Chapter 197

Helen’s POV

My Huntsman led me from the room and down the hall. Stopping at a cutout in the ceiling, he pulled this down, and a ladder extended, leading to the attic. Dutifully, I followed him up and found Julianne weeping softly on a bed in the corner of the attic.

The Huntsman had been telling the truth. There were no windows, nothing but the raw boards on the floor and the walls and the slanted ceilings. These were all clean, and a rug filled the center of the space. A bed had been pushed against the far straight wall. Next to it sat a little table where a tray of food and water lay untouched.

“Julianne.”

At the sound of the Huntsman's voice, she scrambled off the bed, rushing for him. “My love, my darling,” she cried out. “You finally came back to me.”

She caught sight of me over his shoulder and slapped out at me. “You bitch! What are you doing here?”

The Huntsman caught her hands. “Now, now, my sweetheart.”

“I am! I am your sweetheart!” she gushed.

He nodded. “For the moment, yes.”

“Just for the moment?” She broke, and fresh tears started streaming down her face.

He wiped those off. “I'm going to fuck you. I don't want your tears on me while we're doing this.”

She immediately scrubbed her face with her sleeve. “You're going to make love to me?”

“Whatever you need to call it.” He shrugged. “I want you to bear my children. Will you?”

“Anything for you.”

She grabbed the front of his shirt and yanked him forward, pressing a kiss to his lips. Raw, red rage flowed through me. I wanted to rip her head from her body. But the Huntsman reached behind, patting my arm as if reminding me that this was what he wanted and I had agreed to give him anything.

“Come downstairs,” the Huntsman said, breaking the kiss and backing down.

I scrambled to get out of his way so that we could let Julianne out of the attic bedroom. The minute they were clear of the stairs, he yanked down her pants and placed his hand between her legs, rubbing and coaxing her to open herself up to him.

He certainly didn’t need to. She would have dropped to the floor and spread her legs and taken him right there.

Her whimper pissed me off. I bit my cheek so hard that I tasted blood.

Why exactly did the Huntsman want me to watch this again? He could have taken her as his lover without making me witness this. But if it was what he wanted, then I would bear it for his sake.

He dropped his pants and looked at Julianne. “Pleasure me,” he ordered. “But I need to finish inside you.”

She obediently dropped to her knees and got busy, working her mouth along his throbbing erection.

It hurt me to watch, knowing that his dick could be inside me, bringing me one chance closer to bearing his child.

My Huntsman groaned and reached behind him, grabbing my arm and pulling me close, kissing me and squeezing my breast as Julianne worked his lower half. I forced myself to suppress the feeling of need between my legs. I was ready to pull up my own skirt and jump on top of his cock, pushing her face out of the way.

Over and over, I scolded myself for being selfish. I was doing this for him.

Finally, he groaned and jerked his hips away from Julianne. “Enough,” he said. He pushed the ladder back in on itself and shut the door to the attic room. “Lay down,” he ordered her.

She nodded and obediently dropped to the floor, spreading her legs for him.

“Get down behind me,” he said to me, “and caress my balls while I do this. I need to make sure that I fill her with as much of my seed as possible.”

Again, the distastefulness of his request washed over me. But quickly pushed those aside with the realization that I had to please him. I needed to please him, or I would hate myself for the rest of my life.

He dropped to his knees, positioning himself between Julianne's legs, aiming straight for her wet, welcoming opening. And I crouched behind him, ready to do my part to help make sure that he would get the offspring that he desired.

Russo's POV

The morning of the ritual dawned both earlier and later than I would have liked. I hadn't slept a wink that night, and Lisa had tossed and turned beside me. I had tried several times to make love to her and distract us both, but she refused me, insisting that we would have our first time together after the threat of the Huntsman was gone.

The last thing she wanted to do was meet her husband-to-be in bed under the threat of death. Because if we failed, that's exactly what was coming for us. I held the opposite opinion. The last thing I wanted to do was miss a chance to be with my future wife, just in case anything went wrong, and we never got a second try.

But I couldn't force her, and I couldn't convince her. So instead, I held her close and tried to soothe her the best that I could.

And so, the hours that night ticked by slowly, agonizingly, painfully, torturously, slowly. But when my alarm went off, I desperately wished that I had another night to try to sleep again because the ache of tiredness rode every cell in my body.

Lisa was already tapping out texts on her phone. Hers chimed as each one of the members of our team announced that they were ready. She got out of bed and got dressed, throwing on robes that I'd never seen before.

“What are those?” I asked her.

“The robes of witches, ones who are official magic practitioners,” she replied.

“Do they help make your magical endeavors more successful?” I asked, hoping that they did.

She shook her head. “No, they don’t have any magical properties, but they make me feel better about what I'm doing, more confident,” she said. “I need confidence today.”

My wings fluttered on my back. “I'll do whatever I can to help you,” I said. “would you like me to wear the ropes too?”

She giggled. “No. Only witches wear these. Wizards wear a pendant that symbolizes their status in the magic-wielding community.”

She laughed again. “But I think your wings definitely announced that you are one of the magical community. So I wouldn't worry about that.”

I hurried over and gave her a deep kiss. “While you gather up everything for the rite,” I told her, “I will head down to start breakfast.”

She shook her head. “I don't think I can eat.”

I rubbed my hand across her cheek, letting it come to rest on the back of her head, my fingers tangled through her hair. “Then let me make you a protein breakfast shake,” I said. “You need to put something in your stomach. You're going to be drawing on a lot of power today. You'll need your strength.”

She's nodded. “I'll take a breakfast shake then. Nothing too solid because,” she rubbed her stomach tenderly, “I think if I ate anything solid, it would come right back up. I'm that nervous.”

I gripped her chin and kissed her forehead, then her nose, then her lips. “Don't worry so much. This all ends today.”

“You're right,” she said.

I grabbed my clothes and stuffed my legs and then my arms into them. Then I hurried from the bedroom into the kitchen. I pulled out fruit and flax seeds, chia, yogurt, and almond milk. Everything I needed to make a shake that would taste good, power her, and sit easy on her stomach.

By the time I was done blending the concoction, she’d arrived in the kitchen, her arms full of everything that we would need. I handed her a cup with the smoothie in it and kissed her cheek.

“I'm going to get a bag for all of this stuff. It'll be easier to carry to the ritual’s location.”

We had decided on the basement of a human church, one that had been abandoned for quite some time. While the humans didn't consider magic to be holy in any way, any connection we could get to the gods would give us an advantage.

The ground of the church had been properly sanctified, which definitely repelled demons and would work in favor of our rite. Not to mention, the last place that the Huntsman would think to look for us was an abandoned human church.

If he could even stomach the idea of going in one, being a part demon, then he would have to think to look for us there in the first place. It was as many layers of protection as we could think to give ourselves. But it was a forty-minute drive to get to the location. Humans and werewolves didn't have their settlements near one another, and that was probably for the best, protecting both types of creatures.