The Witch and the Stag

by Victoria Rogers

  Chapter Four

  Maddy held a journal in one hand and an electric toothbrush in the other. Three journals she’d gone through. It was difficult trying to decipher other people’s writing, especially cursive, so the reading was slow going. It also didn’t help that she didn’t know what she was looking for, not really.

  Aileen, the poltergeist had called the woman in her vision. And she had said Dunlea. That was something. She spat out toothpaste into the sink and dried her mouth. There was nothing in this journal. This one, by some aunt or another named Peggy, was only concerned with herbs and vegetables. Nothing about poltergeists, spurned lovers, and someone named Aileen.

  She put the journal on the velvet with the others she had already looked through and picked up the next one. She knew whose it was immediately. Aunt Brigette had the best jam recipes tucked between her protection charms and spells. She had never looked in here for anything but her strawberry jam and apple butter recipes, but it was worth a look.

  She was lying upside down on her couch, halfway through the grimoire when she spotted it. The name Dunlea. Maddy struggled to get right side up and stared at the page. There it was! Her first clue in this guy’s identity.

  Witch Hunter Dunlea came ’round again. It was Emma and I who banished him this time. While it was funny at first, I’m now annoyed with this family ghost.

  Emma, that’s her mother. Well, that means only one thing. Call Mom.

  Maddy unplugged her phone from the charger and spoke into it. “Computer, call Mom.” The phone rang once, then twice, and a third time. C’mon, Mom. It’s only nine. You should still be awake.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, Mom, it’s me.”

  “Oh! Maddy! How are you?”

  “Good, Mom. You? How’s your knee?”

  “Oh, just fine. Just plugging away with the physio. What’s up? Something tells me you aren’t calling me this late to check in.”

  Maddy smiled. “Know me too well.”

  “I better, I’m your mother. What’s up?”

  “What do you know of a family ghost named Witch Hunter Dunlea?”

  “Oh, gosh! Him! I almost forgot about him. He’s irritating as all hell but seems to stick to Serenity. Hasn’t followed me to Toronto at any rate.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Ah, he has been haunting the McKinleys for centuries. You just banish him and he’ll go away for a bit, and then you have to do it all over again. I’m surprised it took him so long to find you.”

  “You mean we have a family ghost, and you haven’t even told me?! Isn’t that something I should know?” Maddy shook her head.

  “I told you, I forgot about him. His story is somewhere in the family grimoires. Brigette might have it. Or come to think of it, it might be in your trunk. It’s one of the old parchment ones with leather binding. Was it Cecily’s? Maybe her or Annette’s. Someone from the nineteenth century. Or eighteenth. I’m not really sure, to tell the truth. I didn’t pay him much attention. Like I said, I left Serenity and he didn’t follow me to Toronto.”

  “All right. I’ll keep looking, and if I don’t find anything I’ll call Aunt Brigette.”

  “Oh, she’s on a cruise, honey. One of those two-week Alaskan deals. And even then, I think she’s off to Greece from there. You know how she is in the summer. She’s not one to stay still.”

  Maddy groaned. “Fine. Why hasn’t anyone tried to get him to rest?”

  “We have, but he’s stubborn. You either get used to him or you leave Serenity. It’s nicer when more McKinleys are in town ’cos he spreads his attention out, so you get longer periods of reprieve from him. I find him sad, to be honest. Holding on to whatever hate he has in his heart for this long.”

  “Yeah, well, after he followed me home and destroyed some of my merchandise I’m not prone to pity.”

  Infuriatingly, her mother laughed. “Good luck, and I hope you succeed where others didn’t. Or even better, you come move back home.”

  “Serenity is home, Mom. I love it here.”

  “I know. I know. You can’t blame a mother for trying. Now, I’m going to take a bath. Goodnight, Maddy.”

  “Night, Mom.”

  * * *

  A warm light broke the water and enshrouded the poltergeist, wrapping itself around the specter, squeezing tightly. Cedric followed, the power of the god of the forest emanating from him, tendrils and strands constricting the being out of Dunlea. The poltergeist howled and lost substance to escape the tangle of power before reappearing off into the trees, fleeing into the darkness. Cedric heaved himself up onto the pier and gasped for breath. His glowing horns dampened and went out.

