Page 63 of Two Sides of Sin

The first drop hit the back of my throat—thick, hot, and tasting of iron and the end of the world. I tried to twist away, to spit it out, but Cain’s grip was fused. He leaned his full weight onto my jaw, forcing the sacrifice down my throat.

The blood—June’s blood—flooded my mouth. It was salty and sweet, a metallic syrup that coated my teeth and filled my lungs with the scent of her taken life. I was drowning in her. I was swallowing the very essence of the woman I’d promised to save.

“Drink, Julian,” Cain commanded, his eyes glowing with a predatory fire. “Drink her in. Let her DNA fuse to the very fibre of your being.”

I convulsed beneath him, my body rejecting the act even as my throat instinctively swallowed. I was sobbing and choking at the same time, the liquid of her life force sliding down my throat like poison. It felt like a violation more intimate and horrific than anything I had ever experienced.

When the last drop was drained, Cain let me go.

I rolled onto my side, retching and heaving at the dirt, my mouth stained with her blood. I looked back at June’s body—at the empty space in her chest that once held her heart. As Cain stood over me, looking up at the stars. The Ritual was complete. The Deal was sealed in my own stomach.

I fell, scrambling away from the ruin of her body, retching until my stomach was empty and tearing up only bile. Cains mask was gone, tossed aside in the dirt, damaged and broken like my soul. But the horror was branded onto my vision, her empty chest cavity, the soft thud of her body hitting the grass, the stillness of her eyes fixed on the man who had promised her safety.

I had done this. My love, my promise, i had just committed the ultimate, irreversible act of betrayal and failure.

She’s gone.

She’s fucking gone.

And it’s my fault.

I crawled back to her on my hands and knees, the grass staining my palms, until I reached the edge of her cold, mangled frame.

“June,” I choked out, my voice an unrecognisable ruin. “June, please. Junebug, look at me.”

I gathered her into my arms, hauling her upper body against my chest. Her head fell back against my shoulder with a soul crushing, limp weight that told me she was already far, far, away from me. I began to rock, a frantic, repetitive motion as if I could lull her back into the world of the living.

I reached up, my trembling fingers tracing her face with a desperate, starving intensity. The coldness of her skin was an eviction notice, a brutal reminder that the soul I worshipped was gone, leaving only the beautiful, ruined shell behind.

Clutching her closer to my chest, I rocked her. A ragged, broken sound tore from my throat before I forced it into a melody—a soft, weeping lullaby she used to love.

"And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side..." I sang, my voice faltering on the words as my tears smudged the dust on her cheek. "Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride, in her sepulchre there by the sea... in her tomb by the sounding sea."

The Poe verses echoed through the empty space like a funeral mass. I kissed her cold forehead, singing the words into her skin over and over, as if the rhythm of the poem could somehow coax her heart back into beating.

I memorised the path of every single freckle—the constellations I had spent years worshiping in the garden. I traced the bridge of her small, perfect nose, the one I used to kiss just to hear her laugh. I touched the corner of her mouth, waiting, praying, for even a ghost of a smile to return.

“I’m here,” I sobbed, the sound tearing out of my lungs like a physical wound. “I’m right here, sweetheart. I’ve got you. You’re okay. You’re safe now.”

A heaving sob shattered my chest as I buried my face in the crook of her neck. She still smelled like vanilla and the oil paints I had bought her—a scent that would now haunt every breath I took until I joined her in the dirt. I pressed my forehead against hers, my tears washing the grime from her now pale skin.

“I was supposed to save you,” I whispered into the silence, my words disappearing into the cold night air. “I was your hero. I was your hero, June…”

I pulled her closer, my grip almost bruising, as if I could physically fuse our bodies back together. As if my heart, still beating in its cowardice, could jump-start the one Cain had stolen.

I rocked her in the blood-stained grass, a demon cradling his dead angel, screaming a name that no longer had a home.

A tidal wave of dark power slammed through my veins, thick and nauseating, knitting every microscopic tear in my skin. I was whole, clean, eternal, and I instantly needed to die.

I scrambled up, blind with self loathing. The instant grief and regret unbearable. The antique dagger, the tool of the betrayal, lay glittering near my feet. I snatched the hilt, the cold metal feeling too light, too insignificant.

I plunged the dagger hard into my own chest, right where her heart should have been. It was meant to be quick, a final, righteous escape from the monstrous truth.

The blade hit bone—but it didn’t pierce. It rebounded with a sickening clink.

I tried again, screaming the name of the woman I’d just watched be killed, driving the point in with all the strength of my newly acquired, terrible power. The skin broke, a shallow, immediate gash, and then stopped. I pulled the dagger out, the wound was already closing, the blood vanishing back into my flesh.

I screamed in frustrated agony, throwing the useless dagger into the dark woods. I dropped to my knees, clawing at my chest with my bare hands. I dug my fingers into the skin over my sternum, trying to tear my way back to the fragile, mortal state where death was an option, where regret could find finality. I ripped my bloodied shirt open, leaving long, bloody streaks on my skin, but the tissue healed as quickly as I tore it.