She moved to the other side of her altar and broke off a clump of wax at her feet. She lit several of her candles next from the sparks of a flint. Her long, dark hair fell into her face as she worked and he had the urge to tug it back. He narrowed his eyes as her hair shifted dangerously close to the flames.
“What do you want to see?” she asked.
Astegur pulled his eyes away from her hair to look at the bowl before her and the wax warming within. “Your centaurs.”
“They are not mine.”
“What would you call them then?”
“A nuisance.”
His tail flicked beneath his loincloth. The hag claimed no other being but her thralls as her own. He did not know why his hands lost some of their tension at her words. “Show me their forces. We need to know what we are dealing with.”
Calavia peered up at him and shivered but nodded. Her eyes appeared worried and curious all at once. Astegur felt his body stiffen uncomfortably.
She looked down at her bowl and picked it up to swirl the contents. Once she placed it back down, she grabbed a small blade next to it and pressed it to her palm.
A quiet hiss filled his ears as crimson blood flowed from her hand. He reached for her wrist before he could stop himself just as the first drops hit the wax below. All thoughts of the incoming threat vanished. Suddenly ravenous, he yanked her hand toward his mouth.
“What are you doing?” she gasped, but he was already leaning over the altar and licking at her wound feverishly. “What are—”
He pulled her into him, subduing her movements before she decided to resist him. He needed her blood. Now. It coated his tongue, his cock hardened thickly and pushed against his coverings. Power fused through his veins, and his tendons pulled taut. He forced his shaft hard against the stone altar.
The tip of a knife pressed into the side of his neck. “Release me, Astegur.”
Astegur heard the words but his thoughts were on getting more of her inside him. Whether by blood or other means. He flattened his tongue over her palm and lapped. It wasn’t until the knife cut his skin that his senses returned.
He dropped her hand in surprise and licked his lips as he regained some semblance of control.
“Your blood.” He hissed, steam pouring out from him again. “It is not…” It wasn’t pure human blood. It was tainted. It even tasted like taint on his tongue. Astegur spat it out but then immediately regretted it, missing the taste as soon as it left him.
Calavia clutched her hand. “There’s nothing wrong with my blood.”
His eyes zoomed in on her. His body growing even larger. “It tastes like the curse, and yet—”
“I am not human!”
He straightened and looked down at her. “And yet I want more.”
“You do not want more. It can do nothing for you. You’re still recovering from your wounds and nothing more.” Her voice shook.
Astegur snarled. She was right. He did not want more. At least that was what he convinced himself of at that moment, but he had never encountered a cursed human nor a witch who captivated him so much.
The hag was unlike any other living creature in the labyrinth.
He licked his lips, took a small step back, and waited until she closed the distance and returned to the other side of the altar. “I will not grab you again,” he said. All he wanted to do was grab her again.
Calavia’s eyes remained on him for a short time before she looked back down at her bowl and her mouth parted with a gasp.
“What?” he asked.
“They’re preparing.”
Astegur stepped close beside her despite the chaos wrecking his body. He knew her blood was tainted, it even tasted that way, but there was something about it that he could not pinpoint. All he knew was that he wanted more of it, on him, in him, even if it did nothing for him.
He flexed and clenched his hands, trying to expel the need to grab Calavia and investigate further. He gritted his teeth and forced his body to relax as he looked upon her wax.
At first, all he saw was the faintly pink hue of her wax, mixed with her blood. He ground his teeth harder, struggling to get a stronger hold of himself, but then the wax changed to show him a field.
