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M y spine straightens as Rhys—fucking finally—takes his place, shoulders squaring beneath the crimson drape of my robe. A sigh gusts past my lips, the scorching brands glowing in my periphery. Time to get this grisly farce over with.

Pulling the ornate ritual dagger from its sheath at my hip, I turn to Briar’s helpless form splayed across the cold slab. Despite my misgivings about this entire charade, the sight of her barely-conscious and trembling sends a thrill sparking down my nerves. Stubborn defiance still blazes in those hazy depths sputtering open, fuelling the fire simmering low in my groin.

With gentle movements, I grasp the hem of that flimsy shift, steel gliding through fabric like a hot knife through butter. The delicate material parts around Briar’s nude form, goosebumps erupting across her skin in the chill air. Those pert tits jiggle enticingly with each shallow breath. Clearing my throat to dispel the sudden tightness, I adjust my grip on the dagger’s hilt and roll up my sleeve.

The razor edge bites into flesh, welling crimson up the length of my inner arm. White-hot pain lances through but I welcome the agony with gritted teeth. Feels appropriate— penance for the sins I’m about to commit against this innocent lamb laid out in sacrifice.

Flexing my fingers encourages rivulets to trickle forth and snake down my wrist, dripping down onto the altar beneath. Rhys watches in stoic silence through the slits of his basilisk mask, impenetrable as ever. Hayes shifts his weight in clear agitation, the bull visage concealing any gleam kindling in those honey depths.

I don’t need to look at Jace to envision the naked desire smouldering in those emerald eyes, that pretty mouth hanging open like the cockslut he is. The depraved mongrel has been panting after this prize since Hansley first told us about her months ago.

Thrusting the dagger to Jace, I watch his trembling grasp curl around the hilt greedily. The flicker of his tongue wetting his lips is telling—the sick bastard gets off on the slick slide of steel through flesh, I’d wager. There’s a reason Caldwells were bred for poisons and concoctions. Absolute degenerates, the lot of them.

Jace passes the blade to Rhys once he’s left his own sluggishly-weeping brand across one pale forearm. I don’t miss the tension rippling beneath Rhys’ facade as he completes the third cut with ruthless precision. Not a flicker of emotion bleeds through as he hands the blade to Hayes, but something unreadable glitters in his eyes, giving me pause.

Rhys has always maintained arrogant detachment when upholding the Order’s depraved mandates during official duties, regardless of his vocal stance in private. But perhaps beneath that icy veneer lurks a sliver of infatuation for this one he’s not fully embraced yet.

Fascinating.

I’ll explore that unexpected wrinkle more thoroughly at a later date. For now, more pressing matters demand my concentration. Trailing bloodied fingertips down Briar’s ribs, I lean close enough for the nose of my mask to nearly brush her flushed ear.

“Do you understand what’s happening, drahu?ka?” I murmur, the rasp sawing through the heavy silence like a serrated knife. “This is more than indoctrination or empty pageantry. No—from this point, your very existence, your beating heart and each rasping breath, belongs solely to us.”

With a flick of my wrist, I splatter glistening beads across Briar’s flesh, earning a faint shudder. Goosebumps erupt, those rose-tipped breasts pebbling in the chill air. The sight kickstarts my pulse, the beat thrumming with urgency against my jugular.

Fixing my stare on the swell of her parted lips, I draw a steadying breath before intoning the first vow. “As heir to the bloodline, I, Romulus Whitlocke, begin this pledge of our blades, our fortitude, and our very existences as eternal safeguards to this vessel offered.”

With motions drilled since adolescence, I collect a dollop of half-coagulated crimson welling along my inner wrist.

“We accept the humble offering of this unchained spirit into our exclusive covenant. Offering her fealty and the fertile promise of her unblemished vessel in return for our lasting protection, both corporeal and spiritual.”

Briar remains inert as I reach out, dragging a fingertip along her inner thigh. Lips purse around a shuddering exhale as I slowly etch the sinuous interlocking swirls of my sigil into her flushed skin—each filigree darkening to garnet beneath the morbid caress of bloodied digits.

A tremor races through Briar’s prone form, whether from the waning drugs or stirrings of instinctive rebellion, I cannot say. My gaze drops back to those full breasts, palms itching to splay across them, to knead until she mewls raw.

Heavy silence hangs stagnant as I shift focus to the three stoic figures flanking the altar. With a nod, their masks dip in synchronicity as they pick up the ritual. It’s a modified version, but the words matter not in the grand scheme. Briar will still be ours regardless of whatever pageantry the Purefires want us to spit out.

“I, Rhys Zeno Marston, shall carve her path through the flesh of any who imperil her sanctity,” Rhys rumbles, ever pragmatic. “For her survival is paramount beyond mortal constraints.”

I observe as he gently rolls Briar onto her stomach, adding his emblem. Aristocratic features remain locked in inscrutability, concealing the tempestuous riptide churning beneath in regards to permanently branding his ownership alongside my own. The Marston emblem winds along her nape in slick crimson, spanning the taut collection of muscles guarding her spine.

Jace’s contribution is typically lascivious, tongue darting out to lave his lip with relish. “I, Jace Corvin Caldwell, shall bask in each cadence of her rapture as her succour and instrument of pleasure forevermore.”

