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Two years after graduating Nevermore, Wednesday was still working on her Viper de la Muerta series on the same typewriter. She had repaired it and replaced the ink ribbon more times than she could count. The machine was her most steadfast companion.
Thing had stayed behind with Pugsley, now in his Senior year at Nevermore, while Wednesday moved onto bigger and better things at university. Enid, the first recovered Alpha wolf to reintegrate herself into Werewolf society, lived with her new pack in Montana and attended classes in Missoula part-time.
Wednesday had been loath to return to New Jersey–too close to her parents for comfort–but Princeton had been the most adequate of the Ivies for her studies. She lived in a single dorm her freshman year and now maintained an off-campus apartment.
But university towns were loud and her apartment was not far from a frat house. Rush week and the intervening series of needless, noisy parties had pushed her to her limit, infringing on her concentration. After her last exam, she had looked forward to returning home for some peace and quiet to work on the latest novel in the series.
Alas, when she returned home on winter break, it was to news that her parents were hosting extended relatives for the holidays. Wednesday tolerated their antics for another few days, but Cousin Itt’s chittering next door made writing impossible. An hour after their Yule festivities had ended, Wednesday got in her car and fled, across state lines and through highways and back roads into the night.
She had booked a stay at a remote cabin in New Hampshire. It wasn’t even off a major highway, and was so close to the Canadian border that it was truly surrounded by wilderness. Wednesday secured supplies at a gas station on the way that seemed to be the catch-all for the town. It had a full accompaniment of groceries, hot foods, and beer and wine.
This trip was for writing, not frivolity, so she only chose the most necessary items, including five fire starter logs, one for each day of her intended stay. Firewood was provided at the cabin, and though she could light and tend a fire easily, the hassle of starting one would distract from her writing. Better to be efficient.
As Wednesday waited in line with her purchases, she saw a stack of newspapers, all of some local variety. She doubted the stories included were even on the web, the town was so small. The front page story heralded a bad winter, instructing citizens to be on the watch for bears, as there had been an unusual drop in the deer population.
Her heart pounded, and she picked up one of each of the papers on the rack to purchase. These were exactly the sort of details she had looked for these past two years, trying to find Tyler Galpin. Trying to find the Hyde.
“You know you don’t need the newspapers with those logs there.” The attendant pointed out, raising an eyebrow at Wednesday’s spartan purchases.
“Craft project,” Wednesday stated, uncaring at the incongruity of the statement.
She harrumphed but kept scanning her items. “If you’re staying at the old Webster cabin, I recommend a bottle of something to keep warm. It gets awful cold up on the mountain.” Sizing her up, the attendant added, “We card under thirty, though.”
“I’m not much of a drinker,” Wednesday said, weary of the prying conversation. She had just passed her twentieth birthday; it wasn’t as though edging closer to twenty-one would change her stance on the matter, though.
The attendant nodded, though it didn’t seem approving. “If you’re going up there you may want more than this, in case it snows. Just saying.”
Wednesday stared silently, uninterested in coming up with another excuse to fend off the local’s worries. She peeled cash out of a wad in her pocket and walked away with two brown bags full of groceries and newspapers.
The cabin was small, but well-appointed. It wasn’t a luxury cabin retreat; it was only a few steps above camping. Most people who rented this cabin were likely hunting, snowshoeing, or backcountry skiing. As soon as Wednesday was settled, her typewriter unpacked, groceries stowed, and the fire roaring she returned to the five newspapers.
Quickly, she read them back to front, ripping out the three stories that held relevance. Only a sentence in each of them hinted at the presence of unusual predation on the mountain. The remaining papers went into a pile by the fire.
She let a frustrated huff out of her nostrils. The purpose of this trip was to write, but if an opportunity to find the Hyde camp presented itself, Wednesday could not ignore it. She had heard rumors of it for a year after bringing Enid home. Months later, Isadora Capri re-emerged in Jericho, embroiled in her own schemes, and confirmed its existence to Wednesday. By that time, she no longer knew their current location, and Wednesday hadn’t pried many hints out of her.
Provided the remaining Hydes hadn’t faded or disbanded, she knew the camp existed, but they moved around at least every six months. The moment reports like these surfaced on the web, the signs of the camp would vanish. Wednesday had tracked no less than five leads in the intervening years, all of them fruitless.
Viper de la Muerta could wait.
At every new location, the Hydes most able to blend with normies would look for under- the-table jobs. They couldn’t maintain their barebones lifestyle with zero funds. Tyler did this less frequently, given that he was still technically a fugitive, but it had been three years since his last photo had been taken at Willow Hill. He was no longer a boy. Though not unrecognizable, the three years that took one from their teens to their early twenties often shaped young men significantly. His shoulders had broadened and his features had solidified, a thin layer of stubble constantly plaguing him.
So, here in New Hampshire, which felt so much like the nearby state where he had grown up, he had taken the initiative. He got hired at a bar, both for his muscle and pouring beers, and now he used those funds to buy supplies for the camp.
He didn’t much like the other Hydes, though the group rotated somewhat. After Capri’s guiding hand had left, it felt like they stayed together more out of obligation than necessity. He could hardly believe that he was still alive, still with them, three years later. Being back in a place that felt almost like home made the anniversary an even more bitter pill to swallow.
On one of his usual supply runs, everything changed.
As always, he checked the newspaper rack. A story about the drop in the deer population was front page news. They still had time–the local papers here didn’t even have web publications, but they didn’t have much time. Maybe they could winter here, before they had to pack up and move on.
He went to grab one of the papers off the top, when a familiar scent hit him.
Wednesday.
Tyler could never forget what she smelled like–crushed grave dirt and the faintest tinge of iron, like cold steel rather than like blood. Probably from the daggers she carried everywhere. And always, the topnote of something that was just her–nothing floral or sweet, but feminine all the same, something he couldn’t define. Whatever it was, it was unmistakably her.
