Page 26 of The Arcane Taste of the Witchwood Boys (The Witchwood Boys #4)

Kate

I’m exhausted. It’s hard to stand up and fix my pants, witch cum dripping out of me and keeping that leather nice and supple and conditioned. I look around, at a pair of black eyes, green ones, silver-blue gems in a rough-hewn face.

A single beam of sun breaks through the dense canopy, cutting a sliver of gold into the velvet shadows. Flowers unfurl, petals sparkling with poisoned glitter. Bats lift into the air with frantic flaps of their wings. The foliage shivers as awareness floods back into the woods.

That’s when the screaming starts.

It’s a cacophony of half-dead plants and animals that were crushed under the falling tree, and all of the things that, even just barely awake, have come to feast on them. Tanner takes my hand and we start running back in the direction of the street.

Don’t go there, Kate. My mind cracks as I recall being held in Marlowe’s arms. That frantic girl. The pink and white tennis shoe. I’m hyperventilating. I’m convinced we’re not going to make it because everything went so wrong last time.

I lost them. They’re back. But I lost them.

And I’m afraid I’ll lose them again.

I run harder, faster, than I’ve ever run before and, like magic, we stumble out of the woods and onto the pavement. I nearly trip on the edge of the sidewalk, and all the sounds change at once. Instead of screaming, it’s sirens.

Lots and lots of sirens.

“Our foreboding spell has plenty of energy left. We should get home before anybody sees us.” Brooks leads the way while Tanner keeps hold of my hand. Marlowe is peering into the woods at something.

Seconds later, the girls appear, jogging their way to us in silk robes and blood.

“Hurry, hurry!” Georgia growls, grabbing my other hand. We run as a mixed unit, me and my friends. Me and my husbands. We’re going to have the coolest friend group ever. I hope Jared is as great as Tacy says because it’s going to be hard for a witch to marry a human. They’ll have some unique challenges as a couple. Namely, the forced proximity thing.

We’re sprinting past the house where Tanner caught me during hide-and-go-fuck, throwing me down on the floor and taking me with more big dick energy than I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Hope my neighbors aren’t too pissed about the mess.

There’s debris everywhere from that tsunami, rocks and a bike and someone’s overturned car. Glowing Witchwoods jellyfish are splatted across the street in bright colors, and my mouth twitches.

That fucking gate … The worlds are separate again, but I can still see things that shouldn’t be here. Oh well. What the hell are we supposed to do to test it? Shove somebody’s hand in the tree and see if it works? All we can do at this moment is wait to see if anything new emerges from this point forward.

Can everyone see the Witchwoods stuff now since they were all technically there when the worlds combined? I can’t imagine a planet of eight billion witches. Humans are vicious enough without magic. That sounds sort of … gross.

I decide to ask Brooks about it.

“Becoming a witch, Kate, that requires sacrifice,” he tells me with certainty, peering down at me from under the brim of his hat as we run. My left hand in Georgia’s. My right with Tanner. “They did not put their hand in that tree. We did.”

My lips part, but I don’t stop running. I pick up the pace.

All eight of us pound up the front steps of my purple Victorian, throw the front door open, and tumble through it. Marlowe is the last one in, slamming the door behind us. Beyond the shifting, grunting, and cursing of eight hungry, tired witches, I hear something.

The ticking of the grandfather clock.

Stix pads her way into the foyer to glare and Flick races past her, leaping into my arms and causing the cat to morph into a Halloween decoration. Back curved, fur fluffed, hissing and batting an angry paw. Ebon caws as she soars into the room, pausing to give Tanner a peck with her beak at the corner of his mouth, and then landing on my shoulder.

I’m holding my dog. I’m a perch for my crow. I … my cat just made my husband bleed when he tried to pet her. The clock ticks, and it smells like Fernanda’s cinnamon rolls and Brooks’ smiling eggs and bacon. There are dick-shaped cookies on a tray in view of the front door.

I’m … I’m … I drop to my knees and Tanner catches the dog and me both, ensuring a smooth descent. Flick is trying to lick my face, but then my hat starts licking him back and he’s honestly not super thrilled about that.

“I’m home,” I say finally, turning to look at Tanner. He reaches up to drag his mask down and grins at me. The silver scar on his face tugs at his lip.

“You’re surprised? Why the fuck don’t you ever listen to us?” he asks, and I gape at him as Flick betrays me for his new daddy, tail wagging. This time, poor Flick doesn’t get licked back when he kisses Tanner’s face. I’m the only one that Tanner is allowed to lick anyway.

“I should probably text my mom …” Talia begins, and I nearly pass out. Not from the Hag Wytch stuff or anything, but just because casting a spell of that caliber is insane and I’m exhausted. I’m probably in shock, too. I was dead. I was a ghost. The men were dead. The men were ghosts.

