Warlock 3 - Preview Chapters

I'm not entirely happy with the pacing here, but I'll make the second-to-last Warlock 3 chapter drop and fix it in post. There are still 3-5 chapters to be added somewhere - two of them probably in this chunk - but dropping this now will set you all up to get the final preview drop next Sunday and maybe I'll get the final revisions done to release 8/1, but it will more likely be 9/1, just to give me more time for revisions and additions.

Chapter

“Yeah? Yeah? Come on, then! Let’s see!”

“Rachel —”

“Big talk! Bring it, witch!”

“Rachel! Ball down!”

That got Rachel to turn around and watch the field while I tried to make placating gestures to the witch three rows back in the stadium.

Note to self: Pro spellstick also has a visitors side of the field and it’s important to read that notice before buying tickets.

We were two people in Banshees jerseys surrounded by a few thousand screaming witches in the Nagas’ colors.

“Goooooaaaaallll!!!”

Rachel leapt to her feet, arms in the air while I layered our shields to deflect the shower of popcorn and mead targeted at us.

“Watch the game,” I told Rachel, grabbing the top of her head to keep her from turning around again. “Just watch the game.”

A foot-long hot dog bounced off our shields right in front of my face.

“See if that’ll put her in a better mood!” the witch who threw it yelled.

“Rude,” I muttered, turning my back and sitting.

“What?” Despite my reaching for her head again, Rachel managed to turn around and see the hot dog on the floor of the row behind us.

“Just ignore it,” I told her.

“Oh, hell no. They don’t get to insult my warlock.”

I sighed while Rachel started scanning the crowd behind us, hoping the witch who’d thrown the hot dog might keep her mouth shut. She did, but when she waved an empty bun at Rachel it became pretty obvious.

I was momentarily relieved when Rachel just glared instead of screaming at the witch again, then she made a circle with her thumb and forefinger, about the size of the hotdog, before expanding it to a highly improbable size.

Rachel turned around, grinned at me, then kissed my cheek before going back to watching the game.

“This is fun,” Rachel said, as the period ended. “I’ve never sat in the crowd before.”

“Where do you usually sit at away games?”

Rachel pointed to the other side of the stadium. “Up in the middle box there — it’s where the visiting team’s owner and staff sit.” She stood up and waved. “Hi, Grandma!”

“Sit down!” the witches behind us yelled.

“Can we maybe not antagonize the home fans?” I asked, dragging Rachel’s arm down and wrapping one of mine around her shoulders — maybe I could keep her in her seat.

“Nagas suck,” she whispered.

The witch next to her glared at us.

I started to think maybe I should have made Rachel’s date-night a nice dinner and something more peaceful — like an underground cage-fighting event or something.

Nah … with my luck, Rachel would probably enter it.

Probably win, too.

*

We made it out alive, but I really felt for the stadium cleaning crew.

The floor around us was a mess of sticky, soggy popcorn and half-eaten hot dogs — if not for my shields being good against physical objects, we’d have been covered in everything.

We stripped off our jerseys and tucked them under our arms as we neared the stadium’s boundaries and the edge of its glamour.

The rest of the crowd was doing the same — or just adding their own glamours to appear as though dressed for the sold-out concert the signs claimed we were attending. A few were also dropping the face-paint glamours they’d worn for the game.

“That was fun!” Rachel said, taking my arm as we got out of the stadium and the crush of the crowd spread out onto the streets, heading for taxis and parking lots. “I want to sit in the crowd for every away game!”

“The crowd wanted to kill us,” I said, quite a bit quieter than Rachel.

“I know! Wasn’t it great?” Rachel was practically skipping next to me. “It’ll be even better when I’m on the field and score a goal! They’ll absolutely hate me!”

*

“Toblerone!”

I took a deep drink of my eleven-dollar bottle of water and admired the view as naked-Rachel bent over to peer into the room’s minibar.

The hotel was a short walk from the stadium and I’d decided hotels were a good option for date nights — going straight home would wind up with looks and questions and distractions, all of which could wait until morning.

It wasn’t as nice a hotel as the one I’d taken Sam to, but was maybe a bit nicer than where I’d stayed with Cassandra.

Idiot! a lizard screamed in my head.

I had to agree with it — I should stop comparing the hotels and start praying the girls didn’t compare notes about their dates…

Fuck.

If they hadn’t done that already, it wouldn’t be long.

I took another long drink, knowing I had about half a candy bar’s time to rehydrate before the next round, then yelped and jumped as Rachel landed on the bed. Water spilled onto my bare chest and Rachel giggled as she bounced again to straddle my hips and lean in to give me a deep, chocolate-flavored kiss.

She sat up, took another bite of chocolate, and held the bar out to me.

“’Oo ’ant?”

I shook my head and drank some more water.

