Page 20 of The Arcane Taste of the Witchwood Boys (The Witchwood Boys #4)

Marlowe

An hour or so after losing Kate at the zoo, we’re standing in front of our house again. The purple Victorian that Kate painted herself, the one she inherited from her grandmother. The one where I mow the lawn.

It’s lined up in a row of others in the ethereal shadows of the Witchwoods, like a candy house. Fitting, since its owner really is a witch that eats human flesh. Hansel and Gretel or something.

“She’s here?” I ask, orange tiger lilies dripping over the edge of my hat and getting in my face. They smell like honey and rotten meat. I slap them away, dropping loose petals across the lawn. “Doesn’t this seem like the last place Kate would go?”

“She ain’t here. It’s your turn to sleep and eat.” Tanner takes off his hat briefly to ruffle up his hair. He’s yawning, too, but we’re only sleeping one at a time. He’s right: it is my turn. Last thing I want to do is rest, but I haven’t slept in four days.

It’s not a need I can refuse.

Brooks gives me a look, a grimoire open in one arm, the pages fluttering as all six eyes on his hat read for him. He stares at me with his own green eyes, like a general looking at an unruly soldier.

“Go inside so we can start resting in shifts again. We won’t make it through this if we collapse from exhaustion.”

“Yeah, I got that. I’m not as dumb as I look.” I rush up the steps and yank open the front door before they can see me lose my temper. They’re right. Logically, I get it. But I’m still pissed off. How are we failing so hard at this? We have one cardinal point left to anoint. One.

I slam the door shut behind me and make my way inside.

Our cat lies on the sofa in a tight ball, tail tucked around her nose. The dog is on the floor, stretched out and relaxed. Ebon looks stuffed, perched on the top of that silent clock.

That other coven is in our kitchen. I’m not against them being here. The world is lonely, and I came back from the Witchwoods with exactly zero friends. Not only is Kate a good wife, but she gifted me a social circle, pets, and a house that’s only a home when she’s in it.

I sneak past the kitchen and head up the stairs. It’s my night off. I have to shower. Eat. Sleep.

All of the useless shit that gets nothing done.

“Where is my best friend?” Georgia demands, standing up from her spell station in the living room. Ingredients are strewn across the floor, but they’re in organized piles. Rocks and shells, furry animals (still alive but asleep), clothing and gemstones and toys and photos of—

I storm over and squat down in my sweatpants and bare feet, snagging a stack of old pictures and lifting them up for inspection. It’s Kate in high school, this frizzy-haired ginger girl snuggled up to that ex of hers. Kate is cute enough. Nah, she’s really cute. I would’ve liked her if we’d met in high school. I fold the picture and put it in my pocket.

“You’re lucky I have extras. These are spell supplies. Just … don’t fucking touch anything else.” Georgia shoos me away from my own living room. I only leave because I’d rather not answer her original question.

Where is Kate? Well, according to our coven bonds, she’s close enough that getting an exact reading on her location is difficult. I have to let Brooks and Tanner handle her for now. I just got out of the shower. I’ll eat. I’ll sleep. We’ll trade places.

Talia stares at me in blatant accusation while the other one, Tacy, rests on the sofa under a blanket. She looks like she wants to die. She hates being a witch, I think. Too bad. Once a coven, always a coven.

“You’re not going to tell us anything?” Fernanda asks, running up to the newel post at the bottom of the steps. She puts her hands on it as I walk up the stairs with a plate of food from the kitchen. One of the women prepared it for me. I should thank them, but I don’t have the energy.

“Nothing,” I agree, moving into our bedroom and kicking the door closed behind me. Plate goes on the nightstand. Both windows open to the evening breeze.

I strip naked and collapse onto our bed on my back, bouncing on the mattress and pressing my freshly washed hands against my still-damp face. Breathe, Marlowe. Breathe.

I move my hands away and spin the ring around my finger. It’s just about that time, eh? These rings summon bad memories twenty-four times a day. A big ol’ fuckin’ sacrifice for another of Brooks’ demented-ass spells.