He cursed under his breath, making his way to the check-out.
Pasting a smile on, he greeted the familiar attendant, “Hey, Deb. What’s going on?” It was too small a town not to learn people’s names. Besides, she was a regular at the bar. Seven in the evening every Friday, two Sam Adams Winter lagers, a little conversation, and a decent tip.
“Hey yourself, kid. Watch out for city slicker tracks. Webster’s cabin got rented out again, passed through here just a bit ago.” He noted the lack of a description. Deb knew he was a good guy, but she wasn’t about to tell any man that a young woman was all alone in an isolated cabin, and he wasn’t going to ask. Regardless, now he had a location for Wednesday.
“So be ready to help some idiot change their tire or dig them out when it snows?”
“Exactly.” He handed over cash, and received some change back. “Take care, now.”
“You too. See you soon.”
Or not. Tyler had to decide what to do with this new information, but first he had to get the supplies back to the camp. He tried not to let on that he was irritated or fidgety. Today was his night off, so he bided his time, drinking a cold beer by the fire until they all turned in for the night.
Deep in the night, when he knew everyone would truly be asleep, he left the camp and headed for the Webster cabin. It wasn’t a far hike with his Hyde endurance. They were out of range should any tourists wander astray, but on the same side of the mountain.
As he walked, he mulled it over in his mind. It had been a long time since the events at Nevermore. Sure, he’d helped bury her alive, but she’d still saved him from his uncle’s machine, before even moving to help her brother.
He had played that moment over and over in his mind, the years probably distorting it with the infallibility of memory. But he knew she wasn’t indifferent to him. And he certainly wasn’t indifferent to her. The thought of seeing her again made his chest ache with a yearning he dared not name.
It wasn’t safe to confront her now, here, on her territory. Not if she had seen the headline and made the same conclusions. She would be on her guard. Despite hiking all that way in the dead of night, all he did when he got to the cabin, aside from eyeing her slick Mercedes with envy, was pin a note to the door. For good measure, he partially transformed one hand and left five, clean scratches in the wood.
He was gone before she could stir.
A noise pulled her out of her slumber. She sat bolt upright, momentarily thinking that it was Thing, filing his nails or scuttling around. But he was home with Pugsley and her parents. The scrape she had heard was more like metal on wood, but not quite. The trees nearby were cleared enough that no branches would be scraping the siding in the wind.
Wednesday kept utterly still, but there were no further disturbances.
Dagger in one hand and a fireplace poker in the other, she crept towards the door. When she opened it, a piece of paper fluttered to the ground. She grabbed it before the wind could sweep it away, keeping her gaze upward and her hand with the poker ready for an attack.
Perhaps she should have brought her big taser, Wednesday thought regretfully.
Before looking at the note, she did a perimeter of the cabin, finding nothing disturbed. The forest was silent, the darkness looming but truly empty. She couldn’t sense any life nearby.
Returning to the cabin, she saw the five scratches on the door. An exact replica of the scratches on the wall of the circular cave, all those years ago in Jericho. A chill ran up her spine that had nothing to do with the cold.
Meet me at Sully’s bar, ten p.m.
She recognized the handwriting. Even in only two months of ordering coffees from him, and receiving the cups branded with her name in his hand, the distinct curve of his letter e called to her. It was Tyler’s handwriting, without doubt.
After turning on the lamp, she was able to see that the note was an unintentional palimpsest. She saw the erased marks of a list of supplies. The quantities of materials spoke to at least five individuals, maybe six or seven if this was a restock run.
Without context, she didn’t know what this meeting would entail. The public location seemed neutral enough, but with potentially four or more other Hydes at play, no meeting with Tyler would be safe.
Still, Wednesday knew she would go. Would three years have dulled the edge of their rivalry? She feared that the twin edge of that blade, their one-time romance, was still honed. Wednesday Addams didn’t miss. She’d had years to revisit that moment in Iago tower in her head, and the most logical explanation remained: sentiment stayed her hand.
So she kept looking. Every time she came close to a lead on the Hyde camp, she couldn’t help but feel the same eagerness that sixteen-year-old Wednesday had felt investigating the murders. Tyler was the one that got away. For both Wednesday, the would-be detective, and Wednesday, the woman. It grated at her that she still thought of him that way, but brutal self-honesty had been the only way to survive the toll of her visions, especially after Aunt Ophelia’s meddling.
Wednesday spent the day editing. She tapped the end of her red pen against the table, unable to focus on writing even though that had been the sole intent of her journey here. Another day wasted because she couldn’t get a hold on her feelings about Tyler Galpin.
Whatever happened tonight, she hoped it would cauterize the open wound of his absence, and leave her in peace to finish her novel.
In a most unusual fashion, Wednesday was late to their meeting. A moose had blocked the path down the mountain, and she had to back her car up to the cabin slowly and wait for it to pass. That took an additional half-hour. Then, her infernal car’s GPS system wasn’t able to find ‘Sully’s’ so she had to go back to the gas station to ask for directions. Without an address, she couldn’t find it on the paper map.
A different attendant, a man with a pot belly and a decaying smile, laughed. “What’re you going there for?” “I’m meeting a friend,” she answered without thinking.
“Does this friend like you?”
Furrowing her brow, she replied, “Not very much, no.”
“That explains it.” He gave her specific directions which included a long winding road up a mountain, and then chuckled to himself once more, looking at his watch. “Have fun.”
It was nearing eleven when she arrived. The route had been much longer than she had anticipated, nearly twenty minutes of driving up the side of another small mountain, and there were a number of cars in the parking lot. The building itself was ramshackle, but serviceable.