Rachel took another bite, then tossed the bar onto the nightstand and laid down, resting her head just below my chin. She let out a long moan.

I chuckled. “Is that for me or the chocolate?”

“’Oth.”

I moved some hair out of the way so I could get my fingers up to the top of her spine and run them slowly down to her tailbone.

“Mmmmmhhhh.” Rachel kissed my chest. “That was all for you.”

I drew some random patterns on her back, and I could feel myself stirring again, but there was something I wanted to talk to Rachel about now that I had her alone.

“So what’s up with you and Sam?”

“What?” Rachel raised up on her elbows to see my face. “Did she say something? Is she mad at me?”

“Whoa!” I said, sliding my hands to cup her face. She actually looked worried. “Sam didn’t say anything — this is me asking.”

Rachel relaxed her forearms and laid down again.

“Oh. Oh — um, why would there be anything up?” she mumbled.

I’d been thinking of how to address the subject — or not, since it was really between Sam and Rachel. Or … maybe yes, because Sam and Rachel were both mine. Maybe … that was a little possessive — the girls’ relationships between each other shouldn’t matter unless it did something negative to the coven’s dynamic as a whole. On the other hand … what I thought was between Sam and Rachel was different than them just hanging out or something. But … should my jaw really be aching at the thought of them pursuing something outside of my involvement? Could be … a pro was if they did get, let’s call it more friendly, I’d probably be able to get by with less hydration. Now … the con would be it made me a jealous asshole.

Fuck.

I decided to address the issue head on and let the girls decide if I was being a jealous asshole later. It wasn’t like they were shy about telling me if they didn’t like something.

“You smack her every time she talks about another girl, you effectively told her your boobs were the only ones she should be looking at, and every time she leaves a room, you stare at the door for half a minute like a puppy waiting for her to come home.”

“Well — but — that’s not weird. For all you know I stare at the door like that when you leave a room. In fact, I do, so —”

“I think that sort of makes my point.”

Rachel buried her face in my chest.

“Nothing’s up,” she murmured.

“Rachel?”

“Yes?”

“Remember what Cassandra got when she wouldn’t talk to us about it when something was wrong?”

“Eep!”

Rachel didn’t even breathe for a minute — which gave me time to realize my dick was rousing again at the thought of putting my sweet, little Rachel over my knee and feeling the smack of my palm against her tight ass.

“You wouldn’t,” Rachel whispered.

Hello.

Rachel gasped.

She pushed herself up again and looked down between us.

“You would.” She raised her head and glared at me. “And you’d like it.”

“I sure would,” I laughed, rolling Rachel onto her back and kissing her.

“Yeah?” she whispered as I explored her earlobe with my tongue. “You want me to be your naughty girl?”

“Speaking of changing the subject from Sam.”

Rachel gasped again. “Grrr. How did that not distract you? I did that perfect.”

“You did,” I agreed. “I was just expecting it.”

“Hhmp — mmmmhhhh,” she moaned as I shifted my hips to slide inside her.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” I whispered.

Rachel sighed. “I don’t know.”

I laughed again. “But you want to?”

“I don’t know — I’ve been so busy learning dirty-things with you that I haven’t had time to think about dirty-things with anyone else.”

I chuckled. “But you’d like to find out?”

“If it’s okay.”

“Why wouldn’t it be okay?”

“You’re my warlock. I’d never do something like that if you didn’t want me to.”

“Oh.” That … actually turned me on a little bit. “Well, yeah, it’s okay.”

Oddly, giving permission made me feel better about it.

Rachel sighed. “It doesn’t matter.” Another sigh. “I can’t even tell if she’d even want to.”

“I’m pretty sure she does.”

“Then why hasn’t she done something? She knows more about stuff than I do.”

Now it was my turn to sigh.

“I’m going to have to talk to Sam about this for you, aren’t I?”

“Would you?” Rachel asked, giving her hips a wiggle.

“I will.”

But if we have to get involved in this — we’re going to be involved in it.

For once, Dick, we agree.

Chapter

Two more weeks, and two more dates, into our first attempt at evening-out everyone’s date-number with Priscilla, we’d come full circle and I was out with Priscilla again. I’d been right about the whole date-night precedent becoming overwhelming, though — even this early I could see where things were going.

Next week was finals and, while Sam, Cassandra, and Rachel were back at Mel’s studying, I was losing another night of studying — and the girls were already starting to whine, playfully for now, at least, about how long between dates it was.

Thirteen girls, one date a week…

Idiot, my brain said in Lizard.

At a rate of one date a week, there was no way they’d be happy with thirteen weeks between their own dates, and this was before even thinking about evening out the dates for future initiatae.

I’d known guys in high school who’d dated more than four girls at once — how the hell had they managed it without flunking out?

Priscilla’s hand squeezed mine and I made a new rule for myself — no whining about how complicated date-night scheduling was while on a date. I squeezed her hand back and ran my thumb over the back of her hand.

