Chapter 9

Marlowe

I’m sitting on the edge of our freakishly large bed, staring at an ink drawing of the Carson Mansion in an old frame. My entire life, if I needed to chill out, I’d retreat to my bedroom and remind myself how to breathe.

Now? It’s weird because this is my bedroom, but it’s not.

It’s our bedroom.

I came up here after my parents left, locked the door. Got a reprimand from Brooks at the jobsite telling me not to do that again. I turn my head to stare at the cracked door, and my lip edges up in a scowl.

Fuck. My parents. Kate asked me if I wanted to cry? Of course not.

I want to kill Tanner. Just like I wanted to kill him and Brooks for the last eight months. It’s his fault that my parents don’t know who I am. His fault that I haven’t seen my sisters. His …

Not at all his fault that my friends betrayed me. I blame him for that anyway. It’s easier that way.

It’s also easier if I don’t admit that I like it here. I don’t mind the time period. The internet doesn’t freak me out the way it does Brooks and Tanner. The magic, the coven, it’s all … exhilarating.

I rub frantically at my face and then stand up, pausing as I open the bedroom door to find the cat waiting for me. Her tail is curled around her small body, and her eyes are like a pair of yellow-green gates to the underworld.

I was never really into cats before. More of a dog person. Miriam and Dennis took my dog after I left. They took everything—including me. I became an identity, a mission, and a purpose. They stole my last name. Burrowed deep into my family.

What was Brooks saying at the cemetery? His life starts here?

It might be easi est if my life started here, too.

“Come on, cat,” I grumble, and the damn thing actually follows me down the hall, down the stairs. She hops onto the armrest of the couch as I pause to study Brooks. He’s sitting upright on one of the cushions, eyes closed, chin tilted toward his chest.

With his knees splayed and his arms folded, it looks like he’s still awake.

He’s not.

He’s asleep, a Sharpie squeaking across a piece of paper on the coffee table in front of him. The things it’s writing are nonsense (at least to me). Runes and symbols scrawled and scratched like the claw marks of an animal in the trunk of a tree. No rhyme or reason to any of it.

His shadow is curled up in a ball to his left, its antlers draped over his lap.

I turn and my shadow does the same, wings sweeping over the walls. I can sense Tanner and Kate close-by, but I’m not sure where. The closer we are, the harder it is to pinpoint exact locations. In the cemetery, when all three of them walked away from me, I knew their precise coordinates in the shape of my very bones.

Not just Kate. Not just Brooks. Tanner.

I can feel my worst enemy when he isn’t close. I crave his nearness when he walks away. I clench my teeth against the foreign sensations, invaders of emotion that I invited into me when I pledged camaraderie over a goblet filled with blood.

Kate has a drawer in the kitchen where she keeps her weed stash. I steal some of it and walk outside, taking a seat on the edge of the deck and looking out toward the woods. It was sunny today, but Eureka is finicky and it rains a lot.

I can smell the wet on the wind, water to fertilize the ground for the birth of growing things. Flame to take it all away and revitalize the earth for the next round. It’s all connected, all of this shit. Earth, fire, air, and water. North, South, East, and West.

Footsteps squelch in the muddy grass as I look up at the crescent moon. We’ve known Kate for nearly a full lunar cycle, escaping the Witchwoods on a new moon and finding ourselves a week shy of the next one.

With a weary sigh, Kate slumps down to the deck on my left. She’s got bloodstains on her face. On her plump lower lip. She licks it off by accident and then cringes, leaning forward to spit into the grass. My lip edges up on the right side.

“I can’t decide which is cuter: you being naive enough to still get grossed out at the idea of swallowing blood. Or you willingly spitting and embracing the true nature of witchcraft.” I light up the little pink pipe with the weed in it, dragging a lungful of smoke in and then struggling not to cough to death.

It’s been a while, okay? Fuck.

“I can’t decide which is cuter,” Kate replies, curving some bright orange hair behind the delicate shell of her ear. “You, with your eyes watering because you want to cough and won’t let yourself. Or you, pulling out my chair this morning like your dad did for your mom.”

I put the sleeve of my stolen hoodie against my lips, closing my eyes until the need to cough subsides. I open them again, peering out at the trees behind the house. I’m glad to be out of the Witchwoods, but I’m sort of attached to the idea of living in a forest now. I couldn’t handle a city. I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to handle a city again.

