Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He moves in during a February snowstorm, in the middle of the night. The U-Haul's headlights beam through her living room window downstairs, and the sheer curtains do nothing to block it. With a groan, Rey flips over and pulls the duvet over her head to muffle the idling engine. She hates him already.

The next morning, she re-does her wards.

For weeks, there's nothing, and Rey starts to wonder if she imagined the whole thing. No TV winking on, no cars in the driveway. No doors banging or dogs barking. Curtains closed tight.

Then, one Friday, a meeting at work runs late, and she gets home at dusk. Sitting in her car, she watches the end of a large rectangular box being dragged through his front door. It disappears into darkness and the door slams shut, rattling the ornate brass knocker like it's a punctuation mark.

Resisting the urge to keep glancing over her shoulder, Rey opens her garage and grabs the bin of birdseed. Waking up to chirping makes even the darkest winter morning tolerable, and food is scarce for them this time of year. Sterile suburban yards, dotted with nothing but spherical boxwoods and weeping cherry trees, make her even more proud of her own wild oasis. The neighbors whisper, of course, about her disorderly hedges and the animals that scamper through her yard, but some new morsel of gossip always steals their attention soon enough, leaving Rey in peace.

As she refills the feeder, something flicks in one of his windows: the blinds, parted just enough for him to peek through.

In the fading light, Rey gives a sarcastic wave.

It's a full moon, and her turn to host.

Poe is curled up in the slouchy armchair tucked into her reading corner. The arced floor lamp is like a spotlight on him, and the wine in his glass glints as he points to the wall beside him, closest to the neighbor's house.

“Rey, I really think you should be doing more. It's not going to go away on its own.”

They're waiting for moonrise. When they gather at her place, everyone knows what to expect: cheap wine, heaping platters of appetizers, too many candles, and a lot of conversation about the guy next door.

“He's allowed to live there,” Rey says, picking at the fringe of the throw draped over her lap. “And he keeps to himself. I've never even seen him.”

Just his name, on mail accidentally delivered to her house. Benjamin O. Solo. Like a heavy-handed porn name. Once, a few cars had parked at his place for two days. Loud music coming from the basement and some muffled laughter were the only indications that anything was different. When they left, everything went back to normal.

“I wonder how old he is.” Rose balances on a floor pillow Rey made from an intricate, threadbare antique carpet, and pops another onion ring into her mouth.

“Old enough to know to stay away from a witch,” Kaydel says pointedly, thumbing through a book without glancing up.

Jannah is working through a stack of seed catalogs, jewelry clinking as she takes the next one. “He's waiting.”

She has a horrible knack for saying simple, unsettling things that burrow into Rey's mind, resurface at three in the morning, and are almost always true. Not for the first time, Rey wonders if she sees more than she lets on, and hopes she's wrong about this.

“Poe's right,” Finn says. “We should do a banishing. Rey, you know how they can get. When's he even feeding, anyway?”

Finn is stretched out next to her on the sofa, his socked feet tucked under her leg to stay warm. Rey takes a thoughtful sip of wine. It lost its sharp edge after the initial half-glass, and all that's left is the way it makes her shoulders melt.

Of course she knows how they can get. She might know better than anyone.

“He must go out late,” she says. She hates thinking about this part. The logistics. “I'm not going onto someone else's property to cast a banishment unless they're paying me. And if he ever bothers me, you'll all be the first ones to know.”

In her pocket, her phone buzzes.

“Almost time.” Rey silences the alarm and stands. She piles the blanket over Finn's feet to make up for the loss. “I'll come get you when everything's ready.”

There's just enough room on the coffee table for her wine, between the cluster of pillar candles and a bowl of olives.

“Go get some more brie while you're out there,” Poe says, tipping his wineglass at the empty, jam-smeared plate.

“I'm cutting you off.” She indicates the Bagel Bites. “Stuff those in your mouth.”

“They taste like cardboard and ketchup.” He tries to push Rose's hand away, but he's laughing too hard to resist when she taps one on his bottom lip.

Rey's backyard is full of winding gravel paths and hidden nooks, a trickling pond, and a twisted oak tree. A patio and a fire pit. There are practicalities, too: a shed packed with teetering stacks of upturned pots, the pegboard covered in tools; a compost pile that steams on cool days. The small greenhouse where she starts seeds and overwinters delicate things.

The moon peeks out over the eaves as she builds a fire. A bowl of salt sits on the patio nearby and a circle of chairs rings the fire pit. They don't need much to do a lot, but they'll bring more stuff to arrange carefully in the moonlight.

With a flick of her fingers, the tinder sparks into a tiny flame that grows. The kindling catches with a pop and a crackle.

He's a dark silhouette on his back deck, leaning on the railing, all broad shoulders and a glass of something in his hand. Just watching her. He gives a little wave.

Rey keeps her breathing slow, in case he can hear it, and tries not to let fear jump up into her throat. She doesn't wave back and he straightens and—fuck, he's so tall—goes inside, closing the door noiselessly behind him.

And she can't shake the feeling that he might actually be hot.

For a vampire.

Summer isn't her favorite, but it's close.

Long weekend days spent in the garden, trimming and watering. She scatters her house with bouquets of wildflowers and herbs, the kitchen scented with hanging bundles of vervain and lemon balm. Mugwort and henbane and belladonna dry on screens in the office upstairs.

Rey takes a break in the late afternoon. Unfolds a lightweight aluminum-framed lounge chair. The orange and white webbing will leave marks on the backs of her legs, but they'll fade faster than the tan lines she'll get on her arms and neck if she doesn't do this. She wipes the sunscreen off of her palms with a towel and unclips the straps of her bathing suit top, folding them out of the way. And she's settling in with a watermelon rosemary popsicle and a book when she sees movement.

His kitchen window. Behind her sunglasses, she squints.

He's standing there and now she's sure of it—he is undeniably, alarmingly fuckable. Dark hair, dark eyes. Dark, parted lips. Even through the tint of her sunglasses, she knows the drips are crimson. Knows that he's dragging his fingers through it and wiping it off of his chin with the back of his hand. Her stomach churns but she can't look away, even when his arm lowers, slowly, and his hand is out of view and he's definitely pushing into it as he watches her.

Drops from the popsicle, icy and sweet, land on her thumb. She hurries to lick them off before they slide onto her book, and when she glances back at the window, he's gone.

That night, she does a protection ritual, her clawfoot tub filled with rue and salt and lemon peels, the water easing the ache of yardwork.

She also gets off harder than she has in months, and she tells herself it's a coincidence.

It's the kind of fall day that makes Rey wish it lasted all year. Sunshine warms the fluffy soil of her garden, rich with loam and dotted with the first vibrant red maple leaves to flutter from the trees.

She's been battling a tenacious patch of English ivy along the fence line. It's strangling her perennials, crawling along the ground to wrap around berry bushes and tree trunks. She brought the rake and a shovel to lift the knotted web of roots, and she's rotating between the two tools and her gloved hands.

The tip of her shovel blade clanks against a rock. Or at least she thinks it's a rock. It could be a bottle she buried the previous summer—a spell for a client. She turns to switch to the rake so she won't disturb it.

“Hi.”

She nearly jumps out of her skin. He's so close—just on the other side of the low white fence, wearing a black t-shirt. One hand's in his pocket, the other combing through his perfect hair. In the middle of the day.

There are ways, she knows. Things they can wear or eat. She takes it in stride.

“Hello,” she says.

An SUV rolls by, the back adorned with bumper stickers about honors students and lacrosse. The wheels shatter fallen acorns. Purple spikes of monkshood sway in the breeze, brushing over the fence.

