Page 20 of Magic's Dawn

I moan into his mouth and cover the hand between my legs, urging him to move faster.

A growl rises from him, and he pulls back. “Touch your breasts.”

A shiver goes through me, and I slide my free hand under my camisole, pinching my nipples into hard peaks. Gasps of pleasure escape me, and my inner muscles clench around Haut’s cock as my body tenses for another release.

His mouth finds my ear, his voice a hungry purr, “That’s it. Let go for me.”

With a cry, I fall over the edge again, my inner muscles squeezing and releasing around him.

Haut growls in my ear as he stills, and his knot swells against my entrance before hot cum fills my channel.

My muscles turn liquid, and I sag onto the couch, my leg sliding off Haut’s as I struggle to catch my breath.

Haut nuzzles my throat. “Do you need me to carry you to the bathroom?”

“Can’t we just stay like this for a bit?” I pant.

“No can do.” He slaps my hip lightly. “You have magic class in an hour.”

I groan at the reminder. “Fine, carry me to the shower. And bring the bacon. I’m still hungry.”

INTRODUCTIONS

The late afternoon sun casts a warm glow over grandma’s herb garden, and the fragrant scent of earth and herbs fills the air. The crash of waves sound in the distance, and the rustle of branches come from the forest just past the yard.

It’s a serene backdrop for the upcoming lesson in witchcraft, but I can’t stuff down my sense of anxiety. I can’t even remember the last time I was in school. It would have been grade three or four.

I don’t remember learning anything. Just recess. Will Aspen give us recess?

I fidget nervously with the leather-bound journals, rearranging them on the table. With Haut’s help, I picked them up from Books & Blots twenty minutes prior. Barron hadn’t stocked enough in the same color, so I chose a variety, more than we have witches who need them, in the hope everyone will find something they like.

A handful of pencils and pens stick out of a cut crystal glass from the kitchen, while a pitcher of lemonade and glasses rest on the far end of the table, away from the books.

“This is the last of them,” Tris says as he brings in folded chairs that he stole from the community center.

“I don’t know why we couldn’t just do this in the basement,” Haut grumbles. “That’s what it’s there for.”

I rearrange the grimoires once more. “Because the basement is creepy.”

My grandma’s magic space looks more like the lab of a mad scientist, complete with creepy plastic curtains that would look at home in a meat processing facility.

Mel thinks I should gut the space and make it my own, but I’ve never felt comfortable underground, and I doubt some throw pillows will help with that. I’ve been wanting to talk to the others about converting the area into more living space, since there are so many of us in the house.

While I know it’s held three generations of Wendalls in the past, it feels too small with all the testosterone walking around.

But before we can do anything like that, we need to deal with the ancient elevator. My vote is to rip it out and put in a spiral staircase. When the suggestion made Owen start mumbling about technical stuff, though, my eyes glazed over and my mind checked out.

So the creepy lab basement remains unused for now.

As Tris unfolds the chairs and sets them up at the tables, I gaze around the garden. I remember spending a lot of time out here with grandma while she babied the plants and told me about their uses.

I’m ashamed to admit I don’t remember any of her lessons. But I didn’t care about plants then, and I don’t care about them now. I enjoyed the cadence of her voice, though, when she spoke of things she loved.

A brisk breeze comes from the forest, bringing with it an unpleasant scent, like meat left out too long, and I shiver as I glance toward the trees.

After I initially rejected my bond with Haut, he’d been stuck in his wolf form and brought me many bloody gifts from those woods. What I smell now is uncomfortably familiar. I hope there’s not a dead deer nearby that will draw predators.

Of course, if there is, I have predators of my own to protect me.

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