Chapter Text
The auditorium assaulted their ears, a stormy echo of confused murmurs reverberating around the cavernous space as Tally, Raelle, and Abigail sought an empty trio of seats. Tally kept close to Abigail, not only because the youngest Bellweather had the energy of an unsinkable ship with fringe but also because Tally had a fat, displeased furball under her shirt and needed a shield to help hide the shifting bulge. As they weaved through the crowd, Not-Lady’s grumbling grew in volume, and Tally held her breath. It wasn’t the sound she was worried about. Goddess knew nothing could be heard over the din of the gathering anxious witches. It was the source of the grumbling that scared her. Not Lady’s discomfort. Her dissatisfaction. And just how much longer she’d be willing to limit herself to a disgruntled noise. How long until she graduated to action?
Please don’t eviscerate me! Please don’t eviscerate me!
“Here,” Raelle said, and led them down a row with three empty seats, two together and one on the other side of a lone, young witch. “Hey, would you mind moving down one so the three of us can si—”
“Beat it, Jennings,” Abigail barked, though it may as well have been a bite with the way both Raelle and the lone witch (Jennings, apparently) winced. A sharklike smile painted Abigail’s face as Jennings not only gave up her seat but fled the aisle altogether and possibly the building.
“Do you get off on being an asshole?” Raelle asked as they collectively dropped. “Or is it some sort of condition all you Bellweathers have that you just can’t control? Like you’re all just compelled to swing your big Bellweather balls around like a flag every time you step into a new room?”
“Yes, actually,” Abigail responded without hesitation, “so you should be ashamed of yourself for mocking someone’s medical condition.”
Tally wanted to laugh. Part of her did, anyway. The rest of her was a little busy dealing with the fact that her heart seemed to have swollen to the size of a watermelon and was lodged between every one of her ribs. Her chest hurt. Her stomach wouldn’t stop squeezing, and the resulting nausea made her mouth water in the worst way. This was all because of her. The siren going off. The impromptu assembly. Whatever angry lecture they were about to endure, Tally had no doubt she was the root of it.
Maybe she’d be called out in front of everyone and dismissed for her conduct. Tally briefly wondered if anyone had ever been kicked out of the military for stealing an officer’s familiar after a moderately unethical one-night stand. At least I’ll make a name for myself. She grimaced. Just not the way I’d hoped.
“Nope,” Raelle said after two seconds of sitting between Abigail and Tally. “I thought I could sit next to Tally, but I can’t.”
Tally’s heart cracked. So did her voice. “What?”
Raelle all but shoved Abigail into her seat so that she could have the other. “I don’t know, Tally,” she said and sat with a huff. “Maybe it’s just your whole sleeps-with-other-people’s-girlfriends vibe you’ve got going on. It’s rubbing me the wrong way.”
“Yeah, well, Tally rubbed the wrong person in an effort to get your cat back for you,” Abigail said, much to Tally’s surprise. “So, maybe cut her some slack, Collar. The girl’s head is spinning.”
It really was. Help.
Raelle scoffed. “As if you’ve cut a single inch of slack for a single person in your entire life.”
“True,” Abigail said and rolled her eyes, “but the fact of the matter is she didn’t sleep with your girlfriend, because she didn’t sleep with Scylla at all. She doesn’t even know who she slept with. And even if she had slept with Scylla, she still wouldn’t have slept with your girlfriend, because Scylla’s not your girlfriend anymore. She’s your ex. She’s a Necro, for Goddess’ sake. And she stole your fucking cat!”
“Yeah,” Tally said weakly, though she felt no genuine desire to let herself off the hook. Everything was awful, and the further from the experience she got and the more they talked about it, the worse she felt. “Wait. What’s wrong with being a Necro?”
Abigail’s answer was a pinched face that, Tally could acknowledge, needed no further explanation.
“Look, Tally, what you did was shitty,” Raelle said. “The two of you can talk your way around it all you want, but you thought the person you were with was my ex, and that means you didn’t care that you were sleeping with someone who, for all you knew, I still had feelings for. And I’m supposed to, what? Thank you?”
“You told her to seduce her, Collar,” Abigail droned. “What did you think seduction was supposed to lead to? A bro hang?”
For a solid moment, Tally was convinced Raelle was going to swing. Her hand clenched just as harshly as her jaw before she growled out her response. “It doesn’t have to lead to anything. She was just supposed to see if Scylla had Lady, then make up some excuse to leave. That was the plan. Not do whatever you want just because you want to.”
Tally’s eyes started to water. “I’m sorry,” she said, unable to think of anything else to say. She wanted to defend herself, wanted to explain why she hadn’t stopped herself, but what words could she use? How could she possibly find a way to convey what she’d felt with the woman she’d met at The Witch’s Brew? The way her body had raced with lightning and energy and power. How when their eyes met, Tally felt a tug in her chest—a magnetic pull that refused to be ignored—and when they’d touched, the little mark behind Tally’s ear had seared like fire. The slow, quiet breaths they’d taken together in the dark when it was over, and the way Tally’s spine had tingled when the woman murmured, “I never allow anyone to stay, but you may, if you’d like.” How she’d woken up once in the night to find herself encased in a tight embrace, steady breaths puffing against the back of her neck, and felt oddly, wonderfully outside of herself—as if she’d stepped into a dream. A future. A life she could possibly live someday.
How could she tell Raelle that something so wrong had felt so very right to her?
But then, maybe she wouldn’t have to, because—
Mmrrroooooww.
A low rumble under her shirt sent a chill up Tally’s spine. The cat, Not Lady, was alerting to something, but Tally didn’t know what. Or maybe she just couldn’t feel any of her legs anymore after being balled under a shirt for too long and had had quite enough of the whole situation. Tally braced herself for claws. Why was she even worried about what people thought of her when she was about to have a spontaneous and very unanesthetized appendectomy right there in the auditorium?
“Craven.”