Despite how close it was to the end of the school year, I hadn’t even looked for a hotel — despite wanting to.

Priscilla was a calming influence on the group, and having her around all the time was giving me a certainty that she’d fit in with us long-term, not to mention that she smelled like cinnamon tonight and her hand was soft and warm in mine.

Yeah … I was pretty gone already.

I thought Priscilla was, too, despite her looking up the name of the spiky, grate-door thing and telling me there were a couple portcullises yet to get through, along with a barbican supported by a pair of machicolations — between that and Sam researching siege weapons, I thought maybe they were taking the whole castle-analogy a little far.

They seemed to be having fun with it, though.

“Not going to ask where we’re going?” I asked, a little surprised since we’d been walking some time since dinner.

Priscilla shrugged. “You did pretty good last time.”

“Now I feel like every date is being judged.”

“They are.” She grinned. “There’s a whole panel of judges. Three guesses to name them.”

I groaned.

“I’m not judging this date, though.”

“That’s a relief.”

“It wouldn’t be fair to judge our own, so we have to abstain and let the others do it.”

Okay, not a relief.

“Seriously?”

Priscilla nodded.

So that was what some of the huddled whispering was about after every date. I wondered if that was a witch-thing or just a girl-thing.

“Um, how am I doing?”

“Overall? So far you’re at seven point three overall.”

“Seven?”

“Point three.”

I thought I’d done pretty good with our last date — better than a fucking seven, at least.

“It might go up — we’re still trying to work out some kinks.”

My step faltered and I shot her a quick glance.

“Not … fuck,” Priscilla muttered, ducking her head and blushing. “That’s not what I meant … okay, Samantha judges on that, but it’s not what I meant. It’s just that with only three available to judge things, it’s hard to get a good average. Samantha keeps bringing your D-score down and if we throw out the lowest and highest for your E-score, then there’s only one judge left.”

“E-score?” I wanted to know what the other one was, too, but maybe if I only asked about one, Priscilla would explain both and I’d look like less of an idiot.

“Execution — it’s supposed to be six judges, then we throw out the lowest and highest and average the other four scores.” She shrugged. “Then Samantha insists on taking off a minimum of three points on the difficulty score for, um, ‘lack of completion.’”

I didn’t have to ask what ‘lack of completion’ meant — at least where Priscilla was concerned.

I groaned. “That doesn’t seem fair.”

“She has pretty high standards around that.”

She did, but it wasn’t that I didn’t want to complete things with Priscilla, it was just that I was still bound by my oath. Sam had already suggested I go ask Prima Rosethorn to release me from it for Priscilla, since we did have the go-ahead from her mom, but things were already weird enough without going through the rest of my life with the knowledge I’d once asked my principal for permission to fuck my girlfriend.

“But my head would explode if we … um —”

Priscilla grinned. “I appreciate your confidence in me.”

I had to return the grin. “You did say you were still a little limber.”

Priscilla flushed and ducked her head, but she was still smiling. “A little?”

I shrugged. “It’s been a while since you took gymnastics, right?”

My next step was brought up short by Priscilla letting go of my hand as she stopped.

“What?” I asked.

I’d just been playing with her, not seriously doubting her … limberness. Maybe suggesting she’d let that go a little was an insult to gymnasts?

Priscilla narrowed her eyes, then took a deep breath.

She tilted her head back, extending her neck in a pretty distracting way, then I was distracted from even that when she lifted one leg, extending it behind her. Her back curved in a way that thrust her breasts at me, but the really distracting part was where she reached over her head, behind her, to grasp the long, thin heel of her shoe and draw it up to touch the back of her head.

I blinked.

Then I blinked again as she straightened and swung her leg forward and straight up to hug it against the front of her body.

She peeked at me around her calf and raised an eyebrow.

“‘A little?’”

I gulped. I wasn’t even sure what to do with that sort of flexibility, but I was anxious to find out.

“I acknowledge your limberness,” I told her. And look forward to exploring it.

 Can she fold both legs like that at the same time? my dick asked.

Our head will explode, I reminded it.

Exactly.

Priscilla nodded, satisfied, and unfolded herself.

I took her hand again and we resumed walking.

“So, ah, what else goes into these scores?” I asked.

I wasn’t planning on changing anything to enhance future date-scores, but it might be nice to know what I was being judged on.

Priscilla shrugged. “We’re still working that out — it’s not like there’s established criteria for date-difficulty — but it’s stuff like how hard it is to plan and keep secret, plus how much you have to work … that’s where Samantha’s points get taken off. You got some good difficulty points for taking Cassandra to that convention on short notice. Execution is more subjective — and, like I said, we need more judges for that.” She paused. “We thought about bringing in Morgan but decided to wait until you guys actually have a date.”

