by Emma Dean
“Good job, Lucien,” Ethan murmured against his neck, and seeing him pressed into Lucien’s back was almost too much.
The fox seemed to think so too because he growled and bit down on her shoulder as he came, making her moan at the twin sensation of pain and pleasure. The smell of her blood filled the room and she heard Ethan tell Lucien to drink it.
Before she could second guess herself, Mika made a slice on Lucien’s shoulder with her nail. It was just deep enough that a trickle of blood slid down his chest. She licked it from his skin, taking his essence inside her.
“With this gift, I bind you to me,” they whispered together, as if they’d practiced the spell a thousand times. Lucien pulled back, lips red from her blood, eyes gold. “I willingly tie my life to yours until the day I die.”
Then he kissed her, their blood mixing on their tongues and Mika felt the moment that bond snapped into place. It was like someone had tied a string from her chest to his and plucked it to test its strength.
Mika could feel his thoughts and emotions like a river flowing around her. It was the most intense sensation she’d ever felt. They even breathed at the same time as that bond settled into their blood, their bones, their very marrow.
When she looked up into Lucien’s eyes, there were tears in them and she couldn’t remember if she’d ever seen him cry. Mika kissed them from his cheeks and just let him hold her, relishing the way his hands sank into her hair.
“Come here,” Ethan ordered.
Mika turned, reaching out a hand for Ethan. Smoothly she was transferred to the storm witch with Lucien’s help. The two of them were both roughly the same size, and Mika always felt small in their arms despite her height. It was one of those things she secretly enjoyed.
Ethan laid her down gently, and Mika was grateful since her legs were still shaking. One of the sexiest things about Ethan and Lucien was that whenever they shared her, they never made it weird or awkward. Ethan didn’t hesitate at all when he thrust inside of her, even with Lucien’s cum everywhere.
It was never something either of them were grossed out about and no matter how much it happened, it turned her on every time they did it.
Once his hips met hers, Ethan gripped her neck to gain the leverage he needed to slam into her over and over, driving her to a new peak she hadn’t even known existed. Mika summoned her witch knife and drug it across his inner arm.
His hiss of pain made her hesitate, but then he shoved his arm against her mouth, so she was forced to swallow or choke. Mika drank it down and then watched as he summoned his own witch knife. The sharp slice right above her heart made her gasp, but it was tempered with the pleasure he kept giving her, not missing a single stroke as he moved inside of her—filling and stretching.
The flutter started to spread. “I’m so close,” she whispered into his ear while he licked the blood from her skin.
“Fuck.” Ethan squeezed her throat just hard enough and her nails dug into his lower back as she lost it. “Yes, come with me Mika.”
And then her storm witch growled deep enough to rival Lucien as he came.
Ethan stared down at her like she was the most exquisite thing he’d ever seen, panting as he tried to catch his breath. Mika wiped the rest of the blood from his arm, maintaining eye contact as she licked it from her fingers.
“With this gift I bind you to me.” And around her heart another string was tied. “I willingly tie my life to yours until the day I die.”
Mika’s entire world felt slightly shifted to the left, as if her center was no longer the same.
When Ethan turned to Lucien with that knife in his hand, her heart started pounding. Was this something they’d talked about?
He offered the fox his wrist, and those golden eyes flashed once. “You’re sure?” Lucien asked, echoing Mika’s own question.
Ethan nodded and glanced down at Mika. “If we’re bound to her, we’re technically bound to each other. It just makes sense to make it official.”
“Will it override our bond?” Mika asked, curious more than anything.
“If you can have two, I don’t think so,” Ethan admitted. “But our vow is slightly different.”
Lucien ran his hand down her body and then up Ethan’s with the witch still inside her, ignoring the offered wrist. The way the fox cupped Ethan’s neck made her shiver and he opened his mouth wide, exposing his sharp canines.
His teeth sank into Ethan’s neck at the same time her storm witch made a quick slice on Lucien’s neck and Mika felt fire in her belly as she watched them.
“I bind my life to yours,” they whispered. “To protect, love, and cherish what we hold most dear.”
Her hand covered her mouth and she tried to blink back her tears, but Mika couldn’t keep them back. They spilled down her cheeks as she watched Ethan lick the remaining blood from the blade before turning to her.
Gently he moved, holding her on one side with Lucien holding her on the other.
“It seemed like a good idea,” Lucien told her, his breath tickling her neck. “We wanted to prove to you that despite all the blood witch crap about foxes and ravens, it wouldn’t affect how we feel about you, or each other.”
“And if we ever have kids, I will take care of his as if they were mine,” Ethan told her, pulling her hair out of the tie.
Mika hadn’t even thought about kids or what that might be like down the road. She looked from Ethan to Lucien and then shook her head. “I don’t deserve you two.”
“Sure you do, little witch,” Lucien teased, nipping her shoulder playfully. “I don’t think anyone else could manage us.”
