She sobs, but it’s different now—pain and something darker weave together. Her toes curl into the dirt. Blood trickles from her wrists where the ropes saw deeper. Her eyes never leave mine.I’m sorry,they say.I deserve this.
“Berkano.”
I drive it to the hilt.
Her body seizes, back arching so hard the cross creaks. A gush of slick heat coats my hand. She’s coming—silent, violent—walls milking the stone like it’s alive. Her eyes lock on mine, wide and shattered, like I’m the only thing keeping her from flying apart.
I pull the knife free. It drips. Her chest heaves.
My robe is tented, cock aching so fiercely I can’t breathe. The ritual demands completion. Not just hers.
I shove the fabric aside with my free hand. My cock springs free, flushed and leaking. The Shadows’ chant swells–Noctis Crucem, Noctis Crucem–a drumbeat in my blood. I grip myself hard, one stroke, two—thumb smearing the bead of precum mixed with the slick from her cunt–and I come with a guttural sound I don’t recognize. Thick ropes splatter across her belly, mixing with the runes, the dried seed, and the fresh slick between her thighs.
Around us, the forest inhales.
I stagger back, robe hanging open. I lift the knife’s hilt to my mouth and slide it past my lips–tasting her, slick and salt and rebirth. My cum glistens across her skin like a brand.
Sealed.
7
Arianette
The torches are bleeding upward,pouring blood into the sky, but that’s okay. Pain is the price.
I’m naked.
I think.
Because my skin isn’t cold. It’s hot. Itchy, like a costume I’ve worn too long, sticky with forty strangers’ seed and the slick Hunter wrung out of me. The runes crawl across my skin–ants under the surface, spellingforgive, forgive, forgive.
Hunter’s face shatters in front of me: eyes too big, too pale, mouth shaping words I can’t hear. He used the knife. Not the blade. The handle. Pushed it inside me, connecting through blood, semen, and stone. One. Two. Three. Four.
Five.
My body shivered apart, wet and loud. Therewas a moment when I searched for the meadow.Periwinkle,that low, quiet voice tugged at my skull. The voice that taught me the calm in a raging storm. I was looking to hide, to go to that other place, where I could sit back and watch. Separate. Disconnected. Where I can hear the girl scream, but not feel it. Where she looked like me. Same piercings. Same collar. Same hunger behind the eyes.
She wanted this.
No.
Iwant this.
I want nothing more than to please them, because pleasing them is in honor of the man we’re all here to serve.
Him.The King.OurKing. Because he’s the key. He’s the Shadow with teeth, but waiting impatiently, with dark eyes and features hidden behind the mask.
The hand now holding the knife is the same one that held my head under water–bubbles, lungs burning, his voice filled with rage. And as he comes closer, the hilt that just tore into me is clenched in his grip. I think he’ll do what he couldn’t in the stream.
End it all.
Maybe that’s the true absolution here. Death. Although I’ve flirted with it so many times and it doesn’t feel like this.
The blade glints and lashes down. I keep my eyes open. Wanting to see it this time. Death in a bone mask. Not a demon. Not a shadow. Not a Hexley.
Damon.
Snap.
