#Price x Witch

[ghouljams]

By the time Halloween rolls around, Lilac is finally comfortable with all the Fae that Witch interacts with. Witch comes back to see Lilac wearing a Mario costume while Price is wearing the most barebones Bowser costume known to man. Witch finds herself wearing a Princess Peach costume as Lilac is having her first trick or treat experience.

Just, Lilac having a trick or treat experience, running back from the houses to show Witch all the candy she's gotten while Witch is trying to figure out how to portion the treats out.

Lilaaaac *^*

It's really a family moment for all of them. Witch keeps attaching little charms to Lilac's costume before they head out, keeps going through their trick-or-treat route and reminding her that she and Price will be right behind her if she needs anything. Price is basically in a yellow sweater with a shell backpack, keeps arguing with Witch about whether or not Lilac can use a pillowcase for her candy.

"She absolutely cannot, we're making this special." Witch argues, handing Lilac a purple pumpkin shaped bucket.

"Can barely fit any candy in that thing." Price argues back, handing Lilac a pillow case.

Witch takes about a million pictures of Lilac in her costume. Price carries cocoa in case it gets chilly. Witch nervously hovers behind Lilac when she rings her first doorbell. She doesn't really know what she expects to happen but she is very nervous. She sticks with Price at the end of the walk-up afterwards, smiling and asking to see what Lilac got like all the other moms. Price dumps all the candy in her little pumpkin pail into the pillowcase, figures people will give Lilac more candy if they think she's having a rough night, ends up with a half full pillowcase by the end of the night.

It is exceptionally difficult trying to figure out portioning out candy, especially when Witch and Price are not great at being stern with Lilac. I think Witch probably ends up putting it all in a big glass jar, placed when Lilac can easily access it and see how much is left. There's a smaller milk glass dish that Witch puts a handful of candy in and places in Lilac's room, with only the caveat that she can't have candy if she brushed her teeth.

Somehow the candy jar doesn't seem to be getting any less full... Someone keeps refilling it. (It's Price, he really does have a soft spot for the little witch and once he figures out which candy is her favorite he just keeps buying bags of it.)

[mariamakeslemons]

Oh, would you look at that? Price is acting like a papa, @ghouljams. I think it's an omen...

Price looks up in surprise as Lilac peers over the wall, obviously looking for someone. He raises an eyebrow as she pouts, looking like the child she is, before she seems to spot him. Immediately, she perks up and looks around, back toward the cottage.

Witch had to step out, visiting one of the shops that might overwhelm the little witch, leaving her little trainee alone. But for the girl to reach out to him? She must want something.

“I-I made these,” she declares, setting out a plate of cookies. Price isn’t able to hold the surprise off his face, smelling the spice of cinnamon and the sweet of vanilla in the oatmeal cookie.

“Oh? As a gift?” he asks, leaning on the wall.

“As an ex-exchange,” Lilac replies, “I wanna kn-know Miss Witch’s f-favorite dessert.” His mouth twitches up at her and leans on the wall, picking up one of the cookies.

“Shouldn’t you already know?” he pokes gently, looking over the cookie curiously. The girl flushes and wrings her hands nervously.

“Miss Witch k-keeps getting me t-treats. A-an-and she’s really nice and patient w-with me,” Lilac explains, “I h-haven’t seen what t-treats she likes, so…”

“You offer something for the information,” Price hums, finally taking a bite from the cookie. Lilac nods as the tiny tether settles, one that’s fragile due to knowledge of the exchange. Price hums again, mulling over the information he’s picked up about his pretty witch while enjoying the little one’s baking.

“She tends to like...,” he starts, smiling at how Lilac perks up eagerly, listening with a little serious frown on her face as he prattles off all the desserts he knows Witch likes. She pulls out one of her little notebooks and writes them down, nodding as she listens. He feels the tether snap, but doesn’t stop, amused at the little witch’s inherit kindness.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

“So, I seem to have some treats made by Lilac,” you comment a few days later, sitting across from Price in the garden.

“Oh? Is that so?” Price hums, sipping on his mulled wine. His mouth twitches up as you give him an absolutely deadpan look. You roll your pretty eyes before nibbling on said treat. The way your face softens, how you relax and enjoy the treat, causes Price to chuckle. A part of him swells with pride, seeing how his favor led to his pretty witch enjoying something with a sweet smile on your face. However, his eyes trail toward the window, where Lilac is peeking out to the garden. The smile on her little face is just as precious, all the better.

“She didn’t make a tether with you, did she?” you ask, looking at him curiously.

“She did,” he admits with a shrug, “But it was paid off immediately.” Witch looks surprised, making the omission of who made the tether all the sweeter. He leans on the table, chuckling again when Lilac peeks through the window again. He tells you, “The little witch can bake, so she shared some cookies with me.”

“That would make sense as a payment,” you agree with a hum. Price hums as well, amused at your thoughtful expression. However, something niggles at his thoughts. Did Lilac know she was making a tether with her offer? Was that why she prepared the exchange before even asking her question? Price takes a long drink of his mulled wine, mind running as the little witch finally steps out into the garden, frowning as the tarot deck in her hand keeps trying to escape her still-too-small hands.

“M-Miss Witch,” Lilac calls while frowning at the ground, “I-I think I lost s-some of the cups.” You sigh in exasperated fondness as Price tries not to choke on the wine as he fights back laughter. The mystery can wait, he decides as you stand from your seat to help Lilac find her lost cards. Although, Price muses, making you a mama might not be able to wait, watching you gently scold her for losing said cards while finding one.

[frogchiro]

gentle bites and kisses on the womb tattoo i’m

Forest witch!Reader who can't do shit around the rowdy pack of werewolves :((

They would always be around you, whether in wolf or human forms and while it's not a technically bad thing in itself, the problems are Soap and Gaz :((

While Price and Simon are much bigger sure, and have a lot more strength but they are older, mature and not as clingy as their young packmates :((

Soap and Gaz who follow you around all the time while you gather herbs or berries, mushrooms and such, always next to you, but their favorite activity is to nose around your lower belly where your precious womb tattoo is :((

They liie to lick and kiss it, the occassional gentle nip to the delicate skin sometimes results in them getting snarled at by Simon and Price when they get too excited and bite a bit too hard but you don't blame your boys since they didn't do anything.

If they're in their wolf forms they love to drape thwmselves around you and nose and dilligently lick at your lower tummy in hopes of sniffing out a tiny change in your scent that would signal you being pregnant with their babies :((

[witchthewriter]

𝐓𝐨𝐮𝐜𝐡-𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐯𝐞𝐝 𝐂𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐨𝐟 𝐃𝐮𝐭𝐲 𝐌𝐞𝐧

⤷ gender neutral, ambiguous race, and any size reader. Requests are open, thank you for reading!

Warnings: fluffy fluff

ᴹᵃˢᵗᵉʳˡᶤˢᵗ | ᴹᵃˢᵗᵉʳˡᶤˢᵗ ᴵᴵ

Being on deployment meant no proper affection. Being on deployment for two months without it was making your husband go insane. When he got home, he had never been so affectionate.

𝑪𝒂𝒑𝒕𝒂𝒊𝒏 𝑱𝒐𝒉𝒏 𝑷𝒓𝒊𝒄𝒆

It felt like the journey home was excruciating. John was clinging to his back for dear life. His knuckles going white from how tight he squeezed.

Coming to his driveway; the beginning of a long winding gravel road. Eventually, he came to the cottage door and swung it open (you left it unlocked when you knew he was coming home).

As soon as he saw you, his hands slipped around your waist and lifted you up, spinning you around with his head in the crook of your neck "Ooh- John! I missed you too but I'm going to knock something over-"

"Don't care-" he mumbled.

His face buried in the space between your shoulder and neck. Taking in your smell, grasping you just as hard as he was grasping his bag.

"Oh John-" you cooed, stroking his hair, running your hands up and down his back.

"I'm sorry darling," he says moving his head to look at you face to face. "I just- fuck. I just missed you so goddamn much."

And then he went back to molding himself against you, giving you small kisses here and there.

𝑺𝒊𝒎𝒐𝒏 𝑹𝒊𝒍𝒆𝒚

You had always seen a different side to Simon then other people. The gruff exterior didn't rattle you one bit. Well... that's because he never spoke to you how he spoke to everyone else.

He always treated you with love, respect, dignity and equality. Not something that everyone can say.

That's how you knew he was going to be your life partner.

And as his partner, you know how physical touch means to him.

He isn't one to ask for comfort, but will initiate it. Particularly when he's been on deployment for a long time. That's when you get puppy dog Simon, who keeps you by his side.

"Are you alright?" You said in a quiet, soothing voice. Simon's head was resting on your shoulder as you watched the new Bridgerton.

He'd been quiet for a while, not unusual; but the comfortable silence had been tension-gripped since he came home yesterday.

"Yeah," your husband grumbled, shifting his head from your shoulder to your lap.

One of your hands was on his head, dragging your fingers over his scalp. The other hand rested on his neck. You felt the goosebumps on his skin, a small smile on your lips.

𝑱𝒐𝒉𝒏𝒏𝒚 𝑴𝒂𝒄𝑻𝒂𝒗𝒊𝒔𝒉

Every time Johnny came home, you would hear him before you'd see him. As an extrovert, he's vocal about the lack of affection he's recieved

"BONNIE, I'M HOME!" He continuously bellows in his loud thick Scottish accent. Walking around the house, practically hunting you in your own home.

Dropping whatever you were holding onto the bed, you raced down from the bedroom and nearly squealed.

"Johnny!" You yelled, helping him locate you.

"There ye are!" He replied, thudding towards you with his big boots still on his feet.

In a quick movement, he scoops you into his arms and presses you to his chest. A move you were all too familiar with now.

His hands grip you tight, his neck dipping to press into your neck. He took a big whiff.

"Are you smelling me, again?"

"Aye. Is that a problem?" He replied, not loosening his grip on you. Nor letting you move.

𝑲𝒚𝒍𝒆 𝑮𝒂𝒓𝒓𝒊𝒄𝒌

Your loverboy, always so tender and caring. He never puts his needs before your own.

So instead of rushing inside and nearly bulldozing you over, he's gentle in his search for you (although he never needs to search too long)

It's usually you who initiates the affection.

It's like Kyle is still decompressing from his time away.

And you're all too happy to help him. His affection makes you feel fuzzy inside.

But whenever he comes home, you want to be the first to initiate; you want to be the romantic one.

And he appreciates it to no end. He feels so loved when you woo him after coming home.

"Thank you, love." He whispers in your ear as you hold him in your emrace. The bouquet of flowers in his hand. A slight blush over his face.

"Anything, and I mean anything, for you Kyle." You whisper back, planting kisses over him.

𝑲𝒐̈𝒏𝒊𝒈

Your huge Austrian husband does his best not to wake you in the early hours of the morning.

And even though he has the squeaks in the floorboards memorised, his heavy foot falls still give him away. Subconsciously wanting you to wake.

You weren't really sleeping anyhow. You were too excited for him to return home.

Hearing your bedroom door open, you instantly called out your husband's name.

"It's me schatz! Just me-" he said quickly. The tension eased from your body and you audibly sighed. Months of pent up stress and fear (for both his safety and your own) whooshed away.

Kicking the blankets from your body, you rolled out of bed and jumped into König's arms.

They were outstretched - ready for you.

He was always ready for you when he came home. Nearly a tradition where you practically throw yourself into his arms.

"Do you know how much I missed you?" The same words he says every time he comes home.

"Yes," you whisper back to him. Because your heart always aches the same amount as his.

[charliemwrites]

Oh, Witchfinder...

The rumors are seeds carried along the last frigid winter wind. There’s a cluster of townships that flirt at the edges of a dense forest in the northeast. The smallest and farthest village is said to be infested by those most heinous of Hell’s denizens, a witch. Witchfinder General Shepherd sends the captain of the 141st witch hunting division to investigate. "Let me pour you a drink."

Original AO3 Link

Content: Witchfinder AU, Dark Content, Dub-Con and Non-Con, Abuse of Power and Power Imbalance, Murder (non-descriptive), Possessive/Obsessive Behavior, Unreliable Narrator, Blasphemy and Religious Elements (Christianity)

The rumors are seeds carried along the last frigid winter wind. They sprout suspicion in the fertile soil of the witchfinders’ information network.

There’s a cluster of townships that flirt at the edges of a dense forest in the northeast. The smallest and farthest village is said to be infested by those most heinous of Hell’s denizens, a witch.

Travelling merchants who have weathered the journey tell tales of shrieking trees and shadows that creep around campsites. Water coppery with blood and plagues of nightmares swathing entire caravans.

Witchfinder General Shepherd sends the captain of the 141st witch hunting division to investigate.

It is a sunny spring day when John first steps foot in your apothecary.

A bell above the door announces his arrival, a little brass thing that peters off like good laughter once it’s closed after him. The shop is absent of customers in the late morning; all the better to ask his questions without others to share the weight of his attention.  

A voice calls to him from a room beyond the counter, a bright compliment to the doorbell just gone silent, begging his patience.

Church bells ring for death too.

But death knells are not what flood John’s mind when you flutter into view, sage-stained hands smoothing ribbon-laced hair. An apron hugs tight about your waist, a stained linen cloth tucked between double-looped strings. A smear of vibrant green when you absently wipe your fingertips over a corner.

Barbed hooks burrow into his mind and hold fast.

You come up short when see him, eyes big and blinking like a trick of the light you can’t make sense of. He takes a heavy step deeper into your shop, herbs fresh and bitter in his nose.

What remains of the man he was before this moment clings to his shoulders.

“Oh, hello,” you say, “I’m sorry, I expected… ah, what can I do for you, sir?”

You close the last bit of distance to the counter, a half step for him two of yours. Dainty hands stack at the edge, one beneath the other like nesting birds. John crosses your humble shop in two long strides, boots loud as gavel strikes across a clean-swept floor. He is accustomed to being judge and executioner, a blood-soaked cloak draping his shoulders; something in his chest stirs at being yours.

“You are the shop keep?” he asks, dragging his eyes over yours.

You peer up at him through your lashes. Sunlight spirals through your irises, trips over the dark ring that separates them from pristine white.

“Yes, sir,” you answer.

“You’re the village healer, then?”

You blink again, brows doing a complicated dance deciding if you’re offended or not. “I am.”

Petal soft lips curl and press together on that last phonetic, hint at the question you didn’t quite ask.

“The others tell me you were beset by a witch last year.”

Your mouth parts on surprise, closes when you notice the silver medallion perched on his chest.

“Oh,” you breathe in realization. “Yes, in the autumn. Another witchfinder cured me.”

His eyebrows arch, but your expression remains open and guileless. The counter is less than the length of his forearm, but it’s too much distance. He wants to drag you to his chest and bruise that delicate jaw, squeeze a story from your polite tongue.

“I heard no news of this,” he says, hardening his voice into brick.

You tilt your head. “I couldn’t say why. He seemed quite proud of his victory.”

John’s eyes narrow. Pride is a poison to be imbibed in small doses. A couple drops on the tongue will do, a honeyed warmth fueling good, hard work and living well. A witchfinder must abstain regularly, lest the work become hollow and the living too well.

“His name.”

“Sir Graves,” you answer promptly, then tap a neat fingernail against the countertop, “I’m afraid that if he shared his first name, I don’t remember it.”

Not likely, he thinks. Philip indulges pride a little too readily by John’s estimate – and by most others’ as well. It’s no wonder when Shepherd feeds his lapdog feasts just for fetching. Could, perhaps, put the Devil himself to shame one day, glutted on lording himself over peasant folk looking for salvation by his sword.

If Philip was in this little village and saved a lovely young thing like yourself from perdition, he would have come back to trumpets.

“Odd, that.” John muses. “That I heard of your village’s witch, but not one of my own killing it.”

You hum. “Yes, you said.”

“And the witch is dead now?” he confirms.

One shoulder lifts, a tentative shrug. “I should think so. The village has been peaceful and I’m no longer ill.”

No, you certainly are not. You’re a portrait of health, haloed in good humors. John has seen mere brushes with the wicked rend men in their prime to frail simulacra of themselves. Yet you stand exquisite upon the year’s rebirth, cheeks round from a full belly through the winter.

“And yet I hear that the woods cry in the night.”

He heard no such thing on his journey in, but better to see how far the roots spread. 

“I could not say,” you demure, “I sleep quite well, sir.”

He flicks his gaze over the precious silhouette of you, a pretty thing in a dress trimmed in yellow. An idle thought tiptoes to the front of his consciousness, a thief sneaking away his good sense.

You, tucked up alone in a too big bed, sleep soft and vulnerable, moonlight kissing bare skin…

The sleeves of your dress are scrunched up a bit at the wrist, tender skin and serpentine veins peeking past modest fabric. A dark splotch near your thumb draws his gaze.

He snatches up your little wrist like a lightning strike, yanking your arm across the counter while you’re still scrambling past a gasp to protest.

“When witches consort with the Devil, he often marks them.”

John’s grip is iron, though it wouldn’t bruise if you’d stop pulling. Surely you must know, just from the size of him, that you have no hope of resisting without indulging in some inhuman power. Even bracing your free hand against the counter for leverage, you’re held fast.

He tugs your sleeve down, revealing the discolored patch of skin to the light. You make a noise in the back of your throat, brows scrunched and tilted with distress.

“It’s just ink!” you squeak. “Let me—”

He concedes to his initial urge and locks his big hand around your jaw, from corner to corner. You squeal, supple lips bracketing teeth blunt of suspiciously sharp edges. A slick pink tongue pillows the floor of your glistening mouth. He twists his wrist, rough fingers hooking under your jaw and chin so that he can plunge his thumb into that noisy cavern.

