Chapter 5 #2
The ground changes beneath me: stone to soil, soil to moss.
A low drum begins to throb somewhere ahead, steady as a heartbeat.
The forest hums. I hear whispers, rustling fabric, the clink of metal.
Then I’m lifted–arms spread, legs pulled apart—pressed against something rough and cold.
Hard. It bites into my back as the ropes pull tight, binding me open to the forest around me.
It’s cold, winter is quickly approaching, and nothing but thin cotton protects me from the elements.
My blindfold is ripped off, and then the gag. I blink, taking in the firelit darkness around me. This isn’t the ceremonial circle from the hunt; this is somewhere new. Different.
I’m surrounded by men, the Shadows dressed in robes, faces covered in bone. I search for my King. For my husband.
“He’s not here.” The voice is clear, but with an edge, like a razor. Hunter. “There’s no one here to save you this time. No rules or contracts. No impending wedding. You’re ours now, Baroness.”
These men–boys, really are angry and betrayed. A shiver runs across my skin.
One steps forward, boots quiet on the dirt, his entire face covered in a death mask.
“Do you know why you’re here?” I know this voice now as well as my own. It’s low and bitter, like I’m not worth the time.
“For penance,” I whisper. “For the fire.”
“And what do you seek, Arianette Hexley?”
My throat trembles. “Absolution.”
“There’s no such thing as absolution,” Damon says with authority. “There’s life and death.”
“Rebirth,” I muster. “That’s what I want. Please.”
He shakes his head. “You think you deserve that? Another chance? Another life?” Damon paces, the firelight rising behind him.
He’s different from the night of the hunt.
He’d been nervous then, I can see that now.
Unsure of what he was getting into, if he was truly Baron material, but that unease is gone, replaced by a terrifying confidence.
The House of Night has changed all of us, but Hunter and Damon? They’ve become true Barons.
“I owe it to you.” Life and death. Ash and fire. These are the ways of the House of Night. Of the King’s people. My people. That night of my Black Wedding, they accepted me. The day after, my men used me. “I will do whatever I need to make you trust me again.”
There’s a crack in the distance–a branch, or maybe it’s a spark from the fire.
I can smell the resin from torches, the musk of the masked men forming a circle around me, the hem of their robes grazing the ground.
My chest rises and falls too fast. I want to be brave, but my body betrays me, shivering against the ropes.
Damon strides toward me, eyes glinting from behind his mask.
He stops inches away, close enough for me to catch the faint scent of alcohol on his breath.
His hand reaches out, fingers grazing my chin before dropping to my waist. He pushes up the thin shirt, exposing my breasts, those dark eyes focused on my nipples.
My flesh tightens around the bars, from both cold and fear, from something deep and hot in my belly.
The piercings have finally started to heal and no longer ache painfully with every breath.
I glance down at his hands, where his fingers curl and tighten. Air catches in my throat, knowing that he wants to touch me, that he wants to test the metal, but he won’t and the rejection burns worse than his touch.
He yanks his hand away, but leaves my shirt rucked up to my chest, breasts exposed. “If you do this,” he says quietly, “there’s no turning back. No crying or begging for us to stop. You see it through, or you go back to rot in that cage.”
I don’t know what ‘it’ is, but I do know there will be no mercy.
“I told you, I’ll do whatever is necessary to fix this.”
To fix us.
These men think they can break me, well, too bad for them, I’ve already been shattered into a million pieces.
Damon steps back, giving Hunter the lead.
He holds a book in his hands. Black leather with yellowed, curling pages.
The pages flutter in the wind as he reads, voice heavy with reverence, “We gather for the ritual of Noctis Crucem, in a space sacred to the earth, to the King and to the Barons. It’s a place of holy sacrifice, where blood and body merge because, Arianette,” he looks up at me before continuing, “you not only betrayed the King, you betrayed all of us, the entire fraternal order. You set an imbalance between life and death, between the Barons and the outside world. To resolve this, you must prove your loyalty, you must cleanse the corruption taking residence in your essence, and most of all, we must restore order.” He takes a beat, Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat.
“It’s believed that the soul must be split open under darkness before it can be reforged in allegiance to the King. ”
He offers the book to Damon, open down the middle, split in two, just like he said. Damon cocks his head and reads, “By fire she fled, by night she shall return. The vessel emptied shall be filled again. Blood for loyalty. Flesh for vow. Soul for the King.”
The forest seems to lean closer, listening–waiting.
I close my eyes and inhale. “I’m ready,” I say, though my voice breaks, terrified of these men and what they can do. “Perform the rite.”
The men close in the circle–forty of them, plus my two Barons.
The air grows heavy, vibrating with the pulse of something ancient.
A silver urn is brought forward and placed upon a small stone altar at my feet.
The torchlight flickers against it, casting red-gold reflections that ripple over my skin like breath.
Hunter begins to speak again, his voice deep, unflinching, the cadence of scripture. “Each of you shall pour yourself into the vessel, a baptism of creation, so that Arianette and the House of Night may be healed, and be reborn with the seeds of Beta Rho Nu.”
Around me, the circle tightens. I wait for a weapon to appear, for the pointed tip of a blade, for blood to run.
Nearby, fabric rustles. Metal pentacles catch in the light.
