Soul of a Witch (Souls Trilogy)

My eyes were wide, and I was frozen in place, my back rigid against the chair. My magic had never been so awake, so wild, so alive.

The demon reached my feet and rose on his knees. He gripped the arms of the chair as he leaned toward me, his scent surrounding me, intoxicating me. Iron, like blood, like smelting metal. Oakmoss, like damp earth, like a whisper of smoke on the wind. He smelled both soft and dangerous, with a wicked promise in his eyes.

But whether that promise meant pleasure or pain, I had no idea.

His lips moved, barely a sound behind his words. “What would you have me do?”

The heat rising on my cheeks quickly spread to the rest of my body. How could I ask for something when I wasn’t even sure what it was?

He shivered as I traced his sigil with my finger. His claws punctured the chair’s fabric as his grip tightened.

“Take off your clothes,” I said.

He stood up slowly, almost lazily. “As my lady wishes.”

Every muscle in his chest was defined, his shoulders thick, dark veins standing out against his pale throat. His body looked designed, as if every muscle, every scar, was there with intention.

As he reached for his trousers, loosening the lacing, goosebumps prickled over my skin and I forgot how to breathe. His bulge was clear, impossible to ignore. Why did it look so massive? It had to be an illusion.

He dropped his trousers. It wasn’t an illusion at all.

“Oh…my god…that’s…”

He wasn’t wearing any underwear — why would a demon even bother? Like a fool, I’d honestly expected to be met with the sight of a very normal, at least vaguely human-like penis.

That was not what was in front of me. Not even slightly.

His shaft was thick, at least the size of my clenched fist, with a tapered head that had a swell of muscle at the base. Thick ripples ran along his length, like swollen veins. The base was bulbous, two large swells on either side of his shaft.

“You won’t fit,” I babbled. “Holy shit, there is no fucking way —”

His grin widened. “Was that your intention? To make me fit inside you?”

He was a predator built to hunt, to kill, to take. Besides the God Itself, I had never met a being as powerful as Callum.

I’d just commanded a demon prince to strip off his clothes, and he obeyed. No hesitation, no argument, no anger. It made me giddy as much as it frightened me. It made my head tingle and excitement roil through my stomach.

He was watching me raptly. Waiting. Wanting.

“You’re scared of me.” His tone was amused but gentle. Surprise flickered over his face when I shook my head.

“My mother warned me about demons.” I dared to stand and take a step closer. Then another. And another. “She told me you were all selfish beings.”

His fingers twitched at my approach. Self-control, barely maintained. “Your mother was right.”

“She said you’re dangerous.”

“Absolutely.”

“That you’re killers. That you manipulate humans to get what you want. Our bodies. Our souls.” I was right in front of him now, the closest I’d ever been to naked flesh. I thought suddenly of all the times I’d averted my eyes, every time I’d looked away from something I longed for. Every time I stifled myself because that was what I was told to do.

“You should believe it. All of it.”

And I did. I just didn’t care.

“I was told not to play with dangerous things,” I said, reaching up, my fingers hovering over his chest. Not close enough to touch, but close enough to feel the heat radiating off his skin. Close enough to feel the tension vibrating between his flesh and mine, growing more violent the closer I came. “But my mother is dead, and my father is wicked. So I think I’ll play how I please.”

He was perfectly still when I touched his throat. I traced my fingers along the contours of it, the thick cords of muscle that framed a prominent Adam’s apple. So close I could smell him, warm and earthy, like the way the sun felt on a cold day, or the softness of green moss growing on stone. He was something wild, something that didn’t fit into the world around him.

He didn’t belong, and yet here he was. Just like me.

He made a soft sound, not quite a moan but more than merely a breath, as my fingers stroked over the alcove at the base of his throat.

His wings retracted, tightening against his back. His fingers curled; his lips parting slightly. Those subtle tells were the cracks in his monstrous guise, and I wanted to press my fingers into them and rip them open.

“Why aren’t you breathing?” I said.

“I can smell you. Constantly. Your skin, your sweat. Every change in your hormones, every chemical reaction in your brain. Your magic — I can’t escape it. It’s intoxicating. It’s irresistible. Every instinct in my brain demands I give in to it. So, I hold my breath.”

“And what would happen? If you gave in?”

“I might hurt you, without meaning to. I might not be able to control myself.”

He said this all very matter-of-fact, as if it were entirely normal to be so overwhelmed by the smell of someone that you’d lose control. It should have been terrifying, a giant red flag for my safety.

But as he stood there shuddering with the effort to hold back, waiting for me to give him permission before he even touched me, I was so turned on I felt feral. Nothing I’d read about, no porn I’d watched, had ever been so erotic as simply knowing how desperately he wanted me.

