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“I see it, my beloved master, but I do not understand.”
“I thought you had more sense, Annabel McGraw. You are fickle, as unruly as a bored child. I scorn you for wasting precious time, for inviting trouble upon the coven by dallying with villagers when you should be honing your skills.” He kicks half-burnt logs out of his way before he pushes me down in the ashes.
My body hits the ground, my spirit fast feeling what he wants me to know—humility, shame. He is showing me how he could break me. That I could be as easily fated by him as a woodland creature or a captured bird that he would sacrifice for some greater purpose.
Clumsily I sprawl, charred wood and rocky earth rough beneath my back, my left leg twisted beneath me. As his chosen woman amongst the coven, I can think of no greater shame that he could bestow upon me.
I try to rise up on my hands, my emotions unsteady and my thoughts running this way and that as I try to understand his actions. I resent him for this. “Why do you try to shame me this way?”
He drops to his knees beside me and shoves me to the ground with his hand hard against my chest. I cry out when the rocks and stones dig into my back. His eyes blaze and his lips are drawn back from his teeth. His anger is overwhelming. I feel it pumping violently from the hand he has splayed at the base of my throat where the skin is bare. His palm is so hot it makes me squirm for fear of being branded by him, a demon’s mark that I know he has the power to bestow. And yet it makes me lusty, too, for he is so handsome when his immense magical power burns in his eyes this way.
“You have been foolish, risking our secret, risking so much for a roll with an oaf of a fisherman.”
Was that it? That he is jealous of Irvine? I cannot fathom it at first, for he takes lovers where he chooses and it has not bothered him when I have done the same. But I am delighted, too, and I begin to see how I can turn this.
“Why do you do this?” he demands. “Is it not enough that together we could own all of the magic in Scotland?” He closes his fist around the air in front of my face, and I see the immense light that glows from within it. I watch, secretly delighted by his actions. I am almost gleeful that his need for me has driven him to express himself in forbidden magical enchantments. He opens his fist and the light swirls out into the atmosphere, sparkling with colors, before darting away into the trees.
“Ewan, surely you cannot be jealous of Irvine Maginty?”
He snorts at me. “I am disgusted that you squander yourself, when you could be the most powerful she-witch in all of Scotland.”
Oh, but his jealousy thrills me. “I amuse myself only when you are not there. It is nothing.”
Oho, he does not take kindly to that, his lips tightening. But it makes him even more desirable to me. This man so wild and inscrutable has drawn women from far and wide, and here he is wrestling with a tide of emotion that I could ride upon the crest of.
“I know that you have bedded Hettie,” I state, to rent asunder his attack on Irvine, but he’s not surprised that I know. Women can find out these things, we know things men can only guess at, even the men who practice witchcraft. He’s used to that. I clasp the hand he released the magic from, and hold it fast. “What will happen if the bairns Hettie Maginty carries are not Irvine’s at all, but yours? Is that why she is so afraid? Is that why she dreads the day they will be born?”
He shrugs it off. “She was eager at first but she defied me, so I saddled her with two demon spawn.” His mouth twists.
I feel a sense of pity for Hettie.
I am fascinated by the master’s actions and I begin to see the truth of it. He knows that I like Irvine, that he is more than a passing fancy, and he is afraid of losing me. Me, the woman he has allied himself to in the coven. I sense it all too well. He’d break me in two rather than share me.
In that moment something turns inside me and his jealous rage begins to inspire me. Seizing my chance, I dare to challenge him.
“Your anger is a weakness.” I flash my eyes at him.
Danger races fast within me, unleashing a rush akin to dancing with the dark Lord himself. His fury brings danger in its wake. Oh, but how very delicious that is. Brave or foolish, I cannot stop myself. I dare to take another step into the devil’s stall. “A coven master must never show weakness.”
He roars aloud, pushing my head back against the ground with his palm hard under my chin. My throat is closed and he could break me easily within moments, but I am herding my fear. Too many times it is that I have been in this place, when I had no home of my own and no one to call brethren, and I learnt how to think fast and how to survive.
His eyes are now dark with lust instead of anger, with the need for possession. I begin to gain the full measure of his mood. I gasp for breath. “I am your handmaiden, your bride in the coven,” I whisper.
His hold loosens.
My body responds. The power that shifts between us baits my attention. I lift one booted foot alongside his knee, hooking him. He does not pull away, and the fire in his eyes shifts and burns in a different way.
I rub
that foot up and down his flank, and then reach for the laces on my bodice, daring him with a glance, all the while.
He pauses, and I feel the rolling power at his back as he takes strength in the need I display for him. He wants to possess me. He needs me to prostate myself before him, to offer myself to him and him alone. This man who I look up to has weaknesses, and I am one of them. I could shape and twist and turn him as easy as if he were a broken doll in a child’s hands. The knowledge burns within me and it makes me wilder still. I wriggle free of my bodice, exposing my breasts to him, pulling on the hardening nipples.
The air is cool on my knotted teats, but his gaze is hot. Oh, I all but have him now, and nary a spell in sight. How that delights me! He will ride me and he will ride me well, bucking like a young foal, fuelled as he is by this bout of jealousy. My anticipation mounts, my cunny fast growing damp and slippery as I see where this will go if I just push it in the right direction.
I grip my skirts in my hands, and as I lift them I let my legs fall open. My skirts and petticoats gather at my waist. Look at me, I silently urge him, look at me and take me.
Mercifully his glance lowers to my intimate parts and I know I will get what I want.
