Page 79 of Bewitching Her Monsters
“Are you calling for Osen?” Arran asks.
“His name is Osen?” I frown when I hear how fragile my voice sounds.
“Yes.” Maxum leans over, just a few inches from my face. I can smell his smokey scent that warms my insides. “Why did you call for him?” he asks. His voice isn’t seductive but demanding… as if I’ve made some mistake requesting his presence. Maybe I have. Osen seems to tolerate me, at best.
“This is my dream. And I want to know where my ghost is. He’s the one to get all your attention.” I frown. “I find it upsetting that he’s not here, too.”
“Why do you care where Osen is?” Maxum cradles my chin, and I feel tension building. His grip is growing firmer by the moment.
I sigh. I hate admitting that I want to know more about him, because he hasn’t been the nicest person to me. However, I believe there is a reason for that. We just need to develop a connection, a bond.
Dreaming or not, these guys all love Osen. We must have gotten off on the wrong foot. “Because you care about him,” I say simply. “Your hearts ache with his loss. And I want him to stop hating me.”
“Why do you want him to like you? So you can pull secrets out of him?” Calder asks.
I narrow my eyes as I look at him and groan loudly. “What the fuck is up with this secret shit? It’s all very interesting as a book idea, but I don’t care for it in my dreams. I just want to experience the love you all feel for each other. I just want to resolve this tension so I can move on.”
Arran’s rough hand skims over my arm. “What about experiencing the pleasure we can give you?”
“Yes! I want that!” I nod. “I don’t like this idea that we’re enemies.”
“And if we like to punish our enemies sexually?”
I raise my eyebrows and then grin. “Oh, well, that could work. But I don’t want to be really hurt.”
“Witch, you need to know this is actually happening,” Arran whispers in my ear, but the voice is the ghost…Osen.
“But this is my dream,” I say. “Or maybe our shared dream.”
“It is in a way, but it’s also the shadowscape. A very real place. One I can control,” Osen speaks through Arran. “I’m a disembodied soul. But what these males do to you now is truly me.”
“So you are a ghost… and you’ll be fucking me as these guys?” I ask.
“Yes.”
I frown. “No.”
“No?” His angry voice resonates all around me. “I don’t have to ask for your permission. I can take what I want.”
“Why didn’t you do that then?” I challenge him.
He pauses, then finally answers, resigned. “Because I promised these males I wouldn’t do that.”
“Why do you want to have sex with me at all? I thought you didn’t like me.” I ask, “And why are you using their faces instead of your own?”
“Because you’re attracted to them.” Arran’s hot breath washes over my neck. “You want to fuck them. You don’t like me.”
I squirm with need. “And why do you want me to want them, or you, for that matter?”
“I need your sexual energy,” he finally admits.
“Are you an incubus?” I ask.
“How did you know?” His voice is harsh again.
“I write this stuff, silly.”
“Oh, that’s right.” Arran nuzzles into my neck, then his soft lips graze up to my ear. “Do you understand this isn’t a dream?”
