Nature's Pentacle

A human pentagram, head to head, arms linked, feet stretched toward the points. The unpleasant sensation of cracked earth and brittle pine needles under my back. Heat. Scorching, dry heat. Fear. Panic.

Summoning strength and determination, Lena pushed her fears aside and focused on rain. Cool, healing rain. Power crackled through her, the feel of it so palpable, she feared the dry brush at the edge of the clearing would ignite.

She experienced a moment of pain as the witch with whom she’d been paired entered her. She was dry, as dry as the parched forest. Frightened.

“Shh. Think of healing. Think of rain.”

His voice was rich and deep, even when he whispered. And though his hands felt strange on her skin—the roughness of his work-worn fingers, the strength of his grip on her hips—his touch wasn’t unpleasant.

If she could only relax, open herself. Soft moans surrounded her as four other pairs coupled to forge the link. A monotonous chant drifted on the night air as the three anchors standing at the center channeled and directed their power.

When the man above her touched her neck with his lips, a rush of cool air dried the sweat on her forehead, a breeze that seemed driven by the beating of a thousand birds’ wings.

“Feel that? The cooling? The breeze? We’re doing that. Cast outward now.”

With a soft cry, she tugged her hips away from him as he drove deeper, then remembered their purpose and forced herself to lean into his thrusts. Desperate to focus, she rode the wave of energy building around her, thought of moist soil, mulch, earthworms, layers of moss, green sprouts. Heal the soil first, then call the rain.

Someone screamed, and she tensed until she realized it wasn’t Skyler, the only one of the witches she knew well enough to be concerned about. As the cry faded to a soft moan, she shivered despite the heat. The voice was male, and the emotion behind it a confusing mix of pleasure and pain.

Raise energy, heal the earth. In this northern Wisconsin clearing and across North America, several groups of thirteen witches united in this rite tonight, linked by the determination of the anchors, the strongest among them. No rules, except to summon enough power to bring rain to quiet the storms, calm the oceans, and dampen the fires. Sex generated energy that allowed them to widen the reach of their magic. Adding edgier elements magnified the effect.

Forcing back an edge of terror, Lena dug her fingers into the forearms of the strangers to her right and left, swept up in rising panic and desperate to ground herself.

“I’m not going to hurt you. And you’re not going to hurt me. We’ve got plenty of power between us. Don’t fight it.” His voice sounded steady, confident—everything she wasn’t feeling at the moment.

Moss, soft and pungent. Burrowing creatures. Butterfly wings. Scorched grass unfolding and turning green. Damp earth.

“Tell me your name?” Why hadn’t she thought to ask when they’d arrived at the clearing? Before they’d created the circle?

“Matt.” He said his name in a whoosh of escaping breath and followed the word with a groan.

As his chest hair brushed her pebbled nipples and he rested more of his weight on her, something gave, like a dam cracking or a bridge forming, and she opened herself to his energy, riding the crest of images forming in his mind.

Swollen rivers. Rain tracing rivulets on a windowpane. Concentric circles radiating out as drops pelted muddy puddles. Dripping branches. Cool water.

Her forest floor to his rain. Earth and water. The raw force of the ritual gripped her, and as she accepted her role, her shoulders relaxed, softened.

“There, that’s better. Not so bad, is it?” As the words brushed her ear, she decided she could get drunk on his voice.

Her heels dug against packed earth as she gave up her struggle to distance herself from him and arched closer. Wet now, slick with images of rain and rivers, friction yielded to damp warmth, discomfort to pleasure.

To her left, the man gripping her forearm mumbled an unintelligible plea and dug his fingers into her flesh. Trying to ride the power, to push outward with the wave of healing and moisture, she shook her head and ignored the sting as his nails dug deeper.

When images of water and green things threatened to explode into a flash of unbridled energy, she reined in her power, frightened by what would happen if healing gave way to the urge to destroy—two halves of a whole, the ability to mend and the desire to break. She whispered a desperate plea to the goddess that she’d be strong enough to walk that line without crossing it.

