Tag Archives: Elemental Coven

The 5th Instalment of Demon Interrupted: A Lakeland Witches Story

castlerigg_Stone_Circle1I’m very happy to offer the fifth instalment of  Demon Interrupted, a new story from the Elemental Coven that will be unfolding in its entirety right here on A Hopeful Romantic over the next few months.

The Lakeland Heatwave Trilogy left so many stories untold and so many fun places in the lives of the Elemental Coven yet to be explored, that a serial seemed like the ideal way to share more of the coven’s adventure. With a coven that specialises in sex magic, it’s not only exciting to revisit my witches at Elemental Cottage, but it’s sizzling hot. Here are the links to the previous episodes in case you missed them:

Chapter 1 Demon Interrupted: Perchance to Dream.

Chapter 2 Demon Interrupted: A Chat with a Demon

Chapter 3 Demon Interrupted: Enter the Shadows

Chapter 4 Demon Interrupted: Dark Chrysalis

Enjoy Chapter Five, and thanks for joining the fun with this Work in Progress.  If you want to know more about the Elemental Coven’s sexy adventures, check out the Lakeland Heatwave Trilogy: Body Temperature and RisingRiding the Ether and Elemental Fire. Enjoy!

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Chapter 5 of Demon Interrupted

The Empty Spaces in Between

‘How the hell did I get here?’ It took Ferris a few seconds to realise that there was no one else in the SUV and that it was he who had spoken. He was no longer in his study at Storm Croft, He was no longer in Surrey at all, nor was Elaine with him. He was on the A 66 following a farm tractor, along with a half a dozen other vehicles, crawling toward Keswick. The sun was just going down, and the saddle-backed behemoth of Blencathera loomed large to the right of him still catching the last rays of light on its western flank.

She had killed her husband. The last memory Ferris had before coming back to himself in Cumbria was Elaine revealing to him that she had killed her husband, that she had been hanged for that reason. Surely he had misunderstood her. Surely there were extenuating circumstances, but he’d had no time to ask or at least he had no memory of asking. There had been long stretches of time of which he had no memory during the years he served Lucia, watching out for Cassandra. In fact, on occasion, it almost felt as though he could choose to shut down, like a computer when it’s no longer being used. Back then the lapses in memory, the loss of time, hadn’t seemed strange at all to him, nor had they mattered. But now things had changed. His life had changed. He remembered every detail of the time he’d spent with the Elemental Coven, and he would have wanted to miss none of it. Now, the loss of such a significant stretch of time and, at such an inconvenient moment, was more than disturbing. Surely Lucia was responsible. The tractor turned off near Threlkeld and Ferris sped toward Elemental Cottage, anxious to get home, and truly, Elemental Cottage felt like his home now. He didn’t know whether he was desperate to talk to Lucia or desperate to avoid her.
Demon Interrupted Image by Kev‘You’re just in time for dinner,’ Fiori called from the kitchen, as he walked in the door. ‘Sea bass, at Anderson’s request, of course.’

‘Is Tara around?’ He said, not wanting to ask specifically for Lucia.

‘She and Kennet had some errands to run in Keswick,’ she replied. ‘They should be back soon.’

Anderson and Cassandra were just coming down the stairs. When Cassandra saw Ferris, she threw her arms around him and kissed him on the cheek, the buzz of her energy making him feel like he’d just drank a couple of strong pints. ‘You’re back. We were worried you wouldn’t make it in time. How was Storm Croft?’

‘Same as always,’ he said, brushing the hair away from her face and nodding his greeting to Anderson. ‘The grounds are lovely this time of year, keeping the gardeners busy.’

For the first time he could remember since he’d arrived at Elemental Cottage, he didn’t taste the meal, even though he knew it was delicious. Fiori’s sea bass was spoken about in hushed tones, and it was always a favourite for Full Moon dinner. The new potatoes and baby carrots with peas were fresh from Tara’s garden, but he didn’t taste them. Even the white chocolate cheesecake with fresh strawberries was wasted on him. Neither did he hear the brisk banter and laughter that was always the best part of a meal shared at Elemental Cottage. His mind was on his encounter with Elaine — if it really had been an encounter. And surely it had to have been because he didn’t dream. Yet it would have been easier if she had been only a visitation from his dreamscape.

