Warlock - Book 3 - Preview Chapter 250406d

We didn’t get any work on the cottage done on Wednesday, but were confident we could get the place somewhat livable by Thursday night — even if we would have to walk back to the residence building for toilets.

After classes, Sam, Cassandra, and I hung out in our room for the rest of the evening, just going downstairs for dinner, and as it got to be the time of the night where she’d usually go to her old room to give Sam and I some privacy, I could tell that Cassandra was getting nervous about something.

Sam and I were on Sam’s bed and Cassandra was on hers — another thing we’d had to schedule, so the cuddle-with-Noah days alternated with the sleep-with-Noah nights. It was both frustrating and kind of cool that my girls seemed to need that sort of thing with me every day. We definitely needed to get moved to that cottage soon, though.

“Hey?” Sam asked, sitting up and looking at Cassandra. “Are you okay?”

“What? I’m fine! Stay out of my —” Cassandra took a deep breath. “No, I’m sorry, I know you can’t help what the bond shows you.”

“So what’s wrong? Can we help?” Sam asked.

Cassandra took a deep breath. “I want to be with Noah tonight.”

I frowned. “Yeah, it’s your night to sleep with me.”

“No,” Cassandra interrupted me. “Not just for sleep. I want to be with you tonight. It’s time. If we’re facing the Council on Friday, then we need all the power we can get — not that we’ll have to fight them, or even could, but they respect strength more than anything else and we need to be prepared if we have to show them some.”

“Oh,” Sam said. “Sure.” She hopped up. “It’s getting to be about that time. I’ll go wait in a rec room — maybe sneak into Rachel’s room if you guys are going after lights-out.”

She gathered up her laptop, gave me a quick kiss, and left the room.

Cassandra sat up on her bed, what used to be Sam’s, with her head bowed and hands in her lap, picking at her fingers. I moved to sit next to her, not touching yet, and tried to figure out what she was feeling.

She’d said she wanted to … or at least that it was time, and Lust was definitely there. A lot of it, but so overshadowed by other things it was almost lost in the mix. Fear, anxiety, and worse — none of it binding to Lust, like Sam’s did with Pain and others, so I could tell this wasn’t some weird fetish or something.

“Cassandra —”

I reached out to brush a strand of hair back behind her slightly pointed ear and the Fear spiked, making me jerk my hand back and almost yelp at the jolt it sent down my arm.

Our door flew open with a bang against the wall and Sam strode into the room, jaw clenched and eyes blazing, as though she’d been waiting just outside for exactly that.

Cassandra was on her feet in an instant, fists clenched.

“What the fuck! Can we have a little privacy?”

“Not when you’re spiking Fear down our bond like it’s the first sex scene in a horror movie! What the fuck is your problem, witch?”

“I don’t have a problem!”

“Clearly you do, since you can’t give your coven what it needs! I know it’s not an attraction thing — every time you look at Noah you light up pink like it’s Valentine’s at the fucking mall!”

“It’s none of your business!”

“It is if you’re this unhappy! Crone’s curse, Cassandra, your old roommate even asked me what’s wrong with you! She says you spend the whole time you’re over there in the bathroom … and you’re not always good about the volume!”

Cassandra flushed beet red but the look of fury on her face only intensified.

I was so shocked by the sudden change in things that I couldn’t think of what to do — first Cassandra’s fear, then Sam’s sudden appearance, so unexpectedly angry, left me stunned.

“Yeah!” Sam said. “She asked me if Noah’s impotent or something!”

“What?” I really was more concerned about Cassandra and Sam than I was about some random senior girl thinking my dick didn’t work, but still.

“Don’t worry — I told her since there was just the two of us, we were doing week-on week-off to give your witches time to recover from your —” She eyed my crotch. “Attentions.”

“Maiden’s blush! Why are you even talking to her about this shit?”

“She asked me! Cassandra, come on — this is it. This is your coven — talk to us, please!”

“You’re not our fucking high priestess!”

Sam’s brief moment of relative calm and pleading went up in smoke.

“Is that what this is about? Are you just fucking pissy that you didn’t get to be high priestess?”

“Girls —”

Mana flashed out from Sam to engulf Cassandra and I jumped forward to get between them, but then I saw it wasn’t an attack — it was Sam’s Harmony affinity creating the biggest stream of magic I’d ever seen between the two girls and covering them both in a connected, soothing white glow.

Neither of them looked soothed, though. They were both still glaring at each other, fists clenched and shoulders hunched.

“Dominus,” Sam growled through clenched teeth. “Would you please give me a moment alone with my sister?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea — look, let’s —”

“Noah, it might be best,” Cassandra snarled.

“Please,” Sam said. “This is taking a lot out of me and I think we’ve got about five minutes to work this out before we start clawing faces. Please.”

I looked between them for a second, then sighed. I didn’t like it, but I had a feeling if I forced anything right now, it would just get worse later, maybe when I wasn’t around. Sam had the Harmony affinity and usually seemed to know what might make things better.