  Gods. Something was wrong. He hurt. He hurt all over. He crawled along the pier to the walkway, where he latched onto the side of a garbage bin and pulled himself up to his feet.

  It shouldn’t have been able to do that. Whatever it did. Poltergeists were vindictive, yes, but didn’t have the ability to reach in and… It felt like everything inside him was rearranged. His breathing was ragged, his heart irregular. Phone. He needed a phone. Help.

  But when he pulled his cell from his dripping pocket it wouldn’t turn on. Must get help.

  The bar. If he could only get to the bar, his brain told him.

  He stumbled down the path. The sun had dropped below the horizon by this point, and the park lay in darkness. Gods, it hurt. He retched in some bushes, his stomach heaving. To the bar. Just get to the bar. Safe. Safe at the bar.

  Distant thunder rattled and rain began to fall.

  * * *

  Was that thunder? Maddy pulled back the curtains to peer outside. Yup. It was raining. A few of Fox and the Stag’s patrons were hurriedly leaving the patio to go inside.

  Movement down the road caught her attention. Ah. A drunk making his way toward the bar. She watched as he tripped on a cobble and fell over. She frowned. Was that… Was that Cedric? She expected him to clamber up to his feet but instead he clutched his chest.

  What the -- he was hurt!

  Maddy shoved her feet into flats and hurried down the stairs and to the street. The rain poured down and her nightgown stuck to her like glue. “Cedric!” she cried, rushing toward him.

  “Maddy,” he said as if surprised to see her. “The poltergeist.” He tried to stand up and groaned. “By the gods, it hurts.”

  “The poltergeist?” she repeated. If a poltergeist had done this, then a regular doctor wouldn’t do the trick. He needed someone like her. “OK,” she said, squatting down. “Put your arm over my shoulders. We just need to get you into my apartment.” Water streamed down her face. She blinked a few times to clear her vision.

  It was a struggle to get him up the stairs, but they managed to gasp and rasp to the top.

  He collapsed onto the couch in a wet heap, a puddle forming beneath his shoes.

  Maddy pushed the coffee table aside and knelt by the sofa.

  “Where does it hurt?” she asked. “Your chest?”

  Cedric nodded, wincing from the movement.

  She closed her eyes and held her hands over his chest, palms faced downward. His cord. It was frayed. But not so much that he was in imminent danger. Even with him safe, her blood ran cold. This was no simple poltergeist if it could do this.

  She opened her eyes and found him looking at her. “Prognosis?”

  “You’ll live. I’ll have to weave some threads back into your life cord, but you’ll be fine. Let me gather some things. And if you can, maybe undress? I’ll grab you a towel. We should get those things in the wash. We don’t need you to catch a cold on top of all this.”

  “That’s,” he began as he hissed his way up to a sitting position, “good news. And that’s not how colds work.”

  “Fine. Then you’re ruining my couch and I’d rather you didn’t.” She pointed at it. The thing was soaked and muddy.

  She let him do his thing and grabbed two towels from the bathroom cabinet. He was just struggling to get out of his shorts
when she returned. She kept her eyes averted and placed the towels down next to him.

  “Do you need help?” she asked.

  He avoided answering the question for a moment and then finally swore under his breath. “I’m sorry. I --”

  “Have a frayed life cord. That’s serious, if fixable. There’s no dishonor in needing help.”

  He chuckled and then coughed as she bent down in front of him to help him extricate his legs from his shorts. Well, this is one way to get the man undressed.

  Quickly, and without trying to make a big deal out of it, she gathered up his belongings and tossed them in the washer/dryer combo she had in the bathroom. She picked up one of the towels and carefully began to dry him off.

  “Madeline,” he said, taking her hand. His eyes bored into hers.

  Strength and power. Death and life, rebirth and virility. All of it washed over her. Her breath quickened.

  And he was coughing again.

  “Oh, dear. C’mon, lie down.” She helped him swing his legs back over onto the couch and laid a cushion behind his head. “I just need you to hold on for a moment while I get everything I need together.”

