Serendipity: Imbolc & Incantations Read online

  “It’s no wonder the masters of black magic think to step into our shoes if this is the level we’ve been reduced to. Now tell me what you know.”

  For all that the Mage Council had radiated complacency and stagnation, the school board had troubled him even more. He had gained a little bit of insight into what drove the thoughts of the elders when he’d put them on the spot, and he kept that in mind when he spoke to the academies governing body. He was better prepared for this meeting and had his game face in place this time. But still he could feel an unsettling malevolence slithering around the room as soon as he entered.

  Had it always been there, he wondered. Or had recent events just made him more sensitive to the possibilities. The realities.

  One thing was certain. The suspicions, which had seemed so far-fetched, were definitely legitimate. He needed to tread carefully. For Seren’s sake as much as his own.

  Chapter Three

  Seren growled low in her throat in disgust and attempted to shake off her gloomy blues. She wasn’t sure if Siarl was actively avoiding her, but she’d barely seen him since he’d crushed the tender pieces of her burgeoning love for him. If she looked at it optimistically, she supposed she should be happy that he’d nipped things in the bud. She had always known that anything between them would be nigh on impossible. They were too different. He was staid and sombre and ruled by responsibility. And she… wasn’t.

  Seren had always tried to live her best life. Despite the disappearance and presumed death of her parents in a catastrophic magic accident- maybe because of it - she had realised that life, even the many lives of a witch, was too short not to milk every drop of joy that you could get from it. Her parents’ death was a lesson. Whatever had occurred left no trace of them, an odd occurrence in the magical world where sorcerers lived multiple lives before passing to the shadow realm. It proved that wasn’t always the case.

  She’d learned the hard way to take nothing for granted. That everything could change in the blink of an eye and it was best to be prepared.

  To that end, she picked up the half-finished brideog, the traditional corn doll which represented St Brigid, the goddess of spring and the bringer of sunlight and fertility and started decorating it. Yes, she knew that right now it looked more like a clod of straw wrapped in string, but she had at least crafted it with her own hands like tradition emphasised… that was the problem.

  She did her best to pretty it up. A wrap of white cloth for a dress, a shell over her heart and a ribbon she had already dipped in the stream in the grounds of the academy and hung from a tree to dry. And finally, a few small sprigs of evergreen and willow.

  It was already St Brigid’s Eve. Tonight, she would leave a similar white dress outside her door to be blessed and rake smooth the ashes in her fireplace as ritual required, to see if there was a sign imprinted in them, tomorrow, that the spirit of Brigid had visited and blessed everything.

  Pushing thoughts of Siarl out of her mind as best she could, she set up her alter to celebrate the re-emergence of life and the awakening of the natural world. A small glass filled with snowdrops, the feather of a swan, and of course the all-important candles in white, silver and green. She added the brideog and the Brigid's cross and the small seed cake she’d baked using spring water from the academy grounds. She ignored the fact that the ‘leaba brid’, the little bed she’d made to lay Brigid’s effigy in, looked more like a messy bird nest. Instead, she rearranged the incense and stones to pretty it up a bit.

  Satisfied that her spring cleaning was in order and that nothing had been missed, Seren lit candles and lanterns and double checked everything had been followed to the letter, despite her rogue thoughts of Siarl.

  Convinced that her introspective preoccupation with him was going to derail her deeds, Seren decided on an early night, trying her best to quell the images of the times she and Siarl had spent together. When he had kissed her… and spanked her. Curse it all. That wasn’t supposed to be such a turn on. But hot damn, it surely was!

  With thoughts of Siarl, reliving those spankings and all the delicious things he made her feel, Seren fell into a fitful sleep, unaware that fate was about to lead her in an unexpected direction.

  Around her, the air stirred. The artefacts on her altar glowed, imbued with a hidden double meaning that her thoughts of Siarl had unleashed.

  Willow, symbolic of dreaming and deep emotions.

  Frankincense with its great powers of attraction.

  Cinnamon - considered an aphrodisiac and invoking lust.