I’ve seen plenty of horrible things on repeat: Kate, landing on top of me with no arm. Tanner, looking like the devil in the woods. That missing poster from a dead man’s backpack.

The ring goes hot against my skin in warning. Here it comes. This time, I relive the moment that I realized Miriam and Dennis weren’t coming for me in the Witchwoods. Such cruel, clever magic.

It passes, leaving me annoyed, but unbroken. I’m past that now. I’ve experienced worse things.

I turn my head, eyeing the plate of food. It’ll taste like shit, but I’ll eat. If I’m weak from not eating, I won’t be of use to Kate.

I drag myself up, grab the food, settle into the pillows.

It’s unnaturally silent in that room. The blankets rustle when I move, but that’s it. Just me. The only member of my coven in this house. Kate’s close by though. That’s nice. Her nearness will help you sleep, Lo.

I work my jaw and then I throw the plate at the wall, satisfied at the sound of it shattering.

“Why are you doing this to me, Kate?” My voice sounds detached, like an underwater echo.

I fall back into the pillows, sliding my hands under my head, gazing up at the ceiling. I’m about three seconds away from getting up, putting on some clothes, and heading out again. What’s the point of sleeping without Kate? Oxygen is an effort.

There’s a sound on my left, like footsteps on the floor.

I sit up suddenly, eyes opening, and there she is, standing in a shaft of moonlight from outside.

Kate. My Northwoods. The love of my life.

Naked, pale skin smeared with blood. Winged.

Staring at me.

Kate picks up a purple lace nightie from the chair and steps into it, dragging it up her body and sliding the thin straps over her beautiful shoulders.

“Tell me I’m not dreaming,” I whisper as she steps forward and then climbs onto the bed, putting her hands on my knees. Those hazel eyes peer back at me, as clear and rational as ever. This is her. This is Kate. Not Kate as the goddamn owl. It’s Kate.

I grab her arms just above the elbow, and she winces as my thumbs dig into her skin. Don’t care. If I have to bruise her to keep her still then I’ll do it. Anything to prevent her from running away again.

“You’re not dreaming, Lo. I need your help.” Her eyes bloom with tears, and she struggles to get a hand up to wipe them away. In the end, I win, holding her arms down as those droplets slide over her cheeks. The blood on her skin turns pink as the salty liquid washes through it.

I clench my jaw so hard, it feels like it’ll break.

“Of course you need our help. Thank fuck you’re here.” I drag her across the bed and tuck her tight against my chest, arms around her. I’ll hold Kate right here until Tanner and Brooks get back. I put my face against the side of her neck, memories flickering of that pretty little mouth latching onto Tanner’s throat and nearly killing him.

I’ll pay attention.

I won’t fuck her.

I won’t.

I can feel my cock hardening, but I ignore it. Am I dreaming or what? Why the hell would Kate just climb through the window and into my lap after a week of running away?

“Before you say anything else, pinch me,” I tell her, my voice as cold as ice. “Do it.”

“What? I’m not pinching you.” Kate shoves against me, frustrated when I refuse to let her move even an inch. She digs her nails into my back as punishment and it hurts like hell. Good. Then I’m awake.

I give her just enough space, so that we can stare at each other.

Am I sure that I’m not asleep? I lean in suddenly and bite Kate on the lower lip.

“Marlowe!” She slaps me, and I lift my face to see her panting and red-cheeked, like she isn’t covered in blood and wearing a pair of wings on her back. “Yes, I’m here. What do you need from me?”

I flip her over before she realizes what I’m doing.

I’m rough with Kate, wrangling her wrists into the cuffs that we left on the headboard in preparation for anointing the South. This is the southern point of our circle, this house. And these cuffs? They’re part of Brooks’ perverted spell.

Hard truth: I love Brooks’ perverted spells.

“These won’t hold me, Lo.” Kate’s voice is growing high-pitched with panic. “I came to see you because I thought you’d be the most reasonable. But handcuffs? Really?”

I lift my head up to give her a look, one of her ankles locked in my grip. These, too, are getting handcuffed. I click the lock around her leg as she gapes down at me.

