Page 43 of Hell Hath No Fury
I was not a virgin. Far from it. I’d enjoyed all the pleasures this world had to offer. I had explored what my body was capable of enjoying and past that. I knew ecstasy, pleasure that had been forbidden to women since the inception of this world. Pleasure, that should one engage in it, got us a scarlet letter on our breast at best or tied to a stake at worst.
Women were historically used as instruments for breeding, for male pleasure, to tend to the home, to be subservient, quiet and devoid of their own autonomy.
If they decided to take any kind of power for themselves, whether it be to decide to take a lover or get rid of a baby they never wanted, an accusation of witchcraft was not far away.
Our whole existence was about death, life, pleasure, power. And all of those things had existed when this man was inside of me. The one I seized from Death’s hands. The man who had just planted life inside of me.
There were spells that I could cast, of course. Tonics that we kept on hand for such things. I had used them before, withoutregret or shame. But even the most powerful of potions could not get rid of something that was meant to be. Something that was already decided.
And she was.
The daughter he gave me.
The realization was cold and warm at the same time. I felt a fierce, violent love for this thing that was nothing more than the remnants of our pleasure but was also everything in the whole fucking world.
Max stared into my eyes, his own irises burning with pleasure, with a fire that made no sense. With a knowledge that he couldn’t possibly possess.
I lingered in his gaze for longer than was safe. But I’d left safety at the wayside since I picked him up on the side of the road. Fuck, I had left safety at the wayside since birth.
But this was something different.
Something entirely different.
Although I wasn’t gifted with foresight, I understand that this would break the world somehow. She would break the world. My daughter would come with great power. She would be glorious, wicked and wonderful.
I tore my body from his, all but jumping from the bed.
Max knifed up, his skin glistening with exertion, eyes glued to where his seed left a trail down my leg.
He stood, his gaze sliding to my stomach, flat and unchanged. But again, his eyes saw things nature did not allow mortals to see.
I stared at him, my eyes running down the naked skin of his body. His muscles were clenched, the scars mingling with the dark ink on his practically iridescent skin.
Blood marked that skin. Blood I had drawn as a spell I had woven without intention hung thick in the air.
Though the sight was devastatingly impressive and captivating, my eyes didn’t linger on his muscled torso for too long. They couldn’t. Like magnets, our eyes found each other. His gaze was thick with the intensity of before yet marred with confusion, his jaw stiff as his instincts warned him of the danger in the air.
Though he did not possess magick, he understood death. He knew when it was near. He’d tasted his own many times. Dealt it too.
Therefore he knew he was staring in the face of his murderer. But he didn’t know why I had to kill him.
“It’s the way it is,” I answered his unsaid question.
He tilted his head ever so slightly to indicate he was listening, otherwise, he didn’t move at all. His body was coiled, ready for attack.
“It’s always been this way,” I continued, my hands fisted at my sides.
He continued to watch me, preparing for anything, for any movement from me. To defend himself. He wouldn’t attack. But he wouldn’t let me kill him either. He’d fight back.
Or at least he would if I made it a fair fight. But his ancestors never fought fair.
I wouldn’t have to move a muscle to end him. Nor utter a spell or wiggle my nose or whatever the fuck witches were meant to do when we performed magick.
The rays of the sun would burn through his bones, reducing him to ash. All the air would disappear from his lungs, and his heart would cease beating. All of the fluids in his body would disappear in an instant, leaving him nothing but dust. The earth would reach upward and claim him in less than a second, feeding him to the worms.
There were almost endless ways for me to kill a man.
I’d done it before.
