NOTE: This short story is an exploration of the character Blakely White with the intent that she'll someday be the female lead of a novel length erotic story. The "fantasy world" rules I set up in this story may or may not survive to be used in my longer story. The other characters mentioned in this story may or may not be used in my longer story. The plot(s) I hint at probably will.
Coven Bound
I sigh. An errant lock flutters in the stream of my pent up air. My glasses fog. Chemistry 101 is kind of like potions. Mix weird ingredients, get weird results but...
I sigh again and stuff my chemistry textbook into my bag. It's a late lecture so there are fewer students than many earlier classes. The lecture hall empties rapidly. I shoulder my bag and trip tiredly down the auditorium stair to the ground floor. Everything seems dull, depressed, ordinary, mundane. I live amongst the mundane. I've been to the world beyond the veil. I'd only been gone for a couple of months. It's not like it's even someplace else, it's just, some people can perceive a world steeped in magic. Returning to live amongst those that can't, shouldn't feel like this. It's so messed up.
I still have my mandala--my witch-mark. I know of no way to get rid of that. I had it before I was accepted to Wyndwood School of Arcana. It's a part of me. I can still cast spells--the few I learned--with the miniscule essence I generate but I don't dare. I fled the veil. Doing magic in the mundane world is not forbidden. I mean, our worlds are barely separated. I can catch an Uber to Wyndwood and the mundane driver wouldn't even notice we'd gone to a school for spellcraft. But using magic draws attention. A coven will find me, or worse, a warlock. I'll be collared and bound. Cohyn freeing me will have been for nothing.
I shiver, because there is something in me that really, really craves a collar--even though I rejected mine.
I miss magic. I miss Wyndwood. I miss Cohyn. I miss being collared. I miss the weird freaky shit Cohyn had me do. The beads he shoved in my ass before class had a purpose. Humiliation, discomfort and pleasure powered me--and by extension, him. I was okay with it even when I turned the color of an overripe strawberry--cheeks to butt. I was not okay with having zero choice, no agency, no ability to say no. The bond compelled me. I'm a bottom. I'm submissive. I trade in trust. Compulsion is not submission. I don't care how good it was or how I felt. Orgasms do not equal love. Love trusts. Love frees. Love is not slavery.
It's winter in Seattle, so I slip on my jacket as I leave Johnson Hall. My coat is poofy and will keep me dry--mostly. In Seattle its best if you just get used to being a little damp all the time. I stop just inside the doors to free my hair from under my coat.
It's almost six, damp and dreary-dark outside. The sun has set. A tired slice of moon tries and fails to cut through Seattle's wet, winter blanket. Tomorrow there will be a New Moon. Tomorrow night there'll be a ritual at Wyndwood to welcome the new cycle. Tonight a flimsy sliver of silver light ripples off the still waters in Drumheller Fountain, which, in my experience, is never ever on--except during student orientation week.
I walk under the third floor wing that connects Suzzallo to Allen. The gothic construction of the two libraries looks similar but...Suzzallo has been around for a century, Allen might be thirty-five. Even a mundane can just
feel
the difference. Suzzallo reminds me of Wyndwood. I heard somewhere that it holds three-million books. I'm not sure I believe that but it freaking sucks when you reserve a book you think you need and it turns out to be written in Latin. Allen is nice, but it's not the same.
I walk on. Cutting through Red Square might've been a faster path to my dorm room in Hagget but I like the tiny garden squashed in the space tucked behind Suzzallo and Smith. When it's sunny and warm it's a beautiful, quite, hidden, out-of-the-way place to study.
I stop just inside of the shelter provided by the library "bridge" above me and glance about. Lights are on in the libraries on both sides and above. I can see students studying on the other side of the windows. Out here, I'm alone. I can probably walk through the small, forested park in front of me in under a minute.
