Page 25 of The Arcane Taste of the Witchwood Boys (The Witchwood Boys #4)

Kate

It’s late afternoon when Brooks shakes me awake, the fog drifting around us in white and gray swirls.

“Morning, sweetheart.” He places a scone into my hand and a kiss to my forehead. I smile as I bite into the scone. Despite the weather, the air is warm thanks to Tanner. Thanks to Marlowe. I love this steam fog. It’s a nice touch.

Our rings go off, right on time, and I close my eyes hard against the memory of the men bleeding from their noses outside the memory hut. Ugh. This is truly an awful spell. I hate it.

The memory fades, and I open my eyes to see Marlowe cursing. Brooks contemplating.

Tanner is fine, chewing on a scone and staring out at the tiny town surrounding the cemetery. You have to drive past a lot of cows and fields and patches of redwood forest to get out here, and it’s not like I live in the middle of a giant city. Rural, would be the word I’m looking for.

“One day, I’ll take you all to San Francisco or something. Show you how big the world is now.” I accept a mug of tea from Marlowe, taking a sip without bothering to check the temperature. There’s no need to. It’s perfect.

“Sounds like hell. I’ll pass.” I can’t tell if Brooks is teasing me, or if he’s serious.

“You’re not into traveling?” I wonder, because we’ve spit blood into each other’s mouths, but we’re missing a lot of basic dating questions. “I’m not sure that I am either, but wouldn’t staying in Humboldt forever make you feel like you were missing out?”

“We’ve been to another world, kitten,” Tanner offers with a shrug. “But I’ll go wherever you want to go. Spent some time in San Fran already, so let’s go somewhere else.” I don’t ask. I bet San Francisco in the late eighties was insane.

“Do you think there are other gates?” I ask as we prep ourselves to head into the woods. We’ll meet up with the girls there. Go over the plan.

Say goodbye to this chapter and start another story.

“God, I hope not.” Marlowe shivers as he picks up his broom, studying the handle with a lascivious glint in his eyes that annoys the shit out of me. We both know why he’s looking at it the way he is. Because I fucked that broom. “The Witchwoods aren’t bad enough? Did you enjoy the memory hut or something? How many other worlds do you really want to see?” He looks over at me and bites his lip—lasciviously. “But a road trip with you? I’d be down.”

I love that.

I also notice a droplet of blood clinging to his nose, so I stop fantasizing that we’re going to live this fabulous life together. Reality is right here and staring me in the face.

The sky is growing dark, meaning we slept (and fucked) so late that most of the day has passed us by. We have until dawn to fix the gate or else … that’s it.

Brooks is the first to climb on his broom, and as his coven, we follow.

The worlds combined and awake. Not a nightmare I care to see.

Our white witch counterparts are waiting for us, a pentagram of salt already drawn around the cracked stump of the old Witch’s Tree.

“I should’ve made you go out instead of letting you wander into these woods all alone.” Georgia looks pissed, dressed in one of my grandmother’s many silk robes. The women appear to be naked underneath. Still wearing their hats though. “On your birthday, I mean.”

Should I … should I tell her about the memory hut? Nah. Not now. Possibly not ever.

She looks around at the dark clearing with its shadows layered and impenetrable, its vast collection of fern species (native Pacific Northwest varieties as well as those from the Witchwoods), and its corpses.

There are dozens of dead influencers, YouTubers, busybodies and various other victims that any one of the guys or I could’ve saved by giving up our coven. We’re still here, and this is our fault, so we’ll deal with it.

I let out a long, slow exhale. Fortunately, nothing rotted, so it doesn’t smell like much more than blood. All of the maggots on the bodies are asleep, too, so the flesh doesn’t move. Doesn’t crawl.

Brooks puts his massive hand on my shoulder and squeezes, nearly buckling my knees under his heated touch. I can see Marlowe and Tanner, fitting a length of rope around the fallen trunk of the Witch’s Tree. They borrow a bit of my magic to manipulate the earth underneath, so that they can actually get the rope around it.

“We’re going to pull on those ropes at the same time you use your Northwoods magic. The ropes are already spelled to amplify our intent, so we shouldn’t have much trouble getting the tree back in place.” Brooks looks up at the trunk and tilts his head, his hat narrowing its eyes on the scene like they’re making their own assessment. “You’ll seal the two parts together, and then each coven will begin its own gate spell.” Brooks gives Georgia a very serious look while Fernanda gapes at Tanner and Marlowe, yes, taking off their shirts again.

