The Witch: Book Two of The Sorceress Saga by Taliesin Govannon (top 10 novels of all time .txt) 📗

really mess around outside of those unions. The Twilight Fae, on the other hand, well… they considered sexual contact to be just one more level to friendship. Only those with the strongest connections entered into union ceremonies, and even they didn’t restrict sex to that union.

                I honestly saw nothing wrong with polyamory. Yes, my sexual connection with Vincent deepened our emotional connection in unique ways. I didn’t feel any more connected with Vincent than I did, say, with Raina, however. Or Jack. It wasn’t better, it was just different. There were even emotional needs that Vincent couldn’t fulfill for whatever reason… I needed my friends.

                So I have two types of friends I thought, sexual and non sexual. And I need both. So why is it only okay to have one of the former when you can have unlimited of the latter?

                It was, I surmised, bullshit. A tool of the patriarchy to control us through sex.

                If I said that out loud I thought, Raina might change her mind about fucking me. She’s been preaching the campaign against the patriarchy for half of her life!

                I couldn’t start with Raina, however. I knew that I would face little resistance from Vincent if I decided to propose the whole poly-thing… everything written by or about real vampires said that they were never exclusive with their relationships. Even when he and Angelique were at their height of a sexual relationship, they indulged in experiencing a wide array of lovers. That had even included an old affair with Gaia… almost a hundred years prior. Vincent and Angelique had spent an indeterminate amount of time swapping places in her bed.

                I have to hand it to him, he’s really been doing the exclusive thing with me pretty well thus far! If I had even started something with Gaia, I probably would not be able to resist her being around all of the time!

                If I was going to expand my… I don’t know what to call it, my ‘circle of lovers’? Way to sound like an aging hippie… I knew where I should probably start. I had a history with her. A lot of history.

                Fuck no. That’s too scary. Way way WAY too fucking scary! If I wait for that, I’d be the only monogamous poly-person in history!

                What to do?

                I leaned over and started kissing Vincent’s earlobe while running my hand over his chiseled chest. He smiled.

                “Are you trying to tell me something?” he said.

                “I need you.” I breathed into his ear. “Now.”

                I'm sure that it looked like we just disappeared because in under a minute Vincent was carrying me into our tent, into our Tudor bedroom with a four-poster bed. He closed the door and pulled my clothes off.

                                                                                                *                *                *

                “So what do you think?”

                We had made love for what seemed like hours, winding up tangled in the sheets and each other’s bodies. I was curled up against Vincent’s chest, playing with his hair while I went over why I thought I’d like to try polyamory. He reacted like how I’d predicted.

                “You know I’m okay with it.” he said, shrugging. “It’s how I’ve lived for the last four hundred and twenty years. I mean, sure I’ve spent years… even a few decades… not having sex for various reasons, but this past year has been the only time I’ve been exclusive for any length of time since becoming a vampire.”

                “And yet you’d stay monogamous for me if I asked?” I said.

                “Sure.” he said.

                “And never be poly again?” I asked further.

                “Now, I don’t want to sound cold, but you’re thinking like a human.” he replied. “Your lifespan is finite, even for a being with extended life like the Sorceress. Vampires, however, aren’t so limited. Once you get to my age, very little can kill a vampire, so I’m looking at possible eternity. Thousands of years, at least. So the question isn’t ‘can I permanently change myself?’, but rather ‘do I love this person enough to limit who I have sex with for the next sixty… or, in your case, hundred, hundred and fifty… years?’. That’s easy. Yes.”

                “And yet you also kept looking for me.” I said, kissing his chest.

                “Me and Angelique both.” he said. “We’ve always wanted a world where you’d be poly again, so we wouldn’t have to compete. It’s been a while, culturally.”

                “Vincent,” I said, swallowing hard, “I hope I don’t sound shallow, but that is WAY too fucking scary for me to even think about right now! I get instantly overwhelmed, and it feels like my stomach is trying to drill through the floor in search of oil. I don’t know when I’ll be able to entertain such a thing any time soon.”

                “Hey hey hey,” he said, kissing my head. “It’s okay. There are no time limits here. You can go at your own pace for everything.”

                “Is Angelique going to hate me for… exploring with someone other than her?” I asked. “I know that it’s probably a dream for her to spend the night with me again. I know this! If I… have fun with someone else first, will I be throwing it in her face?”

                “Annabelle, it’s true that Angelique dreams of being with you. I did, too, before we connected.” he said. “We only chose me to reach out to you first because nothing in your past suggested that you’d even considered being with a woman, so I won via heteronormativity.”

                “So she’s held out hope from the beginning?” I said.

                “She’s found and lost you dozens of times since she’s become a vampire.” he replied softly. “She doesn’t hope, she knows that she’ll find you again. And she knows that, someday, she’ll hold and love you again. She doesn’t worry about when.”

                He moved me so he could look into my eyes. “Whatever path you have to take, she’ll be patient.” he said.