Tanner’s nose starts to bleed, so I force myself to remember the truth.

I am still the Hag Wytch.

“Shit, I’d almost forgotten about all that social media stuff and—” Marlowe starts, and then he turns with a wide, twitchy eye and glares at the front door like he’s about to kill someone. His hat explodes with cacti. Purple cacti with black thorns that ooze venom. Very cute.

He throws the door open to reveal two cops and a one-armed influencer standing on our doorstep.

Tanner rubs salve into the influencer’s arm socket, and the guy passes out like three times, but his arm heals. Not grows back, just heals. His skin is nice and smooth, and it’s as if he was born without his right arm rather than the Hag bit it off and swallowed it.

“Thanks man,” the guy says, this cute little sandy-haired blond that’s making Fernanda weak-kneed. He’s exactly her type. Probably her age, too. This could be good. He is a witch. I can see his shadow with the butterfly tails standing behind him. It, too, only has one arm.

“You wouldn’t be thanking them if you knew they spit and spurted into every single thing they spell or cook,” Talia explains helpfully. Georgia gives me a look and then steps forward, chin raised. She will handle her coven with dignity.

“Talia, please and kindly shut the fuck up.”

Talia flips her off and then they both grin. They’re going to get along well it seems. A tiny spark of jealousy flares, but clearly, I’d choose the men over the world so it’s not something I pay any attention to. Being in a coven with my friends would be fun, but I like spitting and spurting as a hot, healthy bonus.

“I don’t care what’s in it, so long as the bleeding has stopped and I’m not gonna die.” The influencer—his name is Hoax, for real because he changed it legally—tries to cross his arms and then curses a little. “This is going to take some adjustment.”

“Could we please have a moment to speak?” Detective John Gilley growls out. As far as he and Viv and Hoax know, they escaped the woods because of the message I wrote on the chalkboard, and then they fell asleep and woke up seemingly minutes later. It’s a lot for them, I’m sure.

“Sit. I’ll make coffee.” Brooks is fiddling around with the pot. The back door is open and Tanner is tossing the ball for Flick. Ebon sits on his shoulder, keeping her distance from all the random people in our kitchen. Flick loves it. Stix is hissing from the top of the fridge. Tanner is … yeah, he doesn’t like it but he’s quiet about it. Intense. Watching.

Marlowe is bitching the way Marlowe does.

“I’ve been back for all of ten seconds, and I have to put up with this shit. I want everyone out of my house. Now. We can talk later.”

“Lo, don’t be rude. I’ll make you an iced coffee if you’ll sit down and kindly the shut fuck up. ” Brooks is teasing Georgia, but she scowls at him. He’s going to have to work for years to get her to like him and even then, it might not happen. She told me he’s an old sexist pig with an attitude problem. I just shrugged. She’s not wrong, per se.

“What the hell happened to you?” Officer Viv asks, studying my wings. I’m wearing another backward sweatshirt because, as Tanner put it, no other man is allowed to look at my tits. Gag. I was going to put a shirt on anyway because I also don’t want random people looking at my tits, especially random men. But fuck, I hate it when they order me to do something I was already going to do anyway. Annoying.

I love them so much. I love them so much, and my heart is seizing because I’m so afraid. We’re back. It looks like we could get out of this okay, but … Marlowe sniffles, and he can’t catch all of the blood before a drop leaks from his nose.

I exhale.

“Long story,” I tell Viv, turning to study her in a way I haven’t had a chance to before. Dark brown eyes. Sharp black brows. Pursed lips. She doesn’t like me and hasn’t since moment one, but I understand. We abandoned them down there. We were prepared to damn them for the rest of their lives, possibly into the afterlife, and we did it without losing too much sleep.

I am not a good person.

That’s why I was the perfect woman to find these men. We fit together. I understand them, and they understand me. We found each other by pure and perfect chance, but I guess if fate is listening to instinct, then it’s fate. We all did what we had to, and we ended up right here.

“Sugar? Milk?” Brooks turns and puts a silver tray—my gram’s silver tray—on the surface of the table. It’s set with a matching coffee pot, an antique one that looks a bit like a teapot, and several saucers.

“I don’t want any fucking coffee. I want to know what’s going on.” Detective Gilley is blustering, but it’s hard to take him seriously when Brooks goes from bent over the table to standing up ramrod straight so quickly that I barely see him move. It’s like he snaps from one position to the other, his black antlers appearing above his head. All of his eyes— all of them —are wide and bloodshot.

“Did you insult me in my own goddamn house? Were you raised in a barn?” Brooks’ shadow keeps stretching up toward the ceiling, and everybody in this room can see it. That YouTuber guy, Hoax, goes bone-white. Officer Viv scoffs in disgust, and Gilley … he sits demurely in a chair and pours himself a cup of coffee.

