Chapter Seventeen
Azizi
It is in the aftermath, when we have collapsed atop the bed with Theodore tucked between us, Kolfina laying at his front and myself at his back, that I notice the scars.
They weave through the galaxy of freckles that litter his skin, some old enough to be no more than faint shimmers, others thick and puckered from how deep they must have gone.
Small hatch marks crossing over his hips and thighs, rivers and raindrops burnt across the expanse of his shoulders, thin strokes that curve around his ribs and trail over his back.
But it’s the largest one that draws my eye the most, one I only see after he has turned to face Kolfina, though how I missed it before, I’ve no idea.
It is a cross, settled between his shoulder blades and burnt so deep in the skin that it ripples and pulls taut whenever he moves. The mere sight of it ignites a fury in me I can barely control, and I fight back the animalistic urge to bare my teeth at it, as if I could scare it right off his skin.
“It no longer hurts,” Theodore says quietly, his fingers tracing absentmindedly around Kolfina’s where she has them spread out on the duvet. “The cross—you’re wondering about it, aren’t you?”
My fingers tighten around his hips, thumbs tracing the thinner scars there. “You need not speak on any of them if you do not wish to. Our scars are stories from our pasts. They may remain there, if they must.”
Theodore is quiet for a long while, and though upset paints across Kolfina’s soft face, she does not look worried as she watches him.
“I have been… hungry my entire life,” he begins, his voice hardly a whisper in the otherwise silent room. “For as long as I have known what hunger is, it has tortured me. My parents were worried about it, but it wasn’t until I was five years old that it became a problem. I…”
He pauses, drawing a shaking breath into his lungs. I can feel his ribs shifting beneath my hand, can feel him lean into my touch as I press back.
“I bit another child in the village. I don’t remember much of what happened, just that hunger building and building until I couldn’t take it anymore. Our schoolteacher tried to stop me, but by the time she pulled us apart, I’d already swallowed the chunk of meat I pulled from the girl’s arm.”
I can almost see it. A younger Theodore being pulled away from another child with blood spilling from his lips, his blunted little puppy teeth on display.
With how hungrily he’d licked the blood from my fingers the night of the storm, I could imagine how feral he would be with possible satisfaction finally within his grasp—kicking his little legs out, clawing at whoever dared hold him back as he tried to get back to his meal.
“That was the first time Father Thompson visited my home. He claimed that I had been possessed by one of the Devil’s soldiers.
I remember sobbing as they tied me to the bedposts and tried to exorcise the demon.
” A bitter chuckle shakes at his shoulders, but I cannot see his face to know just how devastating a memory it is for him to remember. “Clearly, it did not work.”
Kolfina’s face twists up at that, a mirror of my own as I trail my fingers up the lattice of his spine, ghosting over scars old enough to have grown with their owner.
“There is no demon inside you, Theodore,” I tell him.
Whether he believes me or not, he does not say, only shrugs a shoulder and flips a hand over to let Kolfina trace nonsensical designs across his palm.
“Father Thompson believes there is, so I suppose that is all that matters. I never hurt anyone else after that first time, but the exorcisms grew more extreme as time went on. He always seemed to know when the Devil came back, when his influence grew too strong within me. Then…”
Something must show on his face, because Kolfina scoots closer, her ambient chill dusting over Theodore’s body and across my bare skin.
He takes another deep breath. “Then my mother died.
I was still young, but she got sick one day and never got better.
Father Thompson was convinced I brought the sickness into our home and killed her.
I suppose it didn't help when I told him I saw an angel singing to her just before Death took her away. He dragged me to the church that time, held my head down in the font of holy water as he burnt his crucifix into my back. He said—he said if he cannot expel the beast, then he would trap it instead with the symbol of Christ, and he would seal it with wax to keep it inside.”
My fingers trip over the raised cross between his shoulder blades, circling the small drops and rivers that must have been from the wax.
A part of me wishes to tear my nails down his back, to scrape away the pain and misery staining his skin and leave behind my own scars painted in love and devotion.
