Warlock 4 - Preview Chapter

Warlock 4 – Preview Chapter

© 2025 Daniel Kensington

Chapter

“Stick it in her again!”

“No.”

“I want to see if it does it again!”

I tried not to sigh, because I’d been doing that too much this morning and was getting lightheaded. “I’m not —”

“It shouldn’t pulse like that!”

“It’s okay, Dominus — I can take it.”

“If you want to watch them have sex so much, Elsa, just say so — but leave the rest of us out of it?”

“I don’t want —”

“Whatever,” Morgan muttered and went back to her phone.

No, we weren’t having an orgy in Mel’s living room, but, apparently, whatever I’d done with Sam and Rachel the night before — with our resonants, I mean — had left our resonants sort of … pulsing. Not growing, I hadn’t tried to stretch any of them, but their brightness increased and then faded almost like a heartbeat.

It was almost gone before we got home, but Cassandra saw enough to start demanding we show it to her at full strength.

Mel didn’t help by acting like it was perfectly normal and was just our magics getting used to each other or something.

That set Cassandra off on how could something be normal if she’d never heard of it before and then Mel didn’t help again by saying that was because there hadn’t been a trinitara coven in quite some time.

She said the result wasn’t increased power, but increased intensity … which only convinced Cassandra she had to know more.

“Cassandra,” I said, trying for stern but understanding,

“What if it’s —”

I swear, she pulled our Covens textbook out of a stack of folders and papers she’d dug out of her luggage after the second time I’d demonstrated the effect by sliding a single resonant into Sam after it had been in Rachel for a second.

She waved the textbook at me.

“Did you steal that from Willowmere?” I asked.

The last thing we needed was Magistra Hennessey getting on our case for not turning in our textbooks.

Cassandra looked offended. “This is my personal copy. I’ve had it since I was twelve and it doesn’t say anything about …” She glared at Rachel and Sam. “… throbbing.”

“I’m not surprised,” Sam muttered.

“It doesn’t really throb,” Rachel said. She bit her lip. “It’s more of a tickly-rub.”

“Whatever.” Cassandra returned her glare to me. “What if it’s one of the missing pieces I need to explain why we’re so wrong.”

I shrugged. “I don’t think we’re wrong, Mel would tell us if it was anything to worry about.”

Mel nodded.

“That’s the point! If we’re not wrong, then the textbook is!”

I shrugged. “So write a new textbook.”

Cassandra’s eyes went wide and her jaw clenched. She waved her hand at the stack of papers.

“What do you think all this is?”

I blinked, taking in the stack of papers covered in notes and scribbled diagrams.

“You’re writing a textbook?”

Cassandra waved her Covens text in the air. “If this is wrong, I’m not teaching our kids this … this were-shit! So I need to know what’s real!”

“Hey, Elsa?”

Morgan and Priscilla were sitting at the kitchen island finishing their coffee. They’d mostly stayed out of the morning’s … fun — I was kind of wishing we hadn’t come back to the townhouse so early. If the effects of last night had worn off before we got home, I wouldn’t be dealing with this.

“What?”

Morgan grinned. Priscilla grinned.

The two had been spending a lot of time together and they’d been whispering over there.

Fuck.

“If you want to know what the magic girl-splooge does, just try some — I’m sure Sam or Rachel would be willing.”

“Yeah, I’ll —”

Sam flinched and glanced at Rachel, who was chewing on her lip with one eye glaring at Sam and the other locked onto Cassandra.

“— volunteer,” Sam finished when it looked like no smack was incoming.

Rachel swallowed hard and stood.

“I need to pee,” she mumbled, hurrying upstairs.

I hoped whatever that was wouldn’t become something else I’d have to deal with.

“Ew!” Cassandra said over Morgan and Priscilla’s laughter. “It’s not … and I don’t …”

“Most importantly,” I cut in, giving Cassandra a break. “I’m done —”

What could I even call it? It certainly wasn’t fucking, no fingers were involved …

“I’m done Resonating Sam and Rachel for your amusement.”

“But —” Cassandra frowned. “Resonating?”

I shrugged. “Do you have a better name?”

“No, but —” She turned to Mel. “Melaina, what’s it called?”

Mel shrugged, sipping her tea. “We generally called it ‘fun,’ dear.”