“I’ve literally warned them about stripping in front of others numerous times. I only gave them a few rules when it comes to social media and no shirtlessness was on that list.” It’s supposed to be a joke, but I sound so thirsty when I say it that I end up pulling the hood of my cloaking cloak up to cover my blushing face.

“Rad cloak of deception. I dig it.” Talia is eating a protein bar and wearing a tie-dye robe with a hemp belt. It suits her somehow.

“Thanks,” I say with a smile, thinking that cloak of deception is a way cooler name for my magic item than cloaking cloak. But you know, my husbands spit cum in each other’s mouths to cast spells, so what do I know? We’re fucking gross, but I’m so snuggled down in my cloaking cloak that all I feel inside are butterflies.

Brooks’ nose drips blood onto my shoulder, but he just absently swipes it away. His eyes meet mine and I hear the unspoken problem for another day in his expression.

“One coven on each side. No talking. No mixing magic. Got it.” Georgia gives Tacy a look, and the pair of them have one of their miniature stand-offs. “No talking, Tacy.”

“Look, I might not like this magic stuff, but I understand it. I won’t say a word.” Tacy holds up both hands, and the pair of them stare each other down until Brooks clears his throat.

“We’ll end up in the woods, and you’ll stay here. If we don’t come back immediately, we might not be back for a while. Keep studying my grimoires and make protecting yourselves a primary objective.” Brooks moves around me and slips out of his peacoat, tossing it over a nearby branch. He tears his own shirt off and uses the fabric to swab the blood from his nose.

I sigh. The whole reason we went viral—and I swear by this—is because of the shirt allergy thing. Technically, you could blame all these unalived influencers on my husbands’ nipples.

“You’ve got this, Kate.” Georgia gives me a shoulder pat with all of the confidence and comfort of an alpha boss, but none of the sexual tension. It’s nice. I throw my arms around her and she hugs me right back. For minutes. We hold that hug for a while.

Fernanda is next, then Tacy, and even Talia.

There’s always a chance we could get trapped down there again, and guess what? I don’t regret telling my friends how much I loved them that night. If I’d died, at least I’d have said goodbye.

“Ready.” Marlowe turns, twisting a length of rope around his hands. Uhhh. My brain dies at the sight of him shirtless with his metal mask hanging on a chain around his neck, scarred and tattooed and ink-eyed and holding rope.

Brooks turns to me and frowns, lifting up a hand to snap his fingers in front of my face.

“We know you love being tied up, Kate, but try to focus for a minute. We’ll be having sex shortly.”

I blush and Brooks’ lips quirk. Marlowe exhales and closes his eyes, tugging the rope tight between his fists and twisting it so that it creaks. My blood goes hot, and I fist my own hands in the silky fabric of the cloak.

“New fetish unlocked,” Marlowe whispers, cracking one dark eye and lifting the rope to his mouth. He fucking bites it, and my ovaries explode. Metaphorically. As the Hag Wytch, I doubt that I need to worry about his no contraception spells for you bullshit.

“Our fluffy little kitten wouldn’t like this rough-ass rope. We’ll get you silk, baby, and truss you up like the birthday present we all owe you.” Tanner finishes a complicated knot on the side of the tree, weaving feathers and bones into the mess and yanking on it with a strong pull of his arms and shoulders.

I watch it all, the way his body moves under the cryptic designs on his skin. Oh. Yeah, the air is just thick with hormones. A drop of blood runs from Marlowe’s nose to his lips and he flicks it off with an irritated flash of tongue.

“Birthday present, huh?” I whisper, trying not to get too excited. If they’re getting nosebleeds, then I’m loosening the spell. I’m betraying the curse. I’m reneging on the bargain I made, and the price I agreed to pay. I lift my chin as Tanner slouches and crosses his arms, eyes narrowed on me like he’s getting ready for a hunt. “Tying me up is a present for you .” I wave my hand dismissively and Tanner snorts, reaching out to flick my hood off my head so that my hat is exposed.

“You sure about that, honey? Would we like it better than you or the same? Maybe it’s not a gift at all and just something we should work into our daily routine.” Tanner flexes his jaw and looks me over with eyes that are more silver than blue.

He doesn’t trust me.

He shouldn’t.

I’ve already explained what’s going on with the curse. I’ll give the men time to figure it out, to fix it, to break it, but if it comes down to me leaving and them living, then it’s what I’ll do.

