I sighed. Please, please, let me be brought to life…
I found that I didn’t want to die.
Sleipnir studied Bask and Fox tenderly for a moment, before he shuffled to kneel at the base of Hecate’s Tree in front of the candle.
My brow furrowed. He was so close to me now that I could’ve reached over to smooth the dip of his tense shoulders. It took vast restraint not to press kisses down the exposed back of his neck. His naked submission for my sake was the most exquisite thing that I’d seen since my death. At least it was, until he slipped the pendant off from around his neck, which held a silver plectrum, and placed it before the candle: his sacrifice.
Then I realized that he was shaking.
Whatever Sleipnir had just sacrificed was of great value to him, and that made this moment the most exquisite thing that I’d witnessed since my death.
Sleipnir rested his hand over the plectrum like a goodbye. “Honestly, I know that this may seem like a poor offering, Hecate, but trust me, it’s everything to me. Dad could never give my brothers and me much. He knew that I loved my guitar, however, and when I turned eighteen, he gifted me this.” He tightened his hands around the plectrum. “I’ve never taken it off. It’s all I have of dad, since the witches kidnapped me.” My eyes burned. I wanted to scream at him to take it back, but he hadn’t even glanced at me. His head hung down, and his hair covered his eyes. “But dad would want me to give it up to free you. He’d be proud.”
“I’m proud too,” I whispered.
Sleipnir’s head jerked up, and our gazes met. His eyes gleamed brightly with unshed tears. “What do you want from us?”
Well, this god certainly didn’t pull his punches.
I shot a look at Flair, who was still perched on my shoulder but more like a devil than a guardian angel. With a reluctant sigh, he flapped to join Echo.
Then I inched closer, before resting my hands on either side of Sleipnir’s head, pulling him towards me, until my lips grazed his on each word, “I want you to hold me, need me, love me.”
When Sleipnir claimed my mouth with a moan that echoed the yearning that had swirled for long decades inside me, his lips were hot and his tongue warmed me. He smelled of raspberries, almonds, and co-co; his bonding with Fox and Bask lingered in his kiss. I could touch all of them at once.
Bask stopped dancing with a gasp. “Either it pleases you to kiss thin air or you can see my Magenta.” He dragged Fox with him to crouch either side of Sleipnir. “What does she desire?”
When Sleipnir cocked his eyebrow at me, I became quite giddy with the power of such decisions.
Fox snickered. “Shouldn’t we be shagging over a pottery wheel?”
First, I learned that elves wanted to play with snowmen, and now that mages were intimate over clay. The world was strange indeed.
“I’d imagine that we should start with a kiss,” I tried for casual, but Sleipnir’s gaze was too knowing.
“She wants a kiss,” Sleipnir stated.
Fox’s eyes lit up, and a slow smile spread across his face. Then he wrapped himself around me with intense concentration and sucked on my earlobe. Wow, that tickled and wasn’t unpleasant.
Sleipnir chuckled.
“Would you mind terribly informing him that he’s missed my mouth?” I squirmed away. When Fox sat back, looking shyly happy though, I quickly added, “Wait. Don’t tell him that. Just… Pass on my thanks.”
“She says that you’re an awesome kisser, although not as good as me,” Sleipnir informed Fox.
Perhaps, I should fire Sleipnir as my interpreter.
Fox’s face fell, before he frowned. “You do remember that I’m literally able to tell when you’re lying?”
Sleipnir only patted Fox on the head, before Bask slunk lower, bending down like he was prostrating himself. “Hey, her mouth isn’t down there.”
“She didn’t say where she wanted to be kissed.” Bask glanced up at me teasingly from underneath his eyelashes.
On the witching heavens, I could almost believe that I wasn’t invisible. Even though the tips of my ears suddenly became red with embarrassment, I still nodded at Sleipnir who sat back.