“Why the fuck would you think that?” I scoff as I move to the final cuff, securing her naked body to the bed. “Kate, Tanner is a sucker for you. Brooks wants to be the king to your queen.”

“And what about you, Marlowe?” she whispers, the feathers of her wings ruffling in agitation. Kate curls them inwards, framing herself with a heart of brown and white and black. I stand at the foot of the bed, staring down at her.

I should probably put some pants on, just in case she goes full-owl and decides to bite my dick off. That’d be a very Kate-like thing to do. Her version of the Hag Wytch is definitely a cock eater.

“I love you because you’re the type who’d take on a curse and run away to save us. It’s those sorts of actions that make me crazy, Kate. It’s also why I can’t ever allow you to do it. Because I love you so much. Does that make sense?”

“Just finish the spell while I’m still conscious,” she growls out, yanking at the cuffs—unsuccessfully—as I move around to the side of the bed. I’m not smiling. I’m happy to see her, but I’m also tense. Worried. Where the hell are Brooks and Tanner? They’re not due back for hours, but shouldn’t they have been tracking Kate?

I pick up a pair of pants, never daring to draw my gaze away from her. Sweatpants, apparently. My favorite ones, the pink ones that make Kate bite her lip unconsciously when she looks at me.

“I bet you thought I just liked these sweatpants. Not true. I think they’re ugly as fuck. It’s the way you look at me when I’m wearing them that I like.” Now, I smile at her, but it’s tight-lipped. My palms are sweating. My feet are bleeding because I walked on broken glass, and I don’t care.

“If I start to change again, I’ll be able to break out of here easily. Marlowe, you’ve got to make sure I can’t hurt you.”

I sit on the edge of the bed, but I don’t touch her.

“No.” That’s it. All I have to say. I turn as the staircase creaks, Brooks’ shadow antlers sliding through the door jamb before he does. He steps in just behind them, green eyes feverish. He looks possessed. I curl my lip at him.

“You let her get so far ahead of you that I have time to truss her up before you show?” I turn back to Kate as Brooks strides into the room and pauses beside me, stoic and still.

His shadow throws its head back in a silent howl. Mine hovers over Kate, smothering her own shadow in the process.

“Is that what you think, Marlowe?” Brooks’ lips twitch, but he doesn’t look at me. Not that it matters. I barely glanced at him. We’d both rather stare at Kate. “Did it ever occur to you that Tanner and I pushed her to come here? Remember who you’re dealing with. You were sent back here as bait.”

Tanner pauses in the hallway just outside the room, turning away for a moment to catch himself.

A pair of tails appears on the wall on either side of the open doorway. Claws extend and retract from the tips of his fingers. His hat throws a shadow over his eyes, but his lips are expressive. Half-parted. Plenty of witch fang on display.

He joins us several seconds later, standing at the end of the bed and putting his hands on the wooden footboard between Kate’s legs.

“How long have you been staying conscious for?” Tanner asks without preamble.

Kate looks at him before she turns back to me.

“Never more than a minute or two at a time. Just … hurry up.” She steadies her breathing, focusing on the ceiling above the bed and giving the handcuffs an experimental yank.

“We made those cuffs out of the leftover metal from our knives.” I smile tightly. “And we put a strength spell on the bed frame. Don’t worry about escaping. It isn’t happening.”

Kate’s back arches, and she sucks in a sharp breath.

Her irises fill up the white spaces of her eyes, pupils dilating along with them.

The wooden bed frame creaks as Kate uses her Hag Wytch strength to pull against it.

“ Aw Frank, you know I don’t smoke no more,” she grumbles, using the raspy voice of a much older woman. One of her victims.

“Motherfucker,” I groan, putting my face in my hand.

“ I know it’s early, but it’s a school day and I don’t care.” A younger woman’s voice this time. Kate is thrashing around, her bones cracking and shifting as she becomes something more than human. More than witch.

“ It feels good, harder. Ah, right there!” Yelling in somebody else’s sex-laced moan.

“ You know it, you know it, you know it,” she grunts back in a different voice, making me think she ate a couple mid-sex or something.

