Finally.
But they still don’t let me fall.
“Wait,” the one above me growls. “Just a little longer.”
The blade returns—this time to my breast.
He carves a second moth beside the first.
Matching.
Bleeding.
Twin wings.
Twin gods.
Twin monsters.
And only then—“Cum.” I explode with a scream that isn’t human.
That isn’t broken.
That isn’t Raven.
It’s the girl who burned for her monsters and begged for more.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
RAVEN
The first thing I feel is the blood between my thighs. Warm. Sticky. Already drying and then the ache, the stretch.
The throb in places I didn’t know could bruise, the heat over the brand on my chest, the sting on my thighs, the shape of his hand still fingerprinted in pain along my ribs.
I don’t open my eyes.
I know—deep in the space behind my sternum, the place where prayer used to live—that something has changed.
The weight of the room has shifted.
The air feels quieter but not safe.
The mattress dips beside me, his breath brushes my cheek. I can smell him. Leather. Blood. Smoke. I let his scent wash over me before I open my eyes. I’m scared of what I will see when I do.
Slowly I let my eyes flutter open. One man. Sitting at the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, hands stained red to the wrists like he’d dipped them in me. He’s looking at me like he’s watching his favourite painting bleed.
No twin.
No imposter.
No mask.
Just Damien and somehow—that’s worse because my body remembers too.
Two voices.
Two hands.