There was somewhat of a clearing, since the bar was nearly at the top. The views of the snowy White Mountains stretched before her for miles, the lights of ski resorts limning several of the slopes. Tall pine trees stood proud, swaying gently in the winter wind. It was an oddly beautiful location for a bar.
The glowing sign that said Sully’s Bar drew her eye. As she turned back to the building, an additional sign turned on, reading Gentleman’s Club. Her watch ticked over to the next hour. It was eleven now, an hour after she was supposed to meet Tyler.
Perplexed but determined, she strode towards the door. At the same time, a tall man with a long stride had exited his car and was doing the same. The man bumped into her shoulder, barely jarring her, yet her head snapped back, the sudden contact throwing her into a vision.
As if from the outside, she saw herself, kissing Tyler. Only there was a lot more heat than in their kiss four years prior, and the background was not the Weathervane. She noticed the scars on his face from Enid’s attack, much more faded than they had been the last time she saw him, masked by a slight covering of facial hair.
When she came to, she wasn’t lying on the cold ground as she usually would be after a vision. She could still feel the cold through her wool skirt, but more apparent than that was the warmth of the hands that had caught her.
Tyler was holding her, cradling the back of her head. He had aged into the same stubbled jaw and faded scars she had just seen in her vision. He was wearing the same black, buttoned corduroy shirt. Her visions hadn’t been unreliable in years. She gulped, knowing that kiss was in her near future.
“This seems awfully familiar.” His mouth quirked to one side, the same smile lines that had compelled her all those years ago still present. Her stomach did a flip.
“I’m getting up now,” she said, and levered herself to her hands, standing on her own and putting some distance between them. He stepped back, giving her space.
“Did you have trouble getting up here?” Tyler asked. “The bar’s kinda… different later at night.” He led her into the establishment. It was as sad a state of affairs inside as out, only instead of a poorly lit small town bar serving four types of beer on tap, it was quickly converted to an aggressively sexual venture. The sign saying Gentleman’s Club was right. Men shoved one dollar bills at topless women and ordered beers from equally topless waitresses.
“There was a moose,” Wednesday said, taking in the sight before her with wide eyes.
“Um, just sit down there. I’ll explain in a minute.” He returned quickly, carrying two beers.
“You don’t have to drink it, but they’ll ask me to kick anyone out who isn’t drinking or…” He gestured towards the men at the smaller tables in front of a decrepit wooden stage, wads of cash in their hands. Looking at the girls.
“This isn’t a bar. This is a den of iniquity.” Wednesday saw the man who had bumped into her leaning against the bar, chatting with a waitress. Not a man, she now saw, but an outcast. His small horns weren’t obvious upon first glance. An incubus. Incubi were a rare, secretive species. She had expected to go her entire life without ever seeing one.
“It’s a strip club. And it’s the only bar in town,” Tyler explained, shrugging. “They’re open without the ladies until eleven. After eleven, you’re gonna see some titties. Hence why I invited you for ten.”
Wednesday looked up at the ceiling as a waitress walked by, large breasts bouncing heavily.
“Don’t tell me you’re still a prude.” Tyler peered at her intently, wearing a sketch of a grin. “Never found anyone at Nevermore or your fancy university that got your heart racing?”
She ignored the fact that her heart indeed raced at his words, at his eyes lingering on her lips. She knew he could hear it, even over the pounding music. “I’m not a prude. I just didn’t plan on having to bleach my eyeballs after this meeting.”
His irritating habit of bantering was keeping their conversation on the surface-level. He cocked his head to the side. “Is that your way of saying you’re happy to see me?”
“What are you doing in this dump anyways?” She wondered if he was just as afraid as she was of diving into their shared history.
“Vasili’s willing to hire under the table. Don’t exactly have a useful social security number anymore. I tend bar here. And it doesn’t hurt that if anyone gets too handsy I can make them regret it.”
“So you’re the cooler.” Wednesday thought it was an apt adult upgrade from his days as a barista.
“Don’t tell me you’ve seen Road House.” She had. Her mother had a soft spot for Patrick Swayze, but she would never tell Tyler that.
Wednesday’s eyes were drawn to the performer on the stage. She had a skinny, fleshy tail, and distinct horn bumps on either side of her brow. Panic raced through her as she pieced together the reason for her vision.
“Who is that?” Wednesday’s throat went dry.
“Léa. Don’t know her last name, something French. She’s from Quebec. Customer favorite. Her nights usually get a little rowdy.” Tyler assessed the crowd with a seasoned eye. “The whole outcast thing is a real kick for the normies.” His voice was bitter.
“This isn’t good.” Wednesday stood abruptly. “We have to get out of here.”
“Why?” Tyler asked, taking her seriously and putting down his beer. His immediate reaction reminded her of all the times he had helped her at the Weathervane. The pang of nostalgia was lost in her overall panic, however.
“She’s a succubus. And the outcast that bumped into me on the way in was an incubus.”
“Okay…” Tyler had grown up a normie. He didn’t know what it meant when people were caught in the cross-hairs of an incubi meeting.
“Just trust me.” Wednesday headed towards the door, but a large group of men was coming in, already drunk and rowdy, fully barring the door as they stood and yelled at each other about a hockey game. The incubus approached the stage, and the succubus leaned down towards him, wearing a smile that held promise.
“Quick!” She ran towards the bathrooms. They could bar the door and get out by the window.
There was a wave of heat at her back, and she began to hear the sounds of moans. Tyler looked on agape as the group of men began frantically making out with one another, ripping at the buttons of each other’s flannels. Two of the waitresses that had been talking threw down full trays of drinks, lost in passion, broken glass and beer strewn on the ground below them.
“We need to separate,” she urged, hoping to save herself one last indignity, but a different couple was slamming into the men’s room door, hands fisted in each other’s collars and tongues meeting. It was too late. Knowing she sealed her own fate, she grabbed Tyler’s hand and pulled him into the women’s room, barring the door behind them.