Three heads snapped left in unison—Tally, Abigail, and Raelle all now staring at the officer standing at the end of their row. Tally recognized her from that morning when she’d been caught mid-walk-of-shame with a contraband cat in her arms. Sergeant Quartermaine. The woman motioned for Tally to join her with a quick tick of her head.
“What? Me?” Tally put a hand over her chest and felt the lump under her shirt jerk in response. She forced a loud cough to cover Not Lady’s groan, then cleared her throat. “Sorry. Um, why?”
Abigail’s elbow smashed into Tally’s side, eliciting a harsh grunt. “Don’t ask why,” she growled under her breath. “Just go.”
“Right. Right.” Tally stood up. “Sorry. Yes, ma’am.” She shimmied past the others, speaking through her gritted teeth as she went. “What do I do? What do I do with her?”
But she was on her own. Her not-sisters could do nothing but grimace as she wiggled by with Not Lady growing more and more active under her shirt. When she reached the end of the aisle, she and Sergeant Quartermaine stood toe to toe for a moment. Tally’s stomach rolled like a wave. Literally. Her shirt rose like a tide and rolled right over, and Tally watched, mortified and terrified and all the other -fied’s a girl caught amid a poorly planned and even more poorly executed scheme could be, as the woman’s dark eyes dropped down to follow the motion.
When their gazes reconnected, the sergeant’s jaw locked, ticked. Defiance. Tally could tell she’d pissed the woman off. She’d been given a pass, after all, and look what she’d done with it. Just kept on stealing a cat like it wasn’t an awful thing to do.
“I’m sorry,” Tally offered before the woman could utter a word of lecture or dismissal or last rites, because surely Tally was about to be executed for her heinous crimes. And she needed to say it. She was sorry. She’d made mistakes, and she knew it, but couldn’t she be forgiven? Especially when she really was sorry. Please don’t kick me out. Please don’t kick me out. Please don’t—
“Follow me.”
Huh?
“And take the animal out from under your shirt.” Sergeant Quartermaine marched off as if she hadn’t just flipped the script on all Tally’s terrible expectations. Unless of course she’s leading me to something even more terrible. Oh Goddess! They aren’t actually going to kill me, are they? We don’t still burn witches at the stake, do we? Is catnapping a burnable offense? I thought I was saving her. Mercy! “You look ridiculous.”
“Right. Yeah.” Tally was stressed, stressed, but her body followed the woman’s orders like they’d come from her own brain. She was thankful for it, because her actual thoughts weren’t doing her any good. “Sorry. Again, I mean.” She jolted into action, following the sergeant while carefully freeing Not Lady from her confines. Her eyes prickled with tears at the annoyed expression on the cat’s rumpled face. “Sorry,” she said once more, this time to the cat.
As they neared the back of the auditorium, headed for the still-open main doors, a hush fell over the room behind them. Tally glanced back just as a petite woman with dark hair and a long white lab coat stepped onto the small stage with a microphone. With clear glee, the woman announced the “exciting” and “rare” opportunity all the young women present were about to receive.
Wait. Huh? What exciting, rare opportunity? Tally wanted opportunities. Or maybe she didn’t deserve opportunities. Because when I get opportunities, I use them to steal innocent women’s cats. I am a terrible person. Terrible people don’t deserve exciting, rare opportunities.
“Eyes forward,” Sergeant Quartermaine said, and Tally swiveled so fast, she made herself dizzy.
“Yes, ma’am,” she said and darted outside so the doors could be closed behind her. She guessed she’d never know what opportunity she was missing.
The heavy creaking and slam of the doors rang in Tally’s soul like the foreboding soundtrack of her impending doom. “We don’t execute witches for accidentally stealing familiars, do we?”
Sergeant Quartermaine coughed as if she’d just choked on her own saliva and halted for a moment. “What?”
“Nothing, nevermind,” Tally said. “You go. I’ll follow.” To my death.
The woman watched her a moment longer, then… “Look, do not misread me. I am not your friend. We are not ‘girls’. I do not do favors. But since I’m half-convinced you might pass out before we get where we’re going: No, you aren’t being executed.” Tally opened her mouth, but— “Or discharged.”
Tally’s heart sank in the best way, dropping out of her throat and back where it belonged so she could breathe again. Though she was a little concerned for Sergeant Quartermaine if the woman thought telling someone they weren’t being executed might lead them to thinking they were besties. Then again, Tally had stolen a cat for a girl she barely knew, so hey…. Clearly, more than a few of them had odd ideas of how the whole ‘friendship’ thing was meant to function.
Or maybe she grew up in a matrifocal sect, too! Hey! We could bond over that! She bit her lip to stop herself from asking. Not the time, Tally.
“Hold on,” Sergeant Quartermaine said, a frown suddenly pulling her lips. Her eyes dropped to the frustrated cat that wouldn’t stop wriggling in Tally’s arms. “Did you say ‘familiar’?”
Tally was sure she looked like a cornered rat. “Mhm,” she squeaked and, very much against said familiar’s will, held the cat even tighter. “By accident.” It was important she reiterate that part. In fact, Tally believed it was the most important part of the whole affair, even if no one else did.
Understanding dawned on the sergeant’s face, as if she’d suddenly developed a feasible explanation for a task she’d long been questioning. “Well,” she said, and something that could have been interpreted as either a smirk or a grimace crossed her face, “let this set you at ease then: you cannot steal a witch’s familiar. If the animal went with you, it was because it elected to.”
WHAT?! Tally’s brain shot to the moon. “Really?”
“Really.”
Relief didn’t wash over Tally. It barreled into her like a stampeding bull, so intense in its impact that she felt she could keel over and sleep for the next three days. Or forever. She blew out a loud, heavy breath. “Oh wow. That actually does help so much. Thank you.”
Sergeant Quartermaine’s expression leveled and grew serious. “Again, not friends. Not a favor,” she said. “I just need you alive when we arrive at Administration.” She didn’t give Tally a chance to respond, spinning on her heel and barking for Tally to pick up her pace before she’d even taken a step.
