The real one.
The one soaked in blood and love and certainty.
She is mine.
Not because I claimed her, chose her, but because she followed me into the dark and chose me right back.
And as we stand before the altar, I understand the truth I’ve been avoiding.
If loving her damns me, then let damnation come.
Ruin me.
Because I will drag her into the abyss with me long before I ever let her go.
In this moment, I finally realise what it is The Obsidian, my father, fears above all else.
This.
What I’m feeling inside my chest at this very moment.
How we are supposed to be nothing but devout followers. Our loyalty above all else is with him. That’s why they choose our Pairs for us, no attachments, no emotions, no feelings. That way we are programmed to always choose The Obsidian, our god, before anything and anyone else.
Except love warps that.
Because I, I will choose my Penelope above all else, including them.
“I offer you not purity, but the truth of who I am. My rage, my devotion, my ruin. I bind myself to you with every flaw sharpened, every shadow named. Should the world rise against you, I will become fire. I Pair myself to you not gently, but entirely. I am Two. We are Two.”
They’re not the vows I would say to her out of choice, despite meaning them, my own would be fiercer, more violent, more deadly. I would rip the world apart with my bare hands just to find her. Because that’s what she does to me, provokes something inside of me that would otherwise lie dormant.
Something I created over twelve long years ago, a monster just for her.
“I come to you unhidden,” she starts, her voice as thrilling as it is calming. “Bearing my scars, my hunger, my madness.” There’s a soft smile on her face when she says that last word, something there just for me. “I offer you the parts of me the world tried to bury. I vow to stand with you when everything else fails, to choose you when choice becomes sin.”
Her fingers are tight in mine, her eyes on my own like they’re the only light she needs. She worships me with her words, even though they are practised, rehearsed, ones she didn’t choose either. But the way she says them, meaning them. Undoes me.
“I vow not to be your peace, but your equal storm. I walk willingly into your fire. I carry your name, your sins, your salvation. In The Obsidian’s sight, I promise, I will not turn from you, not in blood, not in fear, not in death. I am Two, we are Two.”
I take the bloodied silver dagger offered up by Milus, the same one Nellie used for her offering, and slice off a piece of the heart atop the altar. I cut it into two, both Penelope and I lifting a half each, and then we place it on each other’s tongues. Holding each other's gaze, we chew and swallow the piece of meat she provided.
“You are bound,” Milus announces, “bound in darkness, bound in vow. Rise,” he instructs. “As halves no longer, but as one true Pair.Two.”
Chapter 28
BILLY
The doors close behind us with a heavy thud, muffling the sounds of the partying Obsidian members as their night continues without us.
Incense clings to my skin like smoke from a ritual fire as we slip away. My shirt open, slacks low, Penelope’s hand in mine, cold, trembling, but unmistakably certain, and that’s the only warmth I need as we disappear down the torch-lit corridor.
The walls here know too many secrets. They’ve swallowed vows and screams in equal measure.
But tonight, they hold only us.
The train of Nellie’s dress trails behind her like a spilled shadow. The black silk sways with each step she takes, brushing the floor with reverence, as though the fabric itself knows she is no longer just a woman, she’s ascended into something more.
Anointed.
