by Briar, Robin
I can feel the change ripple over his body as coarse hair grows across his skin, down his back and up his legs, thickening into fur. I can feel his bones shift beneath my touch, stretching muscle and sinew, tightening flesh into hide.
If the transformation is painful to endure, I get no hint of it. Mason hasn’t stopped having his way with me. He doesn’t slow down in the least.
I watch as he grows above me, overshadowing my body in his bestial shape. He’s thicker through the middle and wider across the shoulders. He’s incredible to behold, but that’s not the only place he grows.
I close my eyes and gasp for breath as his girth widens me, stretching my nethers from the inside out. It’s both too much and not enough. I want this more than anything. I can take it. I can weather the change from beginning to end. I’ll adjust. I know I can. I hope I can.
Okay, maybe I’ll need a little help.
It has been a while since Mason was this vigorous with me, but I have just the spell in mind. Maintain the Flesh should do the trick nicely. It worked before. Sustento in Carne, but without the words. Apparently, my love for Mason makes them unnecessary. A product of being a natural Maiden, according to Candice.
Casting the spell will drain the quicksilver pool even more, but the lust I’ll be harnessing from Mason will more than replenish what I use. Especially if the last time is any indication.
More than that, I want to be enough for Mason. I want him to feel like he can be himself in my arms, both as a human and a wolf. I want him to feel like I can receive him in any shape, that he’s not a monster to me. Just the opposite. Mason is a force of nature. He’s everything I want in a man. The protection. The possession. The feral animal that wants me more than anybody else.
To make that possible, I need only will the spell into existence, like I already did with my Preserve the Lust casting. Except I better do it soon, before he really loses himself.
I open my eyes to gaze upon the man I love, but that’s not whom I see.
It’s the stranger again, fucking me with those vicious red eyes. The vision is persisting for some reason. The image of this robust man picked up right where it left off, but how? I thought it was over. That I dispelled it with my mind.
I need to cast Maintain the Flesh, and soon, but I can’t cast it in front of Mason, assuming he’s still here with me, masked by this persistent vision of another man.
I try, but nothing.
I try again. Still nothing.
My ability to cast spells without the words is lost to me. What did Candice say? That the wordless spellcasting has to come from the love I feel for Mason. How can I feel that love when his face is replaced by a stranger looking down at me?
I feel what must be Mason, engorging between my lips, pushing the limits of my capacity as he becomes half-man, half-wolf, but I can’t see him. Just this crimson-eyed man that I have never seen before today.
He smiles at me, but is it Mason smiling? I can’t tell where one man begins and the other ends, but more importantly, I don’t know how much more I can take. Is it Mason or a stranger inside me? My nethers are moist, but I can only take so much. Dammit, it has to be the words, then. I don’t have a choice any longer, even if I risk being discovered as a witch.
“Sustento in—”
The stranger clasps a hand over my mouth, or Mason does. I can’t tell which anymore. Maybe I’m imagining the whole thing. Either way, I can’t finish the spell. The vision of the man with red eyes grins down at me. A cruel face. Greedy.
I try to move his hand from my mouth, but he pushes down even harder. He’s too strong. I’m muzzled from casting any spells. That’s when the robust figure really starts to thrust with abandon. He doesn’t care if he’s too large.
How is this even happening? It can’t be real. It’s just a vision, entirely in my head, yet I’m utterly caught up in it. I can’t divorce myself from this moment. It’s cruel and painful and rough, but that’s not all.
I can’t believe I’m thinking this, but it’s also exquisite beyond imagining. I’m at this stranger’s mercy. A man I don’t even know, except for some gut feeling that he might be connected to Mason somehow. He’s almost certainly connected to Sylvia, and that’s exciting as well. The lack of permission. At least, it’s exciting until he pulls out of me.
Clawed hands grab my waist, lift me bodily into the air, and spin me around. My weight is negligible to this man who may or may not be Mason. I land facedown. Fingers grab my ass, grabbing a cheek each, and spread them apart.
I don’t know what to expect until his long tongue lashes out like a whip. He licks me prow to stern, my undercarriage as well, over and over again, circling both orifices whether I like it or not. The truth is, I love it.
Is Mason doing this to me? Or is the stranger? Gods help me, I don’t care anymore. So long as he doesn’t stop.
His tongue is so long and soft. It travels everywhere without asking. My body is a live wire. His ministrations are like an electric current running through me. I don’t know what he’s going to do next, but so help me, I want him to keep doing it.
Do your worst, stranger!
My clit, my labia, my nethers, I don’t care. They are all prey to his fiendish tongue. Even my asshole. Nothing is sacred to this man who may or may not be Mason. No opening is neglected, and it feels incredible.
What amazes me is how much force his tongue can apply to me. He gives me one last lick that wraps around the front of my pelvis and slowly draws back. A snake slithering between my legs that tastes every part of me. My lips quiver open in anticipation as his tongue passes between them. I’m actually panting.
The man doesn’t keep me waiting long. It’s like a giant mushroom is being forced up my breach, and I scream at the invasion.
That’s when I realize my mouth hasn’t been covered for a while. I completely forgot to cast my spell of protection when the chance provided itself. It seems redundant now. I’ve taken him at his most swollen.
