Mists of Velvet

parched from the thorn-apple and the incense. As the mage leaned over him, working down his chest with the tip of the athame, Rhys struggled not to succumb but to find some reserve and fight. But the knife was cutting into him. His skin burned where the athame drew a straight line down his abs. The sexual need ebbed, leaving his thoughts blank and his vision dark. Even the mage’s words became a distant echo in his thoughts. Blackness descended. The burning pain of his flesh receded. He was succumbing to the darkness.
    Rhys allowed his head to fall to the side, and he saw his blood dripping along the blade onto a white square of satin. The crimson drop spread out, the satin absorbing his blood. The Death card had been placed in his left hand. Struggling through the fog, he tried to think of the card’s meaning. For this was a sacrificial ceremony—everything in it meant something. But he couldn’t think; he could barely even feel. The fantasies had left him. Sensation had abandoned him.
    “Too much.” The blade dropped against the stone. The mage leaned over him and pulled his eyelids apart. “We will wait until some of the effects have dissipated. I want you alive and moaning, and using your considerable imagination to make the spell powerful.”
    He pulled away, and Rhys heard the sound of the silk robe the mage wore being shed. “I think I will enjoy my little toy once more. You may watch if you’d like.”
    He didn’t want to see; he didn’t want to hear. But suddenly, the mage’s voice was whispering darkly into his ear. “She’s a delightful little morsel, isn’t she? Begging for it. Wouldn’t you like to get inside her and spend all those erotic thoughts into her willing body?”
    Rhys tried to talk, but he couldn’t. Then the mage was gone. Rhys saw him, naked, stroll into the dimly lit alcove that housed the altar where the woman was strapped, spread-eagle. She began to moan as he touched her.
    Rhys could see only the mage’s back and hand; he knew he was fondling the woman between her legs. “Look how swollen and red you are. Beautiful.”
    “Please,” she implored as she licked her lips. “Again.”
    The mage’s laugh echoed throughout the cavern. “Yes. Again, and again, until the ritual is complete and my powers are stronger.”
    The woman purred as the mage slipped his fingers between her thighs. Rhys closed his eyes.The noises of their fucking made him think of his vision and of what he had wanted only moments ago—his hand in his lover’s hair holding her as he took her hard. But it would never be. Soon the mage would kill him.
    Suddenly he felt something slick and cool gliding up his body.
    Fighting the heaviness in his head, he opened his eyes and saw the adder. It was coiled around his arm, its beady eyes staring into his.
    God, he wished the fucking thing would bite him. Right in his neck, unloading all its venom into his carotid. But it didn’t. Instead, it coiled and uncoiled itself around his left wrist, then glided over his body till he felt it do the same to his right.
    The moans and cries of the woman and the macabre sounds of pleasure from the mage continued. The magician was lost to his perversions, while the adder began to free Rhys of his bonds.
    Be prepared to shed something in favor of something greater and better.
    What had he shed? Or had he yet? He didn’t know what it meant, only that this snake was helping him.
    He was free at last. As he looked into the adder’s black eyes, he felt a small bit of strength, which enabled him to roll over and fall onto the floor.
    The mage was riding the woman, crying out a demonic-sounding incantation as she moaned and begged him for more. He wasn’t watching Rhys but was completely engrossed in what he was doing to the woman.
    Crawling away from the alcove, Rhys followed the winding body of the snake. Its white zigzag stripe made him dizzy, but he focused on it, because it was the only thing he could see clearly in the muted light.
    At the stairs, Rhys began to climb. He was bleeding and winded; he needed to stop, but he didn’t dare. The mage would be finished soon. The sounds of the woman were growing more frantic, her orgasm coming quickly.
    With one small burst of energy and sheer bullheadedness, Rhys got up and ran as fast as he could into the lit passageway. He wasn’t steady and he was horribly disoriented, but he followed the slithering adder.
    He was bouncing off the stone walls, stumbling and