Beatrix

“You’re one sick warlock, you know that?” The very real danger of my “gift” actually turned him on.

Maybe that was the curse. It had to be. He couldn’t really be into living that dangerously, could he?

He had dated Carpathia, to be fair.

“Maybe. I’ll be honest, it’s not the curse. I like dangerous witches. In fact, when I was trying to figure out who’d done this to me, I had three possible candidates that were evil enough to have done it.”

He was a gifted warlock, I had to say. My eyes were drawn down to his erection more than his face, which was handsome, but I kept thinking about what that beast could do for me. What I wanted it—no, no. Not wanted. Couldn’t think in those terms. That could made a bad situation even worse.

He was amenable. It seemed like the curse wasn’t really as bad as all that. I’d seen lust spells go horribly, awfully wrong. At Academy, in Safe Hex, they told us all kinds of horror stories about what can happen not only to the victim, but to the caster. Bad stuff.

But we were just sitting here, having a conversation.

Even though he kept looking at my lips and my breasts.

I was impressed that he looked in my eyes at all. Most warlocks didn’t.

Maybe it would all be okay after all?

“Okay, so do you really want to do this thing?”

He motioned down to his dick. “Obviously.”

“No, I mean…” I pointed at his head. “You choose to do this? If you really want to take the Canklecrusher route, I’ll try it. I might die, but I’ll try it.”

“I wouldn’t want you to die. This way seems like much more fun, don’t you think? Unless you changed your mind?”

“I just feel awful that me wanting to get a hold of your wand put you in this position and now I’m getting what I wanted, but…”

“Hey, don’t think for one minute this lust his artificially induced. I mean, the constant boner, yeah. That’s magic. It would have gone to sleep by now and left us alone if I told it no dice.” He shrugged. “But getting you naked would’ve been on my agenda. I’d like to think we’d have had dinner a few times first, gotten to know one another. Maybe some walks in the rain or something, but end result would’ve been the same.”

“Oh, you think?” I didn’t like having all my cards out on the table. It made me feel vulnerable.

Of course, he probably felt really fucking vulnerable. Priapism never ended well for anyone involved. Especially not magical priapism.

“Well, wouldn’t it?” He cocked his head to the side. “Why not be honest? It’s not like either of us have anything to lose here.”

“You’re right.” I nodded. “I’m used to being the outcast. The reject. And you’re… you. You look like you were probably on the broom team, magma swimming…”

He grinned. “I was. National champ on the broom.”

“Yeah, and I was that girl who spent all of her time in the Obscurus section of the library. The only warlocks who asked me out were the monskhooders. I hate the way that stuff smells when you burn it and a getting stoned on that stuff… those guys were the worst.”

“I’m sure you intimidated many lesser warlocks.”

“Intimidated probably isn’t the word we’re looking for, but it’s nice of you to say.”

“I’d like to say I’m not nice, but I am. I like being nice, but I don’t think it’s nice to say things that aren’t true.”

I nodded. “That’s an interesting perspective, because you’re right. Saying something that’s not true really isn’t nice. It leads to false expectations. Why do we equate lying with being nice?”

He shrugged. “No clue, because honesty doesn’t have to be hurtful.”

I liked him. I liked him a lot.

I knew I shouldn’t like him. He wasn’t for me. I might get him for a night, but he didn’t seem interested in a relationship anyway. Or Carpathia said he wasn’t interested in anything too serious.

And everything with me was always much too serious, what with my affliction.

“Okay, so are we doing this thing?” I clapped my hands together.

“Well, yeah. If you want. It’s that or pack up for Canklecrusher.”

“I’d rather just have the sex, thanks.” I nodded. “Okay, before we get started I have some rules.”

He nodded, seemingly unaffected. I’d had other warlocks get upset when I stated my rules for no-strings sex. That was just too bad. A witch, even a witch like me, had to have her boundaries. “Anal and oral are for relationships. This is not a relationship. I am not putting your wand in my mouth and I don’t expect you to put your tongue in my peach.”

“Is it a peach? Because I love peaches.” He licked his lips and a knot of desire tightened in my belly.

“Listen. Remember, oral is for relationships only.”

“What if I just put my tongue in your peach, no return on the wand needed?”

I blushed. “No.”

He sighed. “Fine.”

“I am on a potion, but you still have to wrap it. Or it’s no dice, as you said.”

“We are in agreement on that. Any other rules?”

I liked that he asked. “No.”

“Okay, I have some rules of my own.”

“I’m ready.” I wondered what they could be. I’d covered the basics.

“Tell me what you want. If I’m not hitting the right spot, say something.”

I liked where this was going. “Definitely.”

We sat there, staring at each other for a long moment. I kept waiting for him to tell me something else. Some other rule he had, but we didn’t move, the silence becoming its own entity between us.

“Is that it? No more rules?” I finally said.

“Yeah. I just wanted to have rules, too.” He smirked. “But really.”

“So should we just… you know… start?”

“I think you should come over here.” With a flick of his hand, I was suddenly in his lap and I was experiencing the fallout of my magic much more intimately.

So much more intimately.

“Now what?” I was breathless, every nerve ending on fire. Thankfully, that wasn’t literal this time. It seemed like Peter Johnson extinguished the parts that shouldn’t be burning and lit up all the ones that needed to.

“I haven’t decided. I feel like I’ve been let loose in a candy store.”

“With no cherry candy?”

“Hopefully not, but if so, well… can’t say I’d much care right now.” He leaned closer to my face, his breath ghosting over my lips.

He kissed me.

I felt like I was going to explode. That magic that had bubbled up inside of me when I hurled him rose again.

“Oh no,” I said.

“What, are you going to yark magic again?”