“You’re okay. Rain. Think of rain.”

Never mind that rain was his, and earth hers. She focused on cool, clear water, quenching the urge to unleash a psychic maelstrom of destruction. Again, a man cried out, closer this time. Was he fighting like she was, waging a battle to harness more energy than one witch should ever be able to hold?

“Focus. Damn, tell me your name.”

“Lena.”

“Focus, Lena. Rain, gentle and slow. Dew on morning grass.” In a gesture at odds with the intensity of the rite, he curved his neck and arched his back to reach her shoulder, brushing the barest hint of a kiss across her skin.

Around her, the edges of the pentagram, scratched in the dry soil before the rite, glowed eerie violet. Her body fit into her own little triangle—spirit, the northern point of the star—with Matt’s broad shoulders nearly touching the lines closest to the center. Five pairs, linked in power and urgency and desperation, bound into a single focus by the three who stood at the star’s center. If this worked…

“Damn, Lena, you’re over thinking this. Just. Be. With. Me.”

Arching back, he found her mouth and covered her lips with his own, exploring with his tongue until she felt doubly filled. Lost. She wanted his hands on her, but like her, he grasped the arms of the witches to each side of them, closing the circle. Slipping into his thoughts, she thought she’d drown in raw, urgent need.

“Too much.” Whimpering, she bucked under him, and he used his mouth to stroke her neck, caress her cheek.

“Has to be.”

Leaves, plants green and ripening with seeds. Fruit hanging heavy on the vine. Soil aching to receive seeds, opening for tender roots. Pushing with as much force as she could summon, she moved the healing outward, covering more ground. A reach that would have been impossible without the thirteen-fold link. Witch to witch to witch, and with that, she fell out of Matt’s thoughts and floated in and out of the others’ minds with as little effort as plants spreading roots beyond the garden fence.

Hungry now, greedy for more than magic, she curled her hips and welcomed the plunging strokes, the pounding pressure and raw scrape of skin against her clit, the slick movement of Matt’s chest against her nipples. As she opened for him, sliding her ankles over his calves and digging her heels into his straining muscles, she let go of her conviction that this was wrong—forbidden.

Her inhibitions abandoned, she slid into the thoughts of the redheaded witch she’d noticed when they’d gathered in the clearing, pulled down as if through quicksand. In addition to Matt’s cock, Matt’s mouth, she felt the ministrations of the nameless witch paired with the redhead. Her neck prickled when she realized the heavily muscled witch, his tawny hair hanging loose at his shoulders, his eyes shut tight as he gave himself to the moment, was buried deep in the redhead’s ass.

“I can’t…”

“Shh. Back with me. Open your eyes.”

Tugging away from psychic tendrils that threatened to strangle her, she looked up at Matt’s determined smile. She’d been afraid to do more than make hurried eye contact earlier. If she didn’t look, she could pretend this wasn’t happening. But now she studied the laugh lines at the corners of his eyes, the sensual curve of his lips, the strong lines of his nose and cheekbones.

He’d started out with his wavy brown hair tied back with a leather band, but it had come loose at some point. Dark brown locks fell around his face, half concealing amber-brown eyes so light and clear that he reminded her of a large cat stalking prey on the savanna. But the tenderness in his gaze startled her the most.

“Better?”

Unable to do more than nod, she let herself fall into him, staring at the arch of his brows, the sprinkling of razor stubble, the strong curve of his chin. Where her shoulders pressed against his chest, her arms spread-eagled under his, they presented a contrast of pale cream under golden honey. Her hair had come free of her thick braid, and tendrils so pale they were almost colorless wound across her neck.

“Matt.” No question, no statement, just the simple comfort of saying his name. In every way a stranger, tonight he was her other half, her salvation when the press of the others’ frenzied coupling threatened to pull her into a thousand pieces.

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