Warning: This is a Halloween special edition book about witches. This chapter, and most of the book, contains descriptions of nudity, sexual acts, violence, and dark magic. If you’re cool with that, read on!

Chapter One – A Stolen Heart

“A witch ought never be frightened in the darkest forest…because she should be sure in her soul that the most terrifying thing in the forest was her.”–Terry Pratchett

Being a witch had its ups and downs. But, if you asked Lenora, it would mostly be ups. She delighted in her ability to wield the powers of the Earth and use her goddess-given beauty to lure men into her bed.

Her power flowed through her veins, heavy with lust and desire, as she removed her clothing. She gazed at the nervous prey before her like a lioness about to pounce on her mate.

He glanced around the room before lifting a shaky hand to his shirt buttons. “Do I just…undress?”

Lenora ignored the question and pressed her body to Daniel’s. Was it Daniel? Maybe it was David. She couldn’t remember. She didn’t really care. She just wanted in his pants.

Using his nervous reaction to her advantage, Lenora stepped forward, forcing him back until he bumped hard against the wall and couldn’t stop her from crushing the juncture between her thighs against his raging hard-on. He chuckled with a bit of apprehension, but he wanted this. She knew it. He’d offered money for her at the bar.

She ran her hands up the side of his cheeks until her long, manicured fingernails combed through his hair. It was thick, nice hair that spoke of wealth and the good salon shampoo and conditioner that surely graced the caddy in his shower. He probably had a wife or girlfriend who used it, too.

“You said you like it rough, right?” she croaked, her pitch low. Lenora had refined her ability to press any man’s buttons, and this guy was easy to read.

“I do.” His voice was strained, his smile fading as he swallowed hard. He was a good-looking guy who shouldn’t have been down in this part of town. But she wasn’t going to complain. She could have done much worse for herself, slumming here like this.

With that confirmation, Lenora slammed her lips against his, slipping her tongue into his mouth. It knocked his head against the hard surface behind him. His shock caused him to pull away, but she drew him in quickly, bringing him onboard with her. He was a good kisser once he engaged himself, and she felt her own sensual arousal begin to build.

This was exactly what she’d been looking for.

Without warning, Lenora pulled back from him, leaving the man heaving for air as she ripped his clothes from his body. His pristine white Hilfiger shirt shredded easily, and her power over earth made the cotton-based denim of his Levi’s fray without a hitch. He stared at her in amazement, and Lenora gave an evil chuckle.

“Did you think I was a virgin or something?”

“No. No, of course not,” he stuttered as she finished removing her clothes. She worked slowly, every move graceful and enticing like a striptease. It would be the last gentle thing she did during this escapade. It wasn’t what he wanted. And it didn’t set the stage for the satisfaction she craved tonight.

When she had bared herself to him, his eyes widened like an addict who’d just been shown an all-you-can-eat buffet of cocaine. He swallowed so hard she could see his Adam’s apple bob up and down. She caught the twitch of his cock from the corner of her eye and glanced down at it. He was large, long, and thick, and Lenora licked her lips, thinking about what that would do for her tonight.

“You have a condom?” she asked, meeting his eyes and quirking a brow at him in question. She thought of the backup in her purse, just in case the guy was a loser.

He nodded and motioned toward his jeans.

“Get it and put it on the nightstand. You’re going to need it,” she instructed. He scrambled and shuffled, his hands shaking as he laid it on the table, and then she pointed to the bed. “Lie down.” Was it her power that had him under her control, or was he just naturally submissive? Either way, he was making this far too effortless for her.

But just as that thought passed through her mind, he grabbed her wrist and yanked her toward him, flipping her on her back on the bed and coming down over her. He copped a crooked grin at her. “How’s that for rough?”

She shook her head with an equally arrogant smile. “It’s a good start.”

With grace, she wrapped her ankles around his legs and clutched his shoulders before barrel-rolling him in a seamless maneuver that had their positions reversed. Instantly, she ground her hips against his, roughly rubbing her moist folds against the length of his shaft. He groaned, and she shoved off him, dropping to her knees on the floor so his dick was at eye level.

Lenora reached out and closed her fist around his base, a little tighter than she knew was comfortable, and she stroked upward with all that pressure. He hissed in a breath, a combination of pleasure and pain behind the sound, confirming she was on the right track. She leaned in and played nice long enough to get his tip wet with her tongue and draw the moisture down his length.

Lenora pulled him into her mouth and gently dragged her teeth along every inch, over and over. She stopped only to nibble aggressively on his tip until his limbs jumped, and his body lifted off the bed with the confusing sensation. Did it hurt? Was it seductive? She was succeeding in confusing his sensory receptors and reveled in it.