He reaches out, skin bare.

“Don't touch those.”

He stops.

“Wolfsbane,” he says. “Aconitum. Devil's helmet.”

Rey nods, mouth dry. Historically, it was worn around the neck to protect against vampires: an unfounded superstition. Obviously. His hands are huge and his fingers gently stroke the rounded blooms. This time, she doesn't stop him. He knows what it is.

“A witch with a garden full of poison.” His voice is soft and deep, so only she can hear. So her secrets are safe.

“Well, I guess if you're already dead...”

He grins. It lights his whole face and it's so disarming that, as he rubs his fingertips carefully over petals like they can feel it, she could almost forget that he's a monster.

She gets the shovel again, her gloves creaking against the wooden handle.

“When did that happen, anyway?” She goes back to digging, avoiding the bottle.

His smile doesn't fall completely, but it leaves his eyes as he lets the monkshood go.

“That's a very personal question. Especially for a stranger.”

She thinks of him, standing on his deck as she ignited a fire. At the window while she read a book in the July sun.

“Neighbors,” she corrects, gesturing to the space between their houses.

The ratty, bleached shirt she's wearing is full of holes along the collar where her washing machine chewed it up. She skipped a bra and maybe it's more obvious than she thought as she digs, chopping up robust roots with the sharpened blade.

“I found your website,” he says.

“Okay.”

Creepy. But probably not difficult to do once he figured out her name.

“I lost something.” His gaze is intense when she looks up and she can't figure out why until, after far too long, he finally blinks and she almost jolts. “I need it back.”

Rey stomps on the shovel, driving it easily into the ground, and dusts the dirt off of her jeans. It's a common request, and on her site's menu of services. In-person, if they're local, or remote.

“Well, then I hope you find it.” She lifts her chin defiantly, daring him to order her around.

And there, for a split second, is the urge. His fingers twitch like he wants to grab her, like he can't even remember how to interact with a human who won't do what he says.

“I'll pay you,” he says.

“How much?”

“Way too much.”

She likes the sound of that.

“That's not a number.”

His eyes flick over to her house. Well maintained. Good location. Unruly garden. Then to her car: five years old, a scuff on the fender.

“Fifty thousand.”

Rey chokes on her tongue. “Dollars?”

“No, denarii.”

She scowls at the sarcasm, trying not to seem too eager. For a simple finding spell, it's utterly outrageous. As for the danger, she can take care of herself.

“I'll need 25% up front, to reserve a time slot and begin preparations. Very busy time of year. I'm sure you can imagine.”

There. That should deter him.

Instead, he nods once like any of this is reasonable and takes a step closer, his shoe almost touching the fence. He leans in, and maybe she's imagining it but it seems like he stares at her lips for a heartbeat before he meets her eyes.

“How do you like it?”

She's going to pass out. Did she touch the monkshood? Maybe its roots brushed her wrist, just above the cuff of a glove. The clouds are spinning.

“What?”

He pulls out his wallet. “Cash? Check?”

It's hard not to notice the thick wad of bills. Rey takes a stumbling step backwards and holds up a hand.

“Fuck, not here. The neighbors already think I'm weird.”

“Ah.” He snaps his wallet shut and slides it into his back pocket. “Good point. But everyone knows Madison's the dealer.”

“Wait.” Rey points to the sprawling brick house on the corner. “Maddie Maddie? Madison with the Labradoodles?”

She already hates how she sounds when she gossips in her side yard. But he nods solemnly.

“Yeah, Rey. Labradoodle Maddie. Those parties aren't all Pampered Chef.”

She crosses her arms over her chest. “You're full of shit.”

“Am not.”

“You are.” The bucket of ripped-up ivy is overflowing and the handle squeaks when she grabs it. “And until I get that money, I'm going to pretend we never had this conversation.”

“Tonight,” he says. “I'll just slip it under your back door, if that's alright with you.”

Her jaw drops.

“Front door?”

She's still gaping at him, heat rising in her cheeks.

“Or...”

“Stop!” she says sharply. “Just... stop. Whatever you're doing, knock it off.”

He's quiet, studying her like she's a new species.

“You can't come onto my property,” she says.

Physically, he can't. Over the months, she's built up so many barriers that it would be like walking into a wall of concrete. It's a habit as she falls asleep: making layers upon layers of them, sometimes tainted by curiosity or attraction, but always walls. But it really sounds like she's forbidding him. And maybe she is.

Something in his expression closes off, shadowed again.

“It'll be on my front porch,” he says tightly. “Under the mat. I appreciate your help.”

And he turns and goes inside.

The next morning is foggy and cool.

Rey doesn't bother with a coat; just jams her feet into her wellies and takes her cup of coffee with her when she steps outside, unable to wait any longer. She laid in bed for hours last night, fingers interlocked so she wouldn't idly feather touches over herself while she remembered the size of his hands and how effortlessly he could have crushed the flowers but only stroked them as he talked to her. The dreams that followed were ominous.

It might all be a trap, of course. To get her close enough to pull her inside for a feed. But, on the sidewalk in front of his house, she squares her shoulders and marches up the flagstone path to the front porch. He would have his work cut out for him if he tried something like that and he knows it.

The steps are solid, and her boots are too loud for her to be stealthy so she doesn't bother, instead letting it be a challenge. The porch is wide and wraps around, intended for long conversations and comfy wicker chairs. It's empty except for a few windblown leaves and the doormat.

The doormat with the bump along the edge.

She flips it back with her toe. The envelope is thick, off-white paper with her name written in the exact middle. It looks like a wedding invitation. Except when she peeks inside, instead of an RSVP card, sheets of vellum and a saccharine poem, there's an inch of hundred-dollar bills, neatly wrapped in a paper sleeve.

She won't count it here. Careful not to spill her coffee, she shakily crams the envelope into her waistband, covers it with her oversized sweatshirt, and walks back to her house like she's done it dozens of times.

It's only when the deadbolt is latched behind her that she takes it out. A small piece of paper flits to the floor.

Thank you.

—Ben

The handwriting makes it look like the fucking Declaration of Independence, and the fact that there's now twelve-and-a-half thousand dollars on her kitchen table makes him thanking her feel almost insulting.

Upstairs, she numbly enters it into her accounting software. The shelves lining the office might be crammed haphazardly with books and amber jars of dried herbs, but at least her computer is always organized.

With a few clicks, she finds the inquiry email he sent in the middle of the night. It's polite but guarded, with his availability but nothing else about what he lost, and Rey lets the automated system spit back a confirmation of payment to him, along with instructions meant to soothe the people who come to her in a panic or as a last resort. It's assurances that she offers a money-back guarantee and will contact them soon for more information. Legal disclaimers, encouragement to ensure their personal safety if the situation calls for it, and links to resources. And her number, for emergencies.

She's never had someone ask for their money back. She has had emergencies.

Usually, clients hear about her from a friend, or a friend of a friend, but she's been getting more traffic from social media lately—people with bigger problems that are farther away and take more concentration. Sometimes she has to travel. What started as a side thing has grown to become her main source of income. Her part-time office job satisfies the suspicious, who would otherwise raise their eyebrows at the young woman who moved into the spooky old guy's house after he died. No listing, no For Sale sign in the yard. Just a stranger who apparently never works and had no idea she was anybody's next of kin until she got the letter from his lawyers.

They think that sometimes wearing a blazer means she's normal, like she hadn't spent weeks cleaning the pollution of her unknown grandfather from the walls and rinsing it down the drain until the house was only hers. But they don't know any of that.

Her phone rings. She recognizes the number from his email.

“I said I'll contact you,” Rey says, by way of greeting.