Those woods change people.

“I’d say that my dad taught me how to treat women, but that’d be doing him a disservice. He would never have condoned my actions.” I take another drag and then offer the pipe out to Kate. She accepts it, but doesn’t smoke it, sitting there in bloody overalls with an ugly mustard-colored sweater underneath.

She’s so fucking beautiful.

I can’t not look at her. I don’t seem to care about much else. Seeing my parents today was this soul-shattering thing and yet, I could handle it because I had Kate. It felt like I had her the way my parents have always had each other.

“He might not condone it, but he’d probably look the other way if he knew that was your only chance to escape and come home.” Kate plays around with the pipe, looking up at me from under long, heavy lashes. “How come you’re not asking me why I’m covered in blood?”

“Because I know Tanner, and I’m sure you were breaking down that carcass with him.” I stare into the darkness, knowing that he’s out there. Probably fucking around in the meat shed. But he’s there. He can hear us, I’m sure.

Our conversation isn’t really private. Nothing will ever really be private again. It’ll be the four of us forever. Coven isn’t a temporary state of being.

“It was a basilisk, I guess. Something like it. A lizard with six legs.” Kate passes the pipe back to me without smoking any weed. The air smells like cannabis anyway, the scent clinging to my sweatshirt. It mixes with the wet wind, churns itself up with the iron tang of blood. “I want to learn everything you guys have to teach me, and vice versa. I want to teach you how to pack a proper bowl.” She points at the pipe in my hands and I frown at her.

“There’s nothing wrong with this. I’ve been smoking weed since I was sixteen. Get over yourself, Katelynn Poppy.”

“So? That doesn’t mean you know what you’re doing.” She shrugs and turns away from me, watching a strange Witchwoods bird, like a peacock, come waltzing out of the trees. It fans its tail at us and hisses, like the cat on the railing to my right. Stix hisses back, and the bird takes off.

Ten seconds later, I hear the whiz of an arrow and a thump as the bird’s body is impaled on a nearby tree. Tanner is slick as he weaves through the shadows to retrieve the body.

“Your parents are really in love, aren’t they?” Kate asks gently, and I nod. “That must’ve been nice, growing up with that.”

“It was.” I light the pipe again and try not to let my hands tremble. Twenty years I missed out on with my parents and my sisters. Twenty years wasted. I don’t want to waste anymore of it, but I have no idea if they’ll accept me or not. Still, because of Kate, I’ll survive even if my family decides they want nothing to do with me.

“Hey,” she starts softly, but I keep going before I lose my nerve. It was hard enough to admit that I’ve fallen in love with her, knowing that she can’t love me back. She just can’t. She can love Tanner, but I am her Tanner. And if she hates me as much as I hate him, then she’s nowhere near ready to fall in love.

I wanted her to hate me, at first. Because I could never trust someone who fell for a man that did what I did to them. But here we are, and I’m salivating over it. Over Kate. I want her. I want her so fucking badly that it makes me question my sanity.

“Believe it or not, I was attractive before the Witchwoods got a hold of me. I could’ve had any girl, but I only wanted one. I never cheated on Miriam. I didn’t think about other women.” I turn to Kate, inhaling on the pipe and enjoying the way it turns orange at the end, illuminating her face in the dark. “I always wanted to be my dad, to have what he has with my mom.” I snort. “But I picked the wrong woman the first time. I’m just happy that I had the chance to get it right. Instead of twenty years in the woods, I could’ve wasted twenty years with Miriam.”

Kate is blushing again which has to be a good sign. She doesn’t blush when I tell her the dirtiest things I can think of. She flushes with pleasure. This is different. She’s genuinely embarrassed right now. Why?

“I deserve to be hated, but Kate. Fuck. I’m so in love with you.” I keep my attention on her to see what she does, and her skin goes from pink to scarlett.

Tanner appears at the worst possible moment, taking a seat on Kate’s other side. He has twice as much blood on him as she does.

“Pass that over when you’re done with it,” he murmurs, eyes half-lidded with satisfaction from a successful hunt. I understand that so much better now. If the hunt isn’t successful, then you don’t fucking eat. You starve. You sit in that cabin while the night spreads around you like a disease. You fantasize about plants that don’t bite back and animals that aren’t as hungry for you as you are for them.