“Yes, ma’am,” Tally said, scurrying to follow. She held Not Lady close, now convinced all the grumbling was little more than show. I did wake up to her licking my toes after all. I knew she liked me.
As if reading her thoughts, Not Lady mewled and flicked her tail, then let just the tips of her claws poke at Tally’s forearm. Yeah, yeah, Tally thought. Poke at me all you want. I’m not buying it. You love me.
The administration building, which turned out to be the building Tally had fled earlier that morning, was on the other side of Base. Nervous as Tally was, she was grateful she didn’t have to make the trip on foot this time, rather riding along in the back of a jeep. Silent but for the sounds of Base operations and the steadily increasing chirps from the cat in her lap. It seemed the closer they drew to their destination, the more and louder Not Lady complained. But she stayed on Tally’s lap with little resistance. Clearly, she wasn’t happy about where they were headed, but she was allowing herself to be taken there all the same.
When they arrived, Tally was led from the jeep and into the building without a word. Nothing looked familiar as she quick-stepped after her superior, until they turned down a wide, ornate hallway painted a rich, dark shade of red with gold embellishments along the wainscoting. Large paintings adorned the walls, battles mostly, but none Tally recognized. War wasn’t her thing. Is war anyone’s thing? Who has war as their thing?
Everything about the hallway felt familiar, despite Tally not having seen much detail the prior night. It had been dark when she’d first made the walk, after all. And I had other things on my mind.
Guilt spread through her again like a recurring disease. She tried and failed to swallow it. Her mouth watered. She hated that she felt so guilty about her first time, that something that had been such an intensely good experience for her now felt so tainted. Sure, it had been a little murky around the edges from the start, but once she’d accepted the path, everything from the first hot kiss to the last little squeeze of a hand around her hip had been immaculate. Tally would’ve sworn that the Goddess herself had sanctioned the act, the way she’d bloomed.
Now, she felt like a traitor. And a thief. Just a horny asshole who took what she wanted regardless of how it made other people feel. What has the Army done to me? She was never horny before she arrived at Fort Salem (mostly never), and she knew, confidently, that she hadn’t been an asshole. Tally’s heart spasmed. Except that time I told Erin Lorre that her favorite color looked bad on her. She was only six, sure, and yeah, she’d tattled on herself right after and then promptly threw up on her mother’s shoes, but still. It was a moral failure Tally had long struggled to release and served as the perfect fuel for the internal rager she was throwing, her very own anti-Tally rally.
She was so caught up in her moping and self-loathing that she hadn’t even realized they’d arrived. Sergeant Quartermaine’s knock was short and sharp, and not five seconds later, a stout elderly woman with a frizzy bun and a gray uniform opened the door to an oversized office that felt even more familiar to Tally than the hallway. A second later, the scent hit her.
Oh. Oh no. She knew that scent. She’d been covered in it only hours ago. It was her. Her. The woman Tally had given her body to despite not even knowing her name. Somewhere just beyond an open doorframe and a hardy (and somewhat terrifying) senior citizen, Tally’s mysterious lover waited.
For her cat, Tally reminded herself, annoyed that it took little more than a whiff to have her heart racing. She’s not waiting to be reunited with you, because the connection you had was so mutually undeniable and undeniably mutual, you big ninny! She’s waiting for her cat because you STOLE IT.
Except… No, that’s not right. Tally frowned as the older woman moved aside and waved for them to enter. I didn’t steal her cat. Not-Lady CHOSE to come with me. The friend-phobic sergeant at her side had told Tally so herself not ten minutes before. And that was just what she’d say to—
Tally’s thoughts stuttered to a dazed hum as she stepped into a colossal office, soaked in prismed daylight and adorned top to bottom in rich design—antiquated and elegant and reservedly artful, which somehow seemed to match perfectly with the eclectic array of uniformed elderly women scattered about the space. What in the world? Are they teachers? Retired? Oh Goddess, are they some kind of secret elder council here to curse me for my sex crimes?! Wait, no. Sex crimes are something else. Still… What in the name of the Goddess is going on?!
She did her best to try to focus on the details, grounding herself with the room’s décor. A chessboard. A New World map. A crystal and brass bar cart. Bookcases overflowed with tomes, some protected by display cases. And along the walls? Pure history. A lifetime or two, more, of military evolution, of American revolution… of a woman. One woman.
The same face, her face, decorated various paintings, large and small. Historical events too far apart in their timelines to have been seen by the same set of eyes, lived by the same life. Yet there she was. That same face. Her face. Hers.
The same face that had stolen Tally’s breath the night before and made her ache in ways she’d never known she could. The same face that had said such lovely things, filthy things. Quiet, gentle things. The same face Tally had kissed and ridden and wondered if she might ever see again.
The same face that stared at her now, not only from the walls, but from behind the large, antique desk sitting front and center, framed between two grand windows like a work of art itself. Certainly, the woman occupying its chair qualified such a title.
Except she was nothing like how Tally remembered her. She sat stiffly, done up in formal uniform with more medals and tassels pinned to her than Tally had ever seen on a soldier, and her hair was pulled back in a vicious braid, making all her angles prominent, intimidating. And her eyes bright blue eyes were pinned on Tally.
Less than twenty-four hours ago, Tally had needed all of five minutes to fall in love with those eyes, but now she couldn’t read them. She couldn’t determine how much danger she was in, or if she was in danger at all. Or trouble, though to Tally danger and trouble were not much different.
Her tits were sweating. And her lower back. And her palms. She was hot, too hot. And not in a good way, not in the way this woman had made her burn before. No, now she felt hot in that skin-crawling way. That too-watched, too-analyzed, too-center-of-attention kind of way. Her cheeks were on fire, and she had to stop herself from squeezing Not-Lady to death while trying not to disintegrate into a mortified puff of air or bolt from the room before a word could be said.
Sergeant Quartermaine cleared her throat, as if sensing Tally’s building tension. “The recruit you requested, General.”