Later as he unpacked his bag before he showered for the Full Moon Circle, he discovered among the socks and carefully folded black shirts several dusty tomes about demons and several more about the history of Storm Croft. He didn’t remember packing them. He didn’t even remember having them on the shelves in the library at the great house. Most of the relevant volumes, Cassandra had brought back to Elemental Cottage when she had made it her permanent residence. The books were all leather bound and, from the looks of them, quite fragile. He would have never transported such treasures so carelessly, and yet here they were. Very carefully, he placed them on the bureau and grabbed his robe.

He could hear the rest of the coven milling about downstairs. He’d had no chance to talk to Tara, since she and Kennet had had a flat tyre on the way back from Keswick and had made it in time to eat their portion of the feast in the kitchen after where Fiori had kept it warm for them. As he joined them for the walk to the Dream Cave, he realized he really didn’t know how to approach Lucia. She had always approached him. Demons usually did what they wanted and in their own time. Just because she now resided in Tara, didn’t mean she was always there, present and accounted for. She needed flesh no more than she needed to breathe, but after Deacon’s defeat and Tara’s horrible sacrifice, no one was completely sure that Tara could now live without Lucia’s possession of her. In truth, Ferris was at a loss. There was no knocking at Lucia’s door, and he would just as soon the rest of the coven knew nothing about what had happened at Storm Croft.

‘Guess we’re together tonight, since you don’t dream and I’m not all that good at magic.’ Alice fell into step next to him as they made their way to the cave. Normally Full Moon was celebrated under the open sky whenever possible. Ferris had no idea why Tara had decided to do the circle in the cave.

‘Your magic is far better that you give yourself credit for, Alice, and you can hardly compare yourself to a coven of witches who were raised to it.’ Ferris and Sky had been tutoring Alice on basic magic. She really was quite gifted. She had only recently made her first forays into the Ether with Cassandra. It had taken her some time to overcome her fear of the place after Deacon had dragged her there, along with Ferris, as his captives. She would, indeed, be a huge asset to the coven when a little more emotional healing had taken place and she was a little farther away from those nightmarish memories of what Deacon had done to her. He laced his fingers through hers. ‘We’ll offer support this time,’ he said, giving her hand an encouraging squeeze. ‘It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it.’

She smiled up at him. ‘It’s a safe job. Not so important to you, maybe, but then you’re not nearly as neurotic as I am.’

She had no idea, he thought.

When everyone was gathered and all of the candles were lit around the perimeter of the cave, Tim spoke up. ‘Why are we in here doing dream magic on a gorgeous night like this? I would have thought we’d gather down at the tarn.’

Tara, who had been speaking softly to Anderson, her second in command, looked around at her coven. ‘We’re here tonight because of a dream that Kennet and I had together. We, all of us, have suffered from what Deacon has done to us, and though there’s been a lot of healing, a lot of rebuilding those bonds that make us a family, we all know how much we’ve lost and how far we have to go.’ She turned to Fiori. ‘I know you’re still having nightmares, Fiori, and I know there are several others among us, maybe even all of us who are either suffering from nightmares or well … basically post traumatic stress.’

She looked right at Ferris, and he felt heat crawl up his neck and over his cheeks. Living in the cotton wool present that Lucia had created for him, he had never suffered from anything for very long. But things were different now. For all of them.

The High Priestess continued. ‘Our most intimate act, even more so than the sexual bond we all share, is the act of sleeping and dreaming together, is the act of allowing each other to walk our dreamscapes. In that there’s bonding. In that there’s healing.’

‘In that there’s embarrassment and humiliation,’ Tim groused.

Everyone chuckled uncomfortably. Tim was right, but so was Tara. She offered him an unimpressed look. ‘Nevertheless, Mr Meriwether, we will dream together.’

‘There are Swedish pancakes for afterwards,’ Fiori offered with a cheery smile.

