This meant nothing to him. Even though it was a first for her, she knew from Tally and even from the snippets she’d heard from Hawk and Falcon that what had happened between them . . . it wasn’t always like that.
Her body, her flesh, maybe even her soul, was meant for Dred Shadowins.
It occurred to Middy that this revelation was what one would call an absolute bitch. She didn’t even like the bastard and now, some soft part of her was struck dumb, like a calf on its way to the slaughter. She realized how very apt that description was as it applied to her. She was just another stupid cow batting her eyelashes at the butcher, one in a long line of stupid cows. Yes, that was her. Right now.
How many witches had come before and believed themselves to be made for this warlock right here? Hundreds?
Maybe a thousand. The thought turned her stomach. She should have asked for the magick. Then it would be something that she could put away and bring out to play whenever it moved her. No, this now, whatever it was, this thing was in control.
She couldn’t believe how stupid she’d been, how naïve.
He’d tried to warn her, so she couldn’t blame him. Middy couldn’t even be angry with him, not when he was smiling at her like that, the corner of that sinful mouth curled up in a mischievous grin.
Damn him right to the Abyss for being Dred Shadowins.
That’s all it was, and it was her own fault. He’d warned her.
Middy didn’t want to move because when she moved, she’d have to have a reaction. Did she say thank you? Did she just act as if nothing had happened between them, that this cataclysm of intimacy had never happened?
“I thought you said you didn’t want the magick.” Dred’s smile bent into a smirk.
“I didn’t,” Middy said as she pulled down her dress.
“Then what the fuck just happened?”
Yes, she decided she should thank him after all. He’d brought up the subject and answered her questions all at once. He needed a cookie. Middy would rather have bitten off her own tongue than raise the question herself. Especially if everything she’d heard was wrong. Then his ego would probably have to follow along behind him because they’d never be able to get through any door at the same time.
“You mean it’s not like that for everyone?”
“No, Midnight.” Dred shook his head, his hair escaped its charm and a lock fell across his forehead. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you used Sex Magick.”
“How would I know Sex Magick?” she snorted and set about the business of grooming herself.
“I don’t know, Middy. That’s what scares the hell out of me.”
His quiet admission sparked a light within her that maybe she wasn’t alone in what she was feeling.
“I didn’t think anything scared you, Dred. You’re dark warlock extraordinaire, after all,” she said lightly, trying to break the tension.
“Middy . . .” He sat on the desk next to her. “Here’s the problem. No matter what this is, it can’t change anything. I need you to understand that.”
“I understand what you’re saying, but why can’t it change anything?” At the stern look on his face, she knew she’d said the wrong thing. Why couldn’t her cake hole ever just stay shut like it was supposed to?
“You know what I do. The face I have to wear, the bargains I have to make. Consider the one you made with me.”
He gave her a reproachful look. “And I can’t worry about how someone else is going to feel about it.”
“You know, if I liked you, I’d tell you that you don’t get to make my choices for me. That I will decide what my feelings are on the matter. But I don’t. So, don’t worry on either account.”
“Middy, you like me more than you want to admit. I like you.” He raised a brow.
Her body tightened again at the thought of him liking her, but now was not the time.
“You like fucking me. That doesn’t mean you like
me,
” she shot back.
“It’s good that you know there’s a difference, but in all honesty, I do like you, Midnight.”
“Well”—she scooted off of the desk—“stop it.”
“I can honestly say that no witch has ever demanded that before.”
“Look, treat me like you would any other witch. You wouldn’t want me getting any ideas, right?” Middy knew that sounded like she was still flirting, but in all honesty, for him to be a total ass was probably what she needed.
He laughed. “No, Middy. That I can’t do.”
“See, you’re treating me like I’m special. Next thing you know, I’ll be picking out Old Country Roses service for twelve and deciding that the wedding should be in Paris at Beltane with a dress that could either be called ‘blush’ or ‘bashful,’ though it must be done in a sweet Southern accent, and my brothers trying to corral weather fairies with rosewater cookies. . . . It’s already started.” Middy shrugged helplessly.
“Midnight, you’re brilliant.” Dred pulled her to him and planted one on her mouth.