Tally was not prepared. Her insides flipped. General?! She’d slept with a freaking general?! And not only that, but she’d thanked the woman for the generous helping of pleasure she’d given Tally by running off with her cat! Her cat who chose to run off with me, but still…. A general.
Oh, she was definitely in danger. How the hell was she going to get out of this without losing her place in the Army? The woman was probably mortified that she’d slept with a private, of all people. Less even: a recruit! Tally hadn’t even made it to Merge Week yet. She couldn’t sing to save a life if the life in need of saving was her own!
“Thank you, Anacostia,” the general said, the general who Tally was certain would soon end her career and, after that, probably haunt her dreams forever. Slowly, she stood in all her formal glory, and yes, the sight was indeed glorious. Tally had no idea a uniform could look so good and was certain no other could ever match it.
Her brain quickly conjured an image of that same uniform rumpled on the floor, no woman inside, because said woman was busy doing—Stop it! YOU. ARE. IN. TROUBLE.
“Tally Craven,” the general said, and Tally felt a shiver race her spine. Her name sounded so good wrapped in that voice, almost dirty. No, that’s just you, you horny brat.
Before Tally could splutter out a response or even, as her body seemed to be urging her to, a moan, a loud knock sounded from the door. All attention in the room quickly diverted, and Tally felt a wave of relief as those intense blue eyes finally granted a reprieve. She could only handle so much at once—humiliation, fear, arousal, curiosity, awe, anxiety…arousal. Goddess, Tally’s memory was too good, too vivid. She remembered every detail, every blessed, cursed detail, and just being in the same space as—
The door opened on the general’s command. “General Alder,” said the soldier who peeked through, and Tally’s entire world ground to a vicious halt, “I’ve been informed your guests are twenty minutes out.”
All eyes snapped to Tally as a garbled squeak left her unbidden, and then everything went silent. Except Tally’s heartbeat. It drummed in her ears like the sound of war, the sound of death on the horizon. What? WHAT?! There’s…no…way. There is no way. There is NO—
“Craven?” Sergeant Quartermaine said as she took a step toward Tally, but the name had no sound, only shape.
Tally’s vision blurred. “What?” The world took motion again, but too much, too soon. Too fast. The room was spinning. “Alder?” she squeaked as her stomach lurched. Her eyes locked onto the woman in question. That was…? She was…? “As in… As… as in…”
“As in General Sarah Alder,” the woman said calmly, the casual detonation of a bomb, and Tally heard herself laugh. The most confused, terrified laugh of her life.
And then she promptly passed out.
“It’s not my fault people pass out in your presence sometimes.”
Tally came to, to the sound of voices.
“Anacostia, I only said you could have caught the girl before she hit the floor, not that it was your fault she fell.”
Her shoulder ached, and a burning sensation ran the length of her left arm to her knuckles.
“Why are we dwelling in the past, Mother?”
Tally groaned as she tried to stir, and a blurry face swam over her. Am I on the floor? Yes, I’m on the floor. Why am I on the floor?
“There you are,” the blurry woman said. “You fainted.”
“Oh Goddess.” Tally groaned again, both embarrassed and achy. “How long was I out?”
“Somewhere in the vein of fifteen seconds.”
“Oh,” Tally said, and a painful laugh left her. “Ouch.”
“Yes, I’m afraid you fell quite hard, and Gerald did not take kindly to it.”
Gerald? What? Was Tally dreaming? Was she dead, and this was just her brain’s way of transitioning her into the afterlife? Had she passed away from mortification when she found out she’d slept with—a gasp tore from her throat as she jerked into a sitting position. “General Alder?!” she all but screeched, only to realize the room was still quite full of other people, and it took everything Tally had not to drop again on the spot.
She maintained only a surface register of what followed—the dismissal of all the gawking gazes, the grumbles of the old ladies as they shuffled from the room, apparently disappointed if not offended, that the general’s, “Leave us,” had included them. Honestly, Tally’s entire life seemed like a strange, surreal sort of fever dream. Everything she saw, absorbed, and felt teetered just on the edge of reality. Nothing sounded loud enough. Nothing felt full enough. Nothing seemed to really be happening. How could it be? How could she have possibly managed to lose her virginity to the General Sarah Alder and not even known it?
“I apologize.”
Tally blinked as the combination of words and touch finally seemed to do the trick, cracking the glass, dissipating the mist. Freeing her from the odd globe of dissociation she’d been shocked into. She looked down to find the woman’s hands, the same hands that had already met her, mapped her, altered her, carefully gliding along her forearm.
A fresh gasp broke the air as Tally saw the damage there, three thin but deep gashes running the course of her forearm and hand. Deep enough to bleed and weep. The cat. It must have panicked when she fainted. Wait. Gerald?
“Gerald?” Tally glanced around the large, now empty office, but she saw no sign of the cat.
“He’s gone with the Biddies,” the woman said, and Tally’s heart leapt into her throat.
“Biddies.” It was barely a whisper, a huff from her lips as she tried to understand, tried to process. She knew what Biddies were, and she knew why they existed, who they existed to sustain. She knew of Sarah Alder, but she’d never seen Sarah Alder. Military iconography, especially anything to do with the general, was strictly forbidden in Tally’s childhood home and, as an unwritten rule, throughout the sect.
Oh, Tally had imagined her plenty. She’d imagined what the general would look like, sound like, how she would move after centuries of being alive, centuries of war. But it had never been anything like this. This woman was severe but still, remarkably, youthful. Gentle. Beautiful. Lithe and elegant and dangerous and beautiful. And kind.
And Tally wasn’t breathing. She forced a gulp of air down her throat then back out through her nose. “Wow.” She hadn’t meant to say it, but it demanded to be said, all the more-so as those hands she now knew to be so much more than the simple hands of a simple woman, drew glowing lines along her torn skin and weaved the edges together again until nothing remained but the echo of a sting. Fingers that had touched time in ways no one else living had, had simply drawn Tally well, and so she was. “Wow,” she whispered again, and the general’s face softened.