He’s tempted, so tempted, to leave it there. To pet at your tongue until it’s a tame pet, jumping at his command. But your whines are getting pitchy, your eyes shiny, and he has no need of scaring you until you’ve been proven heretic. He dips into the saliva pooling behind your bottom teeth, then pulls away before you can do something monumentally stupid – like bite.

He rubs the wet digit over the mark and sure enough, it reactivates and dilutes a coal gray. Just ink after all.

When he releases you, the glass-laden shelf behind you rattles, glass vials shuddering together with a tinkling sound. Laughter at your expense.

“W-wha – why…?” you whimper, arms drawn close to your chest.

Perhaps he was hasty. He nearly startles that he does not feel more than passing regret – that you will be warier to approach him again. Hastily, disturbed at his own reaction, he forms his expression into a moue of apology.

“I know,” he soothes, weaving his voice into a velvet blanket around your tense shoulders. “That must have been frightening. That was not my intent, little miss.”

You sniffle a bit, those unshed tears still glossing big, round eyes.

“Witches are a dangerous kind,” he continues, “you know that for yourself.”

At your tentative nod, he curves his mouth into a gentling smile. Combined with the scruff of his facial hair, he knows he telegraphs warmth and trust – Soap has even teased as fatherly. The sight of it unfurls you, a wilting flower twisting towards the sun.

“You can understand, then, why I had to act swiftly?”

You nod slowly after a moment, taking the tiniest of steps away from the wall.

Brave little thing, he thinks with a wicked curl of fondness. The type of fondness a dog would feel for their favorite bone to gnaw.

He offers his hand, beckoning you to come of your own volition this time. His palm tingles in anticipation of your touch, builds into a burn the longer you hesitate, your touch the balm he needs to relieve it. Your eyes flick between his face and his hand; your unmarked throat bobs as you swallow.

Then you shuffle closer and glide your soft fingers across his, alighting his nerves.

“Though it is my duty, I do regret the affect it has had on our introduction,” he rumbles, voice lowering. You lean a bit to hear him better; he nearly drops to a whisper. “But may I offer my name, as a sign of good faith.”

Your answering smile is small, still shaky, precious like gemstones.

“I am Captain John Price, witchfinder. At your service, my lady.”

Men avoid you in the streets.

It’s a subtle gesture, a slight change of course or pivot of the heel. John doesn’t even notice until a group of three splits two and one to allow you unhindered passage. They don’t appear nervous, nodding their heads in greeting that you respond to with smiles and tiny waves. There’s a basket on your arm that they are careful not to bump, though none offer to carry it either.

The women, by comparison, frequently stop you in the middle of the street for a pleasant word or friendly clasp of hands. Like songbirds on the eaves, twittering brightly.

“Where are all the men?” John asks the baker.

“Begging your pardon, sir?”

“There are fewer men than women,” John notes, nodding to the main street – three women to every man. “Why is that?”

The baker blows out a breath, the long sigh of an elder man. “Oh, the same reason all boys leave home, you know? They go out to make their fortunes, chase fame, fall in love. We’re a small village, little of those first two to be found here.”

John chuckles his agreement, thanks him for the insight – and the fresh rolls – then strolls towards the smithy. The short journey is riddled with curious glances and whispers, none with concern, but none with eagerness. He thinks someone might whisper your name to another as he passes.

As luck would have it, you are outside the smithy, a younger girl hovering at your elbow with a worried brow.

“Is something the matter, ladies?” he calls.

You jump a bit, cup your hands together, one over the other. Hiding something. He arches an eyebrow and hooks a hand in the belt across his chest, thumb peeking out. Stops a polite distance away. Without the illusory safety of a counter, you appear ready to dart off like a startled doe.

“Or are we up to mischief this morning?” he teases upon seeing the younger girl’s flustered face.

You drag your teeth across your bottom lip, trepidatious eyes scanning John’s features. He keeps his smile warm and friendly, the set of his shoulders loose. Your gaze lingers at the corners of his eyes where the skin has begun to crinkle with his age. Then you giggle a bit, an embarrassed grin sneaking across your mouth.

“We’ve made a friend, Sir Witchfinder,” you reveal.

“A friend you say?” he asks, tilting his head.

You hum and lift your hands a bit in offering. “Would you like to see?”

He arches an eyebrow, taking his turn at a cautious measure of your intentions. The glint in your eyes is joyous, not sinister. Shaking his head a bit, he idles a step closer.

“If I end up with a face full of ash…”

“We would never!” the younger girl gasps.

“I wouldn’t dirty my hands for a silly joke like that,” you add with a cheeky curl to your lips.

“Let’s see it, then.”

You slowly, carefully, lift the hand on top. Sat in the well of your palm is… a mouse.

“This is your friend?”

“Handsome little devil, isn’t he?” you coo, thumb smoothing behind a rounded ear.

“A bit waterlogged, though,” he notes.

The poor creature’s fur is dark and clumped together, sticking up where it's brushed against your hands. It’s curled into a tight, shivery ball, beady little eyes staring out at a world far too big for it.

“He fell into the rain barrel,” the girl explains sadly, “I didn’t know what to do.”

“You could have sent it on its way,” he offers, peering at her across your arms.

This, apparently, is of great offense.

“He would die! It’s still far too cold!” she cries.

You hum in agreement, soothing the mouse as its ears twitch. “He’s a young one too, would be a shame that he survived the winter to die like that.”

A circler patch on your skirt reveals just how much of a shame you thought it would be.

“Well, what’s to be done with it now?” he asks.

You cuddle it closer to your breast, beaming as it huddles into the warmth of your body.

“Mallory, would you collect a wooden bowl your father won’t miss?”

“Gladly!” the girl chirps and scurries into the smithy.

Left alone, you don’t seem to grow wary of John again. Most of your focus is on your tiny charge, though you flick him a warm glance when he ventures a careful finger over its spine.

“What a stupid little thing,” he muses, not unkindly, “falling into the water like that.”

You laugh a bit, soft and quiet. A precious jewel shining from a riverbed.

“I like stupid creatures,” you reply. “When they lash out, you know it’s not with malice. Ill intent is an invention of man.”

His brows arch. “How do you reckon?”

You tilt your head, eyes sliding away in thought. “Well… I’ve never heard of mice starting a war for gold. Have you?”

Such a seemingly harmless question; it sits like stone in his chest.

“No,” he admits. “I have not.”

Mallory returns, a wooden bowl with high sides in her hands. You pluck a square of linen from the layers of your dress and arrange it at the bottom of the bowl, then deposit the soggy rodent atop. Its tiny black nose twitches, exploring its new bed.

“Set this in a sunny window with a thimble of water. When he’s regained his strength, you can return him to the forest,” you instruct.

John clicks his tongue. “Your father will not be pleased if it gets loose.”

Still, he tears a bit of bread from his bounty of rolls and drops it next to the mouse.

“I’ll keep an eye on it,” Mallory assures and trots off with her occupied bowl.

You and John watch her until she’s disappeared back inside the smithy.

“It’s still a pest, you know,” he says after a moment.

You slant your eyes towards him, a sad twist to your smile now. “That didn’t make him any more worthy of drowning.”

“Someone may still kill it one day.”

You turn to him fully then, chin tilted in not quite a challenge. “Then why did you give him bread?”

It’s a question he could easily shrug off or wave away, but the weight of it settles heavy around his shoulders. Your gaze bores into him.

“I don’t believe in cruelty for cruelty’s sake,” he explains after a moment. “And I do not believe in suffering for principle.”

You blink at him for a moment, storm clouds churning in your eyes. Then someone calls your name and you bid John a quiet ado.

The sheep are huddled in the pasture, an off-white island in a blue-black sea of grass. Their sentinels perk as John passes, eyes glinting by fish-belly moonlight. They make no sound, only lift their shaggy heads to track his passing. John spares them a nod, one guard dog to another.

The nature of a witchfinder is not so different from theirs, to protect the flock and bend to the shepherd’s guidance. How must they feel when their master inevitably slaughters one of their own lambs and lets them taste of the meat?

The forest is loud for the first half-league. Mother nature has let her night children out to play – foxes in the brush and owls perched amongst crooked boughs. Perhaps she has welcomed the arcane tonight as well. The moon is not full, but the lure of sin drives the craven to sate themselves on unripe fruit.

John follows the trodden path to the river where the witch drowned. No trace of the execution or her remains. The wilds are cruel that way, swallowing the righteous and wicked alike and leaving not even bones behind. Marrow is always good for feasting, no matter the soul that inhabited them.

He follows the bank upstream a ways, deeper into the forest, and farther from the places that most would venture. The animals here are more cautious of unfamiliar scents and flee long before he might disturb their evening. As a consequence, the night grows quieter, lonelier.

Then silent all at once.

John is a blooded witchfinder; he knows what this silence means. His palm curls around the handle of his flintlock.

A shrill scream splits the air, high and awful. A death cry – a rabbit’s.

The insects return as the night folds over the bloodshed. John doesn’t move his hand from his pistol.

He waits, a chill wind gnawing at his skin, wriggling in the spaces between his clothes, tangling in his cloak. But there never comes a sign of anything more. Eventually, he turns and navigates back towards the village along the threads of deer trails.

Just as he passes the tree line, a breeze stirs. A few faint haunting notes burrow into his ears and carve maddening paths through his brain. Someone is singing.

His gaze curves towards your apothecary, though even from this distance the windows are ink black.

How easy it would be to steal inside, confirm that you are a good girl tucked up in bed. Perhaps even, for the sake of thoroughness, confirm with his hands and tongue that your croons are not the ones teasing him on an unnatural wind.

John takes a single leaden step towards your home. Towards you. Then the church bells toll – once, twice, thrice.

He pivots on his heel and returns to the inn.

You are at mass the next morning, in the third row from the front, tucked between the baker’s wife and the blacksmith’s daughter. The latter is giggling to you while the other parishioners trickle in and lace the pews. Your smile is bright and sweet, primrose blooms in the trellis outside the inn. A spiderweb of lace threads through your hair today, an intricate pattern he traces with his eyes, over and over and over.

He asked after you – before going to your apothecary and then after. You are well-liked, of course you are. Their precious healer, so handy with your tinctures and ointments, so kind in word and deed. A dreadful business it was, when the shadows appeared in your eyes and spilled over, vitality washed from your skin. You snapped at a huntsman one day, then snarled at the mayor’s eldest son a week later. They each fell fatally ill by month’s end.

You had not liked the witchfinder one bit. Had forced him from your shop and refused his men aid for their travel sores. No one knows what happened All Hallows Eve, when they dragged you from your home to the tiny village jail. All anyone knows were the rabid screams, the curses you shouted through the night, the staggering gait of one witchfinder come first light.

The villagers spoke little and reluctantly of the drowning. That you were marched, silent as death and blank as parchment down to the riverside in chains. The forest was silent when they bundled you up in canvas and roped it closed. There was a terrible splash when they threw your still body into the depths, how you sank and sank and sank…

You were sitting at old woman Josie’s side when they returned, dry and warm and so curious about where everyone had been for so long.

John watches you kneel for communion, mouth parting to receive sacrament. How powerful the Lord must feel, to be placed upon that silken tongue and taken into that soft mouth. The light shifts through stained glass, you’re dyed with Heaven and saints.

No, you are far too exquisite for God; all His angels would fall for envy of you at their gate.

Blasphemy tastes like fresh bread, warm and soft and a little sweet.

John forgets to cross himself. The eucharist has ended and you are gliding down the center aisle towards his post at the church doors.

“Good morning, Sir Witchfinder,” you chime.

The baker’s wife squeezes your elbow as you part ways. John replaces her touch with his own, turning with you towards the apothecary.

“I trust you slept well?” he asks, falling into step.

“Like a lamb,” you reply, “and you, sir?”

“Well, for what I got.”

You are a song that followed him into sleep. His dreams were laden with your big eyes and your soft lips and the memory of you yielding beneath his grip. He woke this morning humming your tune.

You have to tilt your head so far to gauge his expression. “Trouble sleeping?”

“I went into the woods last night, looking for truth to the rumors.”

“Oh! Did you find any?” You wear innocence like fine pearls.

“None. Though I may find something on the full moon.”

You hum, curious. “The full moon is important, then?”

“It is sacred to witches.” He scoffs, “Well, what passes for sacred to them.”

Another question perches on your lips, but a call of your name robs your attention once more. The mayor, asking for a tonic. You pause to ask after his symptoms, and his wife, and his niece in the next town over. It’s a simple yet beautiful net you weave, ensnaring the man’s good will. You promise a bottle before noon and continue on with John at your pretty little boot heels, a dog on a silver leash.

“Tea?” you ask as you enter the apothecary.

He nods. “My thanks.”

You hum and flounce off to the back room. He keeps half an ear on you there while he wanders the shop, a more critical eye upon your wares. There are jars labelled in looping script with commonplace items. A quartet of honey, a cluster of infused oils. Tins of balm for wind chafe and sunburn. Nothing of suspicion, though it would be a foolish witch that keeps virgins’ blood and reptile eyes in plain view. He’s still not sure if he expects to find them anyway.

Spurred by he knows not what, John rounds the counter. Beneath it is a number of other glass vials and containers with careful labels. Their uses are not included, but he recognizes some of them. Cinnamon powder, crushed chamomile, lavender buds, mint leaves. There’s also a little sheaf of bound parchment denoting inventory and sales; business is healthy for the village’s sole healer.

The quiet shuffle from the other room becomes supplemented by a light hum.

John’s feet move of their own accord. The backroom is a well-lit, clean space, but the entirety of his razor focus is on you. He does not bother to lighten his steps and so you’ve already turned by the time he reaches you.

A gasp pitches high in your throat when he backs you against the table behind you.

“Sir—”

You smell like vanilla and daffodils today. Incense in the church that’s been built for you in his mind. He braces his hands against the table to either side of you, caging you in.

“Price,” he growls against your ear. “Call me by name.”

The sweetest little shudder wracks through your smaller frame, a spray of blush blooming across your nose and cheeks. He exhales the urge to drag his tongue across it, let the heat burn his mouth, initiation by fire.

“I-I couldn’t possibly – never mind, what are you doing?!”

He could coo at the affront daring to color your voice. How dare this big man invade your shop and your space and your life, how dare he sink his teeth into the very thought of you?

“I heard singing last night,” he says instead, a growl in his chest that you surely feel against your fluttering breast. “It sounded like you.”

You shake your head, a little furrow between your brows. “I slept through the night, sir.”

“Price.”

“Captain, please, are you sure it sounded like me?”

He stiffens to his full height, towering over you. You try to shrink away, but space has become a commodity he will not afford you.

“You doubt me?”

That little spark of indignance is already cooling, smothered before it could grow into a proper flame. You try for reason with a man who thinks he lost it sometime between seeing you for the first time and his next breath after that.

“There are many children in the village,” you explain. Your hands inch up between your bodies, like ivy creeping up stone walls. Their roots will find purchase in the cracks you’ve chiseled in his foundation. “Perhaps it was a mother singing a lullaby?”

He grasps for all the good sense he was once graced with that made him captain.

Behind him, the kettle begins to shriek.

“Please… Price?” you murmur. “Let me get that?”

He allows the narrowest margin for you to escape. You take it with nervous, stumbling steps. As you collect the kettle from the modest fire burning against the back wall, he tries to wrestle up what remains of his tattered resolve.

John has always considered himself a fair and reasonable man. Unlike a tragic number of his fellows, who have never met a woman they did not condemn, he has strived to be more discerning. A shepherd dog cannot protect the flock if it bites its own sheep. He’s saved as many from the stake as he’s sent to the noose.

Since meeting you, however, he feels as if he’s stranded with no compass and no stars. You’ve robbed him of sense and patience and virtue, left a ravenous beast behind in his skin. It’s unlike any enchantment he’s heard of – one that wishes to ruin the caster so thoroughly. He’s possessed by his need to possess.

It’s some kind of magic, it must be. He doesn’t think he’d recognize himself in a mirror.

“We’re putting this to rest.”

His voice startles you, eyes wide and anxious when he closes the distance again. He counts his steps, measures them on whirls in the floor. You fidget at the sleeves of your dress, light blue trimmed in white lace. A bit of sky draped around temptation. Hell hidden in Heaven.

“The Lord’s Prayer,” he commands, “now.”

Though your voice wavers, you manage its entirety without stuttering or coughing, each word carefully enunciated. It is no surprise; you attended church and took communion without strain.

And yet… and yet.

“I need to be sure,” he decides. “I must examine you.”

You blink. “E-examine?”

“You must be familiar with this, yes? The Devil hides his marks in many places.”

Realization washes across your pretty panicky face. What an awful spell you’ve cast, that makes him want to see that expression when he wrests terrible ecstasy from your trembling body.

“I-I don’t…”

“I know,” he soothes, “it is frightening. We will do this last thing to ensure your innocence, and then I will not seem so mean, I promise.”

You squeeze your eyes shut as you nod, perhaps finding solace in darkness one last time, before your glamour is revealed.

“One thing at a time,” he encourages, firm but not unkind. You look like your knees are about to give out. “It will not take long.”

With shaking fingers, you unbuckle the thick leather belt cinching your waist. You fold it in half and set it aside on a clear patch of worktable. Your gown comes next, laced at the front with a neat bow that had been hidden by the belt. This is draped atop the table as well, and then you pause, hands twitching in the skirt of the cream shift you’re left in.