“Fuck, I’m getting pissed off for no reason at all,” Tanner growls with a little curl of his lip. He walks toward me and stands tall and huge and beautiful in a mixed fairy forest with sleeping monsters and dead tourists. “Because I feel like you’re plotting something else.”

“You’re trying to run again?” Brooks’ voice is cold fire, and he narrows all eight eyes on me in disgust. “Don’t you goddamn dare. We will figure this out. Do you believe in us or not?”

“It’s not that … look, I’m not going to just take off while you’re asleep, okay? We’ll talk about it later.” I turn and gesture at the tree, hoping he won’t tell me to take off my shirt. I know my friends are watching, and I’m embarrassed. I don’t want to dance naked in a bone necklace and leather pants in front of them.

Too bad because that’s what’s happening.

“There’s nothing to talk about.” Tanner takes the end of the rope from Marlowe and loops it around my waist, using it to tug me forward and slam my body against his. He stares down at me with that expression I used to think was ‘dark’ when all it means is that he’s serious. He also has blood running down his face from both nostrils. “Look at me.” I look at him. It’s hard to make eye contact, and my hat reflects my discomfort by trying to lick the strong column of his neck to calm him down. He’s pissed. “Kate.”

Marlowe turns toward me as Brooks circles around on my left side. I’m surrounded by them with nowhere to hide. Lo tears my cloak off and tosses it aside, my wings unfurling from beneath the fabric and causing Fernanda to gasp. Bet she loves my cloaking cloak. Bet she’d have called it something kick-ass like … a cloak of eternal deceit.

“Can we please talk after the gate is fixed? I want to wake everyone up. Please, Tanner.” I put my hands on his stomach, lightly scraping my nails over abdominal muscles that would make most straight women cry.

Or … well, they make me want to cry anyway.

“Huh.” Tanner walks backward, dragging me along with him by using the rope. “Alright then. But each second we push this conversation back, I get progressively more pissed off. You hear me?”

I nod and he turns to Brooks. Tanner releases the rope to sign a bunch of rapid-fire words that I don’t understand. Brooks returns them. Marlowe simps for me, and I catch his gaze. He’s breathing hard, and so am I.

“I missed you so much,” he says unprompted, reaching out to touch my face. “God, I … I’m lost in you, Kate.”

My cheeks turn red, but I revert to teasing because I’m embarrassed that we’re standing here talking when we’re supposed to be fixing an interdimensional magic gate.

“I would hope so, considering you stabbed yourself to get my attention. That’s toxic as hell. And the suicide threats? Not okay.”

Marlowe scowls at me and flicks his hat brim with a finger, licking his teeth in annoyance while his hat sprouts glittering clovers and a tiny bird with two heads.

“Yeah? And I’d do it again. I’d do worse. Don’t test me, Kate. You know how single-minded I can be.”

I’m gaping at him, tossing a quick look over my shoulder to see that Georgia’s jaw is on the forest floor.

“Katelynn Fernon Poppy!” she shouts, and I cringe, turning back to see that all three men are stone-faced and annoyed.

“If you don’t believe him, hear me out.” Brooks leans down and puts his nose up against mine. “If you run, you will suffer in this life and the next. I will never fuck you again, in any incarnation.” He stands up and then snaps his fingers impatiently in my direction. “Shirt off, or I’ll tear it off and show your friends what a toxic bastard I really am.”

“Katelynn.” Georgia is growling, but I can’t look at her because I like it.

I chose in that memory hut, too, remember? I had an escape route that I didn’t want. Brooks, Tanner, and Marlowe only pretend to be bastards. Their words are annoying, but their actions scream that they’re trustworthy, safe, dependable, and loving.

“She’s blackout drunk on good dick,” Fernanda whispers with a wistful sigh, and Marlowe cringes.

“See?” he says, pointing past me at the group of women behind us. “This is why I don’t like her.”

“Shirt off,” Brooks reminds me, and I sigh, turning around so that Tanner has access to my backwards sweatshirt zipper. He drags it down slowly, skimming his hot fingers along my spine.

“Why is it that I only have one rule in our relationship and you regularly break it, huh? You trying to test me, kitten?”

