Chapter 36 In Divine Intervention #2
“I don’t believe you could do anything to help me, chains or not,” I said, the words emerging as bitter as bile. “If you could, you would have done it already. Instead, you sit there and mock my suffering.”
Chains rattled against stone, the sound deafening in the silence that followed my accusation. For a moment, I thought he might not respond at all. Then, a sound emerged from beyond the wall—a growl so low, so elemental, it seemed to vibrate through the very foundations of the dungeon.
“You have no idea what I wish I could do to you.”
The words slithered into my consciousness like serpents, coiling around my thoughts, sinking venomous fangs into what remained of my sanity. His voice had changed again, dropping to a register so deep it seemed to bypass my ears entirely, resonating instead directly in my bones.
“How I would ‘make it stop,’ as you so put it.” Each word emerged with careful, measured precision, as if he were granting me a glimpse of something dangerous, something sacred.
“If these chains were broken, if this wall between us was dust... I would show you the true meaning of divine intervention.”
I pressed my forehead harder against the stone, as if I could somehow melt through it, as if enough pressure could bring me closer to the being on the other side. “Tell me,” I whispered, the words barely audible. “Tell me what you would do.”
A pause. The air in my lungs seemed to crystallize, time suspending as I waited for his response. When it came, his voice had regained some of its control, though the dangerous edge remained.
“I would take Vharok’s corruption from your veins and replace it with my own.
” The confession emerged like a secret dragged from the depths of an ancient sea.
“I would erase his touch from your memory until you remembered nothing but my hands on your skin. I would make you forget his name, little fawn. I would make you scream mine.”
Fresh heat surged through me at his words, but it was different now, not just Valen’s blood singing in my veins, but something new. Something that responded to Death’s voice, to his promises, to the dark hunger that colored his every word.
“Do it,” I whispered, abandoning the last shreds of my pride. “Please, my harbinger, I can’t bear it anymore.”
A groan—not of exasperation, but of decision—whispered through the stone.
“Souls be damned, fine.”
A surge of triumph shot through me. He was surrendering.
“But know this,” he continued, “if I help you, there is no going back. What begins here cannot be undone.”
I almost laughed at that. As if there was any going back from what had already been done to me, as if I wasn’t already transformed beyond recognition. “I understand.”
“No,” he said, his voice suddenly sharp. “You don’t. But you will.” Another pause, this one filled with the echo of ancient restraint. “You cannot be thinking of him, craving him, while I ease your suffering.”
My heart thundered in my chest, anticipation and fear and desperate need tangling together until I couldn’t separate one from the other. “What would you have me do?”
“If you want the madness to stop,” Death murmured, “it must be consumed by a stronger madness.” The rustling of chains, the subtle shift of a body moving closer to the wall that separated us. “Put your finger to your mouth. Bite until you draw blood.”
I didn’t hesitate. Without the slightest pause for thought or consequence, I brought my index finger to my lips and bit down hard. The coppery taste of my own blood flooded my mouth, oddly comforting in its familiarity. A small point of pain amidst the vast sea of need.
“Now,” Death continued, his voice dropping to that silken whisper that seemed to touch my skin directly, “give it to me.”
I extended my hand through the bars, pushing it as close to his cell as possible. Stretching so far, I could no longer see the blood beading at the tip of my finger, my tiny crimson offering in the darkness.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, I felt it—the brush of his skin against mine, barely there and then gone. His finger, I thought, sliding along the length, gathering the blood I had spilled.
A sound emerged from his cell—a groan so deep, it sent fresh shivers racing down my spine. The sound of a being tasting something forbidden, something dangerous, something exquisite.
“Your taste,” he murmured, his voice thick with something I couldn’t name. “Fate curse me.”
“Is it ok?” I asked, suddenly unsure, suddenly afraid in a way that had nothing to do with Valen’s corruption and everything to do with the way Death’s voice had changed.
A low laugh, rich with disbelief. “Oh, little fawn. You truly have no idea.”
Before I could ask what he meant, his finger appeared, pressing against my own bars. “Here,” he said, and even through the shadows, I could see the gleam of something dark and luminous at the tip of his finger. His blood, shining like liquid starlight in the darkness. “Take it.”
