30. Mercy
30
MERCY
A month has passed since I was forced into co-rulership with Wolfgang, and I’ve yet to fully acclimatize to all the attention.
The crowds of people. The countless pairs of eyes. The roar of mish-mashed energies grating on my senses. At least in a crowd as formidable as this one, death is never far. I can always count on the steadfast presence of mortality to quiet my nerves. It lingers, ever-present.
My attention shifts from the tens of thousands of Pravitians in front of us to Wolfgang standing beside me on stage. Always so at ease under such adoration. His smile is wide and beaming, the sun glinting against his gold canine and incisor.
We haven’t been alone in the same room together since the bathhouse … incident, nearly a week ago. It’s as if we’re both hoping that if we don’t acknowledge the breach in rationality we fell victim to that night, maybe the gods won’t notice either.
Even if I’d love nothing more than to put all the blame on Wolfgang, I can’t. Not when I was the one who taunted him into acting on his baser instincts.
I regret it. But it’s not exactly for the most obvious of reasons.
The regret is perfumed by how it felt to experience him in the most erotic of intimacies, leaving me yearning in ways that I cannot explain. The stretch of my pussy around the head of his cock. The heat of his cum on my clit. I’ve never felt this type of desire before. I am no stranger to pleasure, to the carnal and sensual, but no one from my past compares to Wolfgang.
Almost as if a part of me had always known him like this, and I was simply revisiting the feeling. The selfish greed has turned into an ache that speaks only in words laced with Wolfgang’s primal essence. An invisible string has somehow attached itself between us, and I can feel the tug no matter where he is. Even if we’ve done nothing but ignore each other.
I wonder if he feels it too.
Or is this what madness feels like?
It can never happen again. I have tested the gods enough.
I’ve been on edge all week. Unable to sleep, pacing the library at all hours of the night, waiting for something to happen. Waiting for my punishment. For our punishment. I dredge up the worst-case scenarios: the stripping of our power, banishment—death? But it’s been nothing but the constant drone of meetings and dress fittings.
And now here we are.
At our joint inauguration.
The first of its kind.
Behind us sit Gemini, Aleksandr, and Belladonna in hand-carved thrones, their parents sitting alongside them, including Wolfgang’s. Mine would be in attendance if they hadn’t died in a house fire eleven years ago.
Constantine’s chair is empty as she prepares for the bloodletting ritual at a table just a few feet from where we are standing, her father standing by her side.
Everyone on stage donned the color gold for the occasion. I’ve been in my gold dress for less than an hour, but I already miss the comfort of my all-black wardrobe. My outfit is constricting, the gold chainmail sewn over my corset weighing heavily over my ribcage. I can barely take a full breath without feeling like an elephant is sitting on my chest.
Maybe it’s why I feel so awkward standing here like this.
Or maybe it’s the fact that Wolfgang hasn’t touched me once since we’ve stepped into the public eye. Not even the skin of his fingertips has grazed my dress, and I’m deeply embarrassed to admit that maybe the feeling of his touch could help ease some of my discomfort.
Constantine’s father turns to face her, presenting her with a red jeweled ceremonial dagger, and kisses her softly on the head before she takes it from his hands with reverence. It’s a small but important moment between them—of power being transferred to the next generation.
Dressed in all gold, her appearance is just as startling as mine without her signature color. Her dress is less intricate than mine but just as beautiful, the afternoon rays glimmering against the satin. Finally, she begins to walk toward us in small assured steps, the dagger now resting on a small velvet cushion atop the flat of her palms, two small empty vials on either side of it.
“Hi,” Constantine whispers excitedly when she’s taken her last step, now standing between the two of us, Wolfgang facing me.
I don’t bother to answer, my stomach in knots.
Constantine’s expression turns into something slightly more serious, her eyes bouncing from me to Wolfgang, whose gaze I’m still avoiding. She tilts her head, her blonde hair falling off her shoulder, as if in thought. Finally, she holds the dagger in my direction, still resting on the ceremonial cushion.
“Here,” she says innocently.