John takes pity, generous with the promise of more to come. Delayed gratification has always been his vice of choice. “Let’s start from the bottom, shall we? Shoes next.”

You sigh softly in relief and bend at the waist, drawing the hem up with one hand. The other tugs at the laces of first one boot, then the other, stockinged feet padding out onto the wood floors. You tut offhandedly about tears while you set your shoes neatly aside.

Higher and higher your thin shift goes, a measure for the anticipation roiling in his gut. Your stocking climbs up to your thigh, where a clever little cuff hugs plush flesh, a slight bulge where you’ve laced it tight to stay in place. It slides down, down, down, and off your dainty little foot. Between the deliberate slide of fabric and the fluttering of your shift, bits of skin flicker into view like clouds passing over the moon.

The other stocking is just as torturous, just as hypnotizing. John drops to his knees when you’re finally standing barefoot, the hem of your shift still drawn up enough to display how you shift your weight.

Even your ankles are so small that he can fit his entire palm with fingers overlapping. You make a nervous noise as he pries your foot up from the floor.

“I’m going to fall,” you mumble.

“Hold onto me, then.” With his free hand, he guides one of yours to his shoulder. The other follows suit, balling into his tunic. “Just like that, there we are.”

You hum, sounding unsure but mollified. He tilts the limb until he can get a look at the sole, finds smooth and unmarked skin. The same for the other, and he luxuriates in how you lean into him for stability.

On both feet again, you seem to forget to let him go. He does not remind you while he smooths your skirt up your calves, your knees. He thumbs at a little bruise on the left and bites off a mean smirk when you twitch away.

“I bumped into a table,” you explain.

“Clumsy thing,” he tuts.

Your pouty little huff tempts him to look, but he refrains, rallying all his years of witchfinding service to the task at hand. There’s a scar on the inside of your left thigh that makes his mouth water.

“And this?”

“I dropped a kitchen knife when I was thirteen. My mother was furious.”

His teeth ache to bite into it. He taps at your hip instead. “The back now.”

“Oh.” You unlatch your hands from his shoulders to hold your dress for him. When you turn, he can’t resist drawing his palm up your thigh, marveling at living silk against his callous-roughened hand. It feels like he could tear you.

He stands, so close he can see the shade of each strand of hair. You glance at him over your shoulder, curious, but he wraps his fingers in your hair and faces you forward again. If you keep looking at him with those big, wet eyes, he’s going to do something unspeakable.

He examines the nape of your neck, the fine hairs that gather at the base of your skull. You fuss a bit about him ruining your braids when he tugs the lace ribbons free. Like a kitten, you subside when his fingers card through, scraping blunt nails along your scalp. It’s its own sort of magic, that. How your shoulders fall, and you lean into his touch just that guilty little bit.

“Back ‘round now, little miss,” he orders when the moment has stretched far, far too long for any justification.

He gives you another moment to gather your courage for what’s next and continues his inspection above your neckline. You scrunch your cute little nose when he brushes your ears and shiver a bit when he tilts your head back.

“Last of it now, c’mon,” he encourages.

A bit calmer now, you unlace the corset from your abdomen. An endearing little breath when it’s gone, ribs expanding like fireplace bellows. In nothing but soft linen, your nipples form rosy shadows through the fabric.

You have to turn away as you gather it up, flushing the brightest yet as you pull it over your head. The shift is piled with the rest of your abandoned clothes, and you are left wonderfully, scandalously, bare.

“No knickers?” he asks, a fingertip skimming over your buttock.

You jump. “I-I need to do laundry.”

He hums, amused despite the suspicious convenience of that explanation. Still, you are hardly the first woman to forget your washing, and you are a busy little bee at that.

“We’ll continue from here.”

The curve of your spine is a masterpiece, a thing for starving artists to make their name if they could capture it on canvas. He draws his thumb along each ridge, counting knots of bone down to the dimples at the small of your back.

Silver fissures decorate the lush roundness of your hips and lower stomach, where your body grew too fast inside your skin. A sign of a good, healthy childhood. They’re even softer and smoother than the surrounding skin, more decadent than silk.

“Once more. We’re almost done.”

You turn with great reluctance, arms drawn up and thighs pressed tight together. You’ve turned your face away, staring into the low fire. When he opens his mouth to coax you again, you fling an arm out, smacking into his chest. The other is still folded across the swell of your breasts.

“These as well… right?” you ask.

He tries to keep his chuckle soundless, but the dubious glance you send him from the corner of your eye is unappreciative.

Deft fingers unfurl when his thumb presses to the center of your finger palm, reflex that spreads them wide. It’s mouthwatering how easy your body yields. He turns your wrist and forearm over, checking along the tender parts beneath. You wrinkle your nose again when he holds it out to check your armpits as well. Once he’s satisfied with that, there’s some awkward shuffling to offer him the other arm.

“Your stomach, now?” he guesses, not trying to hide the patronization this time.

You jerk your head in a haughty little nod. He bends a bit to scrutinize your stomach, soft and well-fed. A sharp noise bursts from your throat when he thumbs at your naval. He arches an eyebrow as he tilts his head to your face, but you’re stubbornly looking as far from him as you can.

“That tickled,” you complain.

“My sincerest apologies, miss.”

Your nose twitches like you want scrunch it at him again. All that fussiness evaporates, however, when you realize what’s next.

“We’re almost done, little one.”

You squeeze your eyes shut. Slowly, achingly, you lower your arms. They don’t go far, folding across your stomach with tight little fists. It only takes a glance to know that you are unmarked, but John is far from satisfied. He can’t bring himself to look away, fingers tingling with desire to touch that supple skin, to feel the weight of your breasts in his palms.

“Thinking naughty thoughts, are we?” he teases, the barest brush of a fingertip over one hard nipple. “And on a Sunday.”

“N-no!” you squeak. “There’s a chill. I-I’m not…”

“So when I check this precious little cunt, I won’t find you dripping for me?”

You yelp, hands flying up to cover your face. “You mustn’t say things like that!”

“Mustn’t I?” he wonders as he lowers to his knees. It sends an ache through them, but the view is worth the toll.

“I know this is all so unusual but that’s – that’s improper, sir!” you cry.

“How many times must I remind you?” He traces his fingertips up the back of your calf, delighting in the goosebumps left in his wake. “Call me by name.”

You squeal when he hooks a hand beneath your knee and jerks it over his shoulder. Your hand flies to his other to keep your balance, eyes huge. He rakes his gaze deliberately down the curving length of that delicious body until it settles on his prize.

Heaven, he thinks, is on Earth. It is here, nestled between your thighs. The pearly gates are dripping between plump lips in a bed of downy curls. The clouds are pink and shimmering; the apple of Eden is a swollen, throbbing bud. God’s throne is the tight little hole twitching around nothing, untouched for want of a worthy offering.

Heaven’s choir is your shuddering little inhale when his thumbs part your slit wider. It’s the bitten off sound from cool air blown over sensitive flesh. It’s your sweet, startled “oh” when he draws a knuckle through all that decadent wetness. Angels sound like your moan when he pays special attention to that forbidden fruit, light circles until your hips twitch.

“W-wait,” you whimper, breathy, “I’m a – I’ve never…”

“Shh, shh,” he soothes, “I won’t hurt you, but the Devil can hide things inside, can’t he?”

You whine as he prods a careful finger at your entrance. Your modesty is still intact, really the last bit of evidence he could ever need that you are innocent. He gathers your slick on his fingertip and prods gently at that thin bit of tissue. You shake your head, bottom lip pinched between your teeth.

“Calm yourself, little miss,” he croons. “This hasn’t been painful so far, has it?”

“N-no…”

“It will not be painful now, either. Just stay still for me.”

You make a weak little sound of agreement, hands clenching and unclenching. He massages at the membrane of your entrance in slow, even strokes, his thumb toying at that swollen button when you start to tense. It finally gives just that little bit and your body welcomes his finger inside.

He does not rush, keen to fulfill his promise of a painless touch. Who would forgo the pleasure of exploring Paradise in favor of sprinting from one end to the other?

When he’s down to the knuckle, he pauses, absorbing all of this exquisite moment, all of you. Shaking and panting, leaning into him with blush down to your chest. He curls his finger, draws it out just a bit, then sinks back inside. You bend your head to him as if in prayer, mouth falling open.

“Steady on, darling,” he coos. “You’re doing well.”

When you start to squirm, he hides a smile against your thigh and pumps his finger again. Deeper, faster, curling just that little bit to pet your supple walls. Your voice breaks loose when he finds his rhythm, a cascade of moans and whimpers that baptize him an acolyte. He devotes himself to your alter, to the pleasured twitching of your virgin cunt and the rocking of your untrained body.

He finds a spongy place inside that makes you flutter around him, a gush of slick beading a bracelet down his wrist. It soaks into the edge of his sleeve and beneath the leather of his vambrace.

“Th-that’s… oh.” You nearly sing with pleasure, a hymn made of monosyllables and whiny hums. He presses his thumb firm and insistent to your sensitive clit, rewarded by another flood of wetness and desperate whimpers. “I feel… ah, I feel l-like… what are you doing t-to me?”

He chuckles deep in his chest, brushes his lips along the side of your knee. Your traitorous pussy clenches around him, not nearly so demure of its admiration.

“Let that feeling build. Let it wash over you,” he purrs. “Don’t be afraid.”

You tilt your head back, crying your pleasure to the heavens as you tighten and shake. John braces your standing leg as your eyes roll back in your skull. You’re vicelike around just a single finger, it would be nearly painful around anything thicker. He rubs at that spot inside you, thumb still in place, unspooling your ecstasy like pulling a thread from knitted cloth. You unravel so beautifully for him, on and on until you’re a puddle in his hands.

It takes a little sniffle and a wordless mewl to coax him from your heat. His hand is drenched, slippery between his fingers. You lower your leg shakily from his shoulder, reluctant to put your weight on it with aftershocks still wracking your frame.

“Good girl. You’ve been so strong and brave, there’s a love,” he soothes, stroking your hip with his dry hand. “We can put this witch business to rest now.”

You tilt your head. Perhaps a nod; perhaps just exhaustion. He straightens while you gather yourself, flexing your fingers, likely sore from how hard you held onto him. He considers the mess on his hand, a temptation more intoxicating than any wine…

But he would rather drink from the source.

There’s a spare cloth folded into a neat square next to herbs you likely meant to cut. He cleans his hand with it and turns back just as you’re fumbling for your shift.

“Easy now, little miss. Allow me.”

John leans you up against the same table where you’ve piled your clothes, palms lingering at your waist until he’s sure you have your balance. You’re sweet and pliant under his touch, his voice. He redresses you with careful consideration, putting you back together just as he found you. Or nearly just.

The post-orgasm haze dissipates like fog with each article of clothing, an odd curiosity chasing across your face when he helps you back into your boots.

“You’re a strange sort of man,” you murmur, almost to yourself. “Is it because you’re a witchfinder?”

He arches his eyebrows as he stands again, arms winding around your waist to buckle your belt.

“I could not say without knowing what makes me so strange,” he chuckles.

You tilt your head, eyes still and deep, Leviathan’s abyss. Something is coiling behind your irises, a beast stirring from long slumber. Ripples in a lake will calm eventually, its natural state to be a placid mirror. You’ve become contemplative in your satiation; it’s the most substantial you’ve ever felt.

“You can’t decide to be cruel or kind,” you muse. “I didn’t know someone could be both.”

He presses his mouth to your temple.

“I’ve taught you a few things today, then.”

John sighs and runs his hands down his face, scratches a thumb absently at the corner of his jaw. His room’s modest writing desk is obscured by four pieces of parchment. One from each of his men, and a fourth from the witchfinder’s spymaster.

He sent Ghost, Soap, and Gaz to investigate the neighboring villages before setting for this one. They have each reported that there was nothing of note from any of them. Just the same things they’ve all heard. Rumors of a witch, a story of a healer who was exorcized of the evil. No curses or hexes since.

Laswell’s message was the last he was waiting for, just come in this morning.

Two men fell victim to your affliction. A huntsman, and the mayor’s eldest son.

The huntsman, an unpleasant man by the name of Robert, traveled along the province following his prey’s migration patterns. Apparently, he also had a predilection for women - girls, really - far too young for him. His last occupation before expiring: a certain blacksmith’s daughter.

As for the mayor’s son, there’s something to be said for still wearing that title at some four and a half decades old. Though Laswell’s information is scarcer here, owing that it was a very local matter, it seems he had a conflicted relationship with you. Would preen and fawn for your attention and then condemn you when you did not return it past politeness.

Even once boasted to a merchant two towns over that you would be the one he married, then stormed off when you declined to let him carry your basket.

Misfortune couldn’t have befallen better men, John muses. It was fortunate that no one else in the village fell victim to the witch’s wrath.

Fortunate indeed.

He sighs, sets his hands on hips. There’s really no need to stay, not now. None of his squadron have found any evidence of foulness. His own investigation concluded when his one suspect passed every measure of witchcraft he knows. He’s no reason to stay.

Gathering the parchments, he sets them aside and pens three identical messages commanding his men back to headquarters. He pens another to Laswell, thanking her for her diligence.

He returns downstairs, to hand his correspondence off to the innkeeper. Cecilia, the wife, is there instead. Talking to you.

“Oh, Captain Price,” she says, “dearest me, were you waiting there long? And here I am clucking like an old hen!”

“Not at all, madam,” he replies, approaching so that she need not go through the trouble of leaving her chair. You watch over the rim of your teacup, eyes dark and too knowing. “I thank you for looking after my correspondence.”

“Not at all, dear,” Cecilia coos. She takes his letters in one hand and pats at his shoulder with the other. “Now, then, we don’t want you losing any of that muscle, do we? How about a bowl of stew, it’s been cooking overnight.”

He stumbles out an agreement - not that he thinks it’s needed, she’s already bustling off to prepare him a bowl. You set your cup down with a gentle clatter.

“Important witchfinding business?” you ask, nodding after Cecilia.

And there’s the crux of it. You’re not a witch; you can’t be. He’s assured of that himself.

Yet…

Something lingers in the back of his mind, that animal knowledge of an unknown predator lurking nearby. Gut instinct tells him something is off, despite all evidence to the contrary. It has never betrayed him before.

“Something like that,” he answers.

You hum, apparently satisfied with that answer.

He’ll stay until the full moon, at least. Perhaps then better sense will finally win out.

There’s a garden in back of the apothecary, just sloughing off hibernation. You’re tending to what few brave plants have ventured above ground in defiance of the lingering cold. John finds an orange cat batting at your apron springs. It flicks its ears towards him, then turns back to your laces.

“Flaunting your familiars?” he asks to announce his presence.

You half turn, though your eyes don’t stray from the rosemary spines you’re collecting. “Do you mean Curtis?”

The cat overbalances and lands on its back, rotund stomach hindering its ability to gracefully recover. As far as familiars go, it would be a pathetic one, stocky and cockeyed as it is.

“He’s a village cat, but he likes to test his luck with the crows.”

“You’ve crows now, too?” he asks, sidling closer. He’s mindful of the neat rows of your garden, where seeds or bulbs may lie dormant. “You enjoy drawing suspicion.”

You scoff; it’s unladylike, but he’s enchanted by sincerity. “There have always been crows. They eat pests from the garden. Better here than in the fields, no?”

He does spot a number of crushed snail shells and unharmed leaves amongst your few charges.

“I defer to your logic, my lady,” he chuckles, hands up in defeat.

You shake your head, but he spies your smile regardless. “Have you need of me, Sir Witchfinder?”

“I’ve need of your expertise today.”

He follows as you gather your little harvest and sidestep him out of the garden, arm brushing his. Curtis brings up the rear, tail swishing. You don’t seem bothered by his presence and so John only closes the door after the cat is inside. Back to your preparation room; you’re ignoring the back wall by the fireplace.

“What is it?” you ask.

“The full moon is tonight. I intend to camp in the forest. Have you anything to deter wildlife?”

You hum, eyes gazing off and head tilting back and forth as if shaking the information loose. “Yes, I think so.”

You beckon him about the backroom and the shop. He holds a cheesecloth pouch open while you sprinkle powders and dried herbs into it, murmuring as you go. Calendula and some of that fresh rosemary for wolves, ground spice for bears, peppermint for foxes. It’s certainly fragrant, but even if it is not effective, it’s worth its weight in gold to watch you flutter about with a confident set to your fine brow.

You tie the pouch closed with a neat but tight bow and instruct him to sprinkle it around his campsite. When he tries to pay, you shake your head, flushing hotly as you tell him it is thanks for making your examination so… painless.

He chuckles and strokes a finger down your warm cheek to make you swat at him.

Just as he turns to leave, you take his wrist and press a smaller pouch into his palm.

“Lavender, to help you sleep,” you explain.

“Will I dream of you?”

“So improper!” you complain, pressing your little hands to your cheeks.

He dips down close, bristly cheek brushing the softness of yours. You shiver as his lips skim the shell of your ear.

“My thanks, love,” he whispers, “I will show my gratitude when I return.”

You turn your face away, “It is a gift, you need not repay me.”

He grins wickedly. “Oh, but it will be my pleasure to do so.”

You shake your head and push gently at his chest. “Out with you, Sir Witchfinder. You’ve preparations for your hunt, I’m sure.”

He goes, though not without locking his gaze with yours. “I will hear my name from your lips again.”

There was never a vow so sincere.

If God is the Holy Father, Mother Nature reigns His queen. It must be a contentious marriage.