I choked a little, having to stop and clear my throat a couple times.

Priscilla chuckled, but it faded as our destination came into sight.

*

“I haven’t done this in years,” Priscilla said as she laced up her skates.

I was having trouble with mine, never having roller-skated before — or worn anything that had laces this fucking long. Even after tying the knot, the ends hung down to the floor.

“You need to tuck those in, so you don’t roll over them,” Priscilla pointed out.

“Why are they so long?” I asked, tying a second bow and tucking the loose ends inside the top of the boot.

Priscilla shrugged. “I think the rink employees just like to watch people fall.”

It was a little hard to hear her over the pounding beat from the DJ booth — and the flashing lights and strobes made watching her lips for a hint pointless.

I stood up carefully, ignoring Priscilla’s barely suppressed laughter.

No, it wasn’t suppressed at all — she was faking suppressing it to make it even more obvious she was laughing at me.

I shuffle-rolled my way to the gap in the half-wall surrounding the rink and paused. Priscilla was already out on the skating surface of narrow, polished boards.

“You can go take a lap,” I said, waving her away. “I’ll just stand here and get used to these things.”

“Sure.”

Priscilla skated away, grinning — also, backwards and making an I’m-watching-you gesture, pointing two fingers to her eyes and then to me.

I sighed and grasped the half-wall tightly as I tentatively raised one skate and stepped down to the rink’s surface.

A guy blasted past me so close I thought his jeans actually brushed mine and so fast I barely heard his muttered, “Watch out.”

“Asshole,” I muttered back.

I knew nothing about skating rink etiquette but could guess it included giving a little fucking space to the entrance where people who didn’t know what the fuck they were doing would congregate.

I was displeased to discover that the skate wheels rolled a lot more freely on the wooden surface of the rink than they had on the carpet. Steps had been mostly manageable on the carpet, but a couple of tentative attempts quickly showed me that wasn’t an option.

A pair of twelve-year-olds passed me, laughing.

Maybe they weren’t laughing at me, but the pointing and looking over their shoulders made me suspicious.

Rolling wasn’t exactly working out for me either, because trying just seemed to make my skates go back and forth while I stayed in one place.

I’d made it about three feet from the entrance before Priscilla returned, having lapped me in the time it took for me to clear the gap in the wall.

“Have … you never skated before?” she asked, grinning.

I sighed.

“You really haven’t!” Her grin widened. “Oh, you’re gonna get both D- and E-points for this.” She held out her hands. “Gimme.”

Slowly and carefully, I took one hand off the railing and put it in hers.

“Both,” she demanded.

I sighed, swallowed against the sudden certainty that falling on my ass and dragging Priscilla down on top of me was in my very near future, then released the railing with my other hand.

Immediately, my skates started sliding forward, but Priscilla tightened her grip and pulled in a way that put me upright and stable again.

“You can’t fall unless I do,” she told me, “and that doesn’t happen.”

I nodded. “If you say so.”

“Proprio says so.”

She did something with her feet that sent her gliding backwards, bringing me along with her. I tried to move my feet to go along, but a wheel dragged and my other knee buckled. I would have gone down, but Priscilla adjusted our balance and I managed to straighten up again.

“You’re doing good,” she told me after a few more yards of gliding. “Now try pushing off with one foot — no, don’t watch my feet, backwards is different. Let one foot go back a little and push — turn your toe out just a bit — then bring it back to roll.”

I got it after a couple of tries, but would have fallen if not for Priscilla’s grip on my arms.

After one lap, she slowed us and we came to a stop back near the entrance.

“Let’s rest a minute,” she said.

I knew she was really saying I should rest, but I was grateful enough not to insist we do another lap right away.

I probably should have, because our stopping gave some assholes the opportunity to approach us. Why are there always assholes?

“Hey,” one of the assholes said, gliding to a stop next to us.

I could feel the presence of a couple others behind me and readied myself for the “inadvertent” nudge or shove I knew would be coming. I couldn’t use Command with Priscilla watching, but I thought I had enough telly by now to knock someone off balance.

“Nice of you to teach your retarded cousin how to skate and all,” Asshole One went on, “but he looks like he needs a break — how about I buy you a drink while he rests up?”

“I don’t think so,” Priscilla said.

I tried to brace myself to tell him to fuck off, but my skate slipped and I had a moment of distraction, which gave him time to speak. Also time for him to rest one hand on the rail and loom over Priscilla.

“Come on, one drink — then maybe a lap or two.”

I took a breath, but Priscilla squeezed my hands. “Trust me?” she whispered, catching my eye.

I nodded, suspecting Asshole One was about to have his own little carny-moment.

“How about,” Priscilla asked, giving the guy an innocent look, “we do a lap first — if you can beat us, you can buy me that drink?”

He laughed. “And what if you beat me? You get to buy me a drink?”