I hear the murmur of oaths spoken under breath–some solemn, others shaking with fervor.
The sound builds until the forest hums with it, until the air tastes of iron and incense and men.
I swallow, realizing that this rite won’t be drawn of blood, not like the ceremony after the Hunt.
No, the weapon used here is not one made of steel, but one created entirely of flesh. Just as dangerous. Equally deadly.
I look to Damon and then Hunter as the first Shadow sheds his cloak completely, revealing his naked body. His hand wraps around his engorged length, and he strokes up and down his shaft.
They wouldn't let them defile me? Would they? Their Baroness?
The King’s wife?
Neither take notice of me, of the apprehension that ticks in my heart. The horrifying sense of control lost, again, of being surrounded by demons. All around me, the air thickens with heat and hormones, predators and prey, and then I hear it.
Them.
They’re breathing in sync, a living pulse that ripples through the clearing.
The sound is heavy and charged, threaded with reverence.
Every exhale feels intentional, every murmur an invocation.
They move close to one another, guided by instinct and ritual–touching, grounding, steadying each other’s hands and shoulders as if the act itself demands unity.
The Shadows, the ones that chased me through the forest, that assisted in the Barons hunting me–cornering me–they aren’t focused on me but on one another.
Big hands push the heavy cloaks off broad, masculine shoulders, letting them drop to the ground.
I watch, mesmerized as their long fingers trail down the hard lines of one another’s bodies, until they reach below–reaching for thick erections, fingers curling around stiff cocks.
I suck in a deep breath, belly twisting at the sight around me, at the forbiddeness of it all.
The Shadow closest to me, his mask made of ostrich bone, strokes his brother’s cock into a stiff erection using the skill of an expert, someone who is intimately familiar with the equipment.
There’s no fear here. No tentative touch.
He drags his fingers hard against the tip, and his partner bites his bottom lip, groaning, “Fuck, do that again.”
Next to them, three others make their own circle.
Two focus on a guy with a tattoo circling his bicep, wavy lines surrounding the Baron’s star.
The long, bone snout of his mask covers half his face, and antlers curl out of the top.
The two take turns worshiping him, using their tongues and hands, licking skin, spreading fluid, bringing him to the edge, and then back down again.
I’m caught off guard by the lack of shame here, but it also feels right. It’s like the night after the Fury, only this time I’m tied up. This is only the prelude; whatever is coming to me won’t be as pure. I know that.
I watch as the Shadow’s fingers dip low, vanishing between his brother’s thighs.
Whatever he does makes him grab onto the forearm next to him and grunt.
I’m reminded that there’s more to this than flesh and desire.
It’s what they’re offering, what this moment means.
To give. To serve. To be bound by loyalty and by the same current that binds me now.
He stumbles forward, cock fisted between his big hand, and he stands over the urn.
I don’t even notice the way my wrists burn from the ropes, or how cold the breeze is against my bare skin.
I watch him lean back, antlers glinting in the firelight as he brings himself closer, hand moving furiously over his shaft, until he groans, thick semen spilling against the curved bowl.
Hunter’s voice threads through it all like a low drumbeat. “Together,” he says. “Together, so that no man stands apart.” His words vibrate through the air, turning the forest into a cathedral of sound.
Damon answers him, softer, “For the King. For the House. For rebirth.”
And then the chant begins again–forty voices layered in rhythm, their unity a strange kind of beauty.
The air trembles around me. I feel the hum of them in my bones.
Their devotion is a tangible thing, brushing against my skin, making the night itself feel alive.
One by one, helped by their brothers, each man spills his seed into the urn.
I should be horrified, but instead I feel something else: a warmth between my thighs, slick wetness building in that heat.
My nipples ache, not from pain, not even attraction, but from being included in this rite.
I shouldn’t want this, but I do. I want to be part of this–to be part of them, and it only intensifies as the ritual reaches its crest. The final Shadow grunts as he comes hard, grinning up at the night sky as he wrings out every drop.
I look at Damon and Hunter, waiting for them to step forward, but their robes stay on, confirming they’re leading the ceremony, but not in it.
Somewhere within that silence, something sacred shifts—like the forest exhales.
Hunter speaks once more, voice low and final.
“We take this offering, this communion between brothers, and give it to our sister for completion.”
Please, I pray, to the night, to the gods or demons fueling this ceremony. Let me take this offering. Let me cleanse my soul. Let me be reborn.
He lifts the urn and takes it to Damon, who reaches behind his back and pulls out a large blade, eliciting a tremor that shudders down my spine. Maybe I was wrong about the weapons. Our eyes meet. “It’s time, Doll Baby.”
It’s the first time he’s called me that since the fire.
He holds the knife by the blade, the metal sheathed in leather. The hilt is crafted of three orbs carved out of a milky, blueish-white stone. The orbs are stacked smallest to largest. It’s obvious it’s ceremonial, meant for something other than cutting flesh.
Silence ripples outward, and the Shadows circle around me, their cheeks flushed and bodies spent.
I tremble against my bindings, the hardwood biting into my skin.
No one hears how my heart pounds like a drum.
The fear hasn’t left me–it never will–but beneath it, something else begins to stir. A strange, aching calm.
I whisper, half to myself, half for them, “I’m ready.”
Whatever happens next, I will endure it. I will be reborn.