Page 85 of A Bond with the Dark

“I’m not quite sure. But I wondered if I could try it on a piece of jewelry. Pull the moon’s energy to protect you in the sun?”

I look at her incredulously. “You think you could do that?”

“One way to find out,” she says, wiggling out from under my arm.

Rising, she goes to the spell cabinet.

I follow her to her beautiful wooden secretary. The smells that waft from it are woodsy and earthy incense, like a witch’s den.

She’s handing me things, things I don’t know what the fuck they are or why they’ll help, but fuck is it sexy seeing her in her element.

After she’s done handing me shit, she pulls out a gorgeous Lapis Lazuli that’s attached to a chain. Raveling it into her hand, she grabs the rowan wand. “All right, let’s go out on the back porch.”

I follow her lead, instantly hard when she puts her witch hat on.

Figuratively. She’s not wearing a witch hat.

But fuck me, that would be hot too.

“Okay,” she says after setting her rocks on the railing. “While I consult the moon, I want you to hear my words and hold those crystals tight in your left hand. In your right, hold this—” She hands me the Lapis Lazuli—“while I speak, pull the words into those stones and believe it with your whole soul, okay?”

I nod, hanging out in a state of intrigue and disbelief.

Sayah tilts her head back and finds the moon, her astute beauty piercing the dark with her light.

“Goddess of the moon,” she speaks, giving breath to the words, “give upon us your energy to heal Dominic from your darkness. Gods of death, Gods of the sun in my state where he burns, let this item protect him and shield him from your rays as long as he wears the Lapis Lazuli. No more should he burn. Lend me your energy to imbue in this stone, and when you are not present, let it radiate around him and protect him.”

I hitch my thoughts to hers and read the energy surrounding her.

The palpitating breath of power gives her conviction, and with that, she shoves her energy to the moon, commanding it to give its light to the wand. Every ounce of concentration is pushed out. I push it out with her, gazing up at the moon and imagining it thawing to liquid, seeping into the black sky.

As if the moon is listening to us, it shakes and shivers, and a shockwave ripples through the blanket of stars around it. The moon is melting, the lustrous irradiance seeping from the velvet sky and flowing like a river to the deck at our feet.

The trail of moonlight is indeed lighting up the dark and gliding into the tip of Sayah’s wand, which in turn takes on an austere glow. It gracefully glissades down from the dark sky into the wand like a phosphorescent waterfall, glittering as something would in a black-lit room. All sound seems to have ceased in respect for the magnificent occurrence, as though Mother Earth and all her creatures are in reverent awe.

As the moonlight dissipates into the wood, she holds it before her, her face aglow in the luminescence.

She shifts her gaze to me, mouth agape, and I’m just as staggered as she is.

“Okay,” she stammers, still trying to grasp the magick she caused, “Hold out the Lapis Lazuli in the palm of your hand.”

I do as I’m told and hold out the stone.

Slowly, she presses the wand's tip to the stone and we watch the glowing wonder leave the wood and enter the rock, creating a bright glow our faces light up with. It’s almost blinding. Once the brightness subsides into the wand, the rock glows before us until I clasp my fist around it and close out the light. Holding my hand out in front of me, it’s alight like I have a fistful of fireflies. Our shadows dance in the rhythmic glow akin to torchlight.

Holding my fist to my heart, I talk to the moon. I ask things of her that I’ve asked her millions of times. I’ve screamed this to her on my knees in desperation. She’s never listened.

Please set me free.

I beg of you.

I will worship you more fiercely if you let me worship the sun, too. I love you both. You’re both my girls. I can be shared. But please let me feel the warmth of the sun again. My bones are so cold. Being warmed by the sun is like being embraced by a gentle, unseen force. She creeps into every pore of my being. She lays down a sensation of vitality and comfort like the universe herself is breathing life into me.

Your embrace is just as extraordinary. The tendrils of your darkness beckon me home, and my demons are at peace in your dark.

But I am part witch. And that side of me . . . that side needs the whisper of summer’s embrace. I have two sides, and they both need to live.

Please.

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