DoubleBlind

  It’d been three days since Ravyn and my…encounter. I hadn’t seen her around Junonia, and the only evidence that she was still home was the empty bottles I found at her doorstep. I thought I’d seen Phaedra sneak a basket up the mountain a couple of times, but Ravyn had never come down with her.

  Enough is enough.

  I steeled myself outside her door and knocked. Silence.

  “Ravyn. C’mon, I know you’re in there.”

  “Go away.” The door muffled her voice.

  I toed one of the bottles and sighed. “You’re really gonna make me sit out here all day?”

  “If that’s what you want. Baka.”

  “If I go find Phaedra’s basket of goodies, will you let me in?” I nudged the door with my elbow. That thing wasn’t going to budge unless she wanted it to. “Or is it just her you want?”

  Ravyn was quiet for a long time. Maybe I’d struck pretty low below the belt, but I hadn’t been sleeping well. The memory of her moans kept me awake and haunted my dreams. Whatever was keeping her locked inside her cave couldn’t be much worse.

  I was just about to give up when the door inched open. “You’re such an ass sometimes,” Ravyn murmured, then she stepped back.

  Her pce was as dark as ever, and the smell of incense was overwhelming. At least a dozen candles burned on nearly every surface, and the table we’d wiped clean was once again stacked with books. Ravyn marched to the back of the room and retrieved a rge silver goblet, stealing a long drink while my eyes adjusted. Ball Gag was strangely absent.

  She hugged the bck robe around her waist and leveled her hooded gaze with mine. “What, Matt?”

  I couldn’t help but ugh. “You really have to ask?”

  Her face flushed, and she chewed her lower lip. “And you didn’t consider for a second that maybe I don’t want to talk about this?”

  “I considered that for three days, Ravyn. I sent Keke, Ceres, and Cannoli off to go have fun in Abalone.” Her eyes widened. “Yeah, Cannoli went. And I kept hoping that you and I could just ugh this off or… God, I don’t know. Anything that isn’t this.” I gestured at the space between us. It was barely ten feet, but it felt like miles.

  “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “You’re not giving me a chance to.”

  Ravyn threw back the rest of her wine and smmed it on a nearby desk. “You think you’ve experienced everything, boy, but you have no idea—”

  “First, stop calling me ‘boy.’” I crossed the room but stopped outside of arm’s reach. The st thing I wanted was for her to run to her bedroom and lock the door. “Second, even if I haven’t gone through what you have, the least you can do is try to talk to me.”

  “Oh? Is it?” Ravyn sneered. “The ‘least’ I can do? Do I owe you so much?”

  “Yes!” I snapped without thinking. Her expression fell. I rubbed my face in my hands and shook my head. “No. Damn it. You don’t owe me anything.” This wasn’t how I’d pictured our conversation going at all.

  She shuffled toward me, and her fingertips brushed my forearm. Her voice softened. “Do you really want to know how I feel?”

  “Yeah. I do.” I crossed my arms. “We’ve got all the time in the world right now.”

  “Alright.” Ravyn nodded and turned to a nearby bookcase. Moving two of the candles aside, she touched the spines of each volume, and her lips moved in silence. I crossed my arms and waited, watching her tail sway behind her bare thighs as she moved. “Here it is.” She pulled a dark brown book from a lower shelf, flipped it open, and pulled two pages free. Then she held one out to me expectantly.

  I took it, expecting a journal entry or a letter, but when my gaze fell on a familiar marking at the bottom, I blinked in surprise. “An [Impersonate Soul] scroll?”

  “Mhm.” She put the book back and returned to my side. “I bought a few extra.”

  “Why?”

  “They’re handy for a lot of things.” Ravyn kept her eyes carefully trained on the page. “But I don’t have to tell you how dangerous they are.”

  I shuddered. Living as Destiny for an hour was not something I would ever be ready to repeat. “So, then…?”