“You truly didn’t know who I was,” she said, as if she’d never really believed the opposite could be possible, and suddenly all her bewildered looks and laughs from their night together made so much more sense to Tally. How could anyone in America not know the General Sarah Alder, after all? Certainly, how could any witch, especially a witch from a military family? She voiced as much herself a second later. “How is that possible?”
It was a valid question, even knowing Tally grew up in a matrifocal sect. Most of the communes were former military, and few of them were as anti as her own had been. Tally often wondered if hers even was anti-military, or if her mother had just sworn all the women to silence on all things Army in her future daughter’s presence the moment she’d found out she was with child.
“I know who you are,” Tally said, trying in vain to keep her voice from shaking as she took the woman’s hands and let her help her off the floor. “I mean, I knew of Sarah Alder.” She flushed and quickly corrected herself, retracted her hands to her middle to tangle them together. “I’m sorry. I meant General. I knew about General Alder.” Goddess. Tally suddenly felt like she was trying to speak to a celebrity or a myth, rather than the woman she’d somehow managed to make come just hours ago. “I just didn’t know what she—what you—looked like.”
The soft, curious smile on the general’s face grew. “I don’t believe titles are necessary for this particular conversation, Tally. It would be unfair and inappropriate for me to enforce those boundaries when discussing what we are discussing. May I?”
Tally could only blink in response before she was being touched again, the general’s hand reaching up to push Tally’s hair back from her face and tuck a lock behind her ear. And once again, Tally couldn’t breathe. This much oxygen deprivation cannot be good for my brain function.
“You never saw a picture or painting?” It wasn’t unkind or disbelieving. The general sounded little more than curious, perhaps a bit as awed as Tally by the whole, strange affair. “Your mother never spoke of me?”
“Oh, she definitely spoke of you,” Tally said with a grunt, which drew a blurted laugh from her lover. Goddess. Tally made herself a little breathless with the thought. She’d made love to this woman. The woman. The witch who changed the world. “But no pictures. No news. No anything to do with the military, really. She never allowed that.”
“I see,” General Alder said, and from her tone and nod, Tally realized she, in fact, did see. “Not everyone is a fan of mine, unfortunately, or of the Army.”
Tally didn’t want to delve into that, too pierced by the woman’s smile, her laugh, to encourage it to be anything other. She wouldn’t speak of negative things. Only simple things. Necessary things. “You are so much more beautiful than I imagined.”
ARE. YOU. KIDDING. ME? Was she a shy, giggly girl? She certainly felt like one. Did that excuse her from embarrassing herself again? Yes, because she is too beautiful not to tell her. Tally almost felt good about that, until she panicked. Wait. Did I just insult her? Does she think I thought she would be ugly now? Oh Goddess. Help me.
But the general’s addictive smile remained; in fact, it turned positively sly as she asked, “Had you imagined me often?”
“Yes,” Tally said without a hint of hesitation. “But never like this.”
“Like what?”
“Well, not like this,” Tally said and cleared her throat, shook off her nerves. They latched right back onto her like parasites. Damn. “This is actually exactly how I imagined you really, except older and maybe, I don’t know, meaner.”
The general chuckled.
“But the way you were before, last night,” Tally said and felt her cheeks flare. “I never imagined you like that.”
The woman standing little more than a foot from her hesitated, her eyes steady but her body language seemingly in debate. As if she wasn’t sure she wanted to say or ask more. “Like what?” she finally repeated as she decimated the space between them with a single step. “Tell me what you mean.”
Tally wasn’t sure she could. Her tongue suddenly felt too fat for her mouth, and there were fireworks popping low in her belly. A brief flash cracked through her mind like lightning—a perfect, heady image of the hands now dangling at the general’s sides sliding up Tally’s stomach the night before, digging in, leaving trails. Tally inhaled sharply. “Like the woman in the photo,” she said as that image, too, rushed back to her. “In the bar. Performing the ritual.”
Blue eyes locked on brown. “What of her?”
“She was unhindered,” Tally said and gulped another breath that forced her chest to brush the general’s uniform. “Natural.” Her eyes closed as she felt fingertips test her own, then their palms were sliding together. The energy in the room shifted, growing hotter and hotter until the air crackled like static electricity. “Wild.”
When Tally opened her eyes again, she found she was still being watched. Intensely. Deeply. The general’s eyes were so blue, Tally could have drowned in them like ocean. Fallen through them like sky. Her body reacted as if plugged into a socket, every cell thrumming in seconds. “That really was you, wasn’t it?” she whispered, and though they both knew the answer, it was given anyway.
“Yes.” Her hands glided up Tally’s arms and over her shoulders, gently as if she hadn’t just rocked Tally’s reality for the umpteenth time in a day.
“You really are her,” Tally said. “Sarah Alder.”
“Yes.”
“And you really are…like, four hundred years old?” She grimaced. “I’m sorry.”
Sarah (yes, I am going to call her Sarah. She said I didn’t have to call her General, and I’ve been inside her, dammit, so I’m calling her Sarah) huffed a forgiving laugh. “You’re forgiven, as I have zero sensitivity about such things.” She sighed and squeezed Tally’s shoulders. “Yes, I really am, ‘like four hundred years old’, though I’m not quite there just yet.” She offered another kind smile and cupped Tally’s cheek, thumbed the corner of her mouth so tenderly that Tally’s eyes began to sting. “Does that change how you feel about our time together?”
“No.”
“Are you certain?”
“No.”
“Would you like to talk about it?”
“I guess I just don’t understand,” Tally said and frowned. “You’re not embarrassed? I mean, I’m not even a private yet. Why would you sleep with me? You knew I was a virgin, that I didn’t have any experience, so why would you bother? I mean, I mean…” She burned and burned, but she forced herself to keep talking, because some fragile little part of her needed, desperately, to know. “You’ve probably had tons of lovers in your lifetime. Wouldn’t you want someone who you knew could please you?”
Sarah’s brow furrowed. “But you did please me. Could you not tell?”
“Well, I thought so,” Tally said, “but how?”