Mika couldn’t help but laugh, even though it was ugly and full of tears. She held onto both of them, wishing she didn’t have to go back to the real world. “I think it’s more like one guy couldn’t manage me.”
They both laughed hard enough she knew it was true.
“I love you,” she murmured, turning over onto her stomach. Mika fully intended to take a nap after all that. “Don’t ever forget that.”
She felt two different arms over her back and the weight settled something deep inside her, smoothing out the new strain the bonds were causing as she adjusted.
Mika would do anything to keep them safe. She would do whatever it took to make sure those she loved didn’t die simply because they loved her.
Blood, sex, magic, and their three scents filled the room, marking it as hers.
This was her world now.
5
It was a few hours past midnight and Mika stood in the dark forest alone. She looked up and imagined she could see the eyrie that was right above her, feeling the two bonds that tugged on her heart.
The trees stood like giants and the biting cold wind ruffled their branches making a song she couldn’t quite decipher.
Mika closed her eyes and listened with her new senses until she could hear the whispered words in the old languages.
The trees spoke like old friends until they drifted off, almost as if they were suddenly aware that she could hear them.
Lucien and Ethan were still sleeping and she’d somehow managed not to wake them when she got up, as if her body knew it was midnight. Morgana had come and gone and her sweat coated her skin, the chilly breeze cooling her down.
The queens kept telling her to take every ally she could, and Mika had a list at her fingertips that she kept hesitating to reach out to.
And then there was the other issue.
For some reason she couldn’t take the final step that would allow her to shed one form for another, and it was difficult to feel like she deserved everything the Morrigan had given her, and the people who kept looking to her for answers when she couldn’t do something as simple as shifting.
Lucien kept telling her it was a mindset just as the Morrigan had, and Corbin had mentioned once how it was like taking off clothes until you were finally exposed for what you really were.
Maybe that was why she was having such a hard time.
But now she had two men she loved more than life itself bonded to her. She had a place in this world where she was accepted for what she was. But still, she kept holding back, and finally she’d figured out why.
Holding out her hand she eyed the way it practically glowed white under the flashes of moonlight. Her silver and black rings glittered, and her long, deep red nails looked almost demonic in the light. Morgana kept telling her to cut them, but Mika couldn’t bring herself to change that part of her.
It was the one thing she knew she still had even if all her weapons were stripped from her body and her magic left her like it had all those years in high school.
She curled her fingers into her hand and enjoyed the sharp prick of them.
There used to be a scar on Bradley Davis’s face that matched her pointer and middle finger. It had been deep enough, and with her enchanted nail polish that it had permanently marred his perfect skin. No beauty magic could quite get rid of it, only reduce its appearance.
But Mika had known what it was and ever since then she’d paid whatever price Edith Kavanagh had asked for the enchanted nail polish.
It kept her nails healthy and strong as iron while weaving a small protection spell against bad luck, but not necessarily predators. Edith had made it in any color she had asked, and the deep ruby red was her favorite.
Mika stared at her hand and imagined those nails growing until they were actual claws like the ones she’d seen Lucien’s turn into when he was half-shifted and ready to fight. Her skin prickled and she watched as the nails grew slightly longer just like before, but otherwise nothing really changed.
“We are all made of chaos,” she whispered to the trees, knowing they were listening. Mika turned to the stars and considered those words.
The Morrigan had told her to accept that nothing was static, that she had to embrace chaos and the ever-changing nature of the universe. Nothing was ever set in stone.
Not even an apocalypse.
Ever since Brad had raped her, she’d been changed and remade so many times.
Mika had accepted the loss of the girl she used to be. She’d grieved her and the potential future that girl had.
Eventually though, that sweet and innocent version of her would have discovered her blood magic, and what then? Would she have turned into Claire, or something worse?
Perhaps she would have been the evil witch instead of Selene and Mika would have led them all into darkness.
But she’d learned about her blood magic from ravens and foxes and a whole family she’d found instead of the way Claire had. That family was there to support her and help her do whatever it was she needed to do.
Her claws lengthened until they curved, and she wriggled her fingers, admiring them from all angles. Then she waved her hand, testing the level of control. Normal again. Then another wave and they were sharp enough to disembowel.
The length and sharpness of her nails had always protected her, even in one of her worst nightmares. Mika felt a connection to that need to rip and rend as the shifters did – to do bodily harm with her bare hands and now that she had something like shifter strength, she could…
Mika curled her hand into a fist and slammed it into one of the fallen trees, watching with a strange detachment as it simply exploded into a million shards. They scratched her face but then a strange feeling washed over her skin when Mika felt that shifter healing kick in.
Studying her bloody knuckles, she watched as the skin slowly knit itself back together. The blood remained until she licked it off though.
At first Mika thought she’d imagined it, but now she knew for sure. The Morrigan hadn’t just gifted her the ability to shapeshift, she’d gifted her a shifter’s healing as well. Whether that was a secret gift or innate to the shifting, she didn’t know yet.
