A Witch's Fate_A Reverse Harem Romance

by Cheri Winters

  I’m even learning to admire their beauty. The ones Ben cultivates have long legs, and spread them out in pairs so they look almost like a letter X, in a striking combination of yellow and black. I kind of get why he calls them fine ladies.

  I also take my time collecting more fresh greens. I want a really nice supper tonight. Even if Ben can’t join me in eating it, it just feels right for our first time in a few days to make an effort to make it special. After all, he did buy me something pretty to wear. A little bit of searching of my own secret spots around the cabin brings me to a little patch of wild alfalfa I’ve had my eye on. The plants have just gone into bloom, so I pluck a good handful of them. The flowers are sweet, and will be a nice balance for the bitter greens that I’ve been able to forage lately.

  By evening, I’m getting good enough at walking the perimeter that I find all of Ben’s vampire chutes, as I’m thinking of them now, without having to search. I start walking back to the cabin and catch the scent of something cooking. Inside, Ben has already set the table nice, including a little spray of wildflowers in a glass, and a candle burning. There’s a bottle of wine as well. I guess I’m not the only one that thinks something a bit special is in order for tonight.

  I kiss him as I slide in next to him at the small kitchen counter to wash my wild salad and toss it with some rice wine vinegar and olive oil that I insisted he pick up on his last run into town. I choose not to ask what exactly is cooking in the pot. Growing up with Grandma, I’m used to small game in my diet, but I’m still not completely comfortable knowing that Ben had fed on it first. I do appreciate that he did hunt a couple of hours ago, as he’s nice and warm to the touch, now that the sun is behind the mountains and the air is cooling again.

  As Ben reaches up for a bowl for my supper, I ask him, “Time for me to change?”

  “Not yet,” he says. “You’ll be way too chilly if you do.”

  I can’t argue his point there. He’s already got a fire going in the living room, but we both know none of that heat ever makes it to the kitchen. If he had built a fire in the big wood burning stove, the kitchen would likely be plenty warm, but we’ve been using just a propane camp stove for all of our cooking.

  After setting food out on the table for me, he puts a big pot of water onto the stove.

  “Any chance of letting me take care of the dishes in the morning, instead of interrupting the flow of the evening?”

  “It’s not for that. I figured you might want to wash up when you go to change.”

  I nod my head. I hadn’t considered that yet. “Always looking out for my comfort,” I say.

  “Always,” Ben says, sitting down across the table from me. He opens the bottle of wine, and I notice there are two glasses on the table. I want to ask what he’s doing, but he just holds up a finger to ask me to wait. He pours wine into one of the glasses, swirls it around the inside, and then pours it into the other glass, which he hands to me.

  “A toast,” he says. “To the most beautiful woman in all of this valley.”

  I smile, we clink glasses, and he breathes deep from his empty glass while I take a sip from mine. It’s pretty good stuff, but not quite up to some of the bottles Grandma brings home from her travels. About halfway through the meal, I interrupt the nice conversation we’re having, because I have to bring up something that’s been bothering me since morning.

  “Ben. What you did to stop, well, what I’d started this morning. Don’t you ever do that to make me do something with you. Even as a joke, alright?”

  I see a sudden look of concern come over his face. “I would never do that to you. Your body belongs to you and you alone.”

  “Ok,” I say. “I’m sorry I had to bring it up.”

  “No apology necessary, my love. It is a frightening power that I have, and you are right to fear it. Fortunately, I can’t use it that way.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “We cannot compel you to harm yourselves. To compel you to let me touch you or take you without your consent is to compel you to harm yourself. It simply cannot be done.” He reaches his hand across the table.

  I take it in mine, and hold onto him for a couple of minutes. “Thank you,” I say, when I let go so I can finish up the last few bites of my supper.

  Ben takes the big pot of water on the stove and uses it to make me two pots of warm water. We carry them to the bedroom together and set them on a sideboard. “I’ll have the living room set up for us,” he says, stepping out and shutting the door behind him.