“Prep the spell,” Brooks commands, and then all three of us are moving—but only for a few seconds. I don’t even have time to pick up the powder that I’m supposed to blow across her skin.

There’s a sharp cracking sound, like the snapping of bone, and I turn to see Kate breaking her own hands and feet. Wrenching her right hand through a cuff as blood splatters the blankets underneath her.

Holy shit.

She can’t dismantle the bed or the cuffs so she’s dismantling herself.

Will she dismantle us though?

I throw myself on the bed, straddling her as feathers burst from her skin.

Kate digs her claws into my rib cage, five punctures on either side that send fire bombs off inside me. I gag on the pain as she tries to dislodge me by bucking her hips.

I cling on as Brooks and Tanner do their best to subdue her from behind.

“ What the fuck is going on outside?” Kate grinds those last words—a teenage boy, maybe—through her teeth, fat tears spilling down the sides of her face as blood soaks into the mattress of the bed.

This is what’s born out of the dark things we’ve become. This is the end result.

Fate is all the warnings you should heed, but don’t. Forgotten corners.

We have to subdue Kate here, in the southernmost point of our circle. An enormous spell that encompasses the beach in the West, the campground in the East, the tall trees in the North, and our home in the South.

One last point to consecrate and this shit is virtually over. Everything else is easy. Everything else we can do.

I stab my own claws into Kate’s side and she screams. The sound tears me apart. Worse is the look of alienness in her dilated pupils as she cracks a blow across my face that leaves me stunned, the hot heat of her body scrambling over me and out the window.

Brooks and Tanner are yelling, but I’m too stunned to respond. Halfway to being knocked out.

This is going to hurt, isn’t it, Lo? I’m up and off the bed, turning and snatching my broom before I take off out the window. I catch up to the heavy flapping of Kate’s wings, slamming my body into hers and sending us both to the ground in a bundle of limbs and feathers.

“ You sure you’re eighteen?” she asks, and I hate-hate-hate hearing the sound of her prey’s voices. Kate’s voice is the only one that matters.

She nails me in the face a second time. My head goes fuzzy, space-white. All I can hear is ringing, but I don’t allow myself to let her go. Not this time. She’s slack-jawed and wild, throwing herself at me, teeth tearing into my shoulder.

It’s agonizing.

I tighten my grip and she tilts her head back. Her jaw unhinges and wasps come pouring out, stabbing me with their stingers. I can’t hold onto her through the swarm, throwing up a spell and soaking myself in water. The world goes silent as I drown the insects that are pouring out of my wife’s throat.

Kate’s lips snap shut, and I let the bubble of water around me go, soaking the earth. All of her friends are at the window now, watching us.

She tries to bite me in the cheek and then throws her wings at me, launching herself skyward at the same time. I hop right back on my broom and join her, our eyes locking as we both head for the roof-deck of the old house.

With my shadow’s help, I stand up on the wooden broom handle, balancing my bare feet on the narrow surface. Velvet black wings open behind me, a match for Kate’s incredible span. Her orange and black braid catches the wind, wrapping around her neck like a noose. Her lashes are caught in the cool sea breeze, hazel eyes watering underneath, cheeks pink from the cold.

Behind Kate, just three short miles away, an ocean wave rises, ready to flood the streets and find its way here. I’ll pull out whatever stops I need to.

She cocks her head at me, like a bird. She has more feathers than hair now, her nose pointed and sharp at the tip. I see nothing in those big, black pupils except hunger, sadness, and rage.

“I’m right here, Kate,” I whisper, but she lets her head fall back and releases this sharp, piercing note, a sound that drives an iron nail into my brain.

Brooks catches up to us next, fire licking across the roof and surrounding Kate, trapping her in place.

Theoretically, trapping her in place.

She dives forward, uncaring that the flames are taking on the feathers of her wings. Brooks doesn’t douse them right away, allowing the fire to catch enough that Kate’s going to have trouble getting back in the air.

A gust of icy wind blasts down, pushing against Kate’s attempts to lift off, and she screams again.

I hate everything about this.

Hurting Kate. Making Kate bleed. Causing her pain.

