The High Priestess (The Tarot Club 3)

CHAPTER ELEVEN: MORE THAN A CHAPERONE

CORTLAND

Even in her grief, the Witch was a lovely thing to look upon. I watched from the shadows as she lit a candle of her own, leading her people in an old lament, mourning through song.

She was ethereal in a way that the rest of them weren’t and I understood why Julian felt inferior next to her - why he had found someone ordinary in comparison to Marie, and yet after her sweet cunt had fisted my cock, I also couldn’t understand how he had let her go. It was a paradox of sorts.

The golden-haired man seemed to always stand nearby, even when she didn’t notice. He tracked her every move, whilst I tracked his, and I had to remind my baser instincts that we were not here to hunt - at least, not him.

The little Witch had been more than I had bargained for, and now if there was any hope of aligning her with the Romanian clan, she needed to be free from this land - needed to pay the sacrifice demanded of her to the river itself. She may feel regret in the light of day at her actions against her ex-lover - at the notion that now she was unable to offer him as a sacrifice to those raging waters, but I knew better. The water would never have accepted him, not when the boy didn't have one iota of Magickal running through his veins. And while I didn’t care much for the internal war that raged on in the pretty Witch’s mind, it did highlight a gaping hole in the plan - because we needed to find a substitute - something or someone to sacrifice.

This time as I gazed across the crowd, I picked out those that had enough Magick bubbling in their blood to make them worthy of such a task, and so I began compiling a mental kill list.

The fucking Mage owed me.

Once the lament had died down, I watched Marie’s eyes flicker across the crowd, unease filling her gaze as she left the secret cemetery behind, forcing the crowd to follow. She led them back to the fields which boasted long tables and benches for seating, each table laden with food - a feast for the woman they had lost.

Marie seated herself with the grace of a warrior queen, and everyone followed suit. Still, I tracked Nicu’s movements as he seated himself beside her in the space that others seemed almost fearful to fill, as if they too understood that Marie was something far more than them - destined for far greater things than this.

I moved without thought, shrinking into the shadows that lay beneath the table on the ground, eavesdropping on their conversation. If I were human or had even the illusion of a conscience, I may have felt guilt over the intrusion, but it was difficult to feel guilty about anything when it came to the Witch, especially after I had felt her walls clench around me - after we had made each other bleed. She was delightfully feral, and something about her ferocity spoke to my baser instincts, despite the fact that I was a Demon who dealt in lust.

“I am sorry for your loss.” Nicu’s words floated down beneath the table, and I stilled myself as I listened to their conversation.

I watched Marie’s legs stiffen beneath the table, her black skirt rising up, exposing her thigh in a way that had heat unfurling deep within my shadowy belly as memories of how her thighs felt straddling me on the bank of the river crowded my mind. I was well versed in the art of passion - in the debilitating feeling of lust, and yet her fire was still so unexpected - something I hadn't seen in centuries, let alone felt first hand. She was the type of Witch that Demons would go to war for - that the gods of old would roll the dice on, and I was almost certain that Charl didn’t understand the prize he had when it came to her. How she had stumbled into his little Club could only be due to the hand of fate.

“Are you?” Her voice was quiet, and instinctively I knew that it was so that none of her people could overhear her conversation.

“What are you implying, Marie?” Nicu’s voice took on a hard, brittle tone that had rage seeping from my belly, singing the blades of grass beneath me.

“Nothing that you haven’t stated yourself. You are here seeking a wife, and while I think you might be sorry for my loss, I also think that you have viewed this as an opportunity to find someone you deem worthy of your social standing.”

Silence seemed to hang between them as a serving girl placed a loaf of bread on the table, and only after she had retreated did Marie continue her tangent.

“Let me make it abundantly clear, Nicu, I am not looking to become anyone’s wife.”

I expected the Romanian to grow angry, to thrash and rage, or simply simmer in silence. What I had not expected from him was laughter. I examined his posture from beneath the table and noted that the man in question sat at half mast, as if Marie’s fiery temperament was as much a turn on to him as it was to me.

“I am beginning to like everything about you, Marie des Montagnes.”

I heard only silence from above and I imagined that Marie was biting her plush bottom lip as her gaze turned the color of steel, as she willed him to cower beneath her stare. Most did, it was part of her charm, but as I watched Nicu’s posture, I noted that he didn’t seem to shift, instead meeting the Witch head-on.

This time, it was Marie who remained silent. “Let me lay it out for you, Marie, I am not looking for a wife - at least not in the sense that our people seem to bow to. I am looking for a partner - an equal. Someone who doesn’t hide at the first sign of darkness, someone who can hold her own in ballrooms and battlefields, someone who is worldly - who understands that there is life outside of our small villages and clans.”

Still Marie said nothing, and I wished that I could see her face, read her expression, for it would do us no good if the little Witch was vehemently against relationships - not when we had so much riding on such a pairing.

I scented the air, tasting Nicu’s lust - his desperation for her. There was no denying that Marie was beautiful, but that desperation reeked of something more. His scent shifted as the two of them were interrupted by a man and a woman offering Marie their condolences.

They were an annoyance to a conversation that I needed to hear. I allowed the lust to unfurl within, sending it towards them, watching in satisfaction as the man’s cock hardened in his pants, the woman’s breaths turning shallow as they excused themselves, no doubt to lose themselves in one another behind the barn. Sorrow and lust often went hand in hand and if you had a nose for it, the smell of sex always perfumed the air at funerals.

“It’s presumptuous to assume that I’m your equal in every sense of the word.” Marie herded the conversation straight back to task before issuing her own challenge. “What makes you think that you are my equal?”

But this time Nicu did not laugh, instead, I watched the shadow of his fingers obscure the light filtering through the cracks of the table as he splayed his wide palms down on its surface. “You and I wield the same kind of Magick, we draw the same darkness in, exhaling it into something useful. Don’t pretend for one moment that you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

Her silence was telling.

“Tell me, Marie, those Witches that you’ve formed a Club with in America - do they know who you are? Where you truly belong?”

It was the wrong thing for him to say because I braced myself for her to lash out even before she did.