And maybe there were things Cassandra would only talk about with another girl, even if she had to scream it.

“All right.” I paused at the door. “If anyone’s physically hurt when I get back, there’ll be consequences.”

“Yes, Dominus.”

“Whatever.”

  *

I made my way downstairs to the first floor, which was starting to get less and less crowded as we neared lights-out. The thought crossed my mind to stop by Rachel’s room and hang out there, but there was no way to tell if her roommate would freak out about a warlock knocking on their door so close to curfew.

Instead, I went into one of the rec rooms and laid down on the couch — I didn’t think I should turn on the lights or television in case I wound up down here after lights-out and there were teachers patrolling the building or something. Probably the school’s wards would just notify them and they’d nail my ass anyway, but I could give it a shot.

There was a thought of actually trying to sleep there, but I knew that wouldn’t happen.

I was hurt and a little angry at Cassandra’s reactions — as well as angry at myself for feeling angry. It wasn’t like she could control it, but she could at least talk to us about whatever was causing that sort of fear.

I laid down on the rec room couch and closed my eyes, but then sat up again about an hour later when Sam came in and softly closed the door behind her.

She didn’t even bother walking around the couch, just climbed over the back and slid down behind me, wrapping her arms and legs around me.

“I love you,” she whispered in my ear.

I got the same thrill of excitement and joy every time she said that, tempered only a little by my concern for Cassandra.

“I love you, too.”

“Do you want the good news or the bad news?” Sam asked.

I sighed — no, it couldn’t be as simple as “We talked and she’s okay now,” could it?

“Good news,” I decided, at least then I’d have something positive in my head.

“Our coven now has annual subscriptions to fifty-seven porn sites.”

Of all the “good news” I’d imagined, a fuckton of porn wasn’t anywhere on the list. I wasn’t even that interested in porn anymore — once you had a smoking hot witch who’d not only do virtually anything you asked her, but actively demanded you come up with new stuff, porn didn’t really do it anymore. Except as research.

I knew Sam visited those sites, but her interest was more in curating playlists before giving them to me and saying stuff like, “Pay particular attention to the scene at twenty-four minutes, seven seconds.”

“Why?”

“Cassandra’s afraid you’ll make her fill her Despair resonant, since you won’t let her fill Malice, so she’s been stretching Lust to make up for it. She’s been using as little mana as possible and trying to make it bigger than Malice. But it’s not there yet, so every time it looks like things are headed toward a harvest, she gets terrified that she won’t have enough mana to satisfy you.”

“I was afraid it might be something like that. I told her that wasn’t how things would work in our coven.” I groaned. “She built Malice over four years, she hasn’t had Lust more than a week now. There’s no way it’ll get that big so fast. Probably take, what, a year or two, at least?”

Sam nodded. “Even if she did nothing but watch porn, yeah. She heard you about not needing to — she just hasn’t accepted it yet. It’ll take a while, I think. She’ll have to see that you mean it.”

“Okay, but what does that have to do with … did you say fifty-seven annual subscriptions?”

“Yep.”

I did a quick calculation. “That’s … that’s like ten grand, isn’t it?”

“More — she has expensive tastes. It’s okay — she used her Family’s card, they haven’t canceled it yet.”

I wasn’t sure that was “okay.”

“So Cassandra’s mother is going to get a credit card bill for ten thousand dollars worth of porn?”

Sam nodded again. “Sororix Blake probably won’t get the bill herself, but the amount might get brought to her attention. Some freaky shit, too — Cassandra found this one site that does live-action hentai with really high production values and —”

“Ew.”

“Right? And she calls me a pervert.” She kissed my neck.

“Wait — she showed it to you?”

“We shared some recommendations — call it bonding time.” Sam paused. “Plus we needed to weed out the duplicates before they renew.”

Of the things involved in running a coven, I hadn’t thought keeping track of porn subscriptions would be one — I wondered if Sam was going to ask for suggestions for how to track it in her Coven Management class. No, I didn’t — probably be a spreadsheet.

Sam sighed.

“She’s really afraid what she can generate won’t be enough for you. Like she’ll be a disappointment to us — all of us, you know? She wants to support the coven, and that’s just making her more and more frustrated when she feels she’s not going to be able to do enough.”

“Got it.”

Goddess, but this coven thing was complicated. I’d been so careful with Cassandra since we’d returned to Willowmere, trying not to do or say anything that might even suggest the things she feared, and it hadn’t been good enough.

“She’s calmed down, but she’s touchy,” Sam said.

“No shit?”

“More touchy than usual.”

I sighed. “So what do I do?”

“I guess you should —” Sam went quiet for a minute, then squeezed me hard. “Be yourself, Noah — that’s always been what I needed.”

  *

I entered the room slowly and closed the door as quietly as I could.

Cassandra was back in the position she’d taken when all this started, sitting on her bed and looking down at clasped hands.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

I sat down beside her — I’d spent the whole walk back to the room trying to think of what to do. Think of anything that might help her. Be yourself. Great advice, if yourself gave you a clear path. Myself didn’t have that for me right now.

