Her cheeks heated as the words came out, not that they weren’t true. She was still staring in envy at the Six of Wands, the woman lowering herself on the fat, veined cock. Harper thought she seemed a bit smug, and she understood why.
“Have you already finished the Volantines?”
She swallowed, face heating. “I did. I have some follow-up questions on that one, but not today. I need to organize my thoughts a bit better. As I said, I’m feeling a bit distracted this afternoon.”
“Then I suppose you will simply have to pull for a reading. Otherwise, how are we to know what you’re drinking today? In the meantime, go to the mouth of the solarium. Just inside to your left, on the first shelf. There is a book of poetry I think you might enjoy.”
She sucked in the deep breath as soon as they left the table, crossing the room to attend to the other two patrons in the shop at that moment. They had been there for a bit, already had their tea, and she was certain it wouldn’t be long before they left, and she had the shop and its shadowy proprietor all to herself.
She did not need to be told what to do upon their return, nor did she need to be told about the return itself. She felt the exact moment when their energy slid into the shadow of her table, could discern the thickness in the corner, the faintest change in color. Perhaps Holt was right. She was actually good at something.
Harper knew the drill. She was not new to any of this, and she did not need to read the instructional placard.Shuffle the deck. Cut from the center. Choose three cards, one at a time, and place them in the template. Do not touch the rest of the cards once they have been returned to the basket.She shuffled the deck. She cut from the center. When the first card she drew was the devil, Harper decided she was potentially going to die of bang-xiety.
The card depicted the typical couple, loosely shackled at Baphomet’s feet, but instead of the typical trappings of worldly possessions, they were on their knees, fucking like animals as the horned devil looked on. She shifted, scarcely able to hold still, wanting nothing more than to drop to her knees and present herself like a bitch in heat.
“Temptation at its most carnal. Hedonistic pleasure, heedless of the consequences.”
The priestess had been taken in such a way by her demon lover, and it was clear to Harper by the midway point of the book that her lover was absolutely what the summoned entity was. Her face had been pressed into the dust of the temple floor, her ass pulled high in the air as the demon squatted on his haunches behind her, hips thrusting with the force that nearly knocked the priestess over. Harper wondered for the millionth time since finishing the book if Azathé could do the same.
“Hedonistic pleasure, but debauchery does not come free of cost. Desire and lust can lead to obsession without temperance.”
The second card was the Eight of Swords. The swords were normally a suit of despair, but not in this deck. While the suit of Wands was phallic in nature, the suit of Swords reveled in the pleasure of pain. The Eight card featured a blindfolded and bound woman, normally the symbol of subjugation and abuse, but the woman on this card was having an altogether different experience. She was still bound and blindfolded, but instead of being huddled on a bed in a dark room or bound to a pike, as she was often depicted in other decks, this woman was spread eagle, bound to a St. Andrew’s cross. Her mouth was open in an expression of delight, red marks on her skin from the eight swords around her, her sex on display.
Harper squirmed. She had never been a fan of S&M and was not particularly interested in discovering the limits of her pain threshold now, but she did want to be dominated. She wanted to be as helpless as the bound woman, held down as she was fucked, unable to free herself, used for someone else’s pleasure.
She had always thought it was one of those kinks that was too shameful to be shared aloud, verging too closely with nonconsensual acts, and she had woken in too many beds with no recollection of how she got there or of ever having said yes to court non-consent without a clear mind. Being freed from the burden of choice, however, was an altogether different thing. She would only give the power to someone she trusted, and there was no one she trusted more than the shadow in the corner beside her.
“An absence of control over one’s circumstances. Perhaps sexual slavery or some other heinous act.”
“No.” Her eyes popped open, the sound of her own voice surprised her, but she could not allow the fantasy playing out in her head to be tainted. “That’s not what it means. It’s willingly giving up control. Allowing yourself to be used for someone else’s pleasure and finding your own pleasure in the act of being dominated. It’s the freedom of not having to choose.”
Another burst of that crinkled harrumph beside her. “Again, with the choices? In my experience, human nature values free will above all.”
“It’s not giving up your free will,” Harper interrupted. “It’s-it’s being freed of having to make decisions. Trusting someone enough to give them your choices and knowing they will take care of you.”
“And this is why you ordered the green wellness tea for more than a month?” they demanded, making her laugh.
“That’s exactly why. And I trusted you to make the decision for me. I still do. And I know that you’ll take care of me. I have very simple needs.”
“And those are?”
Harper shrugged, grinning, her lips pressed together.You’ll never know unless you try.“Good books. Hot tea. Someone to call me a good girl as they hold me down and fuck me into next month. Maybe one of those little fruit tarts. Hot soup. A pumpkin on my doorstep. Very simple needs.”
Azathé was quiet as she pulled her third and final card, and she wondered if she had shocked them into silence, or if they were contemplating her words.
Her last card was Temperance, not what she had been expecting. Unlike some of the other cards’ overt displays of carnality, the Temperance card showed a pair of lovers in silhouette, stretched out on a bed. They were clearly engaged in intercourse, but their fingers were threaded, their limbs intertwined, in harmony together.
“The serenity of this card compared to the others shows the importance of balance.” Their voice was a velvet whisper. Harper shivered as it tickled up her spine, settling around her like a plush blanket. “ A perfect mix of action and passivity, excitement and relaxation. Submission and domination, both freely given, balance in all things, my sweet one.”
“That’s the dream,” Harper murmured. “Have you ever heard of something called a shadowmancer?”
A crackle of static, shadows shifting and pooling, hooking around her ankle in a way that made her jump it simultaneously felt familiar and secure.
“A cat I know told me that’s what I am. They said it’s because I commune with the shadows. I can make you do my bidding. Is that true? Are you going to do my bidding if I order it?”
“You only need to ask it of me, and I will do it for you, little one. An order is not necessary. And I’ve already told you, your ability is extremely rare.”
Harper felt her heart do something in her chest, the reverberation like timpani throughout her body, vibrating in her jaw, rattling her teeth, making her vision wobble. The shadow hooked around her ankle felt as if it belonged there. “Have you followed me home before?”