My eyebrows lift in surprise before knotting in confusion.
“Here what, Tinny? You’re the one overseeing this ritual,” I answer just low enough for only the three of us to hear.
Her smile returns, this time with a lot more mischief. “My ritual, my rules. You’ll collect Wolfgang’s blood and he’ll do the same to you.”
This time I don’t avoid Wolfgang’s gaze, his steely eyes clashing with mine. I swallow a hard lump in my throat, my stomach in knots now that his full attention is on me. He seems just as taken aback as I am.
“This isn’t how the ritual goes,” he says, his gaze slicing back to hers.
Constantine shrugs, still holding the cushion. “We’ve never had co-rulers before. We are already breaking tradition by having two families celebrated today.” She holds up the cushion toward me again. “Why not create our own?”
She looks up to the sky.
And I’m sure everyone in attendance follows Constantine’s line of vision.
It’s why we’ve all congregated outside of Mount Pravitia in the first place.
A small sliver of darkness stains the sun—a shadow slowly growing in size until eventually, it will engulf the sun like a dragon swallowing a ball of fire.
“Enough of your dilly-dallying, the eclipse is starting. We don’t have much time,” she urges.
My gaze falls back to Wolfgang, his expression unyielding, but he gives me a small nod while he pushes the sleeve of his double-breasted gold suit up to reveal his left wrist. My heart flutters at the implication, and I swallow hard.
I reach for the cool ivory handle of the dagger. The shadows of the eclipsing sun dance over the blade as if urging me on.
I turn to face Wolfgang as day slowly turns into night. The crowd grows quiet, but for once I’m barely aware of it, my attention solely focused on my fingers curling around his wrist. My skin is electric from finally touching him after this long, my heart fluttering in my chest like an animated bird.
I press the blade against his skin but before drawing blood, I lift my eyes to his. They burn. My fingers squeeze harder around his arm. The blade breaks the skin. I continue to burn under his glare. His lip twitches as if in pain, and I finally look down at the blood slowly pooling around the tip of the blade.
His life force.
I emulsify into a flaming ball of lust at the sight.
Trying to keep my expression calm and steady, I hand Constantine the dagger and she gives me a vial in exchange. Wolfgang lifts his arm over it, opening and closing his fist to make the blood flow faster. Drop by drop, it falls into the glass vial and with every drip I am reminded how it felt to taste it on my own dagger’s blade.
Unusually decadent and laced with animalistic desire.
Wolfgang’s blown pupils tell me he might be recalling the same memory. I never told him how good his blood tasted, but seeing me react to it seemed to have had a similar effect on him.
When the vial is full, he staunches the bleeding with his pocket square before taking the offered dagger and wiping the blade clean.
By the time Wolfgang’s hand touches the thin skin of my wrist, the sun is but a black orb. Darkness has cloaked the city in hushed silence.
It only lasts a few seconds. Just long enough for Wolfgang to whisper My terrible demise under his breath and for me to feel the welcomed pain of my blood set free, the blade warm against my skin. I can’t help but let out a satisfied sigh as I track Wolfgang’s tongue sliding slowly over his bottom lip. Night turns back to day while I hold my wrist over the vial, my blood pooling slowly into it.
The sun returns and it's over.
I let Wolfgang press his pocket square tenderly over the small wound, so close to the fresh scar I now have from him pushing me into the sacrificial pit. My eyes are incapable of looking away from his smoldering, yet icy, gaze. I barely register Constantine walking back to the small table near the side of the stage, vials and dagger in hand.
Once again we are alone, standing before the people of Pravitia.
But this time I can feel Wolfgang’s thumb smoothing over the scar, his Adam’s apple bobbing around a tight swallow.
The air shifts.
I break our gaze, looking at the crowd, then at the families sitting behind us, while the feeling only intensifies. It takes me a moment too long to realize what’s happening.
My dear god of death whispers the answer into my ear.
I look back at Wolfgang in alarm.
“We need to?—”
I don’t have time to finish my sentence before an explosion sends me flying backward.