Chapter 34
Ivy
Ghost was the only time I’ve ever told anyone the truth.
The words hang in the air. I’m waiting for the relief to land, for the understanding to click, for the forgiveness to rise inside me the way it does in stories where the heroine hears the truth and melts. But nothing changes.
If Ghost was real, then the man who saw my soul through a screen — the man I trusted with my loneliest nights, my darkest confessions, the parts of myself I’d never shown another living person — that man had everything.
He had my body as Killian and my soul as Ghost. He consumed me from both directions and all I ever got were shadows.
He still doesn’t understand. I’m not the girl from the balcony. I’m not the girl who grieved Ghost on a plane while the man she was mourning sat across from her pretending not to notice. I’m the woman who grew fangs.
You want to be mine, Killian? You want to belong to me the way Ghost did? Fine. I’ll make it permanent.
My grip tightens on the knife. I remember the night I begged him to mark me and he refused. I made him a promise that night.
Yet is now.
“Do you remember what I asked you in Lisbon?”
He’s against the wall, bleeding from the scratch on his throat. His cock is visibly hard through his jeans and I hope it hurts.
“I asked you to mark me. Begged you, actually. To give me one scar. To ruin the skin Malachi kept pristine for twenty-two years.” I step closer. The blade catches the light. “You said no.”
His jaw tightens. He remembers.
“You’re the most scarred person I’ve ever met. You just can’t see it. Those were your words.” I lick my teeth. “You couldn’t do it. Couldn’t bring yourself to cut me.”
I press the blade against his chest, over his heart. The steel touches the cotton of his shirt and I know he can feel the cold through the fabric.
“You’re weak, Killian. Somewhere underneath all that darkness, you still wanted to protect me.” My voice drops. “I’m not weak.”
I rise on my tiptoes. My lips brush his ear.
“I asked you for a scar and you refused. So, I’m taking what I’m owed.” My breath is hot against his skin. “Not from my skin. From yours.”
I pull back to watch his face, expecting a fight or a protest, but something flickers in his eyes. “Yes.”
One word. He’s wanted this since the beginning.
We really are the same.
I reach for his shirt Not to pull it over his head — that’s what you do when you’re gentle.
I bring the blade to the collar and slice straight down.
The shirt falls open, fabric parting like skin under a scalpel.
I push it off his shoulders, but it catches on his arms — his own muscles restraining him.
His body becomes its own zip-tie. Funny.
I take him in. Every scar I’ve traced in the dark, now in full light.
The cigar burns Silas pressed into his skin when he was twelve.
The whip marks I read like braille. The ravens and thorns that tried to turn ruin into art.
And underneath all of it, the map of a childhood spent being forged into a weapon.
He’s already covered in other people’s signatures. Time to add mine.
I press my palm flat against his sternum. His heart is hammering — elevated rate, dilated pupils, shallow breathing. He’s scared or aroused and with us there’s no difference.
My hand slides lower. Over his abs, each ridge contracting under my touch. Past his navel, along the V of muscle that disappears into his waistband. I feel him twitch against my wrist.
“You’re enjoying this.” My eyes snap to his.
“So are you.”
I am. My thighs are pressed together so hard the muscles ache. I bring the knife up. “Don’t move.”
I study his chest. Left pectoral. Over the heart. Enough flesh to hold the design without hitting bone.
“I’m going to carve something into you.” My tone is conversational, like I’m planning dinner. “A moth.”
His breath catches.
“The same one I put on Harlow before I watched him die.” I trace the spot with my fingertip — right over his heart, where the beat is strongest, where the blood is loudest. “He got my signature and stopped breathing. You —” I position the blade and press just enough to dimple the skin.
“— get my signature and get to live. Don’t make me regret the difference. ”
The blade bites into his skin and I draw the first line of the moth’s body. The incision is shallow — deep enough to scar permanently, not deep enough to damage muscle. Scalpel depth. Perfect pressure.