“I’ll say,” Sam said.

Cassandra flushed red.

Mel laughed. “It’s no great thing, dear. When Noah … alternated —”

I swear it wasn’t me who told what had started the … pulsing. Cassandra saw it and started asking questions, then Rachel blurted it out and I agreed to … demonstrate. I really hadn’t thought it was that sexual a thing — yeah, it felt good, but it’d become pretty common for me to drain Rachel around the rest without any comment.

I’d thought a quick demo would be the end of it, then Cassandra brought in her papers and started taking notes.

“— between Rachel and Samantha —”

Sam grinned and I looked down wishing I could be virtually anywhere else in the fucking world.

“— his body didn’t have time to fully refine the mana, so when he transferred it to the other, their mana reacted.”

“Reacted how?”

Mel shrugged. “It’s not as though we ever studied, it dear — many things we simply enjoyed.”

I think Cassandra growled.

Whatever the sound was, it amused Mel.

“It brings a coven closer together, dear. That’s all.”

Now Cassandra did growl. She gathered up her stack of papers and followed Rachel’s path up the stairs, muttering, “I need to write up some notes.”

Priscilla drained the last of her coffee and hopped off her stool, stepping into the kitchen.

“I’ll start the dishwasher,” she said, holding her hand out for Morgan’s cup.

Morgan shook her head, keeping it, but came into the living room and settled into what had become the chair for whoever wouldn’t fit on the couch.

Mel ignored us, but I thought she might be smirking inside.

Felicity — back in cat form, since, as she put it, it offered a better hand-fur ratio for petting — hopped up into Morgan’s lap. She was still joining us in her catgirl form once in a while. Clothed, to my relief and disappointment — she’d even gone shopping with Priscilla and Morgan to pick out her own clothes. Mostly pajamas, since we were always home when she took the form.

After I’d seen the third set of pajamas, I’d kind of hesitantly mentioned that I really was okay with it if she wanted to walk around the house naked all the time.

I spent a few hours on the best way to phrase that — I don’t think there’s a good way.

I was told I’d have to work for that.

Women.

Now I was going to have to go reassure Rachel that Sam and Cassandra weren’t on the table.

Again, women.

I sighed and started to stand.

“Where are you going?” Morgan asked.

“To talk to Rachel about the shit you just stirred.”

Morgan chuckled. “Sit down, Ashe. Lotte just needs to figure some things out and she certainly doesn’t need you for it.”

“Like what?” I asked.

Morgan had the confused look she got when she said something without really knowing why. I’d come to recognize it as meaning her Insight affinity had taken control of her mouth before her brain caught up, so I sat.

Morgan bit her lip. “Well … Lotte wants Hexual all to herself.” She glanced at me and shrugged. “With you — you get what I mean — but she also wants Hexual to be happy, and she knows Hexual likes big boobs and her own are kind of average —”

“They’re very nice,” Sam said.

“I’m sure, but Elsa’s?”

Sam flushed and cleared her throat.

“Right. So she’s conflicted.” Morgan frowned. “Plus … she wants to try everything, so she’s probably curious as to why Hexual likes the big ones.” She gestured at Sam. “I mean, she tried the itty-bitties and liked them —”

“Hey!”

Morgan raised an eyebrow.

Sam hung her head. “Fine.”

“Right, so she tried those and now she’s curious about the hungo-mungoes.” Morgan shrugged. “Simple.”

Mel cleared her throat, standing.

“I have some things to finish in my workroom.”

I winced.

I’d honestly forgotten she was sitting there, caught up in Morgan’s explanation — and, judging by the twitching at the corner of her mouth, half of what she needed to do in her workroom was going to be laughter.

I gave it some thought and what Morgan said made some sense — especially if her Insight affinity was involved — but I wasn’t entirely convinced.

“I’m not sure I buy it. Rachel’s —”

“Dude,” Morgan said, “you have no idea. Sometimes I think that girl’s a bigger freak than Hexual.”

“Hey!”

Sam honestly sounded more offended by maybe not being the biggest freak in our group than by the itty-bitties thing.

Morgan snorted. “Playing never-have-I-ever with her’s like adding ‘Rule 34’ to every internet search you do all day. She comes up with such wild shit that she has to drink every time it’s her turn because none of the rest of us even know what she’s talking about, much less did it.”