“Start breathing,” I ordered, and his black eyes widened. “I want you to inhale, as much as you can, and hold it.”

“Oh, you are wicked, aren’t you?” he said. His nostrils flared, and he breathed in, a shiver running over his naked body as he did. His cock twitched, standing rigidly at attention as he held the scent of me in his lungs.

“How does it feel?” I whispered, as he closed his eyes and shook his head from side to side, humming.

“Like honey on the tip of my tongue,” he said, his words creating a pulse in the air that made my ears pop. “Like a knife at my throat. Or the first drink of liquor after a very long dry spell.”

He opened his eyes, and I was lost in their beauty once again. Orbs of black marble with veins of gold. It was like he’d been decorated, fitted with jewels and precious stones like the death mask of some ancient king.

“Can you control yourself for me, Callum?” My voice sounded strange, even to my own ears. The softness that usually infected my words was gone.

The demon nodded, never ripping his gaze away from mine. “I can.”

Stepping closer, I reached up on my tiptoes to bring my lips to his ear. This was madness. This was me looking death in the face and laughing.

“I want you to lose control.”

His movement was quick. The next thing I knew I was sprawled in the chair, and Callum was bent over me. His chest was heaving with deep gulps of air, and a tremor ran through the taut muscles in his arms. His claws were gripped so tightly into the armrest they tore the fabric.

He sucked in a breath, slowly shaking his head. I slid my hand up his arm, and his veins turned black, as if ink was spreading beneath his skin where I touched him.

“You need to think very carefully about what you’re asking of me,” he said, so tightly it was like the words pained him.

“I’ve been careful all my life and look where it’s gotten me.”

His arm was shaking under my hold. I’d never felt a rush like this.

“I’m done being careful,” I said. “I’m not fucking content being silent and sweet and permissive.” All these years I’d spent keeping my head down, being obedient and faithful. Choking down every desire, gagging myself with my own fears.

As Callum hovered mere inches away from my mouth, I said, “Can I trust you?”

“Yes.” He kept his teeth clenched as he spoke. “My loyalty is to you, and you alone. I relinquished fealty to Hell for you. I waited…for so…fucking long…”

There was a sound of snapping wood, and the back of the chair was suddenly loose. The heat of his skin was feverish.

“Why?” I had to know, I needed to understand. My heart pounded, a coil of heat sitting deep inside me.

Carefully, so carefully, like I was made of the thinnest glass, he took my hand. He brought my fingers to his lips, kissed them. He bowed his head and pressed his brow to the back of my hand, growling viciously, “Fate took everything from me but offered you in exchange. Who am I to deny what fate provides? You know I saw you. I heard your voice and you were calling my name. Demons do not dream of witches, Everly.” On a sharp exhale, he continued, “But you’ve overtaken my dreams. A woman I don’t even know. Taunting me like a nymph playing a game of chase. Always years away from me…until now.”

I pulled back my hand, and when he lifted his head, I kissed him.

He surged forward to meet me, pressing me in the chair as his tongue parted my lips and slid inside. The forked sides moved independently, consuming me, while his arm encircled my back and pulled me closer. His touch was pure luxury, his breath flowing into me. He grazed his clawed hand along my jaw, stroked his fingers through my hair before gripping it at the nape of my neck and holding tight. He tugged my head back so he could angle his kiss deeper.

When he parted from me, I was dazed, like warm putty in his hands. I’d had quick kisses before; I’d made out with strangers in bars before fleeing, too timid to do anything more. But this time, I didn’t want to stop. I wasn’t going to run away.

“Oh, my dear lady witch…” His voice vibrated against me with a satisfying rumble as he sank his head against my neck and kissed behind my ear. “I want to do such filthy things to you.” I shivered at the touch of his teeth, those sharp fangs barely skimming me. “Mm, but you’ve never been penetrated before, have you?”

“I…” Anxious shame swirling in my stomach. There were only two ways people had ever reacted to me telling them I was a virgin — either with bizarre fascination or mockery. I didn’t want it to matter, but it always did. Apparently not even demons were exempt. “No, I never have been. I’ve never…I’ve never had sex with anyone.”

“I like the way you say that.” He tipped my head back further and his tongue traced along my throat, the forked sides sliding over my flesh. “Like you’re defiant. Like it’s a challenge. It makes no difference to me, darling, except…” He loosened his hold and let my head come forward. This close, the size of him was even more apparent. It was terrifying, to think that that was supposed to fit inside me. “I’ll have to take my time with you so I don’t injure you. I’ll have to stretch you slowly, one finger at a time. I’ll make that sweet pussy drip for me.”

My mouth uselessly opened and closed, left absolutely dumbfounded at his words, like my brain was about to short circuit.