‘Well that’s at least something,’ Tim said.

Tara glared at him. ‘I’ll feed your share to the dog if you don’t watch your mouth, Meriwether.’

‘We don’t have a dog.’

‘Harry Gibbons up the road does. Nice big collie. Loves Fiori’s cooking.’

Once the circle was cast, Ferris took Alice’s hand and pulled her down onto one of the sleeping pallets that ringed the cushions on which the main dreamers would dream. For maximum magic, tonight that couple was Tara and Kennet. They were the most powerful dreamers. But the coven was strong in dream magic. Tim and Marie, and Cassandra and Anderson also excelled in it. Ferris knew that was a good thing, and yet he always dreaded it, especially after his recent encounter with Lucia and what had happened to him at Storm Croft. But dream magic was sex magic, as was all of the magic the Elemental Coven practiced, so when Alice shrugged out of her robe and reached for him, he was fully erect and completely focused on bringing her to the brink of orgasm and keeping her there as long as possible. This, he could do, and this would keep his mind from wandering where it shouldn’t.

He was intimately familiar with Alice’s body, as he was with all of the Elemental Coven. Alice was a keen fell walker and he loved the feel of her hard muscles under soft feminine curves beneath his hands, beneath his lips, beneath his body. He loved the feel of her biceps as her arms encircled him. He loved the tensing of her pectoral muscles when his hands and his mouth found their way to her high, firm breasts with their nipples peeking candy floss pink at the flick of his tongue and the purse of his lips. The swell of them fit the cup of his hand and together formed a tight cradle for his erection to tunnel through as her tongue flicked over the anxious advance and retreat of the head of his cock.

He loved the way her stomach tightened and ridged in anticipation as he kissed down the slope of it, lingering to tongue her navel before descending to briefly rest his cheek against the softness of her pubic curls. Her strong fingers always fisted in his hair in a nearly painful grip as he shouldered open her strong thighs and continued his descent to kiss the Keystone, always distended and pressed in anticipation from beneath its hood. Then, to the soundtrack of sex all around him, he buried his face in the swelling depths of her, seashore-scented and wet.

As the magic built all around them with each thrust, each caress, each kiss, she groaned low and throaty and lifted her feet onto his shoulders, giving him better access, along with a view all the way back to the gripping clench of her anus, giving herself the leverage to bear down. He lapped the honey and salt taste of her with long strokes of his tongue and sucked and tugged at her inner folds as if he were starved for the feast she offered. She bucked and writhed against his mouth as though she were riding a horse in need of taming. He stroked and suckled and licked her open, relishing her mother of pearl arousal, sticky and warm on his fingers, feeling his own arousal surge and press outward above the achy weight of his full sac.

‘I need you inside me,’ she whispered, a whisper he felt more than heard. ‘I need you inside me, Ferris.’ He pulled away wiping his wet face against the back of his arm. As he rose above her to position himself, holding his cock in one hand and spreading her folds with the other, something flashed dark in his peripheral vision. It all happened so fast. He blinked, and as he thrust into Alice’s depths, the afterimage of Elaine danced across his eyelids. Distracted, he scanned the perimeter, but there was nothing. Alice lifted her legs and wrapped them around his waist thrusting up to meet him, and his full attention returned to the magic, to her pussy’s gripping, slippery caress of his cock.

And Goddess, his cock felt big! It felt big enough to fill the cave, and the ache in his balls felt molten hot and heavy. As Alice’s grip around his waist tightened and the tension rippled up her spin, up his, and as they reached the point at which he intended to hold her, the high plateau of arousal that would weave their own thread of magic into that of the rest of the coven, he marvelled at how tiny she seemed beneath him, how delicate she was in his embrace. He marvelled that he didn’t tear her apart with his need, with the violence of his thrusting. He marvelled that she cried out as she did, that her need matched his.

It wasn’t supposed to happen. It shouldn’t have happened. They had played their part in dream magic often enough to know how to control it, and yet he felt the clench of her orgasm grip his cock, he felt her heals kick against his spine, and he lost control. He lost control and emptied himself into her, coming in wrenching waves, growling like a wild animal, and he came as though he would turn himself inside out.

