Chapter 7 #3
Beside him, Skully arches backward, duct tape tearing as flesh floods his angular frame.
His tattoos crawl back across his arms like ink dragged by invisible hands, veins surfacing blue beneath pale skin.
His sockets blink into sharp, kohl-smudged eyes, pupils blown wide.
He stares down at his hands, flexes them like he can’t believe the warmth in his veins, and then smirks.
“Well, fuck me sideways. I’ve still got cheekbones sharp enough to kill a man. ”
And Marrow—dear God, Marrow. He doesn’t thrash or bellow.
He simply sighs as flesh pours over him like silk poured into a mold.
His ribbon binds, sinking into pale, haunted skin, his hollow cheeks sculpted back into something beautiful.
His lips—real lips now—curve into a small, reverent smile as he looks at me.
“Your gift remade us,” he murmurs, voice no longer smoke but velvet incarnate. “Blood, body, breath. Yours.”
I’m on my knees, shaking, staring up at them like some deranged priestess who prayed too hard and actually got an answer. My thighs are slick, my chest is heaving, and my soul is hanging off me like a ripped party streamer.
Not skeletons.
Not anymore.
Three men.
Three monsters wrapped in skin too beautiful to be real.
Bonehead is impossible to miss—he towers over me, shoulders broad enough to blot out the ceiling fan, chest heaving like a furnace.
His new skin glows golden-tan, already slick with sweat, stretched tight over muscle layered thick as tree trunks.
His thighs look engineered for sin, sheer power stacked on power, flexing every time he shifts.
A jagged scar slashes across his jaw, pale against the bronze, like his face got into a fight with gravity and won.
His hair is a tangle of dark blond waves, already damp and curling against his temples, boyish and messy in a way that doesn’t match his beast of a body.
And his eyes—oh God, his eyes—warm, reckless hazel, like summer grass set on fire.
They fix on me with head-damaged, brutal devotion, and for the first time in my life, I understand what it means to be worshipped by a man who would punch the moon out of orbit if I pointed at it.
Skully is the exact opposite, a live wire next to Bonehead’s battering ram.
He’s all long lines and razor edges, lean muscle stretched tight over a frame made for speed, for sin, for running down prey in dark alleys.
His skin is pale with an undertone like old smoke, the kind of complexion that looks good under neon lights at 2 a.m. Tattoos crawl up both arms, black ink twisting into flames, knives, broken lyrics, anarchy symbols—a mural of poor decisions I want to lick clean.
His hair is black streaked with a ghostly white slash through the front, messy and stubborn, like he lost a bet with bleach and laughed about it after.
Kohl rings his eyes, smudged into sinful shadows, eyeliner dragging his gaze into something predatory.
Those eyes—green, sharp, unnatural, toxic like absinthe in a cracked glass.
They don’t look at me. They consume me. He leans casual, all smirk and slouch, but everything about him vibrates hunger, like a string pulled taut that would sing my name if it snapped.
Marrow is a different kind of monster entirely.
He’s not brute, not blade—he’s beauty sharpened into a weapon of its own.
His hair falls in inky black waves to that perfect spot that can be both clean-cut but still look freshly fucked, glossy and too soft for someone who’s supposed to be just risen.
His skin is pale in that aristocratic way that doesn’t blush, only glows when candlelight finds it.
His mouth is soft and pink, lips parted as if he’s forever about to whisper something dangerous in a confessional.
His eyes stop me dead—dark, fathomless, so deep they could swallow a cathedral whole.
They shimmer faintly, like a wine-red shadow swims under the black, as if blood remembers it lived in him once.
He still wears the crimson ribbon I tied at his waist, cinching him cruel and gorgeous, veins of silk I wove into his body myself.
His chest is slim, carved smooth, his ribs visible when he breathes too deep, as though he’s still half-ghost, half-man.
And somehow, that makes him worse—better—because he looks like death dressed up as devotion.
They don’t look human. They don’t look possible. They look like sins sculpted for me alone. Gorgeous, terrifying, impossible. And mine.
My mouth goes dry. Then floods.
“Ohhh,” I whisper, giggling like a lunatic, “I’ve got a boy band of corpses and they’re all hot in completely different ways.”
Bonehead flexes, delighted. Skully rolls his eyes. Marrow kneels, flesh and blood and reverence, and takes my shaking hand.
“You are ours,” he says softly.
“No,” I correct, dizzy and grinning, “you’re mine. And you’re really. Fucking. Naked.”
And blessed by whatever kinky angel is in charge of dick size. Holy fuck.
Bonehead glances down like he just noticed he’s hanging out in the breeze, then beams like a proud golden retriever who discovered his own tail. “Big!” he crows, smacking his hip like he’s checking for spare change. “Big smash!”
I clap my hands over my mouth, squealing into my palms. “Jesus Christ, you’re a walking Monster Energy slash UFC ad with a porn subscription.”
Skully tips his head, grin sharp, eyes glittering under the mess of his hair. “Figures,” he drawls. “I come back from the dead and still end up in a sausage fest. Hell of a casting choice, sweetheart.”
“I can handle it,” I shoot back, eyes darting treacherously lower. Tattoos spiral down his hips, dark ink guiding my gaze like an arrow to something thick, mean, and already twitching.
His smirk widens. “Staring’s free, darling. Touching’ll cost you.”
“Oh my God,” I groan, tugging at my tangled nightgown, which Bonehead just rips off without any hesitation. “You’re all so fucking hot, I feel like I ordered you from a necromancy-themed Build-A-Bear. Except with dicks.”
Marrow’s hand circles my throat as he angles my head back, his lips ghost mine, every word a sin dressed as prayer. “Take us, October. Bind our bones, our flesh, our cocks, our hunger. Let us exist only in your heat.”
My pulse jackhammers. I feel two sets of hands exploring my body, my thighs, my tits, my folds. The circle still smokes beneath us, symbols glowing faintly like coals. The ritual’s not done. Not until I claim them.
I lick my lips, dizzy with power, drunk on lust, and grin like the world’s horniest witch. “Well. Somebody better put a warning label on necromancy, because this is about to get pornographic.”
Bonehead whoops like he won a prize. Skully groans, palming his dick. Marrow just tightens his grip on my throat, lips brushing my earlobe like he’s about to whisper poetry to me.
And me? I let loose a laugh; high, cracked, and wild.