“You’ve had a little taste now,” he whispered. “You’ve had time to think. I told you to consider carefully. So, are you still so certain you’ll let a demon corrupt you?”

I nodded. There were a million doubts in my mind but not one was stronger than my certainty. I’d been desperate for a way out, desperate for freedom, and this…this was it.

He grabbed my hips and tugged me forward, right to the edge of the chair. My arms flailed, gripping tightly against the armrests as I stared at him between my legs. He tugged down my trousers, pulling them off my legs and tossing them aside. I hadn’t shaved in ages — why bother if no one was going to see it? — and self-consciousness quickly reared its ugly head.

“You’re so soft,” Callum murmured, caressing his hand over my thighs. The sharpness of his claws made me shiver, but he was moving carefully, inspecting every inch of me. Maybe if I’d planned on losing my virginity today, I would have worn something sexier than navy blue panties.

Callum dipped his head, running his tongue along my skin and making me quiver. “Mm, sensitive little thing. You’ve played with yourself before, haven’t you?” He paused, mouth just inches from my panties, sending goosebumps prickling across my legs. “Tell me how you like it. Tell me what you think about when you push your fingers inside yourself. Tell me what makes it feel good.”

I’d never put those thoughts into words before, never tried to articulate to anyone what I wanted, let alone what felt good. I’d read descriptions in books that sounded like heaven, I’d watched porn that had me sweating from how hot it was. But verbalizing it, putting those desires into words, was something I had no idea how to do.

He didn’t miss a beat. As my mind turned into a hurricane of embarrassment and uncertainty, he kept delicately touching me and said, “Soft or hard?”

I watched, mesmerized, as his claws left thin red lines down my flesh. “Hard.”

He gripped one leg and pushed it up, folding it close to my stomach while shoving the other leg to the side. I was splayed open for him now, curled in the chair.

“Gentle? Or rough?”

I gulped, but I knew what I wanted. “Rough.”

“Oh, Everly…” He chuckled softly. “I did hope you’d say that.”

He shoved my other leg up, pressing my thigh close to my chest just as he had with the other one. But when he stood up, hands no longer gripping me, I was left confused as to why I still couldn’t lower my legs.

Slim black ropes were wrapped around my limbs, binding my calves to my thighs to keep them folded up. There were also ropes around the armrests, binding my legs to them too, forcing them to stay spread open. Callum leaned his hands against either side of the chair, looking down at me as he ran that wicked forked tongue over his lips.

“Wrapped up like a little present,” he said. “Just for me.”

“How did you do that?” I gasped.

“I created them,” he said simply. “Magic is simply influencing the chemical compounds around you, nudging the atoms to do what you want. Influencing aether takes practice and time. But I’ve had a lot of time.”

“Teach me how,” I said suddenly. “I want to learn how to do that.”

His grin remained, one hand lazily reaching down to lift my chin. “One lesson at a time. Someday I’ll teach you how to tie me up as nicely as you please, but today’s lesson is about pleasure. How pleasure can be ecstasy, and how it can be torture.”

With one hand still holding my chin, the other disappeared lower, outside my range of vision. His claws stroked over my panties, and a single finger came to rest on my clit. My breath hitched as he moved the digit in a slow, firm circle. Embarrassment demanded I close my legs, but the ropes wouldn’t allow it. They kept me spread and his finger on my chin kept my eyes on his.

“You’re so beautiful,” he said, his voice low and rough, but reverent. His finger pressed a little harder, a little faster. “Perfect for me to ruin.”

His finger kept playing, rubbing my clit with a single-minded determination; he was going to make me come, and he hadn’t even gotten my panties off yet. A second finger joined the first, massaging me, and the additional stimulation had my bound legs twitching.

“A little appetizer before the main course,” he said, dark eyes staring into mine as my mouth gaped open in shock. “I’m not taking these panties off until you’ve soaked them.”

I moaned helplessly. He never let me look away, not even for a moment. When my toes curled and my cries became more urgent, he hummed and moved the hand on my chin lower, to my throat.

“Let me see how pretty you are when you come,” he said. “Go on. Come for me.”

The build-up had been slow and steady until my peak. Then, it was like my body shattered, tensing, shaking, every bit of me taut until — fuck — bliss. Muscles limp, my core vibrating, my bound legs straining as the orgasm crashed into me. I’d made myself come before, but when it was by someone else’s hand, the experience was stunningly different. Breathtaking.

“You are too exquisite. You smell so fucking good.”

In a daze, my vision blurred, I nodded mindlessly through the aftershocks. He tore my panties away, and jerked my hips toward him.

He knelt between my legs. His face was so close; he’d be able to see everything, and I wanted to cover my face with my hands.

