Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 130924 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 655(@200wpm)___ 524(@250wpm)___ 436(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130924 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 655(@200wpm)___ 524(@250wpm)___ 436(@300wpm)
No, not just hovering.
Coming closer.
No salt circle to stop them.
“Uh,” I say, nodding past them, trying to ignore the fear prickling my skin. “It seems we have visitors already.”
Crane tears his eyes away from me and looks at the shadows approaching us.
“Ignore them,” Crane says. “Even if you feel them touch you.”
“They’re able to touch me?” I exclaim in horror.
“They can’t hurt you,” he says, his eyes gleaming as he takes the oil and pours it all over Brom’s twitching erection. Brom lets out a gasp that turns into a groan.
“Turn around,” Crane says to me next. “Bend over.” His voice is calm but clinical, and yet, somehow, that helps with the fear and absurdity of all of this.
I do as he says, and he puts one hand on my hip, the other going between the cheeks of my rear, liberally applying the oil there.
“Where’s the romance, Crane?” I ask him, my body shuddering at the press of his slick finger.
“You’ll feel it when you come with both of our cocks inside you,” he says, then lays a large slap across my bottom, making me almost topple over in the water. “Now drop to your knees again and hold still. This is going to hurt.”
I go to my knees, the water splashing around us, doing my best to ignore the approaching ghosts, keeping my focus on the surface of the lake and the reflected orange moon.
Crane holds one of my arms and brings his knife down over the fattest part at the back of my bicep. I want to cry out, to scream at the pain as the cut opens and blood runs down my arm, but I know it would only draw attention to us. Then Brom grabs my other arm and makes a cut in the same place, then they use their knives on themselves, cutting open their palms like before, though they do it to each hand now.
“One more, sweet witch,” Crane says to me, his voice low and grave. “Then the pain will end. There will only be pleasure.”
I suck in a breath, tears burning the corners of my eyes as I try to hold back my cries, try to handle the pain that’s coursing through me. Crane tips my head back with his fingers and then takes his knife and makes two quick slashes across the tops of my breasts. There’s no careful precision this time, and though his movements are skilled and confident, they speak to what’s happening right now.
The desperation in the ritual.
The fact that we’re running out of time.
And how everything, everything, rides on this.
He brings his fingers away from my chin, and I glance down at my chest as the blood runs over my breasts in rivulets, dripping into the dark lake.
“Brom,” Crane says, and his voice doesn’t sound as steady as it normally does. “Lie down on your back in the water. As shallow as possible so that no one is drowning.”
I look up to see Brom’s jaw clench, but he does what Crane says, lying back in only a couple of inches of water. Beyond Brom, the dark creatures lurk closer, their hands outstretched toward us, and I don’t know how I’m going to survive this without dying of fright.
“Close your eyes, Kat,” Crane tells me in a deep voice. “You don’t have to watch this, you only have to feel it.” He reaches down and place his hand at my waist. “Lie down with your back on top of Brom. Spread your legs like a good witch.”
I swallow hard and do what he says, even though it feels immeasurably awkward until my back is flush against Brom’s hot, firm chest, his hair tickling me. Brom reaches down, his hand sliding under my rear until he’s grabbing hold of his cock and pushing it up toward me.
“He’s going to enter you from behind,” Crane says as he gets down with us, straddling our hips. “I’m going to claim your cunt,” he says, his voice a throaty whisper now. “I’ll control when we all come. I’ll begin chanting the spell, then I’ll start applying pressure to your neck.”
My eyes widen. I had forgotten that part.
“Wait, the pressure, you’re still, you’re going to try and kill me?”
“Bring you to the edge of death,” he says gravely, his eyes dark and hard. “I won’t push you over Kat, you know I won’t. I’ll apply just enough pressure on the sides of your windpipe, but the moment I feel you start to go limp, I’ll let go and you’ll breathe again.”
I’m terrified.
“Okay,” I say quietly, having to put all my trust, my life, into Crane’s hands. And I do trust him, with everything, but it doesn’t stop the fear from snaking through me, making my heart run a mile a minute.
And that fear quickly turns to pain as Brom starts pushing the head of his cock against my entrance at the back, the thick head of him oiled and shoving inside me in the most slow and agonizing way. I start squirming on top of him, trying to escape the pressure, but he grabs my arms, the blood from his palms mixing with mine, and holds me in place.