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“Malek,” I breathe.

“The wait is often worth the reward,” he says as he leaves open-mouthed kisses along my neck.

My sigh in frustration is cut short by a sharp intake of air as he stretches me wide. Make no mistake, I’m no virgin but Malek Vane is long and thick and I definitely need a second to adjust.

One hand wraps around my throat as the other finds my clit and before long, the burning ache gives way to white hot pleasure until he finally bottoms out inside me.

“I’m not leaving this faith.”

“W–What?”

“This new religion you keep telling me about,” he says, voice low and ruined, like he hates how much he means it. “Because I refuse to go another day without the feel of your skin against mine.”

The words hit like a match struck too close to gasoline.

And Malek stops pretending he’s anything but the hunger he’s been holding back.

He drags me into him with a brutal kind of purpose, like he’s taking what he’s owed, like I’ve been his vow since the moment I looked at him and didn’t flinch. There’s nothing soft in it—no careful tenderness, no slow sweetness. It’s straight savage. Possession. Need sharpened into something that feels like worship and war at the same time.

I try to lay flat against the altar, try to find air, try to find anything steady in the burn of it—but he doesn’t let me go.

His hand brackets my throat, not gentle, not asking, holding me exactly where he wants me, forcing my pulse to jump under his palm like my body is confessing for me. The charred boards bite into tops of my thighs. Ash smears. The old stink of smoke and ruined prayers rises around us like the place is remembering every sin it ever swallowed.

And Malek⁠—

Malek moves like he’s trying to carve a new commandment into my bones.

Harder.

Closer.

Like if he can press himself into me deep enough, the world can’t take me.

My fingers clutch at him—wrist, shoulder, skin slick with soot—anything real, anything that proves this isn’t another nightmare with a holy name.

“Malek,” I gasp, and it isn’t a no.

It’s a yes I’m too wrecked to polish.

His mouth finds my throat again, teeth and breath and ruin, and his voice breaks against my skin like a prayer he never learned to say right.

“Take it,” he growls. “Take all of it.”

And I do—because this is what we are in the ash of a dead god.

A girl who chooses the monster.

A monster who chooses her back.

Cass snores in the next room like she’s trying to saw the house in half.

It’s ugly. It’s loud. It’s relentless.

It’s life.

The kind of ordinary sound the world tried to starve out of us, the kind that only exists when the night didn’t win. I lie there and let it wash through the thin wall, through the plaster and the old studs, and it steadies something in my chest I didn’t realize was still shaking.

The farm smells like dirt and animal heat and the faint bite of bleach where I tried—too hard—to scrub blood out of wood that doesn’t forget.