“Bocuk,” I murmured the name into the night. “I come to worship at your altar. To bear witness to your grace. To welcome you home this night.”
The wind howled, encircling me until I fell to my knees on the road. My lips became chapped and dry. Within me, my bones ached in ways I had forgotten they could and the fire of my draconic nature flickered. My chest began to ache as I breathed in the frigid air. In the howling wind, chaotic voices echoed and whispered, caressing my mind with their eerie chanting. I knew magic when I heard it, and this was it. A witch’s spell.
The snow seemed to glow with preternatural entities and amongst the wind and chilling flakes of snow, I saw the shadowy visages of the beings whose glowing eyes haunted me. They were ageless and aged at the same time. Beings lost in time to the winds of Bocuk, yet every bit a part of it. I knew the hollowness of their cheeks and the white yet blue skin. The hunger in their eyes was a force of nature and as I felt myself shudder and then become filled with a creepy numbness, I knew they were as hungry as Bocuk.
“Are you ready?” his voice asked, as kind as it was wise.
My head tilted to look upward from where I knelt on the ground, succumbing to the cold. “I have always been.”
“We welcome you, child, into the night with no help.”
“Into the wind with no end.”
“Into the cold with no warmth.”
Voices carried each of the words to my ears, hissing and echoing, combating each other for the right to be heard. I swallowed back their agony, a thousand forgotten faces, left alone, in the snow, to die. No one had seen them since the last fell and died, carried to a new home by the magic of these beings.
“Thank you,” I murmured, looking up at the man.
His brows drew together and he knelt down before me, reaching his bare hands to touch my shoulders. “Why?”
“For taking them in with they were forsaken.”
The Bocuk gave a sad smile. He leaned forward, wrapping his thick arms around me and pulled until I rested against his chest. He had no breath nor heart and I heard nothing as my cold ear pressed against his skin. I thought he would be cold, as frigid as the wind itself, yet he was without temperature. His arms were weak and strong at the same time, thick with magic and thin with age. I tried to breathe him in, to bring some warmth into my nostrils that burned, but all I caught was the smell of fresh snow and decay.
“Stop struggling. We have you,” the woman’s words whispered into my ear. She touched my shoulders, caressing softly before sliding her arm to the front of my coat and unwinding the ties that bound it together.
I wasn’t aware I had been struggling, but I stilled my bones in case they were fighting her. With a gasping cry, the coat came open and the wind slid beneath my clothing and brought with it the burning pain of winter. There was no more tugging. She left the warm fur on me, shielding part of me from the bitter cold. Hands slid around my stomach and to the fabric of my shirt and thin fingers unwound the tight drawstring that held the laced top together.
A hissing whimper passed my lips when the fabric came open and my breasts were exposed to the frigid air. Everything hurt and yet a creeping numbness prickled over the vibrating flesh. Nipples hardened to aching peaks before warm, wrinkled hands gently caressed the rolls of my stomach. My eyes opened and looked at the old man, his eyes glowing softly as the ghosts around us.
His brows raised in silent question.
I nodded, moving my hands to rest on the back of his and guiding them upward. Frozen lips caressed my neck, brushing over the cool flesh before planting a tantalizing kiss near my ear. “Poor lost lamb,” she whispered against my skin. “We have a home for you. You can be with us.”
I shook my head. “I will be with you,” I panted, the cold air making it impossible to speak without shuddering. “I will thank you and serve you… for all you’ve done… for these people.”
His hands cupped my breasts, thin thumbs playing over the hardened tips. “But you will not stay?”
“No. Though I wish to.”
Brows furrowed together before he leaned down and touched his lips to mine, breathing heat and longing into my body. Our lips caressed, soft and tender, nearly chaste. The tension on his face melted away as I leaned forward, teasing the crease of our lips with my tongue until he opened to me and invited me in. The kiss deepened and the witch lapped at my neck before gently biting the exposed flesh...
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