It’s the first warm night and a fat full moon. John’s gut tells him that if ever there were a night for heathens, it would be this one.

He makes camp on the other side of the river, only just within earshot of the water. He builds a modest fire and scatters the sachet generously. It makes for a pleasant perfume, at least, and mingles pleasantly with the tobacco he smokes while he lets the night deepen.

The moon is high and the stars bright by the time he sets off from his campsite. Much like his last foray, however, there is little more than chittering animals and nightbirds to disturb the evening. John returns to stoke the fire after a couple hours. He is a patient man – except, apparently, where you’re concerned – he can wait for some sign.

It comes as he’s dozing on his bedroll, the scent of lavender fogging his mind with pleasant apparitions of you. The singing, again.

He pads through sodden leaf litter, ghostlike as he weaves among the vegetation, following faint notes. They grow louder as he picks his way through the forest, building in strength and pitch – and number.

It is not just one voice he hears but several, threads that twine a haunting tapestry. Soon there is not just melody, but shouts and whoops as well, powerful as they bounce off the trees. It is pitch black until all at once it is not. The thick tree line breaks upon a great clearing, where a bonfire smolders in the center.

Around it, a dozen dancing women. They are not naked, levitating hags painted in blood and ichor. They are dressed – or mostly dressed, in any case, as firelight gilds thighs peeking from skirts and shoulders bare of under-shifts. Some have their hair pinned back, others wear it loose, flying and tangling as they throw themselves about.

Hands joined and rising as they bounce around the flames, then spinning apart with cries of delight. A few plant their feet wide apart in the earth and drop their chests, hands extending towards the fire and then up towards the stars. The others whirl around them, voices rising to start a call and response that sends chills down his spine.

“When God is gone, and the Devil takes hold,” one set begins.

And the other answers, “Who will have mercy on your soul?”

A few refrains of this and then of others, until a single voice rings damnation above the rest.

“I am Death, none can excel. I am the door to Heaven or Hell.”

It has been burned into John’s bones, into his soul. Your voice.

A glamour he knows now. He knows, he knows. It is a foul trick meant to distract him from his true query, one he is ashamed clouded his judgement for so long. Of course you would not cast such a garish and obvious enchantment to draw his attention – lest it was not you that cast the spell in the first place.

Death is in the valley.

John knows his own capabilities, and he knows he cannot beat nor catch a dozen witches on a full moon. He must content himself with what he can, far as he is from their ritual and unable to distinguish any particular features. It need not be this night; he’s caught the scent and will root out the wolves from the flock.

The morning light is water between his fingers. He swims through it at the perimeter of the village, smoking another roll of tobacco. The night was long and cold; he did not linger near the witches, wary of being found. He gathered what little information he could, stamped out the coals of his campfire, and returned to the inn. Your lavender came in quite handy; he means to be especially generous with his thanks this morning.

You are not in the garden and the shop is still locked up from the night before. Perhaps you were called out early to treat some ailment. He makes a direct line from your shop back to the tree line and hears your humming again.

When he follows it this time, he’s led to a creek and your naked form sunk beneath the surface. Your back is to him, hair streaming with the current.

“And what naughtiness are you up to this morning, little miss?”

You shout, hands instantly flying up to protect your modesty. When you spin to find him, arms crossed, on the bank, you make an angry little noise and splash at him. Not even a droplet touches his boots.

“You know witches bare themselves in the open like this?” he asks.

You scrunch your nose at him, an embarrassed blush high on your cheeks. “That’s not funny.”

“You oughtn’t to be out here like this.” In fact, the more he thinks of another man stumbling upon you like this, the hotter his blood simmers.

It seems you’re not entirely unaware of your actions either as you deflate a bit. “I know, I know – but I spilled an entire jar of vinegar all over myself.”

A bloodless finger emerges from the water to point at flat rock, where your clothes are laid out in the meager sunlight. A brush and bucket rest beside it, suds still clinging to the sides.

“Clumsy thing,” he sighs, fond and exasperated.

“You oughtn’t to call me names,” you huff.

He arches an eyebrow and uncrosses his arms.

“Is that so?”

“It is,” you reply haughtily, turning away to scrub at your hair. He suspects it is to give you reprieve from his darkening gaze. “It’s terribly rude.”

He wades into the creek. “Rude, you say.”

“I do.”

You peek over your shoulder and startle when you see him approaching. “John, you’re getting wet!”

“I’m not the only one, I reckon.”

You sputter long enough for him to snatch you up in his arms, the entirety of your shivery little body pressed against his. The creek isn’t actually that deep – just to his waist standing. You’ve only been knelt down among the round stones of the bed, but he drags you up to your feet as you wiggle.

“Why do you insist on such impropriety?!” you groan, ducking your head.

He takes your chin between thumb and forefinger and tilts your face back towards him. Craves your eyes on him like the starving man craves food.

“I may be improper in word, but you are in deed, my lady,” he counters, drawing spirals at the small of your back. “A matched pair we make.”

You dart your eyes away and purse your pretty, pouty lips, but you cannot conceal your pleasure at his declaration.

“You oughtn’t to call me your lady either,” you mutter. “I am not yours.”

A serpent’s tail thrashes his insides. He swallows the sick, violent burn in his belly.

“No?” he asks. “How can that be when I’ve pleasured you the way a man pleasures his? When you take such good care of me with your teas and herb pouches?”

You blink, latch onto that last thought with endearing desperation to alter his course.

“Oh, how did the lavender treat you?”

“Quite well,” he answers, sweeping his hands along your sides. “Allow me to repay your care.”

Your fingers curl gently in his sodden shirt, peeking up at him through your lashes again.

“I told you, you need not – wah, John!”

He’s hoisted you up on the steep, grassy incline of the embankment by your lush thighs. Your weight is negligent when he has your knees nearly to your hitching chest. Splayed open and lovely, a breakfast fit for a king – no, for God. He would usurp Atlas to have you like this. 

“Remind me again, little one, how exactly you are not mine.”

Your lip wobbles a bit as you try to gather your scattered words. Have just begun your very sensible quibble when he laps at the cream between your thighs. Digs his tongue into that precious hole he so recently collared as his newest pet. Traces the seam of your cunt to that perfect, round clit and flattens his tongue against it.

Whatever pretty bouquet of arguments you’d arranged are swept downstream. His mouth is mortar upon your flimsy defenses; devastates you to trembling rubble. The mewling pours fast and easy now that you’ve found your voice, pitches into a squeal when he sucks. You taste clean and human on his tongue, sticking in his facial hair, ambrosia from the purest source. He pampers your cunt to keep the drink flowing, swallows you down like the finest wine.

Even better than those weak cries, is the way you squirm in his hold. You arch your back and twist your hips, fingers tearing up flossy grass, then tugging at his wet shirt, then scratching uselessly at his forearms. He growls when you think to tug his hair, and the vibration of his voice against your swollen folds makes you sob dry.

“Please, please, John,” you chant. His new favorite psalm. “Please, I can’t, John, please.”

He hides a smile by curling his tongue as far inside you as it can go. When he comes up for air, you’re properly teary this time.

“Why not?” he murmurs against your neck, false concern makes your hips twitch. “Why can’t you, darling?”

“It’ll – I’ll fly apart this time,” you gasp. “I swear, John. I’ll fall apart.”

Oh, so precious. So sweet and perfect and utterly his. You can’t be anything else. Not now.

“Is that all?” he asks. “I’ll put you together again, just like last time.”

He dives in with your bitten off fretting in his ears, licking you into silence, compliance, until you’re obediently whimpering again. Your slick spills down his chin, his neck, smears across his cheeks. Gentleman that he was raised to be, he is a messy eater, and you are a delicacy.

Now that he knows what it sounds like, he recognizes the rising tide of your pleasure and rides its crest with gusto. You wail and whine about that feeling again, that sublime crescendo to a symphony played with your own body, by a conductor so cruel as him. He swirls his tongue around your clit, then suck it into ravenous mouth.

“John, John, John!”

He only just manages to cover your mouth; your songs are for him alone, no need to serenade the rest of the village. You taste like salvation, communion he’ll kneel for at every mass.

Overstimulation makes you noisy, fussy sounds in the back of your throat as you try to press away, pushing with earnest at his forehead. He relents only because you say his full name, sharp and scolding, and he needs to see the angry little furrow between your brows.

“You are incorrigible,” you pant.

He hums, licking shamelessly at his lips. “My sincerest apologies.”

“Lying is a sin.”

He gives you a look. It makes you burst into a fit of giggles to rival birdsong.

“Yes, yes, have a laugh at the old captain,” he grouches, lowering you gently to your feet.

“You’re not old, John,” you scoff.

“Older than you, spring chicken.” He pauses as he notices that the fine tremble in your limbs has not subsided. “And speaking of spring, you’ve spent far too long in this water. You’ll catch your death.”

“I would have been out sooner had I not been accosted.”

“Oh yes, I’m a terrible man,” he soothes, guiding you back to shore. “A scoundrel.”

You hum in placid agreement, clinging to his side to leech his warmth. “Yes, yes. All of that.”

“As you say, little miss.”

You tuck up against him by the fire in the apothecary’s backroom and send him warning looks whenever his gaze grows hotter than the flames.

John wakes in the dark.

He cannot move his arms or his legs. The mattress at his back is softer and thicker than the inn’s, absent the odd lumps that bent his spine at angles. He is also stark naked.

He has been captured, somehow.

Memory shines thin and useless beams through a waning fog. A thick, warm stew… sweet, floral tea… you…

You.

Where are you?

There is little point in trying to gain his bearings, though he does regardless. There are no windows to light his prison. Only the scent of exposed wood and slightly stale air. It’s warm enough, at least, even bare as he is. Sound comes from above his head, creaking boards.

He’s belowground.

Some minutes pass in consternation, his last memory your hands in his hair and his head in your lap.

Then the creaking above shifts. Away, then to his right. A louder, metallic squeak. Hinges. Individual steps now, descending a set of stairs. A faint seam of gold grows near the ground, a miniature horizon with an approaching dawn.

A click.

Candlelight infiltrates the room, shying from corners and exposed ceiling beams. John gets his first glimpse of his prison – a rather cozy bedroom. The generous bed he’s splayed on and tied to. A vanity in one corner; a bedtable to his left. A chair kept company by a small shelf of books.

There’s even a rich burgundy rug on the stone floor, on the other side of which you stand.

“This is one way to have a man in bed.”

You do not speak, only cross the room, round the bed. The heavy candelabra you’ve brought is set on the bedtable. The flames play ghostly shadows across your features, caressing the line of your nose and the curves of your mouth.

The silence stretches so far it begins to sag beneath its own weight in the middle.

You – or the facsimile of you – have not turned your gaze from the whirls of silver in the candelabra.

“You need not keep this shape any longer, witch,” John growls at last.

The illusion twitches, fingers curling tight in its skirt.

“I know this is a glamour, stop hiding behind her face.”

“Damn you, John!” You – it snaps around, gaze burning hellfire and brimstone. “There is no glamour.”

Held still before, he is stone now. “What?”

It – you? – snarl, showing all your teeth. Still as blunt and neat as ever.

“You witchfinders,” you scoff, shaking your head, “and your so-called purpose. You’ll see anything shiny and call it gold. By God, any woman is a witch if you try hard enough, isn’t she?”

“I acquitted you.”

You snort. “Was that before or after you wanted to wet your cock?”

It was always, regardless. He does not think it wise to answer. You don’t seem to need one.

“Graves condemned me only after I denied him – repeatedly.” You perch at the edge of the bed by his ribs and press your palm against the mattress on the other side of his head. John denies you the pleasure of leaning away. “He took me to the river in chains.”

“Magic.”

You roll your eyes. “What did I say? Use the wits your God gave you.”

When he just stares into your blown out pupils, you pull away with a groan, standing again.

“The blacksmith made the manacles,” you explain. Slow, quiet. “And Agnes brought my last meal.”

Mallory, the smith’s daughter and Agnes, the baker’s wife. Your church companions.

You hum as understanding smooths his brow. Despite the pleased lilt, your mouth is a flat, angry line. “Makes much more sense, doesn’t it?”

He tugs at his binds as you gather up the skirt of your dress.

“I took a blade to that wretched sack and swam with the current downriver,” you explain. There is no shift or corset beneath this time. “When I emerged, I snuck back home and hid right where you are now.”

You bend at the waist to unlace your boots, ass on full, beautiful display. You are no longer just a temptress; you are a succubus. The limited candlelight paints you in burnished gold, Hell’s currency. John is far, far too gone on your sin to help his reaction to the sight of you, even now.

“When the moon rose, Cecilia let me into the inn and unlocked their doors.” You kick off your boots, inner thighs glistening. You don’t even bother with your stockings. “One. By. One.”

You pad to the foot of the bed and place your knee on the mattress between his legs. It’s real weight, your weight that sinks into it. You crawl up the bed, body swaying over his, flesh and blood depravity.

“I saved Graves for last.” You straddle John’s thighs, trace soft palms up his abdomen and over his chest. The bite of your little, clean nails chases belies that deceptive gentleness. “I slit his throat with his own iron dagger. The blood looked like ink in the moonlight.”

His cock stands proud and flushed, pressed against your belly, begging entrance. A tower of pride in spite of God and all sanity, he throbs with the low thrum of pride in your velvet voice. He tries at the ropes again; they hold fast, creaking in reprimand.

“I fed him and his men to the river.” You lift yourself, wrap an elegant hand around the girth of him. Your lips part, above and below, at the heat of him against sensitive flesh. “I thought it was over. Hoped I could finally have my peace again.”

You grind the flared head of him against that bundle of nerves, back and forth, up and down. A sigh slips from your lips and blankets him in fire. Head tipping back, neck rolling as everything that makes you human sloughs off, overworn garments. You tease yourself and him, wetness dripping down his shaft and spilling over his groin. He is a slave to his desire’s whims, your whims, hips twitching to grind.

You crack your eyes open, damnation in your gaze. “And then you showed up.”

You bare your teeth and take him into you all at once. A ragged shout cracks you both in half, clashing in the lust-heated air between your bodies. You are tighter than a vice, strangling him in plush, slick walls.

“Fuck,” you grit, sucking in air. Your mouth drops open, a delirious bark of laughter hitching in your throat. Ruby crescent moons decorate his chest. “You fucking bastard.”

Swallow thick and harsh, as if you can feel him in your throat. It certainly feels as if he reaches that far, as deep inside you as he is. He wants to test it for himself, but the ropes do not relent despite his persistent tugging.

“I could not do a goddamn thing without feeling your eyes on me,” you snarl. “Is this what it’s like to believe in God?”

You rock your hips. A little at first, still somehow so mortal to the pain of a thick cock in your virgin pussy. And then your spite and pride overtake the discomfort and you bounce once, hard. Grin wildly when it guts a groan from him and do it again. And again. And again—

It’s torture, it’s paradise. It’s John’s undoing. Your face twisted in divine wrath and hedonistic ecstasy, riding his cock like you were born to bring men beneath your dainty heel. He drops his head back against the mattress, tries to arch up to meet your thrusts. You’re having none of it, hissing as you brace all your (not considerable) weight on his chest.

“I don’t care if God is real,” you breathe, “I care about the people He and His have forgotten on Earth. Does that make me a witch?”

It’s all so much noise to him with the way you squeeze around him, walls fluttering. You’re moving hard and fast, but not hard or fast enough. John moans your name, earns another of those scowls that makes him throb.

“Shut up, Witchfinder,” you pant. You rise up, back arching as you find an angle that breaks your voice. “I will have my pleasure and you will thank me for the privilege of delivering it. The least you can repay me for all the trouble you’ve caused.”

The angels themselves could come to his aid now, and he’d only ask that they cut him loose.

And for all your scoffing, perhaps there is a greater force at play because the rope circling his right wrist catches. A rough edge or a bent nail, it does not matter. John works his arm back and forth, sawing through rough fibers, any remaining blood in his body dedicated to this salvation.

Your voice rises with your pleasure, knees widening to get him deeper, but not with any actual intent to bring either of you to climax. No, you’re luxuriating, gloating. You’ve won. He reaches across while your head is tilted back to pull the loop from his other wrist.

He will show you the spoils you’ve wrought.

“Tell me, oh Witchfinder,” you smirk, diamonds dripping between your breasts, “what am I?”

Your eyes go beautifully wide when he fits his wide palm around your pretty throat. Small hands grasp at his wrist, need both just to wrap around the circumference. Lips parting, you clench down so tightly as he sits up and reaches for the silver hidden in your right stocking.

A paring knife, honed to a deadly edge.

“Now what did you plan to do with this?” he wonders. “Little girls shouldn’t play with knives.”

Eyes locked with yours, fluttering like butterfly’s wings, he slices his ankles free with two flicks of his wrist. The knife is discarded over the side of the bed, far from your sneaky fingers.

It is laughably easy to flip you onto your back, to bind your dainty wrists together with the remains of one of his. So he does laugh, cock still buried deep inside your pulsing cunt and his hand loosening from your throat.

Each blink brings you back to focus, until you seem to realize all at once what’s happening. You snarl, kick your legs, back arching at an angle that makes him grunt. And you are still so, so wet.

“I should have killed you!” you shout, even as John guides your legs around his waist. Your knees press into his ribs, ankles interlocked at the small of his back.

“You should have,” he agrees, pressing your tied wrists to the mattress. He forges a path of biting kisses up your chest, over your neck, licking where he can feel you swallowing noises.