“I know.”

“This is for emergencies.” She spins in her padded leather desk chair, irritated. But his voice... “Do you have an emergency, Mr. Solo?”

“Yeah. Look out your window.”

She can hear his grin, and she heaves a sigh. After rolling over to the bay window, she snaps the curtain back.

He's in an upstairs bedroom that's blazing with light, wrapped in a blanket. He waves.

“I can't sleep,” he says.

Rey rolls her eyes and lets the curtain fall. But she doesn't close it completely.

“Try turning off the lights and counting all the people you've killed.”

“Did that already.”

She presses her lips together against a smile until she can collect herself.

“This is really unprofessional,” she says. “I'm going to have to re-evaluate the nature of our client-contractor relationship.”

“I wish you would.”

It catches her off guard, and the laugh comes too fast to stop. Rey pulls a sealed jar of mandrake root from the shelf and gives it a shake. The curled corner of the paper label needs to be re-glued. She flicks her nail over it.

“Emergencies are like... if something bodily throws you out of your house and you can't get back in to feed the cats. Or someone hexed you and your entire life is falling apart in one afternoon and you can't wait for your appointment. Not for vampires with insomnia.”

“Even if they just need to hear your voice again?”

She freezes, toes dug into the wool rug. The teasing is gone, replaced with some kind of concealed yearning. Her microphone picks up her breathing, and it's suddenly the loudest thing in the world. She sets the mandrake down on her imposing walnut desk and reaches for a pen. Nervous swirls, pressed hard enough to dent the pad of paper, get the ink flowing.

“I'm available on Thursday night,” she says. Steering the conversation back to business is safe. “7:30. Your place. Please secure any pets and unplug all electronic devices. No recording will be permitted. I will bring a consent form for you to sign, and final payment is expected within a week following our appointment. Any components of ongoing spellwork are to be left untouched for three days, after which you may dispose of the remnants in running natural water or fire unless I give you different instructions. I'll text the day before to remind you.”

“That's perfect.”

He sighs, content, and Rey hangs up before he can say anything else.

Chapter Text

Thursday is rain-soaked and windy.

Rey gets home from work, jangling the keys in her pocket as she walks to her door, inhaling the scent of woodsmoke. He could be watching and she won't give him the satisfaction of catching her doing a single thing differently. Except for the unusual client, this is a routine job.

The shower is hot, and it starts as a quick rinse, but it washes away the stuffy office so well that she's taking her hair down and getting it under the stream, too. Halfway through working her good conditioner through her hair, Rey realizes that this isn't how she gets ready for in-person appointments at all.

It's how she preps for a date.

She tips her head down to watch the water splash over her feet, hair hanging down around her face in scented ropes.

It's business. He didn't stick twelve thousand dollars into an envelope to pay for a date. She's being ridiculous.

But still, she shaves.

There's a bit of a uniform. People expect her to look a certain way, whether they admit it or not, and it's easier for her. Simple makeup that hardly counts—just mascara and some lip balm that's not even tinted because fuck him. Nothing that he might notice and think means something. A tiny silver pendant, this time packed full of poppy seeds for protection, slides along the short chain clasped around her neck. A black turtleneck hides the sparkle of jewelry, the column of her neck, and the lingering summertime freckles on her chest. Hair pulled up into a loose bun. Dark jeans. She laces up her boots, and slips on a polished wood bangle made of hawthorn, from Rose. She adds an open, baggy gray sweater to soften it all and, if she's honest, to put an additional thing between them. Another barrier.

After deliberation, she dabs on a tiny bit of perfume behind her ear. Not the hookup stuff. The calm stuff that covers the smell of her.

By 7:25, she's ready. Ben's response to her reminder text was a thumbs up emoji, and if he were anybody else, she would call Kaydel to ask what it all fucking means. They would go through each interaction; Kaydel would tell her she'll sleep on it, and Rey would wake up to a clear, confident text. Usually insisting that the guy in question is head over heels in love with Rey, that Venus is well positioned for starting something, and that it's been too long since the last one. Rey would remind her that it's only been a few weeks, Kaydel would reply with an eggplant and splashing droplets, and Rey would be forced to admit that she made an excellent point.

But he's not a random guy, and she hasn't told her friends about any of this because she can practically hear their reactions. It's not dishonest; she promised them she'd let them know if he bothered her, which he hasn't. Yet.

She grabs her bag and locks her door before she overthinks what she's doing any more than she already has.

It's only drizzling, but she runs. The humidity will curl the wisps of her hair, but at least she won't look like a shipwrecked sailor seeking shelter, illuminated by his porch light.

She lifts her hand to the doorknocker, to let the weighted brass ring in the lion's mouth strike the plate on the oak door, but Ben's waiting. The knob turns and the door creaks open.

“Five out of five stars.” He waves her into the warm foyer. “Witch was punctual and seasonably dressed.”

“Fuck off.”

“Authentically irritable as well.”

Rey hugs her bag close. The dignified but restrained outside of his white clapboard house didn't prepare her for this, even here in this not-quite room.

It's a touchable museum. A circular, marble-topped table is piled with some of the oldest books she's ever seen. Tapestries cover the walls, muting whatever voices and footsteps the layered Persian rugs don't soak up. Crystal strands drip from the overhead chandelier's curved tendrils. Through a wide doorway, a fireplace crackles in the front room, flanked by two sleek sofas.

“Uh.” She can't remember her usual opening speech.

Ben pats the sides of his legs nervously, looking around the entryway with a critical eye. “Sorry, I know it's a mess.” He lunges to push an umbrella stand out of the way and his light, unbuttoned henley stretches taut across his chest.

Rey chews the inside of her cheek.

“I did all the stuff.” He motions broadly behind him. “No pets. The internet shit is off.”

She nods, loosening her grip on the bag. The contents clink.

“You can leave your shoes on. Do you need me? Or privacy to get set up?” After a confident start, he's floundering and she's enjoying it.

“Doesn't matter.”

“Are you hungry?” He takes a few steps down the hall.

She is, actually. Was too jittery to eat, but now that she's here, it's oddly relaxing.

“Yeah.”

He blows out a breath that puffs his cheeks. “Okay, good.”

Probably just glad for something to do.

After one more glance at the sinuous banister that sweeps up to the second floor, she follows him into the kitchen.

The previous owners updated it before they sold, and Rey almost laughs at the absurdity of someone who drinks blood having a kitchen like this. Even through the rain, the window has a perfect view of her yard and the back half of her house. Her bedroom. The master bath. The guestroom she turned into a home gym.

“Cook a lot?” she asks, turning to him. She manages to avoid bringing up the time she saw him standing exactly where she now is, definitely not cooking.

He nudges the fridge door shut with his hip.

“Every night.”

The kitchen is appointed more like an apothecary than anywhere food is made. Bronze scales that look like Lady Justice should be holding them hang near the sink. A mortar and pestle rest on the marble countertop. A kettle sits on the stove. No coffee maker or knife block. No dangling pots and pans.

“Wait, really?”

“No, Rey. Food fucking tastes like dirt.”

She lets her bag slump onto the stone tiled floor next to the massive kitchen table. There must be knives somewhere, because he's chopping on a cutting board.

“You could cook with blood,” she says.

Exasperated, he lets his head fall back but doesn't turn around. His hair is shiny waves.

“I don't get hungry like that,” he explains, and goes back to chopping.

She knows. It's too sudden for vampires to really plan for, too uncontrollable and overwhelming to funnel into something patient like cooking.

She unzips her bag. Four stakes are tucked into an inside pocket, just in case. Under them is the grimoire she uses for work. She pulls it out and shoves the bag aside. The muscles of his back move as he rocks the knife—and she really has to stop noticing things like that.

