Chapter 6 #2
I take her wrists and drag them above her head, the iron waiting where it always has been. Old chains, rust-bitter and cold, rattle as I lock her down to the altar. They bite against her skin, not enough to tear, but enough to remind her there’s no running now.
She trembles, chest rising sharp under the candlelight, but doesn’t fight. Doesn’t flinch.
Good.
Bending down, I pick her shirt up from the dirt and rip it clean down the middle, fabric splitting with a snarl of threads. A strip tears away easily, and I wind it around her eyes, blindfolding her in the dark I own.
She gasps, head tilting, lips parting like she wants to say something, but silence is all she gives me.
I lean close, voice scraping against her ear. “Tell me when you’re ready.”
For a beat, there’s nothing but her ragged breath, the rattle of the chains, the pulse hammering in her throat. Then, quiet, steady, breaking on the edges?—
“I’m ready.”
My grin stretches sharp behind the skull. “Good girl.”
And I begin.
I reach for the nearest stub of black wax, its base pooled hard against the altar stone. It’s burned low, guttering in the draft, but the fire still bites when I lift it. The heat singes my knuckles, makes the wax soften and swell against the rim.
I tilt it over her chest.
The first drop falls, hissing against her skin.
She jerks, a gasp tearing from her throat, her back arching hard off the altar.
Another bead follows, lower, sliding into the hollow of her ribs before cooling pale.
She bites down on her lip, but her thighs twitch apart, traitorous, her body giving me the truth her lips won’t.
“That’s it,” I murmur, letting the candle hover over her breast, close enough she feels the heat before the wax even drips. The praise comes out filthy. “Take it, bonepetal. Burn for me.”
I tip it again, deliberate, dragging a molten trail between her ribs, down her stomach, skipping to her hip, and finally letting a drop splash against the inside of her thigh.
Her hiss warps into a half-sob, half-moan, and she trembles, bound body writhing.
The smell—smoke, hot wax, scorched sweetness of her skin, fills the clearing.
“Why the wax?” she breathes, voice cracked thin.
“Because heat loosens hooks,” I growl, watching another droplet cling, quiver, and harden. “We melt the devil out of you. Burn him the fuck away. Every mark” —I smear my thumb through a cooling stripe, rough against her— “is mine now.”
Her chest heaves, nipples peaked, wax frosting her skin in jagged trails. She shifts, restless, thighs rubbing as if that’ll ease what I’m building.
When I’ve dripped her raw, I set the stub aside, its smoke curling like incense. My hand finds the feathers scattered at the altar’s edge. Black, their sheen oil-slick in the light. I drag one across her sternum, flicking against the hardened peaks of her breasts.
“Stay still, bonepetal.” The feather drags across my nipple like a whisper made of ash. “Let me see how soft your body goes when I touch it with something dead.”
The wax cracks, lifts in curls, peeling away to expose pink, tender skin beneath.
Her wrists strain against the chains, metal rattling as her body squirms under me. Lips parted, breath catching, a whimper spills out when the feather dips over the curve of her hip. I drag it lower, tracing the edge of her thigh, just shy of where she aches.
The tip flicks back and forth in lazy strokes, never enough, and she jolts like every nerve is lit raw.
I circle the feather close, then retreat, skimming it across her stomach, the underside of her breast, then back down, taunting.
Her thighs clench and tremble, trying to trap it, trying to force me where she needs, but I keep it just out of reach, savoring every twitch. The candlelight catches on the slick between her legs, a sheen I can see even in the dim.
The feather isn’t just tease.
It’s ritual.
The wax burns her clean, but the feather marks what’s mine. Soft and cruel in the same stroke, pain melted into pleasure, then brushed away, leaving her skin raw for me. Every time it skims her, it ties her tighter to me, threads her body into the rite.
I angle it lower, brushing the crease of her inner thigh, close enough that it ghosts against her heat without giving her the stroke she’s begging for. Her moan rips through the clearing, ragged, helpless, nothing like the sharp tongue she hides behind when she’s awake and armored.
I press the feather’s spine harder, dragging it slowly up the length of her folds, then flick away again before she can roll her hips into it. She gasps, body betraying her with every arch and shiver.
The feather gathers her slick now, wet glistening on its barbs, and I know that’s the truth of it, the binding made visible. Her want staining the feather, her body surrendering proof that she’s mine, that no devil gets to claim her. Only me.
My cock jerks against my zipper, hard enough I almost tear it open, but I force myself to watch her writhe instead.
Her whole body trembles, thighs parting wider despite the way she keeps jerking away from the heat.