She felt the insistent ache at her own core as the spell fell over them. Succubi were so inconvenient. As soon as they scented an incubus and locked their gaze on them, they released a wave of pheromones so strong it could bring a whole building of people into a frenzied orgy. Not only that, but the spell cast by an incubus and a succubus mating required completion.
Those who resisted found their brains coming out of their ears.
Her head was buzzing, pounding almost painfully. She bit her lip, the slight pain detracting from it, but she knew the only cure was in front of her, staring at her with questioning eyes.
“Wednesday.” Tyler’s hands were clenched, and the desperation in his gaze sent a bolt of desire between her legs.
Not only was she going to kiss Tyler Galpin again, but he was going to take her virginity.
He was right. No one else had caught her interest. No normie, no outcast had cut her to the quick the way he had. Her vision was going to come true, and then some.
The window was high up. She thought briefly about the possibility of escaping and dying on her own, but her eyes were drawn back to him. The bathroom was lit with a red light, casting them in a scarlet glow. There wasn’t a stall to lock herself in. Not that she could do much against Hyde strength. Not that she wanted to. If she could feel how wet she was, Tyler could likely smell it.
The thought drove her to distraction further rather than disgusting her. Thinking of her vision, of kissing him, helped the pain in her head slightly, yet it wasn’t enough.
“It’s a spell,” she told him, hearing how breathy her voice was, words practically caught in her throat with longing. “Pheromones from the–” She wasn’t able to finish her sentence before he was on her, his hands cupping her jaw and his mouth over hers like a lifeline.
The insistent buzzing in her head slowed as they kissed. The pain in her skull eased as she slipped her hands up his shirt, caressing the bare skin there. He groaned into her mouth and reoriented them, pushing her up onto the small wall-mounted sink without breaking contact.
Buttons popped, and he shrugged his shirt off, the frantic motion bringing her eyes to his chest muscles. She ducked down, licking a stripe up his pectoral, ending with a sucking bite at the juncture of his neck and collarbone. The urgency of the pheromones made her bold, stripping back any hesitancy.
He was hard as a lightning rod, insistently pressed at the juncture of her thighs. Wednesday had worn a long wool skirt, which he bunched around her waist, hands skating up her legs. Her thighs were bare, their heat a contrast to the cold ceramic of the sink and the insistent pressure of Tyler’s palms where he held her up.
She keened as his fingers pressed bruises into her hips, returning to their kiss with renewed fervor as the pounding in her head intensified. There were too many clothes, too much between them. He moaned as she pulled at his hair. Wednesday was engulfed in a wave of desire, helpless against the current.
The problem with succubus pheromones was that they didn’t brook anything halfway. At first, kissing would be enough to keep the pain from being overwhelming, then finally nothing but the real McCoy would do.
Her discomfort abated as he pulled down her panties, the relief leaving her almost dizzy, but not clear-headed. Tyler kneeled, his head of curls was between her thighs and suddenly he was opening her up with his tongue and fingers, one hand keeping her balanced on the sink as she pressed herself closer and closer into his ministrations.
Even as he fucked her open with his tongue, she felt her head splitting in pain. Wet, filthy, his mouth moved over her, his movements as desperate as the noises he pulled from her. It wasn’t enough. His fingers replaced his tongue, and she closed her eyes, relishing in the sensation even as it left her unfulfilled. She pulled up on his curls, and they both knew that they had to bring the act to its conclusion.
The empty sensation ached almost worse than her head, and she whined at the loss of his fingers as he stood and shucked his pants. She pulled off her top, wanting to feel their skin meeting. He didn’t have the brainpower to make a comment about her not wearing a bra to meet him, but she could see it in the hungry glint of his eye. There wasn’t time to rid her of her skirt, but it was out of the way enough.
Wednesday spread her legs wide and he lined up at her entrance, grunting as he filled her. She let out a pained noise. Tyler’s eyes met hers and she had a moment of clarity, thinking she may have seen an apology in his gaze.
“Not your fault,” she murmured, pulling him in by his neck and kissing him. His returning kiss grew fervent. Even as she tried to drink in the sensation of their joining, the emanating fullness and stretch, it felt like an icepick was stabbing at her brain. She wound her legs around his waist and let the pheromones drive them into a punishing pace, her sit bones barely keeping her on the sink as he thrust into her. He gripped her hips and held her in place, snapping his hips back and forth, relentless.
The twin urgencies of pleasure from her core and pain from her head held her pinned at the precipice. She wanted to careen over it, her eyes tearing up in desperation, but she couldn’t quite get there, overwhelmed with sensation. Biting her lip, she grasped at him, hands unsure.
She could feel his similar frustration as his frantic pace slowed. One of Tyler’s hands kept her in place with a wide palm spread over her lower back. He brought the other to her jaw, his thumb hovering over her bottom lip. His eyes were dark as he deconstructed his movements, inching to the hilt, then gently pulling almost all the way out. She could see the concentration on his face, likely ignoring the same blistering pain she was, but the change in pace brought her back to the moment, to the sensation of his cock filling her, the way his head stretched her entrance, the contrast of the rough pad of his thumb on the delicate skin of her lips.
They couldn’t ignore the pheromones for long, the spell that forced them to copulate or their brains would turn to goo and spill out of their ears. She had almost forgotten about the consequences. The added pressure of brain damage or death wasn’t helping her come.
It didn’t help that Tyler was her first love. Her only, thus far. She could admit it now, with him inside her, with so many years between them empty of another. She had fallen in love with the monster. And, in the dark of the night, she had wondered what it would be like, with him.
Now she knew the feeling of him inside her and she was going to let a succubus’ spell kill her? She felt almost blind with the pain now, but her determination to win superseded it.