“Mind if I get started? I'll have a few questions.”

“Go ahead.”

The chairs at his kitchen table are mismatched and polished with age, and she slides into the high-backed one at the end that seems like an appropriate place from which to leer down at vassals. The grimoire's flexible embossed suede cover slumps open, and she flips to the back pages, left blank for client notes. His section has only his name, address, and a tiny “v” in the corner. Like she could forget.

“When did you first notice the item was missing?”

He swirls the knife in the air like the answer is floating in front of him and he can pin it down with the tip.

“Like two months ago.”

Rey scribbles his response with a cheap ballpoint pen from a local bank branch. She left behind too many nice pens at clients' houses before giving up on the mystical branding in favor of practicality. Plus, they seem to like something mundane in the midst of the strangeness of what she does. They laugh and make all the same jokes, at ease with her normality. But once she begins to really work, the laughing stops and she misses it.

“Did you try retracing your steps?” she asks.

“For fuck's sake.”

Rey clicks the pen a few times. “People are stupid,” she says. “I have to ask.”

He pours pieces of something into a bowl and gives them a shake.

“Yes. And yes.”

“On a scale of one to ten, how strongly would you say you're attached to the item?”

“Ten.” No hesitation.

She hums at that. It's difficult to imagine him being seriously sentimental about anything, but then again, this is the home of someone who knows what he likes.

“How long has the item been in your possession?”

“Pass.”

Rey purses her lips and notes that the client declined to answer. Length of ownership impacts how durable the connection is, and if this is some stupid knick-knack that he bought a week ago and hid to get her over here, she's going to rip every last slate shingle off of his roof and leave the broken mess in his driveway for the neighbors to gawk at.

“Would you be comfortable telling me if it's been at least ten years?”

Ben's carrying a board piled with food and Rey already forgets what she asked because her mouth is watering.

“Uh, yeah.” He sets it down in front of her, just past her book so it's within reach but not impeding. “I'm comfortable saying it's been more than ten years.”

“Thank you.” For the answer, for the food. Both.

Doesn't matter.

It's a spread that genuinely makes her wish he were hosting the next coven party. Bunches of grapes; Marcona almonds, salted and herbed. Figs and slices of what she would swear is dry-cured wild boar. Crumbly cheese and crusty bread.

“And when is the king arriving?” She plucks off a grape and tosses it into her mouth.

“Sorry, I'm all out of frozen pizza and Two-Buck Chuck.”

Rey recoils like she's been scalded.

“How dare you. It's three dollars now.” She taps her pen against the open book, thinking, as he crosses back to the other side of the kitchen. “Have you been going through my bins?”

Ben opens the walk-in pantry-turned-wine cellar.

“Nope. Lucky guess.” He points. “Want some of the stuff I've been saving for too long?”

“No thanks. I'm on the clock.” Nobody has any idea she's here at all, and that's dangerous enough without adding alcohol to the mix. Rey wrenches off a chunk of bread. “And I thought you said it tasted like dirt.”

“Most things do. But some things are way better.” He lets the door swing closed and she won't shiver at the way he says it. “Maybe next time.”

She pinches a fig in half and it's so lusciously ripe that she barely has to tear it. The tiny seeds crunch between her teeth, the flesh honeyed. “Next time you lose something?”

He's getting closer, prowling. When he's right there, his height seems completely unnecessary. He braces a hand against the table.

“No, you should just come over.”

The liquefying heat she's been trying to ignore all night settles low in her hips. He's making it harder than it needs to be.

“Should I?”

He's moving in, just a little, and she has so much room to pull back. But she doesn't. Because the closer she gets to him, the better it feels.

“Yeah,” he says, “but maybe leave the stakes at home.”

She swallows noisily. Sweat sticks her too-tight shirt to her skin and the extra layer was a huge mistake.

“I saw them, Rey. You think you're the first one to try it?”

By all accounts, they should have been at each other’s throats, teeth bared and claws out, the moment he moved in. That things have been so peaceful—tense, yes, but peaceful—is unheard of. It's an unspoken truce that she just broke by bringing some of the only things that can destroy him into his house.

Rey clears her throat so her words will sound as honest as they are.

“I thought I'd be scared.”

He ducks his head down and lets his eyes bore into hers.

“Are you?”

She could take stock of her body, of her racing heart and her toes clenched in her boots, but her mouth moves the fastest.

“Not like I should be.”

Up close, his irises are shot through with milk chocolate and gold and, unbidden, Rey wonders what he tastes like. He shouldn't be able to affect her like this.

He's satisfied with her answer—or at least it makes sense—because the chair next to her scrapes across the floor and he sits down.

“Why did you come here?” It's calmer, less corrosive. “You didn't have to. You could have skipped the hawthorn and stayed over there.”

She doesn't ask how he knows. He can't touch her while she's wearing it.

“I have so many protections up, I don't think a spell would work here.”

It's all unsaid: that she won't let her guard down just because of this. That she didn't try to cast from a distance because she's never worked with a vampire before, because that's not what witches do. But the real reason she's here is simple.

She's curious.

And she has to regain control of the situation.

“I need you to sign this.” She pushes a sheaf of stapled papers over to him and sets the pen down on it like it all might blow away, before taking a handful of almonds and settling back into her chair.

Ben either glances over it or is so fast at reading that it just appears that way.

“Confidential?” He flicks the pen against his thumb.

“Don't tell people what I did, and I'll return the favor.”

The look he gives her is slow and slithering, like she's something he wants to add to one of his collections, and this time she does shiver. Just a little.

“Oh, yeah?” he asks. And like nothing happened, he's going over the form again.

She matches his casualness and tries a slice of meat wrapped around a piece of cheese before immediately making another one. He's flipping back and forth between the pages, and she acknowledges that contracts are more serious when you won't die for the remotely foreseeable future.

“Body fluids? Rey, what the fuck kind of consent form is this?”

She waves a piece of bread at him dismissively. “Sometimes a spell needs saliva, urine, or blood. Stuff like that. More rarely semen, for fertility work. I'm sure you know all of this. I'm Bloodborne Pathogen certified.”

He watches her bite into the bread. “I don't think you're charging enough.”

She shrugs. It's not really about that.

“I like helping people,” she counters.

Shaking his head, he signs and dates the final page. It's an effortless, smooth movement, full of loops that dissolve into flourishes, and the muscle memory of it is beautiful. He pushes the papers back over to her and the first part of the ritual is complete.

“Are we doing it here or should we go somewhere else? Should I leave?”

Don't leave. We're doing it right here. She imagines him bending her over the table, wrists bound behind her, jeans around her knees...

“Here is good to start,” she says, focusing. She's supposed to be immune. "Please stay in the kitchen.”

Finding lost items requires motion, but she always begins in a lived-in room, where invisible wires weave through the space, the ghosts of thoughts and forgetfulness. She moves her book out of the way as he takes the empty serving board to the sink to wash it.

This part is second nature to her, and whatever oddness is happening between them, she knows spellwork.

She drapes a midnight blue cloth over the end of the table, and sets out small vials of oils, a pendulum, a neat line of crystals. A scrying mirror, unwrapped from its protective case. Dowsing rods. A deck of tarot cards, edges fuzzed from years of use. Two candles, lit simultaneously. Under the table, she slips the bracelet from her wrist and tucks it into her bag. He doesn't notice. Her necklace will still offer some defense, but she'll be able to touch him—a necessity for the spell, considering the complex situation.

When he returns and takes a seat, she's set up, already calibrating the pendulum. The tapered copper weight gleams as it swings, the chain threaded through her fingers.