She promptly melted against him like butter in a microwave and he broke the kiss.
“This is perfect. Go ahead and plan that wedding,
darling
. I’m sure you’ll need to enlist my aunt and my mother, and in turn the Witch’s Auxilliary. The bigger the affair, the better. It will be the perfect cover. They’d start to wonder if there weren’t plans in the works anyway.”
“What if we don’t figure this out by Beltane?” Middy asked.
“Then you’ll just have to go through with it.” Dred returned her cavalier shrug.
“I’m not having this conversation.” Middy shook her head in denial and threw up her hands to push Dred away.
“We can get it dissolved easily enough.”
“You have truly lost your mind.” Middy knew that she was the one who’d lost her mind. This wasn’t playing dress up anymore. The Fuck Me Ken doll was a real person.
“So Paris is out?” Dred asked, totally missing her point.
Middy wanted to shriek at him that it was all out, but she’d given her witch’s word. She couldn’t go back on it.
Could she? A cold prickle went up her spine at the thought.
No, she couldn’t. She wondered for a moment that if she slapped him really hard, whether that would rattle the sense back into his head. Hell, maybe she should slap herself.
“Paris is fine. What witch could ever say no to Paris? By Morrigan, while we’re at it, why don’t we have the ceremony in front of the Eiffel Tower? I’m thinking evening, white candles, rose petals. . . .” she said sarcastically.
“Yes! Indulge your every whim. Just not the Cinderella carriage. I hate those damn things.”
“You don’t have the sense Merlin gave a zephyr.” Middy sighed and turned away from him.
“What did I do?” he asked her retreating form.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Cock Talk
Dred Shadowins was to find out exactly what he’d done that had Middy in a snit. It came to him in a dream.
He knew he was dreaming because when he became aware of himself, he was skipping. Dark warlocks, master spies, and Dred Shadowins in particular, did not skip. Nor did they take the time to notice that everything smelled like honey.
He was sure that honey did not have a scent, but here, in this fucked-up version of the world that had been rotting in his subconscious, it did. Dred knew it was honey, but it was Midnight Cherrywood, too. It was what her pink petals had tasted like. He was smelling tastes, so yes, this was definitely a dream.
After gaining control of his traitorous limbs, he stalked down the path that had been set before him. He wondered briefly if this was a magickal dream, a trap of some sort that he could never escape from like Chaldonean Hall.
He thought he saw Middy, her dark cascade of hair brushing the tops of her naked thighs and he heard her laughter, sweet and pure. Dred was given visions of a waterfall, of Middy waiting for him, wet and pliant.
Leaves fell like rain all around him; golden coins that crunched beneath his feet, reds that burned like the early hours of dawn, sharp and bright against the dark browns that were the color of death and shadow. Dred felt as if he’d moved through miles of forest when the swirling, misty cover receded.
It was almost like he was on some sort of pilgrimage and Dred wondered what dark things he might find at the end of this dream sequence or if he’d wake up in time to escape them.
He was plotting how to escape, to wake up, to leave the darkness. Dred was very aware that back in the physical realm, Middy was sleeping next to him and trusting that he would protect her.
“There is no escape. Not for you. Not for her,” a voice whispered from the shadows.
“Show yourself.”
“You know me,” the voice said.
“Then show me.”
The sight that greeted him when the waves of darkness retreated like the tide was nothing short of a bad acid trip.
Dred was now certain that his scotch had been laced with some hallucinogen.
It was the biggest specimen he’d ever seen; there was no doubt about that. Then, of course, it would be. It was as tall as he was, but its girth was enormous. Again, that should have been expected, given the proportionate size ratio.
What topped it off was the head. It was purple and he could have sworn that it throbbed.
Then, there was a face. A face that he knew and loved dearly.
It was his own.
But this doppelganger was indeed a fright. What was wearing his face was his very own penis.
“I know, I know. Don’t freak out.”
“I’m standing here in the middle of fucking nowhere talking to my own cock. I’d say I was already past freaked out and maybe a couple of eggs short of a meringue.”
“Sorry I had to resort to such drastic measures; nothing else would have made an impression.” It shrugged.