She lands on the roof, her bare feet knocking shingles loose, her eyes wild and untamed. She’s still Kate, but she’s … not Kate. It’s as if every part of her that made her human has been stripped away, leaving only the most basic, primal pieces of her behind.

Just violence though? What about mating? What about that? Can we lure her into having sex with us?

Because sex is what we need to push back this curse.

The tips of her toes break open under the force of talons, curved blades growing from her feet and digging into the roof. She crouches and it’s barely human. Not witch either. Something else.

Kate is staring at the three of us with an expression I recognize from the forest: mindless hunger. That’s the face of a Witchwoods monster on the hunt.

“Remember,” Brooks calls out, breathing as hard as I am. Tanner is right behind Kate, scaling the ladder instead of using his broom. He slinks up behind her and charges as Brooks finishes his declaration. “She can’t die, but we can. And if we die, we’re damning her alongside us. Don’t be soft. Fight hard.”

Tanner launches himself at Kate, putting an arm around her neck and dragging her up from that crouched position. She shrieks, but it doesn’t sound like her. No, it sounds like a fucking owl.

I let my head fall back, calling the water down the street, a tsunami of salt and sea. It washes in, white foam and navy blue, dragging cars and small trees and probably people along with it.

I drop my chin in time to see Kate throw Tanner off the side of the house and into my water with a splash. Brooks takes advantage of her distraction to knock her still-human body to the deck. The blanket we fucked on up here was forgotten, so it’s still there.

A quilt of lavender now covered in blood.

Kate has her teeth buried in Brooks’ arm, spattering red across the white and purple fabric, splashing it on the kitschy railing, covering her own face in crimson. My shadow scrabbles across the roof, throwing its wings out in an effort to protect Brooks.

Her teeth are wrenched from Brooks’ arm, rending flesh and snapping skin and tendon. He blanches, but manages to move while he has the opportunity. Kate turns her newly formed beak on me, tearing into my shadow and sending a shockwave of pain that throws me off my broom.

My head is spinning, and my hat is dying, rotten mushrooms splatting on the ground all around me. Shit, shit, shit, Lo. This is so bad. This is really bad. I throw up blood as Kate drags my shadow into her mouth, slurping it up like black ink. It flows into the beak that used to be her nose.

She isn’t human now.

Except for that face.

Kate’s become the Hag Wytch in front of my eyes, and my shadow’s being eaten by a giant owl. She stares back at me from black-rimmed hazel eyes, blinking long lashes. I’m temporarily stunned.

Tanner crawls over the edge of the roof, taking a charm from his hat and throwing it at Kate.

The tips of her wings are severed, and she shrieks, releasing my shadow. He flows back out of her mouth and slithers down the drain in the rooftop deck. His screams echo in the pipes below as he flees to recuperate. Shit, man.

I’m on my feet, but the Hag Wytch is hopping into the air, talons out. I’m thrown down and crushed underneath her bulk, ruffled feathers obscuring my view. I can’t breathe. I’m suffocating under all that weight, and then Kate is shifting again.

Now I’ve got my woman on my chest, her wings drooping on either side of her.

“ Yes, sir,” Kate murmurs, and when she stares at me, her eyes are just as dead as they were before. Mindless. Tanner and Brooks each hit her with a charm that does seemingly nothing. They sign to one another and then start to draw a spell circle around us in their own blood.

Kate latches onto my throat with her hand and starts squeezing. I can’t fucking breathe, but it doesn’t matter to her one way or another.

She’s gone. My Kate is buried underneath the landslide of the curse, and if I die, I’m ruining everything for her.

Tanner uses his magic to push oxygen into my blood, and I gasp, reaching up to stab my witch claws into Kate’s shoulders. I grab onto her, trying to push her off, arm muscles bunching, teeth clenched. Fighting Tanner off once upon a time gave me much-needed experience in a situation like this.

I know what’s happening. I am outmatched. Fucked. I’m going to die without intervention.

Kate’s horned shadow appears, swooping down and using its mouth to tear open my pants. Helping Kate shimmy them down, so that my cock is exposed. It’s soft, but she spits on it, and magic courses through me.

