These men–boys, really are angry and betrayed. A shiver runs across my skin.
One steps forward, boots quiet on the dirt, his entire face covered in a death mask.
“Do you know why you’re here?” I know this voice now as well as my own. It’s low and bitter, like I’m not worth the time.
“For penance,” I whisper. “For the fire.”
“And what do you seek, Arianette Hexley?”
My throat trembles. “Absolution.”
“There’s no such thing as absolution,” Damon says with authority. “There’s life and death.”
“Rebirth,” I muster. “That’s what I want. Please.”
He shakes his head. “You think you deserve that? Another chance? Another life?” Damon paces, the firelight rising behind him. He’s different from the night of the hunt. He’d been nervous then, I can see that now. Unsure of what he was getting into, if he was truly Baron material, but that unease is gone, replaced by a terrifying confidence. The House of Night has changed all of us, but Hunter and Damon? They’ve become true Barons.
“I owe it to you.” Life and death. Ash and fire. These are the ways of the House of Night. Of the King’s people. My people. That night of my Black Wedding, they accepted me. The day after, my men used me. “I will do whatever I need to make you trust me again.”
There’s a crack in the distance–a branch, or maybe it’s a spark from the fire. I can smell the resin from torches, the musk of the masked men forming a circle around me, the hem of their robes grazing the ground. My chest rises and falls too fast. I want to be brave, but my body betrays me, shivering against the ropes.
Damon strides toward me, eyes glinting from behind his mask. He stops inches away, close enough for me to catch the faint scent ofalcohol on his breath. His hand reaches out, fingers grazing my chin before dropping to my waist. He pushes up the thin shirt, exposing my breasts, those dark eyes focused on my nipples. My flesh tightens around the bars, from both cold and fear, from something deep and hot in my belly. The piercings have finally started to heal and no longer ache painfully with every breath.
I glance down at his hands, where his fingers curl and tighten. Air catches in my throat, knowing that he wants to touch me, that he wants to test the metal, but he won’t and the rejection burns worse than his touch.
He yanks his hand away, but leaves my shirt rucked up to my chest, breasts exposed. “If you do this,” he says quietly, “there’s no turning back. No crying or begging for us to stop. You see it through, or you go back to rot in that cage.”
I don’t know what ‘it’ is, but I do know there will be no mercy.
“I told you, I’ll do whatever is necessary to fix this.”
To fixus.
These men think they can break me, well, too bad for them, I’ve already been shattered into a million pieces.
Damon steps back, giving Hunter the lead. He holds a book in his hands. Black leather with yellowed, curling pages. The pages flutter in the wind as he reads, voice heavy with reverence, “We gather for the ritual ofNoctis Crucem, in a space sacred to the earth, to the King and to the Barons. It’s a place of holy sacrifice, where blood and body merge because, Arianette,” he looks up at me before continuing, “you not only betrayed the King, you betrayed all of us, the entire fraternal order. You set an imbalance between life and death, between the Barons and the outside world. To resolve this, you must prove your loyalty, you must cleanse the corruption taking residence in your essence, and most of all,wemust restore order.” He takes a beat, Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “It’s believed that the soul must be split open under darkness before it can be reforged in allegiance to the King.”
He offers the book to Damon, open down the middle, split in two, just like he said. Damon cocks his head and reads, “By fire she fled,by night she shall return. The vessel emptied shall be filled again. Blood for loyalty. Flesh for vow. Soul for the King.”
The forest seems to lean closer, listening–waiting.
I close my eyes and inhale. “I’m ready,” I say, though my voice breaks, terrified of these men and what they can do. “Perform the rite.”
The men close in the circle–forty of them, plus my two Barons. The air grows heavy, vibrating with the pulse of something ancient. A silver urn is brought forward and placed upon a small stone altar at my feet. The torchlight flickers against it, casting red-gold reflections that ripple over my skin like breath.
Hunter begins to speak again, his voice deep, unflinching, the cadence of scripture. “Each of you shall pour yourself into the vessel, a baptism of creation, so that Arianette and the House of Night may be healed, and be reborn with the seeds of Beta Rho Nu.”
Around me, the circle tightens. I wait for a weapon to appear, for the pointed tip of a blade, for blood to run. Nearby, fabric rustles. Metal pentacles catch in the light. I hear the murmur of oaths spoken under breath–some solemn, others shaking with fervor. The sound builds until the forest hums with it, until the air tastes of iron and incense and men. I swallow, realizing that this rite won’t be drawn of blood, not like the ceremony after the Hunt. No, the weapon used here is not one made of steel, but one created entirely of flesh. Just as dangerous. Equally deadly.
I look to Damon and then Hunter as the first Shadow sheds his cloak completely, revealing his naked body. His hand wraps around his engorged length, and he strokes up and down his shaft.
They wouldn't let them defile me? Would they? Their Baroness?
The King’s wife?
Neither take notice of me, of the apprehension that ticks in my heart. The horrifying sense of control lost,again,of being surrounded by demons. All around me, the air thickens with heat and hormones, predators and prey, and then I hear it.
Them.
