Chapter 1
PENELOPE
I’m going to die here.
It’s as natural a thought to me as breathing, but it hits me so suddenly it feels as though the air is knocked from my lungs.
That’s all, it feels, I can currently do, try to breathe.
Barely twenty-four hours ago, the bright-eyed boy from my past swept his way back into my life with blood on his skin and violence in his heart, and he took me on an adventure, the destination unknown.
Rituals, bonding, fucking.
Everything dark and passionate and new.
Raw.
Fear is this living, breathing thing in the centre of my heart, tearing and fighting and clawing to make its way out.
But Billy Blackwell was once my light in the dark, my protector.
I trust him.
My monster.
Yet, now that I am one myself, all I feel for him is a decaying sort of love.
Something that is going to rot my bones and break my heart, hammer its way down the boned discs in my spine, and fuck my soul until it’s withered and black.
But I am here anyway.
Even knowing all that, I am still fucking here, because I’m devoted to him.
My dark, menacing god.
Billy Blackwell has me lovesick, an infection, a disease, a curse.
And despite my fear, I wouldn’t want it any other way.
The palm of my hand stings, the cut from the dagger to join me to him burns, and I’m sure his must too. Only one of many things, I'm sure, he'll want me to do, to join us. I think of the blood, the flesh, the piece of sacrifice that I consumed. I think of Billy’s hand closing over my mouth, his fingers pinching my nose, forcing me to swallow.
I would do anything for you, Billy Blackwell.
My lungs work too hard, too fast, and the beat of my heart is a rapid thrumming inside the echo of my own ears. My entire body pulses with physical rebellion with every mile closer we get toThe Manor.
That’s what Billy’s been calling it.
His home, which is now alsomyhome.
The place we’ll live together, with his family, three brothers, one older, two younger. His father.
All people in his life I know nothing about. I have not asked, have not questioned, have not dared even wonder inside the safety of my own skull on the short three hour flight we took here from Italy.
Frommyhome.
One I had to evacuate anyway due to the things I had done there.
So many lies.