A confused, little laugh left the general, too sweet for someone so monumental, Tally thought, but there it was all the same. Tickling her ears. Whispering to her soul. Stop it. You can’t have feelings for Sarah Alder. She’s Sarah freaking Alder! What do you think is going to happen? She’s going to fall head over heels in love with you and make you co-queen of the Army? Stop. Stop it.
“Tally,” the general—Sarah—said, and Tally closed her eyes again. She dreaded the moment she went back to being Craven, or worse, nobody at all. Just a title. A rank. Another soldier. Because that, truly, was what awaited, right? If she wasn’t kicked out altogether, that was. But then, nothing else thus far had happened the way she’d expected, not a single second of it. Most of all, the sheer lack of hostility. She’d half-expected to be flogged, and instead she was being cared for. Still not convinced I’m not dead. “Sex is not some magical affair.”
Tally opened her eyes immediately, and Sarah laughed.
“Okay,” she amended, “for us, yes, it sometimes actually is. But, generally speaking, I believe you know that sex is just mechanics. Anyone can operate a machine, though I want to be clear that just because someone has operated a machine before doesn’t mean they know what they’re doing any more than someone who hasn’t. Understand? But anyone can learn, some, like you, quite quickly.”
“Well, you directed me,” Tally said, flushed with heat from top to bottom but oddly also grateful they were talking about it. She had so many feelings about the experience, and she was just realizing how terrified she’d been that she’d never be able to talk about it because of how it had all gone down.
“Yes, and you directed me,” Sarah said simply, “even if you didn’t realize you were doing it.”
“Oh.” She tried to stop there, but her body, her anxiety, didn’t care for her boundaries. “You really aren’t embarrassed that you slept with me? You don’t regret it?”
An easy sigh left the woman’s lips but nothing more. Again, she hesitated as if debating with herself, and then she stepped so close that Tally was certain she was going to kiss her. She braced herself, eager and apprehensive at once. But then, just as she’d done since they met, Sarah Alder swatted away Tally’s expectations and gave her something entirely unique instead.
She slid her hands under the fall of Tally’s hair to cup the back of her neck, drew her in, and rested their foreheads together. Instantly, Tally felt it—energy, chaos, heat, Work. A second later, her eyes slammed shut as memories she recognized flooded her brain. Only they weren’t hers, she realized. The perspective was wrong.
Because she was seeing them together, the way they’d been the night before, only this time, she was seeing herself. Her own face, her own body, hearing her own voice, all through someone else’s eyes, someone else’s ears. Someone else’s nerves sparked in her body. Someone else’s desire flooded her gut. And all she could see was this glowing image of herself, glowing bright in a dingy, dimly lit bar bathroom. Douglas fir green haloed her body, and Tally realized what she was seeing. Her own aura. And though she’d never known much about auras or anything of that nature, she somehow did in that moment. She knew exactly what she was looking at, because it was Sarah’s eyes looking at it, Sarah’s mind processing it, Sarah’s body feeling it.
Harmony. Peace. Safety. Tally was a safe place.
She gasped as the image all but smashed into another, and suddenly Tally was seeing herself completely nude, only she’d never seen her nakedness like this. She was vibrant, alive. Every inch of her flexed and glistened, muscles taut with want. Her face scrunched with pleasure but seemed somehow divine despite it. She looked like a woman, like magic, like nature. Like a goddess mid-creation.
She looked like euphoria and felt the same.
Tally’s body pulsed and throbbed and soared as she cycled through the memories Sarah shared of their brief time together, felt how much Sarah wanted her, how much she…. Tally gulped as she realized the desire being pummeled at her through the connection wasn’t strictly an echo of what came before. This woman, her lover, Sarah fucking Alder, still very much wanted her.
As the onslaught of images faded, Tally freed a breath and opened her eyes. They looked at each other for a long moment, silent. Then… “Does that answer your question?” Sarah asked, and Tally absolutely lost her mind.
Just as it’d been the night before, Tally was fine (mostly fine) one moment, and the next, she was kissing Sarah Alder. Not just kissing her but devouring her. Demanding. Taking. Needing.
Sarah’s back cracked against the nearest wall as Tally pushed herself forward, stumbled over both their feet. A book or something tumbled to the ground and landed with a thump, but Tally didn’t care. Clearly, the woman fused to her mouth didn’t care either if the way she was grabbing at Tally’s clothes, at her hair, at every bit of her she could get her hands on, was anything to go by. She tasted a little like spearmint toothpaste and a lot like someone who knew exactly what Tally looked like, felt like, when she was naked. When she was wet. When she was utterly fucking vulnerable, and Tally had never wanted to be in that state more than she did at that moment.
“I haven’t wanted someone this way in ages,” Sarah panted into her mouth, and Tally’s head swam. Her eyes stung. The heat between her legs wept. “But I can’t—”
Tally jerked back, briefly dazed. “I’m sorry,” she said, but Sarah shook her head, set a finger over Tally’s lips to quiet her.
“I cannot continue this now,” she finished then eased free a calming breath, subduing her energy. She cleared her throat as Tally eased farther back, disconnecting, and straightened her uniform. A reassuring smile touched her lips. “As you can see, I have a rather important engagement today.” She glanced to a clock on a nearby bookshelf. “Very soon today.”
“Oh,” Tally said and tried to subtly wipe her mouth with the back of her hand. Was she drooling on herself? Or did their kissing just get a little out of hand? “Right.” She remembered the woman at the door, the one who arrived not long after Sergeant Quartermaine had shuffled Tally herself through. “You have guests coming.”
“Yes.”
Tally’s eyes widened as realization hit her like a fist to the gut. “Wait,” she said. “You can’t continue this now? Does that mean you want to continue it another time?”
“Yes,” Sarah said again, and Tally’s muscles contracted. Her thighs clenched. “But that is something we will need to discuss. There are layers to such an engagement, and until we have that discussion and perhaps even after, I’m afraid I must ask for your discretion. Assuming you are amenable to any of this.”
