What Witches Want Mathilde Madden

‘You know the worst thing about being a witch?’ Lilith said, world-weariness chiming in her voice.

‘The clothes? The religious intolerance? The cackling?’ Cate didn’t really want to be drawn into one of Lilith’s circular conversations, but she didn’t dare completely bail out either. Not after what had happened during the coven meeting. Lilith was clearly not in any mood to be trifled with. As usual.

‘Men,’ Lilith said, ignoring Cate’s suggestions. ‘Men just don’t take you seriously if they know you’re a witch. In fact, that’s not quite right. They do take you seriously. Too seriously.’

‘What?’ Cate had always thought that man-troubles of the Bridget Jones /Cosmo variety were the least of the average witch’s concerns. In fact, she tended to think – rather smugly – that witches had those particular problems solved. ‘They take you too seriously? So what? Who cares? You’re a witch. You can have any man you desire. You can appear before him as the answer to his heart’s most secret prayers. You can charm him away from those he holds most dear.’ Cate was starting to feel quite impassioned by the subject, and was only a couple of sentences away from jumping up and whirling around like Maria on a mountain top to emphasise her witches-have-it-all point.

‘Yeah, I know. Obviously. I know I can bewitch them into doing my will,’ said Lilith, digging her fingers into the earth and screwing up her long elegant nose, ‘but that just isn’t very sexy, is it?’

‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Cate couldn’t help smirking at the thought of the last man she’d treated to a week of willing servitude entranced by her latest glamour. Good times.

Lilith looked at Cate condescendingly and smoothed down her skirt. Lilith had a very strange dress sense for a witch. Witch fashion did vary, but mostly around the same floral, floaty, natural fibres axis. Cate had never met another witch who dressed like a businesswoman. Then again, Cate had never met another witch like Lilith.

Once Lilith seemed satisfied that her smartly tailored skirt was wrinkle free, she said, ‘OK, maybe you get off on the my-wish-is-your-command-oh-mistress thing. And I’ll admit it does have its moments. But sometimes I just want a man who’s there of his own free will. Is that too much to ask? A man who’s all muscle and grunt. You know a man who’s all man. Who’ll bend me over the kitchen counter and pull my hair back and damn well force his way in because he knows I want it. And who’ll be so hard for me. And know that when he yanks my knickers down he’ll find that, despite my protests and struggling, I’m soaking wet for him because I’m a filthy little cockteasing bitch and I just need a proper man to show me how to . . .’ Lilith stopped and sighed.

Cate squinted and looked at her. ‘Are you OK?’

‘Fine, fine. It’s just . . . it’s hot today. Don’t you think it’s hot today?’

‘Yes. Too hot. You want me to turn up the cloud cover?’ Cate raised her fingers to the sky, poised to make magic.

Lilith waved her offer away. ‘Oh, no, no. Don’t bother. I like the heat.’ She leant back against the tree behind her and rolled her head on the bark. ‘But you know,’ she said, ‘you just can’t get a man to do that if you’re a witch.’

‘Do what?’

‘Do what I was just saying, bend me over the kitchen counter, yanking knickers, soaking wet, “I’ll show you what happens to tarts like you, you little cockteasing bitch,” etc, etc.’

‘Oh, that. Well,’ said Cate, ‘if you want a man to do that . . . although, do you even have a kitchen counter?’

Lilith paused as if thinking for a second, then snapped her fingers. ‘Have now!’

‘OK, well, if you want a man to do that, find one, and bewitch him into doing it.’

‘No! Not the same. It’s not the same if I bewitch him into doing it. I want him to do it. I want the loss of control, that eager erection, grunt. I want him to want it. Desperately. I want to be overpowered, manhandled. I want to have no choice but to submit to his domineering macho will.’

Cate narrowed her eyes. Lilith was known for being left-field, talked about politely as being rather ‘eccentric’, but this was a new one. ‘Erm . . . OK.’

‘And, you know, I’m a sodding witch, a hugely powerful witch. Mistress of more than seventeen covens. How’s he ever going to overpower me?’

Cate looked at Lilith and frowned. ‘Um, well, I guess he can’t. Not really. But it’s just a fantasy, isn’t it? Couldn’t you pretend? Suspend your disbelief. Make believe.’

‘But would he even dare? You know what a reputation witches have for avenging ourselves on men who have wronged us. What kind of a man is going to force his will on a woman as powerful as me?’

Cate laughed. Too easy. ‘The kind who doesn’t know how powerful she really is.’

