Chapter 24, Xan
I wake up for the second time, startled by how safe I feel despite everything. Xan had woken me earlier, whispering about needing to check on something, and promised he would be back soon. I must have mumbled a response, still tangled in sleep, because the next thing I knew, I was drifting off again, lulled by the soft echo of his voice and the fading scent of him in the room. Now, with the light filtering through the heavy curtains and brushing against my skin, I know it is time.
I sit up; the sheets falling away, and I catch sight of a robe. The robe. It is draped over the chair like some sort of ceremonial threat, delicate and sheer, with a neckline so low it practically introduces itself before I even put it on and a train long enough to drown a girl if she wasn’t careful. A dress you wear when you are about to be reborn—or sacrificed.
Part of me wants to laugh—nervous, borderline hysterical—but another part feels oddly calm.
Because I know he will be there.
If he can survive this world with his heart still beating, then maybe… so can I.
I notice there is a note—small, folded, sitting on top of the desk.
“Back soon. Don’t be late for your own legend. — X.”
I smile despite the chill in the room. The bastard knows exactly what to say to twist a knot in my stomach. I rise slowly, legs tangled in the sheets, body sore in the best possible way. My fingers graze once again on the gown that was left behind.
It is… stunning. Barely there. Ethereal, something worn by the ghost of a goddess. I lift it in front of me, eyeing the delicate train and neckline that dips low enough to challenge modesty itself.
Was this really for an initiation—or a date?
Either way, I know I am wearing it. I know I am walking out of this room with my head high, even if I do not know what today holds.
I slip into the dress carefully, almost reverently. It feels like stepping into another skin—one I am not sure I have earned yet, but one that somehow fits like fate. My curves are barely concealed, but I do not shy away from my reflection. Not today.
Today, I become someone else. Or maybe… more of who I have always been.
I tame my hair with my fingers, then find a small clasp left on the dresser—a silver pin in the shape of a fox. A gift from him, I suppose. I slide it into place, just above my ear. For the first time in days, I smile at myself.
When I open the door, the hallway outside is quiet, but there is energy in the air—a thunder waiting just behind the clouds. I have no idea where I am going, not exactly. But I know who I’m looking for. And when I find Xan again, I will be walking toward my future—with blood in my veins, fire in my chest, and a name the Order will never forget.
Just as I am about to take another step down the hall, a soft knock interrupts the silence behind me. I turn. Standing in the hallway is a boy—barely sixteen. He is all nerves and too-big clothes, clutching a black envelope like it is ticking in his hands.
“Miss Vale…?” he asks, voice cracking halfway through.
I nod slowly.
“I have been sent to escort you… to the Rite.”
The way he says it—with a capital R. It is holy and dangerous all at once.
He does not meet my eyes. His gaze flickers briefly to the floor, then to the folds of my dress, and instantly back down again, cheeks reddening like he has been caught looking at a goddess he does not feel worthy of worship.
“Lead the way,” I say softly as I watch the tension in his shoulders ease just a little.
While I follow him, barefoot down a marble corridor, I realize this is it. The moment between the before and the after.
Somewhere near to here, Xan is waiting for my ascension.
The boy—Owen, as he had introduced himself, guides me through the bowels of the Order in near-total silence. The hallways we pass feel older than time, mounted with obsidian stone that drinks in the flickering light of the wall sconces. His footsteps are soft—the kind that suggest even the floor might punish him for stepping too loudly. I try to match his pace. Every echo of my bare feet against the cold stone floor feels amplified, a scream in the silence.
Eventually, we stop before a pair of massive double doors—twice my height, sculpted in ancient black oak, their surface etched with archaic runes and twisting symbols that seem to writhe and shimmer in the candlelight. The handles are forged from wrought iron, each one a curved dagger frozen mid-strike.
Owen turns to me, wide-eyed and pale, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows.
“This is where I leave you,” he whispers, anything louder might summon a demon best left sleeping. “They are waiting inside.”
I nod, though my chest is tightening.
“Good luck… Miss Vale,” he adds, barely louder than the breath it took to speak it. And just like that, he vanishes, swallowed by the shadows behind us.
I linger for a moment; hand poised above the dagger handle. The wood radiates heat, or maybe it’s my pulse surging in my fingertips. I close my eyes.
One breath.
Another.
Then I push.
The doors creak open with the groan of an ancient beast, revealing a vast circular chamber bathed in candlelight. The ceiling soars above me in a dome of stone and colored glass, where stained panels filter the waning morning sun into fractured shards of gold and crimson. Smoke coils like silk through the air, rising from censers, hung at regular intervals around the room. It smells of myrrh and burnt cedar.
