Chapter 12 Psalm for the Broken Girl #2
His palms slide down my spine, over the curve of my waist, as though memorizing every inch—not for ownership, but protection. Every time I flinch, even a little, he whispers something blasphemous and low.
“My good girl. So smart. So strong.”
His voice curls around me like incense. Like prayer smoke.
I glance up at him, water beading down his chest, sliding over the maze of ink and muscle. There’s a serpent on his ribcage, coiled around a dagger. Latin script wraps beneath it in bold black letters.
“What does that one say?” I murmur, tracing the ink lightly.
“‘Deliver me not from evil.’”
I blink. “Isn’t it supposed to be deliver us from evil?”
He smirks, eyes dark. “I’m not asking for deliverance. I’m asking to stay in the fire. I am the fire.”
His hand cups my jaw again, thumb brushing my cheek. “And now that you’re mine, little saint, I’ll burn the whole damn world to keep you warm.”
My breath catches.
He dips the cloth to my collarbone. “Every bruise on you belongs to me now. Every shadow. Every scar.”
I don’t know what to say to that. But my heart answers for me—racing like it’s trying to jump into his hands.
He finishes washing my body in slow, quiet motions. He never rushes, never lets me feel exposed or small. When he’s done, he presses a kiss to my shoulder and whispers, “Sanctified in sin. That’s what you are.”
He turns off the water and steps out.
Cain grabs a towel and wraps it around me like armor, his touch still warm from the water. No rush, no sharp edges. Just slow, grounding movements like he’s trying to anchor me to the here and now.
He dries me off gently—shoulders, back, legs—knuckles brushing over the curve of my waist like a vow. Then he moves to the counter and grabs the brush, motioning for me to sit on the edge of the tub.
I do, wordless. Still dripping, still dazed.
He works through the ends of my hair first, slow and careful, never tugging. The brush glides in steady strokes, his free hand occasionally smoothing flyaways like he’s taming something wild.
“Thought you’d be rougher,” I murmur.
Cain huffs a soft laugh behind me. “You think I don’t know how to handle delicate things?” His tone drops, sinful and low. “I can break bones with these hands, Mags. Or I can worship every inch of you like you were carved from sacred flame.”
My pulse stutters.
His fingers drift down my shoulder, tracing the water-damp skin until he finds the swirl of ink coiled along his ribs. I run my hand over it, fingers ghosting the lines of the broken chain circling his side.
“This one?”
He glances down. “Freedom. Or the illusion of it.”
A pause. “Had it done after prison. Thought it might mean something.”
“And does it?”
His jaw clenches, eyes darkening like storm clouds on a moonless night. “Only when you touch it.”
I trace the blade wreathed in wings over his ribs. “And this?”
“A vow.” He doesn’t elaborate. Doesn’t have to. It’s in the weight of his voice. In the way he looks at me like I’m the altar and the sin offered up on it.
There’s another one over his hip, half-hidden beneath the towel wrapped around his waist. A serpent curled around a cross.
“That one’s for every lie I ever told myself,” he says when he catches me staring.
We move to the bedroom like we’ve done this a thousand times. Like we live here, together, in some kind of purgatory we’ve carved out for just us. He pulls back the covers. I crawl in, and he follows, wrapping himself around me like armor reformed into warmth.
The sheets are stark white—so white they almost glow against the dim light, against the ink that coils up his arms and over his chest. Cain’s tattoos look darker here, sharper somehow, like holy scripture rewritten in sin. Like warnings and promises etched in flesh.
He slides in behind me, his body heat wrapping around mine before his arms do. One comes across my waist, the other tucks beneath my head like a pillow. His forearm rests under my cheek, and I trace the designs on it with the pads of my fingers.
“Your arms are covered in violence,” I whisper. “But they feel like safety.”
His breath hits the back of my neck. “That’s because they’re yours now.”
I don’t respond. Just press my cheek to his skin, feeling the way his pulse beats steady under the ink.
His hand—broad, tattooed, calloused—spans my belly like a shield. There’s a cracked crucifix on the back of it, I noticed earlier. Barbed wire wrapped around the base.
“What’s that one mean?” I murmur sleepily.
He hums. “That one’s for the faith I lost. And the hell I made peace with.”
His hand flexes gently, then settles again. I breathe him in—soap and sweat and something sharp underneath it all, like smoke and sin—and I feel my bones finally settle.
This bed, these arms, this inked sinner wrapped around me like he was carved from vengeance and rebirth—I let it lull me under.
I let my eyes fall closed, his heartbeat steady beneath my cheek, the rhythm of a man who’s done monstrous things and still wraps me up like something holy.
Safe.
Not because the world is—God, no. The world is a storm. A blade. A graveyard of almosts.
But here in his arms, I feel untouchable.
Held by my hellhound.
Cradled by my sinner.
Shielded by a man who fell from grace and clawed his way back through fire, just to find me.
Cain doesn’t speak again. He just breathes with me. Anchors me. Let me belong.
And as sleep pulls me under, I know this for certain:
If I’m damned—
I’ll still be safe in the arms of my fallen angel.