‘Ooh.’ Lilith smiled. ‘I like that idea. Find a man and not tell him I’m a witch and wait for him to get masterful with me because he thinks I’m just a weak and powerless normal woman.’

Cate nodded. ‘Yeah, just make sure you keep your cool.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, you know, you’ll be walking a dangerous line. Pretending you’re not immeasurably powerful. Just don’t, you know, lose your temper if it doesn’t go just so.’

‘What, you think he might spank me the wrong way and I’ll turn around and smite him?’ Lilith chuckled to herself.

‘Well, you and smiting do tend to go hand in hand. I mean, just now, during the coven meeting, you eviscerated those poor people.’

‘Well, they were very annoying.’

‘They were just tourists. I think they must have wandered over by mistake. The cloaking spell must have had a hitch in it today.’ Cate’s gaze followed Lilith’s to where the bodies of an overweight middle-aged couple were steaming softly in the sun. Cate was still talking. ‘I mean who even eviscerates people these days? Talk about a way to start up the awkward questions. It’s not like you don’t have other options, with all the power you’ve got at your fingertips. You ever thought of trying something subtler when you get annoyed with people? I mean look at those creatures, we can’t leave them like that.’

‘Oh,’ said Lilith, ‘so that’s why you’re still here. You’re waiting for me to leave so you can clean up my mess.’

‘If, by “clean up your mess”, you mean put that nice couple’s vital organs back on the inside again, then yes, I am.’

‘Well, if you’re having a bit of a Glenda moment, I’ll get out of your way,’ said Lilith, getting to her spike-heeled feet and brushing the dirt off her manicured hands. ‘It’s time to put my perfect plan into action and find a man who doesn’t know how powerful I really am.’ She set off with a spring in her elegantly shod step.

‘Just keep your cool,’ Cate called after her, before turning her attention to waking the dead.

Lilith’s house was wherever she wanted it to be and whatever she wanted it to be. Yesterday she’d lived in a gigantic castle of snow and ice, staffed by creatures that were a cross between male models and polar bears. That had been fun – if somewhat shallow. And cold.

Perhaps that was why she wanted cosy today. She walked a short way through the Botanical Gardens, rounded a clump of trees and found herself clipping up the path of a dear little cottage. Perfect. She walked in through the rose-framed front door and saw a roaring fire, a bubbling cauldron, a cat asleep on the hearth rug. An incongruous kitchen counter was floating in mid-air next to the back door. Lilith frowned and it vanished apologetically. Then she settled herself into a rocking chair by the fire to start planning.

First she needed a man. She flicked through some in her mind. Men her memory had stored and filed. She rejected the first few out of hand. She knew exactly what she wanted. Not necessarily good looking. Looks were nice but they weren’t everything. This was mainly about finding someone with the right attitude. Someone with grunt. To put it bluntly, someone who was a bit of a bastard.

When she finally found him, sitting in a corner of her mind, she knew at once. Something in that fine-boned face, that sneering mouth, that unkempt dark hair grazing his collar. She knew just where to find him.

Lilith had been worried about how to get a man’s attention without using magic. But the bar-room pickup had been easy.

They’d already exchanged names – his was Blake and he hadn’t baulked at Lilith – now all she had to do was keep the conversation going until Blake let loose with his barely contained masculine desire and slammed her up against the nearest wall. Her heart beat a little faster at the prospect.

‘What do you do?’ she said to him.

‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,’ he said. Then he leant closer. ‘But you don’t really need to worry about what I do, baby, so much as what I’m going to do to you.’

Oh, he was such a good choice. Lilith’s mouth got a little drier. She found herself looking at Blake’s tie and wondering how easy it would be to persuade him to use it to fasten her wrists to her bedframe. She did some quick mental magic to make sure that she had the right kind of bedframe.

A few minutes of flirting later, Blake said, ‘So, baby, your place or mine?’

Lilith bit her lip as coyly as she could and said, ‘I’d really like to see you in my new bed.’

Lilith’s home was now a second-floor flat in a converted Victorian terrace.

‘So,’ said Blake, when he was standing in the middle of the modern-but-with-homely-touches sitting room, ‘what are you in the mood for, babe?’

Lilith wet her bottom lip with her tongue. ‘Well, that depends. What do you want?’

‘What do I want?’

‘Yes,’ said Lilith, ‘what do you want with me, big boy?’

‘Big boy?’