Seventeen figures form a ring around the center, unmoving, cloaked in silence. Every one of them is dressed in robes as black as oil and wears a mask as dark as pitch—sleek, smooth, anonymous. A council of phantoms.
At the center stands Lucian Voss.
He is dressed in ceremonial black, a subtle sheen in the fabric that catches the light like liquid ink. His mask, sculpted from silver steel, devours every glint that touches it. There is a stillness to him that is more than human. It is the silence of the executioner before the blade falls.
This is it.
The Judgement of the Masks.
I scan the room, eyes darting from one masked figure to the next, desperate to spot Xan among the sea of identical shadows. I thought it would be easy—how many men could possibly share his height, that sinful broadness of shoulder? Apparently, at least eight. Eight!
My heart clenches with growing panic. I know he is here—he must be—but the fact that I cannot pinpoint him sends a wave of irrational dread crawling up my back. It is like playing Where’s Waldo in a cultist’s surreal haze.
A deep, echoing gong shatters the silence. In eerie unison, every masked figure stomps their right foot against the ground. The sound reverberates—thunder trapped in a crypt. Odd, sure—but at this point, the least strange thing in all of this might just be the door handles, even if they look like something straight out of Satan’s interior designer’s catalog.
I notice, at the center of the room, directly across from Lucian, stands a strange ancient-looking altar made of stone. With a slow, sweeping motion of his hand, he gestures for me to approach. I hesitate, scanning again the sea of masked faces for any trace of Xan. A twitch of a finger, a tilt of a shoulder—anything to ground me. Yet nothing. Just black masks and quiet.
Swallowing my nerves, I draw in a shaky breath and step forward. The slab is cold and imposing, clearly stolen straight from some sacrificial temple. Graceful as a newborn giraffe, I climb up onto the massive stone and lie down, trying not to think about how this feels less like a rite of passage and more like the start of The Shining, minus the snow.
Now lying flat—on what might generously be described as slightly more comfortable than a deflated camping mattress, I stare up at the vaulted ceiling, trying not to shiver.
Lucian steps into view, shrouded in shadow, his silver mask glinting like the blade of a guillotine. His theatrical voice cuts through the mute calm.
“Today, the Order parts its impenetrable gates for fresh blood. May the assassinations be many and the chaos of life cling relentlessly to our newest sister, Mira Vale.”
Of course. Nothing says “welcome” like ceremonial bloodletting and a death wish disguised as a blessing.
The seventeen masked members strike the floor with their right heels in unison again, the sound echoing, a war drum pounding through the chamber. Then, in perfect synchronicity, they all turn their backs to me. Alright. Weird flex, but okay.
Lucian steps forward, drawing his ceremonial dagger—curved, ornate, and unnecessarily ominous. I extend my hand, expecting the classic palm cut Xan had warned me about. You know, simple. Manageable. Symbolic.
But no.
Lucian’s masked face tilts slightly, and instead of slashing my hand, he guides the blade higher. Much higher. The point of the dagger rests just beneath my sternum—dead center. Before I can react, he presses.
The knife punctures the skin with brutal elegance, sliding into the soft flesh between my ribs. The pain is immediate and white-hot, blooming through my chest with such precision it feels as though it pierces straight into my heart.
I wonder if this was it—if I was truly about to die here, carved open like a pig on this cold slab of stone. I suddenly feel the blade glide downward, dragging a searing line from my chest to just above my navel. Then… he pulls it out, smooth as silk.
Okay. Cool. Guess I’m not dying. Not yet anyway.
He wipes the blade with a length of black satin, like it has its own sacred ritual and not just him cleaning up my insides. With all the ceremony of a twisted tailor, he lays the dagger beside me—perfectly parallel to my hips.
With a strange sort of care, he lifts the blood-stained tissue and wraps it around my eyes. The fabric sticks to my skin, warm and damp. I can smell the iron instantly—so strong I can even taste it. It fills my mouth, my nose, my throat, until I feel like I am breathing it in.
The slash across my stomach burns like acid—sharp and far too real—still my mind barely registers it. Everything is buzzing, hazy. My brain is trying to buffer through a hallucinatory fever blur. The ache is there, screaming, but it is drowned out by the intensity of the moment, by the blood, the whispers, the goddamn satin caging my sight.
Lucian’s voice cuts through the silence like a chef master announcing dinner service at Hell’s five-star resort.
“Let the feast begin. Try to savor boys—gluttony leaves such a mess.”
Charming. Just what you want to hear when your guts are barely staying in place.