Motherfucker — that’s my line!

Priscilla shook her head. “If we win —” She glanced at the two guys behind me. “— you and your friends go ask the DJ to play Baby Shark and do a little dance in the middle of the rink.”

Did you notice she said “we”?

I didn’t.

I also didn’t scream.

Much.

I will give the assholes credit — they put a lot of energy into their dance.

Chapter

Finals sucked.

Worse than high school, even, because I actually cared what my Willowmere grades were — in high school, I’d known I wasn’t going to college, so all that really mattered was graduating. Morgan was the opposite — even after knowing her grades mattered even less now that she was a witch, she still wanted the straight As she’d shot for her whole life.

Our extra class with Mel was probably the easiest, believe it or not — she said since everything she was teaching us was practical, she’d be basing her grade on how we’d done over the course of the semester. Magistra Thornwell said our “demonstration” of layered shields had been sufficient and we were exempt from the Combat practical final, too.

I was pretty comfortable I’d memorized all the important stuff from our History class — even if I felt like I didn’t have the context to fully understand a lot of it — and I’d gotten an A on my semester paper: The Impact of the Veil on Mundane History. Magistra Nightingale said I had a unique perspective on comparing witch (real) history with what the mundane world thought happened.

Even Rituals was something I thought I’d get a decent grade on, even if a lot of it was pretty open to interpretation. Setting the circle for a new Grove, for instance, consisted of placing stones — “an appropriate number and spacing for the desired size of the warded circle.”

What the fuck was “appropriate?”

Sam, Rachel, and I all came up with different answers and when we asked Cassandra to check us, she said we were all right.

As confusing as that was, it was nothing compared to studying for my and Cassandra’s Covens final.

“This doesn’t make any sense!”

I glanced over Cassandra’s shoulder.

We had some light background music playing from Rachel’s laptop while we cuddled on the reupholstered side of our giant bed. Cassandra had her back against my shoulder, while Sam and Rachel lay with their heads in my lap — Sam to the side and Rachel in front.

I hadn’t had a chance to talk to Sam about the two of them yet — another thing I had on the list for the summer when we wouldn’t be so busy.

“What doesn’t make sense?” I asked.

“This!” Cassandra said, jabbing her finger into her laptop’s screen so hard it made the image and colors distort.

I recognized the equation she was working on, but the inputs weren’t any of the sample problems Magistra Hawke had given us. I rested my chin on her shoulder and checked her calculations.

“It looks right to me.”

“It’s exactly what the book says it should be, but it’s wrong!”

I chuckled. “How can the right answer be wrong?”

“Because it’s all wrong! Look, this input right here?” She jabbed at the screen again and I started to wonder how often we were going to have to have her laptop repaired.

“Yeah?”

“This is the estimate, based on age and resonant size, that the chart says to use, but it’s, like, half what it should be.”

“But if it’s from the chart —”

“The chart is wrong. The fundamental numbers are wrong. This —” Another screen jab. “— is what you should have collected from a trinitara witch with two matching resonants, but this —” A quick scroll and another jab, “— is what you actually got. Nearly twice that! And the chart assumes a fourteen-day harvest schedule, not every fucking night!”

I frowned. “Are those Sam’s numbers?”

“Yes — and they’d be a lot more accurate if you’d let me measure things.”

“We are not going to start measuring sex.”

Cassandra growled. “How are we supposed to make good decisions without good data?”

Sam raised her hand. “I, also, object. I need to track things to ensure we nip any downward trends right in the bud.”

I frowned. “Why do I get the feeling you two aren’t talking about the same thing?”

“Because I’m talking about mana production and the freak’s talking about how many times you can still hear her screaming from fifty yards down the trail.” Cassandra snorted. “There’s a rumor going around the first-years that the woods behind the dorms are haunted — or there’s a fucking banshee loose on campus.”

“That’s not fair,” Sam protested. “You can hardly hear me outside the cottage when I’m gagged, and that’s … not nearly often enough, actually. I need to track that, too, I guess.”

Cassandra sighed. “There’re, like, four other calculations that need to be added to this — emotional compatibility, intensity —”

Sam nodded. “Intensity, yeah, I need to start —”

“Shut up, pervert. The point is the book’s so wrong it’s practically useless! Everything needs to be changed!”

I chuckled — it wasn’t the first time Cassandra had criticized the mana-generation equations since joining us.

“Maybe just concentrate on coming up with the answers for the test Friday?”

“But the answers are wrong!”

Chapter

The Willowmere graduation ceremony was in the school’s Grove at dusk on the last day of class.

The school coven started with a Plea that the Goddess favor the graduates in their future lives, then, one by one, those graduating came out of the tree line to stand with the school coven around the altar. There was a repetition of the Plea, followed by a sip of mead.

It was simple, but moving, marking the change in the witch’s life.

