Wolf, Willow, Witch (The Gideon Testaments Book 2), page 6
In a wall, no less. Wrapped in a garbage bag.
Christ, she wanted to kick her own ass.
“A sacrifice? In this economy?” He tapped his pint against her empty glass. “Good luck finding anyone worth a damn.”
“My blood,” she corrected.
Lincoln tilted his head. Muted light scaled his jaw, sending a shadow along the seam where his neck became two pieces. “I’ve heard your deities accept other forms of worship, too.”
“Sex?” Tehlor stole the power of a proposition from him. Took his ability to make her blush or stumble, and mimicked his posture, allowing her head to loll. The whiskey gave her courage. “Yeah, we could fuck. That’d probably do the trick.”
The self-proclaimed sorcerer didn’t bother with an eyeroll. Instead, a boyish laugh punched out of him, and he furrowed his brow, slack-jawed and struck halfway to a grin. “Well, call me Tucker Carlson, because I must be a fuckin’ idiot, but aren’t you gay?”
“No, men are just easy to scare,” she assured, chomping at the air like a gator. “I don’t know if anyone would grant me an audience this soon after my last ritual, but I could try. Blood magic might work, sex magic might work—” She winked, shot him a finger-gun, and immediately regretted it. “—but there’s no guarantee.” Treating the whole thing like a joke was much easier than taking him seriously. “Best bet? Find a low-level witch and syphon some of their energy.”
“Wasn’t that what you brought me back for?”
She nodded. “Originally, yeah.”
“And what would syphoning from me look like?”
“I don’t know—I’ve never had a vorðr. A simple transference spell would probably work, though. Nothing too invasive.”
Lincoln stayed quiet for a long, strained moment. He stared hard at Tehlor. When he placed his thumb below her chin, touching the red hawk tattooed on her throat, she froze.
“We’ve come to an understanding, haven’t we? I could squeeze the life out of you. Crush your windpipe. Shatter your ribcage.” He traced the bird’s feathers, following its jagged shape to her shoulder. “You could put me back in the wall. Poison me. Stab me again. Send me straight to hell.”
He offered a small smile and met her gaze. Eyes like the tropics, she thought. Easy to drown in.
“I bet you fuck like a porn star,” he added, voice low, hinting at reverence.
Tehlor kept her expression neutral despite the heat roiling in her groin. She leaned closer, sighing softly. “I bet you’re into weird shit. Uwu and ara-ara while you’re balls deep, huh?”
Lincoln laughed again, that good, strong laugh. He swept his hand higher, pressing his thumb to her bottom lip. “I like you, witch-bitch. You’re brave.”
Brave sounded like careless.
“No need to lie,” she whispered, flashing a grin. “We both know what this is.”
“Ritualism?”
“Convenience.”
Lincoln furrowed his brow. “Can’t argue that.”
She leaned away and swatted his hand. Playfully, of course. “You hungry?”
“I could eat.”
“We’ll grab something on the way home, c’mon,” she said.
Tehlor left cash on the bar and tried not to notice Lincoln’s palm on her lower back, resting there for a moment, thumb smoothing across her tailbone, before he dropped his hand and kept pace at her side.
Loneliness was a disruptive thing. She knew that all too well.
Still, she felt undone, as if her bones had gone soft and betrayed her.
Tehlor upended a paper bag, spilling the rest of her McDonald’s fries onto the countertop.
Lincoln searched for liquid at the bottom of his plastic cup, sucking carbonated bubbles through a striped straw.
Well, fuck. She dunked her fries into puddled ketchup and met his eyes, chomping.
“It doesn’t have to be sex,” he said, so blatantly she bristled. “Intimacy isn’t always—”
“You sound like my therapist.”
“Well, you look scared shitless.”
She rolled her eyes. Anxiety churned her stomach, but she shrugged, attempting to conceal her nerves with a smile. “We’ll reconvene in the morning, all right? It’s late, I need to shower, you should probably prepare for whatever spell we’ll cook up, and—”
“You’ve got quite a bark, Tehlor. Talk a big game, too.”
“I’m not afraid of you, Lincoln,” she lied and scooped Gunnhild into her palm. “I’m tired. Fucking you doesn’t sound better than sleep, so.” She shot him a lazy grin. “We’ll get it done in the morning.”
