Chapter 6 #3
When I’ve had enough, when my control is one ragged breath from snapping, I fist her hair and drag her up off her knees. She gasps, stumbling, but I twist her body and slam her forward over the altar.
Her bare chest meets cold stone, wax cracking across her skin as her palms slap down for balance.
“Leg up,” I snarl, hauling one thigh onto the slab. She obeys, trembling, spread wide and exposed, her ass arched high like the altar itself is offering her up to me.
I grip her hip, line up, and drive inside in one savage thrust. Her cry shatters the clearing, echoed by the crows exploding into the air overhead. The sound ricochets through me, hunger tearing loose.
I rut into her from behind, each snap of my hips slamming her against the altar, the rhythm obscene, merciless. Her body jolts with every thrust, the sound of wet flesh and stone groaning beneath us echoing like blasphemy.
My fist knots tighter in her hair, yanking her head back until her throat strains bare in the candlelight. Her moan spills out, broken and raw around my cock, and I drag her face higher, forcing her eyes to mine through the skull.
“Yeah,” I snarl, grinding deeper, burying myself in brutal strokes. “This is where you belong, bonepetal—bent over our altar, moaning on my cock like you were made for it.”
The shadows writhe, curling over her skin, coiling up my arms, like even the dark itself wants her pinned here while I take her back. My hand slides from her hair to her throat, thumb pressing steady against her pulse, her life pounding into my palm.
“Eyes open,” I growl, shoving harder, grinding into her. “Look at me through Nathan’s eyes. Feel him burn while you choke on the truth. He’s watching while I take back what’s mine. Watching while I fuck you the way he never fucking could.”
Her gaze locks to mine, pupils blown wide, candle fire trembling in them. Fury, hunger, fear, all tangled, all helpless, while I hammer into her with savage rhythm.
“Stop—” she gasps, but it isn’t real. Her nails scrape the stone, her voice breaking. “You’re sick, Finn.” Another thrust, another cry, and her tone twists, raw. “I hate you—I fucking hate you—” Her breath catches, words cracking into a moan she can’t choke back. “God—don’t stop.”
I pull out halfway, cock dragging slick over her folds, the swollen head catching her clit before I slam back in, deep enough to rock the stone.
Her scream rips the clearing open, echoing the crows screaming overhead.
My hand drops lower, fingers rough on her clit, rubbing circles to the same relentless pace.
She gasps, legs jerking wider, heels scraping for purchase on the altar’s edge.
Her moans rise higher, spilling ragged through the night as the wind howls, trees thrash, and shadows coil tighter around us, binding, sealing, and watching while I ruin her.
“Say it,” I snarl, driving into her harder, hips cracking against her ass. “Fucking say you’re mine.”
“Finn—” Her voice shatters on a moan.
“Louder.” My hand fists in her hair, wrenching her head back so she has to look through the skull. “Swear it. Swear you belong to me.”
“I-I’m yours.” It rips from her throat, broken, desperate, and raw.
“Good girl. Good fucking girl.” My thrusts turn brutal, the altar rocking under us. “Cum for me, bonepetal. Cum while you swear it’s me. The man who burned for you. The man who carved himself open and clawed his way out of hell just to fuck you back into being mine.”
Her body seizes around me, clenching hard, hot and wet. She breaks with a cry that rattles the trees, her cunt spasming on my cock, milking me like a curse.
“Say it again—say you’re mine,” I snarl, grinding deeper, forcing her to take every brutal inch.
Her head thrashes, hair damp with sweat, tears streaking down her cheeks. “I-I can’t—” The words crumble into a sob, but her body still strangles me tight, pulling me deeper.
“You can,” I growl, my hand bruising her hip. “Fucking say it.”
Her voice cracks, ragged and raw. “Yours—” A moan splits the word in two. “I’m yours—god—I’m yours.”
“Louder.”
“I’m yours!” she screams into the night, the sound torn from somewhere between rage and ruin.
That’s when I let go. My release rips through me, violent, unstoppable, her name strangled between my teeth as I spill deep inside her. Cum floods her, sealing the vow in her blood, her cunt, her fucking soul.
I hold her bent against the altar until my pulse slows, then drag out of her slowly, watching my cum leak down her thighs before I tuck myself away.
My blade glints in the guttering candlelight as I wipe it clean in the dirt, then lift my cut palm to my mouth, tongue dragging over the wound, tasting the black of me against her red.
Bitter, black. Proof.
Behind me, she chokes out words between gasps, voice wrecked and trembling. “What the fuck did you do to me, Finn?”
The way she says my name is half demand, half plea. I step closer, savoring the tremor in her voice.
“I bound you,” I say, voice low, thick with certainty.
Her eyes snap wide, rage slashing through the daze. “You—fuck—you can’t just do that to me.”
I chuckle dark, cruel. “Can’t? The elders used to whisper about it, remember? How a soul could be tethered. One to another. How the right rite could knot you tighter than blood or bone.” I tilt my head, shadows sliding with me. “They were half-right. I learned more than whispers down there.”
Her throat bobs, pulse frantic. “Down… there?”
“Hell teaches, bonepetal. Every scream’s a lesson, every burn a fucking scripture. I came back carved in knowledge. And this” —I lift our joined hands, the wax and blood seal still raw, the shadows curling at the edges— “this is mine.”
Her breath shudders out, fury twisting with fear. “But you—you don’t even have a soul anymore. You’re?—”
“Soulless?” My grin is jagged. “Maybe. But I don’t need one to tie myself to yours. That’s the trick they never told us—once there’s a soul inside you, even a shard, even a stolen piece, you get to stay. No veil. No grave. No fire dragging you back. And now your soul is in me.”
She stares like I gutted her, shock flooding her features before rage hardens them again. “You used me,” she snaps, voice cracking between betrayal and grief. “You fucking used me to crawl out of hell.”
I step closer, towering over her, my smile unrepentant. “No, Salem. I used what was always mine.”
Shadows climb higher, curling up her arms, licking over her stomach like proof she can’t deny. She flinches, shakes her head hard, panic and rage knotted together. “No. No, fuck you—don’t touch me.” Her voice cracks, then sharpens to a blade. “Stay back, Finn. I swear if you take one more step?—”
I move anyway, one deliberate pace, and she spins on me, eyes blazing wet.
“Don’t. Don’t you fucking follow me. You don’t get to bind me, break me, and then act like you own my next breath.
You don’t get that.” Her chest heaves, bare skin glowing in the candlelight, trembling but unyielding. “Not right now. Not after this.”
I let her go. For now.
But only because I want her to believe she still has a choice left.
She yanks her jacket on, zipper rasping loud in the silence, but it hangs loose over bare skin, nothing beneath it but the heat and wax left behind. Her hands shake as she fumbles with the sleeves, as if fabric could shield her from what just happened.
Then she’s moving, fast, and unsteady, boots crunching over leaves and stone as she stumbles down the hill.
The crows stir in the branches above, their wings splitting the night, their black laughter chasing her descent into the graveyard.
I stay where I am. Watching. Knowing the tether hums under her skin already, whether she wants it to or not.
I press my palm to the scar over my chest.
A minute won’t save her. Distance won’t save her.
She’ll come to understand soon enough.
She’s bound, and now, now she’s all fucking mine.