Tyler’s hips were stuttering, but she held him firm, a hand on his bicep, “No. Not until I–”
She didn’t have to finish the command. He kissed her hard and used his non-steadying hand to pinch her nipple, the subtle sting and pleasure of it shooting straight to her core, where he continued to pump in and out of her, his rhythm now steady, meeting the snap of her hips as she directed him.
The fire wasn’t hard to stoke now that they were in sync, and she deepened the kiss, dragging her nails across his upper back as he continued to hit the sensitive spot inside her. Heat built up, a flush rising in her chest and tension coiling. Tyler’s broken voice uttered against her lips, “Wednesday.” A plea or a prayer, she didn’t know which, but it sent her over the edge, her inner muscles spasming and squeezing around his cock.
Her brain was blessedly quiet as he thrust into her once, twice, spilling inside her.
They remained like that, muscles totally slack, leaning on one another for support, her head on his shoulder and his head resting on hers. The buzzing, splitting ache in her head, and the relentless need were both gone, leaving her shaking, an empty shell. There was pleasure, yes, but it warred with the absence of pain, leaving her feeling almost numb with shock.
When they could finally form words, Tyler’s were less than intellectual as he lifted his head. “Holy shit.”
She lifted her own head, her neck muscles deeply tired and her skull heavy. She finally looked around herself at the red-lit bathroom, the sharpie on the walls, the toilet that looked like it hadn’t been updated since the Carter administration.
“We probably just contracted something hellish from this sink,” Wednesday concluded.
“Don’t be dramatic.” Tyler’s hand was still warm on the small of her back, the other resting on her hip. “I clean this bathroom.” With that, he pulled out of her, leaving her empty and tender. His curls were damp with sweat, and he grinned at her, suffused in the afterglow of a supernaturally charged orgasm.
“My statement stands.” She looked up at the tiny window high on the ceiling. “Think we can get out of here?” “Why not sneak out the back?” Tyler asked.
“Listen,” she said. He concentrated, and picked up on what she was hearing. Outside the bathroom door, the wet slapping sound of skin on skin continued, moans punctuating the refrain.
“Right.” Tyler stepped back, steadying himself on the sink ledge with one hand, his legs trembling. “Give me a minute.” Wednesday gently levered herself down. Her own legs felt like gelatin, shaking when she tried to put weight on them, and she gripped the sink behind her, trying to mask the motion.
A set of twin moans from the main room, male and female, grew louder and louder as Wednesday and Tyler tried to regain their sea legs in the bathroom. Wednesday had a sneaking suspicion that those were the outcasts that had caused this whole mess.
“If we don’t get out of here quick, we’re going to be caught in a second wave.” Wednesday scrambled towards the window, heedless of her topless state.
“I can help you up, but–” His hands came around her waist, as if to boost her, as another wave of heat pulsed through her. A loud set of moans echoed from beyond the door. The pair had reached their finish line.
Tyler’s sudden silence indicated he felt the same heat, a renewed need as the climax from the incubi released another wave of the spell. The calluses of his palms felt too good on her bare skin, and she stretched into him, arching her back like a cat.
“Fuck, Wednesday.” He kissed down her neck. “I’m not sure I can do that again.”
“This time feels different.” She bit her lip, relishing the feeling as his fingers moved to play with her nipples. This time, she could feel everything, her body still thrumming with pleasure from the first time, without the accompanying pain. He pulled her ass back into his hips, his erection belying his earlier words.
“This seems… better,” he agreed, even as a renewed sense of urgency led him to push her skirt down, leaving her naked. She shivered slightly, not from cold but from a tingle of fear. Wednesday could feel the predator, the Hyde in the room, as if the final layer of civility being removed awoke the animal in him.
Tyler rotated them towards the sink, but this time she was facing forward, her back to his front. “Bend over,” he said, and she found herself obeying without question, bracing her arms on the sink and pushing her rear back into him. As a faint show of disobedience, she wiggled her ass back and forth, teasing him.
She felt wanton and lewd, her thighs still dripping with his cum and her entrance open and ready for him again. But he didn’t thrust into her brutally and take her the way she anticipated. He put one hand at the crown of her head, bowing her over even further. Automatically, she pushed her up onto her toes to present herself as he teased her folds with the other hand. His fingers slid into her easily, not even needing to work up to three fingers.
She was slick with both of their arousal and he groaned.
Wednesday thought she heard the faint trill of a growl at the end, and shuddered. He started fucking her with his fingers, bringing tension back to the same sensitive tissues. Her breath hitched and she closed her eyes against the onslaught, wanting to finish quickly and at the same time wanting more.
She knew his cock would feel different at this angle. Shame flushed her face as she admitted to herself that she wanted that, imagining it even as his fingers savaged her and brought her to another orgasm.
Crying out harshly, he pushed her through it, unrelenting. Her legs barely supported her and she felt her knees buckle. He moved the hand on her head and the fingers from inside her, grabbing her hips before she could fall. She gripped onto the sink for dear life.
Before she could fully register the sudden emptiness, he replaced his fingers with his cock.
His fingers dug into her hip bones, sure to leave bruises, and she knew a third orgasm would break her. Even if she never saw him again, her mind would never leave this room. He would haunt her, a ghost of their pleasured past interrupting her lone existence at every interval.
Tears pricked at the back of her eyes, the sensation of him brutal and filling at the new angle.
She hated herself for her weakness as she felt the wave of another orgasm building. The sound of their coupling filled the bathroom, echoing wetly as he pounded into the remnants of their first time.
He wasn’t unaffected; his hands were shaking where they held her in place, his breath coming in short pants. His desperation to use her again only spurred her on, and as his hips began to lose their rhythm, he reached one hand in front of her and tried to find her clit. Weakly, she brought her own arm down and grabbed his wrist, placing him where she wanted him. He pressed frantic circles into the sensitive nub and she spasmed around his cock, salty tears leaking down her face at pushing her oversensitive nerves to their breaking point.