  There are many things I have learned to embrace and even enjoy about our little cabin. One thing I will not miss is bathing out of pans. When we’re done hiding out here, the first thing I’m going to do is take the longest and hottest shower in the history of water. Still, I manage to get myself nicely freshened up.

  I finally open the ugly paper bag containing the lingerie Ben bought for me. It’s a bodysuit made of a very soft and sheer fabric, with modest lace cupping my breasts and down between my legs. I look down at the front of it once it’s on me, and I find I rather adore it. Ben is right, the soft green doesn’t wash out my skin, and it hugs me just right to completely flatter my figure. I really wish I had a mirror, to see what it does for me from behind.

  I briefly consider putting on the nicer of my sweaters to leave the bedroom to make Ben wait for it a little, but I decide to be bold, and just step out into the living room. He’s got every spare blanket in the place spread out on the floor in front of the fireplace, which now has a proper fire burning in it. Every other light in the cabin is out, but he’s left the curtains open, to let some of the last light of the day in. He smiles wide when he sees me, and fails to be subtle about giving me a once-over.

  “Lovely,” he says.

  I pivot to show him the backside of it, slyly looking over my shoulder at him. The look on his face tells me the rear of the garment may flatter me even more than the front. That and the fact that he can’t get any words out. I spin to face him again and slowly walk toward him. I realize that a pair of heels would be the perfect accessory right now, but I settle for very deliberate steps, reaching out to point with my toe and set it careful, very obviously swinging my hips as I shift my weight between legs with each stride.

  Ben doesn’t move from where he’s sitting in the middle of the blanket pile. I come down to my knees, straddling his thighs. “Were we somewhere close to here when you so rudely sent me away?” I ask as I close for a kiss.

  Whatever fighting trick it was that Ben did this morning, he does again, and I’m suddenly beneath him once more. “I think we were here,” he says.

  “You’re over dressed for this party.”

  Ben peels off his top, showing me the full glory of his strong abdominal muscles and solid chest. He rests his weight on me, and brings his lips to mine. I reach down for his belt and start tugging at the buckle.

  “Not yet,” he teases, pulling my hand away.

  “You’re still over dressed,” I say, going for his belt with my other hand.

  “Am I?”

  “You are!” I say. I shove him off of me, and he lets me awkwardly roll up on top of him. “Off with these!” I say, opening his belt and tugging at his trousers. I unbutton the fly on his jeans, and he pushes them and his underwear down, lifting his hips up for me so I can tug them off.

  From my new vantage point, between his feet, Ben is fully naked and exposed to me. If he were not as powerful and self-assured as he is, he might look vulnerable right now. As it is, with his muscular, lean body, his complete comfort with being unclothed, his very obvious arousal, he looks more delicious than anything. I drop to my hands and knees, and start to crawl up his body, dragging my lace-enveloped breast along his skin as I go. It seems to slightly tingle his leg, as evidenced by a very slight shiver. It’s when I get up to the top of his thighs and that wonderful flesh in between that his breathing catches. I take a deep breath in and bring my face very close to him, exhaling as I go, and kissin
g his belly just after I’ve passed it. I press my chest down against him, and feel him lift his hips up to meet me. He’s clearly as eager to be inside of me again as I am hungry for him.

  But he bought me this lovely thing to wear, and so I’m going to wear it for him. I kiss his belly again and again, planting a line of little, wet lip prints up to his chest. I crawl a little farther up, and now we’re really close to where we were this morning. I’m up on top of him, my hands on his chest holding him down, teasing him with my mouth. I bring myself close so he can kiss me, let him start to enjoy it, wait for his breathing to slow as the kiss deepens. Then, I lift my upper body away from him. His lips chase mine, not wanting to break contact, but I hold him down. Sure, he could just flip me onto my back and take charge, but he seems to enjoy letting me play up here.