I let the feather skim across her clit in one fleeting pass, just enough to make her cry out sharp and needy, then pull back immediately, smirking as her hips lift off the altar like they’re begging for it.
Her voice breaks. “Finn?—”
I twist the feather between my fingers, slick shining dark along its edge, and lower it back down slow. “Not yet,” I murmur, voice thick, aroused, cruel. “We’re not done yet,”
The knife comes last. Bone hilt. Teeth still ridged in it, gleaming like memory. The blade’s pitted edge catches the light as I set the flat against her throat.
Not cutting. Just pressing.
Reminding.
Her breath stutters. The sound makes my blood fucking sing.
“Finn,” she whispers. “What do I say?”
“Nothing yet.” My thumb slides down the hilt, steady, sure. “You don’t say a word until I tell you to.”
I drag the spine of the blade down between her breasts, over her heart, until it rests just above her stomach.
My other hand grips her throat, firm, unyielding, and claiming.
“This rite scorches him out of you,” I rasp, voice still grave-dirt raw. “Wax, blood, flame—it tears his claws from your skin. Leaves nothing but silence where he used to crawl.”
Her chest rises sharp, falls sharper. “And it will work? The devil won’t come for me?”
“It works,” I rasp. “You trust me, don’t you, bonepetal?”
Her silence is an answer. Her trembling is another.
Both are yes.
I catch the blindfold in my fist and slice clean through it. The fabric falls, and her eyes lock on mine, wide, wet, shining in the candlelight.
Perfect. I wanted this. Needed this.
To see her face when I make her mine all over again.
I unbind her wrists, the chains slipping to the dirt with a dull clank. Her hand trembles in mine as I slice her palm, shallow, precise. She gasps, but she doesn’t pull away. Then I turn the blade on myself. The cut is deeper, deliberate, and the burn crawls up my arm like fire gnawing on bone.
What seeps out isn’t right. Too thick. Too dark.
Black blood spills, slick and wrong, crawling over my skin like oil, proof of where I’ve been, of what I’ve become.
Her eyes widen when she sees it, fear flashing sharp. I smile behind the skull, cruel and proud. Let her see. Let her know.
Then I press our palms together.
Her red to my black.
Her warmth to my ruin.
The chains rattle, the candles lean, the world itself seems to pause as our blood mingles.
“Repeat after me, bonepetal,” I order.
“I release what hunts me.”
“I release what hunts me.”
“I refuse what is not mine.”
“I refuse what is not mine.”
“I take what is mine.”
Her voice shakes. She knows exactly what I’m making her admit.
“I… take what is mine.”
“Fuck, that’s pretty,” I snarl.
I raise our joined hands and breathe into the cuts, slow and deep, tasting her salt and iron. The tether hums in my veins like wildfire.
“Last part,” I murmur, voice breaking low. “Feather carries the wish, wax seals it, blood binds it, breath makes it live.”
I lay a black feather across our palms, dripping molten wax to seal it. She gasps when it bites into her skin. Shadows curl up from the altar as if they’ve been waiting for the cue, tendrils coiling across our arms, our throats, sliding down over her ribs.
The air shifts colder, wind cutting sharp through the trees, howling like wolves at the edge of the clearing.
The bond sears itself in.
Our blood. Our breath. Our fucking ruin.
She stares at it, terrified, and awed.
Perfect.
I drop the knife beside her head.
“On your knees,” I command, voice low, reverent and cruel at once.
Her eyes widen, throat working like she might argue, but she doesn’t. She moves slow, trembling, sliding off the stone until she kneels before me in the candlelight, bare skin streaked with wax, shadows coiling over her like a second shroud.
I unbuckle my belt, metal clinking sharp in the quiet, and drag the zipper down. My cock springs free, thick, veined, and already slick at the tip.
The air hits me cold, but the sight of her, waiting, trembling, eyes up, burns hotter than hell.
Her gaze climbs, mouth open, eyes wide with need, and for a breath she looks less like Salem and more like devotion made flesh.
“Open,” I rasp, fisting my cock.
Her mouth parts wider, obedient, and I feed myself between her lips. The heat of her tongue makes me groan, low and sharp, hips rolling as I grip the back of her head. She gags softly, tears brightening her lashes, but she doesn’t stop.
She takes me, eyes locked on mine through the skull’s sockets, every inch of her trembling and compliant.
“Good,” I growl, thrusting slow, deliberate. “That’s it. That’s the vow you broke being sealed back in your throat.”
She moans around me, the vibration shooting through my cock, making me shove deeper, harder, until I feel the fight give way to raw surrender. Saliva slicks her chin, dripping down her chest. My laugh rips free, guttural.