Lilith frowned. Blake wasn’t really a big boy at all. He was hard and muscular and masculine with hair like a dark mane and a mouth that seemed to quirk into a sneer all too easily, but he wasn’t much taller than Lilith herself. ‘Well, OK, perhaps that’s not the phrase exactly,’ said Lilith, ‘but you’re still a man. All man. Why don’t you just do as men do? Um, you know – for want of a better way of expressing it – take me.’ And she spread her arms wide, inviting.

Blake took a step back. ‘Do as men do? Take you? Look, babe, OK, couple of things. First of all, what the fuck? And second, and rather more to the point, you, darling, are a bloody witch.’

‘Oh. How did you . . . ?’

Blake rolled his eyes. ‘It’s obvious. You act like a witch and talk like a witch and look like a witch – well, apart from the suit, which is rather a cut above the jumble-sale look that witches wear. Look, you even have a witch’s name.’

‘Actually, most witches have very ordinary names.’

‘Sure, sure, I know that, but even so. Look, babe, you might have fooled a civilian or a non-believer, but I’m in the business, baby. Sorry.’

‘In the business?’

‘In the paranormal business. I’m a werewolf hunter.’

‘Oh,’ Lilith said, her heart sinking.

‘Hey, don’t look like that, babe. I mean we can still have a good time. Have sex. Obviously. If that’s what you actually want. But I’m not about to push any of my desires on a witch because that’s just fatal. So if it’s one of those traps, I’m not falling in, sorry.’

‘What traps?’

‘Those traps for arrogant men. Oh, you must know. Witch pretends to be a normal woman, picks up a guy and then, when he gets too domineering, he ends up living the rest of his life in a pond.’

‘Oh, those traps.’ Lilith smiled slightly. Those traps were amusing. But also annoying if Blake wasn’t going to give her what she wanted because he was scared of falling into one. She sat down on the beige sofa. ‘It really isn’t one of those traps. The whole point of the operation tonight was to find a guy who didn’t know I was a witch, but not so I could trap him – just so I could have a good time.’

‘Don’t witches always have a good time?’

‘No! Why does no one get this? Look, when did you know I was a witch?’

‘About ten seconds after you started talking to me.’

‘And if I hadn’t been a witch would you still have come home with me?’

Blake looked a little puzzled by the question. ‘Of course.’

‘Are you sure? As soon as you knew I was a witch, you knew you had to come home with me if I wanted you to, right?’

‘Um, well, I guess.’

‘Well, that’s the thing. I don’t want you to be here because you know I’m a witch. I want you to be here because you want to be.’

‘What? I swear I want to be here. I’m not trying to leave, am I?’

‘Yeah, in case I eviscerate you.’

‘I don’t think you’re going to . . . Uh, you’re not going to eviscerate me, are you?’

Lilith shrugged. Blake looked pale. Lilith said, ‘See, that’s the problem too. I can’t go two minutes without making you afraid of me and if you’re afraid of me you’re hardly going to put me over your knee and spank me, are you?’

Blake’s throat moved as he swallowed hard. ‘You want me to spank you? You’re a witch!’

Lilith sighed. There was something so appealing about this taut conundrum of a guy, who was wearing a suit that flowed over his body like it was in love with him and yet appeared not to have brushed his over-exuberant hair for a fortnight. ‘What do you do with the werewolves?’ she said. ‘Do you always kill them or do you ever capture them and keep them?’

‘Rarely. Well, I do sometimes capture and keep them, but I’m not meant to. It’s not policy.’

‘What do you do with the ones you capture?’

Blake’s face went cold, like the shutters had come down. ‘Extract information.’

‘How do you do that?’

‘Various methods. And I know where you’re going with this, but they’re werewolves. Outside full moon they’re no more powerful that the average pissed-off human. But it’s different with you, Miss Witch. One false move, you’ll flay me.’

‘Oh, please try not to think like that,’ Lilith said. ‘So, do you tie them up?’

‘Who?’

‘The werewolves.’

Blake narrowed his eyes. ‘Are you serious? You want me to tie you up?’

Lilith nodded vigorously.

‘But, what’d be the point? You’re a witch. It’s not like I could make you actually helpless. If that was what I wanted. If that wasn’t a ridiculously stupid thing to try and do. Even,’ he added with heavy emphasis, ‘if the witch claims she wants you to.’

Lilith wet her lips. She’d seen a little chink then. A little bit of something that said he was warming to the idea. But it was only the tiniest thing. She knew she still had a long way to go. She sighed. ‘Well, that’s just it, isn’t it? I want a man to be all, I don’t know, mannish with me and the minute he finds out I’m a witch . . .’