Her body tingled all over, like all of her nerves were singing in unison. Tyler wasn’t far behind her. He grunted, bottoming out and coming inside her for the second time.
His final thrusts proved fatal for the sink.
She heard a loud noise of metal grinding and felt the ceramic sink shift beneath their weight. Tyler pulled her back, slipping out of her, and water sprayed at their legs as the sink cascaded to the ground, broken off of the wall.
She was still trembling all over, but the shock of cold water brought her to her senses, the pheromones draining just as excess water puddled and drained down the grate in the bathroom floor.
With water pooling around their feet, she finally said, “I think it’s over.”
“What… was that?” Tyler fished clothes off the floor, trying to save them from the worst of the wet. They got dressed in what was available and untorn. Her panties sat in a sad pile, soaked and clinging to a tile floor she wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole.
“The stripper. She was a succubus. The outcast who bumped into me on the way in was an incubus. When a succubus and an incubus meet, it releases a deadly spell combined with enough pheromones to turn a monastery into a bacchanal."
“We’re not dead.” Tyler’s voice held a question.
“We followed the spell’s protocols.”
“Oh.” He was quiet for a moment, contemplating that tidbit of information. “And the second time?” “Their climax releases another wave of pheromones, without the deadly side effect.”
He looked down, buttoning his shirt, at least where the holes were not torn and buttons remained, which was not much of it. “You could have left me out there.”
“Then I would have ended up with my brain on the bathroom floor in here, or clawing my way out there to save myself. The spell was upon us.” The other deadly consequence of the spell was that it couldn’t be completed alone. It required true coitus.
“Better the devil you know?” He smirked at first, but the bravado didn’t last, his expression going sheepish. If he had wanted to remind her of the Tyler she fell in love with at sixteen, he couldn’t have done a better job, even reeking of sex as he was.
In that moment, she made a decision.
“Come with me to the cabin,” she offered. If he was going to ruin her for life, he may as well do a proper job of it.
Without answering aside from a smile, he unbarred the door and led them out. They averted their eyes from the mess of patrons, employees, and even two cops that had been caught up in the spell.
Tyler left briefly to grab a small backpack out of the back room before meeting her outside. The cops had parked his car in, so they took her Mercedes. The shining black paint of her leased car stood out amongst the rust buckets at the top of the mountain. Her cabin was a solid twenty minutes away, and the silence on the drive ate at her in a way it usually wouldn’t.
She was used to sarcasm and barbs from Tyler, but he was unexpectedly quiet, eyes trained out the window. Away from her.
Their arrival was equally quiet. Tyler knew the cabin already. They both kicked off their wet shoes at the door. Wednesday put another log on the fire and lit it.
“So… I’m assuming you didn’t bring me here to cuddle,” Tyler finally broke the silence.
“No, I didn’t.”
“Then… what?” He held out his hands, palms open. She felt suddenly small, the weight of her emotions overwhelming due to her inability to name them. All they did was choke her.
“I… don’t know.”
“I’d like to get clean,” Tyler said, nodding towards the open bathroom door. “I’m assuming this place has hot water.”
“It does.” He walked towards the bathroom and she stood in the entry, paralyzed,
“Are you going to join me?” he asked, one hand on the doorframe, his body angled towards her.
Her breath caught in her throat, but she stepped towards him, her body moving of its own accord. No spell drew her towards him this time, just her own desire, and the small quirk of his mouth that had made a home in her heart for years.
Wednesday smelled like the both of them, in the most delicious way. With his Hyde senses on high alert, he didn’t need a spell to be attracted to her. He spent the car ride terrified of his own desire, the enormity of how much he yearned for her.
He knew it wasn’t just the spell, but he needed the drive to decouple his feelings from the insane experience of having his hypothalamus hijacked by outcast pheromones and having raw animal sex with his first love in the bathroom of a strip club.
They had been saved from awkward conversation by the urgency of the situation. Now everything was charged, the air between them electric even though neither of them dared look at the other. How were they supposed to have a productive conversation now? When he could still taste her on his tongue and he could smell his cum and her arousal leaking out of her as they drove.
What could he even say? Sorry I let my crazy uncle bury you alive a few years ago and by the way I’d like to come inside you again and I’m pretty sure I’m still in love with you.
Any confession of feeling would sound insane after what had passed between them, like some sort of delayed hormonal delusion.
Tyler hadn’t even known what he was going to say when she showed. When she was an hour late, he half-expected cops to show up to arrest him. But he went by the door, pacing for the millionth time that night, and saw her arriving, then saw her body go ramrod straight, a sure sign she was having a vision.
He wondered now, what her vision had been. He thought about the way she had fisted a hand in his hair as he ate her out, thought about her arched back as she pushed her rear against his erection.
If Wednesday had seen something that explicit, she would have been more freaked out. As always, she had been slightly shaken after her vision, but no more so than the strip-club had shaken her. Perhaps she had seen something innocuous, like them driving together, now.
They had made it to the cabin, and he sensed her hesitancy, her inability to voice what she felt. The day wore on him, and he wondered if things would be simpler if they didn’t talk for a bit longer. Wednesday seemed paralyzed, now that she had him here.
“Are you going to join me?” The question hung in the air, but after everything, it felt like a foregone conclusion.
As Wednesday joined him in the bathroom, he felt suddenly awkward. Five years as a Hyde had jaded him to nudity somewhat, but the idea of seeing her without the haze of a spell to blur the experience was daunting.
“What did you see?” he asked, stalling. “When the incubus caused your vision?”
Wednesday hesitated, standing just beyond the doorframe. He worried his question would send her right back out, but she closed the door behind her instead.
