowe. Her blood sings with the power of the northwoods, and our coven was missing a witch with that very power.

Coincidence, timing, and circumstance.

With a groan, she comes to only to realize that my rigid cock is in her face.

"What the fuck?" Katelynn sits up suddenly, doing her best to scramble away from me. It's so easy to capture that nipped waist with my arm, to drag her close until her breasts are slamming into my naked chest. She doesn't fight me, not at first, eyes darting around the room as she struggles to get her bearings.

Waking up in the Witchwoods isn't like waking up back home. Morning cobwebs are like nets that drag and bind, a weighted creakiness to the limbs, a disorientation and the strange realization that an entire month has gone by since you closed your eyes.

It's fucking hell, and it never gets easier.

Katelynn goes stiff and still in my arms, her eyes drifting from the scabbed wound on my chest to the one on hers. To the ink in her arms that marks us all as belonging to one coven. Then the reality of what happened last night dawns on her and I see her eyes widen.

Oh, shit yes. I wondered what would happen to that gold-flecked gray when the magic took hold, and I'm pleased to see that her irises are now split in half. Silver on the left side, gold on the right. Fucking stunning. The coloring works well with her orange and black hair, a change she hasn't yet registered amongst everything else.

The sticky evidence of last night's couplings is all over my thigh, but a man can't live in the Witchwoods for long if he's easily squeamish or grossed out. We're covered in toad blood, in each other's blood, in saliva and cum. It's just the way things are here. The Witchwoods don't give a fuck about anyone's feelings.

Katelynn—I like the idea of calling her Kate—stares into my eyes for long moments before she tries to extricate herself. It's useless. She's not going anywhere unless I let her go.

"What the fuck?" she repeats, and I offer a tight smile.

"Give yourself some time to get used to the sensations. Don't rush it." I let her go because I want to see if she'll take my advice. She doesn't. She stands up too quickly, stumbles, and ends up falling against the door with a groan, legs shaking like a kirin foal.

I cross my arms as Marlowe lies slumped on the foyer floor beside me, snoring softly.

Kate is naked and glorious, her skin dirt-streaked and blood-spattered. She looks like the wild thing she was last night, rubbing her plump ass against me and begging wordlessly for my cock. It was obscene, and I liked every second of it. I loved it. Not only have I been unwillingly celibate since I got here, but I haven't even seen a woman my age. I'm hungry, and I'm not afraid to admit it. Tack on last night's ritual? On the fact that we're part of the same coven?

An obsession has taken hold of me, and I don't intend to fight it.

Kate is mine.

So I meant what I said to Brooks: I really and truly do not care if she likes me. We're stuck with each other.

I stand up, as naked as she is. I shed my pants after we fucked last night and now I'm regretting it. I'll have to head out and look for them after we bathe.

With a frustrated growl, Marlowe comes to like he's startled, the same way he wakes up every day. Since he hasn't been here as long as we have, he still has some of that stupid, impossible hope. Guess it isn't entirely unfounded. He might see his parents again, might see his siblings, might even see his girlfriend.

It's only been twenty years for him, after all.

"Why is waking up here everyday like the worst sort of purgatory?" he moans, head hanging down, witch hat on the floor in front of him. He snatches it up without even bothering to look back at Kate, like he's forgotten she's there.

Marlowe is down three steps before the memory crashes into him, and he whips a look over his shoulder, sucking his breath through his teeth when he sees her standing naked in her hat and bone collar, our combined cum sticky and pearly on her inner thighs. She clenches them together and covers her plump, fuck-swollen pussy with a single hand.

"What the fuck?" she repeats for the third time, gaze flicking between me and Marlowe. Brooks is long gone, starting the fire for breakfast. We'll all need to eat well if we want to have the strength to pull off yet another complicated, powerful spell on the back of the first.

"Come downstairs and I'll get you a robe," I tell her, because if she doesn't cover up, I'm going to fuck her again. She'd probably fight me on it, and I'm not a goddamn rapist. Kate belongs to me, but she'll come willingly.

I rub my hand over my mouth and then hold it out to her, thinking she might need help getting down the stairs.

"Don't touch me," she hisses, like an angry cat.

Marlowe laughs, which is a stupid thing to do. He's angry, but not at Kate—at himself. He feels like he cheated on Miriam which is dumb as hell. She's probably married with kids now, but he won't believe it until he sees it.

"Calm the hell down, North. It's not like you didn't want it last night." Marlowe starts down the stairs just in time to avoid being pegged in the back of the head with Kate's bone collar. She throws it at him with an impressive amount of force, but when she tries to lunge after him, she stumbles and would've fallen to her knees if I didn't catch her.

"Let go of me," she breathes, and I do. She ends up hitting her knees on the wood floor with a crack that makes her grit her teeth. Through sheer stubborn will, our North sits her bare ass on the steps and scoots down them one at a time, determined to do it all on her own.

Fine by me.

My type has always been mouthy, mean women. Sniveling and submission aren't sexy unless it's part of a bedroom game. My lips curve as I follow her down, drawing a fur robe from the closet, and presenting it to her.

She doesn't even look at me as she snatches it and throws it over her trembling shoulders.

But before she walks away, she pauses and then turns purposefully to stare me down.

She can sense what's going through my mind, and she doesn't like it.

"Once we get out of here, I'll never see you again," she warns, but I just smile crookedly back at her. A silverback wolf once got me in the mouth, and my smile has never been the same. That same wolf is part of the robe that she's now wearing on her shoulders. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. I don't often start fights, but I always finish them.

"Oh, sure you will, Kate. Now that I've got you, I'm never letting you go."

Her cheeks blaze, and her eyes flick over to a row of hunting knives hanging on the wall. I turn and select one with a nice grip, passing it over to her. She takes it with a look of confusion, and I wait.

"If you try to stab me, then it's a fight that you started. I'll have carte blanche to retaliate." I grin at her, and she bares her teeth at me, just like the wolf I hunted down with blood pouring from my face.

"You're assuming you'd live through the first swing," she retorts with more bravado than skill. I can see her hand trembling on the knife, and I know she has absolutely no training whatsoever. She's just a regular woman from a time period I can hardly contemplate. Marlowe's knowledge is twenty years old already, and I can barely wrap my mind around the concept of the internet let alone YouTube or Myspace or whatever.

"I'll make you a deal," I say calmly, walking toward her and not bothering to hide the stiffness of my cock. Instead, I grip the base and lean in with that same crooked smile on my face. "I won't touch you unless you touch me first. Deal?"

Kate curls her lip, stuffing the knife into the pocket of the robe and making her way over to where Marlowe is repositioning the breakfast table. She doesn't wait for him to move any chairs, grabbing one for herself and sitting down.

I wet my lips and then move to join her, unhooking the chain of my mask and setting it on the table at her elbow. She does the same with hers.

I notice that she's very, very careful not to touch me—not even by accident.

Oh, fuck yes, this is going to be fun.

North might hate me, but I like her already.

Sorry, Kate, but you're mine. You'll see.

I drag over my own chair, slump down, and wait for the drama to unfold.