And suddenly the image of the horseman starts to fade.Brom, my moody, dark Brom comes back into view, his head where there wasn’t a head before.
“Do you see me?”he asks, his face upside down as he peers over me.I nod frantically.“Do you see Crane now?”
I swallow and raise my head to see Crane pinning down my legs.It doesn’t help that he’s holding a knife in his hands, but at least there’s no shadow at all, just his pale, toned body lit by candles.
“I see you,” I whisper to Crane, relief flooding through me, trying to sweep away the terror.It’s him.It’s Crane, my teacher,my lover, with his thick black hair, his high cheekbones, that downturned mouth.
“Good,” Crane says, giving me a soft smile.
But the smile is fleeting.
“Now we’re going to keep you pinned down because this next part is going to hurt again, and I don’t want you running from the pain.We need to keep going.All right?”
I nod, sucking in my breath and trying not to squirm despite what he just told me, watching as he takes the knife and presses it right between my clavicles and runs it down between my breasts.
“Ah!”I cry out, the pain even worse than before, and when I roll my head to the side to look away, I’m staring at all the dark spirits hovering on the other side of the salt circle.
Waiting for us to slip up.
Feeding on my pain.
“I’m sorry,” Crane says, the knife now going over my stomach, making me try and move, to escape the pain.“Please, try—”
The knife feels like it’s cutting deep, blood spilling over my stomach.I try to shift, to get up and run from it, but they keep me pinned down, and I’m bucking beneath them, the agony unbearable, taking over every part of my body.
I let out a scream, the sound echoing through the forest before Brom clamps his hand over my mouth.“We can’t call attention to ourselves,” he reminds me, and so I bite his hand instead.
He grimaces, but he doesn’t let up, even when I bite harder as Crane drags the sharp tip of the knife over my belly button where he finally stops.
The pain stops.
I close my eyes and exhale into Brom’s palm as my body lets go, turning into a rag doll beneath them.I sink into the grass, my heart rate spiking, a buzzing sensation inside me like I’ve been struck by lightning.The energy inside me roils and thunders, a storm of creation, a deluge of power there for the taking.
Brom takes his hand away and I hear him grunt, feel wet drops on my breasts as I realize he’s cut open his palm again.
I open my eyes to look at him and see his hand in Crane’s, clasped in a bleeding handshake over my body, the blood dripping down.They’re both looking into each other’s eyes with feverish intensity, a mix of pain and longing and love and history, and again I’m hit with the sting of jealousy.These men share something I don’t, they share secrets, they connect in shadows, their attraction to each other forbidden, their love even more so.There is a bond between them I can’t even begin to become a part of, but I want it all the same.
As if hearing me, Crane breaks away from Brom’s gaze, his eyes finding mine as they let go of each other’s bloodied hands.
And his eyes widen.
“Kat,” Crane says through a gasp.“Your eyes.”
Brom looks down at me and frowns.“They’re gold,” he whispers.
“Gold?”I ask, my heart jumping, feeling unnerved.“Why are my eyes gold?What does that mean?”
“The energy,” Crane says in awe.Then his expression hardens with determination.“We can’t waste it.”
He reaches down and runs his palm down my body, right over the bleeding cut, and then Brom does the same from the opposite direction before he brings his other hand over andstarts cupping my breasts, bloody thumbs brushing over my nipples, hardening them into little furls.
I let out a raw gasp, my hips bucking up even though Crane is still pinning me down.
“At least you’re learning to embrace your fear, sweet witch,” Crane murmurs as he gets off me, my legs tingling without his weight.“Now get on your side.”
He grabs my hips and rolls me over so that I’m facing the dark figures at the edge of the forest, more of them now crowding around.I close my eyes to them, feeling the blood roll off my body and onto the grass.
“Brom, get down there and push my seed back into her cunt,” he demands.