  The stream-dipped ribbons which she had hung and also used to dress the brideog, which were said to bring fertility to dreams.

  The ‘leaba brid’; a bed for the goddess of fertility and also… midwifery

  A Swan feather, a powerful amulet representing faithfulness and fidelity from a bird which mated for life.

  The ‘bratach brid’, the garment she left for Brigid to bless; a potent midwifes tool.

  Imbolc the literal meaning of which meant ‘In the belly’

  Seren tossed and turned, sleep in turns lulling her and then rousing her.

  Something was calling to her. Or was it someone? Seren tried to shake the heavy vestiges of sleep away but they clung to her, leaving her mind fuzzy and her thoughts jumbled and disjointed.

  She lifted her head sluggishly and thought she saw a wisp of white, the shape of a figure, ghostlike in the gloom of night. She blinked her eyes, trying to focus on the area by her fireplace, but there was nothing there. Was there supposed to be?

  Drowsiness beckoned her with comforting arms, whispering for her to sleep once more. Offering a beautiful solace from her waking troubles.

  Except… she needed to get up and do something - didn’t she?

  Chapter Four

  Heat suffused her skin, and every inch of Seren’s body felt like it was on fire. Suddenly she felt more alive, more alert, than she had ever felt in her life. And it was amazing.

  Warm fingers stroked and moulded her skin, circling her breasts, making her breath hitch, but never quite settling on the pebbled peaks of her nipples which strained, silently begging for that touch. A hand positioned possessively over the supple curve of her abdomen and her tummy lurched and flipped at the contact, wishing it higher… or lower.

  Soft lips grazed the sensitive skin of her neck, the slope of her shoulder, across her clavicle. If only that mouth would venture…

  “Just a little lower.”

  Her words made everything real.

  Siarl chuckled, his strong fingers digging into her hips, holding her still as she writhed and arched, begging him with her body as well as her utterance.

  “You’re an impatient little thing, aren’t you?” His eyes flamed, burning into her with a passion she’d only ever seen in her dreams. “Patience, there’s no need to rush. It will be worth the wait.”

  Seren wasn’t so sure about that. He was driving her out of her mind with his slow, sensual seduction and deliberate teasing. But two could play at that game, and Seren’s fingers went on an exploration of their own.

  She drew her fingernails down across his well-defined pecs and rigid abs, exalting in the sharp, indrawn breath and the sound of a decidedly more laboured breathing that filled the room.

  She raked her nails lower, deliberately ignoring his pulsing manhood and drawing a pattern on his hair roughened outer thighs all the way to his knees, before massaging her way back up again, her thumbs skimming close enough to his scrotum to make him buck and gasp before she moved her hands to his waist and bent to place small, teasing butterfly kisses across his chest.

  “You little minx,” Siarl gasped in a strangled voice.

  Now it was Seren’s turn to chuckle. “Surely what’s good for the goose is good for the gander,” she taunted, grazing her fingers oh-so-lightly across his small male nipples and delighting in the groan that left his lips.

  They’d been lying on their sides, opposite each other until then, but Seren’s decision to
bob her head and lick over the small brown discs she had just aroused had him arching and rolling to his back.

  Well, that was an invitation if ever she’d seen one.

  Seren wasted no time throwing her leg over Siarl’s thighs so she was straddling him. She felt his hands in her hair, curling into fists as she nipped and nibbled at his smooth, tanned skin, exerting an incidental pull that she felt clear down to her girly bits.

  His hands settled on her hips and held her in place as he ground his pelvis against her. The stark ridge of his desire rasped against her swollen clitoris, skin against skin.

  Scorching against wet.

  The sensation catapulted her upright, helpless against the stark need to rub against him like a cat in heat. The nude folds of her labia clung to the bulge of his erection and her body screamed with the wanton desire to feel him inside her. To have him fill her to the brim. But still he held her hips in his rigid hold, the masterly control preventing her from anything except writhing atop him like a woman possessed.