“Oh, let go, let go!” you demand, except it comes out more a whine, and one you don’t even mean at that. Not when you twist your hips to feel him pressing inside you.

“Oh, my little witch,” John rumbles, drawing his tongue along your jaw. “Never.”

That just spins you up further, mouth clashing violently with his. He revels in the scrape of your teeth on his lips and tongue, chasing into your mouth and counting how long before you remember you hate him.

“I’m not a witch,” you spit when he pulls away.

“Then what was all that business in the forest?”

You smirk. “Just a bit of fun to hail the spring - and at your expense.”

He sinks his fingers into the roundness of your hips. “Funny.” And slams home.

You shriek, loud and shameless, body jerking as he sets the pace you couldn’t achieve atop him. It’s brutal and animal, you keen at every scrape of his fat cockhead against your (nearly) untouched walls. The headboard knocks against the stone wall, a steady, rapid beat to match his thundering pulse.

You’re still cursing and threatening him between moans, rocking your hips eagerly to meet every thrust. He snakes a hand down your stomach, down to where your bodies collide with obscene wet squelches. You yelp when his thumb finds your neglected clit, shake your head and struggle in earnest.

“Don’t you dare,” you wail. “Y-you don’t get to…”

He sheathes his cock as deep as he can and grinds.

“Say my name,” he commands. You shake your head, squeeze your eyes shut. “Say, ‘John, don’t make my pretty cunt come.’”

You whimper, high and keening, sinking teeth into your bottom lip hard. There’s nowhere for you to go but try to press your hips into the mattress - and he can’t have that, can he?

Manipulating your squirming body is becoming his new favorite addiction. John gets his knees under him, curls an arm around your waist, and hauls you up into his lap so easily. You’re half-limp and half-struggling and yet still he sinks you deeper and deeper onto his cock unti the head of his cock bumps against your womb.

“There we are,” he purrs against your jaw. “Do you feel me? Right here?”

He presses a covetous palm to the spot where he swears he can feel the pulse of his own drooling cock. Your arms loop over his head, try to pull yourself up and off. A firm flex of his biceps drops you right back down again, squealing.

“Just like this, darling,” he whispers, “You’ll milk my cock just like this.”

You moan, hide your face in the crook of his neck. This position slows him some, but he’s not lost any of the power or angling that makes your eyes flutter. He rolls his hips each time he buries inside, just to tease at your cervix. If he could, he’d bury himself there too and fill you with his seed directly.

As it is, he’s not nearly done with you yet. No, not when you’re starting to shake so badly that all you can do is grip onto him for support. Your clit is rubbing against his pelvis each time he bounces you to meet him. An object built solely for his pleasure.

“I’m going to - no, no, you can’t,” you hiccup, tugging and pressing closer, closer, closer. Your hips are twitching of their own accord. “You shouldn’t get to—”

He doesn’t even need to coax you over. A final shiver wracks your body as you clamp down. Head falling back, you scream to the ceiling, fingers twisting in the short hair at the back of his head. He rocks you through it, steady, until you finally go limp against his chest.

There’s a sharp pinch to his shoulder - you’ve bit him. When he eases your head away, your mouth is smeared crimson. At first he thinks you’ve managed to break skin; then he notices the bead welling up on your bottom lip.

“All that just to avoid my name,” he tuts, amused despite himself.

When he leans in to lick at the wound, you sigh softly. “I-I’m going to kill you.”

He grins against your mouth. Kisses you one last time as he pulls you off his cock. You whimper, sensitive, arms barely able to lift over his head. He lays you down gently, follows to ghost his lips and tongue over the marks he’s left all over your skin.

“Now, then,” he says, sitting back on his haunches. “Once more.”

Your eyes fly wide and panicked as he turns you onto your stomach. 

“Absolutely not,” you gasp, scrambling away.

“Ah, ah.” He catches your hips and yanks you back. The force of it knocks your trembling and still-bound arms out from under you. “I’m not done with you yet, little witch.”

Chest against the mattress and hip high in the air, he has a perfect, unfettered view. And what a view it is. Your pretty little cunt is puffy and red, visibly stretched, and the sensitive little button above it is swollen with abuse. Slick drips and drips from your entrance, entreating his return.

John nudges your knees wide and fits himself between them, the dripping and flushed head of his cock slipping over your folds.

“Get that away,” you snarl, “you’ll fucking break me!”

You try to wiggle away, but he just holds you firm, waits you out. And when you pause to catch your breath, he plunges inside.

“If you don’t recognize God, then there’s really no need for ceremony, is there?” he muses.

You make a questioning noise, the best you can manage when he’s forcing the air from your overworked lungs.

“My little witch wife,” John croons into your ear, “what pretty children we’ll have.”

It’s suffocating, how tight you get around him, even as you buck and swear. Your voice breaks when he tilts his hips just so, torturing that spot that’s already tipped you over once already. It’s such sweet music to his ears, protests cut off on long, rapturous moans, each time he bullies your overstimulated walls.

“I’m going to keep you.” John adjusts his bruising grip on your hips. Widens his own stance and presses his chest to your back. “I will be your god and your devil. My name will be amen.”

He drives home especially hard, and your voice breaks with a sob. His groan twines with it, divine harmony.

“We’ll form our own covenant, you and I,” he rasps. “I will give you everything, and you will be mine.”

His end is coming. Balls drawing up tight and hard, sparks crawling up into his stomach. A ragged grunt leaves his chest as you spasm around him, leftover of the last orgasm or forewarning of the next. He shifts to one arm and wraps the other around your hip, reaching for your clit to ensure it’s the latter.

“My name, love,” he breathes, “that’s all I need.”

“You’re awful,” you cry, “I hate you, John.”

“I know, little one,” he moans, shuddering. “Show me just how much.”

You reach your peak with his name on your tongue, loud and clear. His ears ring with it. Hips tilted back to get him as deeply as you can, John finds his end in the rhythmic, coaxing pulses of your cunt. His cunt.

He buries as deep as he can, hips stuttering roughly against your plush ass. Hopes he’s gotten you pregnant on this first try - perhaps your baby will be born on Samhain. You’re cooing softly when he comes back to himself, so sensitive you can feel the last feeble twitches of his release.

“Easy does it, now, darling.”

He supports your hips as he slowly pulls out and your knees collapse. The sounds you make are truly pathetic, he shushes you half-heartedly while he pets at your sweat-sticky back. He doesn’t let you drop; that’s no way to treat his new wife.

John lowers you gently to your stomach, then reaches over your head to pull the knot of your binds loose. You make a noise as he rubs at the red marks left behind, kisses at any raw spots.

“I-I have a salve…” you murmur, “upstairs.”

“We’ll get it in a mo’,” he assures, pushing tangled hair back from your face.

You nuzzle into his palm, lips skimming his fingertips. Not quite a kiss. “Don’t pretend to be kind now.”

He chuckles, exhaustion leaving the sound mostly in his chest. “I’m not the one who pretends between the two of us, little witch.”

You huff. “I’m not a witch. Witches aren’t real.”

“Of course, love,” he huffs, “and neither is God.”

[nadiajustbe]

Underrated HMC moments I've never seen anyone talking about part 1

Martha canonically teaching Sophie to swear

Fanny getting girls to talk about their fate not only after the funeral, but RIGHT after it. They didn't even got to change their clothes

Fanny and ms. Fairfax being old school friends, just as Fanny is the only one calling Fairfax by her first name.

Justin cannonically visiting Market Chipping shortly after Ben was taken by the Witch, being "in disguise"

Michael saying he always wanted a dog!

Howl going up and down the stairs while working with important stuff to look out of the window of his room. Sophie suggested that he's doing something very sinister, but he probably just wanted to see his nephews playing something like hide-and-seek in the yard.

Howls books being described as "queer-looking" (lol), suggesting he sneaks his library from Wales

Howl joking with ms. Pentstemmon's servants and overall acting completely relaxed in her presence

Sophie laying both of her hands on the stick, trying to mimic ms. Pentstemmon's behavoiur in order to feel more confident (it didn't work)

Sophie wishing to HIT KING'S HEAD with said stick instead of kissing his hand after she failed to blacken Howl's name

ms. Pentstemmon being the only person in Ingary who calls both Howell Jenkins and Benjamin Sullivan by their legal names

Bonus: Howl arranging old hat shop's house the way it would resemble his old mentor's chessboard-like floor pattern.

Howl violently waving his hand both to Michael and then Sophie while trying to act as gracefully as possible.

Howl's clothes having a whole winx-like animation, with blurring and merging into sparkles when changing from his suits to his jersey

Michael absolutely HATING jeans and being physically unable to walk with them on

Sophie thinking than no one's on the streets of Wales because of the rain. On the streets of WALES. Because of the RAIN.

Howl having his own set of keys from Megan's house

Megan knowing how to knit

Sophie being absolutely amazed by amount of carpets in Meg's house, probably because in medieval-like Ingary good carpets were pretty expensive

Neil and his friends swearing with the words "Sophie thought even Martha didn't know"

Michael and Sophie thinking that Howl wanted to kill his nephew by plugging his video-game off

HOWL MAKING A WHOLE GAME BASED ON HIS OWN MOVING CASTLE

Meg shouting that Mari shouldn't seat on the wet swing

Gareth (Megan's husband) playing baseball with Neil

Howl swearing he hasn't preformed a single spell in his life "with his hand on his heart". What heart.

Alternatively: ms. Angorian saying she "feels in her heart" that Ben is alive. whAT HEART, WITCH OF THE WASTE'S???

ms. Angorian getting all her actor skills to act confused as If she sees Ingary for a fist time. "Oh, what a strange-looking town!" "Oh, what a strange-looking people!"

Ben loving his guitar so much he apparenly took it with him on his mission on the Wastes

(this guitar being the only thing we know Ben took from Wales)

Percival being given the said giutar as a baby being given a rattle

Percival processing to play the said guitar for about three hours trying "to teach himself how to play" and adjusting it immideatly

Sophie swearing for about a page straight after meeting the king.

[murder-hobo]

GAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!! I LOVE THIS!!! I LOVE IT I LOVE IT I LOVE IT I LOVE IT!!!!! 😩😩😩😩

It's so good and so soft, but also hot as hell!!! 🖤🖤🖤🖤

Let Me Keep You(Here's My Name, Burden Me) Rating: Explicit (MDNI) Word Count: 4k Tags: John Price x f!oc/reader, first time, fluff, virginity loss, dirty talk, oral (f!receiving), piv sex, minor breeding kink, confessions, fae au, witch!reader Summary: "When I fuck you," Price breathes, brushes his lips against yours, "and I will fuck you, Sweetheart," he assures you, "I want it to mean something.” That was months ago, months of wondering when he'd finally decide you meant something. Well, the dam can't hold forever, and when it breaks it's not courage that parts your lips.

“What was that perfume you were wearin’ when we first met?” Price asks you out of the blue. You glance up from your cauldron in time for a cloud of purple smoke to belch out of one of the oil slick bubbles.

“I don’t know,” You really don’t. You don’t even know if it was a perfume, or if it was a combination of herbs you’d been working with. You stir your potion thoughtfully. “If you could describe it,” You decide, “I might be able to tell you.”

Price hums, he does that when he thinks, it’s terribly charming. You like how he fills your space with noise. Both of you know that he’s as silent as fresh snow, but for you he’s as loud as an elephant. It’s comforting, in some strange little way, always being able to hear him near you. It’s harder to be alone. Clearly. You- Logically you know he’s there, but it’s- you shake the thought from your head, no sense tainting your potion with ill advised sorrows.

“Like dry grass on a warm day,” Vetiver you note, “and honey without the sweetness.” Citrus, potentially, wildflower likely. You tick mental boxes, sorting through your mental catalog. What were you shopping for that day? Were you killing time on a spell?

“Anything else?” You ask over your shoulder.

“Summer, but that was probably from-” you hear the rustle of fabric as he waves his hand behind you.

“From the garden,” you finish with a smile.

“Smelled expensive, dark, like that red dress you’ve got,” he leans back in his chair and you hear his heels tap against the wood of your kitchen table as he kicks them up, “Should wear that for me some time, hugs ya’ in the prettiest places.”

“The perfume, darling.” You remind him, and he clicks his tongue.

“Keep callin’ me that sweetheart, and you won’t remember either.” He smiles when you glance at him, arms crossed over his broad chest. The relaxed posture shows off his arms well, his sleeves wrapped tight around his thick biceps. Temptation in a man. You have to stop letting him in when you’re trying to work.

“Why are you asking about my perfume?” You redirect the conversation. You doubt Price has suddenly taken an interest in aromachology, and you doubt he’s looking to buy you a gift considering all his are magic related.

“I want you to wear it tonight,” He replies plainly.

“Are we doing something tonight?” You don’t think you’ve forgotten anything. No date night on your calendar for tonight, no holiday or witches gathering.

“I’m goin’ to fuck you.”

Your potion explodes. You cough and sputter against the smoke, the pink dazzle of failed intentions attempting to choke you as your entire body bursts with heat. Price snaps his fingers and the smoke is sucked out your garden door like a vacuum.The mixture is still bubbling in your pot, though now it simmers at a nice vibrant red. A love potion instead of a protection potion. You’ll have to start over.

“That’s hardly romantic,” You tell Price, because you have no idea how to respond in a way that doesn’t scream “I’m a virgin.” Price spins you to face him, silent in his movements, and draws up the apron around your waist to wipe off your face. You’re sure you’re a sight, covered in pink and barely able to look at him.

“I’m givin’ you time to say no,” He explains, patiently. You take your apron from him and finish scrubbing your cheeks.

“I can’t say no during?” You joke. Price settles his hand on the counter behind you and leans close.

“You can, but you won’t want to.” Another burst of heat courses through you at how serious he sounds. You swat him away to clean up your potion. You don’t think you’ll be able to get any magic done today.

-

Price monopolizes your day. Monopolizes your thoughts anyway. You can’t concentrate on any of your spells, your workspace tainted with him. He drips into every corner of your home, his smoke filling the cracks and crevices. You’ll have to cleanse the whole space the next time you want to do anything.

He’s quiet too, which is the worst part. It makes you nervous, like he might be rethinking. Yet each time you turn to look at him he’s staring at you, his eyes warm and full of open affection. You can’t look at him for long, and you always turn away with your cheeks burning. The way he looks at you, like you’re the missing piece he’s been looking for…

“You’re staring,” You tell him, after dinner, you mean it to be chastising. 

“Am I?”

“It’s distracting.”

“Do you want me to stop?” He almost could pass as concerned, if it weren’t for the crooked smile, the slight smirk that says he wouldn’t even if you asked. Truthfully you don’t want him to stop, you like the way he looks at you. 

“When are we going to-” You wave a hand, feigning nonchalance. He catches it and kisses your knuckles.

“Whenever you want,” He smiles more genuinely, his eyes crinkling at the edges, “Just say the word sweetheart.”

-

You shed your skirt on the way into the bedroom, his fingers tug down the zipper as you walk, and you’re more than happy just stepping out of it. Happier still when Price hauls you up and drops you on the bed. He crawls over you and you cup his face to kiss him. Each slick slide of his lips against yours makes heat pool in your stomach, something warm and anticipatory taking hold as he breaks away to slide down your body.

Price kisses your stomach, laves his tongue against the soft skin and sucks appreciatively. His beard tickles, and you squirm without meaning to. He explores the exposed skin with his mouth, his hands sliding your shirt up to give himself more room. There’s something reverent in the way he moves you, helps you tug your jumper off and smooths his rough hands over you. His hands knead your breasts through your bra, kissing them where they push against the fabric. His eyes meet yours as he does, and you bite down a smile.

“Take it off,” he orders, sitting back to give you room. You sit up and fiddle with the hooks in the back while he strips his shirt off. You get a little distracted by the broad well muscled expanse of his chest, the dark hair. He pushes you back down against the bed, a finger hooked in the front of your bra to pull it off as you fall. He’s rather good at this, you think before he’s kissing you again. His hands cup your breasts, thumbs rolling over your nipples. You press into his hold, feel his tongue slide against your lips, and open your mouth to suck on it. He pushes his hips against yours, the fabric of his pants making you feel all the more naked under him. 

You want to feel him, really feel him.

His hand disappears, fabric rustles and Price lets out a breath. You glance down to see he’s taken his pants off, his hard cock standing proud against the swirls of hair that trail up his stomach. You snap your eyes back to his face, and his brows raise. 

“See somethin’ you like?” He smiles, and you shrink down against the bed. Very much so, but you don’t want to stare. “Plenty of time for that later,” He tells you, “For now-” He sits back, tugs your panties down. He follows their journey down one leg, kissing your thigh, knee, your ankle, until he can toss them to the floor. Then his attention falls heavily onto you.

He presses your hips more firmly against the bed, holds them hard enough to bruise, and you watch the rise and fall of his chest as he stares between your legs. The usual ice of his eyes has been swallowed by the deep hungry black of his pupils. It makes you squirm to be under such a heady inspection. His brows twitch, his head tips, the slight movement making you twist your fingers in the bed sheets.

"Fuck," he groans, before snarling, "fuck." He falls into you, his hands gripping your thighs and pulling them up over his shoulders as he buries his face against your cunt. His tongue licks a broad stripe over you and you jerk against his hold, a nervous giggle falling unbidden from your lips. You've never done this before but you probably shouldn't be laughing.

"Wait, Price," you try, your fingers shake as you press them against his hairline, threading them through the short brown strands. He growls, glares at you, like a dog trying to protect its bone. Your breath hitches.