Only those attending Willowmere were allowed at the ceremony, and even that was limited to those the graduates specifically invited, so the ring around the grove wasn’t terribly crowded.

Sam told me the Families had some sort of ceremony, as well, to welcome the graduates back home — usually with recognition that the witch was grown and it was time to start contributing to the Family — but at Willowmere, it was just this short ceremony for each.

There was a party.

Witches like to party.

There was a sort of unwritten rule that the third-years skipped the last day of classes and spent their time decorating the common areas of the residence building for a big blowout the last night of school. Some of the girls left after their last class the week before or over the weekend, but most were still around, wrapping up loose ends, packing, turning in papers they hadn’t quite finished and been granted an extra day or two on, that sort of thing.

The party wasn’t an all-night thing, like Beltane, but it had a respectable noise level and free-flowing mead.

I sipped mine, taking in the chaos of the cafeteria — the light show from Halloween-month was back with a vengeance and music blared through the strobing glimpses of dancing witches.

“I wonder how many bees they have to milk for all this mead,” I pondered.

I’d had a bit.

“They don’t — urp — milk bees, you dumbass — urp — feral!” Cassandra yelled over the music as she staggered back to our group from another round of saying goodbye to the other senior witches.

We’d already asked about what was coming for us next year, since Cassandra was graduating, and the cottages were for the entire coven, so long as any member was enrolled at Willowmere.

We’d have to pay for Cassandra’s food next year, but it wasn’t that much — and I thought the charge was mostly symbolic, since I was pretty sure Willowmere wasn’t hurting for money.

Unfortunately, we’d also have to pay for Cassandra’s mead next year — and she seemed to be intent on loading up while it was still free.

After her fourth cup, she started apologizing to any witch she thought she’d been mean to … and she’d had hiccups for the last hour. You know that thing where they say you can get rid of hiccups by drinking a glass of water? Cassandra tried that about six times, but it didn’t help. She also didn’t like water, so found something else to drink.

Yes, in fact, it was mead.

Cassandra bumped into my chest, sloshing mead over her hand. She tilted her face up to kiss me, then rolled away, raising her cup and shouting.

“Ignerent warlock thinks you milk bees! Urp. You, hey, you!” She planted her feet firmly, blocking the path of a passing witch. “Who are you? Never — urp — mind — I’m sorry I was — urp — so mean to you!”

The witch said something I couldn’t hear, but Cassandra drew her head back, eyes wide.

“Really? Urp. I’m sorry I — urp — left you out, then. Don’t feel bad … urp … let me think. Okay … urp. That nose is soooo big — you should use it to — urp — go up a cup-size.”

The other witch frowned.

“Don’t you … get it?” Cassandra reached out and pinched the girl’s nose. “You should — urp — move this, to these!”

“All righty, then!” Rachel yelled, sliding between the two and taking Cassandra’s grasping hands on her own chest while easing the blonde witch out of the flow of traffic.

“Now I’m — urp — sorry I was mean to you!” Cassandra waved at the other witch, completely oblivious to her other hand cupping Rachel’s boob, as Rachel dragged her away. “B — urp — bye!”

“She’s very drunk,” I whispered to Sam, the music had gone to a much slower tune.

“Five million!”

“What?”

“Bees!”

“You’re yelling. The music isn’t that loud.”

“What? Oh. Sorry.”

“Five million bees?”

“Where?”

“You said — five million bees,” I prompted, trying to get a hand on her chin to make her stop looking around for bees.

“I did? Oh! Yeah, it was in my Coven Economics class.” Sam’s brow furrowed and she took a long drink of her mead. “The average witch needs a liter of mead to stay drunk for six hours, so Willowmere goes through almost eight barrels per event, on average, but they stock nine for each to be sure we won’t run out. There are six major events per year — so that’s fifty-four barrels. The school keeps another twenty or so on hand for … incidentals.” Sam looked around to see if anyone was listening, then leaned close to whisper. “That’s what they call it, but I think the teachers just like mead.”

I nodded, sagely. It made perfect sense for the teachers to like mead. I liked mead.

“So,” Sam went on, “it’s about seventy-five barrels a year and a barrel’s seventy-five liters and it takes a kilogram of honey to make a liter of mead, which is fifty-six hundred kilograms of honey total, but some is wasted or spilled, so they need almost seven thousand — and the average bee makes…” Sam held her fingertips together close to her face and squinted at them. “Just a leetle bit of honey, but a whole hive makes a lot and the school has a hundred hives and each hive has about fifty thousand bees, so there are five million bees. Oh, and the school has a couple hundred acres of some special mix of flowers for them.”

Sam frowned at me.

“But nobody milks them.”

“You paid attention in a class?” Rachel asked, sidling in between Sam and I so that both of us had an arm around her.