“Vivienne,” Brooks says, pulling out a chair for her next. She eyes him suspiciously, moving around us both to take the seat. She, too, pours coffee.

“We deserve an explanation. You all clearly know what’s—” Viv stops talking as Gilley pitches forward and face-plants into the coffee tray, splattering milk everywhere. Viv doesn’t last much longer, swaying and slumping to the side of her chair. Brooks catches her before she falls, using his shadow to lift her up from the seat by the armpits.

“What the hell?” Hoax breathes as he stares wide-eyed at the floating police officer.

“Drink the coffee,” Brooks tells him in a voice that might as well have said drink it or I’ll fucking kill you. Hoax understands that he has little choice in the matter, snatching up a cup as Fernanda bites her bottom lip.

“Please don’t be afraid. We should talk later. I’ll DM you.”

Tacy sets the cup of coffee she was going to drink aside as Georgia sighs. In a few seconds, Hoax, too, is passed out. Detective Gilley is snoring.

“We’ll drop them outside the range of the foreboding spell. Only someone with a firm will can get through the miasma, and hopefully they won’t try as hard next time.” Brooks whistles and his shadow follows him out the kitchen door with me, Marlowe, and Tanner behind him. The men take care of the sleeping bodies, so I don’t have to carry one.

I’m curious to see what changes between us now that we’re at this point.

Back in the real world. Time is flowing. Nobody is asleep … until the next new moon.

One day at a time, Kate. One day at a time.

We chuck the three bodies onto a distant neighbor’s lawn, and then walk back to the house.

Jared is already there when we arrive, shaking and sweating as he looks around our eerie, foggy front yard, and the neighborhood’s odd lack of inhabitants.

“God, I missed you.” Tacy has teary eyes when she throws her arms around Jared’s neck. Despite his obvious discomfort, he squeezes her nice and tight and murmurs softly against her ear. I look away when I see goose bumps on her arms.

“I’m going to take Talia home and use the spell I made to convince her mom to let us move in together.” Georgia sighs and rubs at her face. She’s changed into normal clothes, leaping back into the world like we weren’t living in an alternate reality together for thirty days.

Thirty days in time that only the eight of us will ever remember.

“Don’t worry about the cops or the newscaster,” Brooks says, and I snort, trying my best to cover up the laugh with my hand as his hat swivels its eyeballs to give me a look. “They’ll feel positive toward us when they wake up, even if they don’t know why. I imagine we can use them to deal with our legal issues.”

“Ah … right. You guys were being blamed for murder—” Georgia stops talking and clamps her mouth shut, gaze sliding over to me. I know what she’s thinking. Before this shit happened, it was ludicrous for the public to go into a satanic panic and accuse us of dismembering and eating people around town.

Now, it’s all true. I did dismember and eat people around town. Ahh. Fuck. I put my face in my hands and try to breathe through it.

“Don’t worry. I think all the corpses went back with us to the woods. You’re the Hag Wytch. They’re your prey. I’m certain of it.” Brooks smiles at me as I drop my hands and give him a wide-eyed look. He’s staring at me like he thinks he’s being comforting or something.

“The bodies not being here is a super convenient deus ex machina, South, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel any remorse for killing them.”

He frowns at me like I’ve pissed him off.

“Yeah, okay, we’re going to leave.” Georgia pats me on the arm. “You guys have fun flirting with each other, and we’ll see you at breakfast on Saturday. I need to check on my family and make sure they’re not confused or anything. Thankfully, I buried a bunch of pig hearts around the house so you wouldn’t eat them. Blythe and Bea would be furious with you.” She makes a little joke about her sisters and that helps some.

Georgia walks off with Fernanda and Talia. Tacy and Jared are making out. I’m left alone with … them.

“The fuck is wrong with you?” Marlowe gripes, putting his hands on his hips and sneering at me. “Deus ex machina? Like a convenient plot device from out of nowhere? Nothing convenient about it. I swallowed a huge mouthful of semen for magic, and when you undermine that sacrifice, it irks me.”

“Sorry, sorry,” I say, holding up my palms in surrender. I guess that’s true. I do feel kind of bad. Marlowe softens toward me instantly, and then he gazes at me like he either loves me and would do anything I asked or maybe also like he’d follow me around town and sit in his car outside my house. Aww. Psycho. “But I still killed people. I ate them. I feel bad.”

“No you don’t. They were pedophiles and murderers. We made sure you ate the right people, kitten. Humboldt County is a better place now.” Tanner grins, gesturing with his head in the direction of our now unoccupied house.

The purple, lavender, and white Victorian looms out of the fog. Surrounded by tall trees dripping with salty mist. Decorated with rhododendrons and azaleas. With blood dripping down the roof from our battle up top.

“I’ll make proper coffee this time,” Brooks promises us.

And he does.

He said he’d give himself to our coven fully and completely, and he starts off day one back at home proving it.