His tongue prods at your clit, rolling over it with firm strokes. It's wet, warm, and well practiced. It sparks in your stomach, making it jump as you shiver and tighten your grip on his hair. His fingers only hold you more firmly, anticipating every squirming movement of your hips as his tongue wiggles against you. You whine, press the back of your free hand against your lips and try to stifle the noises he draws from you. Though he doesn't seem to be doing the same.

Every low groan and slurp at your leaking cunt sends another shock of heat through you. You whimper when he sucks at your clit and he responds in kind.

"Good girl sweethear', taste so fuckin' good." Your cheeks burn, at the gravel in his voice. Your head feels hot and your body feels tight. His tongue presses into you, licks over you, like he's starving for it. He laughs when you buck your hips against his mouth, a deep throaty chuckle that doesn't help the heat in your face, "Knew you'd squirm."

You swallow, press your hand a little more firmly to your lips. Price lifts his head enough to let you watch his tongue flick against your clit, his eyes trained on the jump of your stomach, all the soft parts of you he likes best, absolutely burning for him. "Squirm for me baby," he tells you, amusement clear in his voice, "show me how much you like it."

You twist in his hold when he lowers his mouth back down to suck on your clit. You try to, at least. He's strong enough to keep you in place, almost like you hadn't moved at all. It's cruel really. You try a different approach, grinding your hips with the movement of his tongue. He allows it, guides your hips with firm hands, his nose grinding against your clit as his tongue presses into you. 

You whine, short and high, your fingers tugging at his hair as you arch your back. Everything feels so tight between your legs, so slick and warm. Price’s tongue twists against your cunt, pushes in and out of you in a maddening dance. He presses sucking kisses to your folds, lapping up every drop of your slick with deep satisfied groans. 

“God,” He growls against your cunt, drunk on you, “could eat you whole-” He hums, and you squirm as the sound vibrates around your clit, “-doing so good for me.” You nod, every inch of you blazing, you’re sure you must be a sight for him. “So good,” He mumbles. He sucks at your clit, the pressure tugging at the swollen nub released only to be started all over again. One of his thick fingers presses into you and your breath hitches.

“Price,” You tug at his hair to get his attention, your hips raising with tense tingly pleasure as he curls his finger against your gooey walls. He strokes inside your cunt firm and delicate, hardly listening to you. Your legs shake, on either side of his head. 

“You gonna cum sweetheart?” The low timber of his voice makes goosebumps rush over you. You nod, mutely, and he wiggles a second finger in beside the first. “I know,” he coos, “I know baby, can feel it.” His fingers pump in and out of you, hitting something that makes your stomach jump and clench. “Go on,” He tells you, “cum on my tongue, give it to me, hard as you can.”

The tight heat breaks into desperate trembling, your stomach jumping as you squeeze his head between your thighs and try to wriggle away from the constant rolling pleasure of his tongue. You moan, rock your hips against his mouth, squeezing and pulling him as close as you can. Fuck do you want to get away or stay like this? You don’t know. It’s too much and not enough. You can feel your body fluttering, clenching on his fingers greedily. Price’s groans are desperate, hungry, indulgent, his eyes hot as they watch you fall apart.

Your cunt sucks at his fingers, trying to draw them in further, clench on them tighter. He keeps stroking that soft spot inside of you as his tongue laps up the slick that pools around them. His mouth is sinful, sweet torture that doesn’t stop even after you’ve cum. His beard scratches your thighs, smears your wetness over them as he kisses the soft skin. His fingers don’t leave you, even when his mouth does, they keep stretching you out, toying with your cunt. You shake and shiver for him, unsure what to do with yourself as he watches you. 

“Could drive a man mad, lookin’ at ‘im like that,” He tells you, kissing your bent knee. You tug at the blankets, press your hips down against his fingers. Price hums, thinking, his eyes rake over you as he leans close. “Stick out your tongue baby,” He murmurs, and you do without fuss. You open your mouth and stick your tongue out, closing your eyes when his tongue presses against it, licking over the wet muscle with firm strokes before sucking it into his mouth. You do your best to keep up. The way he kisses you, dips his tongue into your open mouth, feels dirty, makes your head spin. 

You whine against his lips when his thumb rubs against your clit. The calloused digit pressing firm against your sensitive bud, as he pulls back to watch his spit drip into your mouth. You swallow it all too eagerly, and pant against his lips. You grip his shoulders as he dips down to suck at your neck, your voice soft and high, pleading, in his ear. You need something to hold onto as he sparks pleasure up your spine. You’re just starting to shake again when he pulls his fingers from your dripping cunt.

You grab for his wrist to put it back, you’re warm and throbbing, and you’re so close. He just stares at you, chuckles a little when he grabs your wrist and brings it to his lips. Price sits back, holds your hand with slick soaked fingers, and grabs his cock around the base. You suck in a breath at the size of it. It looks so long and thick, is that really going to fit inside of you? Did he stretch you enough? 

“Look at that, mm,” Price sighs, rubbing the tip of his cock through your wet folds, “pretty little pussy.” He feels bigger than he looks, the head of his cock just catching at your entrance with each stroke. It bumps against your clit, mixing pre-cum with your slick. You watch him move, watch the way his cock drools against you, with libidinous eyes. You chew on the inside of your cheek, raising your hips to try and convince him to fuck you already. He hums, his smile, his eyes flicking to meet yours, all too hot for a man from Winter.

“Beg for it,” He tells you, “You want this cock, I wanna hear you beg.”

You want to, you want to beg so badly, but you feel like all the words have left you feeling him twitch against you. You let out a shaky breath and give him the only word you have left. “Please,” you shudder, “Please, plea-” 

He presses against your entrance, the fat head of his cock slipping inside, and you gasp. Price murmurs something to you that you don’t catch, too focused on the roll of his hips as he eases his cock into you. Your eyes roll a little, breath uneven as his girthy cock stretches you out. The burn of it is sinful, absolute bliss, and you feel yourself run a little hotter with each thick inch. There’s so much of him, and you’re so full already. 

He stops, his breaths ragged, releases your hand to grip the backs of your thighs and press them up against your chest. The new angle forces Price’s cock deeper, letting the veins of it drag against that squishy soft spot in you. You squeak, and he shushes you. “Needed a better-” Price groans, “fuck sweetheart, you’re so tight, such a good girl.” He eases another inch into you, you try to raise your hips and find yourself pinned under his weight. “Just a bit more baby,” He drags his lips against your gasping mouth, “you can take it, know you can.”

You don’t know if that’s true, when his hips finally settle against your ass you’re shaking with the effort of keeping still for him. He lets out a sigh, smoke dripping down over you, filling your lungs the way his cock fills your cunt. It makes you a little dizzy, dizzy enough you don’t notice he’s pulling out until he snaps his hips and fills you again in one clean motion. Then that’s all you feel.

The maddening drag of his cock against your gummy walls, all slick friction and heat that pulses through you, makes you gasp and whine. Pretty sounds just for him, just for the way his hips smack against you. He hits some impossibly deep part of you, and doesn’t stop hitting it. Each thrust winds you tighter and tighter, makes you clench and drip around his cock.

He releases his hold on your legs, lets you wrap them around his waist as he settles comfortably over you. His lips drag along your jaw, the scratch of his beard making you tip your head. He’s so warm, or maybe he’s reflecting your own heat back to you. Either way you feel wrapped up in him. His smoke, his mouth, his cock. Fuck, his cock.

"Be a good girl and play with that clit, rub it real nice for me," Price mumbles, you whine and reach between you to rub yourself, "there you go sweetheart, clenchin' on me so well." You can feel him thrusting into you like this, grazing your fingers against his cock as you rub tight circles. Everything is hot and wet. Your stomach clenches as he pushes in deep. Each drag of his thick cock is a delicious build on the already tight heat coiling in you.

"I- mm," You squeeze your eyes shut, tip your head back as your back arches. You've never felt anything this good.

"No, no, eyes open sweetheart," He coaxes, his hands hold your face, tip your head forward, "Want you to look at me."

You don't want to, it feels easier to keep them closed, but you want to be good for him. Every time he praises you it feels like your skin gets a little hotter, and it's so- you always thought you were good at taking compliments, but the way he says them, so low and filthy, makes you want to stutter like a nervous little girl. He doesn't stop fucking you, but he does slow down, gives you a small reprieve to open your eyes in. When you do, you're immediately treated to his smile.

"Don't look away, unless you're looking at-" he tips your head forwards so you can look between you at where his cock pushes into you, "-that." He groans as your breath hitches, eyes fixed on the fluid motion of his hips. You clench around the stretch of his thick cock. You can see the dark curls at the base wet with your slick, the muscles of his thighs moving, the bruises he's left on your hips.

Your legs curl towards your chest again, shaking, the feeling of his cock pounding into you suddenly too much all at once. You bite your lip to keep quiet, as your orgasm breaks over you. Wet heat slapping slick noise to the pump of Price's cock, and snapping over your spine as you arch your back. You've trained yourself so well you don't even notice you're biting down your moans.

"Speak," Price commands and you can't help the tumble of noise that falls from you as your mouth opens. Soft swears and pleas and his name like a prayer, over and over. He groans, catches your desperate mouth with his own and fucks you. His full balls knock against your ass as his hips piston into you.

"Price, God, Price," you whimper, clawing at his back. His cock hits you so deep at this angle, your toes pointing as he keeps you full of him.

"John," he whispers, kissing into your vernacular. John. You breathe his name in. You knew it. John the conqueror, the morning's glory, the Highest exalted, remover of obstacles, dominator of will. Yours to be known.

"John," you sigh. Yours to keep, but never use. A shiver racks through him, you wonder how many times in his long life he's heard his name. He puts himself in your hands without asking for the same in return, but you want to give it to him. You want his admission to mean something. You whisper your name between kisses, feel the twitch of his cock as he rolls his hips against yours, the stutter in his breath. You love him, you love him, you love him.

It's real and terrifying and it strings between you so heavily you can't ignore it. He says your name, whispers it, and it’s like you’ve never heard it before. You shake, shiver with sensitivity as you feel hot cum flood your cunt. Price’s hips don’t stop, fucking his thick seed deep into you with a low groan. Fuck you could cum again just feeling him wiggle his hips against your poor cunt, like he’s trying to make sure it all stays in. 

He sighs, more smoke pouring from his lips before he can kiss you. Sweeter this time, but no cleaner. You push your tongue against his, arching your back to press up into his chest, feel the click of your teeth when you press a little too close. Desperate, you’re so desperate for him. How could you ever not be? You could go again, you want to go again. He chuckles against your lips, and you do your best to swallow the sound.

“Easy,” He tells you, the low timber of his voice rumbling through you, “we’ve got all night.”

-

You wake up heavy and warm. There’s a pleasant ache low in your back, and an arm slung over you. You close your eyes against the sunlight streaming in the window, and cuddle back against Price, put yourself in his hold without fear. There’s a weight in your chest that feels too important to touch, so you don’t. You can feel it though, as clearly as you feel Price stir behind you, feel him hook his leg over yours. It’s natural the way you fit together. 

You wiggle, turn to face him. He doesn’t open his eyes, just waves his hand to make the curtains close and lets you cuddle close. You kiss his chest, listening to his heartbeat. You gave him your name, and you’re still here. Still breathing, still laying here with him. Easy as anything. This is real, you think, he’s real. He’s not going anywhere, he’s not using you for anything, he wanted this to mean something. It does mean something. He means something to you, something you didn’t have a word for until now. Funny how sex makes things so much clearer.

“I love you,” you whisper to him, sure he’s still sleeping.

“Marry me,” He whispers back, like he’d been hoping you’d say something.

[mariamakeslemons]

I'm playing in @ghouljams sandbox, with a tiny, hurt child. She's a combination "normal" person and unable to see her own hurt.

I don't own Witch, that's Ghoul's OC/Reader insert. I do own Racheal/Lilac.

Racheal shakes as she hesitates to knock on the door. Granny told her that the witch living here may be her only hope of actually understanding the magic she has. But the witch here also has ancestral magic instead of having to rely solely on the magic her own body creates. Which Racheal has to do. Swallowing around the lump in her throat, the girl knocks on the door and flinches at the sound she’s made, clinging to her barely made grimoire tightly.

The door opens and the prettiest woman blinks down at her, brows furrowed in confusion.

“Are you lost, sweetie?” she asks Racheal. Squeaking, the girl shakes her head and hands the woman her Granny’s letter. The woman blinks before accepting the letter, frowning at the writing before turning back to Racheal with a smile.

“You might as well come in, okay?” the woman offers with a smile. Racheal nods and scurries in, glancing over her shoulder nervously. The woman hums and moves through her house with ease, leaving Racheal to scurry after her.

“So, how old are you, sweetheart?” the woman asks, as she opens the letter.

“…E-eleven, ma’am,” Racheal answers, flinching at the woman suddenly stopping in the hall. Slowly, the woman turns to look at Racheal, her hand moving to toy with the hagstone necklace she has.

“…Eleven,” she repeats, and Racheal can’t do anything but nod. Granny always said she was too stupid to start learning when everyone else started, because she couldn’t even tell what the difference between using lavender or using sage would do to certain spells as a five year old. The woman closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly before a smile crosses her face.

“Well, let me finish reading this and we’ll start outlining what to do to help you,” the woman offers with a nice smile. Racheal perks up at that, eager to learn what she can and hopefully please at least one of her teachers.

“Y-yeah! That s-sounds like a plan!” Racheal agrees, flinching at her stutter. Granny told her proper witches don’t do that, but she can’t really help it. It just comes out. But, she thinks while looking up at the woman who only smiles at her excitement, maybe it’s just a coven thing.

“Okay,” the woman says after Racheal dropped off her meager belongings in the spare room she had pointed out (Racheal wasn’t really allowed too much, she was too stupid to own things according to Granny), “Let’s lay out some rules. One, I’m to be called Witch, okay? That is what the majority of people know me as, and it’s easier to remember than knowing my actual name.”

“Y-yes, ma’am,” Racheal agrees easily enough. That’s easy to remember. Miss Witch smiles at her, her eyes softening nicely.

“Now, I need to know your fae name,” she instructs, “Because that’s what I’ll refer to you in public with.”

“It’s S-Stupid,” Racheal answers. Miss Witch sighs and smiles, almost looking amused.

“I’m sure it’s not, sweetie,” she says, “You don’t have to be shy.”

“Oh, uh,” Racheal starts, realizing that Miss Witch didn’t understand, “N-no. I m-mean, my n-name. It’s Stupid.” Miss Witch freezes, her smile in place, but something brewing under her pretty eyes. Slowly, her face changes to something thunderous and Racheal shrinks on herself, waiting for the strike that’s sure to come. She’d deserve it, after all. She upset Miss Witch.

“No,” the woman says, startling Racheal, “I’m not calling you that. We’ll think of something else.” Racheal blinks at her, confused by her reaction as Miss Witch hems and haws over a thought.

“What’s your favorite color?” she asks suddenly. Racheal jumps, blinking at her in shock.

“…I can h-have one of th-those?” Racheal replies, stunned. She’d heard about that sort of thing, favorite things. Granny told her that only smart people could have them, that she’s too stupid to have any kind of preference. Miss Witch hums and nods, although something in her face tells Racheal that she’s angry. But, she wants to know what color is her favorite. And she really likes purples, especially light purples like…

“Lilac,” Racheal decides.

“Then, that’s what I’ll call you,” Miss Witch tells her. Racheal, Lilac, smiles and nods eagerly, only to jump at a knocking noise from what looks like Miss Witch’s backyard. The woman huffs, almost fondly, before patting Lilac’s head.

“Stay here, okay, sweetie? I need to speak with someone,” she tells Lilac with a smile. Lilac nods eagerly and stays right there, although she wonders if Miss Witch would be upset if she sat on the floor. She’s really tired from having to stay up to catch the train, then the plane, then the bus, then the other train. Maybe she can sit for a minute, then stand back up.

“I’m going to kill a fellow witch,” you chirp to Price, holding back every piece of rage you feel. He raises a brow at your declaration, surprised that you decided to greet him with that.

“Is it the little one in your house?” he asks, curious.

“No, she’s the reason why I’m ready to commit murder,” you tell him. The poor girl is too thin and small, obviously malnourished. Then there’s the stutter and that name. Oh, that name. And to top everything off, the witch who sent her wrote the letter like complaining about a stray animal that needs to be put down, not a child that needs to be guided.

“Deep breaths, love,” Price soothes, reaching across the bricks to grasp your hand within his. You comply, taking a deep breath before slowly letting it out.

“She’s eleven and, according to the letter, she barely knows what the herbs do, let alone any spells,” you tell him. Price freezes at that, obviously understanding what you’re implying. After all, witchcraft is a craft, one that must be started young to be able to use the magic safely and confidently. Most witches start by reading to their children from their own grimoire, teaching what a symbol or plant means and is used for.

“…A child,” Price sighs, smoke pouring out of his mouth like a waterfall.

“An abused child,” you correct, watching as he breathes out of his nose, hard. Smoke bursts out of his nostrils like a bull or a dragon, an anger burning in his eyes and you find yourself at ease.

The relationship between children and fae is always tricky. A child could be coveted or prey, depending on the fae in question. However, with Price’s reaction, you can tell he would rather burn down the world than harm a child. Perhaps it has to do with how children are easy prey, something that Price has told you was boring. Perhaps it has to do with what little you’ve found out about Ghost, the fae following L- no, she needs a different name… Pink? Sunny? Ugh, well, the fae that follows the Shop Keeper’s friend around.