“And people dare to call us the monsters,” I mutter as I press a kiss to one particularly puckered scar at the base of his neck. “The only difference is that they wear their monstrosity in the name of righteousness, while we wear ours in the name of survival.”
Theodore sighs and turns onto his back, offering me a pitiful smile.
“I have always believed him to be right, you know. I wondered why God chose to burden me with such a heavy curse, if I have done something in my life to have deserved it.” He shrugs softly, one hand reaching up to touch the tender, bruised skin at the junction of his neck and shoulder.
The bleeding has stopped, clotting nearly as soon as I pulled my teeth from him, but the wounds themselves are still there.
“I have never gotten to choose my scars—not most of them, at least. Nor has anyone ever accepted me so entirely as you two have. I—thank you.”
The words draw a blush to his pale cheeks, and I cannot help but kiss him again.
Kolfina leans in as soon as I pull back, ghosting her lips across Theodore’s with a gentle breeze that ruffles his hair and makes him giggle. The sound draws a lovely smile to her face, one that sprouts daisies and sunflowers in the confines of my ribs.
It is strange, I think, how easily I settle into place with them both. How comfortably my body fits against Theodore’s; how brightly my heart shines when sharing a glance with Kolfina.
Over a century of life behind me, and I have never found a love quite like this before.
One that feels like a gift, like a promise.
I have been so careful to avoid showing my heart to anyone outside of my family, so careful not to let anyone get too close for fear of what they might see.
But here, with Theodore warm in the circle of my arms and Kolfina a kiss of the ocean's wind on my fingertips, hiding seems almost foolish.
Have I not gently coaxed Theodore’s beast out from beneath his skin for that very reason? To meet it, to love it as it deserves to be loved?
Each time I have shown my heart to anyone outside of my family, it has ended in disaster, heartbreak, blood.
But has this not already began in blood?
Are they not already aware of the monster hiding in my shadow?
The shape of my own hunger is now scarred in the curve of Theodore’s shoulder; Kolfina has seen and accepted the wretched thing rotting away in my chest. What more do I have to hide from them?
“I would like to show you something, Theodore,” I tell him, whispering the words into the back of his neck. He shivers beneath me, and it is a struggle not to bite into him again, not to press him down into the covers and draw another orgasm from him with my teeth alone.
Instead, I get to my feet and tie my robe around my waist, offering Theodore another from my wardrobe when he follows on weaker legs.
He stares at it for a moment in contemplation before tugging it on, a small pout on his face when it slips off his shoulder the moment after it’s tied.
Kolfina hides a silent giggle behind her hand, the image of her shifting and swaying like waves where she stands near the door.
Strangely, I find myself less nervous to show Theodore my gallery than I was with Kolfina.
Perhaps her easy acceptance of it has grown my confidence.
Or perhaps it is the comfort in knowing that Theodore has kissed my bloodied lips without fear that makes it easier to push open that door and guide him in.
The room has not changed since Kolfina and I last stood in it—there are no new paintings; the buffet is still locked—and yet something feels different now.
It feels brighter, despite the curtains blocking out the moonlight.
The haunting shadows still linger in the corners of my vision, whispering foul insults and calling out vile words, but they are quieter. More distant.
Something old and forgotten bubbles in my chest as Theodore steps into the room, his head craned back to stare at the many paintings lining the walls. It sizzles in my veins, itches at my bones—the memory of an emotion I have not felt in so long that I hardly remember the shape of it.
Excitement.
Kolfina all but bounces in front of Theodore, guiding him to her favorite painting above the buffet, a beatific smile blooming across her face. Then she guides him to another. And another.
I remain in the doorway—as hopeful as I am, there is still that aged, frightful creature inside of me ready to run if need be—so I only catch glimpses of Theodore’s face as he takes in as much as he can.
Is it awe or fear that widens his eyes? Is it interest or contempt that pops his lips open in a small ‘o’?
When he reaches out for one of the lower paintings—an older piece of a bone-thin hand, the skin stretched and rotting, with a moth resting upon an outstretched finger—does he brush his fingers across the dried paint in reverence or morbid curiosity?