Bask licked, as if testing for the coldness of the air, before nipping kisses up my thighs. I knelt up, allowing my dress to fade to mist, before widening my legs. Bask’s lips pressed to my inner thighs in worshipful lines. I struggled not to shield the most intimate part of myself, which I’d been taught no one but my husband had a right to touch. Yet that had been whilst I’d lived, and before my own mother had tried to marry me off to a fae prince.
Dying had truly changed my whole perspective on virginity. Also, the game of Wank Count. I’m certain that I knew far more about the Rebels’ fantasies than any witch before me.
When Bask’s soft lips kissed across the cotton of my drawers, licking and sucking at them, I arched my back, clasping my hands to my neck and my choker necklace like that could stop the coiling inside me. I’d never experienced such a sensation, even with Robin. When I pushed closer, riding Bask’s face in rhythmic waves, he gasped; Sleipnir’s eyes were dark, as he watched me.
Sweet Hecate, please, please, please…
My magic prickled and sparked inside me, until it burst out at the same time as the wave of spasmed pleasure that screamed through me. I fell back against Hecate’s Tree in shock, as my heart beat wildly.
The candle blew itself out.
“I think you’ve killed her,” Sleipnir breathed.
“Actually, it could be the opposite.” Fox pushed himself to his feet, before reaching down to pull up Bask and Sleipnir.
My magic pulsed through the roots of the tree, before exploding upwards, lighting the branches that swayed in a dance of their own. Finally, magic sparkled like blossoms in the midst of winter down onto the Rebels in blessing.
Bask let out a delighted laugh, catching sparkles in his palm. “Never underestimate the power of an incubus kiss.”
“Boss,” Flair’s voice was softer than I’d ever heard it, “look by your hand right. Fucking. Now.”
When I forced my hazy brain to focus, I saw a snowdrop had pushed its head through the dead earth for the first time since I’d been burned to death here. I gasped. Then I glanced up and realized that the Rebels were also staring in amazement at the tiny white flowers that’d been brought to life by our love and magic.
By the ritual.
Snap my broomstick, had it worked?
For the first time in over a century, the ghost like paleness of a barn owl swooped across the glade, before frogs croaked out their song. Then tears did streak my cheeks because maybe I wasn’t lost, if the glade that I’d loved with Robin (and that had been murdered by my mother), could be reborn.
“I never thought that a mage could help create something so beautiful.” Fox shook, ducking his head. “But understatement of the century: something bad happened here. It screams through my magic that it murdered these trees and Magenta too. Okay, I know that I’m a brilliant kisser.” I tried to smother my laughter, especially as he lifted his finger and pointed it above my head, “And no denials, future Mrs Fox.” Well, that shut me up. Was that how men proposed nowadays? “But Hecate’s Tree should be trying to burn me, whacking me in the face, or spanking me. The Hecate statues in the bailey had a lot of fun playing Hurt the Fox.”
“What if the House of Crows are controlling the ones in the academy or this is the true Hecate?” Bask offered.
“Then what if the goddess saved Magenta and trapped her? Maybe we should touch—”
“You’re suggesting we become tree huggers?” Sleipnir’s gaze met mine with a dancing amusement.
Fox strode to the tree, encircling it with his arms. “Who’s a gorgeous hunk of wood, hmm?”
Bask sidled next to him, resting his cheek on the trunk. “You can spank him now, Hecate.”
When Sleipnir strode to join them, resting his hand against the blackened wood, I concentrated on pulsing my magic through it. He je
rked, panting. Then he wrapped himself more fully around the trunk.
I shuddered like a thread was winding too tightly around me. My eyelids fluttered.
Was it working? Would I finally be saved?
Candles and broomsticks…
The glade lit with an eerie light, and my breath caught.
“I guessed that you’d have the shortest student record before being sent to my study, mage,” Damelza’s enraged voice boomed out of the shadows, “but even I didn’t imagine that it would be for violating such a sacred place.”
I shook, staring at the academy’s Principal, as she swept towards my Rebels who were still hugging the tree. Her feather coat was ruffled up in her outrage. She trampled on the newly born snowdrops. I hated both the way that she glared only at Fox like he must’ve been the corrupting influence (my mother had always thought the same about Robin), and that I felt too weak to stand.