When she’d tormented that area of his body long enough, she slid her mouth off him and rolled her eyes to look up at his face. He was lost to physical sensation, giving her all the room she needed to do as she delighted with him. She found a tender spot on his stomach and bit down hard enough to draw him out of his private reverie. He gasped, and she clamped her teeth harder on his flesh, assuring she would leave a mark.

The man hissed and moaned, and his cock throbbed harder against her thigh. Lenora closed her lips and teeth on his ear, tasting blood ever so slightly, the tinge of iron on her tongue. It made her hungry for more, and she raked her nails hard down his side, leaving deep trails of bloody scrapes.

He didn’t seem to mind, his hands grabbing at her breasts and fondling them with a harsh grip that would leave bruises in the shapes of his fingertips. He squeezed and smacked her ass, pinched her nipples so tight she nearly lost her cool as her first wave of ecstasy rolled through her body.

“I want you on your hands and knees,” he told her, shoving a hand between her thighs and rolling her nub of nerves roughly between two fingers.

A second wave of pleasure rolled over her body like warm static. She wasn’t going to protest. She could take it from behind and really enjoy herself before the big finale. Of course, that wouldn’t be the position they were in when they finished. Lenora would make sure of that. She had other things in mind.

Now, though, she sat up and moved off him, letting him get up on his knees behind her as she assumed the position. He spread her folds wide, and she halted him long enough to ensure he put on the condom. She might be promiscuous, but she wasn’t dumb. He reached between her legs again, making sure she was ready, and she was. He drove into her without warning, and she cried out, her head tossing back. His first thrust was quick and sure, and he had an instant rhythm that pounded her with a force that would surely leave bruises later. But she allowed it.

She liked it rough.

Lenora cried out, pure joy blending with sheer agony to create the ultimate adrenaline rush. One orgasm after another coursed through her until it was a constant high of breaking waves. She rode it out until she felt him falter, and she had to pull away. She couldn’t let him finish like this. There was more to be done.

“My turn,” she ordered with a raspy breath, her head reeling.

She could almost feel her skin glowing as she rubbed his chest and shoved him onto his back again. She climbed off the bed, and he gazed at her in disbelief as if he thought she’d ended their session. Lenora wasn’t done; she just had to grab something.

She held it behind her back and gave him a coy smile, batting her eyelashes and gazing seductively from under them.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

Lenora shook her head. “It’s a surprise. Trust me, it will make this the best sex you’ll ever have.” She nodded at his look of skepticism and stepped up onto the bed, using her long legs as leverage. She stood over him, straddling him from above, letting him take in the view. His eyes were glued to her core, the center of her lust, which she calculatedly positioned right over his face. She wanted him so hot for her he couldn’t stand it.

And she was getting the reaction she wanted.

His cheeks flushed red, his pupils dilated from his arousal, and his mouth had gone dry as he swallowed hard. She dropped to her knees, leaning back on her haunches and lining up her core with his raging hard cock. She slid onto it with maddening slowness and pulled the athame from behind her back. She pressed the tip to his throat and began to ride him, her pace fast and rhythm building harder and harder. Her ass slapped against his legs, and despite the obvious fear in his eyes at the introduction of the dagger, he was more aroused than ever.

Good. That was how it was supposed to work.

She drew a line with the tip down from the center of his throat to his navel and then back to the center of his chest, feeling the slight drag of the sharp blade against his tender human skin. She fought the urge to break the surface.

Suddenly, it was as if she watched from overhead as she aggressively rode him to release. Her body became overwhelmed with the peak of this crucial sexual act, but her vision was like that of a god, and she could see the entire room in heightened detail.

Her vision grew sharper as she pressed the knife tip against the solar plexus. His breastplate was hard and blocked the slivered edge from touching anything delicate in his chest, even as she drew a drop of blood. He winced and then threw his head back in pleasured pain, gritting his teeth, and she could tell he was close. If she did this just right, she could make it all come together in a perfect, seamless transition.

But first, she had to speak the words. She rode him even harder and somehow kept her voice steady despite the motions, her constant orgasms, and her tightened lungs. Then again, it didn’t sound like her voice; it was too deep and resonant. Lenora was drawing from some power other than her own. In her mind, she spoke the words in her native tongue.

Life on earth, fail me not

Life eternal, I begot

Open chest, and show the beat

Present the gift at my feet

Heart of man, you’ll be mine

A gift to power so divine

In my hand, you soon will see

As I will so mote it be

But she recited them aloud in Latin, as the spell required, as she had practiced for months.