Dred found himself nodding along and then shook himself out of it. “So, uh, what do you want?”
“I know tings, they’ve been tough lately.” It shrugged again.
He said “tings.” Was that a Brooklyn accent? What, was his cock the godfather cock of all cocks? Dred was sure he’d just gone snap, crackle, and fuck you. He was right out to lunch. With his cock, apparently. Middy had been right, he’d lost his mind. Utterly.
“Yeah, with the broad. That’s what we’s gotta get straight.”
“Midnight?”
“That’s the one.” His cock exhaled a huge breath and it seemed to shrivel a bit and then perk back up. “Get me?”
“Uh, no.”
“The one, genius. She’s it for us. That’s the only entree we’ll be eatin’ for breakfast, lunch, and dinner here on out.”
Dred was sure he hadn’t heard it correctly. That was tan-tamount to saying that he’d never fuck another witch so long as he lived. That knowledge settled like dirt on a gravel road. It wasn’t heavy, but damn, it dusted everything.
“Merlin’s balls!” he swore.
“Look here, buddy!” a voice interrupted what had promised to be a most satisfying stream of profanity.
Dred turned to see the source of the new voice that had entered his Sybil-scape. Because that’s what it was, it was certainly not a dreamscape. He had two different things talking to him and one was his cock. Oh, yes, he was definitely what they called fucked up. A split personality would be a welcome and classifiable bit of insanity. But this? Now he thought he was seeing Merlin, which was just stupid.
The next thing he knew, he’d be sitting in a double-wide broom on blocks watching selkies and mermaids talking about interracial dating. Those people were always the first to admit they saw Merlin and Elvis. Usually at a Waffle House for the all-you-can-eat special.
Dred decided that yes, he might have just reached his breaking point.
“Hey, man.” This was from his cock.
He wanted to reach down and grab for it, to see if it was still there, but he had a feeling that when he realized it wasn’t, there’d be no surfacing from the deep end for him.
“You know him?” Dred asked.
“Yeah, and you do, too.”
“Mordred Arthur Shadowins,” the man with the long, white beard pronounced.
“Who wants to know?” Dred smirked, unable to do anything at this point, but rely on his attitude to get him through.
“My balls! I’m sick unto death of being startled out of my daily activity every time something doesn’t go your way.”
“And how do I have anything to do with that?”
“My name, boy! Stop taking it vain. I think you’re the worst culprit in the warlockian world. If it was just, ‘by Merlin’ or ‘Merlin bless’ or whatever else, it wouldn’t bother me. But always, it’s about my balls. I’ve had enough. And they’re not blue, thank you very much. I’ve pounded the backside out of Nimue three times today,” the old man said, looking very proud of himself.
Yet another visual that Dred Shadowins could have gone the rest of his life without having plastered behind his eyeballs.
Balls.
Merlin. Merlin’s hairy, old, shriveled, but not blue . . .
“Watch it! Don’t even think it!” Merlin corrected him.
“And why do you always make me look old? Magickal folk should know better.”
“Um, while I’ve got you here . . .”
“Your damned mission? Me on a horse! You’re a stubborn one, aren’t you? We give you the one, and all you can worry about is—” Merlin broke off, a little confused. He seemed to be talking to someone that Dred couldn’t see.
“Oh, well that guy’s a douche bag. Yes, I’ll tell him. In a minute. No. Really? Damn it.”
“Looks like the two of yous have some business to handle, so I’ll be leaving. But remember what I said, Dred.
Don’t park me in any other garage because the engine ain’t gonna start, if you get my drift.” It winked at him.
Dred would have been more comfortable if the thing had just disappeared, but no, it had to skip merrily along the path that led out of the clearing. So Dred was treated to the lovely, unforgettable image of the backside of his cock skipping down a path. If only it had a cape, it would have given a whole new definition to Red Riding Hood.
“Okay, boy. Looks like I’m going to give you a break. I didn’t want to, but here it is. You and your witch need to leave the house party and get to Loudun.”
“France?” Dred asked. “She said something about Paris in the spring. . . .”
“Yes, yes. Stick to that. But for now, Loudun.”