“Fuck you,” I snapped.
I’d finish the job myself. The arrogant fucking prick. I let go of his hair, pushing against his shoulders to get him out of my way. I slid my hand over my stomach when he stepped back, slipping it into my shorts as his eyes narrowed. Arching my back, I let him see the moment I touched myself.
“Willow,” he said, and the sound of my name in his voice was different. It was soft, soothing, a comfort when I wanted nothing but anger. He moved forward, grasping my wrist with his hand as I stared up at him.
The moment my eyes met his, I realized my mistake.
His pupils had bled to black, darkness consuming the blue of his stare. “From this moment until I release you, the only way you will be able to orgasm will be with me. My touch. My mouth. My cock. Your own touch will not satisfy you, nor will the touch of any other person. There is only me.”
The words washed over me, cooling my skin as the compulsion sank inside of me. I reached up to touch my mother’s necklace, shaking my head to deny the way the words had penetrated. “I have my amulet—”
“You also have my blood,” he said, stepping back with a smirk. “Even your amulet cannot protect you from me entirely now.”
I swallowed, glaring up at him as he made to leave the bathroom. “Why not just compel me to tell you the truth then?!” I demanded, watching as the black faded from his gaze. I winced as I wrapped my arms around my chest and covered my breasts from the scathing blue of his eyes.
He shrugged, tucking his hands into his pants pockets as he stared at me over his shoulder. “My way is much more fun.”
21
WILLOW
I walked forward, keeping my head bowed as I followed my roommates in a line. They did the same, echoing the respect for the dead as we made our way down the steps to the front entry of Hollow’s Grove. The sun seemed far too bright as we approached the bottom of the stairs, moving toward the six doors that had been thrown wide open to allow us all to funnel onto the front lawn.
The line extended around the corner, curving toward the back of the school. I’d wandered there occasionally after classes when I needed a moment to myself, and I knew that the back of the school was home to the cliffs overlooking the sea. Before we came to that though, the sprawling remnants of what had once been a beautiful, glorious flower garden separated the school from the tiny patch of land designated for burials.
Only the Greens would be buried in the earth, allowing their bodies to rot freely and the land to reclaim what belonged to it. I didn’t know what magic the witch who’d died had called her own, having never had classes with the others of the Thirteen. As a legacy, I’d been strictly kept away from them, despite being brought here as one of them.
I didn’t really belong to the legacies, but neither did I belong to the new students. Crystal Hollow and I had far too much history between us for me to ever be a bright-eyed first year, openly gazing upon the magic I’d been forced to keep secret. I was far too cynical for that, and I knew just how many bones the Coven kept hidden in the closets of Hollow’s Grove.
I followed Della as she walked through the path; the gardens at our sides withered and dying. There was no life to be found here, and I didn’t understand why no one at the school thought that unusual. To be a witch and to take no issue with the world dying around us…
It was unfathomable.
When my magic was fully restored, I’d come and make another offering. I couldn’t so soon, not when I knew the garden would take it all once again. Last time, I’d been stumbling when I got up from the ground after the vines finally released me.
I suspected I wouldn’t get up at all if I tried to restore the garden. The level of starvation that awaited me made me uncertain the plants would be able to stop once they started.
Della joined the circle that surrounded the freshly dug grave, the witches of Hollow’s Grove standing in a single-file barrier between the grave and the rest of the school. The Vessels lingered just beyond, having come to pay their respects to the student taken too soon, but remaining far away enough to allow us to grieve our own.
I searched for Gray without meaning to, my gaze sweeping over the Vessels who all dressed so similarly. Whether it had happened before the extinction of the Hecate line or after, they’d chosen to take the color black as their own. Most wore suits day in and day out, but even those who favored more casual black clothing had dressed up for the occasion.
I found him, my body going still when I found his eyes on me. The rush of heat that filled me was indecent, making me shift on my feet as I remembered the feeling of his mouth on mine, of his hand between my legs. I’d spent most of the night seeking release, desperately trying to find it without him and praying that his compulsion wouldn’t work.
All I’d done was aggravate myself, jumping into a cold shower to try to cool my overheated skin. I’d wanted to throttle him, to tear out his throat for leaving me like that.
Now I just wanted to fuck him, all sense of hatred disappearing from me with just his molten stare on mine. My thighs rubbed together as I shifted again, realizing what I was doing. Seeking pressure, seeking touch.
At a fucking funeral.
I shook my head, snapping myself out of it as my stare settled into a glare. He chuckled, his lips tipping up as he looked away. I let my gaze wander toward the witch to be buried, to the Covenant, who stood beside her. My mouth dropped open at the sight of the casket, of the wooden box that would separate her from the earth that needed her so desperately.
“Why is she in a casket?” I whispered, looking to Della at my side.
She turned her head to look at me slowly, her brow furrowing in confusion as a concerned smile tipped her lips up. “What do you mean, why is she in a casket? What else would she be in?” she asked.
“Greens are meant to be buried in the earth. Not in a box,” I argued, my gaze snapping back to where the Covenant awaited. George found my stare, his jaw clenching as he seemed to realize just how horrified I was.
“Oh, well, she wasn’t a Green. Quincy was a White,” she answered, shrugging as if that explained it. My horror only grew, my eyes flashing to the box that contained a white witch. She should have been laid out upon a bed of sacred stones, allowing them to reabsorb her into the source.
“This is wrong,” I whispered, and I realized that Margot and the others had started looking at me in concern.