“Take it.” I practically throw the pipe his way with a scowl, trying not to think about what he said upstairs the other day. We’re even? Who the hell is he to make a judgement call like that? Tanner lights up as the rain begins to fall, big fat wet drops that make Kate squinch up her face in a way that rips my heart in half.

With a low whistle, I flip those droplets around and send them backwards. Rain falls to a spot just above our heads, and then it goes right back where it came from. Falling up, all of that rain in a circle around the three of us like an invisible umbrella.

“Whoa.” Kate is wide-eyed, looking up at the silver droplets as they catch the faint light of the moon and disappear into the sky. The dog is there to bark at them, hopping in the grass and spattering mud everywhere until Tanner gives him a command to calm down.

“I’m not all piss and vinegar,” I gripe, and then Kate is throwing her arms around my waist and holding me. Snuggling into me. Why the fuck is she snuggling into me?! She nearly killed me last night with this and here she is doing it again?

I stare down at her with wide eyes and slightly spread arms, like I’m halfway to hugging her back but don’t know how. Of course I do. I had a loving family. A girlfriend. Not like Tanner who’s staring at me over Kate’s head with a detached expression that I’ve seen before.

I know he isn’t evil.

Not even if he made me believe I was going to die. Not even if he threatened my friends. Not when he and Brooks used force and violence to keep me in line.

I’ve become Tanner, so I understand him as well as anyone.

My arms go around Kate, but my eyes are still on his. He watches me hold the woman who loves him but who he doesn’t love back. I’m held by the woman I love, but who doesn’t love me back. It’s probably best that Brooks is asleep right now.

I wanted to be my dad, but Tanner wanted to be the opposite of his.

If I hug Kate, it’s because I was hugged by my mom. My dad. My sisters. Dennis. Miriam. I’ve hugged and been hugged plenty. Not Tanner though. For a second there, I pretend that he’s just my Eastwoods and not the person whose death I’ve fallen asleep fantasizing about.

“This is amazing.” Kate sits up and points skyward with a finger painted in the sigil for North, gesturing at the clouds. “Is this something I could learn? Or is it a Westwoods specific trick?”

“I have no fucking clue.” I shrug, looking over at Tanner again.

“Me either,” he admits as Kate turns to face him, holding up her hands in a T position.

“How about this spell? You sent an image of the Hag Wytch into my mind. That seems like a useful skill to have.” Kate pushes her hands forward, making the right shape for the spell but missing all of the complexities.

Tanner wraps his fingers around both of her hands, holding her there and looking down into her face with a softness I’m not sure he realizes he’s displaying. Would he actually do that in front of me, look at her like that?

“Who are you in love with?” he whispers, voice cracking, and she replies with the words I want to hear.

“I’m in love with you.” It’s that easy for her to say it like that. My heart leaps, and my breath catches. I look away, toward the woods again. My shadow is out there, moving from the trunk of one tree to the other and disappearing entirely in between.

“Alright then. I’ll teach ya.” Tanner’s mouth lifts in a playful grin as he looks from Kate to me. “Both of you. Did we ever show you how to do this one, Lo?”

Ugh. I hate it when he talks to me like I’m his friend. But today, I pretend that I don’t.

“Nope.” I sit back on my hands and watch as Tanner rises to his feet and comes to stand in front of us. I adjust the shape of our dry bubble, pushing the rain off of his hair when I should rightfully let it soak him to the bones.

“And don’t try to lie to me and pretend it involves drinking cum or spitting. I’ll know that’s total crap.” Kate is indignant, but a little breathy, too. Her braid hangs down her back, coiled on the damp wood of the deck like a snake. She’s got cute little shadow horns on either side of her head, a secret signal for the dirty little witch she is underneath this wholesome exterior.

“You’re the one that keeps bringing that stuff up. What? Develop a taste for it?” I lick my lips and she sneers at me. Good. We’re best like this, arguing back and forth.

Tanner interrupts us with the instructions.

“Bite your tongue, swallow a bit of blood, and let go of everything. This spell can only project a memory that’s weighing heavily on you. Not sure if there’s any way to change that. If there is, Brooks and I haven’t figured it out.” Tanner holds up his hands in that same timeout shape, turning to me and pushing them forward with a flash of silver fire.

My mind’s eye fills with his personal memory, with a recollection of Tanner spotting me in the woods for the first time. Finding me at the Witch’s Tree. Watching me wait for people that were never coming.