“I’ll tell my boys to behave around her,” Price said, pulling you from your musing. He smiles, “That’ll spread the word that she’s under my protection.”

“You don’t even know her,” you argue without any heat. Price chuckles, leaning against the wall with that sly grin of his.

“You like her, pretty witch,” he purrs, sending a shiver down your spine, “That’s more than enough for me.” You huff, but the smile that fights its way on your face probably tells him how amused you are by his declaration.

“I should finish getting her settled in,” you tell him, brushing your hand against his own. Price catches your hand and presses a kiss to your knuckles.

“I’ll see you around then,” he promises, giving your hand a soft squeeze before pulling away. You turn back to your home and go inside, only to stop and sigh. Lilac is curled up on the floor, asleep, with her grimoire clutched in her arms. The dark circles under her eyes tell you how little sleep the girl gets and you feel another wave of anger threaten to drown you. How could anyone do this to a child, let alone one who so obviously wants to please? When you get the chance, you’re going to burn down the witch’s house and adopt the girl. Or, maybe help her find a family if you can’t.

[witchthewriter]

Y/N: Don’t worry, I have a few knives up my sleeve. Gaz: I think you mean cards. *Y/N, pulling knives out of their sleeves* Y/N: No, I do not.

[a-small-writer-in-a-big-world]

Only Yours

Witch/Demon AU: Price

Pairing: demon!Captain John Price x witch!reader

Warnings: suggestive mdni (18+), teasing, marking/scent, posessive!price, monsterfucking?, afab!reader

The air is hot.

Your house always ran a little warmer when he was around even during the summer months. Usually it was bearable, never enough to make you warm to where you need to change your clothes or to turn on a fan, and you always know that he's around when you get that cozy feeling.

Except this time it wasn't cozy.

Sweat pooled at your hairline and ran down you neck. You were stripped down to just a tank top and shorts because no matter how much you turn up the AC or try to cool yourself down with the countless spells you know, nothing was working. You wanted to take a shower, to get some sort of relief from the heat inside of your house but you couldn't move from your spot in between the counter in the kitchen and the demon who pressed you up against it.

Smoke curled around you, filling your nose with the bitter smell of cigar and ash that would stick to your clothes, your hair, and even your skin weeks after he would be gone.

Just as he wants it to.

Claws, dangerous and sharp drag gently across your burning skin which caused a shiver to run up your spine. His hands are so much bigger than yours and you feel him run them up your arms before one gently cups your breast through the thin tank top, your bra completely discarded because you were just so hot.

You whine as he massages his fingertips into the plump flesh, careful of his claws as he gently pulls at your nipple.

His other hand runs down to your hip, the tips of his claws peaking through the waist band of your shorts as he pushes you back against him more. He rolls your hips for you, having you grind against his hard cock which makes you clench around nothing as you imagine what it would feel like to have him inside of you.

You imagine the way he'd push into you, splitting you open while he would thrust deep inside of you that you'd see stars. The tip of his cock would hit every part of you that'd have you shaking, crying out for him to keep going and he would, he wouldn't think to stop until you couldn't stand on your own anymore and even then he might just keep going.

You're aching for him, desperate for a release after being teased for so long. Your panties are soaked through from your slick and from the amount of sweat that's on your body you're sure all he would have to do is just slide in.

His lips press against the back of your neck and you gasp when you feel the bristles of his beard tickle you. Your stomach flips as he starts to trail slow, hot kisses behind your ear, stopping to suck a mark there as he continues to press himself against you.

He pinches your nipple, sending a jolt through you and you moan, becoming dizzy from the heat, the smoke, and the feeling of his tongue running against your pulse as he places more kisses across your neck.

"Price..." You're breathless as you grip the edge of the counter tightly when his hand moves into your shorts.

You can't see him, can't turn your head to kiss him on the lips, but you know he looks beastly. Horns and glowing yellow eyes full of desire, lust, need stare at you. A sinful, demonic presence that demands your attention, demands your claim and you'll gladly give it to him as he teases your entrance with his dangerous hands that treat you like you're priceless china.

Price presses a finger past your slit, gathering up your slick as you writhe beneath him while he continues to assault your neck with open mouthed kisses. He teases your entrance, purposefully moves his fingers around your puffy clit to make you whine for him.

"You're all mine, you know that?" He whispers in your ear as he moves his other hand on top of yours, threading his fingers through yours. "My little witch, all for me."

All you can do is nod and squeeze his fingers as you wait for him to finally give you what you need and for him to take what he wants.

Tags: @coleishere

A/N: this au is in my mind often hope you enjoy there will be more to come

[ethereal-night-fairy]

Forgotten Sorrows

Fae!Soap x Female Reader (Rún)

This story was completely inspired by @ghouljams Fae!Au of COD MW.

I'm rewriting this series. I don't know when it'll be back

When worlds collide

Remnants of the past

Old habits - New beginnings

Thorns and Kisses

Muse's Lament

Relief after Rain

Copyright © by ethereal-night-fairy. 2023. All Rights Reserved. Writing not permitted for reposting, transcription, translation or to use with AI technologies.

[mausinly]

1fae1 au and oc belong to @ghouljams sorry for haunting your inbox btw

Price runs cold, it comes with being in the court of winter. He isn't corpse freezing, though he definitely can be if he so pleases. Rather, he feels cool. Cool like a gust of wind or soft rain under the power of the unforgiving sun, cool like a shower after a long day of work, washing away the tension in your muscles and the worry of your brow.

Like the bastard that he is, it never fails to amuse him when his cold hands make his little witch yelp and swat at him. He doesn't pull away. Instead, he drags his fingers over her skin, delighting in the goosebumps that are left in their wake. His hands slip under the fabric of whatever pretty dress she has on that day, and he chuckles low and deep when she shivers but makes no effort to push him away.

His witch runs hot. Everything she touches is warm, like a long embrace. Every potion she crafts goes down like the thickest liquor, every charm like a freshly dried blanket over your shoulders.

Everything except for him.

A chill sweeps through her little cottage when he breaks through the threshold, despite the warm lamps and candles and the fire raging under her cauldron that make her home feel like a furnace. She can always feel him coming. Like seeing dark clouds in the distance yet neglecting to find shelter before the storm comes.

He knows exactly why his witch burns like the sun, blood running with all the warmth of a summer fae. Even so, he marvels at how human she feels under his palms. Her every curve and dip so smooth and lush. She hums so sweetly when he drags his thumbs over her cheeks, dousing the blazing skin.

He can nearly feel the steam billowing into the air when his lips meet hers. Their bodies lay entangled in the thick sheets and covers of her bed, and he can feel the warmth buzzing just above his skin. He watches her, taking in the serenity of her expression. The tension in her muscles and the worry of her brow have long since washed away. He watches her and startles himself with the suffocating feeling in his chest. Like a dam breaking, her searing touch sinks into his bones and he takes a breath like his head has been under water for centuries.

For the first time, the devil's heart aches.

[bubuslutty]

NOW YOU KNOW WHAT YOU WERE DOING WITH THAT BOMB AHH WITCH READER FIC 😭💗💗💗

I CAN SEE IT NOW

John itching to help her cook, despite her telling him she's fine as she makes her finest dinner for their adult kids—ahem, most trusted men's arrival?? Mama may be a witch but her motherly senses be tingling and it says THESE MEN HAS NOT HAD A PROPER MEAL, JOHN. 😭

And a certain point where she finally stops for a bit to let the stew she's cooking do its magic, John immediately jumps to the opportunity to give his beloved the most absolute, cheesy and tooth-rotting kiss. I mean, straight up wedding-dip his sweetheart as if a priest had just said 'you may now kiss the bride' 🥲💗

ughshddjhd your mind is amazing 💞💕💖

I'm actually so happy you enjoyed it!! I've got so many ideas for that little universe 😫

your thoughts always make me so so happy so Thank you 🌹❤️

the bear in the witch's hut (all parts)

title: European Robins in my palms

word count: 2.3k

warning: nsfw (like one scene) but all fluffy throughout the whole thing!!!!

John had to take all of his special unit back to his childhood home and farm, at least once. And he didn’t think he’d enjoy it so much, having his brothers with him in his home with his parents and wife, together.

They had to ride for days to get to his village, and Kyle would point out the greenery and mountains, how beautiful these parts of the land were, and Price would smile, proud and happy to be going home, to his love. Simon would be basking in the sun, on the back of his horse, half listening to Johnny and sometimes interrupting him to tell him some of the unfunniest jokes on earth.

And when they would finally reach their farm, Price’s parents and his wife would be waiting for them, by the entrance. Price would hop down his horse, and open his arms for his wife, as she runs and jumps in his arms, kissing him all over and squeezing him tight. John’s witch was not afraid to show affection to her husband, not publicly and especially privately, be damned society’s expectations and rules, nothing will stop her from running to her husband, skirts riding up her naked legs and one of the sleeves sliding down one shoulder and hair a mess. Fuck being proper.

And he loved her so much for that, chucking everything that would make her a proper lady out of the window in favour of loving him so openly, as he truly deserves.

That fact about her would not go unnoticed by his brothers. What a sight she was, beautiful and so inviting in her laughs and smiles. It was more than evident how much she loved him and how much he loved her back.

When her legs were on the ground again, she will turn to the other men, pushing her hair out of her face and grinning like the fucking sun in the middle of summer, sticking out her hand. And she would receive grins and three kisses at the back of her hand.

Price’s parents would greet their son, commenting on his evergrowing beard and bigger build, but then they would turn to the other men, giving each a bone-crushing hug that would warm them from the inside out.

After they will obviously get settled in the cleared-out rooms that Price’s parents and his wife prepared, stretching their tired limbs and getting a proper bath to wash away all the sweat and grim that cold river water couldn’t wash away. You better believe Price will try every trick in the book to get her to stay with him, in his room for the next hours. He knows she has things to do, like helping his parents cook them a proper meal. But he tends to become needy, selfish and straight-out unreasonable sometimes when he’s in the same vicinity as her for the first time in weeks.

He wants his wife, for the love of everything good and gracious. Is that too much to ask for?

But John ends up getting his way in the end, not only he has her help him bathe, but he tried his mighty best to stretch it out as much as he could, like, “Honey, I think you’ve missed this spot on my back- Can you just-”

And his wife would wash his back for him, an amused smile on her lips, indulging him and running a cloth over the muscles and fat under his freckled skin, then she would press her fingers on the knots in his shoulders and dip of his back, making his head drop, feeling immediate relief.

Then she would somehow end up against the wall of the bathroom, skirts hunched up around her waist and his knee keeping her legs spread as he continuously plunges his fingers inside her wet cunt over and over again, while his other hand is covering her mouth so her delicious sounds wouldn't be heard.

And when she cums, she’s shaking all over and her legs are wobbly and Price has a stupid smile on his face as he rubs her back, helping her calm her frantic heart. His darling has then to stand against the wall, holding her skirts in her arms as he’s kneeling by her feet, a cloth cleaning up the mess she’s made of herself between her legs.

“I was supposed to be the one taking care of you…” She mumbled, cheeks hot.

Price glanced up at her and chuckled, “You are.”

.

.

.

When it was nearing dinner time, the witch stepped inside the living room, her sleeves rolled up and hair tied up, interrupting the men’s conversation. “Lads, I have a job for you.”

Gaz, Soap and Ghost all look at Price at the same time. The captain just shrugs and stands up, and they copy him, all following his wife outside the house. And Price can literally feel the excitement coming out in waves from his wife, but he doesn’t ask, he just follows her silently until they’re all 3 metres away from the house.

The witch turns to the men, her lips stretching into a smile. “I need you to catch me a rooster for dinner.”

And as soon as those words leave her mouth, Price smirks, trying to hide it by running his finger through his beard. Johnny barks out a laugh, “Of course, we’ll catch ya a rooster, lass!”

“Yeah, sounds fair, the least we can do is catch our dinner.” Kyle shrugs, hands in his pockets and Simon nods in agreement.

“Which one d’ya want us to catch?” Johnny asked, tilting his chin forward.

The witch grins and points above his head, and he frowns in confusion, turning around. And then he looks around and frowns when there’s no rooster on the ground- Oh, what the shit.

The rooster she wants them to catch is standing right on top of the house, staring down at them in challenge, the wind blowing over its black and white feathers, making the rooster’s body seem larger than it actually was.

“Steamin’ Mother…” Johnny mumbles, squinting his eyes to see the rooster better. Kyle and Simon also seemed to be taken aback, staring at the bird in shock.

The witch started giggling behind one of her hands, angling her body away from the men. Meanwhile, Price didn’t care much and started laughing loudly with his head thrown back, hand on his chest and tears collecting at the corner of his eyes.

“You two are mean!” Price’s mother suddenly scolded by the door, hands on her hips.

“Stop laughing, you mutts!” Price’s father barked out and Price and his wife started laughing even louder, screeching and holding onto each other while the three other men stood there, trying to figure out how the fuck are they supposed to catch that rooster.

“That was a good one, love.” Price said, his cheeks hurting from laughing and wrapped an arm around her waist, kissing the side of her face. As soon as Price said that, Kyle, Simon and Johnny all sighed in relief.

“Ahah, yeah, that was very funny,” Kyle said, glad he doesn’t actually have to go catch the damned bird. Which was still standing at the top of the house and staring at them.

“What do you mean?” The witch said, making Price freeze.

“What do-” Price frowned.

“Catch it.” His wife said, slowly smirking up at him.

When I say Price’s mum literally shrieked, laughing so hard she had to lean against her husband, face literally turning pink.

The colours literally drained out of Price’s face, anything but chasing that fucking rooster.

“I was being serious, John.” She said, bringing a hand up to fix the collar of his loose shirt. “I want you to catch it for me, please?” the witch bit her lower plush lip and batted her pretty eyelashes at him, placing her other hand on one of his biceps and giving it one squeeze.

Price was standing there, with his mouth open. And when she made a noise, tilting her head to the side, saying “So, are you going to do it?” without actually saying anything. Determination swelled in his chest, making his blood pump and he cleared his throat.

“We’ll catch it. For you.” He said, giving her a nod and placing a kiss on her forehead and started walking towards the house.

“Where are you going?” Johnny called out after the man.

“To get my gear.” Price said without looking back.

“What?!” Simon said, the word literally jumped out of his throat.

“Why?!” Kyle said at the same time as Simon.

“He bites.” Was all Price said before the three men ran after their Captain while his mother was still laughing, almost pissing herself.

.

.

.

When they finally caught the rooster and tied its legs, and held it in front of the witch like a damn trophy, they swore they would never underestimate a rooster ever again. They were all panting and sweating, with feathers stuck in their hair and clothes, with arm protection on to not get bitten, but the rooster still managed to bite a hole in Simon’s shirt and pooped on Johnny’s helmet. They didn’t look happy at all and now all have a newfound fear of roosters.

“Are all roosters like this?” Johnny grumbled, cleaning his helmet in a bucket of water.

“Nope, just this one. You don’t even know how many times we’ve tried to catch him, but never succeeded.” Price’s father said, still baffled about how the beast was finally caught after three years of trying to catch him.

After handing the rooster over, the men stood outside the house and watched until it was killed and plucked and they all sagged when the rooster was no longer breathing. The witch giggled at their state and stopped right as they were going to step inside the house to wash for the second time that day.

“Hold on, take your clothes off first.” She said.

“Huh??” Johnny blushed bright red.

“Shoes and shirts off, leave them outside.” The witch added and they all nodded, following her orders. After all, the rooster did numbers on them, their clothes were filthy like they were on a battlefield and just came back for dinner.

.

.

.

The house smelled absolutely delicious. Price’s mouth watered when he stepped inside the dining room, the smells coming from the kitchen while his parents set the table up.

“What’s cooking up, mum?” John asked, bending down to kiss his mother on the head.

“I don’t know, go ask her.” His mother shrugged, a smile on her lips and eyes twinkling.

“Alright?..” Price laughed and left his mum to go investigate the kitchen.

As soon as he entered the kitchen, he was greeted with a ridiculous amount of delicacies (As much as they afford in times of war while living on a farm). There were pies, stews, roasted vegetables and the rooster, bread, cheese and caramelised apples from the orchards down the road with roasted nuts on top and beer. And there were still pots and pans bubbling and cooking up on the fire.

“Honey? What are you doing?...” Price said and the witch jumped, turning around with a wooden spoon in hand.

“Cooking?” She answered, blinking at him.

“You-” John said, noticing a plate full of sausage rolls and couldn’t help but grab one and take a bite, moaning when the flavours exploded in his mouth, taking him up to the heavens and then back down.

“You don’t have to do all of this, my love. This is- This is too much,” Price said after swallowing and snaked his free arm around her waist and pulled her against him, chest to chest.

His witch frowned, “John, when was the last time your men had a proper meal? This is the least I could do for them."

John smiled, feeling fuzzy and warm with love and appreciation. "Allow me to help you, then."

"No way, I've got this under control. You can go back out there." She said, waving her wooden spoon in the air.

"Please, love."

"Nope. No way. Go away, John." She shakes her head and turns around, stirring a pot while it's bubbling.

"At least let me watch you cook." He whined, John Price whined and he wrapped his arms around her waist, hugging her from behind.

"Fine. Just don't touch anything." She sighed, rolling her eyes and smiling, stirring. And Price happily nuzzled his face in her hair and went along with her wherever direction she went, literally glueing his body to hers.

This went on for a couple of minutes until she stopped and looked over at the food with her hands on her hips, and called John's mum, telling her to start taking some of the dishes to the table.

