12. The Offering, Pt. II #2
“The initiate has entered the house,” my father says over her breathing.
“The house keeps what enters,” the witnesses answer, and I speak with them, my response perfectly timed. That may be the most unforgivable thing I do all night.
Helena does not bring another cup. She does not need to. The second measure is already working hard enough that Lorelei’s eyes lose Marcus before his body has fully left the room, her attention catching on movement, releasing it, then returning to me.
The blood claim continues. Rafe keeps his arm around her when I approach.
“If she disappears, you stop.”
Ordinarily I would object to the instruction on principle, but there is blood drying beneath my cuff, and I find I have very little interest in principle.
Lorelei reaches toward me before I answer, her fingers closing around my wrist, and Marcus’s blood transfers between us.
The contact lands in my body with a force that has nothing to do with violence.
Want survives, and that is the part I was not prepared for.
I expected disgust. I expected the rite itself to carry me through what remained because ritual has carried me through almost everything else.
I did not expect to still want her while Marcus was being removed through the side door.
Her thumb moves slowly against my wrist. Her focus drifts toward Rafe and returns.
“Cassian.”
I cannot tell what she means. I want to, and that alone should stop me.
Instead I touch her jaw, and blood leaves a faint mark where my thumb passes.
Lorelei closes her eyes and leans into my hand, and my body responds before morality can organize itself.
Hatred flares low in my chest, not for her but for the fact that desire survived what happened five feet away.
“The second altar receives what Communion has bound,” my father says.
The witnesses answer. Rafe does not release Lorelei, and I do not ask him to.
When she opens her eyes again, she reaches for the front of my robe.
The movement is slower now, but deliberate enough that I let myself use it as evidence.
There are several ways to interpret what she is capable of choosing at this point, and only one permits me to continue without confronting what the others would require of me.
I have used that logic already tonight, and repetition has not made it cleaner.
I kiss her, and she answers.
For several seconds the blood disappears from the part of my mind willing to think about it, though it remains tacky between my fingers and dry beneath my cuff.
Her hand tightens in my robe. Mine settles behind her neck.
Rafe steadies her when her balance shifts, and jealousy rises with such familiarity that I almost welcome it.
Jealousy is ordinary enough to understand, and it lets me look at Rafe instead of Marcus’s blood.
My father continues the liturgy while the witnesses answer less cleanly than they did at the beginning of the night.
Somewhere behind Lorelei, Marcus is carried through the side door.
I hear it and do not look. She does. Her attention drifts toward the movement until I touch her jaw and bring her back to me, and she comes willingly enough that I can use the word if I refuse to examine it too closely.
Tonight has already taught me how useful a low standard of proof becomes when I want the answer badly enough.
“Cassian.”
My name steadies something in me that should remain unsettled. Rafe’s hand shifts against her back when she sways, and Lorelei leans into the support without searching for him. She chose him first, knows where he is without checking, and still reaches for me. I take the contradiction greedily.
Her hand moves across the front of my robe and leaves a red smear behind. She notices it after the fact, staring at the mark as though the color has arrived without explanation.
“You’re bleeding.”
“I’m not.”
Her eyes move slowly from the stain to my face.
“Liar.”
The accusation is familiar enough that for an instant the annex gives me back the woman I know. Then her focus slips, and Rafe catches it before I do.
“Lo.”
She does not answer immediately. His arm tightens around her, and I watch her eyes find him, recognize him, then return to me. The delay is brief, but I notice it anyway.
Lorelei reaches for me before I can say anything. Her fingers close behind my neck, and I let that become my answer as I pull her closer.
There are more responsible interpretations available to me: the flower, the instability of her balance, the blood on both of us, the fact that Marcus’s name was spoken in this room minutes ago and his body has not yet reached wherever the house intends to put it.
I am aware of every one of them, and desire does not disappear because I inventory its objections.
That may be the ugliest lesson the house gives me tonight.
Lorelei presses closer and says my name again, and I stop trying to make wanting her respectable. The relief comes immediately, which only makes it worse.
The claim continues around us, physical now in a way the liturgy has been preparing the room to accept from the beginning.
I stay close because she keeps reaching for me, and Rafe remains close because without him her balance would fail long before her willingness does.
Every time she drifts, he brings her back, and every time her attention catches on him, I feel the same petty flare of resentment I felt while watching the first claim.
At least jealousy is familiar enough to inhabit without thinking about the knife.
Lorelei’s mouth finds mine again, and I respond more roughly than I intend. She does not retreat, and that matters too much.
The witnesses are no longer perfectly synchronized. Clothing has been discarded around the room, and bodies shift together in the candlelight while my father continues reading with the same measured cadence he used when Marcus was still standing. That constancy should be reassuring, but it is not.
Lorelei’s hands slide up my chest and catch at my shoulders, blood from her fingers leaving streaks across the fabric. She notices the marks, frowning at them with the delayed concentration of someone trying to remember when red became part of the evening.
“Did I do that?”
The question reaches somewhere I have been avoiding. I catch her wrist before she can touch the stain.
“No.”
She studies me. “Liar.”
This time the word has less bite, and I am grateful for that in a way that immediately disgusts me.
Rafe says her name when her knees soften, and she makes an irritated sound without looking at him.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not standing.”
“That seems dramatic.”
“You’re using both of us as furniture.”