Page 84

Story: Bewitched

I’m a witch, a symbol of revolutionary feminism. I don’t need a man to carry me, or coddle me, or worry over—

“Hell. Yes.”

Kane lifts me and swings me onto his back and, ah, provides some relief for the poor, aching balls of my feet.

“Hold on,” Kane says, and then he runs.

I yelp, nearly falling off at first. I wrap my arms around Kane’s neck and then laugh and laugh.

This is ridiculously fun. Kane is going to get so laid.So laid.

“Someone’s eager,” I whisper into his hair, wrapping one of his sandy curls around my finger.

“Can you blame me?” he says over his shoulder. “I want to get back to kissing those lips.”

“It’s not fair to be hotandhave good game,” I whisper back into his ear. I follow it with a brush of my lips.

Before he can answer, we pass a naked couple. I yelp when I see a witch who lives down the hall from me getting railed by a lycanthrope.

“Oh my—titties!” I meant to saygoddess, but I sort of just said what I saw instead.

Beneath me, I hear Kane’s booming laugh.

We see another couple and another, each one in various states of ecstasy.

Kane slows briefly partway to campus.

“Why are you slowing?”

Kane points to a nearby standing stone. “These mark the boundary between coven lands and pack lands.”

Branching from either side of the stone is a faint luminous line, magically marking the boundary. I try to remember if I noticed it earlier this evening, but if I did, I’ve since forgotten.

“Why are you showing me this?” Part of me wonders if this is about Nero. Maybe his pack knows my familiar is a panther, and maybe Nero really has been poaching on lycanthrope territory.

Kane is quiet for several seconds, and with each passing moment, I feel more and more like this is about Nero.

But then, he says, “If you ever want to visit me, all you ever have to do is cross the boundary line. My pack mates and I patrol the perimeter here.”

That was not at all what I expected.

I peer over his shoulder at him. “Kane, are you…are you saying you want me to visit you even after tonight?”

Only after I say those words do I realize how muchI’velaid out on the line. Because maybe Kane doesn’t want to see me after tonight and I got it all wrong. Maybe this is where he really does pulverize my heart.

He hesitates again. “Yeah,” he eventually says, “I am.”

And then he begins to run once more, and I’m left with my giddy, churning thoughts until we reach my residence hall.

We pass the stonelamassu, and Kane sets me down in front of the door, catching me when I stumble a little.

His brows come together, and then he leans in, breathing in my scent. “Are you good?” he asks, pulling away. “If you’re not, we don’t have to do anything else toni—”

I grab him by the shirt and resume kissing him. He’s so noble, and damn it, I like that.

Kane is soooooo getting laid. And then laid again.

“I’m fine,” I whisper between one accosting kiss and the next.

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