Get it done. He silently mouthed each word and raised his brows, nodding slowly. He followed her with his two-toned eyes as she crossed the living room and made for the stairs. She swallowed to wet her throat and worked to conceal the shame brewing hot in her cheeks. Get it together, she thought. What the hell is wrong with you? But she knew exactly what had gone wrong. It was Lincoln Stone’s fault. His power, his charm, his energy, everything about him disarmed her.
Usually, Tehlor prowled around, found someone to have a good time with or syphon power from, and went about her life unbothered. But Lincoln made the prospect of an unremarkable act—sex, coupling—into something delicious. Something she yearned for. Something that eroded the concrete she’d built around her heart and turned her into a blushing schoolgirl.
Tehlor closed her bedroom door and let her weight go heavy against it.
“Stupid,” she seethed, whispering under her breath, and banged the back of her head against the wood. “Stupid.”
Gunnhild squirmed and nibbled Tehlor’s knuckle, asking to be put down. Tehlor set her on the floor and plopped on her rear. She pulled her knees to her chest and hugged her shins. The rat scurried to the dresser, climbed a tiny rope bridge typically strung from corner to corner in metal cages, and curled up in her puffy, circular bed next to the jewelry box. Like always, her bedroom was dimly lit and a fucking disaster. Clothes littered the ground. The attached bathroom was wrecked. Lotion bottles, perfumes, an overflowing trash can, and dirty underwear crowded the space. The longer she sat there, looking at her hovel, the more unbearable her nervous energy became.
After a moment of wallowing, Tehlor jolted to her feet and stomped around, filling the laundry basket, tidying the nightstand, scrubbing her bathroom vanity, and fluffing her bedding. It took an hour, maybe longer, before she gave herself permission to stand in the center of her bedroom and look around again.
She exhaled, deflating. There. Some goddamn control.
What did the Breath of Judas even look like? How would they get their hands on it? What would happen afterward? Would Lincoln just walk away again? Crawl back to Bishop’s house and wait for them to arrive with the not-priest and then, what, kill them, eat them, what? What happened once Tehlor didn’t need Lincoln and he didn’t need her and—
Tehlor had to turn her mind off. She huffed and crossed the room, yanking impatiently on her nightstand drawer. A single pre-rolled joint was all she had left from her last run to the dispensary, but it would do.
She ran a bath. Added caramel salts and a bath-oil melt. Searched through drawers until she found a lighter. Sighed.
Once she’d slipped into the soft water, she lit the joint and closed her eyes, tipping her head against the dip in the tub, exhaling smoky plumes. Her skin stung at first. After she took two long pulls from the joint, her muscles relaxed, and the tension drained from her body. She puffed slowly, holding the smoke in her lungs until they spasmed, and then let it curl from her nose and lips. Her mind drifted. Everything quieted, like static on a television, or rain on a porch. As she soaked, she tried not to focus on a single thing except being alive. It was then, as her eyelashes fluttered and she inhaled deeply, that she felt the knot beneath her navel pull tighter. The touch was ghostly; amorphous. It moved through her in steady waves—pleasure, or something akin to it—and plucked tenderly on her nerves.
Tehlor cracked her eyes open. She paused, holding the joint to her lips, and pushed her thighs together. Well, fuck. She swallowed, enduring the creeping incline of heat and pleasure climb inside her. It was like she had her hand between her legs. Like she was teasing herself. You bastard.
The connection linking Tehlor and Lincoln protected her from him. Kept him at bay. Forced him to preserve her life in order to keep his own. But it also meant sharing. Pain, pleasure, wounds, touch. Tehlor felt him unraveling inside her. His grip, secure and firm, was an internal pressure she couldn’t escape. She sighed and set the roach on the side of the tub, chewing hard on her bottom lip. Somewhere downstairs, probably on her fucking couch, Lincoln Stone was getting himself off.
Tehlor wanted to strangle him.
Tension pulled like a string through her center. She was chasing an echo. Running after a ripple on a still lake, unable to reach the source. She couldn’t pin down where the pleasure stopped and started. Couldn’t access the necessary rhythm that would push her body to a place where climax was accessible. She stared at the white ceiling, watching steam blur the air, breath hitched, skin feverish.