“Yes!” Tally shouted, then felt her soul flee her body. “I mean, um, yes, I would like that.”
Sarah smiled. “You are much more anxious than I imagined you would be given your behavior last night.”
Tally felt somehow both mortified and complimented. “Thanks?”
“An observation only,” Sarah said. “I find it…cute.” Her face immediately soured. “Expect to never hear that term from me again.” She cleared her throat as Tally laughed. “Now, we are unfortunately out of time, and I must ask you to go now.”
“Right, yeah.” Tally nodded, her body simply going with the motions while her brain tried to catch up and process everything that had happened, was happening, might happen in the future. “Okay, sure.”
“Do you need a moment to collect yourself before you return to your dorm?”
“Yeah. Yes. Thank you.” Tally blew out a huff of a laugh and tried to wiggle the energy out of her arms. When she did, she felt a dull ache in her side from where she’d hit the floor when she fainted, and just like that, she imploded again. “Wait. Wait. What….”
She slapped a hand to her forehead as the general frowned, confused. “What is it?”
“What is happening?” Tally blurted as the totality of the last several hours of her life rammed into her like a speeding train. Lady. “Wait.” Not-Lady. Gerald? She laughed, almost madly, like someone who’d just been dropped into an alternate universe and hadn’t quite accepted their new reality yet. “I’m so confused.”
She’d come here (by demand) because she’d stolen a cat. Tally had spent the better part of recent hours fearing for the future of her career and possibly also her ability to draw breath, specifically because she had stolen someone’s cat. Someone’s familiar. And she’d been hauled over here, because the woman whose cat she’d stolen had called her there, presumably to have Tally punished via burning at the stake for being a terrible person. But then she arrives, and just…nothing? She gets the shock of her lifetime, sure, but no punishment? No reprimand, even? The cat pads quietly off with some old ladies, and Tally gets to just go? Go free? Back to her day, back to her life as if she hadn’t stolen a magical cat? And not only that but with the promise (for all intents and purposes) of future pleasures. More kissing. More touching. More of what Tally had convinced herself she didn't deserve, and all with a person who, reasonably speaking, should have no interest in her at all. Okay, but seriously, am I dead?
“What are you confused about?”
“Everything!” Tally whirled around the room, seeking something she knew she wouldn’t find. “That cat. Your cat. I stole your cat! And it’s like you don’t even care!”
Sarah frowned, lips pursed for a moment, as if she was trying to catch up with Tally’s sudden fishtail toward chaos. “Tally—”
“I mean, I didn’t steal her. Him. Him? Because Sergeant Quartermaine told me familiars can’t be stolen. But still. It’s like you don’t even care? You’re the literal general of the whole Army, and I am not even a Private yet, and I seduced you to steal your cat, and you’re acting like it’s just a normal Saturday.” Tally took a staggeringly deep breath as the last words poured from her, and then she barreled right on. “I thought I was going to be burned at the stake or flogged in the town square, and yet here you are, offering me more sex like I deserve a reward for kind of stealing your cat! I feel like I’m on drugs!”
There was a moment, fleeting despite how it seemed to drag on for years, in which the general—Sarah—only stared at her. Eyes a little wide. Mouth slightly open as if at a loss. Eyebrows scrunched together. But silent. Just staring while Tally panted herself lightheaded. It was awful. Awful. Awful.
But then it was wonderful.
Because Sarah Alder was laughing, really, really laughing. Holding her stomach, hinging at the waist. Laughing. And it wasn’t just Sarah Alder, it was the Sarah Alder from the night before. The Sarah Alder who hadn’t been Sarah Alder at all but a perfect stranger. A beautiful face and a kind, curious heart. A simple woman with simple desires. A simple woman who wasn’t simple at all, and who made Tally’s body sing the way it was born to.
Tally smiled despite herself, despite everything, and let the laughter infect her. It infiltrated quickly. In seconds, she was wheezing.
“This is the most ridiculous day of my life,” she managed to say when the fit finally passed, and Sarah shook her head fondly.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m afraid I won’t be much help in alleviating that since I have no time to properly explain. Suffice to say: No, I didn’t have you brought here because of Gerald. To be honest, I didn’t even know you had him. I had you brought here to discuss what happened between you and me. It simply took me a few hours to discover your identity. There are many women on base, as you know.”
“Oh.” Tally frowned. “Really? But, how could you not know I had him? Aren’t familiars connected to their owners?”
“Oh no,” Sarah said with a sudden look of disgust, “Gerald is not mine, neither my cat nor my familiar.”
“What?! I woke up to him licking my toes in your bed!”
Sarah grimaced. “Another addition for my list.”
“Your list?”
“Yes, of reasons I loathe Gerald.”
Tally tried to stop the laugh that bubbled up at the same time she gasped. It escaped anyway, sounding like a strange hybrid of a goose honk and an air horn. “How can you say that?! He was so sweet!”
“He dug a fifteen-inch trench in your arm, Tally.”
“He was scared!”
“He is an infernal creature,” Sarah said, “and please, do not defend him. I assure you his hate for me runs just as deep.”
Tally snorted. “Stop. Why is he here if you don’t like each other? Who does he belong to?”
“One of my Biddies, unfortunately.” She sighed, clearly unhappy with being forced into co-habitation with Gerald. “I normally never accept witches with established familiars as potential Biddies, but when one has such a rare gift as Brianna’s, certain exceptions must be made. I imagine she thought nothing of his absence, since most days, we allow him to roam Base as he pleases. The women seem delighted by him, though how, I wouldn’t know.”
“Geez. Did he pee on your pillow or something?”
Sarah narrowed her eyes. “I don’t wish to talk about it.”
“What is Brianna’s gift?”
“In the old days, we called it spirit walking.”
Tally’s mind lit like a Christmas tree. “She can freaking walk through walls?!”
“Yes, it is almost cool enough to excuse Gerald’s demonic nature,” Sarah said. “Almost.”
“That’s amazing.” A knock sounded, and Tally jumped. “Oh! I’m so sorry. I’m supposed to be gone already.”