Echo and Flair hopped in front of me protectively.
“Awkward,” Bask mock whispered.
“Why do we always get into these situations?” Sleipnir groaned.
Fox tilted his head. “Perhaps because we keep hanging around with our dicks out…?”
“Silence, Confess,” Damelza snarled. “Didn’t you think that your brands would’ve alerted me that you were outside the castle without permission? Tomorrow you’ll come to my study for punishment. I knew that the shimage criminality ran too deeply within you. I wonder if the taint can be cut out.”
“Sorry, but I’m bad to the bone,” Fox smirked.
“Let’s test that, shall we?” Damelza’s eyes glittered with malice.
She plucked a feather from her hair and shot it flying at Fox. When the feather sliced Fox’s cheek, he gasped, hugging the tree tighter. He rested his bloody cheek against it, squeezing shut his eyes in pain. His blood trickled down the grooves of the dead tree.
Bask gasped, snatching Fox to his chest and backing away, as Sleipnir stepped in front of them. Damelza stalked closer.
My eyes widened, as that winding sensation began in my middle again but more intensely this time. The tree pulsed brighter and brighter. I was fading.
Would I be freed or die?
It turned out that Hecate had demanded both love and blood. She was an ancient deity, after all, and Fox had been the lamb.
Ah, irony.
“You promised not to leave me,” Echo wept. “Promised.”
All of a sudden, my vision grayed. My stomach lurched. I faded to nothingness, and then…
The trunk of Hecate’s tree cracked open like a womb, and I slithered from its insides at Damelza’s feet.
At long last, I was reborn as a living witch.
Chapter Twelve
Rebel Academy, Monday September 2nd
Magenta
In all the excitement of being freed from Hecate’s Tree and reborn again as a human (well, more of a witch and ghost hybrid, but it’d been the Rebel’s first ritual, these things happened), I’d forgotten how it’d felt to be alive.
How had I ever survived? My stomach growled like I’d already eaten a bear cub, a twinge of pain lanced through my lower back, and my nose itched. Plus, had my bosoms always been this big…? I jiggled them in my corset.
I would not be defeated by my own bosoms.
But then, I glanced up and caught Fox watching me with an amused expression. With a tilt of my head (because a lady must always act with grace and elegance), I gave a final wriggle, before focusing back on Damelza, who sat behind her study desk. Fox and I stood on the other side because there were no comfortable seats for chastised students, of course.
Fox and I had been called at the punishment hour of 5 a.m. to present ourselves to the Principal. I’d heard my mother summon plenty of Rebels to her like this, but it’d never happened to me before. Being a witch of the House of Crows had some perks.
Last night, I’d been assaulted by such a sudden burst of sound, smell, and touch that I’d been lost in a haze. I hadn’t even been able to talk, as someone had bundled me in warm coats and then carried me as carefully as a new-born back into the castle. I’d woken up in the morning in the middle of a tangle of Immortals, to the cawing of crows who weren’t mine and a summons to the study like I no longer deserved the protection of belonging to the House of Crows.
My nose wrinkled at the powerful aroma of garlic from the shrine to Hecate, which had been built under the narrow window. Dawn struggled to light the shadowy study. I studied my descendant, who reclined with such authority in the blood-red leather chair that would’ve been mine, if I’d married Titus. But even for a chair as spectacularly special as that, nothing was worth marrying a fae.
Damelza’s mouth turned up in a sly self-satisfied curve, although the skin underneath her eyes was purpled like she hadn’t slept at all last night.
My heart clenched at the sight of the obsidian desk that glittered like Damelza’s dress. Its top was cobbled with crow skulls. I remembered running my hands over them as a child on the few occasions that Byron had been ill, meaning that Henrietta had grudgingly allowed me to play in here as she’d worked, rather than in the Bird Turret nursery.
It hit me then, stronger even than the stink of garlic that pervaded the dark room that was stacked with books and potions, that the people I’d once loved were dead.