  “Words aren’t enough for this, Matt.” Ravyn looked up at me, and her violet eyes glistened with tears. “If you really want to know how the fuck I feel, then let’s trade for an hour.”

  Seeing Ravyn this upset was more painful than Keke’s arrow in my shoulder or the Defiled’s venom on my chest. I would have agreed to jump off the cliff outside her door if it took that expression off her face. “Everything’s amplified, though, right?”

  “Yes.”

  I tried to simultaneously picture worst-case scenario while I struggled to find the words to say.

  It seemed Ravyn was ten steps ahead of me. She rubbed the tears from her eyes and cracked a smile. “I can lock us inside, and I still have plenty of wine for two depressed morons for an hour.”

  “Sure, what the hell. Why not?” I stripped off my jacket and set it aside before undoing my belt.

  “Nani? What are you doing?”

  “We’re trading, right?” I stacked my jeans on top of my jacket. “Your dress was enough. I’m not staring at myself in that robe for an hour.”

  “Oh. Kehehe.” She shimmied her shoulders. “You can’t ta—” she started, then froze. The mischievous grin she wore whenever she knew she was teasing the hell out of me was there and gone in an instant. “Shit. I’m sorry.”

  I nodded. I wish I could have ughed, but the thought of using that Spell again had my hands shaking. “Let’s get this over with.”

  “R-right.” She slid her hand into mine. “On the count of three?”

  “Sure. One.”

  “Two.”

  “Three. [Impersonate Soul].”

  Even having done it once before, it still felt weird as hell. I shrank to Ravyn’s height, and my limbs thinned out. My shirt tightened around my chest, and the boxers slid low on my hips. I felt the sudden extension of a new limb—her tail—and lifted it from side to side. It was a lot heavier than Destiny’s.

  Ravyn turned away from me, quickly discarding the robe and her bra for the jacket and pants. Seeing the back of my head was a surreal experience, one I don’t think I’d ever get used to. Once the Spell was complete, she grabbed a dark bottle from under her desk and a corkscrew from one of the drawers.

  “The man before Cailu, on San Isnd… His name was Finn,” she started, though it was all in my voice.

  As soon as Finn’s name left her mouth, it was like a bolt of lightning struck my heart. Too many emotions for me to name swept over me, and it took everything I had not to curl up in the closest corner. They were somehow made more complicated by looking at my doppelganger.

  She freed the cork and tossed it and the corkscrew aside, taking a drink straight from the bottle before passing it to me. “We ran away together, Finn and me. Away from my mother, from the roachshit expectations, from the Defiled—”

  “And it worked for a while,” I murmured in Ravyn’s voice. I felt it. Every word a dagger. “Until…”

  “Until it didn’t.”

  “I shouldn’t have run away with him. He’d still be alive.” She hugged the jacket around her chest. “I killed him, Matt.”

  There was a part of her that thought she was right. A big, big part of her. I could hear it screaming in the back of my mind. But then there was this shred of doubt that refused to back down. I shook my head. “You don’t really believe that.”

  “I do.” She snatched the bottle back and took another drink. “And rehab was hell.”

  Rehab? The word spurred sensations of dread. Overwhelming isotion. Cold rooms. Bnk walls. “You were locked up?”

  “They force love out of you. Treat it like a goddess-damned disease. And if they can’t cure you…”

  The image of a gallows floated across my mind’s eye. Was that my imagination or Ravyn’s truth? “You were cured then?”

  “Fuck no.” She sputtered a ugh that was awkward in my voice. “You feel it, don’t you? How ‘cured’ I am?”

  It was my turn to drink. But there wasn’t enough alcohol in the world to fill the gaping hole in my chest. There never would be. It hurt. It hurt so fucking much. But when I looked up at her—at me—I felt…better. Just moving an inch closer, I felt so much better. “You have to let Finn go,” I hissed through my teeth. “If…if you want…” to be with me. I didn’t dare say it out loud, but the desire was there, just as wide and as loud as the emptiness.