  All the while, his hands move from my hips, up my side to my shoulders, and back down. Such strong hands, the fingers gripping me every time I pull away to tease. The entire time, his hips keep up this steady rhythm, not quite thrusting against me, but not really rolling either. Kind of rocking back and forth under me. Every time I let my awareness drift down between my legs, the thought that it’s just a tiny bit of very thin fabric keeping us apart makes the muscles inside clench up. I can feel that part of my body begging me to remove that last impediment.

  I just can’t deny how powerful it feels, though, to have Ben beneath me, on his back, letting me take control. The first couple of times we made love, letting myself surrender to him brought me to such an exquisite space of ecstasy. To just let his hand, his mouth, his body, his will guide me through one doorway after another of new pleasures was exactly perfect. I let him overwhelm me with the scent and taste of him, the feel of his skin on mine, the steady confidence with which he prepared me, opened me, and entered me.

  But to have him now surrender to me, let me explore him, set the pace, the temperature. For Ben to offer himself up to me to experience as I will, to trust me to please myself in ways that will also please him. That is a new sensation, a new beauty, a new world that I had no reason to believe was so close to the other one he had introduced me to. Both are perfect.

  I crawl a little farther up his body, and again, lower one of my breasts to Ben. He rubs his cheeks over the lace. The fabric has a little bit of tooth to it that gives me this strange, gently rough sensation, and shoots little sparks across my skin. I wriggle my shoulders which presses my breast up against his cheek. He giggles – he actually giggles! Then he opens his mouth and tongues my nipple through the lace. His hand takes hold of my other breast and very lightly kneads it. I’ve now got three very sensitive parts of my body being touched by Ben all at once. I’m suddenly very aware of just how lit up every single nerve in my body is, and as soon as I notice that, I find myself buried under an avalanche of pleasure as a massive climax bursts out of nowhere. Ben lifts his hips right up off the ground, and places his free hand on the small of my back to keep my hips pressed tight against his as I first grit my teeth at the intensity of it, then open my mouth and let out a full-throated moan. Several seconds pass, my whole body quivering on top of his, and I collapse onto him.

  Ben’s hands drift to meet between my shoulder blades. He slips the straps of the body suit down my arms, and pulls them even farther to free my breasts. He embraces me, pushing our chests together, and I feel his heart pounding inside his chest, in synch with my own.

  “Do you need me to take over?” he whispers into my ear.

  I shake my head at him, and come back up to my hands and knees.

  “Take it off,” I tell him.

  He slowly drags the shoulder straps toward my hips, unpeeling the soft fabric from my body. He gets me stripped to my waist, then brings his hands up, slipping them inside the garment to push it down to my thighs, to my knees. One leg at a time, he frees me from my pale, green silken cocoon.

  Once I’m completely undressed, I move a bit up his body to position myself, and reach down for him.

  “You don’t need to,” he says. He puts one hand either hip and just moves me another couple inches farther up his body, and brings us together, belly to belly. His hips shift just a bit, and I feel some of his muscles tighten, as his hands gently guide me lower.

  I feel him touch the entrance to my most secret place. Without conscious thought, my hips adjust a little bit, and he slips, effortlessly, inside of me. My eyes go wide and I gasp with pleasure as he fills me completely. Ben smiles a thousand miles wide, and with the tiniest of nudges, sets the two of us into motion. He finds this delicious angle that seems to hit every single sensitive spot in my body, which causes me to gasp again. Once he hears that sound escape my lips, his hands come around to my chest to rub my breasts and gently stroke my nipples.