  Then his hands moved, coming up to cup her breasts through the gauzy, white gown that was almost no barrier at all. She barely acknowledged the unexpected attire, her mind splintering into brilliant slices of pleasure as he palmed the weight of her bosom before thumbing the fabric across the tips of her nipples.

  Seren cried out and threw her head back, thrusting her chest forward in the same movement, her body begging for more with its own voice.

  “Oh, sweet Saint Brigid, please…” she pleaded, suddenly ravenous to experience all of him.

  He pinched her pouting nubs between his finger and thumb, pulling and twisting, and heat flooded her apex, slicking his cock as she shifted against his hard, throbbing flesh. She was so wet she could probably just lift her hips and he would slide right in.

  In fact… yes.

  Seren lifted onto her knees. The pull against her trapped nipples was delicious, and she felt a corresponding dampness between her thighs.

  Siarl’s cock bobbed, pointing unerringly towards her as if seeking her entrance. She felt the tip of his rock-hard erection line up with her slit and in that moment nothing mattered more than the carnal coupling that ran like wildfire through her veins, obliterating all conscious thought or the consequences of any repercussions.

  All that existed was burning lust and greedy hunger and the uncontrollable craving to satiate the animal urges that overcame her needy body.

  He was right there, as hard and ready as she was slick and eager.

  Without a second thought, Seren dropped herself down onto his waiting shaft, crying out at the sublime feeling of being impaled on his pulsing manhood. Glorying in the small slice of pain as he stretched her with his girth.

  There was a blinding light and a moment of clarity. “Seren!” Siarl sounded almost shocked, and she tumbled out of her mindless ecstasy for just long enough to look at him. His eyes were wide with surprise, as if he’d seen her for the first time. His mouth was frozen open. He looked like he wanted to object and for a split second she paused, a frown on her face. Exactly how had she come to be here?

  Seren looked around. The room was unfamiliar. Masculine. Not hers.

  Siarl dropped his hands from her breasts like they’d burned him and caught her by the waist as he dragged in a ragged breath. Seren shook her head and tried to clear her mind; tried to think clearly.

  Except the movement of Siarl’s chest as he pulled air into his lungs tilted his pelvis further into her soft heat and that was all it took for her to forget herself again.

  A husky moan was torn from her throat and she circled her hips against the restraint of his grip, tightening her feminine channel against the hard length of him as it pulsed inside her. And once again, all sense of reason was lost.

  The moment of lucidity snapped for Siarl as surely as it did for her.

  He pumped his hips upwards, filled her at the same time as she ground herself against him. His grip eased and blind, primal urges had her rearing up before impaling herself on his shaft again. Once, twice…

  Before the third plunge, Siarl rolled her underneath him and ploughed into her with a force that had her head bouncing against the bed frame.

  Surging onto his knees, Siarl pulled her back downwards before thrusting into her again and again.

  Seren couldn’t seem to find her breath. As soon as she dragged it in on a litany of nonsense words, expletives and oaths he pounded it out of her again, each stroke bottoming out against her cervix and sending sparks of pure rapture shooting throughout her body and her mind.

  She could feel the coil tightening in her loins, as every cell in her body became sensitised and centred, pinned onto a single point of culmination. Siarl looped her knees over his arms and bent his head, the action opening her up and bringing them even closer. He closed his teeth over one tight, straining nipple and the flash of pain that shimmered through her was all she needed to throw her over the edge and into the most powerful climax of her life.

  Her breath lodged in her throat. Fireworks went off behind her eyes. For a moment the entire universe shattered into a million multi coloured pieces before it reformed into a giant, glowing ball of pure bliss.

  Spiralling into oblivion, her tired muscles reflexively milked Siarl’s cock, greedily dragging his essence from him.

  Above her his face contorted and the cords of his neck stood out as he threw his head back in a rictus of agonising pleasure until the pair of them were spent.

  Siarl collapsed on top of her, as drained as she was, and Seren revelled in the wonderful, intimate weight of him. Their laboured breathing replaced the cries and groans of passion as they lay, exhausted, until the grasp of sated sleep claimed them both.