It was only in the last throes of his release that he realised her legs were no longer around him, her palms Fells in the mistwere hard at his chest shoving him, and the sound of her arousal was drown out by the sounds of fear. Over the buzz in his head he heard her breathless cries, ‘Get away from me! Get away from me! Where’s Ferris? What have you done to Ferris.’

It was as he moved to calm her, still struggling to figure out what had just happened, that he saw Elaine just beyond the periphery of the circle and, before he could stop himself, he shoved to his feet and ran toward her, feeling the protective magic of the circle as though it flayed him of all skin when he forced his way through without cutting a door. ‘Elaine!’ He called out. ‘Elaine, don’t go!’

‘What the fuck?’ Tim cried out. Someone else called Ferris’ name. Behind him he heard the shouts of the coven as the circle erupted in chaos, but his eyes were locked on the ghost fleeing toward the fells. It was only then that he realised he’d left his body behind in the circle on the cave floor.

 

 

2nd Instalment of Demon Interrupted: A New Lakeland Witches Story

Demon Interrupted Image by KevI’m very excited to say the Muse is just back from the fabulous Lake District with more news from the Elemental Coven. As  couple of weeks ago, I gave you the first instalment of Demon Interrupted, a new story from the Elemental Coven that will be unfolding in its entirety right here on A Hopeful Romantic over the next few months.  The Lakeland Heatwave Trilogy left so many stories untold and so many fun places in the lives of the Elemental Coven yet to be explored, that a serial seemed like the ideal way to share more of the coven’s adventure. With a coven that specialises in sex magic, it’s not only exciting to revisit my witches at Elemental Cottage, but it’s sizzling hot.

Three weeks ago I share Chapter 1 of Demon Interrupted.  And for those of you who haven’t yet read the first chapter, never fear. Just follow the above link.

Enjoy Chapter Two, and thanks for joining the fun with this Work in Progress.  If you want to know more about the Elemental Coven’s sexy adventures, check out the Lakeland Heatwave Trilogy: Body Temperature and RisingRiding the Ether and Elemental Fire. Enjoy!

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Chapter Two of DEMON INTERRUPTED

Chat with a Demon

For a long time Ferris held Fiori settled against his chest. She had fallen almost immediately back into a relaxed sleep. There was no rapid eye movement, so she wasn’t dreaming, but then she wouldn’t be. He knew a little bit of magic that made certain of that. He’d used it occasionally on Cassandra when she was younger and her dreams were particularly bad. He didn’t know how he knew it. He didn’t know how he knew anything really. Not for the first time since Deacon had been defeated he found himself wondering why he didn’t want to know, why it didn’t bother him to live in the present and remain oblivious to a past that gave him gooseflesh whenever he considered unlocking the guarded doors and letting the memories flood back into his mind. He had always assumed that the magic he knew was a gift from Lucia, sent only to help him protect Cassandra. But now he wasn’t so sure. Lucia, like most demons, wasn’t so big on giving gifts as she was exploiting the gifts people already had.

BTR FINAL IMAGEThe moon shown brightly through Fiori’s window and, as though she somehow knew it in her sleep, she pulled away from him and turned so that her lovely face was bathed in it. He contemplated staying there with her in the moonlight, in the delicious scent of their lovemaking. He even contemplated settling into sleep with her, but so many things could happen when one allowed oneself the vulnerable pleasure of sleep. For most of Cassandra’s young life Lucia, a lust demon, and one who knew well the most disturbing journeys of the human soul, had kept him in the safe silence of the dreamless dark. For the longest time he’d thought it was her way of making sure he did as he was told, but Lucia knew too much not to know that he would have never done anything to put Cassandra at risk. She was too precious to him. Perhaps, in the beginning, even that sense of Cassandra’s value had been forced upon him by Lucia, but he hadn’t known the young succubus long before he could have done none other but love her and protect her.