“Clearly, there are more rules than just one. You wouldn’t let me sleep with other guys, would you?” I tease, throwing a look over my shoulder before I—ah. That … that wasn’t very well thought out. “Err, what I meant was—”

Tanner shoves my sweatshirt down my shoulders and takes my tits in his hands, all while I’m staring right at the girls. Tacy’s eyes go wide, but she doesn’t look away. Georgia reaches for the pocketknife in her robe. Fernanda is sighing and clutching her hands by her cheek like she’s watching a romantic drama. Talia is gagging, bent over like she might puke.

“Sometimes, I think you piss us off on purpose, just to get a reaction that we all know you like. Come on, North. Let’s fix the world we broke.” He squeezes my breasts a few times, nips my neck, and then tosses the bone necklace over my head.

I’m absolutely mortified.

“I hate those men!” Georgia calls out, and I wave with both hands before I turn around. “But I love you, Kate. Keep yourself safe this time.”

“Love you guys, too!” I spin to find my coven waiting, leather pants and combat boots with bones, coven sigil scarred into their chests, tattoos that move, and big ol’ witch hats.

Home. This feels like home. Not a place, but right here, surrounded by the people I love.

“Put your masks on,” Brooks instructs, observing Tanner as he steps forward to help me with mine. I smile, and he pauses to give me a kiss before putting it in place. “Don’t say a word. Wait for my signal to start pulling. We’re not actually trying to heft the trunk up with physical strength, but put your back into it anyway. Let the rope bloody your hands. And for fuck’s sake, do not get anywhere near the other coven’s magic.”

We cluster together near the ragged end of the trunk, splinters and shards spilling out like intestines from a corpse. Jutting like broken bone. A world torn asunder with a felled tree.

The women start to hum, this beautiful wordless hymn that gives me goosebumps, but I don’t dare look. It doesn’t feel right. We’re in this together, but we have our own parts to play.

Brooks is pressed tight behind me, Tanner on my left, Marlowe on my right. That’s a lot of man and muscle, and my body acknowledges it with arousal that makes my clit piercing ache. Lovely.

I grip one of the four ropes, and the men do the same. There are all sorts of trinkets woven into it, symbols drawn in blood painted down the length.

I see my boys were busy when I wasn’t around.

Tanner braces himself, burying his boots in the dirt. Marlowe is all narrow-eyed focus. Brooks waits for the span of several heartbeats before throwing his right fist into the air. Go! I can hear the unspoken word in the gesture, and then we’re all pulling as hard as we can.

We heave and ho (I’m great at that last part), our bodies straining, sweat pouring down our faces and backs and chests. The rope hurts my palms, but I know that’s part of the point. As I’m pulling, I think about all those times I sat on the back deck and magicked dead plants back to life.

Earth magic flows down my hands and into the rope as I put a foot behind me to steady myself and end up with a leg between Brooks’. Ah. His sweaty chest is glued to my back while the impressive bulge of Marlowe’s left arm digs into my side. The way Tanner is breathing is giving me fresh fantasies. He wraps the rope around both of his hands with a grunt, stepping back as the three-hundred-plus-foot trunk of the Witch’s Tree creaks and moans, lifting several inches off the ground.

Marlowe growls and pulls harder, every muscle in his body standing out in stark relief. They’re all so hot against me, so hard. I lean back into Brooks and he helps me brace myself as I grit my teeth and pull, pull, pull. Our shadows do most of the heavy lifting, broken and damaged as they are. More than what we’re doing, it’s the efforts of our dark companions that are getting the tree to rise up.

The trunk digs into the ground on our side, the splintered parts buried in the dirt as the far end of the Witch’s Tree emerges from the foliage. When it first hit the ground, it killed a great many beasts from the Witchwoods. Blood and gore ooze down the length of the tree, spattering in our hair and on our bare skin.

We walk backwards together, legs tangled and bodies pressed as tightly together as possible. The tree comes with us, until it’s perfectly vertical but sitting on the ground beside its stump. Brooks directs our group without words, turning us to face the trunk, and then pulling in the opposite direction.

My hat is feasting on blood and sweat, tasting the copper and iron from the dead animals. Eating up the men and their strength and their magic. Emotions come flying at me. Love, care, happiness, trepidation, concern, fatigue.

Hope.

It’s that last one that nearly breaks me, and I let out a wordless scream as I drag on the rope and my coven backs me up. The tree lifts into the air and we turn, guiding it like a parade balloon, ropes taut as the trunk floats up above the stump, buoyed by our shadows.