After finding out she was a blood witch, it wasn’t like things had gotten easier. Mika had learned what a blood dream was in the worst way possible. She’d found more than one dead body and a hellhound who wanted to kill her, unlike the one who’d brought her down here.
Dagon had reluctantly left her alone when she’d practically ordered him to.
If she couldn’t even protect herself in this forest, then what the fuck was she even doing trying to protect anyone else? Mika was as strong as any shifter, fast as the foxes, and had better hearing thanks to the banshee gift.
Even in her human body she possessed magic that could rip someone to shreds. The only people who could beat her ass into the ground were Azrael, Lucifer, Jessica, and then Kenzie who could take every ounce of power she possessed.
Considering three out of the four were her family, Mika didn’t think she had too much to worry about. Even the coyotes couldn’t tear out her throat – they’d have to catch her first.
Mika held that shifted palm up and eyed every strange curve of her fingers, how her hand was slightly larger, and the skin was turning black, so she was surprised when the fur that slowly started to sprout was white instead of black.
Before she could freak out, she summoned witchfire and inspected the deep red of her magic. Even shifted she had her power, but what happened when she had no hands to cast? Mika would have to figure that out some other time.
It wasn’t just her past that was keeping her from fully shifting, or that her mother had died of heartbreak and her grandmother not long after from the same affliction. Mika knew it was far more internal than that.
The black grew until it was now up to her elbow. Mika concentrated and her clothes disappeared until nothing but moonlight was against her skin. She lifted up her other hand and summoned a knife before tucking it away again into a small pocket of the universe.
Over and over she summoned that knife, releasing her hold on witchfire at the same time, calling it back to her as the black grew and grew until it covered her whole body and the bottoms of her feet were covered in tough pads like calluses.
Mika wanted to know the exact moment she couldn’t wield magic, she wanted to know the exact moment her body crumbled in on itself to become something else, or if it would only do that when she was ready.
Shapeshifter wasn’t exactly the same thing as a shifter.
It wasn’t just finding out she was a blood witch and figuring out what exactly that meant, it was that her sister had been one two and Claire had betrayed her.
The black receded a bit at that reminder until Mika let the truth of it wash over her. There was no way to change what had happened. Claire had been exactly what she’d been raised to be with a bitterness that Mika understood.
But instead of sharing the secret of what they were, Claire had coveted it selfishly. Mika wasn’t even mad about it anymore – it was just the way things were.
And Mika had killed her.
The nails in her other hand grew and Mika felt her canines sharpen and lengthen as rage filled her.
Claire didn’t have to die, but Mika’s hand had been forced and she was so tired of having decisions thrust upon her, of having the options taken until she was left with whatever remained.
Even with her strange fingers and claws and larger hands, the knife felt natural and the magic obeyed her as she practiced her dexterity by twisting the power around her body. Everything she could do as a normal witch still worked, but now her body was a weapon in more ways than one.
The magic vanished and plunged her back into darkness. Mika tucked the knife away into nothing and jumped. Her legs were so much stronger, and she dug her claws into the tree, her feet gripping the bark like she was made for this.
Mika visualized what Lucien looked like as a fox and closed her eyes as she focused.
Embrace the chaos.
She had to accept that chaos itself couldn’t be controlled and life was nothing but chaos. All she could do was be as prepared as possible and then handle her shit.
Breathing out, she jumped again a
nd released that ironclad grip on her humanity, on every single thought and wish that she could be normal, that she could be a soft girl with soft smiles. Mika hadn’t been given the luxury of staying gentle.
Who she had been, and who she needed to be to survive were two very different people but she had survived and Mika would never give that up. She would never regret living – that every breath she took was vindictive and avenged that girl who’d been violated.
She breathed and they did not.
So far, every person who had tried to take her life, had lost theirs instead.
When she landed it was on four legs instead of two and she flicked her tail, feeling the larger ears and the size of her fox. She grinned and felt the sharpness of her teeth.
She’d shed her desire to be in constant control, to be normal, to be…
Average.
Mika felt the magic that flowed through her veins. It wasn’t the same as the power she’d been born with. It was wild and free and vicious.
She took off running, feeling the wind ruffle her fur, and from one leap to another she pulled on that raw power and became larger, stronger, and slightly slower. The trade off in her new body was that she could slam into a bear and take it down if she felt motivated enough.
Mika stopped and howled at the moon, feeling her tongue lolling as she sensed others in the forest.
They didn’t like wolves.
Don’t worry Morrigan, your daughter was born a warrior.
Without waiting to see if they could catch her, she turned and ran straight at them. The coyotes tried to nip at her legs and with as many as there were, they could take down a single wolf if they felt like it.
Mika breathed and shifted again, feeling the slight change in her body as she went from wolf to coyote and nipped at the one closest to her.
This new form was almost as fast as the fox, but nimbler. She took off and ran as fast and as far as she could, enjoying the ache of her new paws. Mika felt the other coyotes’ emotions change from territorial to surprised as she leapt and shifted again…
Flapping wings as dark and strong as Corbin’s.