I could throw up. This is what he’s thinking about today? This shit?

“Shoot. I blinked. I think I missed it?” Kate is leaning forward and staring into my face, like she’s asking if I saw anything.

I’m breathing harder than I want to be, so I snatch up the pipe again and take another drag. Kate notices my discomfort, a gentle frown on her lips. She turns to Tanner and shifts uncomfortably on the wood planks.

“Biting your tongue hurts,” is what she says and Tanner loves that, his laughter wild and unhinged. He likes Kate more than he thinks he does, doesn’t he? Fucking honestly, it was like they were into each other the whole time. They had sex for fun on the floor of the cabin within a half hour of waking up the morning after the coven ritual.

“Yeah, well, magic ain’t cheap, kitten.” Tanner looks at me, lifting a brow, hands on his hips. His scar pulls at his mouth, reminding me of the night I ran into that girl, the one we saw at the farmer’s market. He was out there with me, watching from the woods the way he was doing in that memory he just gave me. “What’d you see?”

“Nothing,” I lie, staring at the grass in front of my boots instead of either of my coven members.

“Do me.” Kate scoots forward and points at herself. That statement is enough to catch both Tanner’s attention and mine. “Ugh, do the spell again, so I can see.”

“Why don’t you do the spell for us?” Tanner steps forward and holds out his hand. Kate hesitates briefly before reaching out to take it, letting him pull her to her feet. They switch places and Tanner sits down beside me, his leg nearly touching mine.

It’s not like it matters. We share a bed. We fuck Kate at the same time.

I should get used to this and stop torturing myself.

“Will it work on both of you at once?” she asks, and Tanner nods, copying my position by leaning back on his palms.

“As long as we’re both facing you,” he says, nodding with his chin in her direction.

Kate isn’t looking at him though. She’s looking at me.

She closes her eyes and I see her wince. Biting her tongue then? Swallowing down blood. Her own, this time, so I guess there’s no need to spit. She’s good at both things. Spitting and swallowing. I ignore the uncomfortable pressure in my pants, the way the fabric of my boxers is rubbing against my hardening cock.

Kate lifts her hands in a T, inhales, and then throws them in our direction with a flicker of green.

The image that hits me isn’t remotely what I expected.

The three of us in the hot tub. My dick in her mouth. Tanner underneath her. Brooks behind.

Tanner starts laughing as Kate’s eyes go wide and she looks between the pair of us frantically, waiting for an explanation.

“What? Oh shit. Tell me I didn’t just embarrass myself.”

Tanner can’t breathe for how hard he’s laughing, and all I can do is sit there and stare at her like the alien she is. I’ve never met anyone like Kate. She’s not a doormat by any means, but she’s sweet as hell. Sexy, too. For as much sugar as she’s got, there’s an equal dose of spice. I … she confuses me constantly, and I love it. My body flushes hot, and this possessive tenderness sweeps over me.

I want her to put her arms around me again. Everyday. All day. It’s never too much.

“Is that what you like, Kate? All of us at the same time.” My voice is low, almost a growl. It’s not intentional, but I can’t help it. I want her, and I’m okay with her knowing that.

“I … fuck.” Kate lets her head fall back and then takes a step outside my bubble, letting the rain hit her in the face on purpose. “What memory did I share with you guys?”

“Come here.” That’s me, patting my lap. She drops her chin to look at me, and Tanner isn’t laughing anymore. Not at all. He’s studying me like he’s taking notes, and I’m totally fucking okay with that.

Kate comes to me easily, plopping into my lap and putting her arm around my neck.

Also a surprise. I figured she’d pretend to put up a fuss, the way she likes.

“Marlowe, what I was trying to say this morning was this.” Kate briefly looks Tanner’s way, but then she gives me her full and undivided attention. I feel like the only man in her life when she stares at me that way. I wish I were the only man in her life. But Tanner was right about that, too, about this being our punishment. If so, I can handle it. It’s a very small price to pay. “I know what you did. I don’t forgive you. But I’m falling for you anyway.”

I choke on my feelings. I’d suffocate on them if I didn’t put Kate on her back on the wet deck, poised above her and forgetting all about the rain. It comes down hard on us, a droplet sliding down to the end of my nose before I force it all back, raining in reverse.

“You don’t have to say that just because it’s what I want to hear. I told you that I’d wait. I’m fine with waiting.”