‘Well, OK, I rumbled you, but you won’t be so unlucky next time. Try again. Find someone else who doesn’t know how powerful you really are.’

Lilith stamped her foot. ‘I don’t want to try again. I chose you. I want you. I want you to overpower me and fuck me hard. Right now.’

‘Overpower . . . ? What? Bend you over the table and rip your knickers down?’

‘Yes! Damn it, yes. Forget about my powers. We’ll pretend I don’t have them.’

Blake was breathing a little more heavily now. He was still standing in the middle of the room, squarely facing the sofa where Lilith sat. Lilith’s eyes flickered to his crotch.

‘But what if I get it wrong?’ Blake said, with every part of his voice sounding like resignation. ‘What if I bend you over and rip your knickers off and spank you and pull you hair and fuck you hard and one of those things is the wrong thing and you turn around and go all black-eyes and uber-powered and give me sodding small pox or something? Witches aren’t exactly known for their restraint.’

‘I could mind-wipe you,’ Lilith said suddenly. ‘Make you forget I’m a witch.’

‘Won’t work. You didn’t tell me you were a witch, I worked it out. Take away that knowledge and I’ll just work it out again.’

‘Unless . . .’

Blake interrupted. ‘Well, unless you take away all my knowledge of the paranormal, which would leave me unable to do my job.’

Lilith shrugged. ‘Well, I’m sorry about that, but it might just be the only option.’

Blake raised his eyes to the ceiling. ‘Great . . .’ he said, tailing off as if words failed him. ‘Well, that’s just great.’

‘OK, OK,’ Lilith said, ‘I have another idea. How about this? What if I remove my powers – temporarily – and place them in a suitable receptacle? Would that make you feel safe enough to bend me over backwards?’

Blake frowned. ‘Can witches do that?’

‘Witches can do anything. That’s kind of the point of witches. I can make the dead walk and the seas boil. I can alter the fabric of the universe. I think I can put my magical powers in that vase without too much trouble.’ She pointed at a cheery little pink pot stuffed with white roses.

Blake glanced over his shoulder at the vase and then looked back at her. His eyes were inscrutable. ‘How would you get your powers back? With no magic to do the spell?’

Lilith shrugged. ‘Break the vase.’

‘What if you come after me then? When you’re all powered up again.’

‘What are you thinking of doing to me?’ Lilith laughed. ‘I won’t. You know I won’t. You know I want this. All you’re scared of is my temper. The heat of the moment. But this way I won’t be able to smite you in anger and, afterwards, when I restore my powers, you know I’m going to be thanking you. Are you really telling me that a man like you – a werewolf hunter, no less – is going to pass up this opportunity to fuck a witch harder than any other mortal man has ever dared to? And then have her thank him for it afterwards?’

One corner of Blake’s mouth twitched into a half-smile for a moment. Just up and then down again. But it was enough for Lilith to know she’d cracked it. ‘Well, in that case . . .’ he said, crossing the room and straddling Lilith’s tailored lap. He leant in and kissed her.

When he pulled back from the kiss, he shook his head lightly. ‘I don’t know quite what it is, baby,’ he whispered. ‘I still think this is a scary, hair-raisingly-dumb idea, but something about you must appeal to my better nature. You’re getting to me. But I think you’d better do your magic trick before you get to me much more and I jump the gun and screw you while you’re still a fucking powderkeg.’

Lilith felt herself actually shiver with delight. She slipped out from underneath Blake and went over to the small table where the vase sat. She emptied it of flowers (manually) and water (magically) and then used a little more concentration and care to perform the second, far more complex, magical procedure.

Once it was done she looked over at Blake. ‘Gosh, that feels really weird. I’m so empty.’

‘I’ll bet.’

Lilith swayed a little and clutched at the edge of the small table. ‘I think I’d better sit down.’

‘Perhaps you’d better lie down.’

‘Bedroom’s through . . .’ The end of Lilith’s sentence disappeared as her legs gently melted away underneath her. But Blake was already zipping across the room to catch her in his strong arms.

Blake threw her down on the bed amongst a patchwork bedspread and heart-shaped pillows. As Lilith woozily took in the froufrou around her, she wondered what her subconscious mind must have been thinking when she created this as her seduction den for a macho brute of a man.