She could endure it, or she could entertain it. Being alone, but not, and seen, but not made the idea of being with him easier to swallow. He couldn’t see the way her back arched, or how she touched herself beneath the water. He couldn’t hear her shredded breath, or judge how her jaw slackened, how her body shuddered. The heat curling inside her knotted and flexed. She felt the strain in him. The resistance. Recognized his gritted teeth, a weight in her own mouth, and the throbbing in his groin, pulsing through her pelvis. She propped her leg on the side of the tub and plunged her fingers deep, widening herself on bony, tattooed knuckles, and imagined it was his hand. She came like that, thinking of him, and felt his orgasm shake through her seconds later. The pressure caused her back to bow. She lurched forward, smacking her free hand over her mouth to silence a shout, and bucked her hips, sending water splashing onto the bathroom floor.
Everything blurred. She caught her breath, staring at the showerhead clipped to the wall, and let her head sink beneath the water. The world went silent except for her heartbeat, drumming in time with his, like war horses. She breached and sucked in a breath, righting herself against the static rippling through her body.
Seconds turned to minutes. Her muscles unclenched and her pulse slowed. The water cooled. Every thought that’d emptied when she’d entered the bath came rushing back, clawing through her cloudy mind—fuzzy from weed and pleasure.
For a long, long time Tehlor had confronted sex and togetherness cautiously or with distinct intent. Never to bond with someone, not to build a life with someone, but for power, control, or information. She used people, but she was never used by people. She got what she wanted and went on her way.
Whatever the fuck was going on between her and Lincoln wasn’t part of the plan.
Not the short-term plan. Not the long-term plan.
“Get the Breath of Judas. Power him up. Syphon his power. Easy,” she whispered and chewed her bottom lip. “Easy-peasy.”
Tehlor was a talented liar, but she’d never been very good at lying to herself.
She rose from the bath and stepped out. She didn’t bother with a towel, just stomped through her bedroom, threw open the door, and stormed down the hall. Her feet left watermarks on the staircase.
Lincoln lounged with his arm draped over the back of the couch, his wolfish head tipped toward the ceiling, shirtless and relaxed in the center of the sofa. She inhaled sharply and rounded the furniture in the dark living room, and didn’t stop when he opened his eyes, startled. She moved efficiently, straddling him in one swift lunge, and seized his face with both hands.
His pointed ears stayed perked, framed by her thumbs. She ran her fingers through his fur and met his eyes. He snarled, confused or surprised, likely both, and went rigid. Water dripped from her nose and her soaked hair plastered to her naked skin. Despite being so, so disgustingly enchanted by him, his power, how he looked at her, she was in control, at ease in her body.
Lincoln kept his palms open, hovering an inch above her hips. Afraid she might detonate if he touched her, probably.
Good, she thought. Be scared, sorcerer.
“You ever do that to me again, I’ll castrate you,” she whispered.
Lincoln licked his maw. “I doubt that, witchling.”
Witchling. Tehlor set her teeth and dug her fingernails into his skull. If her blush worsened, the water on her skin would turn to steam. She shoved his face away and climbed out of his lap, leaving him damp and alone.
“Goodnight,” he called after her.
Tehlor hurried up the stairs and slammed her bedroom door. She twirled a piece of his fur between her fingers and smiled, tucking the strand under her tongue. She focused on Lincoln—two-toned eyes, wide hands, broad chest, wicked smile—and called to Nótt, goddess of night.
Dream of me, she silently chanted, swaying on her feet, dream of me, dream of me, dream of me.
“Drive him to madness,” she whispered, sighing, and chewed his fur. “Fill his dreamscape with nothing but me. Let my body be a heatwave. I am a ritual. I am a ritual. I am his ritual.” She imagined what would’ve happened if she’d stayed downstairs. Riding him on the couch, his hand fisted in her hair, her mouth on his cock. Then she swallowed the piece of him she’d collected, sending all those thoughts, every delirious fantasy, through the magic tethering their spirits.
The spell was like a spider, delivering a dream from one web to another.
Chapter seven
Tehlor Nilsen slept like a baby.