  * * *

  Cedric watched through veiled eyes as she gathered stone and herbs, wand, and dagger. He did take the towel and wrap it around his middle the best he could. Her proximity was intoxicating. She smelled like nutmeg and cinnamon with a touch of sandalwood. And then there was the way her soaked shirt hugged her every curve, leaving little to the imagination.

  But by the gods, it hurt. It was, he admitted, more bearable now that he knew he wasn’t dying.

  To the untrained eye, Madeline’s magic didn’t look like much, but with his godling sight he saw the strands that emanated from her core. He saw the golden-hued light wind its way through her arms and hands and fingers. The strands wound their way toward him, and then they were weaving about his bones and organs, wrapping them tight. They were warm and tingled along his spine. Never did it feel overwhelming, though there were periods of prolonged discomfort as it felt like things shifted about inside him.

  When she was done, he closed his eyes in relief. Sleep. He needed sleep.

  “No, no. You can’t sleep on a soiled couch like this. Let’s get you into bed.”

  He opened his eyes just a smidgen and frowned. “I’m not taking your bed.”

  She smiled, the right side of her lips a little higher than her left. “Who said anything about taking it? We can share, yeah?”

  * * *

  Maddy held her breath to see what he would say. There wasn’t much to argue about. Logically it made the most sense. But with all the tension between them, because oh, yes, there was tension thick enough to butter her bread with, she was sure he would protest.

  “I would be a fool to say no to that offer.”

  Her smile grew wider. “Good. I’m just going to take care of a few things before I jump into bed,” she said waving toward the bathroom door and then at her bedraggled self. “Meet you there.”

  Maddy towel dried her hair and put it in a quick braid to keep it out of the way as she slept. She took off the T-shirt and undies and threw them in the hamper.

  Great. Her dresser was in the main room. Next to the bed. She had two options. Just go out there buck naked like there was nothing wrong or wrap herself in a towel. She chose the latter. After all, an invitation to sleep in a bed next to someone didn’t necessarily mean nudity. Or sex. It sure had been implied, at least it had been on her end, and she was pretty sure he was into the whole thing, but he was also really out of it.

  She wrapped herself in the towel she used to dry her hair with and stepped out into the loft space.

  He slept. His dark lashes rested on his skin, and his chest rose and fell with the slow, steady rhythm of someone who was out like a light. That answered that.

  She grabbed another oversize T-shirt and changed into it before climbing into bed next to the godling.

  Chapter Five

  Cedric stretched out and jolted when his arm touched something.

  Maddy slept with her back to him, her cute, toned butt nestled against his thigh. The sensation of her skin pressed against his brought carnal thoughts to the surface. She had offered him a place to sleep, nothing more. To touch her now, while she slept, would be grossly inappropriate, even if he wanted to. Which he did.

  He glanced at his watch. Seven forty-two in the morning. She would be getting up soon to open the store at nine. He stifled a groan and gently lifted the blankets on his side of the bed. He climbed out and tiptoed toward the washroom. He splashed his face with water and tried brushing his teeth with his finger, using some of her charcoal toothpaste.

  There were no marks on him that declared he’d been in a fight the night before. He tried a few arm crosses. His chest felt all right, physically. He still felt a bit off, but the pain was gone. Madeline was a skilled witch, and he was lucky she’d found him. Someone would have found him eventually, but no one would have been able to help him unless they walked the astral paths.

  Cedric checked the laundry unit. If he wanted to leave this apartment semi-decently, he needed his clothes. The wash cycle was done, but his clothes hadn’t been dried yet. Thankfully, the dryer was empty. He switched the clothes from the washer, tossed in a dryer ball, and turned the thing on high.

  He knew she had coffee somewhere because he spotted the coffeemaker at the edge of the counter next to the washroom door. It was a galley kitchen, so it didn’t take him long to find the container of ground medium roast coffee. The filters were right next to it. He filled the coffee pot with water from the kitchen sink and poured it into the coffeemaker.

  She stirred in the bed, and he glanced over his shoulder at her. She had rolled over onto her stomach, her right leg splayed out, exposed from where he had pushed back the covers. Her legs were long and lean. A yoga enthusiast or a dancer, with those legs. He swallowed and looked away. There had to be mugs somewhere around here. Ah. They were in the cupboard above the microwave. It was apparent she didn’t take sugar in her coffee because there wasn’t any sugar to be had in the house. He glanced inside the fridge. No cream either.

