I shrugged. “Not my fault, sorry. You really liked it, though. I tied you down to the bed and cut you until your cock went soft, then got you hard again. Multiple times.”
I wouldn’t mention how Abraxas had come in and helped at the end. Part of the memory would be kept just for me. “I honestly don’t know if hearing about this is helping or making me more nervous,” Waylon said. “Kirin is fucking weird, either way.”
His voice had some of its normal sarcastic tone back, so I was going to say the story was helping. “Kink shaming is rude,” I chastised. “And its ironic that you’re trying to talk on the matter.”
Waylon’s cheeks flamed. “Fucking Xenir. What have you seenmedo?”
“You’ve been choking on Bennett’s cock while getting fucked by Kirin, among other things.”
“I have a feeling it’s the other things that are interesting,” Kirin said.
“I have more stories about you, too. Like I said, the knife play isn’t the only thing we tried.”
With the pixie-demon more relaxed than ever, I reached out mid-sentence and grabbed his arm, tugging it gently into place. Then I made a small slice in his wrist and held him as he squirmed and yelped. My incantation started the second the first drop of blood hit the mixture, and Kirin took over holding Waylon in place.
Thirty seconds later, I nodded to Kirin as the last words passed my lips and Waylon jerked his arm back. A dark glow spread out from the tree branch. We couldn’t see anything in the darkness, but when it dissipated a moment later, a fist-sized piece of wood was sitting on the branch, a hole where the wood used to be.
The artifact was nothing special in appearance. It didn’t look anywhere near as intricate as the artifact jewellery Solstice had hanging off of her at every opportunity. There was magic emanating from the plain dark wood, though, and we’d done what mattered. Infused enough magic in this to enhance my magic enough to break the seal. Hopefully.
“You’re sneaky,” Waylon accused, staring down at his healed forearm and the remnants of blood dripping down his arm.
“And you’re not?”
He grumbled, but had nothing to say to that. I grabbed the artifact from the tree and made my way to the library without another word, ready to wait a couple hours until two in the morning.
Chapter 27
Theminutestickedbyfaster than I’d wanted, and soon I was standing in front of the tree branch again. I’d opted to do the spell here, under the light of the moon, for no particular reason. I had to hope I hadn’t missed a clue telling me the ideal location to do the spell.
Wouldn’t that be just my luck?
If the spell failed because I’d done it in the wrong part of the damn house, I’d be more than a little miffed. Also, more than a little fucked over, because we didn’t have the luxury of time for me to muddle through yet another set of clues.
Four of my men gathered around me, staring at the branch like it was a portal to another realm. It could be considered one. The branch currently held my magic enhancing artifact and a towel to wipe the sweat off my brow while I was reciting the lengthy spell. Doing magic was a heavy duty workout for a weakling witch like me.
“Is our presence necessary?” Abraxas asked.
“There’s a chance the seal will snap back into place behind me, so it’s better you’re with me to step outside.”
“Why aren’t we at the front door, then? Are you going to jump out the window?” Waylon asked. “We’d all survive, but you wouldn’t.”
Apparently it was too much to ask for one of them to save my life. How good to know they cared. I steeled myself against the throb of my chest and queasy feeling in my stomach. To be fair, Waylon would have said something similar if he’d remembered our time together or not. The words were in character.
“We’ll go out the front door, but this seemed like a better place to perform the spell.”
If they asked why, I would be out of explanations. They didn’t.
“Bennett won’t be able to leave right away, so where does that leave him?” Zan asked, more tentatively than the others.
The amount of fucks I gave about whether Bennett left this house was very few, at the moment. I knew I was being petty, but he’d hurt my feelings. I’d been trying to ward myself against emotional pain like that, and I’d been successful in Hadley House until this cycle had come around. Until Bennett had gone from caring and rational to cold and emotionless.
I didn’t answer Zan, because I had no idea. Maybe they could set him free after I’d fled the scene, and he wouldn’t attempt to ravish any of the others. If we were lucky, the spell would take long enough that the moon’s influence wouldn’t be holding him quite as tightly, and he’d be able to function with his human morals intact.
“Kirin, keep an eye on the time for me, please. We need to be exact. The second the watch hand crosses two a.m., I need to recite the spell.”
Every word wandered through my mind, memorized, but I clutched a piece of paper in front of me as well. There would be nothing worse than fumbling in the moment and forgetting my lines like this was some kind of academy-run play. The spell made me uneasy, but I had no choice.
We had five minutes to two, and I couldn’t stand in the awkward silence that followed my instructions to Kirin.