“Please!” I gasped, and he went still, arching up a single eyebrow in question. “Please, I want…” I couldn’t form the words. “I’m sorry, I need —”

“Ah! What did I tell you?” He was practically vibrating with excitement, his movements becoming quicker. “Didn’t I warn you about apologizing? Hm?” I whimpered again, nodding. “Well, I’m so sorry to say, but I’m a demon of my word. I have to punish you for that.” The ropes tightened, and my arms were pulled up by an invisible force, extending them above my head along the back of the chair. Ropes slithered around my wrists like serpents, locking me into place.

Softer now, the demon said, “If you want your punishment to stop, ask for mercy. Repeat it for me now, say the word.”

“Mercy,” I said, the word feeble.

“There’s my good girl. Remember that.” The light grew dimmer, until Callum was nothing more than a dark silhouette looming over me. “What did I say would happen if you apologized to me again?”

Gulping in apprehension, I said, “You said you’d eat me.”

His laughter filled the space, echoing unnaturally off the walls. “Oh, yes. I’m going to eat you alive.”

Then he knelt, and his mouth closed over me. His tongue stroked over my clit, my labia, my vagina — then pressed inside. The heat and suction of his mouth, combined with the entirely new sensation of a forked tongue twisting inside me, left me gasping.

“Oh, God…Callum!” My toes curled as perfect orgasmic bliss flared through me again. The ropes subtly glowed violet against my skin, digging in as I fought against them, unable to move. His tongue pressed deeper, stroking inside me until my eyes rolled back, probing in and out.

“This is what happens.” His voice rumbled around me despite his mouth being occupied, like he was speaking directly into my head. “To naughty witches who try to play with dangerous things.”

I cried out, trembling in ecstasy. When his mouth finally left me, I was panting, my head light. He stood up, leaned over me, and squeezed my face with one hand as he held up two fingers with the other.

He retracted his claws, then slipped his hand between my legs…

The noises he drew out of me were so lewd that my face burned. He stretched me slowly, gently, and when his fingers were sunk in as deep as they would go, he drew them back and pressed in again.

“That’s it, let your body relax.”

My pussy was squeezing, clenching, grasping at his fingers. My muscles were spasming outside of my control, and when he added a third finger, I groaned loudly with every inch he pushed inside me.

“It’s so tight,” I gasped, then squealed as he lowered his head again and flicked his tongue over my clit. Back and forth, over and over, the forked sides working me from every angle as his fingers thrust into me.

By the time he lifted his head again, I was half-lucid with pleasure. He was tall enough that he needed to kneel again to line up his cock with my entrance. My eyes were wide as he rubbed his thick head over my clit, drawing more pathetic noises out of me.

“I’m too big for you,” he said, and I whined, protesting his assessment even though it was obviously true. “I’d rip you open, darling.”

“Don’t care…” Shaking my head irrationally, I tried to make my voice authoritative but completely failed. “Please fuck me, I don’t care if it hurts.”

“I care.” He kissed my thighs; first on the left, then on the right, then another kiss just above the soft hair between my legs. “We’ll have plenty more opportunities to open up this beautiful body, Everly. I want to savor every second.”

Dripping wet as I was, his cock slipped easily inside. At least — his head did. But the moment he pressed a little more, the aching stretch made my breathing deepen. A little more, and I was groaning, then whimpering.

“Shit…” I grit my teeth, watching with rapt fascination as his monstrous organ squeezed a little deeper inside me. But he wasn’t even halfway in, and I was beginning to believe if I took anymore, he would rip me in half. “Callum, I-I don’t think —”

“I know.” He was so tense he shook, his hair dangling in his face as he gave me a sharp grin and moved inside me. Shallow thrusts, but they were shocking nonetheless. The way my body clung to him, my inner walls squeezing with every penetration. “I’m not going to break you, not this time. Take it for me. Take the pain, take the pleasure. Let yourself feel it.”

The intensity of him inside me, our bodies locked into one overwhelming union, made my eyes roll back every time he moved.

“I’m going to mark you,” he said, his words rapid, his pitch kicking up with an excitement that seemed beyond his control. “I’m going to come all over those pretty lips…” He grabbed my blouse and tore, the fabric ripping easily in his hands. “All over this gorgeous body.” He snarled as he shuddered, moving erratically. “I’m not going to break you this time. But you broke me the moment I laid eyes on you.”

He pulled out of me and stood, his hand wrapping around his thick shaft. He stroked himself roughly, fast and hard, until spurts of pearlescent cum dripped over my face, my tits, my pussy. His black eyes were so far away, as if for a moment, his essence left his body and floated through some other reality. But then he returned, and he bent over me as if in prayer, body trembling, murmuring breathlessly.

“My beautiful thread of fate. My lady. My mistress.”

The words wrapped around me just like his ropes, holding me in comfort.