Chapter 26
PENELOPE
APairing Union.
It’s The Obsidian’s version of marriage.
And it’s tonight.
Ours.
Billy and I’s.
But only if I pass my final trial first.
Billy can’t tell me anything about it, he can’t prepare me, not that he ever has before anyway.
As we walked hand in hand back from the mausoleum, which turns out is in fact ours, as I suspected by the number above the door, he just told me the same thing he always has before the trials I have been allowed to be forewarned about before.
‘Trust me, Little Lamb. Trust your devotion to me. Trust yourself. It’s never steered you wrong before, I know it won’t now.’
My heart swells and bleeds in equal measure as my ‘lady’s maids’, Delphine and Isabelle, help me pull on my union clothes. The dress I shall carry out my final trial in as well as finally complete my Pairing to Billy is beautiful.
The all black silk dress exposes my chest, collarbones, and arms, with its off the shoulder draped sleeves, a low-cut neckline plunging deep between my breasts, my locket tucked between, and its tight floor length, figure-hugging shape.
Dual splits run up either side of the skirt, revealing the skin of both legs and my pale pink garter which is currently housing five little razorblades.
Isabelle steps back from tucking a lock of my hair beneath the thick black beaded headband placed atop my head, behind my ears, my wavy hair left to hang simply down my back.
I stare at myself in the mirror, my cheeks flushed, eyes circled in black liner, lashes coated in the darkest mascara, a ruby lipstick atop my naturally tinted lips of the same colour. I don’t recognise myself like this, but equally, I’ve never felt more myself before either.
“You look beautiful, Lady,” Delphine says softly, a gentle smile on her face as I glance back at her reflection in the mirror.
“Thank you,” I reply, ignoring the sight of the rest of my exposed skin, the healing cuts and fresh scars, it makes my fingers twitch.
“Are you ready, Miss Penelope?” Isabelle asks, the question leaving a soft smile on her pink lips.
“Yes,” I say with a smile of my own, answering the only way I know how.
With a lie.
The doors to the Abbatia groan open, and every whisper dies. Hundreds of red hooded figures turn towards me all at once, their attention hitting like a physical force, a wave of heat and hunger that slams into me, stealing the last little breath I had left from my lungs.
The room is vast, cathedral-high ceilings, tall black pillar candles dripping wax like molten night, an aisle carved between bodies that feel less like witnesses to our union and more like sentinels waiting to judge the shape of my soul.
My pulse stumbles, then hammers, loud enough that I fear they can all hear it. They part for me, these followers, these believers, as if I’m something holy instead of something trying to prove her worth.
And at the far end of the shadowed aisle, up on a stage like platform rising high above everyone else, stands him.
Milus.
His face is this smooth, shiny, fresh smirk, dark brows and bright eyes, all of him smart and polished and outwardly normal. He smiles this polished toothy smile when he sees he has my attention, my feet almost stopping me dead when my heart pounds harder than it ever has before.
Blood rushes into the front of my brain making me feel as though I’m going to keel over, flop forwards, head first into the stone floor and bleed out for all to see. But they don’t stop, bringing me closer to the only thing in this life that actually matters.
Billy.
The only steady thing in the room, the only reason my legs keep me moving, the only anchor in a sea of eyes that would devour me if he weren’t the one waiting to claim me first.
His black slacks are tight on his muscular thighs, his long sleeved black shirt tucked into the low rising waistband, the top few buttons left open, exposing his brand for all to see.
For me to see.
To remind me why we’re here.
For each other.
For a moment, fear and devotion coil together inside my chest like a serpent trying to seduce me, indistinguishable, inseparable. Yet still, I walk towards him. Because in this room full of darkness, he is the one I choose, and the one who chooses me back.
Milus stands towering high above everyone else, many steps between him and the congregation. Dressed in all black, his light skin making him look ghostly beneath the flickering candlelight, his light blue eyes devilish as flames seem to dance within them.
Billy’s brothers stand in the front row, Dolly between Gore and Bram, Rune on the end beside Tolly, only their five hoods down in this room full of cloaks, staring up at us as I take the seven steps up to Billy, the two of us on a platform of our own between them and Milus, a further three steps above us, hands clasped at his back, standing beside an altar, a circle of lit black candles surrounding it.
When my hands finally reach Billy’s, it feels less like a touch and more like a binding. His fingers close around mine with a certainty that steals the air from my chest, the blood from my heart, the soul from my being. Warm and steady against the cold tremor running through me.
For a moment, the room disappears, every hooded witness, every candle, every breath that isn’t his vanishes as if the world has narrowed to the single point where our skin meets. His thumb sweeps over my knuckles, a quiet vow, a silent claim, a promise I feel all the way down my spine.
I should be afraid.
Of him.
Of this.
Of what we’re about to swear before hundreds of watching eyes, but the moment he moves in closer, the fear folds inward, becoming something else entirely.
Something sharp.
Inevitable.
He leans in just enough that I can feel his breath ghost over my cheek, grounding me, undoing me.
And as our hands lock even tighter together, I know with a clarity that tastes like surrender, whatever happens next, whatever darkness we’re plunging ourselves into, we will walk into it together.
Bound, willingly, ruinously, and utterly each other’s.
Because whatever this last trial is.
No matter what I have to do.
I will pass it.
Prove myself.
For us.
For our future.
For our lives.
Only, when Milus begins to speak, I see her.
My blood runs cold, my legs like jelly, and for a second, I think I might faint. I hear nothing that Milus says, my ears suddenly deaf, a humming echoing through them that sounds exactly like her voice.
Tucked just behind Milus, bound and on her knees, is a woman I used to know.