“And just because it’s what you want to hear, that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.” Kate puts her hands on either side of my face, fingertips hot under the cool water clinging to our skin. I could dry us off in a second, but I don’t want to. I like the way it feels, both of us dewy under a rainy sky.

I turn my head to find Tanner sitting on the deck with one knee propped up, arm thrown across it.

“Care to join us?” I ask, panting little white clouds into the air. Water clings to my eyebrows, my lashes. I taste rain when I lick my lips. “Or do you just want to watch?”

Tanner is annoyed with me, but like he’s done for months, he lets it go.

I decide for once to let it go, too.

I just want to see what happens. That’s it. It’s a fucking experiment.

There’s another part of me, a secret hidden part, that wonders if Tanner could replace Dennis the way Kate replaced Miriam. Like maybe I was with all the wrong people last time, and now I can do it right.

Knowing his character, if Tanner had been with me the night I fell into the woods, he would’ve followed after seconds later. He wouldn’t have left me there. I could have a friend by my side, at my back, who shares the same values.

I would’ve died for Miriam and Dennis, but they would never have died for me. Here are people who will die for me. Not just Kate, as a woman. As a wife. But other people. A mentor in Brooks.

A friend in Tanner.

I almost choke on the blood in my mouth. I’ve just bitten my tongue by accident. I turn to Kate and stare down at her, taking her chin in my hand and tilting her head back.

Her eyes are shining as I look down at her with lips pressed tight, blood on my tongue.

“Don’t you dare,” she whispers, but I drop my head anyway, lips pressed tight. Sharp. I have a sharp mouth right now. “Marlowe.”

Kate leaves her lips parted, digging her fingernails into my arms as I spit blood into her mouth. She swallows, and we catch eyes.

The memory-sharing spell activates even without the T-shape of our hands. It’s more intense though. It’s not just me giving Kate one image or her doing the same to me, it’s both of us, feeding a stream of pictures to each other.

I see that she’s the one who drew that ink painting that hangs in our bedroom. That’s a nice memory. I see that she spotted me in the woods and viewed me the exact same way that I viewed Tanner.

Like hell.

She saw hell in my eyes.

I’m feeding her images of that snug cunt wrapped around my fingers for the first time, and the way it thrilled me in the most fucked-up way possible. I hated myself for that. I still hate myself for that, the way that I almost liked it.

I didn’t want to do it. I wouldn’t have done it. But I had to.

I had to.

If Miriam had fallen through the tree, and I’d seen that she was a North, I would’ve died trying to get her out of there. But some random stranger standing between me and freedom from a literal hell? Why not?

Kate was an adult. Kate was fair game.

And I still hate myself for doing it.

I share those memories with her, too, all of the rationalizations I made to prioritize saving myself at her expense.

“I meant what I said,” I pant, closing my eyes against her flushed face and wide eyes. “About letting you go if I saw you again, I meant that. I mean that.”

“I know,” she whispers back, and I open my eyes to see that she isn’t upset. Not really. There’s a deep hurt in her, like a scar, but she’s willing to look past it so long as I don’t make it bleed again. Little scratches are fine. Expected. But I can never, ever dig into that scar or she’ll be done with me.

I’m here on Kate’s good graces, and I know with perfect clarity that maintaining that grace is my sole and primary goal. Above all things. So I ignore Tanner when he walks up beside us, looking down at the pair of us shivering on the deck.

I steam the water, and the backyard becomes a temporary sauna. Nice and warm.

“We should go inside.” Tanner’s suggestion. “I’ve learned my lesson about doing it outdoors. Shame though. It’s more fun to fuck outside.”

He moves away, waiting inside the kitchen for us.

I rock back on my calves and offer Kate a hand. She sits up, our fingers clasped together, and we stare one another down through the steam.

“I saw Tanner beating you in one of the images,” she says, and then she kisses me gently on either cheek. Where I spit in her mouth, she holds me with kindness. I can’t handle it. I might be shaking. “It’s okay, Lo.”

“No.” I shake my head at her, pushing up to my feet and helping her the rest of the way up. I lock my fingers around her wrist. “You are not the one who should be protecting me. It’s the other way around.”

“It’s both ways, sorry to say.” She starts walking backward, pulling me along with my hand still gripping her wrist. I release her as we enter the kitchen and Kate stops to look up at Tanner.

The air gets tense.