It helps that I was taken from behind. Still, I took him. All of him. I can’t offer a lot of depth, but I accommodate his width without any problem. Much to my own surprise.
My legs have no choice but to splay apart. The enormity of him demands it. I turn around to look back at Mason. Or the stranger. I’m not sure who I’ll see this time.
It’s the hybrid version of Mason, rippling with muscle. His back is hunched, jabbing into me with shallow thrusts. His eyes are rolled back, not really seeing me anymore.
I want to do more for him, so I push back onto my knees and bury my face against the bed. Mason digs his claws into my hips, but I can feel the sharpness of his fingers this time. The trickle of blood they draw. My body is so flooded with endorphins right now that I can’t even feel the pain. He could be shredding my flesh and I wouldn’t know it.
Mason towers over me in this position. The fullness of him splits me open like a ripe peach. This must be exactly what he wants, because I can feel him pulse inside me. Veins fattening with blood.
The one spell I did cast beforehand is still working on him, siphoning his lust through my body as a conduit, sending his energy to the quicksilver pool through the tendril still attached to me, but that’s all it does. I have to inspire his release, usually with signs of my own pleasure, and so I do, moaning into the sheets.
Mason throbs his response, knowing that I’m about to release as well, and moreover, that he got me there. I can feel the backlash building inside him. He doesn’t hold back, or wait for me get there first. It’s all about him, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. His need is greater than my own right now.
I can feel the jism erupt through his length and fire out of him, and each pounding of his beating heart brings more. A jet stream fills me with milk and honey. There’s so much of him today. He doesn’t stop. He can’t stop.
That’s when he pulls out of me, still coming, launching streaks of himself onto my ass. It slides down between my cheeks. I tense my stomach to gush the spunk
out of me, Mason’s handiwork on display for him alone.
I look back to gauge his reaction, but he’s not there anymore. He’s been replaced by my vision again. The red-eyed man with salt-and-pepper hair has returned. A brazen smile on his face. He’s no less horny than before.
That’s when I realize he’s not done with me yet. I can only imagine where he will go next, and then I don’t have to imagine. I know. I can see it in his eyes, and I only have one second to recall a spell that I haven’t cast since I first became a witch.
Since I was young woman embarking on my role as Maiden for the first time. It’s almost embarrassing to fall back on that spell now after all this time.
“Accommodo magnitudo.”
Fit size.
It’s the first spell to pop in my mind a second before the stranger plunges himself in my tightly lubricated backside.
8. The First Flight Out
The spell takes effect in time, and thank the powers it does.
The stranger that replaced Mason was just beginning to push into me when the magic enchanted my balloon knot. And just like that, he painlessly fits. I still have to grip the bed with all my strength, as his ramming speed is no less robust than before. Not only that, but he’s not letting up.
None of this is making any sense. Why does the vision of this man keep blotting out Mason? And why is Mason fucking me in the ass? It’s not like him to be presumptuous. Not the Mason I know, at any rate. As for the man who keeps replacing his likeness, that could be totally in character for him.
Which raises another question.
Is the vision controlling Mason? Or is there another version of Mason behind the vision? I’ve already lost track of what’s real and what’s not. If this is the real world, Mason can’t keep going for much longer. My spell will siphon his lust until he passes out. If this is purely a vision, then who knows how long it can keep going?
I close my eyes and focus on Mason in my mind. Not the robust, red-eyed stranger riding my ass behind me. He doesn’t matter.
All that matters is how I feel about the werewolf I welcomed into my life. The one I summoned back to me with a painting. The one who brought me huckleberries and water in the palms of his hands. The one who makes me lunch before I leave for work each day. The one who greets me at the door when I come home. The man who painted my body with his fingers and then washed it off so gently. Mason, the man I love.
I fix him in my mind. Hold on to everything about him that I crave when he’s with me and miss when he’s not. Only then do I take a deep breath and look over my shoulder again.
It’s Mason, and he’s human. The hybrid wolf is gone. The look on his face, however, is barely conscious. It’s like he’s trying to stay awake but fighting a losing battle. My spell has drained him again.
Mason teeters for a second, a little to the left, a little to the right, and then collapses on the bed, slipping out of my nethers.
So the ass-fucking was all in my head.
I spin around to take a closer look at him. Sure enough, he’s utterly spent. That should keep him out of commission for a little while. Still, that session will go a long ways toward filling up the quicksilver pool again. If nothing else, it was a good start.
I owe it to Candice and Saffron to replace what I spent. I’m good for it, even if that means using my werewolf to pay off the tab. Still, it’s not like he’s suffering. At least, that’s how I justify it to myself. That, and by placing a pillow under Mason’s head. Sleep well.
I walk to the bathroom and look at myself in the mirror. I need to make sense of this hallucination. I really couldn’t shake it off. I’ve never had a vision that was quite so stubborn before. I’m already dreading what my instincts are telling me it means.
A vision that won’t go away must be close to manifesting in the real world. All visions are subject to interpretation, of course, but a persistent vision usually means that something is going to happen soon. At the very least, I need to keep my guard up.