“You can cut the bullshit,” he says.

She lets the pendulum slip from her hand and thump against the table.

“It's not bullshit. My coven—”

“Is basically a book club with less booze.”

Rey bristles. She didn't come here for a lecture.

“I need these things,” she says, anger rinsing through her limbs.

“No, you don't. You're the real deal. I've only met a few in...” He stops. “A long time.”

What she hates most is that he's right. She's spent a lot of time chalking it up to a personal preference for simplicity, of the power of a group to explain her friends' surprise and delight when things she thinks are normal happen. A while ago, she learned to hide it, even from them, and to rely on the slipperiness of words to cloud metaphor and truth. They are witches, too. Just a different kind. And she's on her own again.

She pushes the old, overchewed sadness down, and methodically starts putting things back into her bag. Rolls up the vials in a scrap of canvas, its comforting, spicy scent an accumulation of errant smears from closed, oily lids. She drops the pendulum into its drawstring bag. Even moves the candles out of the way so she can fold up the blue cloth underneath it all, revealing the use-marred table surface once more. A slow tap of her fingertips, kept low beside the seat of her chair, dims the overhead lighting. All that remains are the candles and the obsidian scrying mirror. It feels better, less congested.

She licks her thumb and forefinger, and pinches out a candle; she only needs one and the unsteady flame positioned between them made his eyes too distracting. A single white thread of smoke drifts up to the ceiling and she studies it so she won't have to sense the way he's about to say something.

“Who were your parents?”

“Don't talk about them.” She feels her nose scrunch into a snarl at the sudden pinpoint pain. They're dead and gone, but he's already guessed that.

“It's hereditary. You got it from one of them.” He cocks his head to one side, remembering. “Or maybe a grandparent. It can skip a generation in the older lineages. Is that who had the house?”

In another room, a light bulb shatters with a tinkling pop.

“I said stop it.” She hasn't lost control in a while and she doesn't like it.

But she does like the fear that flashes across his face before he forces it into a more neutral expression.

He doesn't apologize for pushing her. Just gets up, pours a glass of water, and sets it on the table close to her like an offering before he sits back down.

Rey ignores it. The sooner she finds whatever he lost, the sooner she can leave and go back to craving him through their windows, where it's safer.

“What's missing?” she asks. The words are crisp. They've danced around this long enough.

“A ring.” She waits for more, to explain the exorbitant amount he's paying her. “Family heirloom,” he says simply.

The information has potential.

“Real family or...?” Sometimes vampires use the word loosely, twisting it into a sad, debauched imitation of intimacy. Not the truth of a found family, but something sinister.

He meets her eyes, and she regrets the blunt question because there's an ocean of loss so deep that she can't find the bottom. Just some grasping current of humanity that he tries to hold on to, even though he doesn't know why.

“My mother's.” And the gentleness in the words leaves her with no doubt.

She's not sure what makes her do it. Maybe it's that he keeps memories tucked close, like she does. Or his lifetimes of isolation, some of it out of his power but plenty of it self imposed. His discomfort with himself. She feels it all, like it's hers, and it's so strong that she can't get her guard up in time.

It might even just be that the bracelet is off and she can.

She reaches out and takes his hand. It's cold but she doesn't mind, and he engulfs her.

“I'll find it,” she promises.

The answer is a little squeeze. Things are moving fast—she's skipping steps, but they're so far into uncharted territory that she might as well wander deeper. And touching him, after months of thinking about it, makes the wicked urge in her hips come roaring back. Her skin cools against his, but she holds on, ready for what's next.

The scrying mirror's surface is glossy, allowing ever-shifting images to float past, and when her eyes slide out of focus, she can gaze through it to a nocturnal pool filled with writhing, unearthly things. There's always what she wants to see, first. This time, it's relentless thrusts, her nails digging into his back to leave ferocious marks, the unclean sound of him coming. Biting and sucking, leaking out of her—

“What do you see?”

“Shhh.” But her eyelids are heavy and her lips are wet from her weakness, and he can probably tell.

Moments tick by, rain pattering against the window, until what she needs rises to the top. But something's wrong.

The picture that should be the house collapsing around her to reveal a single location isn't forming, and the sensation of being where the object is doesn't happen. Instead, it's diversions and side streets, pricked veins and a woman doing laundry right now. The sound of someone crying and a feeling of standing in ankle deep water, decomposing plants wrapping around her feet.

When she looks up, a phantom ribbon, flat and red, unfurls across the floor's tiles and disappears through a gap beneath a door. It leads down.

Rey lets go of his hand. Dread wells up in her, but she has to ask.

“What's in the basement?”

He slides the etched glass of water over the tabletop, back and forth, buying time; swipes through the condensation on the side and inspects his fingers. He's avoiding her eyes.

“Just some freezers.”

Rey thinks she might be sick. Her body screams at her to run. To kick open the nearest door and bolt into the night like a startled horse. Time seems to slow and she could never outrun him or get the bracelet back on fast enough.

“What's in the freezers, Ben?”

“Blood.” He pushes the glass over to her again. “Only blood.”

She wants to believe him.

“Human?” It could be interfering with her read, pulling cords where there aren't really any.

“Yes. From a blood bank.”

“And you drank it recently?”

He checks his watch.

“Two hours ago.”

That's what it is: confusing the blood in his stomach for the blood in his veins. The solution is something she hoped to avoid.

She rummages in her bag and takes out a small, dented tin bowl with a wide brim. She places it on the table in front of him and rests a razor-sharp sterling silver pen knife next to it. The low light sets off the luster of the mother-of-pearl handle.

“I'll need your blood,” she says plainly.

“I'd rather not.” He's cautious, and Rey understands.

“I don't know any other way,” she says. “Three drops. That's all. Right into the bowl.” The money he's paying her pales in comparison to what she could get for just that tiny amount. She'd never have to work another day in her life if she found the right buyer in a clandestine alleyway of the internet. But he would be traceable, tethered to someone unknown.

“I'm going to burn it immediately,” she adds. “I won't be alone with it.”

Long moments pass, and she takes a sip of water to fill the time. She sheds her sweater and squishes it into her bag.

Finally, Ben starts to roll up his sleeve.

“You've done your research,” he says.

Maybe he's seen her hunched over the leather-bound treatises and bundles of stained parchment that came with the house, found stuffed behind bookshelves. A few were kept in a cast iron safe with no key and no combination, and it took her a month before she stopped calling locksmiths and admitted that the only person meant to open it was her. Inside was a barbarous history of what she is—read once, but it hibernates in her.

“Due diligence,” she says, staring at the scattering of hair on his forearm.

Only Ben can cut his own skin for blood. She can drive a stake through his heart or set him on fire or any number of horrible things. But she can never get to his blood. It can't be taken from him, at least at first: only given.

With his arm held over the bowl, he nicks himself, wincing a little at the singe of silver. He flexes his hand, then makes a fist to pump it out. With no heartbeat, his blood flows sluggishly.

The first drop clings to his skin, reluctant to leave him, then falls.

His blood is black. She knows that if she looks at it under a microscope, it will be still and dead. And a miracle. Able to cure anything, to stretch out the happy years of a life as long as the supply continues. And if he completely drains the drinker of their blood—even if they've only had the tiniest taste of his—they'll become like him.

And none of that comes close to what a witch could do with it. She could raze cities. In the two onyx drops there are entire armies, shambling and unthinking until she gives the order. She could pull whole forests from dusty seeds to coat continents again, fill the seas with forgotten animals. Bring back her parents.

