“Then feed on me.” She pulls me down and kisses me desperately. “Make love to me. I can’t sleep without it. Can’t breathe without you. Please.”
I should refuse. I should send her home before…
But she’s begging so sweetly, and I’m so hungry, and her essence still calls to me like nothing else in this world.
She takes my hand, guiding it to her breasts.
“Just a little,” I whisper, smiling against her lips.
I tug at her skirts, sliding the cotton up her thighs. She parts her legs for me eagerly, moaning in relief.
When I slide my fingers between her legs, she’s already wet. She clutches my neck as I start to feed, my magic and touch working together to pleasure her in every way possible.
“Yes, yes…” she gasps, arching beneath me with a broken cry.
I work her with practiced fingers, knowing how she likes to be touched after all these weeks. Her thighs tremble, and I drink deeper as her pleasure builds, the two sensations intertwining until she cannot tell where one ends and the other begins.
“Julia…” She whimpers my name over and over, begging me to keep going.
Her body tenses, tightening around my fingers, and when she comes undone, it’s with a strangled cry that she buries against my shoulder. The rush of her climax floods through our connection, her life force pouring into me in a torrent of pure bliss.
Just a little,I tell myself.
But it’s never just a little. Her essence is too sweet and intoxicating. She is weakening beneath me, her heartbeat becoming erratic, and some distant part of me knows I should stop.
Just a bit more. She is still breathing. Still conscious.
I take and take until she goes limp in my arms, until her breathing becomes shallow and her heartbeat flutters like a dying bird.
When she collapses in ecstasy, I prop myself up on my elbow at her side, stroking her hair and kissing her softly, until her eyes flutter open again.
She turns her head and smiles drunkenly at me. “You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Julia Moreau.”
I’m Rebecca, storming toward Julia’s cottage with fear gripping my chest.
Something is wrong.
Charlotte never came home last night, and Julia missed this evening’s coven circle.
I push through the trees, and her cottage comes into view, overgrown with thorny vines and dark flowers. The door is standing open.
That’s odd. Julia never leaves her door open, not even in high summer.
The night air is cold against my face, carrying the scent of woodsmoke and something else that makes my stomach clench with dread.
I push the door wider, peering into the darkness.
“Julia?”
No answer. The house is frigid, the fire long dead. Shadows crowd the corners, thick and menacing.
I step inside, and that’s when I see her.
Charlotte lies on Julia’s bed, her body limp and lifeless, her skirts rumpled. Her skin is the color of old parchment, waxy and translucent in the dim light. Her lips are blue. Her green eyes stare sightlessly at the ceiling.
“No.” The word comes out as a whisper, then louder. “No, no, no!”
I rush over, pressing my fingers to Charlotte’s throat even though I know it’s useless. She is as cold as marble beneath my touch. She’s been dead for hours. A whole day. My beautiful sister who only wanted freedom, who wanted a way out of the cage the world had built around her…