“Vita in me, et non deficient

Et vita genuitvitamaeternam

In pulsu pectus aperta et docere

Offer munus in gradumeo,

Cor hominismeieritis

Divinummunus ad tantam

Citovidebis in manumea

Ut sic fiat.”

Something coiled inside her, ready to strike. She felt the power surge through her lover’s–her sacrifice’s–body, breastplate, offering up his pounding heart as he neared his peak. When he came, he spewed off a garble of heated words, and Lenora cried out wordlessly as she drove the dagger deep into his chest.

She pulled it in a circle, slicing easily, as his body continued to convulse. While he shattered, she reached in with her hand and tore his still-beating heart from his chest.

The organ, beautiful and bloody, beat wildly in Lenora’s hand, and the world went dark as she let herself succumb to the new power that now flowed through every inch of her ancient body.

A chill wind kicked up and blew her hair to the side, and her skin tingled, covered in gooseflesh. She stared at his chest cavity, empty now. The blood meant to be pumped back into his body, giving him life, now filled the void, and she watched as his lungs spasmed, searching for a breath of air.

Unexpectedly, she laughed long and loud. There was nothing else in the universe except her, the man whose dying body still convulsed and made her orgasm break again with the stolen heart clutched in her hand. It seemed to glow with its own brilliant red light.

She’d done it. She’d completed the ritual sacrifice.

And she didn’t feel the least twinge of guilt. Men who paid for sex were dirty in one way or another and took a risk every time they tried. It was why she’d chosen this way to find her sacrifice, and now, she’d done what had once only been a distant thought rather than part of a master plan. The spell had worked, the night was glorious, and she’d had what she’d come for.

Even as the heart stilled in her palm, blood poured down Lenora’s arm, and she couldn’t stop gazing at it in awe. She’d never held the force of life in her hands before, not like this. She felt like a goddess, controlling whether someone lived or died. She tore her gaze from the heart, still warm in her fist, and looked down at the man beneath her.

He was still hard, still buried inside her, but the light had faded from his eyes, the life gone and replaced with the cold, unfocused stare of the dead. It fascinated her. She’d watched his pupils dilate until the creamy caramel brown of his irises disappeared, his chest still heaving for several seconds with the attempt to find oxygen and process it. His convulsions, at first from orgasm, had altered and become those of flailing desperation.

While it was tempting to stay there, admiring her months of hard work and planning and the sensation of animalistic pleasure coursing through her, Lenora knew she had to move. She had to get the heart into a container and clean herself. It was time to leave before anyone grew suspicious or discovered her here. She could remove any evidence of having been here at all with an expeditious sweep of the room. Likely, local law enforcement would postulate this was either a ritual by devil worshipers or a case of a prostitute who’d snapped.

She’d bought a wig and some stockings to leave there just to perpetuate the lie.

Carefully, Lenora slid from his cock and climbed off the bed, heart still in one hand, and placed it carefully in the small container with ice packs, closing it up tight and shoving it into her shoulder bag. Then, she returned to the bed, still naked, and looked at her handiwork more appreciatively. With a sigh, she removed the condom and disposed of it in the garbage bag she would take with her.

She pulled a cloth out of her satchel, and as she spoke an incantation, she wiped down the man’s body and any surfaces she had touched. Her motions, combined with the spell, would remove any fingerprints and trace DNA she might have left. Of course, there was no reason for her to be in the system, so if she missed anything, it wouldn’t matter. She still wouldn’t be suspected.

According to the new world, Lenora didn’t even exist.

There were many advantages to being a witch on the fringes of society.

When she felt confident that the area was cleansed, Lenora methodically donned her clothing–black silk panties, matching bra, soft cotton red blouse, and skin-tight black jeans. The black leather knee-high boots were the perfect addition to the outfit to make her look like every other streetwalker in the area. The dark wig she’d worn to cover her light hair had added to the disguise.

The wig remaining here would add to the confusion if anyone had witnessed the man walking in with her earlier. She looked entirely different without black hair.

Lenora felt great pride as she left the hotel with her incipiently obtained ingredient. Of the three witches in her coven, she’d been designated the high priestess for a reason. She had the most experience and was the strongest of them. As far as she knew, she was also the only one who could stomach the most arduous tasks, such as performing this ritual sacrifice. The others wanted the grand prize as much as she did so she could respect their delicate sensibilities.

Someone had to step up to the plate, and she had done it. She had really done it.

But her mood fell as she realized how much further there was to go. Yes, she’d crossed the largest hurdle in obtaining the elements of the concoction they had to complete. But the real problem still stood, and it had been a problem they had been unable to solve for more than a year now.

They needed a fourth member for their coven.