  Chapter Five

  It was February 2nd. Officially Imbolc, the first day of Spring, but Seren woke slowly, exhaustion pulling at her as if she’d barely slept.

  At first, she wondered if she was coming down with something. Her body ached as if it had been well used, like she’d overdone a workout. Not the most likely thing in the realm. It was no secret that Seren liked her creature comforts and getting hot and sweaty for any kind of exercise was not on her agenda unless the activity was of the monkey sex variety.

  Stretching out her limbs and feeling deliciously languid, she snuggled further into the downy cosiness of her bed… until that last thought had her eyes opening wide, her consciousness suddenly on full alert.

  She made a quick survey of her surroundings, then let out a vocal sigh of relief when she realised she was right there, in her own room. For a moment she’d actually thought… no.

  Seren closed her eyes and allowed herself to drift. But snatches of the rather illicit dream she’d had kept popping into her head. Damn, it just seemed so real! She could almost feel the slight tenderness between her thighs and the chafe of whisker burn across her breasts.

  She sat up in bed like she was an old-fashioned jack-in-the-box that had been wound until the lid of his container unhinged and he popped out from beneath the compression.

  “Shitsickles!” Seren drew in a shocked gasp and pawed at her clothing as she realised with growing dismay that she was not wearing her usual ratty T-shirt that she dressed in for bed. The one she had most definitely thrown on for comfort last night.

  The virginal white chiffon gauze of the skimpy summer dress she wore seemed almost obscene in connection with the dream she was now recalling in all its X-Rated glory.

  Seren sucked in a ragged breath. They had been dreams, right?

  Except… her internal muscles felt like they did when she’d had really good sex, and that hadn’t happened for months. Not since Samhain, in fact, so she should not be feeling like this three months later. And her body retained that lovely, dreamy sense of satisfaction which was only achieved through being well loved.

  She had absolutely no recollection of leaving her room - or of coming back to it - so that was certainly not something that had happened with any conscious thought. And the details of he
r dream were clear enough that she was certain the location was unfamiliar to her. Definitely not somewhere she’d been before. So, since she hadn’t left her room under her own steam - or returned to it - it must have been a dream, right?

  Of course, it was. The alternative was simply unthinkable.

  Still, Seren jumped out of bed, stripped out of the offending article of clothing that barely shielded her body, and hurried through to the shower. As the water sluiced over her still sensitised skin, she pretended she couldn’t feel the slight twinges and sensitivity that pulled at her body in all her most personal places. Or the stickiness she hurriedly washed from her inner thighs. Nope. Not real. She wouldn’t allow it!

  She was dressed and considering breakfast when Carrot, her fox familiar, gave an odd little whine and suddenly, uncharacteristically, tucked his tail between his legs and scuttled under the protective cover of her workbench.

  “Bumbling broomsticks! What has gotten into you?” Seren asked in astonishment. Carrot’s nature was usually as impertinent and irreverent as her own.

  A moment later the sound of a commotion in the corridor outside her remote little turret made Seren realise that Carrot’s sensitive hearing had clearly picked up the heavy, stomping footfalls and angry shouting way before she had.

  “Suffering spell books!” Seren exclaimed as someone began hammering on her door. She hurried over, pulling it open so fast that an unusually dishevelled looking Siarl almost fell into the room, his fists raised to continue the pounding barrage against the heavy oak.

  Seren took a step back in dismay, her hands lifting to cover her racing heart.

  “Siarl, what in coven’s name is wrong? Did something happen?” she gasped. Damn it all, why couldn’t she look him in the eye? Stupid dream!

  “Did something happen!” Did something happen?” Siarl bellowed, his usual controlled restraint a dim and distant memory.

  Seren’s eyes widened, and she took another step back as he advanced on her, his eyes wild and his face contorted into a visage of pure anger that sent a frisson of fear chasing down her spine. She’d never seen Siarl so desperately furious in her entire life. In fact, she wasn’t sure she’d even imagined he could ever be this irate. He was normally far too controlled to allow something as mundane as feelings to bubble and overflow the surface of his legendary calm.