And as soon as she puts that damn wooden spoon down, John quickly turns her around and straight up wedding-dips his sweetheart, and cuts off her startled "John!-" with a deep passionate kiss.

When he helps her up, her cheeks are hot and she's panting, eyes wide and lips feeling all tingly. She's just looking at him while he's smiling at her like a love struck fool.

Simon's also in the kitchen, grabbing a plate full of veggies and doesn't give two shits about what they're doing, because all he's capable of focusing on is the food he's carrying and the growling of his stomach.

BONUS:

the second time Price brings his boys over (kyle, Simon, johnny, ale, rudy, horangi and konig). The damn rooster is there again.

“Mum??”

“I see it, John.”

“It’s ALIVE??!!!”

And they have to chase it and kill it again. But his witch manages to hold it in her arms and pet it, “YOU CAN PET IT???” screamed Soap.

And the witch just smiles and tells them it’s a blessing in disguise, a gift, they will never get hungry as long as this rooster is around. And he always comes back, no matter how many times they eat it.

gaz, Ghost and Soap all tell the other guys abt the rooster and instill the fear in them, so now the rooster is some sort of inside horror story lmao.

+

When Price's mum meets alex for the first time, she's hella confused cuz she doesnt remember pushing him out.

“Are you my son??”

And when he opens his mouths, she's "nope, I didn't push you out"

tag list (pls ask to be added or removed): @obiwankenobis-lap @goapgrim @smalldemonlover @silviafantin15 @reveluving @bobastayhigh

[live-love-be-unique]

The Witch At The Edge Of The Woods

Inspired by @ghouljams incredible OC: Witch and featuring Price. This is my first attempt at writing a female character x female character and female x female x male characters story in any way so I hope I’ve done that and your OC justice.

You’d come home late one night and found your fiancée in bed with another woman, and now you were seeking revenge. You wanted him to feel your pain. In your heartbreak you sought out the woman they called Witch. You’d heard talk of her but hadn’t felt the need to seek her out like others had.

It felt like you had been walking for hours but you hadn’t even lost sight of the town. The forest grew like a hedge maze your father had taken you to one year when you were younger, you’d gotten so turned around and lost that you sat down and cried until he had found you.

As the familiar tendrils of anxiety wormed their way through your ribs and wrapped themselves around your heart you were sure your eyes were deceiving you the snow-covered trees and paths were changing to blossom-filled branches right before your eyes. The beautiful pink petals falling over the path around you. The sun, which had been hiding behind gray clouds, now shone bright down into the forest.

As you basked in the now shining sun, heavy-soled footsteps followed behind you, turning to find nothing but wisps of black smoke in the shape of a man, dancing in the trees. You paused for a moment before remembering that you were close to the witches cottage and stopping to investigate strange black smoke was possibly not the smartest decision.

You swore the shadow man was following you, staying almost in sight, lingering in the corner of your eyes like an abandoned cigar left sitting in an ashtray as you made your way towards the small cottage surrounded with flowers and plants, some you readily recognise growing alongside a lot you didn’t.

There was a woman kneeling by a planter completely engrossed with her flowers and herbs. As you approached she didn’t acknowledged you as she placed a small green sprig of something into the ground.

The heady, earthy smell of cigar smoke that had followed you intermingled with the perfume of the flowers as you walked closer to the small cottage. “Don’t mind him” the woman spoke, not looking up from the plants as she covered its roots with soil “he knows not to interfere” glancing back at the shadow man you didn’t notice the witch step closer to you “follow me”

The cottage was small but the moment you stepped through the door you felt a wave of comfort fall over you. You wanted to live here, you thought instantly. The mismatch of furniture and nicknacks were dotted around what you could only assume was the living room and sprigs of dried flowers and herbs decorated the curtain rods and candles covered every available surface. The air smelt of lavender as you were led into a small kitchen and ushered to a table underneath a sunny window, the sill covered with small succulents.

You studied the witch as she moved around the room. There’s a power to her, simmering beneath the warm surface. A power, that if crossed, would be scarier than death. Her exposed skin that you could see was covered in a patchwork of black signs and sigils and you guessed that there would be more under the skirt and blouse she wore.

The small kitchen looked exactly how you expected a witches to look, shelves filled to the brim with jars and containers of various powders and liquids, snake skin and other matters and something that; to you; vaguely resemble eyeballs. She however, was not what you had expected, there was no green skin or pointy hat in sight. The woman in front of you was beautiful, nowhere near the witches you heard about in the stories your grandmother read to you.

“Were you expecting something else?” She asked, pausing to glance at you over her shoulder as she busied herself with something at the stove.

“I..I don’t know what I was expecting”

“Your grandmother’s stories were wrong” she looked at you with a smirk, you felt your cheeks heating as her eyes met yours “but that can be a talk for another time” she says as a cup of steaming tea is placed before you on a matching saucer. She must have noticed you eyeing the cup warily “it’s not going to kill you if that’s what you’re thinking, poisoning my customers would be terrible for repeat business”

“I wasn’t…”

She smiles knowingly “it’s tea. Lemon balm if you want to be specific. Good for a broken heart”

“How did you know?”

“Do you know you’re one of the only ones who hasn’t come to see me before, not for a tarot or palm reading or something more specific. I was intrigued” she leaned forward in her chair opposite you, her chin resting on her hands, she was studying you, you realize. She lights a cigarette as she watches, waiting for your response.

“Did your cards tell you about me?” You ask in awe.

“No” she giggles “the cashier at the supermarket is a terrible gossip” she says with a wave of her hand.

You look down at your hands clasping the steaming mug of tea in front of you “I want to hurt him. I need him to feel what I feel”

The witch tuts, leaning across the table, taking your hands in hers turning them over, gently tracing the lines on your palms “Your hands are pure, clean” she shook her head “I won’t let you dirty them with revenge”

“You’ve done it before, for others” you say as the familiar pinpricks of tears begin. Why would she help them and not you?

She looks up at you “do you want me to take your pain, sweet girl?” still holding your hands in hers, still tracing little symbols across your skin. Looking into her eyes you felt yourself suddenly forgetting the pain and heartache left behind by your ex. Your cheeks heat up again as she studies you “are you sure I need to?” She asks, tilting her head with that ever present knowing smile.

“I don’t…” you start, unsurely.

You watch as she stands from her place opposite you and makes her way around the small table and stops in front of you. One of her delicate hands lifts your chin, forcing you to meet her eyes once more “do you want to stay?”

“Yes” you whisper; after a moment.

Your pretty witch leans forward as her lips meet yours. You let yourself sink into her as her hand moves from your jaw and flattens against the back of your neck. You would stay with her for as long as she wanted.

The heady, earthy smell of cigar smoke fell around the room as a deep voice came from behind you “What a pretty picture I’ve found” the shadow man purred.

“You startled her Price” Witch says to the shadow man as you fall back with a gasp. The shadow man; Price; had materialized before your eyes. He was handsome with a rugged air surrounding him and his piercing blue eyes shone as he observed you.

He takes your hand in his and pulls you to stand “Hello petal” he smiles, plucking a small pink petal from your hair “we’ve been expecting you” he smiles as his lips find their way to yours.

[sillylittlesaturn]

The Heartache and The Natural Shock - 1, "In the Morning, Bring Me The Dust"

This is a fic I've had in the drafts for a long time! Vaguely Macbeth inspired King!Price and Witch!Reader who hate each other, but are stuck together. Enjoy the first chapter <3

✮

For the first time of the day, you breathe out a satisfied sigh with your work. The sack is full of crucial materials, both for your survival and magic; albeit, you could say they are one in the same to you. Scooping up your untamed hair, you lift the back of it to allow your back and neck to replace the stifling sweat with sweet coolness. Even before you left the village, you would refuse to cover your hair. You dust off your hands of the collected dirt, unwilling to spend much time thinking of your old life. Just the one memory of then sours your tongue and churns your stomach like spoiled butter.

You are not given the privilege to scream as the rotting door snaps. You stagger back, tripping over your feet and only narrowly missing your head against the corner of your table. Deathly steel is pointed to your throat, your own eyes reflected in the weight of shining violence. The sword does not graze you, boasting powerful control and agile swiftness as it is presented to the lifeline of your vessel. Only the imposing silhouette of the pursuer stood above you. And there, adorned on the very top of his head, sat the heavy shine of jewels and thick wall of golden weave.

The crown of the King - John Price.

✮

[mariamakeslemons]

I found I'm actually enjoying writing in @ghouljams fae!AU. Here's Lilac's first meeting with Price, Keegan, and the Changeling/Ainsley.

Lilac stares in terror at the man, fae, standing in her mentor’s garden. He smiles at her and she chokes, shaking as he takes a purposeful step toward her.

“Calm down, little witch,” he chuckles, dropping his heavy hand on her head, “I don’t eat children.” Lilac squeaks at his rough pats before watching with wide eyes as he walks past her, into Miss Witch’s house.

“Price! Stop scaring Lilac!” Miss Witch scolds, her hands on her hips and a frown on her face. The fae, Price, chuckles and strides up to Miss Witch. Suddenly, Lilac sprints to stand between them, her arms outstretched in an attempt to block him from hurting Miss Witch.

“Y-you can’t h-hurt h-her!” She yells, fighting to keep her fear off her face as she stares up at his blue eyes. Price raises an eyebrow at Lilac’s declaration, tilting his head curiously.

“Oh? Are you going to stop me?” he asks, not mocking, but curious. Lilac freezes, unsure of the correct answer when Miss Witch huffs behind her.

“Price,” she intones. The fae raises his hands in surrender, chuckling as he once again steps around Lilac. The girl spins, terrified for her mentor. She knows Miss Witch is heavily warded, that’s just what generational magic does, but Price feels strong. Maybe even stronger than Miss Witch, although magic does what it does, so she might be stronger?

“Lilac,” Miss Witch calls, pulling Lilac from her panicked thoughts. She’s sitting on the bench while Price still stands, looking over his shoulder in amusement, “Go put the herbs back for me please. Then, you can copy down more of those minor spells.” Lilac hesitates, but ultimately, she nods and scurries back into the house, glancing over her shoulder worriedly to the garden.

Cleaning up the herbs takes a minute of squinting at Miss Witch’s handwriting and comparing it to the notes she’s made on the spare notebook Lilac brought. It takes almost ten minutes, but she’s confident at her accuracy. Another forty minutes is taken up by carefully writing out the most basic of spells in various colored pens. Miss Witch mentioned one of her accomplices likes using multiple colors for notes and wanted to see if it would help Lilac concentrate. It worked and now, her grimoire is currently being cleansed of all the black ink that barely meant anything, and they’re waiting for a proper quill and ink set that will copy the multi-colored system that helps Lilac keep her thoughts in order. Beaming at her steady progress, Lilac stands up from her seat and scurries over to the door to the garden, opening her mouth to ask Miss Witch to look over her work, only to stop.

Price is laying on the bench, his head in Miss Witch’s lap, and a soft look on his face as he stares up at her. Miss Witch is humming a song Lilac swears she knows, her fingers combing through the fae’s hair softly, her expression just as soft.

“Y’know, Soap’ll pout when I tell ‘im how nice you are t’ the little witch. Especially when y’re so mean t’ ‘im,” the fae rumbles. Miss Witch scoffs, going so far to tap his nose as they smile at each other.

“Soap’s a grown fae, Lilac is a child. They are completely different, and you know that,” Miss Witch reminds him with a smile, teasing. Price chuckles, his eyes fluttering closed when Miss Witch bends down enough to press a kiss to his forehead.

“Doesn’t mean ‘e won’t bitch,” the fae reiterates before silence surrounds the couple once again. Lilac can’t help but stare, awe and confusion mixing together.

Witches and fae don’t mix, one of the biggest rules Granny beat into Racheal. No witch worth their salt would ever allow a fae into their home, their sanctuary, willingly. But, here they are, Miss Witch completely at ease while Price does nothing more than tease her. No threats of violence, no attempts at violence. It’s a strange thing to witness, after being told and shown reasons that they can’t interact.

Suddenly, a soft knock on the front door startles Lilac from her staring. She slowly turns to the door, blinking in confusion. She’s been here for a few days already, but Miss Witch always knows when customers are coming. Lilac’s never heard a knock at the door and she doesn’t know what to do. Another knock sounds out, low on the door but insistent. Suddenly, Miss Witch strides past Lilac, a fond smile and shake of her head while Price follows with a frown.

“Hello there,” Miss Witch says upon opening the door, “You really need to stop doing this, sweetie. Your mom is going to be worried.”

“And Russ’s gonna be a pain in the ass,” Price grumbles beside Lilac.

“Russ?” she asks, only to jump and squeak when a little changeling wraps their arms around her legs, looking up at her curiously.

“Who?” the little one asks, their voice taking on Miss Witch’s and Price’s and maybe a few other people. Lilac blinks, before slowly raising her head. Miss Witch winces at the sound of so many voices at once, but she smiles.

“She’s my trainee,” Miss Witch explains patiently, “Her name is Lilac.” The changeling hums and chitters like a chipmunk, a smile crossing their face that make’s their cheeks appear chubbier. Lilac smiles back nervously, only for her nerves to be soothed when the child lets go of her legs to grab her hand. They ramble about decay and how it affects objects differently, from leaves turning from green to black, and a squirrel’s body caved in on itself before some birds got to it. It’s interesting, how passionate the kid is about their topic.

“D-do you want t’ read a b-book?” Lilac asks, smiling when the child looks up at her excitedly. They nod and point at a book Miss Witch had told Lilac was about a dog’s life. Taking the book gently from the shelf, Lilac sits on the ground and jolts in surprise as the child climbs into her lap, forcing her to wrap her arms around the kid and rest her chin on their head to read.

They get through two chapters when a man appears with a dog. Lilac looks up and tightens her hold on the changeling fearfully. He’s a tall fae, one that makes promises and demands rewards. One that can stack any deal in his favor.

“I’d appreciate if you’d let my kid go,” he drawls, the German Shepard beside him giving Lilac a warning growl. Swallowing and shying back, she glances down at the changeling worriedly, unsure as to the older fae’s plan for the little one. The fae’s face shifts, from a fake neutral expression to something softer, almost like comfort.

“I’m not gonna hurt him. I need to take him back to his momma,” the fae explains. The changeling on Lilac’s lap beams up at her and nods. Lilac swallows again, before nodding and releasing her hold. The changeling scrambles over to the man, giggling happily as they’re scooped up.

“Alright, you monster,” the fae teases, “Say bye to your new friend.”

“Bye-bye!” the changeling chirps, birdsong weaving through their voice. Lilac relaxes a bit and waves in return, watching as the fae says something to Miss Witch, only for her to scowl at him and Price to narrow his eyes. Quickly, he, his dog, and the changeling leave the cottage, as if this is a normal occasion.

“Is th-this normal?” Lilac asks.

“About every other week,” Miss Witch sighs, rubbing at her temples, “Keegan is a pain, but he’s fairly harmless. Especially around his kid. Just be careful if you see him on the street without his kid or partner.”

“You have trouble with him?” Price asks her, his head snapping to look at her in concern and an almost righteous fury. Miss Witch waves it away.

“No, more like he enjoys getting a rise out of people,” she explains with a sigh. Lilac swears she hears Price mutter about sounding right, but she’s more concerned with her teacher’s frown.

“U-um,” Lilac stutters, “D-do you want t-to have your t-tea out in th-the garden? I-I-I can make it!” Miss Witch blinks at the offer before smiling, patting Lilac’s head.

“Yes, please,” she agrees, turning to her garden and heading out. Lilac feels warm from Miss Witch’s kindness, unable to help but touch where the woman’s hand had patted.

“You’re a pretty good kid,” Price says, startling Lilac from enjoying her warmth. Looking up, a sudden chill runs down her spine at the cold blue that stares down at her. He leans close and warns with smoke curling from his maw, “Don’t do anything too stupid. You hurt her, you can disappear. Clear?” Lilac nods, mute in terror as examples of her ‘disappearance’ form from his smoke. He leans back and suddenly, he’s Price, the strange fae who likes Miss Witch again. He pats her shoulder and saunters out to the garden.

Lilac fixes up the tea and pours out a mug of wine that Miss Witch does every time she goes into the garden, her mind spinning at the whiplash of this past few hours. Especially Price’s threat. Did she do something to upset him? Did she seem like a threat? Carrying the drinks out, Lilac notices that Price is now on the other side of the gate, almost pouting as Miss Witch scowls at him.

“U-um,” she starts, only to tense when Miss Witch snatches up the mug of wine and slams it on the wall.

“Finish that, then on your way,” she snaps.

“I only did that for your protection,” he says, like a reminder or an explanation.

“Just because it was in good intentions doesn’t excuse you for basically threatening my trainee!” she snaps. Price huffs and takes a long drink from his mug, averting his eyes. Miss Witch sighs and turns to a confused Lilac.

“Sorry about the overprotective idiot,” Miss Witch apologizes.

“O-oh, no! I-i-it’s okay!” Lilac tries to assure her, “I m-must’ve done something wrong! I-I can’t do m-m-much right, s-so it’s fine.” Miss Witch gets that pinched look on her face, the same look she gets when Lilac mentions things Granny yelled at her. From the corner of her eye, Price grimaces, putting down his mug.

“No, little witch. Keegan just riled me up and you were an easy target,” Price explains with a sigh, setting his mug down. Lilac blinks at that declaration while Miss Witch sighs. The woman gently scolds the fae while Lilac mulls his words over. Is she an easy target? She’s never been told that, so she’s not sure. Maybe it’s something that will make sense when she’s older.