My throat went dry at the sight of it. If Valen’s blood had called to me, Death’s blood sang a melody so ancient, so perfect, it seemed to resonate with something buried deep within my soul.
I jerked forward, the bars cold against my cheek as I gripped his wrist with desperate fingers and pulled his bleeding digit into my mouth. A sound escaped me, half-gasp, half-moan, as his taste exploded across my tongue, ancient and sweet and burning like the heart of a star.
Nothing could have prepared me for this.
If Valen’s blood had been fire and metal and conquest, Death’s was the cosmos itself, vast and ancient and impossibly complex.
It tasted of honey and lightning, of forgotten stars and promised oblivion.
It tasted like the first breath after drowning, like salvation offered in the form of sweet destruction.
I sucked hard, desperate for more of that golden essence, my tongue swirling around his finger to gather every precious drop.
The stone wall between us scraped my cheek raw, the bars bruising my face, but I didn’t care.
Nothing mattered except getting more of him inside me, letting his divinity wash away the corruption that Valen had left behind.
From his cell came a sound I hadn’t heard from him before—a growl so primal it seemed to originate from the foundations of the earth itself. The sound vibrated through the stone, through my bones, settling in my core with a weight that made me squeeze my thighs together.
“Mireille,” he gasped, my name emerging rough and broken.
His finger pressed deeper into my mouth, as far as the awkward angle around the wall and through the bars would allow.
There was nothing gentle in the gesture, nothing careful or restrained.
This was for his own pleasure, using my mouth as I was using his blood, both of us taking what the other offered with equal desperation.
I responded by sucking harder, drawing his long finger into me with greedy determination.
My teeth scraped against his knuckle, and I heard his sharp intake of breath.
The thought that I could affect him, that I could make a god gasp with nothing but my mouth, sent a fresh wave of heat spiraling through me.
For a moment—one blessed, golden moment—I felt Valen’s madness begin to recede.
The fire in my veins cooled, the desperate need dimming like a candle flame deprived of oxygen.
I could breathe again, could think beyond the consuming hunger that had driven me to beg, to crawl, to abandon every shred of dignity I possessed.
I almost wept with relief. Almost thanked him, almost withdrew to savor this moment of lucidity.
But then it returned—not slowly, not gradually, but in a tidal wave of sensation that drowned my momentary clarity.
The madness crashed back through me with redoubled force, obliterating thought, reason, restraint.
But this was different. This wasn’t Valen’s madness, wasn’t the need he had planted in my veins.
This was new. This was Death’s gift, Death’s curse.
If Valen’s blood had made me want, Death’s blood made me worship.
If Valen’s essence had created hunger, Death’s created devotion.
The need that coursed through me now was more profound, more fundamental—not just the physical craving for release, but something that touched my very soul, that whispered of belonging, of completion, of finding the missing piece I hadn’t known I was seeking.
I wanted him—not just his touch, not just his body, but all of him. I wanted to crawl inside his chest and nest beside his divine heart. I wanted to drown in his essence until nothing remained of me, until I was merely an extension of his will, his desire, his existence.
And gods help me, I wanted him to want me too.
Not as a pet, not as a distraction, not as a momentary amusement to pass the eternal tedium of his imprisonment.
I wanted him to need me as I needed him, to crave me as I craved him, to be unable to imagine existence without the taste of my skin on his tongue.
I knew, with bone-deep certainty, that if I did not get release—not just physical, but the deeper release of being claimed, being wanted, being his—I would shatter into fragments too small to ever be reassembled.
“Please,” I begged around his finger, the word garbled and desperate. “Please, I need—“
He withdrew his finger with a sudden, decisive movement, leaving me gasping at the loss. A sound escaped me—a whimper of protest so pathetic, so needy, I would have been mortified had I possessed enough self-awareness for shame.
He said something in a language I didn’t recognize, laced with what sounded suspiciously like profanity. The foreign syllables seemed to resonate in my bones, adding another layer to the symphony of need that was consuming me from within.