Page 62 of Filthy Little Witch
This morning, I couldn’t stop myself. I’d woken up next to her, registered the heat in my gut, and rolled on top of her before I understood the implications. Was I jealous that Atlas had gotten to fuck her before I could?
No, jealousy didn’t even begin to cover it. I ached for her. I yearned for him. And meeting his gaze while I took her called to a primal part of me that I didn’t fully understand.
Perhaps I never would.
Now, we’d add another layer to this already fucked-up thing between us. My body trembled with anticipation and something else…something darker and more twisted. That part screamed louder.
“Step inside the circle,” Marta said.
Atlas and I did, standing side by side, our bare shoulders nearly touching. She walked the perimeter of the pentagram, pouring a thick layer of salt around us. Nine candles burned around us in a pattern of red, black, and white—three of each for us to represent blood, death, and spirit, respectively. They illuminated the dark space, making it seem more otherworldly and ethereal.
“Fire, we call you.” She walked to the next point and set down a bowl of dirt she’d gathered from the coven’s cemetery. “Earth, we call you.” She placed a long black feather at the next angle. “Air, we call you.” Finally, she put a jar of holy water on the fourth point. “Water, we call you.”
At the end of the pentagram, the point at the top of the star, she added three items: a length of red ribbon, Atlas’s leather pentagram bracelet, and the pentagram I always wore around my neck.
“Spirit, we call you.” Then she grabbed the grimoire and turned to face us, setting it down in the center before holding out her left hand. “Remember to let it flow. Don’t resist. If this is going to work, we need to be open to receiving the magic…and each other.”
“Got it,” Atlas said, placing his forearm over hers. I grabbed onto their combined embrace, cradling Marta’s elbow in my palm. The minute that the three of us connected, the nascent tie between us burned through my nerves. I took a deep breath, steadying myself, before Marta wrapped a long length of red ribbon around us, circling it over and under until we were sealed together. Then, she did the same with a black ribbon, intertwining it with the red to make a web of deep imprints in our skin.
“Blood for breath. Flesh for flame,” she started, urging both Atlas and me to join. We did, saying the rest of the spell together. “I give my body. I speak my name. Pain for promise. Skin for skin. Let no one unmake what we begin.”
We continued the chant while the air coalesced around us, growing heavy and thick with energy, vibrating through our skin. Our voices echoed off the ancient tomes and watchful spirits surrounding us, as if they saw our plight and wanted to assist. We could have done this ritual anywhere, but we chose the library for this reason. It was safe, warded, and full of powerful magic she could pull from if needed.
Atlas handed Marta the knife, and I held the chalice under our tied arms, preparing myself for what would happen next. The pain didn’t scare me. No, it was what came after, when the sacrifice would pull us into an altered state of consciousness, one that released any restraint we might still be carrying. Like that, I’d let them do anything to me. Like that, I’d do anything to them. And this would be even more potent because of what we’d already done.
Marta sliced down near our wrists, and I held back my wince as the tiny sting reverberated through my body. “One of flesh.”
Next, she cut into the middle of our forearms. “One of shadow.”
Finally, she cut near my elbow. “One of fate.”
Blood welled and came together in the middle, dripping down into the goblet while Marta carved deeper to strip away a tiny bit of flesh from each of us, no bigger than a sliver, but enough to make a sacrifice. Nothing could be given without a gift. Peeling that away, she bent to place it in a bowl, where it burned atop pieces of charcoal, rue, and copal. It sizzled and sparked, but I focused on collecting our blood as the weight of the spell started to take over.
She lifted the burning incense and held it between us, first placing it under her nose to inhale the smoke. She closed her eyes and let out a small moan, like the scent had intoxicated her. When she shifted the bowl to Atlas, he did the same, his features relaxing, his muscles loosening. I understood why when it was my turn. It hit my nose with an earthy potency, and once I inhaled, a wave of euphoria went through my molecules, almost like everything inside me had woken up and fallen into a stupor at the same time.
I was drunk on it, high on the power in the combined essence of the three of us. This was worse than the first ritual. This felt weightless, like I was coasting through the heavens and plummeting into hell in a free fall.
She set the bowl down and took the goblet, where our blood had pooled nearly to the brim. Atlas’s heat burned into me from the right, meeting the soft grounded energy of Marta on my left. And when she lifted the cup to her lips to take a drink, my knees nearly buckled. I felt her heartbeat in my chest. I sensed her body like an extension of my own. She handed the cup to me, and I sipped from the brim, gulping down their essence along with my own. It invigorated me, and magic pulsed through my chest and into my stomach like speed, like cocaine, like an enormous burst of adrenaline I’d ever had. I gave the cup to Atlas, who drank the rest of it. Once the blood sharing was complete, the rightness of this moment settled in my veins.
My blood sizzled like the remnants of our flesh in that cauldron. My brain short-circuited and came back online a million times faster. My libido, my yearning for them, amplified exponentially.
I stared at Marta, recognizing the same wanton stare in her eyes as reflected in Atlas’s. Now it was time for the final chant. Together, we recited the words.
“Flesh to flesh. Blood to blood. Three hearts bound in shadow’s flood. By water and fire, by smoke and pain. What bonds we make tonight will forever remain.”
Marta raised a candle to the ribbon around our arms and settled the flame to the edge. I startled, expecting my skin to burn, but only the ribbon ignited. Fire twisted around our embrace like a fiery serpent, disintegrating into dust and magic.
Once it was over, I itched with an aching need deep in my marrow. Dropping my arm, I glanced at Marta, then at Atlas, the silence between us deafening. I didn’t know what I wanted, or…which one of them I wanted first. Marta settled that for us. She grabbed the back of my neck and pulled my face to hers, devouring my mouth with her tongue. I moaned into the contact, desperate for more, wanting to consume her, everything about her. Her lips were so soft and inviting, and she tasted like ambrosia. When she pulled away, I bit back a whine that threatened to tumble over my tongue.
But she went to Atlas next, kissing him with as much fervor and adoration as she had with me. It was beautiful to see. Their fire matched each other, their bodies built to complement his hard edges with her womanly curves. I could have sat there and watched them forever.
She pulled away and stepped back, and I knew the moment had come. This wasn’t the careful dance-around-each-other we’d done at the last ritual. I’d licked and kissed his skin, sure. But somehow, that didn’t feel nearly as intimate as this.
I grasped for reasons to stop. I struggled against the expectations I’d been raised to believe. He was my brother. He was my adopted father’s son. He was everything I’d always wished I could be and failed miserably at becoming. I shouldn’t want him like this… I shouldn’t…I shouldn’t…and yet, I did. At that moment, nothing else mattered. He was simply mine.
And I was his. The same way Marta was ours and we were hers.
I grabbed the back of his neck and pulled his mouth to mine, and we met in the middle like two suns that had finally wilted to the pull of each other’s gravity. He sank into the contact, and I shoved my tongue between his lips, wrapping my arms around his neck to get him closer. His chest panted against mine, and the depth of his affection for me, for this, barreled through our bond, now more vigorous after the spell.
