Page 21 of SIN Bone Deep

He gathered me against him, tucking my head beneath his chin, wrapping his arms and legs around me as I did the same, the tangle of us both charged with sexuality and innocent of it. If he had wanted to, he could have taken me. I would have let him, willingly, eagerly. I knew that he was tempted, his cock once again hard and throbbing in time with his heart, nudging against my stomach.

I ached to feel it within me, a craving that preoccupied me, holding sleep at bay. If I were bolder, braver, I would have shifted my position, parting my thighs so that with a small movement that would be far from subtle, his cock would lie between them, and another small movement would guide him to my welcoming cunt.

My lips were against the raven, bestowing upon its head a kiss, my breath warming it, as my skin warmed Ender’s. I felt his body relax within my hold, the tension easing from muscle and bone, his breathing slowing, growing deeper, edging towards sleep.

I dreamed of ravens and fire, and woke alone, my bed empty, but with a raven wing feather clutched in the palm of my hand, and a ring woven of dark strands of hair wrapped around my finger. I rolled onto my back, placing the feather on my chest, and held my hand up to the light in order to scrutinize the unusual love token. The hair had been intricately and artistically woven, creating a fabric of the hair strands. It was no hastily contrived gift, but one that he’d had prepared.

I pressed my face one last time into the cushions, seeking the shadow of incense that he had left in the fabric, before rolling from the bed and pulling on my pajamas, my cheeks heating at the crust of cum that flaked off, as I recalled what we had done together in the storm-flashing darkness of the night.

I tucked the raven feather next to the owl’s in the spell book before gathering my clothing and dashing through the hallway to claim the bathroom as my own. I took my time in the shower and before the mirror afterward, styling my hair and applying makeup, until I felt that I looked elegant and sophisticated, like any other student of the academy.

When I went downstairs, Fennel was stirring a pot of porridge over the stove. “There you are,” she smiled warmly. “Breakfast is ready. My goodness, that dress again.”

I looked down at the black lace and shrugged awkwardly. “I like it.”

Truthfully, there wasn’t much other option. My wardrobe over the past year had been school casuals, or work’s black bottoms and white shirts. The black lace dress that we had bought for my graduation was about the only formal-wear item that I owned. The other dresses that I wore around the house were all bohemian maxi dresses, shapeless but comfortable.

I was very aware that our finances were tight and what money we had was better spent than on pretty dresses.

“Well, we should go shopping in celebration of your scholarship,” Callista announced entering the kitchen. “You will need new shoes, at the very least.”

Callista had dressed for the event in her normal impeccable if somewhat eclectic style - a velvet Devore opera caftan kimono over an elegant ankle-length black satin dress with a draped neckline and tailored waist. Her boots were beautifully tooled and intricately buttoned to the ankle. With her hair styled luxuriously to frame her face, and her oversized sunglasses and clutch, she wore head-to-toe vintage couture, loving preserved by their more prosperous original owners, and retrieved from the attic by my thrifty aunts.

She tilted the sunglasses down and peered over their rims. “You will do,” she decided having evaluated me head to toe, and accepted a bowl of porridge from Fennel, gracefully sitting at the table and reaching for the sugar. “You could update your wardrobe choices from the attic as your sister is wont to do, you know, Nyx.”

“I could,” I agreed accepting my bowl and sitting opposite to her. I put preserved peaches onto my porridge. “But to be honest…” I shrugged my indifference.

“Mmm. As you like. But there are several events during the school year where you will need a dress,” she poured three cups of tea and hovered over the fourth. “No Nova this morning again?” She asked.

“I will save her a bowl,” Fennel turned off the stove and came to the table. “Are you nervous?” She asked me with an empathetic smile.

“Nonsense,” Callista brushed the question off. “What has Elenyx to be nervous of? Rather they should be nervous of her, an accomplished witch of her intelligence.”

“You’re right of course, Callista,” Fennel replied and rolled her eyes to me.

“I saw that,” Callista tsked. “Stop making the girl uneasy, Fennel. Elenyx has this. Rather Pinegrove Academy does now know what they have taken into their fold. A Vossen witch,” she told me setting her teacup down crisply. “Is a powerful woman, indeed. Never doubt your power, Nyx. They want you to do that. To learn what it is to fear them just because they are men and they have shaped the world to suit them. But they are the ones who fear, as they know how fragile their hold on us truly is, and there is nothing like a powerful, strong woman to remind them of that.”

She rose from the table. “We’ll leave in fifteen minutes.”

I have but to wait,

It is nature that the present will,

Eventually; become the past.

And if this is our fate,

Time’s ticking will seal,

Us together at last.

NINE

Nine woods in the Cauldron go, burn them fast and burn them slow

– The Wiccan Rede

Ifidgeted with my dress as Callista reversed the Corniche out of the garage. Perhaps I would have spent the weekend agonizing over what to wear and might have raided the attic as my aunts and sister did and remade something rather than re-wearing the same dress over and over again if I hadn’t been so distracted by the death of that little girl… And, by Ender. Instead, it had just been the only option in my wardrobe and there had been no decision involved – I had simply put it on. Again.

---