I hear the first set of footsteps pivot behind me as one of the masked members steps forward to the altar. My nerves spike so violently, my soul seems to push itself out of my body. I feel myself drifting, detaching—floating somewhere above the stone slab like some desperate guardian angel watching the scene unfold.
The problem is, the poor soul splayed out on the altar below, stripped of sight and sanity, blood seeping down her side… is me. And all I want to do is scream at this invisible version of myself: run, girl—get off the damn table.
But I can’t. I am completely incapable of moving, of fleeing, of doing anything other than lying here as some tragic offering. I must go through with this. Not just for Xan—even if the thought of him is anchoring—but for me. For the version of Mira that is clawing her way out of the ashes of the girl I used to be.
That old version? She is fucking gone. Buried somewhere beneath heartbreak, fury, and a stone altar slick with her own blood. What is rising now… is something else entirely.
Though I cannot see a damn thing, I feel someone standing over me. The air shifts—heavier, colder—and, without warning, a finger presses into the fresh wound on my abdomen.
A choked gasp escapes me. The pain is blinding—sharp and searing, a molten blade shoved straight into my gut. My back arches instinctively against the stone beneath me, trapped in stillness, strapped down—not by force, now by fear.
Every nerve in my body screams. It burns, it throbs, it boils. I clench my jaw, already dreading the fact that this was only the first… one down, sixteen to go. Sixteen more men. Sixteen more hands. Sixteen more trials by stirring fire.
If I survive until number five, I am convinced my insides are going to just spill out onto the floor like overcooked spaghetti. Yet—I stay. I endure. Because this is not just suffering.
It is the price of becoming someone no one will ever dare to touch without my permission again.
And comes the next one. Another faceless shadow stepping forward to take their turn. I brace myself, even if it is useless. The pain hits again—sharp and invasive—like the first time.
I keep waiting for the adrenaline to kick in, to work its magic and numb the agony. Isn’t that how this is supposed to go? Body in shock, mind floating away somewhere safer?
Sadly, my body is clearly too stubborn, or too aware. Every nerve is awake, on high alert. The sting does not dull at all—it multiplies, spreads. I am starting to think I will feel every goddamn one of them as if it was the first. Again and again.
When the next figure approaches, I count—eleven. This is the eleventh one. Which means there are only six more to go. Just six. I cannot believe it. The end is finally creeping closer.
For a moment, I genuinely thought Julian’s murder would be the peak of my life’s trauma chart. Like the defining moment of unbearable horror.
But oh, how na?ve of me.
Life—or rather, the Order—had other plans. Apparently, rock bottom has a basement. Here I am, spread out on a stone altar, bleeding, blindfolded, and being sampled like an hors d’oeuvre at a cannibalistic wine tasting.
And this man… this man takes his time. Excruciatingly so. I can hear his breath hitch as he leans closer, inhaling me like a dying deer, catching the scent of salvation. He finally exhales. A low, guttural sigh of satisfaction that snakes down my spine like liquid heat.
That is when I know.
It’s him. It has to be. The man standing over me, the only one reckless enough to savor this moment in the middle of a ritual soaked in blood and madness… is Xan.
His finger—god, his delightful finger—trails across my skin with agonizing patience, leaving fire in its wake. I shudder, the tremor starting at my scalp and rippling all the way down between my thighs, helpless to the way my body reacts to him, even now, especially now.
He draws a path along the dip of my collarbone while his presence devours me in silence. Every inch of contact with a slow-burning brand. He is trying to remind me who I belong to without saying a damn thing.
I feel his breath first, a predator savoring every heartbeat of the moment—warm and maddening—ghosting between the curve of my breasts. Then come the kisses.
He trails them down the center of my chest following a sacred map etched into my torso, and each one ignites a spark that threatens to set my entire soul in flame. My breath catches when he pauses just above the cut—my wound, my offering, my curse—I swear time halts with him.
He kisses there, right above the place where the pain still lingers. It is gentle, a twisted apology wrapped in affection. I do not know whether to cry or laugh or drag him up by the collar and scream at him for making me feel so much while I am still blindfolded and bleeding.
Of course it is Xan.
Only he would think this was the time for tenderness. Only he would make the abyss feel like home.
As he reaches the beginning of my wound, I feel it—his tongue. Warm. Slow. Sinfully deliberate dipping into the open slit of my skin, tasting divinity itself.
A sound escapes me. Barely audible, involuntary—and it yanks me out of the daze he is pulling me into.
What the hell is happening to me?
I can feel him—quite literally—drinking me from the inside out. The sensation is, without question, the strangest thing I have ever experienced… yet, somehow, it is also one of the most devastatingly satisfying. It is like every nerve in my core has been rewired to worship him at this exact moment.