“‘Course I did,” Sam said, waving her cup at Rachel. “‘Sbout’ making sure we’ll have enough booze!”

“Where’s Cassandra?” I asked Rachel.

“She saw someone she hasn’t apologized to yet.”

“She’s been at it for hours, there can’t be anyone left to apologize to.” I checked my phone for the time and looked around for her. “It’s getting late — we should get on to our thing. Before anyone else tries to get her to ‘make up for the things she did.’”

We’d already dealt with that once, pulling Cassandra off the steps as three third-years led her up to the stage with a pair of scissors and a box of permanent markers.

They were disappointed, but I bought them a mead to make up for it.

That was clever of me, because the mead was free.

*

“Where are we going?” Cassandra asked.

I thought it should be pretty obvious, since the path we were on only went to the school Grove, unless you went past that into the forest and the state park beyond campus.

“You’ll see.”

Cassandra stopped dead in her tracks and pointed at Sam.

“The Priscilla you’ll-see or the freak’s you’ll-see?”

“The Cassandra you’ll-see,” I told her.

“I get my own you’ll-see?”

I nodded, turning her back to the path and giving a little shove.

“I get my own you’ll-see!” Cassandra giggled, then looked at me over her shoulder. “Rachel needs a you’ll-see, too — it’s not fair she doesn’t have a you’ll-see.”

“Let’s concentrate on yours tonight,” I told her, nudging her into a walk again.

“We’re gonna need another million bees just for her,” Sam muttered.

We reached the juncture where the smaller path to the Grove’s preparation area branched off and I steered Cassandra onto that. There weren’t that many witch ceremonies that celebrated a single witch, and Cassandra had already missed two of them — first her binding and now the Family ceremony she’d been expecting when she graduated from Willowmere.

From what Sam told me, the Family graduation was more about marking the end of sponging off the Family money and time to start contributing in some way.

My coven wasn’t doing that shit.

“The Grove?” Cassandra gasped. “What are we — school’s over! Are you biting Priscilla already? Wait! That’s not fair, you guys have only had two dates — we want more than two dates!”

“I’m not binding Priscilla tonight,” I told her, trying to ignore Sam’s and Rachel’s giggling.

Rachel had our robes in her backpack and the girls helped me get Cassandra out of her clothes and into her robe, before we put our own on.

“Should I — urp — sober up?” Cassandra asked. “Fucking — urp — hiccups are back.”

“You’re fine,” Sam assured her. “Perfect level of intoxication for this.”

“‘Kay.”

I lined the girls up — first Sam, then Rachel, with Cassandra last.

“Remember to go deosil,” I told Cassandra, squaring her shoulders to the path into the Grove. “Never mind — just follow Rachel.”

“Funny, fucking — urp — feral.” Cassandra put one hand on my chest, then the other, patting at my chest and shoulders. “Big, manly, muscle — urp — feral, with —”

“Hold that thought and follow Rachel,” I told her.

I went to the front of the line and took a deep breath — I was leading my coven into the Grove tonight, and I was the one who was making the Plea. More, since there really wasn’t an established Plea for this, I’d had to make the whole thing up myself. Sure, I’d talked to Rachel and Sam, as well as Mel and Magistra Cassian, about the idea and structure, but I’d come up with the words myself, and hoped I wasn’t giving Cassandra years of humiliation material to use against me.

I shrugged — she’d enjoy that too, I guess.

I took a step, then another, feeling the girls behind me and turning left to go deosil, clockwise, around the clearing — all the while keeping my thoughts on Cassandra.

How grateful I was to have her, despite the horrible circumstances that brought her to us, because I honestly couldn’t imagine us without her. She brought an attitude to the coven that seemed to complement both Rachel and Sam, not to mention acting as a willing foil to Morgan’s snark, letting the rest of us be amused by their antics instead of being the target. Every time I saw her happy or just enjoying herself with the other girls, I couldn’t help but think of how different things would be for her if she hadn’t joined us — and feel a little thrill at how blessed we were to play a part in that.

“Hop up on the altar,” I told Cassandra as we all gathered around the stone.

“Oh, no, no, no,” she said, holding up her hands. “I remember what happened the last — urp — time you put me on an altar, you — urp — strong … brutal … magnificent — urp — feral.”

Sam cocked her head at me. “You realize you’re becoming a fetish now, right?”

“Wards, girls,” I said, trying to keep my mind on what I was doing, rather than both Sam’s comment and Cassandra’s hands running over my chest and shoulders.

We all touched the stone of the altar and gave it just the tiniest bit of mana to wake the Grove’s wards. They sprang to life around us, enclosing the clearing and the benches set around its edges.

“Hop up,” I ordered Cassandra again.

She gave me a suspicious look, but complied.

“Why is Magistra Blackwood here?” Cassandra asked, peering into the shadowed edges of the Grove. She seemed to be sobering herself up a bit. “And Priscilla? You said you weren’t — Hannah and Brittany?”

