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)
While in the tub I let my mind wander. There’s too much happening at once that it feels good to just let my thoughts go where they want. I know I have to think about facing my mother today and what I’ll say to her. The questions I have about her involvement with using the Hessian to retrieve Brom, why she wants him to bed me on behalf of someone called Goruun. And I know that I’ll have to start picking up the pieces of what happened between Brom and I and how my feelings about him may have changed.
But my mind goes back to Crane.
It goes back to magic.
I believe the source of this newfound power is connected to him. And if not him in particular, connected to sex. Perhaps a ritual isn’t even needed for this exchange of energy. When I orgasm I can feel my body being filled with light, all that tension building up inside of me finally releasing. But it doesn’t just shoot out from my core, instead I feel it in my toes and my fingertips, like the energy is expelled but some is bounced back inside me.
That’s the source of it all.
Sex.
I can’t help the tiny smile on my face. I’d been told that witches were sexual beings but now I know the truth. Maybe it’s not the same for everyone—I have yet to make a real witch friend here and I’m not sure Paul would appreciate the conversation—but I feel like the coupling of me and another witch is what is creating this power.
Specifically, Crane. The fact that we already can exchange energy with each other, to a degree, must help. But is it more than just an orgasm, a biological drive, a need to release? Is there something more to it? Emotions? Deep feelings of attachment?
Is it love?
I sigh, sinking deeper into the tub, and this warm, tender spot forms inside me, akin to what I used to feel for Brom when I was younger. I just don’t know what it means. I could be falling in love with Crane. Is he falling in love with me?
Sometimes the way he looks at me tells me he is, when he stares openly at me in a way that’s more than just lust and desire, but some kind of hunger for my heart, my soul, for all of me. Then there’s the way he acts around me, the sweetness that often catches me off-guard and hits me right in the center of my bones.
But love seems impossible right now. He is still my teacher, I’m still his student, and that’s not even the biggest obstacle we’re facing. There’s my mother and the Sisters, hell-bent on making sure I marry Brom, and then there’s Brom himself. Once upon a time Crane told me that he would respect my past with him, but now that I’ve seen the rage and jealousy from Crane after what happened last night between Brom and I, I’m not sure that’s still the case.
And can I fall in love with Crane if I still love Brom?
Can I fall back in love with Brom if I’m in love with Crane?
Can I love both men?
Will they let me?
There are too many questions and my heart and body feel too exhausted to tackle any of them. I settle further into the tub so that the water is at my chin. The bathroom window shows the grey mist flowing past, the light dulled, and I feel my eyes flutter closed. The warm of the bath slows my pulse, lulling me into a state of deep relaxation.
There’s no sound at all except for the sound of my breath.
The faint beat of my heart.
The sound of the water splashing gently against the tub.
Rhythmic, constant splashing.
Why is the water in the tub still moving when I’m staying completely still?
“You let my husband touch you here,” a voice hisses.
My eyes fly open to see a woman’s head between my legs, dead white eyes staring right at me.
I scream but hands come up from underneath me in the tub, wrapping around my mouth and chest and start pulling me down into the water. With sickening clarity I realize that I haven’t been lying on the bottom of a copper tub but instead on a woman’s spongy body.
Water goes up my nose as I’m held under the surface and I’m thrashing back and forth, pure animal panic surging through me.
She’s trying to kill me.
I’m going to drown here.
With a surge of flustered power I bite her fingers across my mouth. The bones snap with a sickening sound, blood flowing into the water, tasting like foul pennies as it goes past my lips.
“He read my memories and used it against me,” the voice says as if she’s at my ear now. “Do you know what kind of man he is? Do you know what he did to me?”