“Upstairs?” She’s trying to sound coy. It’s cute as hell, but it’s ridiculous, too.

“Why the fuck would we walk all the way upstairs? We’re inside now. Good enough.” Tanner throws his arm out, sending all of the clean china that’s stacked on the table to the counter. The tomes, too, the ones that Brooks left in here earlier. It all flies through the air and neatly rearranges itself on either side of the sink.

Tanner picks Kate up and sets her on the edge of the table, pushing the damn thing into the cabinets so that it won’t move across the floor. He unhooks both sides of her overalls, dragging the denim down her hips. Kate lifts her ass to get it the rest of the way off and Tanner tosses both her overalls and boots aside.

She’s not wearing panties underneath.

Tanner’s focus shifts to me as he gets on his knees and pushes Kate’s legs apart. His eyes are still on mine when he puts his mouth over her pussy and causes her back to arch like she’s possessed.

Huh.

I walk up to the edge of the table, my boots loud on the squeaky clean floors. Brooks keeps this place like a military barracks. He did that at the cottage, too, but it kept us alive so Tanner and I didn’t complain much about that part. Much.

“What the fuck is this?” I ask, my voice mean. Kate loves the sound of it, leaning into my hand when I place it firmly on the side of her neck. One of my knees slides across the tabletop, bumping into her hip. The wood creaks as I lean my weight on it, dropping my face toward Kate’s. “Told ya we’d have a nice spell if I spit in your mouth.”

“You’re horrible,” she whispers, eyes half-lidded. “Kiss me.”

My shadow is all over hers, wings wrapped around it like a cocoon. The only part of hers that’s visible are her horns, peeking up top. Tanner’s shadow is buried underneath, mouth hidden in the mass of black ink that makes up our silhouettes.

“Are you sure you still want me?” I ask one more time. I have to make sure before I unleash myself on poor Kate. Once I do, I’m not sure if I’ll know how to stop.

“I want you, Marlowe.” She puts her hand on my neck, mimicking the way I’m touching her.

Our lips slam together as she moans, rocking her hips against Tanner’s face as he tongues her slit. Wonder if he can use his shadow tongue on her? He fucked her with a shadow dick, didn’t he?

I coax my own shadow over to us, my right hand sliding under the bottom of Kate’s sweatshirt and dragging it up her ribs, over her breasts until both are exposed. It’s relatively dark in here, no lights on at all, scant moonlight.

Makes me feel bold, in this cute little kitchen with its checkered curtains.

Kate is whimpering against my mouth, her witch nails scraping at the sensitive skin of my neck. I tighten my grip on hers and she calms down. But only a little. I deepen my kiss, eyes cracked to watch Kate’s face. I couldn’t do it in the woods with the Hag creeping, but I need to do it here.

I want to see what she looks like when she’s lost in me.

And even if Tanner is between her legs right now, Kate’s mine. I have her captured here, and I love it. My parents would be so disappointed in me.

Yeah, I still want to mow her lawn and pull out her chair at dinner.

But then at the end of the day, I want to do this.

I undo my pants and force Kate’s hand down to my cock. She makes a bright sound, dragging her hand away and shoving it between her legs. Tanner comes up for air as Kate rubs herself frantically with her palm and then wraps her fingers around my erection again.

She’s all wet and slippery. From her own arousal. From … Tanner.

I ignore that, kissing her as she pumps my cock and I use my shadow’s hands to push her tits together. I swing my right leg over Kate’s spread thighs, straddling her with no problem. The wood table groans under my weight, but doesn’t give. I’m on my knees, spread wide against my half-naked wife with my dripping cock between us.

I tug my hoodie up and bite down on it, mumbling around the fabric as I stare down at Kate.

“Use your tits on me,” I tell her, and then I slide my erection between those full mounds. Ah, shit. She’s so goddamn soft, I could die. I could blow my load right here on her face, but then it’d all be over and I don’t want that.

My right hand digs into Kate’s hair, holding her in place as my shadow keeps those tits squashed tight. There’s a narrow channel there between them, silky soft skin on either side of my dick as my weepy crown crests those white hills. Kate’s nipples are taut and pink and cock-eyed. My shadow is squeezing her with long, articulated fingers, pressing divots into her giving flesh.

“I need more than that,” Tanner grumbles, standing up behind me. He’s pressed closer than I want, his hands on either side of me, gripping Kate’s hips. His front is crushed to my back, but it doesn’t matter because I’ve got Kate flicking her tongue out and tasting me with each upward thrust of my hips.