She woke a half-hour after sunrise, body free of aches and stiffness, and stretched beneath her comforter. Incense smoke and leftover cannabis still tainted the air, but her mind was clear and her muscles loose. She turned to look at Gunnhild who stood on the empty left-side pillow, twitching her pink nose.
“Bet he slept like shit,” Tehlor whispered.
Gunnhild crept closer and set her tiny paws on Tehlor’s jaw.
“You’re hungry, huh? All right, I’m up.”
Tehlor scooped Gunnhild into her palm and kissed her. She slid out of bed and tiptoed across the room to Gunnhild’s space on her waist-high dresser. She refilled the free-standing water bottle and opened the top drawer, digging out a bag of dried edamame, carrots, and seeds. After the rat’s bowl was full, she topped the medley with two yogurt chips.
While Gunnhild ate, Tehlor found a half-clean bralette and a pair of yoga shorts. She secured her long, unruly locks with a wide-mouthed clip and tiptoed down the hall, slipping soundlessly into her studio. She hadn’t bought Lincoln a bed-set yet, mostly because she couldn’t fathom giving it up. She’d attached a balance bar to the far wall and studied her movements in the sliding closet doors—mirrored from top to bottom—like she had when she was a girl. In there, she was her rawest self. Uncaged and unrefined, deliberately messy despite the assumption of grace most people attached to ballet.
She rested her hand on the balance bar, rose to her tiptoes, and stretched her leg backward, aiming her foot toward the ceiling. She turned her hips out and lowered her torso, bracing her free hand on her shin. The penché pulled nicely, stretching deep in her hamstrings and hip flexors. She closed her eyes. Shifted forward and bounced across the floor, hopping into a split leap.
“You’re a dancer,” Lincoln said, like someone would say oh after solving a riddle. He stood in the doorway, gripping the top of the frame, wearing his human face.
“I was,” she said. She eyed him over her shoulder and lifted her right leg, stretching it high. “How’d you sleep?”
He leveled her with a patient but knowing glare. Dark circles purpled his eyes. “You need to recharge.”
“I feel great, honestly.”
“What’re you afraid of?” Lincoln challenged. He dropped his arms and crossed them, leaning casually against the door.
Tehlor dropped into the splits, biting back a wince when her bad knee flexed too far. She pushed the soles of her feet toward the floor. One ankle popped. Pain flared hot in her shin. She watched Lincoln shift his weight from one foot to the other and wondered if he felt her discomfort the same way she caught the frayed edge of his curiosity. The more they picked at each other, the further they stepped into each other’s spiritual planes. What a nasty, sticky thing Tehlor probably was, all bone-shard and shoddy magic.
“I’m not afraid,” she said, lowering her chest. “I sleep with who I want when I want.”
“So, it’s a me problem,” he said, laughing.
She came out of the stretch and got to her feet, rolling her eyes. “It’s an us problem.”
“Explain.”
“I don’t do anything without being sure of it.”
“That’s a lie, Tehlor.”
“Fine, I don’t do anything unless it serves me.”
Lincoln fidgeted with his labradorite necklace. His smile waned. “And what makes you think I wouldn’t serve you?”
Her stomach dropped. She quirked an eyebrow, masking a surge of adrenaline with a fake laugh. Don’t, she thought, chastising herself. Don’t let him see you weak. She sidestepped him in the doorway, but before she could brush past him, Lincoln grasped her elbow.
“It’s foolish to underestimate me,” he said, low and rasped.
Tehlor flashed a grin and leaned closer, mouth inches from his chin. “Uwu,” she teased, mockingly high-pitched. “Ara-ara—”
Lincoln palmed her face and gave a gentle shove. He laughed, boyish and genuine, and she did, too. Laughter came too easily, felt too natural. She cleared her throat and pointed at the stairs.
“We’ll try a transference spell. Nothin’ extreme,” she said, nodding, convincing herself. “You good with that?”
He snorted. “Yeah, I’m good with that.”
“Good. Eat something. Can’t have you sleepless and fatigued.”
Tehlor strode down the hall to her bedroom. She expected to hear footsteps on the stairs, but when she looked over her shoulder, Lincoln was still there, watching her walk away.