“Maybe.”

He narrowed his eyes. “No, I’ve decided you will not.”

“Yeah, that and a dollar will get you a cup of coffee at Witch’s Britches.”

“I put out the fire in your hair. Your magic will obey this thing between us. It wants to.” He leaned in again and, for one horrible moment, I was sure I was going spew magic all over him again, and to what end, I didn’t know.

But when he brushed his lips over mine, everything was right.

There was no wrong magic, no curse. Only this moment with lips touching, our breath mingled and something wild blooming between us.

I wanted to stay like this forever.

I tried to pull the thought back to myself as soon as it resonated in my brain. I needed to undo it. I knew better than to think in hyperbole. Not actually forever.

I kept waiting for something bad to happen, for us to turn to stone, or for my limbs to get stuck in their current position, but nothing happened.

“What’s wrong?”

“I had a thought. A bad thought.”

“What kind of bad thought?” He pushed his hands through my hair.

I gulped. “One I don’t want to say out loud just in case the powers that be didn’t hear it the first time.”

“Might it have been something about how good this is between us?”

I nodded.

“I see.” He kissed the edge of my mouth.

Was he the key to breaking all my curses? The one on him, and the one on me?

He pulled me closer, adjusted my position so that I was straddling him. “Maybe you have to say it out loud.”

No, I didn’t have to say it out loud. I had to want it. That was it. I just had to want it.

And I wanted him. How crazy was it, I didn’t even really know this warlock, and I wanted him.

Needed him.

Something about him was incredibly familiar.

Hehehe. Familiar. Yeah, okay. Not funny.

“Why are you grinning like that?”

What the hell, right? “I was just thinking how familiar you are to me.”

“You think that’s funny?” He brushed his lips against mine again. “It kind of is. I see what you did there.”

“But don’t you feel it, too? I feel like we’ve done this before.”

“I do, and I feel like if we don’t do it again, I might die. It’s strange, Beatrix. I know that if I kiss you here,” he touched the back of my neck, “it makes you shiver.”

“What else do you know?” I leaned into his touch.

“That this is more than a one-time thing. I think maybe that you are the witch from the memory spell.”

“It sounds like something that I would do. All of it.” Could he really have been mine, once upon a time? What would ever be worth—

Suddenly, I heard an audible snap. It was like some piece of the universe snapping back into place. Cosmic puzzle pieces.

That was my lesson. All of this suffering had been to teach me that nothing was worth losing him. Certainly not some silly sexcapade gone wrong. We were always meant to be together.

This was why Nightshade Primarosa had given me the “gift” of getting everything I wanted. It had been a curse, right up until it wasn’t. It was the only thing that could’ve undone the memory spell.

I’d never have gotten him back if not for the damn thing.

Realization seemed to strike him at the same time it did me.

“Those memory spells are supposed to be unbreakable,” he said, cupping my face.

“At the time, I thought I was grateful for that, but look at what I would’ve missed out on.”

“You know I didn’t care about what happened with the cherry potion, right? I mean, it sucked a lot, but it didn’t change how I felt about you.”

“I didn’t think there was any possible way…”

A voice that sounded like the wrath of the gods rattled us from above. “Oh. My. Goddess. Will you two please get on with it?”

It sounded strangely like my fairy godmother.

“You’ve been cursing my name since you were five and I’m fine to take a curse I earned, but this was all for your own good. For you. I earned none of your ill will or slander. Hurry up and what was it? Bang him like a screen door in hurricane? Ride him like the Kentucky Derby? Get on with it, so you can get your happily ever after. I have slaved too hard and too long to watch it go to shit now.”

“Nightshade?”

“What?” she growled.

“Your fairy godmother is watching us have sex?” Peter asked.

“I’m kinky, so what? Plus, you two owe me. Who do you think was watching over you and nudging you along while you were helping Millie, hmm? You sure didn’t do all of that on your own. You’re a bright guy, but it wasn’t your idea to crawl into Millie’s seat while she was casting. I practically had to put my foot up your spiny little ass.”

“That’s fair.” Peter leaned in to kiss me again.

I held my hand up to stop him. “I don’t know how I feel about you watching, Nightshade.”

“You should be over that. After all, that trip to the magical ER? Everyone and their brother’s cousin saw this guy with his tongue lodged in your womb.”

My face flamed, but to my credit, I did not catch fire again. “Listen…”

“Plus, it’s the only way to break all of the curses.” I heard a munching sound.

“Is she eating popcorn?” Peter asked.

“Caramel corn, thank you very much. Ya’ll don’t know this, but your fairy godmothers are always watching. Always.” She munched some more. “Okay, I was just teasing, but seriously, get on with it. This will conclude our time together and let me just say, it’s been real, it’s been fun, but it hasn’t real fun, if you know what I mean.”

“Always?” I squeaked.

“Goddess! I was teasing. Get. On. With. It. I have a demon waiting for me in Bora Bora with a little drink in a coconut, and I’ve earned it.”

“I think we all have,” I said.

“No more memory spells. No matter what,” Peter said. “Promise me.”

It was a promise that was easy to make. Having him with me now, I’d learned my lesson. Nothing was worth losing him. Not even the kind of humiliation that would be forever whispered about in Safe Hex classes as a cautionary tale.

“I promise.”

“I was just thinking earlier, some day, I’d be telling our children, yes, this is how I met your mother.”

Before I could squeak a protest, he was kissing me again and as my eyes fluttered closed, I realized we’d been transported to the peak of a mountain.

I really had gotten everything I’d ever wanted.

I’d worry about how we were going to get down later.

Except maybe we’d still hold off on the oral. I wasn’t sure, but my birth control potion might have been cherry flavored.