But she stopped caring about that pretty quickly when she looked up at Blake, already on top of her in his dark-blue suit, caging her with his strong wiry body. He pushed his messy dark hair out of the way with one hand as he moved in and kissed her hard, hard and demandingly down into the mattress.

His mouth was hot on hers and devouring. His erection was rubbing against her thigh. She could feel every part of his firm body, heavier, stronger, harder than hers. And the taste of him in her mouth – the cigarettes and whisky from the bar, the last shreds of his fear, the overwhelming swirl of his arrogance. He took her wrists and pinned them up above her head. Then he made it clear that he was kissing her at his pace, for his pleasure – if what he was doing was also turning her into a breathless, writhing mess, trapped underneath him, that was just coincidence.

Then his mouth found her ear. ‘Is this what you wanted, witch? Like this? To know how it feels to have a man controlling you? Using you? Needing you? To feel his hard dick pressing against you and to know that he is going to use your body to get himself off, no matter what you think about it.’

Lilith moaned out loud.

Blake released Lilith’s hands and sat up and back, still straddling her. He started to remove his jacket. She watched him idly, boneless with lust. He dropped the jacket on the floor and started on his tie.

‘Now,’ he said, ‘didn’t we have an idea about tying you up? I really don’t want you to get any ideas about slipping away from me and smashing that vase if I do anything you don’t like. I could just pin you down all evening, but I think this would make things more straightforward. And a lot more fun.’

With his tie in his hand, he leant forwards in his shirt sleeves and fastened Lilith’s wrists together neatly. Then he hitched them – up and over her head – to the swirly wrought-iron bed-head.

‘Something tells me you’re not a bondage novice,’ Lilith said, twisting her wrists in the slick cool fabric.

‘Werewolves, witches, I guess roping up one humanoid paranormal is the same as another.’ He dipped his head and ran the tip of his tongue across her cheek. The move ended in a kiss. If it hadn’t, Lilith might have said something about witches being actual humans not humanoids. But her mouth was suddenly full of the delicious deviant taste of Blake and she didn’t – couldn’t – say a word.

When Blake stopped kissing her and moved to nip at her ear, she still didn’t get the chance to speak – not that there was much she wanted to say beyond ‘yes’ and ‘more’ and ‘please’ – because Blake slipped a hand over her mouth before he hissed into her ear, ‘I know you’ll have left yourself another way into your power base, witch.’

Blake raised his head a little and Lilith looked at him with wide eyes.

‘I know you’ll have left yourself a way to break that vase without getting off the bed. Thing is,’ he added with a low nasty tone, ‘I’m almost certain that what you’ve left yourself is a word, a verbal command, and that’s pretty useless if you can’t talk.’

With a muffled protest, Lilith tried to pull her head away from the hand over her mouth, but he was too strong, far too strong, even stronger than she had estimated. He clamped his hand more tightly, squeezing the bottom half of her face hard. Leaning down, he licked her cheek just on the edge of where it wasn’t covered by his hand, then he ran his tongue down in the crack between two of his fingers and managed to lick her top lip. Lilith moaned.

‘Magic words, safe words, whatever you call them, neither is a lot of use to you now are they, witch?’

This added layer of helplessness just made the burn between Lilith’s legs intensify. She bucked her hips against Blake and he reached down with his free hand and slid her skirt up her body. Its silky lining skated frictionless against the slick of her stockings. It was up around her waist in moments. Then she was just knickers and lace stocking-tops under his sober suit trousers. Blake clearly liked her dishevelled because he smiled and started to unbutton her shirt one-handed, while she panted against his other palm which was still stopping her mouth.

When her shirt was open so wide she might as well not be wearing it, he started alternating between biting the angles of her neck and shoulder, and sitting back and stroking the skin that covered the top of her breasts. He laughed when he bit her so hard she screamed into his fingers.

Eventually, he said, ‘You know, witch, I really can’t keep this up. I’m going to have to stop your mouth with something else.’

Lilith squirmed. Blake knelt up astride her and – in a last bit of one-handed expertise – had his trousers and underpants down in moments. Lilith saw his cock jutting out from under the hem of his shirt – bold and hard – as he moved towards her. And then the hand on her mouth was gone and she had enough of a moment to take one big breath before he grabbed a handful of her hair and forced his cock deep into her mouth.

Lilith gasped and struggled again, pulling at the tie holding her wrists, trying not to choke.

‘Take it,’ Blake grunted. ‘Come on, witch, suck my dick.’ His voice seemed to crack a little with the words.