His entire body goes rigid and a sound escapes him — not a groan, not a gasp. Something animal.
“The dermis is approximately two millimeters thick over the pectoral muscle.” I draw the second line. The left wing begins to take shape. “Deep enough to scar permanently. Shallow enough to avoid the fascia.” Another cut. “You’ll need to keep it clean for the first week. I’ll show you how.”
I’m narrating as if this is a medical procedure. As if I’m not carving my ownership into his flesh.
He’s shaking, but not from pain. He’s hard — harder than he’s ever been — and he’s standing against a wall letting me cut him like it’s his birthright to be cut by me.
I move to the right wing. “Do you know why I chose the moth?” His jaw is so tight the muscle is spasming.
“Because that’s what you called me. Little Moth.
Your pet name for the girl you stole.” Another line.
More blood. “But the moth isn’t yours anymore, Killian.
” I complete the wing and step back to assess. “The moth is mine now.”
I press my thumb into the center of the fresh wound, and a hiss escapes his lips. The pain and the pleasure are indistinguishable on his face.
“And now it’s on your heart. Forever.”
The moth is done. Wings spread over his left pectoral, right above where his heart is trying to beat through his ribs. Blood drips down his stomach while I admire my work.
“Every artist signs their masterpiece.” I smile at him. “And you, Killian Craw, are mine.”
I lean down and press my mouth directly to the carved moth.
I kiss it the way I kiss his mouth — open, wet, deliberate.
My tongue traces the fresh lines, swirling through the blood that’s still warm, and he starts shuddering.
His entire body is convulsing in waves while a groan vibrates through his chest.
His blood coats my lips and fills my mouth. I swallow.
Communion.
His hands come up, reaching for me.
“Don’t.” He goes still. “I didn’t say you could touch me.”
His hands drop, fists clenching at his sides so hard the tendons in his forearms are visible. The restraint is costing him something fundamental.
I straighten. My mouth is smeared with his blood. I watch his eyes track the color on my lips — the raw, animal hunger in his gaze is so naked it’s almost violent. He wants to taste himself on me.
I grab his jaw and crush my mouth against his.
The kiss is brutal. I bite his lower lip hard enough to split it and find his tongue before he can react.
He groans into my mouth, the sound travelling through my chest and settling between my legs.
My hands find his hair, pulling him into me.
His arms tense at his sides, shaking from the effort of not grabbing me.
Even now, he obeys. Even now, he waits for permission.
Such a good boy.
I press my body against his, the contact sending a bolt through me so intense I almost come. I pull back with the last crumb of control I have.
Soon.
I take in what I’ve done.
His eyes are locked on me like I’m the only thing in existence. This is what power feels like. This is what twenty-two years of deprivation crystallizes into when you finally take what’s yours.
“You marked me first, you know.” My voice is steadier than my body.
“With words and lies. With your mouth and your hands and your fucking Ghost account.” I bring the knife up.
He tenses. “You crawled inside my head and made yourself at home. Inside my soul too. You made me love you twice — as Killian and as Ghost. And I didn’t get a say in either. ”
I reach for the hem of his shirt that I’m wearing and pull it over my head, standing in front of him in nothing but my underwear. His eyes move over my body as I bring the blade to my skin, at the edge of my underwear.
His body goes rigid. “Ivy —”
“Shut up.”
I hook my thumb in the waistband and pull the fabric down just enough to expose the skin above my pubic bone. I press the cold steel against the hot skin, and I can see the exact moment he forgets how to breathe.
His face is a mix of horror and desperation. His hands twitch toward me, the trained reflex to save me fighting against my command not to move.
“You wanted to have me, Killian? Own me?”
His voice cracks and his eyes beg. “Ivy. Please.”
Please. From the man who never begs.
I smile. “You wanted your name on my skin?” I lean in, close enough that my breath hits his mouth. “Then watch me give it to you.” I hold his gaze. “Don’t move. Don’t speak. Don’t look away.”