Page 2 of Antiletum
Magic licked at her mouth, urging it open to tease at her taste buds with static and dirt, increasing her want. She breathed it in, unable to fight the pull. Not that she wanted to.
The bride’s pupils flared black, as onyx as the gown she wore, promising to swallow him whole. Her groom’s lips hovered over hers, not touching,tormentinghim further, lost to the same divine energy as she.
He slipped a ring of silver over her finger; she repeated the motion on him, thevinculumbands now binding their magic, their souls, and never to be removed. Even in death, when their bodies would return to the ground, the metal would shrink with their flesh and forge to their wasted bones, belonging to only each other for all remaining days.
A priestess came to flank their sides. With a moonwater soaked blade, the priestess pulled a single, vertical wound across the center of the bride’s and groom’s lips, right between the two hoopspuncturing his flesh. Red beads welled and ran, dripping into their waiting mouths, down both of their chins.
His broad chest heaved. Ready. The rise and fall of her full breasts matched his, the two acting as one. For all that bloomed in the forest around them, being brought to life in their union, they could not look away from the other.
The priestesses continued their chants, retreating to the edge of the dais, magic hanging over every living thing. It saturated theStrigiForest, the stone at their feet giving a heavy, strained thump.
“Join,” a voice commanded from the clouds and the trees and the roots in the ground.
Their lips finally met, blood mixing into a heady concoction of passion.
Her mouth opened, drawing in more of that magic as she allowed him entry. He eagerly returned her affection, his tongue rolling against hers in a bloody, messy kiss, rusting their faces in a veil of matching crimson.
Panting, they broke away. He silently led her to a raised platform in the center of the Heartstone, sitting in a clearing of moonlight, no leaves to shade the divine light.
Atop the pillows and flowers, he laid her on her back, lifting her skirts to sink his face between her thighs, praying at her altar.
Her spine arched, urging him further as he coaxed her to pleasure, holding her thighs as if she tethered him to the world. Her legs shook as she crashed against his tongue and he drank her down, the taste of her driving him mad.
Still clothed, he scaled her body, a monumental blessing and privilege.
She lifted her skirts higher, eyes wide and seeing crystalline prisms of light, lost to magic and their moment, just the same as him.
Her hands went to his waist, and he paused, afraid that she wanted to stop him, to end the ceremony. But she only gathered up the drop of his cloak, exposing his desire, hard and hot to match how she was wet and aching. Ready.
The three priestesses stood at their markings, edging the Heartstone. They cut their own wrists, synchronized and rhythmic; their moonlight blades pushed into their veins as easily as dragging a finger through water. Blood spilled, splattering against the ancientdeo’sdead heart at their feet. The cracks across it melded and mended, the earth beginning to beat with the offering of life.
The groom’s hand came to his bride’s head, swiping across the elaborate headdress of feathers and flowers crowning her hair—the blooms bursting back to life. His other arm braced himself to keep from laying flat atop her, so he could look into her eyes. Those enchanting, seductress eyes.
He slid into her, soft and slow, afraid to hurt her. She bunched the white fabric of his ceremonial cloak, using it to pull him in deeper. He drove into her harder, making her cry out. The moonlight and forest absorbed the sound, churning its energy.
The wreath he wore around his neck lost its brittleness. Hydration pulled back into the petals, turning them silken and bright once again.
The first priestess fell, her chant croaking to an end as her consciousness flowed from her wrists in rivers of red. A ground shaking pulse came from the earth.
And the groom fucked his new wife faster.
The second priestess fell, quickly followed by the third. In their sacrifice came another burst of life, the Heartstone pristine and void of cracks. Chunks eaten by years and despair repaired as if the hands of time spun back the Ellden clocks, before such measurement of magic existed, to the day the Heartstones were born.
The heavy thump of the Heartstone gained in strength, in cadence, becoming a regular, healthy beat, the heart of adeoraised from the dead.
With matching moans, man and wife found their pleasure together, mouths connected. Magic cocooned them in a chrysalis of change and beginnings. The bride absorbed the groom into herself, the way he had her with his tongue between her legs.
Whole and brand new, they stroked each other’s skin with smiles in the moonlight, surrounded by life, born from death.
1
Those hideous clocks are everywhere
Val
“Yourdarlingwife is wreaking havoc in thespirlinaryagain.”
My jaw tightens, back teeth grinding together. What an announcement to instantly sour a quiet day. Previously bright and cheery while I work in silence at my desk at this lovely country estate, nothing to bother me.