His lips part, tongue swiping the seam before snapping to the quarry spread bare before us. With smooth motion I rarely see outside training, his palm cradles the flare of Briar’s hip, smearing a rivulet along the divot above her firm ass.

My lips purse in fleeting disdain as he sketches the Caldwell crest against her skin, each spidery whorl feverishly beckoning forth fresh arousal pooling in my loins.

Of course, leave it to Hayes to be the steadfast voice of duty. Squaring broad shoulders on an exhale, he recites the next line with an undercurrent of regret. “I, Hayes Deimos Lockewood, shall stand as the ultimate aegis of her vessel, no matter the sacrifices required.”

My lips peel back in a silent snarl when Hayes moves closer to gaze down at Briar’s helpless face. His palm ghosts along her cheek, cradling her slack features with a tenderness that has my stomach clenching in bitter displeasure. Why does the mere sight of such an apparent non-threat make me seethe with a possessive jealousy?

I swallow hard, barely registering the moment he completes his sigil in an elegant curlicue across her opposite hip, a depraved mirror of Jace’s. All our hallowed birthrights now branded into the girl’s lush, naked canvas, an archaic declaration of the impending desecrations to come.

Flicking my wrist sprays another glistening fan of crimson over Briar’s exposed back, the droplets wending paths down her quivering sides. A shift in cadence signals we’ve reached the closing refrain, my lips curling into a grim smile as I deliver the chilling promise in perfect sync with the others.

“I pledge fealty as your guardian, your ravager, your punisher—now and until your physical form ceases. By the blade’s kiss, I lay eternal claim to the tangled skeins of your existence, from this breath to your last. By dagger’s edge, I claim privileged inheritance of your bounty. Your flesh is our canvas, our blood the ink,” we vow in haunting unison.

Our combined voices thrum through the cavernous chamber like a death knell. This ritual is her true indoctrination, binding one soul to ours for eternity.

What a bunch of shite.

Oppressive silence stretches taut in the wake of our ominous pledge, tension crackling through the stale air like electricity. A robed Sentinel materialises at my elbow, arms laden with four embossed brands glowing crimson from the ceremonial braziers. With a nod, he presents the array of ornate sigils to each of us.

Rhys accepts his heirloom burden first with a shallow dip of his chin, eyes glittering through the slits of his mask as the intricate Marston crest exchanges hands. Hayes’ posture stays ramrod straight while grasping the Lockewood emblem, the carved bull horns glowing orange at their tips.

I force my attention from scrutinising his disquieting body language, snapping to Jace’s eagerly extended palm as the Caldwell’s notorious spider sigil slithers into his grasp. The reprobate doesn’t even attempt to temper the illicit hunger in his every mannerism. No doubt fantasising unforgivable depravities to subject our captive to once the formalities are done, the twisted son of a bitch.

Bracing my palms against the altar’s chilled edge, I inhale air thick with smouldering resin before closing my fingers around the familiar weight of my own branding iron. A raging furnace erupts in my core, waves of grim purpose searing through me as the Whitlocke’s chimera emblem settles in my palm. An unholy melding of savage lion, goat, and snake—the culmination of generations’ worth of meticulous machinations to breed the ultimate instruments of silence and death.

Muscles cord with grim anticipation as we share a weighted glance, silently bracing for what we’re about to commit. No turning back once our birthrights are emblazoned into this girl’s tender flesh. No shred of innocence will remain once the searing kiss of those brands seals her fate forever.

As if moving with one mind, four indrawn breaths rasp through the chapel as we raise our sigils towards Briar’s vulnerable, prone form. Flicking my tongue over parched lips, my thumb lightly traces the freshly-scored path of Whitlocke symbology etched in smeared crimson along her inner thigh. I fixate on the gentle rise and fall of those toned shoulders, mesmerised by the shivers racing through her muscles with each wheezing breath past parted lips.

My gaze sweeps over every plush feminine curve shamelessly bared to our ruthless appraisal. Those round asscheeks swell deliciously, waist dipping into an hourglass, demanding thorough and unhurried exploration. What I wouldn’t give to drag my tongue in languid swirls over the graceful column of her throat, to sink my teeth into the yielding swell of her breast while she writhes beneath me. Desperate mewls muffled into my shoulder as I revel in every sobbed breath and hitched gasp, fingers threaded through her hair…

A subtle ripple through Briar’s back is the only warning before her body contorts, muscles seizing in violent spasms as strangled noises gurgle up from deep inside. I react on instinct, the brand pressing into the meat of her thigh while my free hand fists in her tangled waves, immobilising her head. The acrid reek of terror and agony gusts out in a scalding wave, her muffled shrieks echoing as all four brands descend in tandem.

My spine stiffens as I bare gritted teeth, jaw clenched with the strain of restraining her thrashing form alongside the others. Inflammation radiates from where the sigil’s searing grooves indent flesh, the unmistakable stench of burnt meat and ozone singeing the air. Briar’s body goes rigid, spine arched in a rictus of torment bordering on obscene as those dazed eyes roll back.

An explosive snarl of effort punches up my throat, every muscle protesting the strain of pinning down these convulsive throes. Mercifully, Hayes is first to tear his brand away with a guttural rasp, hastily throwing the molten metal aside with a clatter.