“Frisky?”
“All those love spells. I nearly choked on cinnamon.”
“My pie was spiced just right. I can still taste it.”
Renner studied his expression. “Looks very promising, given they were casting for you.”
Ethan arched a brow. “Feeling left out?”
“Not at all. Red and the blonde were both fanning their eyes at me. I won’t be lonely.”
“They think we’re humans,” Ethan said softly.
“Awfully convenient, isn’t it?” Renner smiled. “If we confirm they’re without protection, we’ll be here, close enough to lay claim. Capture them before they know it.”
Ethan fisted his hands. Already, he could imagine lovely Bryn in his arms. Pinned beneath him the moment he skimmed his hands over her curves. He’d catch her wrists and spread her with nudges of his thighs. When he pushed inside, she’d know. She’d feel the tingle of the charge he’d emit at first thrust, even before he said the words that would bind them together.
A distant sound, the squeak of hinges, alerted him that Bryn was on the move. He parted his curtain and peered into the moonlit night.
She wore a long robe, and her dark hair was covered with a hood, but he knew it was her from the straight set of her shoulders and the easy, graceful sway of her hips.
“Let’s not lose her,” Renner said behind him.
Suddenly, he wished his friend wasn’t here. A sea-draugr had advantages a troll did not. Renner could shift into a cat or wisping fog. He could play among the dancing witches and never be detected, while Ethan was firmly rooted to the Earth. He’d have to watch from afar.
The men moved quickly through the house, slipped out of the front door, and ran to the forest’s edge. There, his troll’s heightened sense of smell picked up Bryn’s floral and vanilla scent. They moved more slowly, careful to stay closer to the trees where fallen moss would soften their steps.
At last, they reached a clearing and both went down on their bellies, crawling closer to watch as torches were lit around a large live oak. The women gathered just inside the bright circle. The sounds of insects buzzing, crickets chirping and frogs ribbeting grew still. Now, a faint hum was the only sound in the air. The clearing was enchanted.
The witches discarded their robes, and Ethan eagerly sought Bryn’s nude figure. So slender, so ethereal. Breasts large enough to fill his hands and with rosy nipples. Her black thatch was neatly trimmed, a narrow line from mons to slit. She walked to the oak and knocked three times against the bark.
“Waken, spirit of the oak.
Stand guard while we revel.
Defend our secrets from evil.”
The torch flames flared out then whooshed inward. The ground shifted then settled. And still, Ethan could see into the circle.
“Looks like the spirits don’t mind us being here,”
Renner said, grinning.
“It’s bright inside the circle. The women won’t be able to see past it. Let’s get closer.” They both crouched and ran to a grassy hummock before settling on their bellies again to watch.
This close, Ethan could clearly see the women’s expressions as they began to move, spaced apart, to ring the tree. They swayed to some inborn music, supple as willows, arms raised.
His gaze clung to Bryn. Her eyes were closed, her hands beginning to flow over her skin, touching her breasts, sweeping down her belly to cup her mound, and then floating away as though bathing in the torchlight.
And then the women moved, all in concert, outside the fiery ring. They stood beyond the shelter of the branches in the silvery moonlight. Arms raised, they turned slowly, moonlight filtering over their pale skin, seeming to sink into them, giving them a luster like the surfaces of pearls.
Again, they moved in the large circle, spinning slowly, dancing on tiptoe as they reached toward the starry sky.
He’d witnessed the drawing of the moon before in a far more serious ceremony, where the witches of the king’s council members had sought added powers for a specific purpose. But what he witnessed now was more beautiful. A communion with the moon. Natural, unselfish, and so graceful his body hardened with desire.
A prurient response, he knew, but his nature was ruled by the basest of instincts—a need to feed, to sleep, to fight and fuck.
The women halted and opened their eyes. They gazed upward, reaching toward the moon.