Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 7

the priests know," Rafferty said, stepping forward and grabbing one of Corin's hands. Corin stepped back, trying to tug his hand free, but Rafferty didn't let him. "Stop." Corin stopped, uncertain, and that uneasy feeling washed over him again. "Can you feel that?"
    Corin hesitated, but nodded, startled when the uneasy feeling morphed into something warm and hot snaking across his skin and straight to his cock. Ripping his hand away, Corin took a step back, hoping the darkness of the room hid the way his cheeks were turning red.
    "What was that?" Corin asked, the words tumbling from his lips unbidden.
    "Um," Rafferty said, shaking his head as though to clear it. "Energy. I didn't—It wasn't supposed to do that."
    "Right," Corin said, crossing his arms and making a note to never touch Rafferty again. Casting about for a change of subject, Corin asked, "How does no one know?"
    "They drug the wine at dinner," Rafferty said. "Make sure everyone sleeps through it. In the morning, when someone's missing, they declare they've run off and set the authorities to find them. There are always one or two runaways a year, and no one thinks anything of it."
    "But…" Corin protested weakly because that made a certain amount of sense. "What happens if they don't…" Corin trailed off, not able to say 'kill me.' It still seemed so fantastic and out of the realm of reality. Rafferty was deadly serious, though, and there had been that moment—Corin flushed again, trying to figure out what he was missing, where the joke was, what Rafferty really wanted.
    "The demons will break free of the shadows," Rafferty said. Corin gave him an incredulous look—how was that better than Corin's dying? Not that Corin wanted to die, but letting demons loose was better how? "There's another way."
    "What?" Corin asked, not sure he wanted to know. Nothing Rafferty had said so far had been good news, so who knew what he'd suggest as an alternative to Corin's dying—if he was even telling the truth about that, which Corin still had doubts about.
    "There are spells that can be cast instead," Rafferty said, glancing at the windows and touching the darkened panes. "Like this, except they serve the same purpose as spilling your energy."
    "Why isn't that done instead, then?" Corin asked, frowning.
    "It takes more energy and more effort," Rafferty said. He didn't say anything more than that, but he didn't have to. Corin had seen the priests in action. None of them seemed the type to expend more effort than they had to. But to go so far as to kill people instead of spell casting? "They've also been doing it this way for almost a century and aren't willing to even try anything else." There was frustration in Rafferty's voice, and Corin bet he'd tried and failed to convince the other priests to try it his way.
    "You need my help because I've got the energy to cast the spell?" Corin asked. He really should doubt this whole tale, but why would Rafferty lie to him? What did he have to gain from that? Corin hadn't been imagining the sensation when Rafferty had touched him and done whatever he'd done with his energy.
    "Between you and me, we have the energy to cast the spell," Rafferty said, his face relaxing somewhat. "So you believe me now?"
    Corin shrugged, looking away. "Weird things have happened. Demons in the shadows are as good an explanation as any."
    "Weird things?" Rafferty asked, stepping closer. "Like what?"
    "Um." Corin hesitated, but if anyone was going to believe it, it would be Rafferty. "I get these weird feelings sometimes, like when you first…" Corin held out his hand, not sure how to describe what Rafferty had done.
    "When I first pulled your spirit energy out?" Rafferty finished for him, and that sounded incredibly creepy.
    Corin nodded and made himself continue, ignoring the rest of the feelings Rafferty had instigated when he'd pulled Corin's spirit energy out. "Then there was the apple."
    "Apple?" Rafferty asked intently, and Corin only barely kept himself from taking a step back at the intensity of Rafferty's stare.
    "Right before you showed up in the sermon hall," Corin said slowly, not sure he should have been explaining how much he was possibly hallucinating. "It just appeared under the podium. I was sure there wasn't anything there. Then it moved back on the shelf, and when you showed up, it disappeared."
    Rafferty didn't say anything, looking pensive again, and Corin decided he shouldn't have said anything about the apple. He probably