Page 49 of Filthy Little Witch
“Good morning,” Marta said, pouring me a cup of coffee before handing it to me black, the way I liked it. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I drank an entire liquor store last night,” I said, taking a sip.
Ahhh, caffeine.
“Same,” Atlas said in his gravely, just-woke-up tenor. It sent chills down my spine, and I tried to ignore the images of him biting into my neck as I came. Or the way our tongues had tangled while we dined on Marta’s delicious cunt. Their combined tastes had done something irrevocable to me, and I feared I would never be able to go on without it. When this was over, when we got out and they realized I was not worth their energy, how would I ever get over it?
But last night was part of a ritual, right? Surely, we wouldn’t repeat it outside of that magical space. We couldn’t. We shouldn’t. If this much damage had already been done, what would it be like once we completed the other two?
“It’s the magic hangover,” Marta explained, rubbing her temples. “It’ll pass.”
We fell silent as we drank our coffee, the awkward tension of this new pull between us tightening my chest.
“What were you two talking about?” I glanced between them as they avoided my gaze, distinctly avoiding each other as well.
“It’s just…” Atlas cleared his throat. “Last night was a lot.”
“Understatement,” I said. “But we agreed. What happens in the liminal stays in the liminal.”
My brother shifted his hips as Marta pulled her lips between her teeth.
“And I was reminding Atlas that we still have two more rituals to do,” she explained. “I can sense you two inside. It’s almost as strong as the bond was before, but…I think we should continue. The next ritual has to be done soon, within a week if we can manage it. We’re running out of time.”
“As much as I want to get out of here, and I do… I think we need some space to think about things,” Atlas said. “To reassess where we stand now.”
“And where do we stand?” I raised an eyebrow at him, taking a big swig of coffee. It burned on the way down, and Atlas coughed while Marta cleared her throat. That, too, came roaring back. I felt them. I knew Atlas was uncomfortable with how far we’d pushed ourselves. Anxiety raged through his chest like a sledgehammer, beating away at his lungs. For him, this was dabbling in something we didn’t understand. One wrong move, one wrong decision, could push someone into something we liked to hunt.
Marta, on the other hand, was exhausted. She’d drained more of herself last night than she’d intended, and the soreness between her legs matched the rest of her muscles. It was like she’d done a triathlon and then fucked ten people afterward.
“Look, we all knew what would happen when we went into the woods last night,” I said. “We all agreed to it.”
“I didn’t think it would be that intense,” Atlas confessed. “And the next one…” He grabbed the book and flipped it open to the flesh-binding spell. “If blood binding felt like that, flesh binding is going to kill me.”
“Or make us stronger,” Marta argued.
“You don’t know that,” he said. “You don’t know how any of this is going to turn out. Constance stopped writing after the last soul ritual. This is…” He shook his head. “This is dark magic.”
“There’s no such thing as dark magic,” Marta said, the ire in her tone forcing Atlas to grind his teeth.
No love lost between these two.
Despite what we’d done, they were still at each other’s throats. Maybe it would always be this way.
“There’s only chaos and order,” she said. “Everyone walks the line between both.”
“Then what are demons, huh?” Atlas said. “Vampires? Rabid shifters?”
“Forces of chaos,” she said. “They thrive on it.”
“And last night was your definition of order?” Atlas sighed.
“The spell worked as intended, even if it was a little…unorthodox,” Marta rebutted. “We are one step closer to being able to share magic.”
“But without a full coven, we don’t know if what we’ll end up with will be the same thing we had before we got stuck here,” he growled. “What if it’s worse? What if we unleash something we never should have fucked with in the first place?”
“As long as it gets us home,” Marta snarled. The frustration ricocheted between them like a ping-pong ball, bouncing back and forth, feeding off each one’s anger and pent-up aggression. “The end will justify the means.”
“I’m not sure about that,” he said, pushing to his feet.