It's why their kinds stay so far apart. Her blood would make him indestructible; his would make her unstoppable. The risk—of being captured and greedily harvested, of starting something they can't stop—is too great.

And now, looking at it, she wonders if she hasn't made a mistake. Reading about it was safe. In person, it's right there.

He's watching her, not the drips.

“Please don't make this weird,” he says.

“I won't.” But he's shaking off the third drop and, more than anything, she wants to lick it. The wound is already closing, but she would give all the money back just to press a kiss to his arm.

Instead, Rey snatches the bowl by the rim before she can do something truly unwise, and holds it over the candle flame. The blood instantly sizzles and sputters, sending up gray smoke. She swirls and tips until there is nothing left but wisps.

One big breath in and she holds it, eyes closing. The hint of corruption is expected, but it fades almost immediately into a blissful, consuming potency. An unavoidable side effect, and she's only getting the minutest bit. Pushing it aside, she searches for him in the mist, foraging, her elbows propped on the table and her head in her hands as she concentrates.

There—all of him is in his blood. The taste of his kiss, the rush of his fingers. Half dead and born twice, forever ago, waking up to stone walls and guttering torches. She catches the trail and leaps up. This won't last long, but it's a scent she can follow through the house if she's quick. It's faded—she wishes he had asked her sooner—but still there. He's a shadow at her heels as she tears from the kitchen, skirts the entry table, and bounds up the stairs two at a time. It's above them, she's sure of it.

Rey skids to a halt in the hallway. The doors are all shut and the smell is dissipating even as she gets closer.

“Attic?”

He points to a door at the end of the hall. It has a latch instead of a doorknob; the unlit stairs beyond are narrow and steep, but she doesn't slow.

The attic is as packed as she feared. A single bulb hangs in the center of the space, and four dormer windows let in the post-rain glow of streetlights. Wooden crates, outlines of furniture draped with sheets, burlap sacks, barrels. Paintings in gilded frames crammed between the rafters. A suit of armor that nearly gives her a heart attack when she turns a corner.

The scent is almost gone, just a dusk of connection that draws her to an alcove. Wedged between two crates, she drops to her knees and reaches into a cobweb-filled gap between the floor and the exterior wall. In a tuft of insulation flecked with chips of plaster, so close to out of reach that her stomach flips, she feels it.

It's unassuming: a smooth gold band and an embedded sapphire cabochon. She knows just enough about historical jewelry to understand that she is holding something hundreds of years old. Hundreds. It makes goosebumps prickle along her arms as she gets to her feet.

“Ben—”

He's there in an instant, transfixed by what she's holding up between her shaky fingers.

He catches her face between his hands.

“God, I could kiss you right now.” He doesn't realize he's said it for a few seconds, and he spends them smiling at her. Maybe it's her surprised expression, or the way she then stares at his lips to search for a glimpse of his fangs and wondering if he can even do that, but he lets her go abruptly.

“Where the fuck was it?” He checks the ring when she drops it into his hand. “I tore this place apart.”

She shows him the crevice. “It must have rolled.”

The ring goes into a velvet bag that he stuffs into the bottom of his pocket, and Rey is doing anything to avoid replaying what he said. It sounded so good and she wishes he hadn't stopped touching her.

He gives his pocket a final pat. “Okay, no more wearing that while I spy on the hot neighbor instead of organizing my shit.”

This is uneven ground: alone with no excuses, her task complete. She should leave, but he looks like somewhere she could thaw, just for a while. Dust clings to an alabaster bust beside her; she traces the aquiline nose and blows her finger in his direction to send motes flying. “Isn't Mr. Miller a little young for you?”

“Everyone's too young for me, Rey. I don't even notice his walker anymore.” He grins at her loud laugh.

He turns suddenly to a small window, just above the floor in a side dormer. It's less of the nervousness he had when she arrived and more like he has an idea.

“Hey, want to see something? There's a great view from up here if it's clear enough.”

His huge frame folds up to sit on the unfinished wood floor, legs crossed, and he beckons to her to join him in the tight space. It's not as graceful when she does it, and she has to squeeze in front of him to search for what he's talking about. Her unremarkable driveway, and the sparse top of her oak tree. And, in the distance, the glittering city. Cars streaking along on far-off highways, split into parallel red and white lines. Ships on the nighttime river, just blocky shapes and blinking lights.

“I'm sure you've had better views than this,” she says.

“Yeah, but the company wasn't as good.”

It's bait and she won't take it, instead leaving it to dangle in the air. Rey lets her mind drift from the cities he might have seen to the way he always stays in the unnatural outskirts of death. The normal transitions—between living and not—are well-worn paths, but he's stuck in the brambles. Maybe it was his choice; maybe it wasn't. But still, he stays. And when she thinks of all the learnable things and visitable places, it's hard to really blame him.

They soak in the silence until she can't ignore how close she is to him, knowing that her perfume has lost its throw and her pumping blood is just below her vulnerable skin. He hasn't fed in hours, and she has no idea how long he goes between.

“So you watch me from up here, too?”

“Sometimes.” Behind her, his voice is a rumble.

More questions that she could ask, but won't—if he jerks off here too, if he wants to bite her, if he dreams of her the way she does him. If he thinks they should stop.

“And what do you see?”

He rubs his knuckles over her knee. “I can see when you go to meet someone and don't come back until early the next morning wearing the same thing.”

He waits for her. Counting her time away when she leaves for a date. Her back straightens.

“People I'm talking to. Absolutely none of your business.”

“I know it's not. I just notice.” He holds his fingertips beneath her nose, to feel the gust of her breath. His skin smells like frozen stone. “I like it.”

Her tongue is thick in her mouth, but she gets the words out. “You do?”

He presses two of his fingers to her lower back, and trails up along her spine with agonizing slowness while he speaks. “Yeah. Do you ever think about me when you're with them?” He grazes over the bump of her bra strap and she feels it everywhere.

“Sometimes.” Rey asks them to wrap their arms around her, to suck and bite, and loves it when they take her from behind so she can pretend.

He swirls his fingers over the back of her neck, shielded from her silver necklace by the high neckline.

“And when you're by yourself?” Ben asks like he already knows the answer.

“Always.” It's barely more than a whisper and he pushes up into the hair at her nape. A few minutes ago, she would've sworn that seduction was an overused cliché, an outdated word for wanting to fuck someone. But this feels different, like he's conjuring something in all of the shrinking spaces between them.

“One time on your bed, you forgot to close the curtains.” He's rocking her head, lulling. She can tell him anything—how he ignites and lures and she needs him to catch her.

“I didn't forget.”

His mouth is at her shoulder, just lips through the thin, stretchy fabric.

“Fuck, what are you doing to me?” Quiet, almost to himself, and his words are a winter wind.

Rey tips her head back and turns to him.

“If you still want to kiss me, I'd like that.”

And he does, fingers sweeping over her jaw right before his lips press to hers. For a fraction of a second, it's unheated and chaste but then Rey parts her lips and he tastes precisely how she thought he would: clear water and a suggestion of salt. Instead of the adjustments of head angles and unsynchronized speeds that come with kissing someone new for the first time, he flows around her. There are no squished noses or clicking teeth—just his surrounding and leashed hunger. He groans into her mouth.

His hands are strong and he drags her down to the floor with him, like all he's ever wanted is to lie down with her and he doesn't care where they are. He slides his tongue against hers, tangles their legs, wrapping and binding. Stretching her along the length of him, twisting and pushing until she's gasping beneath him. She thinks of the unkillable ivy along her fence and wants to let it take over.