Aww, fuck.

Kate lifts up and slams her pussy over my shaft, spearing my entire cock into her at once. She’s still choking me, but Tanner’s got that covered. I’m not passing out, even if my lungs are burning.

Brooks has backed off, watching instead of interfering. I get it. We need to fuck her anyway, so two birds, one stone. But … it seems like I’m meant to feel violated by this.

“Make your dick bleed,” Brooks instructs me, because this is part of the spell, too. Kate hisses at him, but at least she looks like a cute griffin chick with tattoos and a witch hat. I’m being raped by a goddamn succubus. My entire body aches from the damage to my shadow, and the very last thing I want to do right now is have sex.

When Kate lifts up on her knees, I reach down and tear one of my own piercings out.

It’s a lust spell.

Wait. Is that what they were throwing at her just now? Smart.

I moan as Kate comes down hard on me, stealing the charm from my fingers and swallowing it. That was a decision she made entirely on her own, but it works for me. She’s still holding my neck with one hand, licking blood from the fingers of the other. She stares down at me with all-black eyes and fucks me into the rooftop like she’s trying to kill me.

Full circle.

This is karma.

I let her do it. I try to enjoy it. Kate is still hot. It still feels good. But it’s so wrong. It’s so off.

Brooks and Tanner begin to hum as Kate drags her tight pussy up and down my bloody dick, soaking her insides with iron and pre-cum. I dig my fingernails into her shoulders, forcing my eyes to stay open and watch.

The entire house is surrounded by water, but I don’t use it to defend myself. This is what we need. This will save Kate.

She leans down and forces a too long tongue into my mouth, putting even more pressure on my neck as she grinds herself into me with such firm friction that we’re both getting skin burns on our pelvises.

Brooks lights an effigy made of sticks, putting flames on the four crude sculptures at the corners of the roof. Trapping Kate briefly between them. Until those twig men burn out their very last wooden limb, our Hag Wytch isn’t going anywhere.

Tanner squats down a little closer, elbows on his knees, watching me.

“I’ll bet that feels good, like every teenage boy’s dream. You’re being fucked by some sort of hot Heavy Metal chick, eh, Marlowe? Nice and tight, but ridged. Stroking over your piercings. Those slick walls clamping down and taking your blood and your seed.” He pauses, studying me to see if it’s helping.

Not yet.

“I didn’t make any contraceptive potions,” he promises. “And we’ve been fucking a lot. May as well be actively breeding her, huh? Put that cum in her, Marlowe, while she’s begging for it, just like you promised.”

I’m almost ashamed to climax after that, but Tanner helped me through it. I don’t think too hard about that, taking the opportunity of Kate’s own orgasm to throw her off of me. I start to crawl away and she grabs me again, the pair of us rolling around on the ground with my seed leaking out of her and me gasping for breath.

It’s an absolutely frantic fight, one that I would’ve lost if Tanner hadn’t tossed that falconry hood over Kate’s head and prevented her from biting me with both mouths. Her beak is back and she’s slowly shifting above me.

I manage to crawl away and jerk my pants back up. No time for the buttons, but fuck it. I snatch my broom up and hop on before she grabs me again, rising into the air and drawing the water up along with me.

The tsunami rains down and slams into the Hag Wytch, pummeling her and churning her in the navy surf. Tanner and Brooks are protected in pockets of air, but the owl god is brutalized and broken, tossed in a heap of feathers to the debris-strewn deck.

I let the water go and it rushes back to join the sea, taking its own victims with it.

I tug a rope knotted with bone from my bag and hang it from the end of my broom like a macabre wind chime. Dry bones clack together in the breeze as Tanner and Brooks pull the wooden stocks away from the wall. As the Hag Wytch’s body heals, she turns briefly back into a woman again.

“It’s alright, honey. I’ve got you,” Tanner whispers as he and Brooks lift her up and get her back in the stocks before she has a chance to fully heal. I begin to sign a silent chant, fingers crossed, my ring shining in the moonlight.

I start to hum.