  “If I want you,” she whispered. She stared back at me; her gaze was intense.

  Looking at myself in the mirror had never made my heart pound before, but through Ravyn’s eyes, it was a different story. There was a craving that I was intimately familiar with, but it was overshadowed by…doubt? Betrayal? What the hell was this?

  “Saoirse’s tits, you… you just… fuck.” She stepped forward and slid a hand beneath the mane of red hair down my back to grab the back of my neck.

  “Hey, hang on—”

  Her mouth was suddenly on mine. I raised my hands to her chest and pushed, only to find myself instead raking my nails down the bare skin.

  She chuckled. “You want this as much as I do.”

  “Yes.” I was losing every internal struggle that told me to stop. Any hope of control I had over the situation was commanding me to submit.

  She hummed and thrust her tongue between my lips, and I was struck with an intense vertigo.

  The breathless sounds that escaped me were Ravyn’s voice. The grip on my neck and the chest beneath my nails were my body. But the warmth that flooded my veins and the tingling in my skin felt like it belonged to us both.

  One hand gripped my tail, and the other weaved its way through my hair. I shuddered and groaned as her lips trailed my throat.

  He tightened his grip on my hair and bit down on my shoulder.

  He? But she’s… I’m…

  “Don’t stop.” I heard the words, but didn’t realize I’d said them. I pushed the jacket back and let my hands wander. Ravyn’s hands. They moved and traced and memorized a map that I should have known by heart, but to her, this was new.

  To me, this was new.

  The pressure on my hair and tail vanished, and my shirt was ripped over my head. He bent forward and swept his arms behind my back, lifting my body to his mouth. I raised off of my feet so easily—like I weighed nothing. Teeth teased my nipple, and I moaned, burying my hands in his hair.

  “Matt…” Ravyn’s voice. My name. Wasn’t it?

  Who am I?

  “Losing yourself?” he murmured against my skin.

  This wasn’t supposed to be how we finished this. Why was everything between us a dangerous mess? “Yes.”

  “Be me then, Ravyn. And I’ll be you.”

  And why did that suggestion build so much damn tension between my legs? “Okay.”

  “This way, then.” He let me nd on my feet before grabbing my wrist and pulling me to my bedroom.

  No… Ravyn’s bedroom…

  But my body knew the comforts and safety it offered as soon as I stepped through the door. The bed I’d spent so many nights in alone. The wardrobe that held long-forgotten dresses from the luxuries of San Isnd. An alchemy kit that—

  He pushed me forward and bent me over the bed. My face sunk into the sheets, and both wrists were pinned above my head before I could fight back. My heart hammered against my chest, and my head raced. I writhed beneath the grasp as the shorts on my hips were yanked down to my ankles.

  “This much power is fucking intoxicating,” he growled, stroking the length of my spine, then letting his fingers wander over my tail.

  I shivered, and three realities struck me at once. I was completely naked. I had no hope of fighting back. And every inch of my skin was on fire with excitement. “You’re not going easy on me.”

  “That’s not what you want, Ravyn.” He grabbed my tail, fingering and stroking it with expert dexterity. I cried out, thrashed against the hold, and my breaths turned into desperate panting. “And that’s not what I want.”

  I’d never felt so utterly vulnerable. Even thinking about our tryst a few days before, I still found a modicum of control in our exchange. One part of me wanted to burn him just enough to free myself and take control. But the loss, the loneliness, and the overwhelming exhaustion from keeping him at a “safe” distance drowned that part out tenfold.

  The hand on my tail disappeared, and a pressure against my thigh forced my legs further apart.

  “M…Matt—” I whimpered.

  “Trust me.”

  Fingertips brushed the inside of my thigh on their travels upward, parted the incredibly sensitive skin between my legs, and then…

  “Oh my God,” I breathed as cool fingers stroked against the vulnerable folds between. My whole body trembled.

  “Good girl,” he growled.