I sat down beside her.

“I don’t know what to do,” she whispered. “It just happens.”

“It’s okay.”

Cassandra shook her head. “It’s not. The Council’s coming after us — it has to be my mother. I should have known she’d do something.”

“Archimagira Winthrop said it was just some questions about what happened.”

Cassandra shook her head. “That can’t be it — they’d just send someone if it was questions. This is more — it has to be.”

“It might —”

“Noah, you don’t know anything about how this works. This isn’t a few questions, that’s just an excuse to get us before the Council. Once we’re there and vulnerable, she’ll twist it into something else. I don’t know what, but she’s coming after us and using the Council to do it.”

“Maybe, but we can’t be sure.”

“Noah! I am sure. It’s what I’d do, because that’s what she taught me to do. We need more power — even if we can’t actually fight them, they’re always more responsive to power.” She swallowed hard. “And Samantha was right — what good am I if I can’t give my coven what it needs?”

I nodded — in acknowledgment of how she felt, even if I disagreed. I had to do something, though. We couldn’t face whatever was coming with this much conflict between us.

I sat back against the wall and opened my arms. “Come here?”

Made sure it was a question, an offer, and not an instruction. Cassandra had no problem with touch — she’d cuddle in a heartbeat and loved having her shoulders massaged, no matter how bad she said I was at that. It was only the prospect of more that triggered that fear, maybe because she associated that with what the witches called a harvest. She was also way out of balance, and that had to be affecting her emotions. Even if it was Lust that was driving things, the discomfort she must be feeling from her resonant being so full had to be making everything worse.

Cassandra closed her eyes and leaned back against me.

“Just do it,” she whispered. “I’ve seen worse at home.”

I wrapped my arms around her. “I told you I wouldn’t hurt you.”

“You might have to. It’s okay — I’ve known all my life what would happen. I tried, but … I always knew I wouldn’t be enough.”

“Nope.” I held her tighter. “Not if you’re reacting like that.”

“Noah —”

“In fact, we’re not even going to talk about the mana. The only thing we’re going to deal with tonight is your other problem.”

“What other problem?”

“The one you lock yourself in your old bathroom to deal with when you’d rather do it in my bed.”

“This is my bed.”

I shook my head. “My coven, my beds, my witches, yeah?” As gently as I could I moved one hand from where I was holding her down to rest on her belly. “My son.”

I felt the surge of warmth and affection I got every time I thought about that — not just for the baby, but for Cassandra as well. Her sharp intake of breath told me she could feel that through our bond and knew it was for her too.

“Yeah,” she whispered.

“So this is about you and me tonight. No mana, no resonants, no magic — not if it scares you — just one of my witches is hurting and I can’t let that go on. Okay?”

She nodded, so I slowly slid my hand lower, pausing every time there was a hint of fear in her mana and reassuring her. It took a while to get her long nightgown raised and bunched up, using just my fingers, a few inches at a time, but I think that was good — it gave her time to get used to things and calm herself.

Once I could reach them, I slid my hand slowly inside her panties, through the soft, fine hair and lower, to find her already wet. With as full as her Lust resonant was, that must have been a constant state for her over the last week.

I thought about making a joke about tentacles, but decided to save that for another time. Sam would laugh at the most inappropriate joke at the worst time, but not Cassandra.

Instead I moved my fingers softly and gently against her, slowly watching things build while I murmured words of reassurance and acceptance — trying to project that through our bond as well.

Ultimately, this, and what Cassandra had apparently been doing in her old room’s bathroom on a nightly basis, wouldn’t resolve the issue she had with her Lust resonant being full, but it would relieve the pressure and pain for a bit.

A sort of calm tension built in Cassandra and I increased the pace of my fingers until her breathing started to become ragged and I knew she was close.

“Do it,” Cassandra whispered. “Take it, please, now.”

“Are you sure?”

“Please?”

I hesitated — I’d told her we wouldn’t be doing that tonight, but she was asking. I could still see things churning deep within her — fear and so much more that I didn’t want to identify. I decided to trust what she was asking for, even in the heat of the moment, and tentatively extended my Lust resonant to gently touch hers. Just the one, just a bit.

Cassandra jerked in my arms as the connection was made and the fear spiked just a little, but she also moaned and relaxed after a moment.

I pulled slowly on the mana there, seeing and feeling it change as it entered me, pink of Lust to the bright yellow of refined mana, refined and condensed before filling my own resonant stores.

Cassandra tensed, but not with fear, and slipped into a gentle, rolling orgasm that I tried to draw out while I drained her mana, easing that pressure as well. Then I slipped my fingers inside her, massaging there, drawing it out longer, as I sent some of the mana I’d taken, refined now and free of the emotions that created it, back into her store.

I withdrew my fingers to return to just holding her as her shuddering eased and her breath grew deep and even.

“It’s enough, Cassandra. You’re enough.”