“I saw us kissing.”
He stepped towards her. The bathroom wasn’t massive, and he stood right in front of her now. Looking in her eyes, he pointed out, “You weren’t freaked out.”
“Technically, we’ve kissed before.”
“No ‘technically’ about it,” Tyler bristled. The kiss they’d exchanged back in Jericho was an all timer for him, and he didn’t like her pretending to be casual about it. Because it was a pretense. She’d walked twenty minutes in the cold on a school night to kiss him, despite what happened after.
Wednesday was done talking about her vision, it seemed, because she dropped her skirt and pulled off her top. She went to the small mirror. Her braids were half out, and she unbound what remained of the style, her hair falling down her back. Tyler stared at her. Faint reddish marks stained her thighs, hips, and buttocks, some of the bruises already turning purple, a memory of his fingerprints on her skin. He knew the bruises would fade, but they were now indelible for him; living in his memory forever.
He was spurred on by the urge to mark her more, to make her his. Tyler stood behind her and pulled the curtain of hair to one side, exposing her neck. Goosebumps followed in the trail of his fingertips, over the small of her neck, the skin along her collarbone. He looked at the mirror, seeing her lips parted and her nipples peaked in the cold room. Bending down, he left a sucking bruise below her ear. She could hide the marks he’d left on her thighs, but not this.
When he looked back at their reflection in the mirror, he saw his own animal hunger, the darkness in his eyes. He brought his hands to cup her breasts and pressed himself into her, hard and straining against the pants he still wore.
As he squeezed and pinched her nipples, Wednesday asked, her voice higher than usual, “Why are you still wearing those?”
Tyler didn’t have a good answer, so he peeled off what remained of his clothing, still slightly sodden from the flooded bathroom at the bar. She turned towards him, gaze approving.
“We’re not breaking any more plumbing fixtures.” Wednesday’s tone brooked no argument. So rather than pushing her up against the sink, he scooped her up by her bottom and pressed her against the closed door. She looped her legs around his hips and held onto his shoulders, pressing fervent kisses into his neck. The hardware rattled at the new weight against it, but the door was solid wood and would hold.
Tyler adjusted his positioning and entered her, holding his breath at the sensation. Her warm, wet heat enveloped him, a sense of absolution falling over him. Wednesday’s head fell back against the door, her mouth open in a soundless moan.
“Tell me you want this,” he demanded against her lips, between hot, open-mouthed kisses. “Tell me this is just us.”
“I want–” Her breath hitched as they found their rhythm. “Yes. I want this. I want you.”
If he hadn’t been so drained and overstimulated, that probably would have been enough for him to finish then and there. He kissed her again, this time slow, tame in comparison to the way their bodies were meeting. Tyler put years of words unspoken into it, a kiss that hovered on the edge of the four letter word he never thought he’d get to say to her.
She seemed to sense the shift, and returned the softer kiss, her lips sweet and supple against his. Their desires were too big to fit into that one kiss, and he felt the tone of their lovemaking sliding away from the urgency that had borne them the first two times.
Between her small frame and his Hyde strength, it wasn’t that difficult to hold her in place and move in her, though the range of motion was smaller. He barely had the brainpower to string together two thoughts; he was so lost in her heat and the feel of her around his cock. She didn’t seem to mind, though, her nails digging into the meat of his shoulders, holding on for dear life as the door shook in its frame, the hinges squeaking painfully.
He wanted to make her come again. Even if he didn’t get to finish, he needed to see her lose control. The great Wednesday Addams, completely at his mercy. Three years ago, at Willow Hill, he had thought he wanted to kill her. Now he realized what he really wanted was far less sinister.
A flush started to rise on her chest as he focused on keeping his rhythm even, on hitting the spot that made her breath hitch and her inner muscles clench around him. He wasn’t particularly experienced, but being completely at the mercy of the spell had emboldened him. And besides that, he knew Wednesday. Even in their short time together, he had memorized her cues, the microscopic expressions that told him how she felt.
“Faster.” He heeded her instruction, only going faster, trying not to add much more power to his thrusts. Both of them were over-stimulated, trembling at each other’s touch. It wouldn’t take much to send him tumbling into oblivion with her.
Her lips fell open and her eyes shut; he felt her muscles contracting around him as she keened, her head falling back and exposing the long column of her throat. He slowed his pace slightly, trying to prolong her orgasm.
So softly he almost didn’t hear it, she moaned his name, “Tyler.”
He pressed his head down on her shoulder and came inside her. His name on her lips, both his downfall and his salvation.
They stayed like that, entwined and entangled, for longer than he thought possible. His mouth was dry. His head was pounding from dehydration. He felt like a hollow shell of himself. He was surprised he’d had anything left to give.
Still a little breathless, she asked, “Is this Hyde stamina or the remnants of the succubus’ spell?”
He didn’t answer, his mind completely blank, pulling out of her with a wet sound, staring at the mess of cum pouring down her thighs as he let her down on shaky legs. “Fuck, Wednesday. You had better be on birth control.” Or he was getting back in the car and driving forty minutes to the nearest pharmacy.
“Don’t worry. You’re not about to become a father anytime soon.” Wednesday’s dry tone reassured him. He had no interest in passing his curse to anyone else.
They stared at each other, words feeling ineffectual in the wake of everything they had just done. She swallowed, looking up at him with her jaw tense.
“Do you want some water?”
“God, yes.” They padded out of the bathroom, naked, and she poured them water from a filter in the fridge while he stirred the fire and added a log. They drank a pitcher full of water, and then refilled it.
“Succubi must be so dehydrated.” Tyler stared at the cool bottom of his glass, contemplative. Somehow this was the best water he had ever had, just from an off-brand filter.