It felt like the red-eyed man was actually here. That I could feel his hands on me. I’m still trying to shake the feeling of having him inside me. My brain is half expecting him to walk up behind me, place his hands on my breasts, and bend me over the counter.
No, Jess, get a hold of yourself. Yes it felt real—very real—but none of it actually happened. It’s merely the product of your overactive imagination melding with a glimpse into the future. That’s all. Don’t make it anything more than it is. You certainly don’t need to be fantasizing about another man right now.
I look back at Mason sprawled out on my bed, mostly to assure myself that the vision is finally over. It’s him, all right. He hasn’t moved.
Mason will probably bounce back quickly, like he did the first time, but he’s also been awake all night, not to mention all the driving he did to get here. He may need to genuinely sleep. I could definitely use the time to put my life in order.
* * *
Mason’s claws definitely dug into my flank today. I never did get Maintain the Flesh up and running. My coven taught me how to heal myself, but not anybody else.
“Mederi Ipsum.”
Mend Self.
My flesh stitches back together again in no time. When the magic finishes working, there’s not even a scar left to show for it.
Candice and Saffron said it was too dangerous healing other people, even with magic, until I learned more about human anatomy. Sure, I get it now. It’s one thing to heal yourself, because you know exactly where the pain is located, but it’s quite another to heal somebody else with magic.
The patient might be able to tell you where they hurt, but that still leaves a lot of guesswork. There’s no telling how much damage needs repairing.
Hence the mandatory first-aid courses they insisted I take. Well, I’ve completed all the classes they suggested, and even bought an industrial first-aid kit, but they still haven’t taught me any more healing spells.
I hop in the shower and clean up. Mason wakes up after I’m done showering, but in a daze. I admire him through the bathroom mirror reflection. He puts on his pendant, a shirt, and pair of shorts, and then falls back on the bed without saying a word. He hasn’t moved since. Probably sleepwalking.
Poor guy. His stamina might be nearly inexhaustible, but he still needs to replenish his mental capacity, especially after gallivanting around as a wolf on the full moon. Thinking about it now, I wonder if draining him so soon after a full moon might knock him out longer than usual?
Not that I’m complaining. So much has happened lately that I’ve barely had a chance to deal with any of it myself.
I sit in front of The Vision of Endymion that I left out for Mason to see, staring at it silently and examining the details. It’s not quite an exact copy, like the one I’m hiding, but it’s pretty damn close. I would say it’s on par with the best copy I’ve ever done, albeit without magical help.
The painting I used to summon Mason, however, could easily pass for the original.
I turned that image into the focus of a spell. A ritual where not only was I unaware I could cast such spells, but I wasn’t even aware of casting at the time. And it worked perfectly! Mason turned his car around, wherever he was at that point, and blazed a trail all the way back to my apartment.
To hear Mason describe it, he made the choice to return. I know better.
He came back the moment I perfectly replicated his favorite painting. The spell must have been activated the moment it was completed. The timeline adds up, in any case. It certainly didn’t work for any of my previous canvases. None of those attempts had the same effect. Mason only described turning the car around once. Not multiple times.
Wanting Mason to return was my only thought for days. I obsessively repeated it over and over to myself, that if I could perfectly recreate his favorite painting, he would come back to me.
It sounds ridiculous, but it worked. I was delirious by the end, but kept that notion alive in my mind. It sustained me i
nstead of food or sleep. I believed it was true and it came true, albeit after burning through a countless number of canvasses.
I look at Mason on my bed through the doorway, not a care in the world. He’s actually started growling in his sleep now, ever since he admitted to me that he’s a shifter. I’ve seen his hands and legs kick like a dog.
Mason is back in my life. I got what I wanted and couldn’t be happier about the outcome. Even if I cheated by using magic.
That surprises me most of all, the fact that I’m okay with the manipulation. Perhaps it would bother me more if I summoned him consciously. I can take some small comfort in knowing that I didn’t do it on purpose, but I wonder if I would have done it anyway had I known. Or even if I would do it again in the future, knowing what I do now.
No matter what, it all started with his twin sister.
Sylvia asked me to recreate this painting in particular. She said that if I did, her brother would stay in town, that it would have a powerful sedentary effect on him. It might even convince him to settle down permanently, especially if the idea came from me.
I thought that meant Mason had been drifting until this point in his life, wandering from place to place, keeping the wolf to himself and protecting people from his feral nature. But that’s not the case.
Candice found out in one afternoon what I failed to learn after knocking boots with Mason for two weeks. Mason never left the family business. He just doesn’t work locally. He travels with the paintings Sylvia ships around the world. He makes sure they get to where they need to go.
Not only that, but Mason said that he and his sister trade jobs. So if Mason is here right now, does that mean Sylvia is traveling abroad instead of him?
My vision did place her in Scandinavia, after all. Sure, she was in a burrow with a red-eyed wolf, but overseas nonetheless.
That makes me wonder about something else. Was this whole manipulation designed so that Sylvia could switch jobs with Mason? To make him stay in town so she could travel more and leave all the paperwork to her brother? Piper hasn’t been around the studio for a while now. Maybe she’s abroad with her mother.