It's dark. It's shadowed. It's small. It's hidden. I love it in there. Right now, after dark, it seems like Arboretum across the Union Bay Canal--as in, a really good place to be raped. Well, not a
good
place. No place is a
good
place for that, but, you know what I mean.
Not that that's happened in Grieg Garden before. Not that I know of. I glance about again and consider back tracking or maybe cutting towards the HUB. The lawn is open that way. But it's wet and cold and will take longer. It's Seattle with its perpetual drizzle mist. I want to be inside where I can cozy up on my bed in my jammies. I need to study. It'll take me under thirty seconds to speed walk through Grieg Garden.
I glance about one last time--I'm alone--and make a break for it.
One pace. Six strides. Twenty-three paces. I'm half way through.
A gust of damp wind rattles the trees around me. Wet, winter leaves, half rotted on their trees, rip free and swirl on the path behind me before they join their sodden brethren on the ground. Phantom tattoo needles jam into my witch-mark, and given where that's located, it freaking hurts.
But it's a warning. Someone is using magic--a lot of magic. Witches can't do that much magic--not alone. Maybe a warlock, but he'd have no control over it. A witch and a warlock, bound in a coven? I suck in a frightened breath in order to belt out my loudest scream.
I hesitate. I don't actually
know
I'm in danger. How would I explain it?
"Blakely." The voice is low, deep, rumbly. It sends a shiver down my spine. I'm both frightened and...
...aroused. I turn slowly, knowing who I'll see. Asher stops, three paces away. He's tall. He's alpha. He's musclely. He can only be here because he wants to bind me. I almost want him to bind me. Cohyn is my man but Asher--I--oh, God. I clench.
"Where's your witch-mark?" Again, a shiver runs down my spine. I try not to squirm. It's weird he doesn't know, because I thought the entire witch world had figured that out.
"That's not your business." My voice starts weak but grows stronger. Hoping he doesn't notice, I press my knees together. Asher is almost entirely white. The only color is his eyes, which are whiskey gold. I find that odd, because I though albinos were supposed to have pinkish-red eyes. Despite his pallor, I find him intensely attractive. My nipples pebble and I don't know how they don't drill their way through my bra. Perhaps I have the Super Smash Brothers of bras--padded nipple deflection plus two.
"If I'm going to bind you, I need to know." He smirks. "I need you to show me."
An ache awakens low, too low, in my core. "I--I don't want you to bind me." I take a shaky step back.
"You want to go home, don't you?"
Yes.
Ohmigod
. Yes. So bad. "I know how to Uber."
A low chuckle rolls out of Asher's chest. He's wearing a North Face jacket, but it's open. Even in the dim light, I see his oblique and abs and pecs flex under his shirt. It looks like a tee but it's so tight it might be a compression shirt. Drool pools, because I have some messed up vision about tracing his abs with my tongue. Heat stings my cheeks, which makes it worse, because I have this embarrassment thing that I don't understand. It's not quite a shame kink, but, make me think about sex and blush at the same time and...ohmigod.
"Blakely, you know what will happen if you show up to school unbound."
I close my eyes, because I do. Seventeen covens and at least that many warlocks will be waiting for me. I won't have gone three steps before I'm forcibly bound. The ride-service driver won't even be out of the parking-lot before the witch war starts. There is something about me and my mark and the fact that it is right over a chakra that makes me less a person and more an asset in the witch world.
Of course, to the coven families, everyone is an asset, so I'm not special in that way. I shake my head, trying to clear the uncertainty. "C-Cohyn will come get me."
Asher takes a couple of careful steps, like he thinks I might turn to flee. He's right. I might. He reaches out and tilts my chin. I'm trembling, but I don't pull away. "You know he won't. He released you."
A sob wells up. Asher leans over me. I'm crying. And vulnerable. And while things have never worked between us, that doesn't seem to matter right now. My lips part.
The kiss is wet with my tears, but he tastes clean, like distilled water and spicy cinnamon. Our tongues slick. He nips my lip. Fire worms through me and I...
