The words came out shaky, more uncertain than I’d have liked. My skin still itched with apprehension, and my skull pounded in a remembered migraine. But I refused to let that stop me.
Phonos pulled me away from the Moirae and forced me to face him. His massive wings blocked my sight of the Loom. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want. Remember, you—“
“Phonos.” I cut him off. “Don’t.”
The image of the Spire rose in my mind, the safety he had built with his own hands, the nest he’d created so we could have a future. He had no expectations of me. He’d truly be willing to wait an eternity for me. Maybe he already had. But I’d also waited, and I wasn’t willing to any longer.
“I already made my choice. Earlier. And at the market. I won’t let my fear take it from me. Just… don’t let go of me.”
“Never.”
Phonos knelt on the marble, his head bowed. I sank down beside him, the stone floor biting into my knees through the thin fabric of my gown.
Clotho shot me a look so gentle it was almost jarring. “The threads of a soul bond are woven at creation. Today, you will lock them into their final place. But you have to be brave a while longer.”
“The Loom awaits its catalyst,” Atropos said. “And only the Keres’s song can turn it.”
I didn’t recoil, but I came very close. They wanted us to perform the act here. Before them. Beforeit.
A flush of mortification washed through me, hot and sharp. It wasn’t entirely surprising. Monsters often had their specific ways to claim their brides, and it stood to reason that here in Asphodelia, traditions would be particularly strange. But it wasn’t stranger than everything I’d seen. Everything I’d experienced.
“This is our way,” Phonos explained. “To us, to the Keres, a death screech is a soul song. One only our mates can hear. One that will bind us forever.”
I nodded. It made perfect sense. After all, hadn’t he been music to me from the very beginning?
Phonos rose in a single, fluid motion. He offered his hand to me, his focus so absolute that the Moirae seemed to fade into the background. As he led me toward the Loom, each step felt both terrifying and triumphant. By the time we stopped, every fiber of my being was already vibrating with anticipation. “Ready?” he asked.
I looked past his shoulder at the colossal structure. Its bone-white form was a mute testament to my torment. It was also part of my past, not my future. “I was ready the moment I set foot in Asphodelia. Nothing will change that. Not even the Loom.”
Phonos traced the line of my jaw with his knuckles and lowered his lips toward mine. The kiss was slow, impossibly gentle. “That’s right. Let them watch. I’m the only one who can touch you. Who can feel you. And you’re the only one who can feel me.”
I reached for the back of my neck. That was exactly what I wanted. To feel him, to have him claim every part of me, no matter how broken and scarred. My fingers found the single, hidden clasp of my gown. With a soft click that echoed in the vast hall, I set myself free.
The gown slithered from my shoulders, pooling at my feet in a whisper of silk. Phonos’s breath hitched. He didn’t move. He just stared. His attention struck me like a tangible heat, tracing a path down my throat and over my collarbones.
My nipples beaded into tight, aching points. The amethyst in his eyes flared, the light inside them a raw, inner fire. That gazeconsumed me, peeling back every layer until all that was left was the naked truth of my own need.
In a single motion, he closed the space between us. His hands clamped onto my body, one firm against the small of my back, the other cradling my thighs. He lifted me as if I were made of air, a surge of inhuman power coiling through his arms. But despite his monstrous strength, he held me with heart-wrenching care. When he carried me the final few steps and laid me down, I only felt comfort.
There was no bed in the Weavers’ Hall. The Moirae wouldn’t need something so plebeian. Our claiming would happen on solid marble. But I barely flinched when my bare back touched the cool stone. Warmth bloomed from where he touched me, spreading through my veins with such potency that the rest of the world vanished.
One of the first memories I had was of winter. I’d been freezing on the streets of Dodona, an orphan child with no shelter and no hope. And then, my gift had come to me for the first time, guiding me to a heated barn. I hadn’t realized it at the time, but that pocket of life-saving heat had been a double-edged blade.
Not Phonos. Phonos was pure warmth, a true safe harbor in a world where everything that had kept me alive had cost me so much.
He leaned over me, and the world narrowed to the space between our bodies. His scent invaded my nostrils, ancient and wild. It felt like walking into the Blighted Lands again, but theair that filled my lungs wasn’t poison. It was him. He pressed his mouth against my belly, slow and open, while one of his talons skimmed a feather-light touch along the curve of my hip. “Look at you,” he murmured. “So responsive. Do you like that?”
The question stole the air from my lungs. “Don’t stop.”
A low chuckle answered me, the feeling of it a potent promise against my skin. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
My muscles clenched in anticipation as he moved higher and lapped a slow circle around my breast. Then he closed his mouth over the hard, beaded nipple, drawing the peak deep inside. Pleasure shot straight to my core, a hot, undeniable anchor that claimed me for the present. My back bowed off the dais, my hips lifting in a desperate plea for more.
Phonos moved down my body slowly, as if I were a sacred text he meant to read. He settled between my thighs, parting them, and my awareness tethered to that single space. His warm breath ghosted over my entrance, a silent promise of what was to come.
“Mine,” he growled, the word a brand of sound and heat. “To worship. My soul bonded. My fate.”
The wet heat of his mouth found me then, and the world tilted on its axis. My visions had been a gift from the gods, a connection that had made me their instrument, their vessel. But this… This was different. This was not the cold, impersonal touch of divine will. This was reverence.