Her big dark eyes stare up into mine; my gaze pulled towards hers like a magnetic forcefield.
I remember her differently.
Younger, fresher, brighter.
Her usually shiny brown hair is pulled back in a low greasy ponytail; a beige coloured sack type of rag is the only thing covering her slim body. Her nails are bitten, the skin around the edges torn, and tired blue rings sink beneath her eyes.
I’m not sure what I’m supposed to think. Seeing her again. Such a barrage of emotion tumbling around inside my belly, I think I might be sick.
But there’s one thing that drowns them all out.
Panic.
That’s what attacks my nervous system.
The shaking starts first, a rattle so violent my teeth chatter. My eyes bulge, and I tighten my jaw so hard trying to stop my very obvious reaction that my teeth squeak.
“Penelope,” it’s his voice that breaks through, but it’s Billy’s warmth that pulls me back, the very subtle squeeze of my hand.
“Yes, Father Black,” I respond to Milus, my voice surprisingly strong.
His attention settles over me, heavy, suffocating, expectant, and he waits for my eyes to come to his. The blue orbs gleam with something too old to be human, too certain to be doubted, and for the first time since I arrived here, I feel what I have been told may really be true.
Milus is no man.
He is god.
“You are to supply our offering this night.” His voice is loud, the congregation in silence, his words a booming echo in the large, filled space.
“You stand at the threshold of your final trial,” he says, directing his words towards me, but keeping his smooth, polished voice loud enough to still be heard by all.
“You have bled. You have obeyed. You have surrendered your name, your heartbeat, your soul to The Obsidian. Yet, one thing still remains.”
It feels as though the entire gathering of robed figures moves in, drawing closer, sucking all the air from the room, stealing it from my lungs, and leaving a fiery hot acid in its wake.
Milus takes the steps down to meet us on our level, moving in so close to me that I can feel his words like a kiss upon my cheek.
“Now you must relinquish your past.” He looks out unto the crowd, his mouth curving into a slow forming smile, something charming and devious and inevitable.
“You will provide your new family with an offering,” he says, turning back to me.
“Your offering. A gift born of your own hands. Chosen,” he emphasises that last word, his chin dipping, eyes rolling upwards to keep me in his field of vision.
“By your own will. The heart of a loved one, placed upon the altar for your god to feast.”
My stomach drops. And it’s as though every breath I take strangles me. Eyes blurry, vision swirling, I’m swaying, caught somewhere between this life and the next, not really here, but not anywhere else either.
Clara’s big brown eyes are already on mine when I look up towards her again, silent tears tracking down her gaunt cheeks, a gag tied too tightly for her to speak.
She was the only one who took care of me.
Out of all the many homes I was placed in, tormented in, abused in.
Hers was different. Safe. Warm. There was always food in the fridge I was allowed to eat, clean clothes folded and dry for me to wear.
A smile on her face when I came in from school, a real one, meant just for me.
She isn’t a loved one that Milus speaks of. I haven’t thought about her in easily fifteen years, but there has never been anyone else that cared about me.
That’s why it’s her.
I’m frowning when I look at Billy, a deep carved divot between my brows, distress in the lines as I realise, he could be the only one who knew.
Who she was. What she meant. Even though my time with her was brief.
She’s the only thing in this world that ever offered me a kindness.
I’ve never spoken about her to anyone though.
Not even him. But surely no one else would have any idea how to find someone like this from my past.
The question is formed on my lips, the how, why, but no sound leaves my mouth when I look into his glacial blue eyes and realise what he’s silently saying.
Trust me.
Trust your devotion to me.
Trust yourself.
It’s never steered you wrong before, I know it won’t now.
“This is how you prove devotion,” Milus starts. “Not through suffering, but through sacrifice. Something you cherish. Something The Obsidian cannot take from you unless you give it freely.”
He reaches out towards my face, his fingers brushing my chin, tilting my face up towards the blackened emblem above us. A pentagram with a thorned ‘O’ in its centre, a serpent curled around it.
“Do this,” he whispers, placing a long silver dagger in my hand, thorny rose vines carved into the handle, a roman numeral two etched into the base of the blade where it meets the hilt, “And you will rise among us. Fail…” he pinches my chin between his thumb and finger hard, drawing my face back down to meet his.
“And you will both,” he says, glancing between Billy and I, “wish you had taken Billy up on his offering of ‘getting you out’.” He finishes with a smile, a threat in the way his lips part, his final knowing words only loud enough just for us.
Billy looks completely neutral, but I can feel it, in the way his fingers clasp mine just a little tighter, that he wasn’t aware someone had been watching us quite that intimately either. And if I fail this, it won’t just be me that suffers for it.
Milus retakes his place beside the altar, and then Balor is there, kicking a bound Clara down the stairs, her body tumbling right into Billy’s legs.
She’s wailing and crying, the noises muffled behind the gag, and Billy’s stepping back, stepping down, joining the front row to stand with his family, leaving me alone.
With Clara.
With the dagger.
With a choice, but really, with no choice at all.
Torches around the room all roar and flame at once, as if consuming the last of my hesitation. The last of my soul. Because I already know what I’m going to do.
I am not a good person.
Even when I’ve tried to be.
And as I drive the dagger into the hollow of Clara’s throat, carving it down through the centre of her chest, straddling her, my knees pinning her beneath me.
My hands plunging into her chest cavity, fingers curling around the hot slippery organ that’s still trying to pump blood around her lifeless body.
It only proves what I fear.
What I already know.
I will choose Billy every time.
In this life and the next.
I am a monster.
And I like it.