He was not Cassandra’s father, nor was she ever his charge, though he had fervently begged Lucia to allow him to care for her rather than for her to be taken to the orphanage where her grandmother discovered her some time later. He was the caretaker of Cassandra’s estate and nothing more. Lucia often reminded him of that fact, and yet they had both known that his role was something more.

He didn’t know how long he had existed before Cassandra came into his life. He sometimes had the sense that he was very old, and at other times he felt as though he was born the first day he held the infant Cassandra in his arms. He now had the key to discover his truth, so why did he still choose to keep the door firmly locked?

Carefully, he slid out from under the duvet and made sure Fiori was well tucked in, even knowing as he did that no harm from the cold would come to her, not really. She hadn’t drawn breath in almost two years now. Strange, he thought, as he pushed into his clothes, his eyes still locked on the sleeping ghost, who still maintained her physicality so that she could endure, even relish, the torture of the Dream World. Strange that one who was dead should seem so much more alive than he. In truth it was as though he were the ghost that haunted the halls of Elemental Cottage when everyone else rested. And in all honesty, his flesh had only begun to matter to him as more than a vessel to serve Cassandra since his arrival at Elemental Cottage. Flesh, at Elemental Cottage, was a grounding in which powerful magic took place. He rested his hand against his cock through his trousers and felt it stretch to his touch. Imagine his surprise when he found, upon his arrival, that his own flesh once again had desires, that food and drink and sex and flesh against flesh burst, ne fairly exploded, into his perpetual present, and his life became three dimensional for the fist time in his memory.

And flesh, it was an anchor to a family that he thought he’d never have. Even when Cassandra had been his soul purpose, he had exerted no control over her and she had sought no closeness in castlerigg_Stone_Circle1their relationship. He thanked the goddess that at least Lucia hadn’t deemed it necessary for him to live with the open-wound that Cassandra’s constant peregrinations could so easily have left him. No, he had gone about his days in a grey haze of duty that bound him deeply and yet he felt with a distance that eased his empathy at the young succubus’s suffering, yet never lessened his loyalty to her, nor his desire to protect her. For that at least he had been grateful.

He slipped out the door and moved down the hall toward his own suite. Here at Elemental Cottage, he was welcomed for no other reason that the fact that he was here. Periodically he made trips into Surry to check on Cassandra’s estate there until a decision could be made as to the best use of the property. But it was always with a sense of anticipation and pleasure that he returned to the Lake District and to the warmth and camaraderie of Elemental Cottage.

When he reached his suite, he stood for a long moment in front of the closed door, then he turned and headed back down the long hallway past the rooms replete with sleepers traversing the Dream World, sleepers who had only a short while ago made love in honour of the waxing of the moon. The power of sex settled over the house like the moonlight did as he made his way to the staircase and down to the library. The fire was laid in the hearth, as it always was, and once it was lit, he perused the massive shelves for something, anything, that might ease his restlessness. He was looking through a section of old texts on alchemy when he became aware that he was no longer alone. The sudden warmth on his back made him feel as though he stood too close to the fire. In spite of the warmth his arms goose-fleshed and his stomach somersaulted.

‘I can assure you, Ferris, there is nothing upon these shelves that can compare to the paths of knowledge you refuse to traverse.’ In spite of the inviting contralto timbre of the voice, Ferris felt a tremor climb his spine.

Riding the Ether cover image Final - Copy - Copy‘And I can assure you, Lucia –’ he said without looking behind him ‘– the most hideous volumes on these shelves I would fear less to peruse, than those places of which you speak.’

The demon moved in so close to him that if the fire of her had been a physical flame, his back would have been a cinder. As she crowded him against the book-lined shelves, for a moment, he resisted, ignoring the futility of such an effort. For a moment. Then he relaxed and let her invade his inner space. It was only as she exploded into those inner realms that he realized in all the years of her presence, in all the years of her on the edges of his consciousness, she had never come fully into him before. The weight of her, though not physical, was terrible, and he stumbled backward feeling his way to the sofa, gasping for breath as though all of the oxygen had gone from the world, feeling his flesh burn beyond cinder even as everything remained as it was, and yet would never again be the same.