Rey grabs at the hem of his shirt, needing to see more of him in the dimness and to feel broader expanses. He slips out of it and tosses it aside. Without waiting for him to really finish, she's letting her hands race over him—his arms and back, chest and shoulders, hard with muscle. Down, past the furrows of his abdomen, she strokes the stiff heaviness of him through his jeans, making him buck into her hand.

“Oh, shit. That's...” Almost too big, but she likes that. Wished for it, actually. She fumbles with his zipper until he pulls away with a grounding touch on her thigh.

“You first. Just let me.”

Probably for the best, because she's on the brink of clawing her way on top of him and letting months of frustration steer her. To retaliate for the way he showed up and derailed her life, all while staying just out of reach.

“Okay,” she says.

With sweeping, mapping hands, he moves down her legs to unlace her boots. She pulls at her waistband to seat the denim seam against her clit and get friction because this has been going on for so long, and he's slowing it down here, at the verge. She wants to cry by the time he thumbs open the button of her jeans and starts to tug them down, planting kisses as he goes. Never where she needs it. She contorts into his touch, trying to brush against him, to get what's under the lace-edged black fabric of her underwear closer to him.

A white sheet covers a nearby chair, and he pulls it off and shakes it before he spreads it out on the floor.

And it's to sop her up. To absorb the way he's going to make her let go in his cluttered attic like it's the only place they could find, like there aren't beds and carpets and sofas they could ruin. Because they're here and it's bottled lightning, too risky to stop because if they lose it, they'll never get it back.

He settles between her legs and presses the flat of his fingers to her, touching the heat through her underwear. It's uncomplicated but vital, and if he doesn't make her come soon, she's going to kill him. He follows the hidden grooves of her and rolls his finger around her clit, watching how she catches her lip between her teeth and moans at the blunted caress. She's already so wet and when he dips his head down to brush his lips over her through the barrier, Rey fists her hands in his hair, to keep his whole mouth on her, and tilts into the pressure. And maybe she's a little too rough, bordering on brutal when she grinds into his face, but he takes a deep, scenting breath and reaches down so he can grip his cock.

His mouth soaks the lace edge and he tongues past the gusset. Something snags on the intricate floral pattern, and it takes her a moment to figure out that it's his fangs, terrifyingly close. Ben pushes the fabric to the side and his lips meet her naked skin, and she breathes in disbelieving huffs. Because how is any of this happening? He's careful when he should be bathing in her, restrained when he should be taking, insatiable.

“Bite me.” She means it. He's definitely going to make her come, so it won't matter that he'll be impossible to kill or control until she's out of his system. Rey knows exactly what she's offering.

He strokes her inner thigh, and talks against her. “Want me to bite you here so no one'll know?”

She's an apostate already, and he's a secret—the evidence concealed from everyone.

“Yes, there. Do it.”

“Not yet.” Slurping, kissing. “I just want to think about you in the sun.” Suction on her clit, tongue scooping and flicking with his nose buried, he's gorging on her, like her body can feed him without blood.

And then, his fingers rub and ease into her, a filling that makes her pump her hips to hurry him. And he hooks and lifts, his shoulders tensing with the work and she is shaky on the brink.

The attic is full of her filthy wet sounds, and she covers her mouth to muffle the shouts she knows are coming.

“You can get loud. Nobody here but us.” No one can hear what he does to her. “Or I could open the window. Let them listen.”

His words bring her higher and his hand is unrelenting, hitting it hard so it builds and builds and she's arching her back against the sheet and kicking. If she could rip apart, she would.

“Come on, get it on me.” His fingers are saturated, but he wants more.

He licks to find the pulse of her, and, as she comes, he bites. Searing, stinging pain pitches her moans sharper, but doesn't stop the momentum. She kicks harder, lurching up into his mouth and hand. Into the warm flood.

As she floats back down, he keeps drinking and she wonders if he can taste the bliss in her blood. Rey plays with his hair as the sucking slows to quiet licking and eventually stills with a groan, his head resting on her thigh.

When Ben looks up at her, his pupils are blown wide.

“There's not a thing on earth like that. You have no fucking idea.”

The temptation and euphoria of his blood, just the smoke of it, is already a delectable memory.

“I might.”

He rubs his face in her. “God, fuck me. Please.”

She'll do anything to hear him beg like that again. She grips his arms, traces his wet fingers. They got here, to this, in a fervid rush, and in the growing list of startling revelations, the naturalness of it is close to the top. Right next to how much she wants to wake up beside him and do it again.

“Yes,” she says.

He yanks off his jeans while she shrugs out of her shirt and bra, and peels off her underwear. The pendant bumps against her neck as she moves, and it's with a mortal thrill that she realizes it's useless now. Nothing can protect her, but she has to feel him in her, already drawn out and used. He's between her legs again, where he belongs, and he runs the head of his cock over her, pressing and nudging and she's been so ready for so long but it's still something to ease in.

“Please take it.” He's watching every tiny thing flickering across her face. “Just for me.”

Rey nods, and he's pushing, sliding and stretching and cool. Her eyes are fixed on the slanted ceiling above her, but she's not seeing it. Not really. There's only the way she underestimated him.

“Fuck.” She exhales it and now she's the one begging. She needs too much.

His composure is gone, replaced with the ferocious greed she expected from the start; he sits back and scoops her hips up to fuck himself with her, to watch where he's finally coating his cock with her wetness. The sheet on the floor is bunched and damp when he drops her back down to bury himself in her, and she wants to soak the rest of it. Her garden is under her nails as she scratches and scrapes his back as hard as she can. But he's unconquerable now that he's had her and she can't break his skin with anything. He melds their bodies, makes them one moving thing that won't stop until the world burns down.

“Do they fuck you like this?” It's a hitched question in her ear, his pace unfaltering.

“No.” She's never going back; she's already made up her mind. She's had good—incredible, even—but there's nothing for her after this. “I can't remember them.”

“Say it again,” he growls. He presses his palm down hard on her chest, holding her still while he fucks her harder, the force of it curling her body into him.

“I don't—” She gasps, unable to get it out between his driving thrusts. She tries again. “I don't remember them.”

And there's the lethality, the terrifying strength of him, but he's using it all to stay inside of her.

“I want to hurt you,” he groans against her shoulder, his thrusts slowing but getting deeper. He wants to leave her sore, she realizes, dappled with bruises and covered in bite marks. Her lips puffy from sucking his cock, her hair tangled from rough pulling.

“I know. Next time.” She wants to hurt him, too. Tied up on his bed, writhing into the next drips of wax that she tips out over his creamy skin, letting him ache and starve for her. She wants to pin him down and keep his throat on the other side of a pressed blade, holding his fangs away from her as she rides him.

He flips her easily, getting underneath to thrust up into her. To cram her down onto his cock while he cleans the last drops of her blood from the corners of his mouth. To watch her breasts bounce.

“You're going to make me come in a witch?” The disgust and desperation in his voice is like a flame lapping through her. His eyes are black. “Fuck, you're going to ruin me. Aren't you?”

They're defiling each other, wrecking some millennia-old injunction and getting off on it. He's delving, keeping her on the edge while he grips her ass and gets close. And, full of her blood, he still looks hungry. Like he's already missing her.

“Do you want more?” She folds herself over him, bringing her neck close. She wants to see the marks and know he had her here, too, because she can't hide what he's done to her. “Have it.”

He doesn't lick first, or tease. He grabs her hard and locks his arms around her and bites, right at the silver chain that can't stop him now. His body lurches into her while he drinks, mouth full as he groans, straining while he pulses and roughly empties.

She's so close, and the slippery way he's still fucking her with it while he licks off her neck is only making the orgasm build faster. She sits up to snap her hips hard into him, ignoring the crush of her knees on the floor, grinding her clit into the pool that collects on him where it's dripping out of her.

