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)
“I’m going to come,” Crane breathes, and he reaches down and runs his fingers over my clit as he pushes in deeper, and Brom drives himself so far down my throat that I choke. He pulses inside my mouth, and at first he’s so far back I don’t taste his seed as it spills down, but then I’m hit with the salt of it and I’m swallowing and swallowing, just as I feel Crane shooting inside me, letting out a garbled cry, his grip painful.
And then I’m coming too, a violent and wonderfully terrifying feeling amidst all their groans and their ragged breathing and the wet, lewd slap of skin. There’s a moment when I feel I should hold back, temper my orgasm somehow, that fear of falling, the fear of the unknown.
But then I let go. My body becomes not my own. It surprises me, yanking my insides around, burning me up like a fire before the flames slowly go out.
I’m crying again, tears that try to express all the things I’m feeling but don’t have words for, and I suppose that’s everything. My cunt squeezes and pulses around Crane’s throbbing cock, and Brom is pulling out from my mouth, my jaw aching in response.
My head hangs down and I collapse to my elbows, trying to breathe, trying to ground myself with my forehead pressed against the cool grass, my eyes closed.
“Did it work?” Crane asks, his hand gently running down my back in a soothing manner as he pulls out of me, making me feel hollow.
“I don’t know,” Brom says, clearing his throat. “I don’t think so. I still…I still feel connected to him. And I don’t see any spirits.”
“Perhaps we were supposed to take our time,” Crane ponders, his voice still thick from sex. “Maybe it needs to work through our systems first.”
“Her cut is already healing,” Brom points out.
“Then we’ll do it to her on the other side.”
Those words seem to bring me back to the moment. I slowly push myself up on my hands, prickles of fear breaking through the satisfied haze.
“You’re going to cut me again?” I ask, lifting up my head, though I can’t see either of them with my hair in my face.
“We have to try again while we can,” Crane explains softly. “We can’t close the ritual yet, not when the elixir hasn’t fully worked. It…”
He trails off.
“Brom,” he whispers, an edge to his voice. “Do you see that?”
I hear Brom swallow loudly.
“Yes. I do.”
His tone makes my blood run cold.
I quickly brush my hair out of my face and follow their gaze to the edge of the circle.
Where several shadowy figures have gathered.
Watching us.
Chapter 20
Kat
“Oh my God,” I cry out at the figures standing in the woods, standing there, facing us and not moving. “Who are they?”
What are they?
I start to panic, straightening up, but then Crane is grabbing me around the waist and holding me back against his chest. Somehow his cock is hard again, the hot, slick length of him pressed along my bottom.
“We’re supposed to see them,” he says into my ear. “It means it’s working. The ritual is still in play.”
I gape at the figures in horror. Some of them are clearly human, ghosts, perhaps, with chest wounds, some with their heads caved in, others looking intact except for black eyes and mouths stretched open in a silent scream. Others are dark and shadowy with red eyes and sharp teeth and…
I look down at where Crane is holding onto me across my waist.
His arm is just shadow now.
“Crane?” I cry out, and I try to look at him over my shoulder.
His face is gone. Instead, he’s just darkness personified, a moving, smoking abyss with two crimson dots for eyes. “Kat,” the shadow monster says in an inhuman voice.
“Help! Brom, he’s—” I cry out, twisting around to face Brom, to get him to save me, but Brom isn’t there anymore.
Instead, it’s the headless horseman kneeling in front of me, in his black leather armor and cape and that festering wound that used to hold a head.
“No!” I scream. “No, no!”
“Kat,” the shadow hisses in my ear. “I told you this would happen, you’re fine, we’ve got you.”
“He’s the horseman,” I manage to say. “He’s the horseman!”
The horseman reaches for me with his black gloved hands, and I scream again. I bring my elbow back and jab it into the shadow’s ribs. I don’t even feel it make contact, but it lets go of me I get to my feet, trying to run.
“Grab her!” the shadow yells. “Don’t let her break the circle!”
I’m screaming, running toward the edge of the clearing, away from the gathered ghouls, my feet slipping under me on the wet grass, but I’m almost there, I’m almost—
I yelp as powerful arms wrap around my calves, slamming me down to the ground, my hands breaking my fall.