Of course, after a hundred years I’d known that they had to be but…being back here…it didn’t matter that I’d been granted life again.
Robin and Byron were still dead.
When my knees buckled, Fox caught my elbow. The shock of his touch tingled through me. My skin was aflame. How incredible it was that such simple contact, after so long being denied to me, could now send tears tumbling down my cheeks.
I was truly alive and I was back in the Rebel Academy.
When Fox’s gaze met mine, it was soft and understanding. Yet why didn’t he understand the danger that he was in?
All of a sudden, my heart beat so hard in my chest that I thought it’d break my ribcage. How did anyone breathe with such a wild creature inside them?
“I’ve only just found you,” Fox whispered, drawing me closer. “I won’t let anyone hurt you. I’m actually Lancelot in disguise. This R on my hand doesn’t stand for Random but Renowned.”
“Renowned liar?” I teased.
Fox winked. “Renowned and unreformed liar.”
I couldn’t help the snort.
“If you’ve quite finished flirting on my time with the wickedest witch to ever live...” Damelza coiled her silver blond hair around her finger. She didn’t look up from the thick file that lay open in front of her.
I pushed myself away from Fox and onto my tiptoes to squint at the file.
Hmm, maybe if I cast a Reading Upside Down Spell…?
Fox shrugged. “How do you know that she was the wickedest? There must be some stiff competition. Is there like a Wicked Witch Contest each year with rosettes awarded and…?”
“You truly have no understanding of the term thin ice, do you?” Damelza still hadn’t looked up from my file or acknowledged that I was in the room, as if I was still an invisible ghost.
I’d take great delight in teaching her that I’d no longer be treated in such a way.
“I really don’t.” Fox bit his lip like he was trying to force himself not to say anything else.
This mage could talk himself into trouble with a coven under a Peace Spell, and they were even compelled to be kind to vampires, spiders, and mime artists.
Damelza fiddled with the feather behind her ear, which she’d used to slice Fox’s cheek. “This academy has a reputation to uphold.” She pointed at the far war, which sparkled beneath the RA crest with alternating pink and black motivational slogans, which were carved underneath the scrolling:
Rebel Academy — Blessing the Wicked Since 1870
I cocked my head. “Am I not wicked enough then?”
At last, Damelza’s sharp gaze snapped to mine. “That depends if even half the sto
ries my grandmother told about you were true.”
I narrowed my eyes. “It’s rude to listen to gossip.”
In turn, Damelza narrowed her eyes, which was weirdly like seeing myself in an evil mirror. “And it’s rude to become a rogue witch, be burned alive, and then be born again just before term starts. Do you have any idea how much paperwork is involved in running this place?”
“My apologies, next time I’ll choose a more convenient stage in the university year,” I drawled. “Although, if it’s any consolation, I appear to be still part ghost. It’s perfectly exciting that I get to name a new species: what do you think to Ghost Witch?”
“Do you suppose that I shall let there be a next time?”
“Don’t kill her.” When Fox slammed his palms down on the desk, I jumped in shock. Fox appeared to have surprised himself as well, quailing under Damelza’s cool look. He wet his lips, before carefully removing his hands from the desk, whilst pretending to give the skulls a polish. “Or me. Okay, I have strong feelings about killing us both.”
Damelza glanced between us. “Then what does my snared fox suggest? I know that it’ll be a struggle for your small brain, mage, but don’t let it be said that I don’t encourage all my students.”
I winced, but Fox didn’t even react like he was too used to being seen as less. My hands curled into fists; that was going to change.
Fox sneaked a glance at me. “Make her the third Immortal. She’s this rogue witch, right? You’ll have to make her a Rebel because I get that you’re not keen on her showing up to take over the family again.” When Damelza blanched, Fox smiled. “Yeah, I’m a P.I in disguise, and your dead relative is back for her claim to the castle.”
Rebel Academy: Crave: A Paranormal Academy Romance Series (Wickedly Charmed Book 1) Page 15