Her eyes are wary on mine, her nipples pebbling beneath the silky fabric of her pale pink dress, her chest a smattering of goosebumps, spreading across her shoulders, down her arms. She pins me with her gaze like a butterfly’s wings to a board, and then she takes a step forward at the same time as I. Compelled by some higher power than both her and I.
“I’m ready,” she barely whispers, the words a cold plume of breath from her parted lips, but I hear them, solid and true.
My lips curl in a smile as opposed to a smirk, something I so rarely can muster, but with her, with my Little Lamb, I envision myself doing it more and more.
“Be a good girl for me,” I whisper back, the space between us still too great, but we’ll be forced together soon enough. “Do as I say.”
She nods, her big, dark eyes blinking at me, “Always, Billy.”
Chapter 5
PENELOPE
There’s a huge pentagram beneath my feet, tiled into the floor, black on white, like a mosaic that I stand in the centre of, but I don’t look down, trying not to focus on it again. There are strange things happening inside of this house, my entire nervous system is on high alert, but my heart reassures me that Billy won’t hurt me.
Everyone else around us, it’s them I don’t trust.
I don’t trust anyone.
I suck in a deep breath, the air icy, it’s so cold, it feels like frost nipping at my skin, the warmth of Billy’s body long forgotten, even though he only stands just across the room from me.
The room is large, echoey, and despite feeling the temperature of the space metaphorically strip me to my core, beneath my skin my blood is fire. Billy’s eyes heat my insides, setting my soul on fire, turning my heart to ash, my soul to dust. The way he looks at me like he wants to devour and consume me,piece by little piece, makes me yearn for him in a way I haven’t before.
‘Be a good girl for me.’
Don’t you know I would do anything for you?
A shudder claws its way up my spine as the door opens, people drifting into the room at his back, and from another entrance at mine, I still don’t look, keeping my eyes on the bright blues that burn just for me. But I can feel them, the others, their energies, changing the atmosphere of the space that was, just a moment ago, quiet. Now, even without anyone making a single sound, it feels loud.
I don’t move from where I stand, Billy slipping his hands into his pockets, his smile melting back into its usual smirk. Like he let me see him, his real face, just for a moment, and now it’s time to put his mask back on, hide his true self from those around us.
Moths take flight inside my tummy, fluttering up towards my heart, tickling the organ as it swells and aches and lurches for my love.
Then Gore steps forward between us.
His big body blocking Billy from my view, and the eclipse deep dives into the pit of my stomach, their wings burning up like they were lit with a match, getting too close to the fire, obliterating them into nothing.
The other people in the room surround the three of us in a loose circle, no more than ten to twelve people around us, but it feels like too many, even in the huge room, it feels like they’re meant to suffocate.
Gore stops between us, only a foot from me, and he’s huge. Shadow falling over me, hard green eyes staring me down, like he’s trying to get me to shrink, intimidate me, get me to be subservient. Even though a cold wash of terror tries to drown the warmth of Billy’s soul tangled inside of me, strangling mine with love. I keep my back straight, my shoulders squared, and I don’tcower when Gore steps in closer, eating up the distance between us, until he’s so close I can taste his scent on my tongue, leather and cloves.
“Kneel,” Gore orders me, his voice, his tone, his hard stare, all of it unwavering, and his dark emerald glare tracks me as, without hesitation, I drop to my knees at his feet.
The bloody inverted cross on his forehead is dry and flaky like mine, but it’s still clear on his light brown skin, a little lighter than Billy’s warmer tone. His dark brows are slightly pulled together, his face a scowl, like this is just any other day. One where rituals and murder and willing sacrifices are merely part and parcel.
“Do you, Penelope Hart, promise to do whatever it takes to be Paired with my blood brother, my second, number Two of the founding Blackwells, the second son of the first father, the holy entitas that is Father Black?” His voice is rough, like steep mountain terrain in a harsh, stormy wind, low and coarse but full of power, of command.
“Yes,” I tell him, “I do,” my voice low, but it doesn’t break with my nerves, something I have spent many years practising.
When I first met these men, Billy’s brothers, earlier tonight, I felt true fear, something I haven’t fully experienced since I was a little girl, but they brought the feeling rushing back to the surface. I was dressed in a pretty frock and led gracefully through throngs of immaculately decorated people, and then we entered the dim seclusion where his brothers lay in wait, it was like I was the chum in the water of a shark tank.
“Billy,” Gore says, “come,” a clipped summoning.
My chin tipped up, eyes still on Gore’s green ones, I listen to Billy do as he’s told, his footsteps coming closer, something for me to focus on over the hard drumming of my rapidly beating heart. Then Gore turns, and I’m left staring at the backs of hislegs, his tailored suit trousers pulled taut across the muscular build of his thighs.
“Kneel.” There’s a soft shift of fabric, the subtle sound of his shoes on the tiles, and then Billy must be on his knees like I because Gore starts to speak once more. “Do you, Billy Blackwell, my blood brother, my second, number Two of the founding Blackwells, the second son of the first father, the holy entitas that is Father Black, promise to do whatever it takes to be Paired with Penelope Hart?” Gore repeats, his voice no warmer than it was when he spoke the same words to me.
“Yes,” Billy says proudly, without fear. “I do.”