“Incubi and succubi are extremely rare, but a mating affecting humans goes all the way back to the Roman bacchanalia,” Wednesday lectured. “Technically, in modern outcast parlance, they’re called Paramours.”
He snorted. “Is that the politically correct term?” They could keep their demonic monikers as far as he was concerned. He couldn’t imagine what the other people affected were going through. At least Tyler had been locked in there with Wednesday. He couldn’t imagine going at it with his boss or one of the patrons. His stomach turned, thinking back at how his will was ripped away. Again.
Wednesday’s expression was implacable. He wondered what she was turning over in her mind, how she was feeling. “Are you okay? After that?”
It was a long time before she answered, “I’ve always been able to follow a path of my own making. It was… disturbing to feel my self-control taken away, though I have no qualms about our actions.” She turned to him, jaw set. “I’m afraid I owe you an apology. I don’t think I ever truly contemplated what you went through with Gates.”
“And my mother, too.” The words were bitter in his mouth.
“She was your Master?” Wednesday’s brows lifted slightly. “I never knew.”
“It’s been three years since I’ve been given an order that I had to follow.” Tyler looked down at his hands, knowing the blood he had spilled with them. “In a way, this was the first time since back then.”
Wednesday stepped into his space, placing her hands over his, touch unexpectedly gentle. “Want to get cleaned up?”
He nodded, smiling at her. She phrased it as a question, though he knew Wednesday tended towards brusque orders.
They were able to get the shower steaming hot, despite the ancient water heater. She stood under the stream first, dictating the temperature. Tyler wrapped his arms around Wednesday’s waist and dipped his head into the stream, his back half cold. He didn’t mind, though.
“This isn’t going to save water, is it?” Wednesday asked.
“Unlikely.” Tyler’s hands were roaming her body, his lips trailing up her neck. There was no way they were going for another round, but the warm water sluicing over their bodies made him feel languid and indulgent.
She turned and stood on her toes to kiss him, her hands on his chest, while warm water cascaded over them.
“Incredibly inefficient,” Wednesday commented, nipping at his bottom lip.
“You love it.” Tyler deepened the kiss, uncaring of the water they wasted. Three rounds meant they could use three showers worth of water, as far as he was concerned.
Eventually, they did need to clean themselves. She pushed him back to the cold and hogged the water briefly to scrub her body, every movement practiced and methodical. With a peck on his lips, she stepped out and left him the stream of water. He eked out another minute of hot water before it started to cool, and finished his ablutions quickly.
Wednesday was sitting on the bed and applying moisturizer to her face. She wore matching silk pajamas in a black so dark it seemed to absorb the light from the fire. He fished a pair of clean briefs and a shirt out of his backpack. He never knew when he would need to shift. He kept everything he really needed in this bag. A change of clothes, his fake ID, a photo of him and his parents from his childhood, and whatever cash he had at the time. The car he used wasn’t really even his, a few of them in the Hyde camp had pooled their resources to buy it and they all used it. It was registered to someone else, considering Tyler was a felon that hadn’t had a valid driver’s license since he was seventeen.
Tentatively, he sat on the opposite end of the bed, eyes on the fire. Two more starter logs and a stack of newspapers sat on the hearth. He noted the local gazette with the front page story cut out. Of course she had been onto him. Wednesday never missed a beat.
“Are you still living with other Hydes?” Wednesday asked, her tone intentionally neutral.
“It seems you already deduced that I am.” His shoulders were tense, and he breathed into the back of his lungs, letting the muscles release.
“Do you need them?” she asked, referring to the Hyde camp. Her back was to him as she completed her nighttime rituals involving some sort of hand cream.
“In terms of resources?” He shrugged. “I need someone around with valid ID. Hard to have a car or really anything as an escaped fugitive. In terms of the Hyde? No. It took time, but I’m in control. I am my own master.”
Wednesday paused. “I have the resources to get you a new social security number. A whole new identity, if you wished it.” Finally she turned to him, her eyes wide with an emotion he couldn’t read. “You wouldn’t have to hide anymore.”
“That’s a generous offer.” He was wary of her suggestion. Charity wasn’t something he was used to. Tyler felt a need to clarify his circumstances. “I’m fine, though. I’ve been cold and uncomfortable at times, sure, but I’ve never gone truly hungry or faced any sort of peril, living like this. You don’t have to help, not if it’s too much trouble.” A whole new identity sounded expensive.
Her voice was low, as if uttering a secret, “I don’t have to, no. I also don’t have to tell you that I have my own apartment in Princeton. I don’t have to invite you to come with me when I leave here on Friday.” Her eyes shone in the low light. “But I want to.”
Despite the fact that feet separated them on the bed, this was the closest he had ever felt to her. The raw vulnerability in her voice was something he hadn’t heard since that night at the Weathervane, when they shared their first kiss.
Unable to form a sentence, he breathed out her name, reaching for her hand, “Wednesday…”
“Is that a yes?”
Tyler smiled, almost laughing with the sudden rush of joy. “You’re gonna be sick of me, you know that right?”
Looking down her lashes, he thought he saw the ghost of a smile on her lips. She curled up on her side of the bed, facing him while lying on her side. He mirrored her. “We have three years to make up for. But you are not permitted to interrupt my writing time.”
“Of course not,” he replied, putting his hand on her waist and bringing her close.
“I don’t sleep while cuddling,” she warned, yet another rule. He felt another smile tug at his lips. She was as bossy as ever.
“Of course. We’re not sleeping right now.” He pressed a kiss to her lips, erasing the scowl from them.
“I also don’t cuddle,” Wednesday lied, even as she settled into his arms, kissing him again.
“Absolutely no cuddling,” Tyler assured her, even as her eyes were closing, lids heavy with sleep, in the circle of his arms. Placing one more kiss on the crown of her head, he let his own eyes close, content as he drifted off to sleep.