“Keep going, keep going,” he says. “Come with it in you.”

It should be revolting that she's full of his come. There are old stories of how it can burn and poison witches, destroying their powers and leaving them defenseless, easy targets for hunters. Just stories to scare the curious, meant to stop the eventual, inevitable desecration. Because here she is—a traitor for breaking apart on him, but it feels like growing roots.

“Fuck—”

“Shit, you're going to make me come again.” He sounds surprised, like it's being forced out of him.

This time, he's helpless—wrung out while she takes it with tight-gripping waves. She uses him mercilessly, all heaving prey and ensnared predator and she can't remember which one's which, or if it ever really mattered.

When it's over, she lies on his chest and tries to catch her breath, in the clarity of what they've done. Ben lets his arms drop to the floor beside him in a loose surrender.

“Can't believe I ever thought I shouldn't do that,” he says.

“Same.” She pushes up to straighten and wipes her hand over where he bit her neck. It comes back barely smudged. “You're a neat eater, too.”

“Thanks.” His tired smile has a little pride in it and she wants to kiss him again, but maybe that's too much.

“Does my blood taste different?”

“Yeah, it's—” He cuts the answer off, eyebrows knitting like he's trying to get the right word. Rey runs her finger along his cheek to feel the barest prickle of stubble, and he gives up, lost in her eyes.

They're too close to something, with her straddling him and him looking up at her like that, so Rey gets unsteadily to her feet, knees wobbly. The sheet only has a few drops of blood, diluted by her wetness, and she wipes herself off with a dry edge. She's suddenly freezing as she gathers her clothes and gets dressed.

Ben's pulling on his jeans. “Let's go warm you up.”

Rey thinks of the crackling fireplace downstairs, and of a cup of tea or something stronger. “I'd like that.”

He leads her through the house, and it's amazing how much she missed when she was dashing up to the attic. The deep mossy green paint in the hallway reminds her of a forest after a thunderstorm. The gold frame of the convex mirror in the foyer has carved scales, and it's only when she looks closer that she sees entwined sea serpents, matching candlesticks clamped in their jaws.

In the front room, the fire is smoldering embers, so Ben adds a log and prods it with a poker until it starts to smoke and catch. He experimentally sweeps his fingers through the benign flames, mesmerized.

“How long will it last?” Rey asks as he tries to scoop the fire.

“Sunset tomorrow.”

“Got any plans for it?”

“Probably eat everything I can find because I'll be able to taste it.”

She tries to act like she knew about that, and stops herself from fantasizing about taking him into the city for a slow, indulgent breakfast at her favorite place, just to memorize his reactions.

“And I was going to sleep on my deck naked all day,” he adds.

“Call me first so I can watch.” Actually, she just wants him to call her. About anything. Something's clenching in her belly, like she's running out of time with him and she wants to hold on. Rey nods at the pile of lightbulb shards beneath a lamp in the corner of the room. “Sorry about that.”

“My fault anyway. It's fine.” He pauses. “Do you work tomorrow?”

“No.”

“Want that wine?”

She relaxes.

“Only if you don't tell me anything about it. I don't want to know how old it is or how much it costs or what vineyard it's from. I don't care.”

He grins, eyes glinting. “Deal.”

While he's in the kitchen, Rey wanders around the room. She imagines cracking open the glass and carefully unpinning the mounted moth specimens to let them flutter away. A mid-game chess board rests beside an open book on the low coffee table, like an afterthought for between chapters. A tall shelf holds a sextant and an early microscope, bookends for the less packed rows.

One painting in particular catches her eye and she goes over to it, drawn in.

Hedges cross rolling hills. Cut hay dries beneath the sun and the clouds are billowing fluff. Dots of faraway sheep make the horizon stretch deep beyond the canvas while the pointed arches of a ruined abbey catch the light. It's familiar, like an impossible memory.

Ben returns, chewing something, and silently hands her a glass of chestnut-colored liquid.

“I've seen this place before.” Her voice sounds miles away. “Or been there.”

“You haven't. It's been paved and developed since the seventies. And that's an original.”

He's wrong; he has to be. Maybe it was in a book.

“Who's the artist?”

“It's not signed.” He takes a long drink of wine in response to her closer inspection of the raised dabs of paint. “No date. I've been meaning to swap it out for something better. I just needed to fill the wall when I moved in.”

Rey feels a late summer afternoon when she looks at it. “Your choice, I guess.”

After tearing her eyes away, she gives her glass a swirl and takes a sniff. “Is this really wine?”

“Fortified wine, so go slow. But yes.”

It's delicious: caramel, rich and sweet. Velvety in her mouth.

“It's good. Thanks.”

“Any time.”

She almost asks what it is before she remembers what she said about not wanting to know, and instead makes her way to the closest sofa. It's deceptively comfortable, considering the simple lines, and he joins her, leaving space between them. It's so oddly domestic, she can't believe it, and she wants to stay.

He opens a drawer in a side table, sending the few wooden spools of thread inside rolling. “This is for you.” The envelope he passes to her is wide with bills, an unwelcome intrusion of reality and the inevitable end of their exchange. She's plummeting again. “Thank you.”

Rey tries to push it back into his hand. Giving up, she lays it on the sofa between them. “I don't want this.”

“Nobody else could have found the ring. Take the money.”

“Metal detector?” Flattery has never worked on her, and she's not about to let that change just because he's beautiful and keeps his eyes open when he comes and tastes like something she should swim in.

“There's a bunch of iron up there. Too much interference. Believe me, I tried everything before I asked you. Take the money.”

It's true, then. Finding a witch, let alone one willing to help, was a fortuitous stroke of luck.

“I'll take half if I can have that painting.”

Ben huffs a surprised laugh into his wineglass.

“That?” He sounds doubtful. “Rey, it's completely worthless.”

“Well, I like it. I'll consider us even.”

“Fine.” Amused, he twirls a strand of her hair around her ear, tickling.

“And I like you,” she adds. Why's it so hard to say? She takes a sip of wine and stares at the fire. She could tell him that she's not seeing anyone at all, that she'll lose every one of their numbers after she climbs into her bed tonight.

“Yeah?” He gets closer, nuzzles against her neck and presses a kiss just behind her ear. “I like you too.” He hesitates, chin resting on her shoulder, like he's been thinking of the best way to suggest something and now's the time to make up his mind. “If you ever want a bigger garden, my yard's available. Free rein.”

Rey perks up at that. It would be a lie to say that she never looks out over the close-clipped grass and imagines lusher things on the other side. “I'd love that.”

“We could add a gate, if it makes it easier.”

“Nah, I'll just hop over it.” She walks her fingers up his arm to his collarbone.

“You want to jump my fence?”

“Something like that.”

She sets her empty glass down and crawls into his lap. When she presses her ear to his chest, it's silent.

“I wish I could hear your heart.”

“I can make the noises if you need me to.”

She laughs, lifting her head up again to poke her finger between his plush lips to touch his teeth. The place where she knows his fangs are feels completely normal. “No, that's worse.”

Rey hides a sudden yawn behind her hand and he smiles at her like it's a remarkable thing.

“Before you go...” Is he blushing? Is that even possible? “Do whatever you want, but for me it's just you. There hasn't been anyone else in a long time.”

She nods, like this is information she'll file away to think about later. Like it doesn't make something new bloom in the middle of her.

“Just come over when you're ready for next time,” he says.

It only takes two days before she's knocking on his door, arms full of seed catalogs as a flimsy pretense.

And the night after that, he's at hers. Invited in.