“Are you sure you feel re-oriented enough to return to your duties?”
“Yeah, I think so. Yes.” Tally suddenly felt nervous again. “You’re sure we’ll talk about this soon though, right?”
“As soon as I’m able. I will do my best to clear a time.”
“Okay.” She hesitated. “I kind of want to kiss you goodbye.”
The slightest of smiles touched the corner of Sarah’s mouth. “Off you go then,” she said and smoothed the front of her uniform, “Craven.”
Tally’s stomach fluttered. She bit her lip and did her best not to do something stupid like bow or curtsy or pass out again, and just showed herself to the door. When she stepped out, the same soldier from before was waiting. Tally didn’t say a word, just shot past her, head down until she escaped the building.
Outside, she took a moment to breathe the fresh air, letting it cool and soothe her. Another long, ridiculous laugh worked its way free as all that adrenaline she’d been building creaked and crumbled its way down to rubble. All that worrying. All that fear. All for nothing.
And best of all, Tally wasn’t a cat-napper after all. She snorted. And Not Lady really wasn’t a lady! “Oh Goddess,” she wheezed. This is not at all what I imagined my first few weeks in Basic would be like.
She turned herself in the direction she was vaguely sure would get her where she needed to go and began the long walk. She felt exhausted and happy at the same time. Until she thought of her new friends. Her two new sisters who didn’t yet know that she wasn’t a cat-napper or a shitbird, or that maybe she was actually just in love, or something, and that the Goddess herself seemed to agree. She would have to convince them somehow, then make sure they forgave her so they could be her lifelong soulmates. Shouldn’t be too hard.
Tally groaned and hugged herself. She missed Gerald. And Carrot.
And maybe, a little bit, yes already, she missed Sarah.
It took four days for Tally to find the time to track Abigail and Raelle down and tell them what happened. She cried a lot, though she still wasn’t sure why. Nothing bad had happened, but Tally was nothing if not dramatic, so she blubbered like a fish as she begged her friends to understand her plight and apologized for being too attracted to someone she shouldn’t have been.
She told them everything; well, mostly everything. Everything but the identity of the person she’d slept with, a choice that did not go unnoticed by Abigail because it was apparently the only detail that she gave a half a damn about. But Tally kept her word to Sarah, no matter how much Abigail scoffed at her for it.
The explanation of Tally’s feelings about that person and the discovery that they were, in fact, mutual, seemed to placate a bit of Raelle’s ire. She stood her ground in Tally’s choice being “not cool,” which Tally agreed with, but they were able to come to terms with what happened and, in Tally’s mind, made an unspoken vow to love each other until the end of time and never hurt each other again, not even a little bit.
And Tally also made a silent vow to ask Sarah to get Raelle’s cat back for her. The real Lady. From the real Scylla. Damn. That meant she would likely have to tell Sarah the whole detailed mess of her botched plan. Oh well. Something to worry about another day. It was the least she could do, she figured, not only for Raelle but also for Carrot. Cats belonged with their people. Tally would give anything to still have hers in her arms, but at least she could feel good about making sure someone else had theirs.
She left her sisters feeling mended, hopeful even if she dared think it. She dared. Tally was unafraid. The Goddess, clearly, was in her corner. Respectfully, she quickly thought, sending it up as a prayer. Respectfully acknowledging your support is all.
Because she did feel supported. For the first time in so long, Tally felt she had people who could understand her and encourage her. New friends. A new lover. New possibilities just around the corner. Just a dream, or a kiss, or a case of cat theft and mistaken identity away.
Epilogue: Merge Week Assembly
The many young women who had made it successfully to Merge Week gathered in the large assembly. Abigail didn’t sit with Raelle, because they both had their periods and couldn’t stand each other at the moment; not that that was much different from most days. As much as Abigail respected a strong family history, Raelle pushed her limits. And her patience. Still, she had to admit, the girl had made her think a time or two since their arrival, and while she wasn’t keen to call them “friends” just yet herself, she wasn’t sure she’d object were someone else to call them as much.
And the redhead—Tally Craven—took every opportunity she could get to do so.
Abigail rolled her eyes as she thought of the eager girl, seated just a few rows back on the opposite side of the assembly hall. How she’d survived to Merge Week, Abigail had no idea. She’d never met a softer little baby bunny of a witch in her life, but then, Tally had more than proven she had guts. Gall, even. Maybe she was just one of those natural underdogs, always underestimated, thus always surprising.
When the crowd suddenly went hush, Abigail’s eyes shot to the stage. As she expected, there stood the only woman she’d ever known capable of silencing a room with little more than her reputation. Sarah Alder. The way Minerva Bellweather silenced a family gathering, Sarah Alder silenced the world. And then sang to it.
Abigail felt her spine stiffen at just the sight of her, her conditioned military pride turning her body into a salute. This was it. She’d made it, and really, it was just the beginning. One day, soon, Abigail would be on that stage herself. A leader. A storm.
A Bellweather.
As General Alder congratulated the gathered witches on their advancement, Abigail glanced over the awed faces around her, only to freeze-halt on Tally. Tally, who wore the most ridiculous wide-eyed, starstruck look she had ever seen. Tally Craven was looking at Sarah Alder as if she was the Goddess herself. She looked breathless and, frankly, a little horny, and Abigail very nearly lost her composure.
But then something struck her. Wait. No. Could it be…? Tally had said the woman she slept with was a higher rank.
Abigail immediately scoffed at herself, covering with a soft cough as the sound echoed through the quiet hall. There was no way. She dismissed the idea as quickly as it had come. Ridiculous. It was just celebrity worship, the same as it always was with young witches and Sarah Alder. Abigail herself had never had that issue. Kind of.
Yes, that’s all it was. Her new friend (maybe) was just a typical doe-eyed newbie.
What a ridiculous idea.
“A blessing on all of you. A blessing on this place,” General Alder announced, and Abigail pulled herself from her silly thoughts. “This witches’ place.”
She had a mythical-proportions-level reputation to start building.