  Without him guiding my hips anymore, I am free to move as I will. I find that by painting a little figure-8 with my hips I get this amazing variety of sensations inside of me that bring me rapidly close to the edge, but refuses to push me over. I don’t mind, though. Ben seems content to lay below me and let me learn him and me and us. But as much as I like dancing along the edge, it doesn’t take long for my hips to develop a mind of their own. The sinuous snaking gives way to a gentle rock that seems to start at the base of my spine. The shift pulls me back from the edge at first, but then I discover I am on a slow path up. Step by step, I rock myself closer and closer. While this build is not as rapid, I can tell it is inevitably leading me ever higher.

  As my second climax comes closer, I start to move ever faster, until I find a rhythm that seems to put every part of my being into perfect synchronicity. My breathing becomes more and more vocal. Ben’s does, too, as I feel him stop holding himself back so he can join me. The sound of his voice, deep and slow as mine is high and desperate is the last push I need. “Oh, Ben!” I shout as my body tumbles onto his, and my soul bursts free in wave after wave of hot, white pleasure that shoots from the core of my being upwards and outwards. I feel his body clench beneath me, and his arms squeeze me tight, crushing our chests together, nearly taking the breath out of both of us.

  It doesn’t take long for the sweat on my body to start to cool. The fire in the fireplace had burned down to just coals. Ben pulls a couple layers of blanket on top of us to help keep us warm. We stay like that for a long time, until I feel myself about to fall asleep.

  “Come on. To the bedroom, my dear,” Ben says.

  I reluctantly roll off of him and sit up. Just as the blankets fall off of my shoulders, baring me to the waist, we hear a bang from the porch. Ben sits bolt upright and looks out the window. The shock on his face gives way to confusion, then he narrows his eyes and shakes his head.

  “What is it?” I ask. “Have they found us?”

  Ben keeps his eyes fixed on the window, on something his eyes can see, but mine can’t. We hear footsteps, as whoever is out there runs from the cabin.

  “No,” he says. “It’s not hunters. It’s not vampires.” He takes a deep breath, frowning.

  I wonder what could be troubling him so much.

  “It was Carl.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Ben Wake

  “He’s gone. He’s off the property,” I tell Ivy.

  “How do you know?” she asks me.

  “I used to hunt thropes, remember? Having put eyes on him, and having the land set up the way I like it, I can tell. He’s outside the inner perimeter, and has probably kept on running.”

  She gives me a doubting look, as if she thinks I’m being overconfident.

  The thing is, there is a part of me that really hopes he is still on the land. If he is on the land, I know that the hunter I saw is not compelling information from him. Of course, I had trained that hunter. If she has associated him with me in any way, she is probably tracking him somehow. If the hunter shows up here with Carl on the land, it would be good to have a companion by my side to help take her down. The last time we spoke, despite the fact that we had some pretty sharp words for each other, we seem
ed to have come to an understanding with each other. We shared information to keep Ivy safe.

  Of course, he is still a thrope, and has a hard time with his impulses which is why he did come out here and find us, despite knowing that it would put Ivy at risk. I know that it is only a matter of time before we are found out, though. And perhaps it would not be bad to have the hunter find me now. The longer she spends hunting me, the more Negre will converge on the hunt, and the harder the fight will be when it inevitably comes. Which leaves me wishing that Carl were here, with the hunter hot on his trail. Deal with her now, and then Ivy and I can move on again.

  “Wait,” Ivy says.

  I suddenly realize the error I’ve just made.

  “What did you just call Carl?” she asks.

  “A thrope,” I say.

  “A werewolf,” she says.

  I see calculations happening behind her eyes. She seems surprisingly undisturbed by this revelation, as if finding out that her new boyfriend is a vampire makes it easier to absorb that one of her best friends is a lycanthrope.

  “How long have you known?”

  “It didn’t take long. He figured me out, I figured him out. We both seemed committed to keeping the Truce intact, so it seemed safer for me to stay in a small town with Carl than to start the process again of finding a new place to hide out from my clan. I figured that any town with a werewolf in it would not have an active vampire presence. It kept me safe, really.”

  “And he did warn you of the other vampire in town. The hunter we’re hiding from right now.”