Lilith looked up at him looming over her. He grinned down and let go of her hair for a moment to yank his shirt off over his head.

Lilith saw his upper body for the first time then, compact, muscled and hard. There was something nasty about his physique. Something brutal.

‘Maybe after I come in your mouth I could find something else to gag you with,’ Blake panted as he thrust mercilessly into her throat, bracing himself against the wall behind the headboard. ‘Your fancy underwear maybe? Then you’d really be helpless. Powerless. I could leave you here for as long as I wanted then. Days. How would you like that? Imagine what they’d say at work if I told them I had a witch for a prisoner, tied to the bed, just aching for another chance to suck my dick.’

Lilith moaned around the taut flesh filling her mouth. Blake tasted like oceans and dark places, like basements and fear. Blake tasted like a man who had stared at things that even a witch might turn away from. Masculine pride and arrogance, slugs and snails and puppy dog tails.

He sneered down at her. ‘I could just take your old magic vase of powers somewhere safe, witch. Far away. Make sure it never got broken. Put it in a vault somewhere.’

Lilith gasped and, in that moment, as she broke the vacuum seal around his cock, he withdrew, and whispered, ‘Going to fuck you now, witch.’

He slid down her body, slipped her damp knickers out of the way and drove into her, coasting on her wetness. His hands were gripping her taut bound arms. His mouth now the thing keeping her quiet.

When he began to move – to fuck her as promised – it was hard and nasty. Harder than any man who valued his entrails should ever fuck a witch. Lilith squirmed under him. Desperate.

‘God,’ Blake said, breaking the kiss, ‘you are so fucking wet for me. You love this, don’t you? You love me inside you?’

‘Uh, yes.’

‘Fucking say it, witch.’

‘I love you inside me.’

Blake moved his face closer and sneered. ‘You love me in control. Say it.’

‘I love you in control.’

‘You love my hard dick,’ he panted.

‘I love your hard dick,’ Lilith managed, panting so hard now she could barely speak at all. Blake moved down to kiss her again. She wanted more. She wanted to come. Like this. Tied up. With him on her, driving into her, holding her and owning her and making her confess her darkest desires. She moaned into Blake’s mouth.

Blake moved his head back and looked at her, still thrusting. ‘You going to come for me, witch?’

Lilith nodded.

Blake’s right hand was moving then, down, down between their bodies and into place. One expertly crooked finger giving her exactly what she needed.

Another thrust, and another. She was so close. Then Blake said, ‘Come on, witch, now. For me. Give it to me.’ And she was there. Coming up to meet him.

Blake was winding his way lazily back into his clothes. Shirt, trousers, jacket. His tie was still tight around Lilith’s wrists. Lilith knew she was post-orgasm and kind of loved-up hazy, but she couldn’t stop staring at his body as he dressed. He really was magnificent on his own small scale.

‘Are you going to untie me now?’ she said.

Blake stared at her. He was fully dressed now and he let his eyes glide over her stockings and wide-open shirt.

‘Blake?’

Blake started. ‘Yeah, I guess.’ But he didn’t move.

‘Well, come on, then.’

Blake walked over and took hold of her bindings, then stopped and swallowed hard. ‘OK, now you promise that as soon as you’ve got your powers back you’re not going to eviscerate me, or anything, right?’

‘Course not. You know, all that vengeful, knee-jerk over-the-top stuff is really out of fashion, anyway. Who really eviscerates people these days? If I wanted to make you miserable, Blake, if I had any reason to, you’d never even know for sure if it was me that had done it.’

‘But you don’t have any reason to, right?’

‘Right.’

Blake still didn’t move.

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Lilith said.

Lilith cast three spells at once. One to whisk the tie from her wrists to around Blake’s neck, one to dress herself and one to put the kettle on. Then she looked at Blake.

Blake looked back at her, his mouth slightly open.

‘Oh,’ said Lilith, ‘yeah, about that thing I told you about putting my powers in the vase. Well, I didn’t actually do that. It would have been stupid, anyway. And dangerous. I’ve only just met you.’

Blake was staring at her, his mouth hanging open a little. He closed it. ‘You tricked me,’ he said.

‘Kind of, except I also did just exactly what you told me to do. I just found myself someone who didn’t know how powerful I really was. Turned out I didn’t really have all that far to look.’

Lilith, Blake and Cate also appear in Mathilde Madden’s Silver Werewolf trilogy: The Silver Collar, The Silver Crown and The Silver Cage. For more details please visit www.mathildemadden.co.uk