There is no metaphor left—I am giving myself to him, blood, body, and soul. No games, no illusions. Just me, laid bare and bleeding on a slab of ancient rock with him feasting on my surrender.
A part of me never wants this euphoric ritual to end. God help me, all I want right now is to grab his hand and take him back to my room like some delirious lunatic, just so he can show me what else that sinful tongue of his is capable of.
If it can turn agony into pleasure with nothing but a flick against torn flesh, I can only fantasize about what it does when the stakes are not about knives and ceremony, but lust and indulgence.
Forget demonic rites and hard stones—I want soft sheets, locked doors, and his mouth tracing paths that have everything to do with pure desire. I want to trade the chill of this boulder for the burn of his skin against mine.
His mouth finds the hollow of my throat, tongue tracing slow, possessive patterns as though he is branding me with every stroke. I arch beneath him, helpless against the ache building in my pussy. My breath stutters when he bites down, just hard enough, and I swear I could unravel from that alone.
His hand tightens around my chest, teasing, wanting to hear me beg. Geez, I might. The warmth of his breath against my skin is unbearable, each exhale a whisper of promise I am desperate to believe. I do not know if I want him to stop or to ruin me completely. Maybe both. Maybe that is the point.
He dips lower, dangerously close to the place Lucian carved into me, and I brace myself for another taste of that torturous euphoria.
However, the moment his tongue brushes against my wound again, a low, mocking chuckle escapes his mask. It is subtle—barely more than a breath—but it coils through the air like smoke and freezes something in me.
That laugh… it’s wrong. Too smug. Too self-satisfied.
A slow dread crawls up my spine. The sound does not match Xan—there is no warmth in it, no reverence. It is only cruel.
My breath hitches.
Oh my God.
That is not him. That is not my monster.
Whoever it is, he is enjoying this way too much.
The hand on my breast grows rougher, more mechanical, squeezing as if testing ripeness. My body lights up in a surge of raw, red flares.
This is officially not Xan.
The pressure of the glove shifts, and there is no warmth left. No pulse. Just cold leather and a stranger’s breath, panting hard against my stomach, my pain fueling him. My chest tightens as panic claws its way through the haze of heat and confusion.
That delicious, dangerous thrill was not desire. It was deceit. The man consuming me—the one I had given myself to in blind devotion—is not Xan.
It’s Kayde.
And he has been feasting on me, devouring what was never meant to be his.
I try to sit up, but the searing burn in my abdomen reminds me in the cruelest way that my stomach has been deliberately split open like a sacrificial fruit. I’m trapped. Pinned by pain, by fear, by the horrifying realization that I am not in control of a single goddamn thing. Terror crawls up my spine, wraps around my throat, and squeezes.
Desperate, I tear off the blindfold, my fingers shaking, slick with sweat and blood. I wish I hadn’t. Hovering just inches above my face stands a masked demon. It stares down at me with a tilt of amusement, watching me squirm beneath its gaze, a trapped insect under glass. There is no mercy in those eyes. Just… hunger. And devastating delight.
As if the horror was not enough, he lifts a gloved finger to his mouth and makes a soft, slow shushing motion—shhh. My blood runs cold. My breath catches mid-scream. I am paralyzed. Not by his face, but by the sick pleasure curling at the corners of his hidden grin.
God, I want Xan to turn around.
To just feel it—some strange, cosmic pull in his gut that screams something is wrong. I want him to shatter the silence. To break rank. To come storming through this ritual like some furious dark knight and rip the wolf right off my body with those blood-stained hands of his.
Sadly, nothing.
No hint of that wild instinct he always seems to have when it comes to me.
I guess—for once in his entire maddening, defiant existence—Xan Hayes has decided to follow the rules.
And I have never hated obedience more in my goddamn life.
“Please… stop, Kayde,” I whisper, my voice barely audible—meant for him and him alone. “I belong to Xan. And you know damn well that the moment he finds out what you did to me… He is going to tear you apart.”
I can see the glint of silver in Kayde’s eyes narrowing behind his mask—a cruel smile practically bleeding through his voice as he lets out a soft, mocking laugh.
“You know, Mira,” he murmurs, tilting his head with theatrical pity, “Xan will not always be there to swoop in and save his little damsel. Sooner or later, you will have to learn how to stand on your own… big girl boots and all.”
His hand snakes down, fingers tracing the inside of my thigh with an infuriating slowness, and I shudder against my will.
“From where I’m standing,” he whispers, leaning closer until I can feel his breath, “you didn’t seem upset at all earlier. In fact… I would wager you might be a little curious what it is like when the wrong man touches you just right.”