“Your friends,” Sam said, taking Cassandra’s hand.

“And family.” Rachel took her other hand.

“Should’ve stayed drunk, sister,” Sam said. “‘Cause you’re about to ugly-cry.”

I cupped Cassandra’s chin and turned her face to meet my gaze, even if her eyes were sort of rolling, and hoped I didn’t fuck this up.

“We call upon the Child,” I said, staring into Cassandra’s wide eyes, “to open our sister’s heart, that we might fill it with our love.”

“What —”

I’d talked to Magistra Cassian about the wording, since it felt weird to call Cassandra “sister,” but she told me, as the warlock leading the Plea, it was more that I was telling the girls what to say.

“We beg the Maiden,” I went on, after Rachel and Sam finished repeating the first line, “to grant us the power to show our sister a fraction of the joy she brings to us all.”

“Noah — what —”

“We ask the Mother to guide our sister, first among us to bring forth life, that she might show us the way, in turn.”

Cassandra’s lips were trembling and her eyes glistened in the moonlight.

“We call upon the Crone, ever wise, to clear our sister’s thoughts, that she might see, without doubt, the love we have for her.”

Tears overflowed Cassandra’s eyes and streamed down her cheeks.

“We thank the Goddess, in all Her Aspects, for blessing us, our family, with our sister and our love for her.”

I took a deep breath — Greek was fucking hard, and I’d asked Magistra Cassian for the oldest ending we could find.

“Su hēmōn ei. Hēmeis soi esmen. Mia — mechri tou teleutatiou alsous marathē, ho eschatos lithos dialuthē, kai hē selēnē mēketi lampē.”

Hopefully I’d pronounced everything right and it meant what I thought it did.

You are ours. We are yours. One — until the last grove withers, the final stone crumbles, and the moon no longer shines.

I thought it had a nice ring to it.

Cassandra’s arms went around me as Sam’s and Rachel’s went around us both, and we simply stood, holding each other while Cassandra sobbed.

“Thank you,” Cassandra whispered. It was followed by a long, wet sniff. “You mispronounced teleutaiou, though.”

I laughed.

“You get a pass because I fucking love you,” Cassandra whispered, breath hot against my chest.

“I love you, too.”

Cassandra trailed a finger over my chest. “You really do.”

She frowned, stepping back from me.

“What?” I asked.

“My ass is hot.”

“Yes, it is,” Sam agreed.

“Shut up, pervert. It feels like — hey!” She turned her back to me and lifted her robe over her ass, bending over. “Are the bruises gone?”

Sam wolf-whistled.

“Shut up, pervert — are they gone?”

Cassandra’s ass gleamed pale in the moonlight, unmarred.

“Yeah,” I said. “All gone.”

She spun around and grasped the front of my robe, pulling me into a hard kiss, then pulled me back to the altar and hopped onto it.

“Do it,” she whispered, only breaking the kiss long enough to say it.

“Mwut?”

She broke the kiss and looked at me under heavy eyelids.

“Do it. Take it. Take me.”

I hesitated just a second. It wasn’t the sort of thing I’d like to think I needed to be told twice, but we had an audience.

Fuck it, I thought. If I can do this in front of a vampire, I can certainly —

“Rachel?” I whispered. “Can you ask Mel not to watch?”

I didn’t wait for her to do that, though — Cassandra deserved my full attention.

I grinned and pulled my own robe aside. Cassandra had already spread her legs, and I stepped forward to wrap my arms around her. Our lips met as the head of my cock touched her soaking pussy and entered her.

I didn’t know how we were so wet and so hard after just those few seconds, but I slid in to the hilt in a single thrust.

I braced myself to pull back if her fear spiked, and I entered her resonants, but Cassandra only moaned.

“Goddess, I love that.”

“Me, too,” Sam said, crouching down beside us for a better view.

Cassandra glanced at her, but then closed her eyes and moaned again.

“I’ve had a vampire watch me fuck, pervert — you don’t bother me.”

“Bar’s open!” Brittany called out.

*

I wandered over to the benches ringing the clearing and sat, watching the girls cluster around Cassandra. Hannah, Brittany, and Priscilla had all brought bottles of mead, and cups were being filled as Cassandra smiled — the center of attention, as everyone in my coven deserved once in a while.

Mel sat close beside me.

“That was well done, dear.”

I decided she was talking about the Plea and not … the other thing. “Thanks. Magistra Cassian helped a lot with the form and stuff.”

“I don’t mean just the Plea, dear.” Mel gestured at the girls. “You’ve brought so much joy and love to all of us — joy and love we would never have known without you.”

She reached over and squeezed my hand.

“I have never been prouder of a warlock of my line, Noah, and I’m certain this will not be the last time I speak those words.”