  I felt my ears perk and my tail lift. Gentle kneading alternated with delicate teases at my opening. My hips rolled against his hand, and I ached for more.

  “Push yourself up.” He released my wrists, and I lifted my torso upward so my chest hung free. “I want you to feel everything.” He grabbed my left breast and massaged it in time with his other hand.

  I gasped, and my elbows quivered. I wanted to melt in the pleasure. Everything was so damn sensitive, and I was being pyed like a well-loved instrument. There was a slow, delicious tension building between my thighs, and it ached to be filled. It was unlike anything I’d ever felt before, and I could feel a blush rush to my face and neck.

  He ughed, and on the next rotation, two fingers slid past the first knuckle, then the second. My back arched, and my feet spread wider. It was invasive. Terrifying. Delicious. But the most embarrassing of all to admit…

  “It’s not enough, is it?” he asked.

  “N-no.” I stared at my hands, afraid to see his expression. “I need more.”

  “I know. Stay put.” He drew away, and I fought for air. The sound of jeans hitting the floor rang in my ears.

  “C-can we really do this?”

  “Yeah. Everything vanishes with the Spell.” A new pressure aligned to my hips, and my breath hitched. “And I have dreamed of feeling this.”

  The resounding excitement in my chest agreed. And before I could think much more about it, my body had other ideas. My arms were guiding me backward, urging me to accept more satisfying penetration.

  Take it, Ravyn. It’s what you’ve wanted for years.

  One inch. Two. Three. Deeper still. My vision grew hazy, and moans tore from my throat. I felt…stretched. Reshaped. My head lolled back.

  “Mmh… That feels so good.” Fingers rolled the thin skin of my ear between them, massaging and plying at another new sensation as I still warred with the one between my legs. “What a good kitten.”

  Every word out of his mouth was bliss. It was everything I’d ever wanted to hear. I wriggled my hips and wrapped my tail around his waist and let go of my st inhibitions. “Fuck me, Matt.”

  “With pleasure.” He grabbed my hips, drew back, then thrust hard.

  This. This was what I’d wanted. This was enough. I cried out and dug my nails into the sheets. The threads around them popped free, and tiny tears in the fabric revealed the mattress underneath. I breathed so heavily and quickly that the sound resolved in my throat like a purr. Fire licked my skin, and I felt something more inside me tense and build with every strike.

  “I-I think I’m close!” I squealed.

  He grabbed my hair and pulled back. “Come, Ravyn.”

  A slow pulse started in my lower abdomen, then tripped into a powerful convulsion between my thighs that ripped cries from my throat. Waves of pleasure rolled from the tops of my ears to the tip of my tail, continued by his unrelenting thrusts. My toes curled into the stone, and my tail tightened around his waist.

  “Fuck, my turn—ngh!” His groans joined mine, and it renewed my convulsions. I fought for air and struggled to form a coherent thought. It felt like my climax would never end.

  Still, as his movements slowed, so did mine. He drew away from me, and I loosed my tail. I let my arms give way so that my face fell to the bed. The throbbing died down to a pleasant pulse, and a satisfied smile spread across my face.

  I crawled on top of the bed and flipped onto my back. “Matt, I—”

  Ravyn stared back at me, her cheeks a shade of red that was almost as brilliant as her hair. I felt the st of my tail disappear, and my human ears return. The joy that had filled me only moments before dissolved into an elixir of dread.

  What the fuck just happened?

  The look on her face said that she was just as confused and embarrassed as I was. It was pretty clear that I only had two choices on how to proceed, and the wrong one would likely lead to Ravyn never speaking to me again.

  I swallowed every insecurity, doubt, and feeling of utter bewilderment and got off the bed. Before she could say a word, I embraced her.

  Ravyn stiffened for an instant, then rexed and wrapped her arms around my waist. She leaned her cheek against my chest, and I rested my chin on top of her head. Her tail coiled around my calf.

  Words weren’t enough for this.

  DoubleBlind