Kate’s eyes widen as Tanner presses forward, dragging her pelvis between my spread thighs and taking her with an agonizing slowness that tells me maybe he isn’t inside her pussy.

“It’s so tight back there,” Kate murmurs, clutching at my sides, fingers sliding across my rib cage as she looks up at me. I keep my hand on her head, locking her in place with my shadow curled behind her. It looks like she’s the one with wings tonight. “You’re so fucking hot,” she whispers, and I get goose bumps. “I like you this way, Marlowe. I love it.”

“Christ.” I tilt my head back, letting my eyes fall half-lidded. Kate spits on my dick to keep me lubed up and then takes over holding her own breasts for me, pressing them together with her hands for me to enjoy.

It’s wet and messy and you can hear it in that kitchen.

“I bet that feels real fucking good,” Tanner growls, talking for Kate. She moans at the sound of his words, rocking her body into him. I feel it all, the way she wiggles her pelvis, the force of him slamming his hips into her. “Me in your ass and Marlowe destroying your tits.”

“I need something in my pussy,” Kate moans, shameless in asking for what she wants. I love that about her.

“Lo will have to take care of that for you. Me and your ass, we have a reckoning that needs completing. I should’ve filled this hole with my cum right there in the front yard, let the robot get that shit on camera.” Tanner is vicious, like he’s any better than me or Brooks when it comes to Kate. Self-righteous dick.

Kate lets out a throaty, husky moan, accepting my thumb when I slide it into her mouth. She sucks on it, looking up at me and meeting my eyes.

“He can fill you and give you back to me. I’ll fuck that hungry pussy for you, Kate. Do you think his cum will drip out as I screw you into this table?” I slide my thumb from her lips with a pop, so that she can answer.

“Just make sure you clean it up and put it in a jar when you’re done.” Brooks is to my right, pressing a button on the coffee pot. He barely looks at the three of us. “Good for spellwork.”

He leaves the room, but his antlered shadow stays to watch.

Tanner is breathing hard behind me, like he’s close.

“Here, baby. Get your clit.” Tanner reaches around and takes Kate’s breast in his hand, freeing hers so that she can reach down and pleasure herself with her fingers. I don’t stop what I’m not doing, not even when Kate loses control and comes apart with Tanner. He waits for her to climax, that sexy body a trembling mess underneath me. Then he finishes, and the table creaks as it’s slammed into the wall. “Well, fuck.”

Tanner steps away from Kate, making her groan again. He releases her breast, and I force her hand off the other side. I drop down between her legs, my boots loud on the floor. Tanner is there to take hold of her face, leaning in to kiss her as I fist my cock and rub the tip against her pussy before finding the slickness of her hole.

My hips punch forward and Kate screams into Tanner’s mouth, clinging to his shoulder as I take hold of her waist. I’m driving into her as Tanner occupies her mouth, cleaning me off her lips and teeth. He does that until Kate is whining at us again, releasing her and then climbing on the table. Tanner sits behind her, knees splayed, and wraps his arms around her.

He plays with her nipples while we stare at each other, half in challenge and half in acceptance.

We can fight, but it might be easier if we share.

Doesn’t mean that’s an easy concept to swallow.

I shift my attention to Kate and find her staring back at me. Lips parted. Cheeks flushed.

“Remember: you gave up everything to come after me that day. I won’t forget that.” Kate grabs onto my face and kisses me with a softness and a care that I don’t deserve.

I don’t deserve it, but I want it anyway.

All of those rough edges smooth out, and I give in.

I let Kate take me down to my bones and rebuild me. I can play games with her all day long. Say the worst shit that comes to mind. Make her angry with me. It’s when she touches me like this that I have no defense. None at all. Because I know exactly what it means to be loved.

I’m kissing Kate, but when I crack my eyes, I see Tanner, watching us.

Learning.

Good. You taught me to shoot a bow, I can help teach this.

I close my eyes, wrap my arms around Kate, and when we’re finished, it’s just me and her lying alone on the table in the kitchen.

Tanner is somewhere close, but I can’t see him. Brooks refills his coffee, and the house is quiet.

It’s bliss, even for a monster like me.

Kate told me that she’d help me find my way back home and she delivered.

I will do literally fucking anything for her.

Anything.