  “Mmm…” Maddy roused and sat up in bed, rubbing the sleep from her eyes with the heels of her hands. “Is that coffee?”

  “Not quite yet, but it’s brewing.”

  “Oh, good! I keep on thinking about buying one of those coffeepots with the timer, but I’ve never made the jump. It just seems too much to spend on something like a coffee maker.” She pushed back her covers and slid out of the tall bed.

  Cedric watched as she wandered over to the kitchen, her T-shirt barely covering anything. He could see trimmed red curls when she took a step forward.

  Before he knew what he was doing he reached out to her, and she was in his arms, warm and soft on his skin, loose wisps of her hair tickling his chin. Her own chin tilted upward, and he tilted his down so that their lips could meet for the first time.

  Her lips were supple and smooth against his rough ones. There was that scent of baking spices again. She pushed her breasts against him just under his ribcage and her hands wandered to the small of his back. He gripped the back of her head, fingers tunneling into her hair.

  Her mouth parted and her tongue tenderly reached into his mouth, just past his teeth. Their tongues danced before she playfully bit his lower lip. He chuckled into her mouth just as his cock hardened. He swore she pushed her stomach against it on purpose.

  * * *

  Maddy’s stomach was full of butterflies, her head was light and her inner walls kept on clenching and releasing with little waves of pleasure rippling through her pussy. He smelled of rain, sweat, and her bed, and the combination made her wild. She could feel his hard cock against her, and she thought about how easy it would be to slide down onto her knees and take his cock into her mouth, to revel in the feeling of his smooth sensitive skin sliding against the velvety corners of her lips.

  The alarm on her bedside table
went off.

  “Ignore it,” she breathed into his ear. There was no way in hell she was going to let an alarm ruin her fun this time around. “That’s the benefit of being your own boss. No one to yell at you when you show up late.”

  “Mmmm, Madeline.” He whispered her name as she nibbled at his ear. “If we ignore it, I won’t want to stop.” His hands slid down her sides to glide along the curves of her hips.

  “Who says I want to stop?” she whispered back, taking his earlobe between an incisor and her bottom teeth.

  And then his hands were cupping her ass and she was hopping up to wrap her legs around his hips. He carried her like that, lips locked with each other’s, to the bed. She fell backward and lay there, legs splayed, completely exposed.

  He paused to take her in, and then before she could say or do anything he was on his knees and his tongue was trailing up her wet slit. He focused on her clit in long, slow strokes that had her gripping the bedcovers and tossing her head.

  “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck, Cedric. That’s too much. Too much,” she breathed. Her toes curled and her thighs moved inward of their own accord.

  “Too much or are you about to come?” he asked. His lips brushed against her. She could hear the smile in his voice.

  “Fuck me, Cedric. I want you inside me.” She motioned toward the bedside table drawer.

  Without missing a beat, Cedric opened it and pulled out a condom. She reached down and played with herself as he opened the wrapper and put it on.

  He eased his way into her, and she groaned as her inner walls tightened around his cock, pulling him in farther. He thrust and she let out a gasp as the head pressed deep inside.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Yes! Yes! More of that, please.”

  His thrusts were even and deep with enough stamina for days. Maddy was panting and scraping her nails along his chest and shoulders, and by the gods this was what it was like to fuck a godling of virility. Oh, Cernnunos, thank you for this gift.

  Their lovemaking was all muscles and skin, teeth and nails, lips and soft recesses. She lifted her hips to his rhythm, taking him in and letting him fill her pussy with his cock over and over again until it was past the point of no return. She lost the beat and moans escaped her as heat swelled in her clit. Her inner walls contracted wildly, and her neck arched backward as the sweet release of orgasm washed over her, nerves alive and tingling. She gripped his thrumming dick as he continued to pump fast into her, extending the orgasm until she was a shuttering heap of fiery flesh. As she convulsed, he slammed hard into her, watching her writhe hungrily beneath him. Soon, he was groaning in return until they were a sweaty, piled mass on the bed.