“She gets so drunk,” Sam muttered.

Okay, this was the second time I was hearing about the games played when I was out — maybe I needed to plan some date nights in, because I was clearly missing out on a lot.

Thinking about it, though, Morgan’s take on things made a lot of sense, and it would mean I didn’t have to get involved. It didn’t sound like that big a deal and Rachel could figure it out.

Maybe between Morgan’s Insight and Sam’s Harmony we could get by without me binding a psychologist or something for coven therapy. Maybe Morgan could —

I looked at Morgan.

No, that would be far too much power and temptation.

Felicity’s ears perked up.

Everyone return to the living room, please. Eleni is calling.

The basement door opened and Mel returned on her phone.

“Give us just a moment for the others to gather, Eleni,” she was saying. “So that you’re not asked to repeat yourself.”

It was just a few seconds before Rachel and Cassandra hurried downstairs and Priscilla came in from the kitchen.

Mel set her phone on the coffee table and put it on speaker.

“We’re all here now, Eleni.”

“Good, good,” Magistra Cassian said. “I ask about missing Yaga babe. Quiet question, secret question. I ask friend. Friend ask friend and ask friend and so on, until ask someone who may answer. Not know question come from me, you understand?”

“That’s a lot of questions and no answers,” Morgan muttered.

“Answer is question,” Magistra Cassian said. “Many question. Angry question. Which is answer, yes?”

“Fuck,” Morgan said.

“Yes, kravata e mazhka[1],” Magistra Cassian agreed.

Yeah, fuck.

Maybe there was still a chance she wasn’t, but that sure sounded like a baby of Baba Yaga’s line had gone missing at some point, and the line was still fucking pissed about it.

We were all quiet, including Magistra Cassian — that seemed to be all she’d found out, but it was enough. Mel thanked her and hung up.

“I’ll cancel the flight,” Cassandra said, pulling out her phone.

Sam nodded. “I’ll let everybody know we’ll reschedule.”

“Should we strengthen the wards here?” Rachel asked.

I nearly shit myself when Mel nodded.

“Willowmere will be safe enough,” Mel said, “and we need fear nothing at the Conclave — nothing from Baba Yaga, at least — but I’ve been meaning to alter the wards here in any case.”

“What are you doing?” Morgan asked, eyes darting around at the others. “You can’t just not go.”

I swear every one of my girls looked at Morgan like she’d just said the stupidest thing ever — even I’d never gotten looks like these.

“You can’t go,” Cassandra said.

Priscilla nodded. “Even Stockholm would be too close.” She took a deep breath and shook her head. “Scary fucking forest witch.”

“But —”

“You don’t go near her,” Sam said.

“And we won’t leave you alone,” Rachel added.

Cassandra nodded. “And if she comes after you, I’ve got some Buffalo sauce for those skinny fucking chicken legs of hers.”

Morgan was looking from one to another, mouth half open.

I wished Morgan could see their mana like I could. Not even Sam was showing a bit of disappointment — only concern and determination.

“I keep telling you,” I said, catching Morgan’s eye. “It’s not you and me and me and them — it’s us.”

“One,” Priscilla said.

Morgan swallowed hard, then stood suddenly, dumping Felicity from her lap with a startled hiss. The cat-witch landed on her feet while Morgan dashed for the stairs.

I sighed, starting to stand, but Sam grabbed my leg with one hand while she ran the other one over Felicity’s back as the cat settled into her lap like it had been an entirely planned transition.

“Give her some time to get used to it,” Sam said.

Cassandra nodded and sat next to me, snuggling close while Rachel pressed into me from the other side and Priscilla joined us next to Cassandra.

“I don’t think she needs to get used to the trip being canceled,” I said. “It’s something else.”

“Not that, you dumbass feral,” Cassandra whispered. “She’s never had an us.”

“Never thought she would,” Priscilla added.

Sam wrapped her arms around my leg. “Neither did I.”

Rachel and Cassandra both reached over to stroke Sam’s hair.

“It’s scary,” Priscilla whispered. “Because the first thing you think of when you realize you’ve got something you never thought you would … is how much it’ll hurt to lose it.”

[1] Literally: The cow is male.

Meaning: Things are as bad as they could be.

Krah-VAH-tah eh MUHZH-kah