Brooks holds up his fist again, and we all release our grips at the same moment. The rope is soaked with our own blood, the ends dangling as the tree drops down onto the trunk with a crunch, and I fall to my knees.

I dig my fingers into the dirt and lift my head up, orange and black hair spilling around my face. My men are in their respective directions around me, providing moral and magical support as I focus on reconnecting the two broken parts of the Witch’s Tree.

The women are dancing, naked and dressed in blood. I needn’t have worried about my breasts being bare because theirs are, too. They’re humming and dancing and bleeding, using their wands to draw glowing sigils in the air. The very same sigils, in fact, that we use. Triangles. Some with slashes. Some upside down.

North. South. East. West.

My hair floats around me as my body begins to glow, my shadow using a needle to sew the wood back together. New limbs sprout from the crack in the trunk, growing in strange, twisted shapes, like a wych elm or something. The forest flickers around us, like the human world is a transparent overlay, and only the Witchwoods is real.

Tanner’s shadow is wrapped around the tree, double tails and long tongue like stripes of black. Brooks’ antlers are stamped over the hole in the trunk, melding with the dark inside. Marlowe’s wings spread out on either side, blacking out the already dim woods.

But we’re not done yet.

With a groan, I collapse onto my forearms, forehead in the dirt.

Brooks gives me a minute to catch my breath, but then he’s pulling me to my feet and we’re taking our positions to the right of the trunk. My girls on the left. No significance to that other than that we need to stay out of each other’s way.

With a few minor changes, we run through the gate spell for a third time.

The sex part comes around quick, and I’m more than ready. I’m dripping down my thighs, soaking my leather pants with need. I want them inside of me more than I want anything else.

Brooks is a little rough as he guides me to the ground with a hand on my elbow. He doesn’t say a word, of course, with that metal mask in place, but he directs the other men with nods of his chin and a whistle.

He puts me on my back, tears my pants down, and then takes me much harder and wilder than I expected. Each thrust makes my clit piercing hurt, but also … it feels good? Like a pleasure/pain sort of thing. I bet that’s great for the spell.

My hands are all over him, and he’s growling behind that mask like he wants to bite the fuck out of me. Same on my end. I’m clenching my teeth and thrusting wildly back at him, driving him to a climax that makes his stomach muscles clench and flex.

Marlowe is on me next, like he can’t control himself, barely waiting for Brooks to move out of the way before he slips inside of me. He drapes his body over mine, melding our skin together, tangling his fingers in my hair. There’s so much emotion in that hard little fuck that my hat chokes when it licks him, tasting the truth in his skin.

Without me, he’ll let himself go. He won’t try again, like he did after Miriam. This is it for him, and I hate that. What if I have to leave to fulfill the conditions of the curse? This son of a bitch. I rock my hips against him, his cock nice and slick and dripping with me and Brooks both. Lo makes a noise of frustration when he comes, and I know that when we get back home, we’ll be in bed for days.

Tanner looks at me like the feral witch thing he is, taking my legs and putting them against his chest. He wraps an arm around them to keep them closed, and then he enters my tight, wet hole with a single thrust. I’m digging my nails into the dirt, wild and wanting and thrashing. My clit … I need to get my clit … Even if it hurts, I can’t orgasm without it.

I see the wicked smile in Tanner’s eyes, even if I can’t see it on his mouth. Stupid iron mask. The skin at the corners of his eyes crinkles up, and there’s a dark gleam there that acts like foreplay. My tits bounce as he rails me into the damp earth, and I get this horrible feeling in my stomach.

The world spins. Flips. I’m dizzy. I’m on a rollercoaster. I’m coming so hard that I scream behind my own mask, and Tanner unloads inside of me. Everything shifts, and there’s a groan from that old tree, like something ancient is hidden inside and moaning in relief.

I’m screaming with pleasure and squeezing my own tits. Tanner is emptying his balls. Brooks and Marlowe are standing above us panting, and I open my eyes in time to see it happen.

A pair of clawed hands reaches out of the hole on the tree, and something unnatural and very, very ancient looks out at us. A big red eye with a square pupil and no white. It blinks a few times before disappearing back inside.

And that’s it.

That’s fucking it.

I sit up as Tanner pulls out of me, dick wet and twitching. He fists it as he looks around, studying the clearing and the crushed foliage from where the tree was resting. My friends are gone. The dead social media folks are still here.

And we’re back in the Witchwoods where it all started.