Wolf, Willow, Witch (The Gideon Testaments, #2)

by Freydís Moon

Bishop was still cruising through the Bible Belt with their dapper little exorcist, leaving their houseplants thirsty and alone.

Power was a borrowed thing. Sometimes the gods soaked her to the bone, and sometimes they left her parched and desperate, scrabbling for a sacrifice that would earn their favor.

“You’re a sick little witch.”

Her victory stood before her, twitching his cute ass ears, wiggling his puppy nose, alive and formidable. She fought the urge to boop him.

She trapped ghouls and ghosts in jars. Fucked occult fanboys and Satanic girlies, harnessing something small and vital and animal made with someone else.

“Where’d you rank in the, you know, red, white, and blood-sport gig?” “Low enough not to matter. Do you live in the forest with a bunch of old crones, deboning deer and boiling bats?”

“Your ancestors conquered the land and the sea,” she whispered, staring at her reflection. “You are a daughter of Freya, child of the north, descendent of shield-maidens.” She nodded at herself. “Take no shit, bitch.”

Many people had decided on Tehlor Nilsen. Crafted a personality for her, assumed her past, predicted her future. But Lincoln Stone was the first person with enough audacity to trick her.

“If we want in on this revival bullshit, you’ll have to ditch the bad-bitch persona. You get that, right?”

“Play nice with church Barbie, all right?”

Radical hope was a drug like no other. Tehlor knew that better than anyone. And it led to hysteria more often than not.

“He’s got the keys to the kingdom. I’ll introduce myself; you go make good with Barbie.” “Go sit with the other wives and be quiet? Is that what—” “Welcome to church life, witch-bitch.”

she’d never met a guy whose bite was actually worse than his bark, and she hated how quickly she turned into a pathetic simp after finding one.

“A sacrifice? In this economy?” He tapped his pint against her empty glass. “Good luck finding anyone worth a damn.”

“We’ve come to an understanding, haven’t we? I could squeeze the life out of you. Crush your windpipe. Shatter your ribcage.” He traced the bird’s feathers, following its jagged shape to her shoulder. “You could put me back in the wall. Poison me. Stab me again. Send me straight to hell.”

Lincoln Stone was a consequence—karma coming back to sink its teeth into her—and Tehlor hated how her heart bent toward him.

“So, that’s your big, nasty secret, huh? Wanting something so badly it drove you to violence?” “You don’t seem impressed.” “I’m not,” he assured and tilted his head.

she didn’t hate him, and he didn’t hate her, and that was a lovely, frightening surprise.

“I can teach you patience; I can give you power.” Laughter gusted across her neck, gritty and tempered. “I can make you worse,” he whispered, pressing his clothed cock between her legs, “if you let me.”

Because Lincoln Stone had unburied something wicked and wrong inside her. Something she couldn’t deny. And she desperately wanted to do the same to him.

“Modesty, submission, obedience. That’s new world shit. Worship used to be violent and sexy and weird.”

“If this whole thing was on me, I’d poison the baptism water, watch them all choke to death, knock the girl unconscious, and kill whoever got in my way. It’d take ten minutes. Maybe twenty.”