Page 17 of Wolf, Willow, Witch
“No, men are just easy to scare,” she assured, chomping at the air like a gator. “I don’t know if anyone would grant me an audience this soon after my last ritual, but I could try. Blood magic might work, sex magic might work—” She winked, shot him a finger-gun, and immediately regretted it. “—but there’s no guarantee.” Treating the whole thing like a joke was much easier than taking him seriously. “Best bet? Find a low-level witch and syphon some of their energy.”
“Wasn’t that what you brought me back for?”
She nodded. “Originally, yeah.”
“And what wouldsyphoningfrom me look like?”
“I don’t know—I’ve never had a vorðr. A simple transference spell would probably work, though. Nothing too invasive.”
Lincoln stayed quiet for a long, strained moment. He stared hard at Tehlor. When he placed his thumb below her chin, touching the red hawk tattooed on her throat, she froze.
“We’ve come to an understanding, haven’t we? I could squeeze the life out of you. Crush your windpipe. Shatter your ribcage.” He traced the bird’s feathers, following its jagged shape to her shoulder. “You could put me back in the wall. Poison me. Stab me again. Send me straight to hell.”
He offered a small smile and met her gaze.Eyes like the tropics,she thought.Easy to drown in.
“I bet you fuck like a porn star,” he added, voice low, hinting at reverence.
Tehlor kept her expression neutral despite the heat roiling in her groin. She leaned closer, sighing softly. “I bet you’re into weird shit.Uwuandara-arawhile you’re balls deep, huh?”
Lincoln laughed again, that good, strong laugh. He swept his hand higher, pressing his thumb to her bottom lip. “I like you, witch-bitch. You’re brave.”
Brave sounded likecareless.
“No need to lie,” she whispered, flashing a grin. “We both know what this is.”
“Ritualism?”
“Convenience.”
Lincoln furrowed his brow. “Can’t argue that.”
She leaned away and swatted his hand. Playfully, of course. “You hungry?”
“I could eat.”
“We’ll grab something on the way home, c’mon,” she said.
Tehlor left cash on the bar and tried not to notice Lincoln’s palm on her lower back, resting there for a moment, thumb smoothing across her tailbone, before he dropped his hand and kept pace at her side.
Loneliness was a disruptive thing. She knew that all too well.
Still, she felt undone, as if her bones had gone soft and betrayed her.
Tehlor upended a paper bag, spilling the rest of her McDonald’s fries onto the countertop.
Lincoln searched for liquid at the bottom of his plastic cup, sucking carbonated bubbles through a striped straw.
Well, fuck.She dunked her fries into puddled ketchup and met his eyes, chomping.
“It doesn’t have to be sex,” he said, so blatantly she bristled. “Intimacy isn’t always—”
“You sound like my therapist.”
“Well, you look scared shitless.”
She rolled her eyes. Anxiety churned her stomach, but she shrugged, attempting to conceal her nerves with a smile. “We’ll reconvene in the morning, all right? It’s late, I need to shower, you should probably prepare for whatever spell we’ll cook up, and—”
“You’ve got quite a bark, Tehlor. Talk a big game, too.”