My hand lashes out before I even register the decision—a brutal slap cracks through the thick, suffocating silence of the chamber. The sound echoes like a gunshot, yet his head barely turns from the impact. Instead, I watch his chest rise with the fury that coils before it strikes.
In one swift motion, his gloved hand closes around my throat, ice-cold and merciless. He lifts me effortlessly, my back arching as the pressure tightens. My legs scramble against the altar for leverage, for air—for anything. Panic surges as I claw at his grip, the edges of my vision fuzzing while I gasp, desperate to reclaim the breath his wrath is stealing from me.
Just as my eyes roll back, the whites taking over like a curtain call on my consciousness, I feel Kayde’s grip suddenly vanish. My body drops like a dead weight off the altar, hitting the floor with a sickening thud. The jagged rim scrapes down my leg, tearing my skin wide open, but I am too dazed to scream.
I gasp, every inhale a struggle, forcing my eyes to open just enough to catch a glimpse—not of Kayde’s triumphant face above me, but of… nothing. Just the rumble of something crashing behind me. The heavy sound of a human crumpling.
I don’t know what just happened. However, for the first time since this nightmare began, I am not the only one bleeding.
It’s in that moment—through the haze of pain and panic—that I see him.
Xan.
Standing tall and breathless over Kayde’s twitching, crumpled body. In his hand, gripped tightly, is what looks like the shattered remains of an antique plaster statue, white dust still drifting from the impact.
I want to run to him, throw myself into his arms, bury my face in his neck and cling to him. He is the only solid thing left in a world that is falling apart.
I want to thank him over and over, kiss him until the pandemonium melts away—until I can believe I am safe. Nonetheless, my body won’t move. It is nailed to the ground.
That’s when I feel it—the hot, sticky warmth pooling beneath me. The edges of my vision blur, and a cold realization settles in my chest: I am losing too much blood.
If I do not hold on… I might not make it long enough to tell him how much I needed him.
Everything feels so… far away.
Muted. Like I am watching myself from somewhere else, floating just above this bleeding, broken corpse…
“Fuck, Mira!”
His voice slices through the. Xan falls to his knees beside me, and suddenly, the world crashes back into focus—all just agony and trembling limbs.
I blink slowly, barely able to move my head. At least I can see him.
The way his hands hover inches above my body, terrified to hurt me more. The frantic way his chest rises and falls, like he has forgotten how to breathe. The way he whispers my name again and again, as if it is both a question and a plea.
“Mira… no. No, no—please!”
His voice breaks. Not cracks. Breaks as his entire soul is crumbling from the inside out.
I want to reach for him. I want to tell him I am still here—barely, but here. My lips are too dry, my throat too raw, and the blood loss has turned my limbs to stone. I can feel it leaving me.
Life. Warmth. Color.
My fingers twitch. That’s all I can manage. It is enough to catch his attention. His eyes meet mine through the holes in his mask.
A mask I have seen in dreams, in nightmares, in memories I tried to bury.
This time though… he looks scared. Not for himself. For me. His whole body is shaking now.
“Don’t—don’t do this to me, baby,” he cries. “I’m here. I’m here, little fox—just stay with me. Please, fuck!”
I realize the cold. The slipping.
Air barely comes. My vision darkens around the sides. I cannot hold on much longer. The panic wells up in my chest like a tidal wave that never breaks.
“I…” I breathe, lips barely moving. “I don’t want to die, Xan.”
He freezes.
For one heartbeat—maybe two—he does not move at all. Then slowly, shakily, Xan reaches for his mask. His fingers hesitate.
He is afraid.
Afraid of what I’ll see.
Afraid that it is too late.
Afraid that if he takes it off, this moment will be too real.
With a shuddering exhale, he pulls the mask from his face.
I finally see him.
His hair is wild, damp with sweat and speckled in blood. His jaw is clenched like it’s the only thing holding him together. And his eyes—God, his eyes—are gorgeously devastated.
There is a tear trailing down his cheek, carving a path through the dirt and blood like it has nowhere else to go. He looks at me as if he is watching the sun die.
“Mira… I love you.”
It is not a declaration. It is a surrender. A truth he has held for too long. It lands between us with the weight of everything we never said.
I try to answer. I try so hard. Instead, I give him the only thing I have left—My gaze.
Full of everything I did not get to say.
My apology.
My goodbye.
My love.
I look at him.
One last time.
His face swimming in tears and horror and desperate, desperate love.
To nothing.
The world slips from beneath me like sand between fingers, and all that remains is silence.
But somewhere—in that last, flickering second—I hold onto that voice.
That whisper.
That vow.
Mira… I love you.
The End.