‘You gave me a choice,’ he gasped in a voice that would have been a scream if he could have managed more than a whisper. ‘And I made that choice.’

She pushed in even closer, as if that were possible, and behind his tightly clenched eyelids he saw both the beauty and the horror of her poised closer than his own breath. ‘I gave you a gift.’ Her voice roared like the winds on the high fells. ‘I gave you a gift and I expected you to open it, to look at it, to use it.’

‘I didn’t want it! I still don’t want it! I was happy as I was.’

‘You cannot lie to me, Ferris. You were not happy. You were nothing more than a tool for my use.’ It felt as though she leaned into him and whispered in his ear. ‘And you didn’t fight me when I made you the offer.’ He felt the weight of female curves against him, on top of him, pushing him down onto the sofa, and to his horror, he was aroused, even as he was terrified.

‘I’m fighting you now,’ he said, realising to his horror that the more he struggled the more aroused he became.

‘You may fight if you choose, but it will do you no good. Did you not think that I would reward you for a job well done?’ He felt an invisible hand move against the erection he could scarce believe was there. ‘Did you think that I would leave you with no comfort when your job was done?’

He cried out and arched against stroking and caressing. ‘Cassandra was her own reward. I asked nothing else of you.’

Her laughter climbed his spine like ticklish fingers. Hands ripped at his trousers, buttons popped from his shirt. ‘You don’t know what you asked of me, Ferris, and you don’t know what I demanded of you, or what I denied you. Do you not at least want the option to hate me for all that I took from you? Is that not properly yours to claim?’

He was shocked to discover that his trousers were around his knees and that it was his own hand stroking his cock while the other cupped the heavy weight of his balls. He was embarrassed to find her watching him from the winged back chair next to the hearth, clothed in the robe of fire in which he had always seen her.

‘Everyone here has fought demons, Ferris. Everyone here has suffered great loss. But for you it has all been vicarious, has it not? For you the battle for the Elemental Coven was no more personal than the loyalty you pledged to Cassandra. I have kept you safe, I have kept you distant from yourself for all these years for your own protection and for the protection of that which I hold dear. And now you choose to remain in the empty space I created for you because you think it is there that you will remain safe. I tell you now, Ferris, and I tell you honestly, there is no safety in this place you choose to remain, and if you do not move forward and claim the time that was taken from you, you will suffer for it, ne, not only will you suffer for it, but all those who care for you will suffer as well. And they do care for you, Ferris.’ She spoke with a broad sweep of her arm. ‘They all do.’

There was a loud thud and a woman’s startled gasp, and then there was bruising pain.

‘Ferris! Ferris are you alright?’ From his position face down on the floor, Ferris recognized Fiori’s voice. Opening his eyes, he became aware of her kneeling next to him, naked.

‘I’m fine! I’m fine.’ He pushed himself to a sitting position, then took the hand she offered as she pulled him to her feet. ‘I … fell out of bed?’

Fiori’s laugh was sleepy and warm as she tugged him back under the duvet. ‘You sure you weren’t Elemental Fire cover image finaldreaming, because you seemed to have been carrying on a conversation with someone.’ As he settled back into bed next to her, she straddled him, and with a shift of her hips mounted him, her grip on his erection a tight caress. ‘Something tells me it was a sexy dream.’

That he could be aroused after what had happened would have stunned him if his visitation had been from anyone other than Lucia. But she was a lust demon, and there was no denying her mark on his flesh. ‘No dreams,’ he lied, grinding his butt into the mattress and then arching up to bury his cock deeper in her body, cupping the weight of her full breasts in his hands. ‘Just being in bed with you, that’s all.’ Fortunately, as he moved a hand down to rest against her pubis and thumb her hard clit, she seemed to lose her train of thought, and her tight shifting against his penis eased his own mental processing and brought him back to the calm centre of the present in which he existed, though there was now no denying that he might not be allowed to stay there much longer.

Read the third instalment of Demon Interrupted, Enter the Shadow.

**Special thanks to Kev Mitnik Blisse for the lovely Demon Interrupted image!