He can’t feel love, but he can feel me.
Other than the others, I am the only thing he’s ever found that he wants tokeep. Wants to swallow whole. Wants to break open and crawl inside.
His grip on me strengthens. His energy swarms around me, blacking out everything but this eclipse of a god.
A low groan resonates through me, and I open my mouth more for him. Here, on the edge of the ocean, on the edge of everything the chains hold, I let him take whatever he wants from me.
Loving Raphael is like offering yourself to a monster with perfect teeth, knowing he’ll bite down and reopen the scars inside—but trusting he’ll never finish the meal.
Because he can’t.
Because he needs me alive, suffering and shining, so he can go on breathing.
The chess brand testifies I’m their Queen, who has conquered them. But I wear his scar, the arrow scar, like a crown—bold, visible, proud. A mark that proclaims:I walked into the jaws of the beast, and he chose to keep me, not consume me.But it still left me with a limp. Jude was right. I’ll never truly walk again.
And every time he touches me, I feel the edge of it. BecauseIam the only thing strong enough to survive his hunger and still hold his soul in my hand.
So, when he pauses above my lips, I am close to sinking to my knees until he utters, “Thank you, Briella.”
“For what?” My lower lip trembles.
“For Level 6.”
I’m confused. We’ve never discussed other levels. “What is Level 6?”
He doesn’t retreat. He hovers here, studying my every expression.
Then, it dawns on me. And I beam. “The arrow.”
He doesn’t nod, but his gleaming eyes confirm everything. The sun is halfway down the horizon, and the more the shadows grow, the more he seems to gather them to himself. A menacing hunger overcomes him. I don’t just see it. I feel it.
“And now, for Level 7.”
My pulse stutters. “What’s Level 7?”
With a slow, dangerous smile, Raphael removes the cap from his head, sets it on my head, and says in the silky purr of a predator, “It means run, my Queen.” He gestures to the forest behind us. His hunting grounds.
“Raphael, I can’t?—”
“Run,” he growls.
My heart stalls in my chest as helicksthe side of my throat—slow, savoring, like he’s already tasting the victory of the hunt. But it’s not fear that blooms inside me this time.
It’s reverence.
Because the hunger isn’t just in them—it’s inme, too. And it always has been. I am something sacred,rebornon their altar of pain and worship. I am divine.
So, I run.
Not fast. Not well. I limp, using the cane, dragging the leg that never healed—into the woods, into the dusk, into his domain. My lungs burn, my skin tears on thorns, but my smile carves itself across my face.
Because Iwanthim to catch me. Because Iwantto be consumed. Not by death.
Byhim.
I never thought I’d be the girl running through a forest on Halloween night, hunted by an unhinged monster.
But here I am.
