Page 30 of These Eternal Bones

The Devil Was Just a Man

Molly

For the next week, we don’t come up for air.

I take all my meals in his bed, nude and swathed in fine silks.

Elric learns every inch of my body, nibbles, and tastes my soft expanse of flesh.

Never in my life have I felt a heat like the one that has been born inside me.

A never-ending impulse to be devoured. Each feeding leaves me breathless and soaked through, each look just the same.

If I thought I had his adoration before, I had been so entirely clueless.

The hot water is almost too much as he drags it over my flesh, the cool brush of his fingers a welcomed reprieve from the bath…from everything th at had come before it.

My attention turns to him as he studies my flesh. I had never had much of a tolerance for pain. Seeing myself wounded had never brought me any joy, but the evidence of his attentions is littered across my flesh and–

My cheeks flush deeply as his thumb traces one bite close to my core.

I think…I have never felt more beautiful than I do right now, covered in his bites, light bruises from his tendrils, and scrapes from his claws.

His mind should seem quieter, but…I fear it is louder than ever.

I cannot tell what is going on inside those intense obsidian pools when he looks at me, but the soft, reverent smile on his lips tells me it’ll be fine.

Still, there’s something I’m missing, some part of me is left hollow despite my heart having never felt so full.

I can’t place the exact moment I fell in love with the Vampire of Port Clyde, the moment I decided I wished to stay with him…

perhaps it was that first snow, perhaps far sooner.

My hand captures his, tangling our fingers together under the steam of the water.

Perhaps it has always been this way. It should alarm me to feel so attached to a man with so many secrets, but I only wish to drown myself in him entirely.

Without fear, without reservation, that is how I wish to be loved, how I wish to love him in return.

But still…

“What is that look in your eyes?” I whisper. “Your veins are dark again.”

He sighs, and I can feel it the moment he decides on a half-truth. “These scars…I wish to know how they ended up on my mate.”

My mate.

It is something he has taken to calling me lately. It feels right.

A mate.

I suppose that would make him mine as well .

The water trickles around me, beads rolling off my skin as I pull my knees to my chest, resting my chin on them. “It’s not a pretty story.”

My hair is heavy as he shifts it from my back, revealing the full expanse of my shame. “There is nothing about you I would not find beautiful, even if it fills me with rage.”

Rage.

Yes. I suppose that’s fitting.

“I only ask that you try not to be too horribly angry then. It was simply the way of things. My home…the people there, we deeply worshipped our God, but above him, there was a man–”

His hand tightens on the tub, bending the metal, but I continue, the words suddenly spilling like vomit from my throat.

“He wanted to build a new people, a new horizon, a utopia for God on earth so that when he came again, he would not be so disgusted by the plight of man. He would ascend his chosen children to heaven, to a paradise…if only we could remain pure, atone for our sin. I had a great many sins to atone for.”

“You were whipped.” The growled words send prickles over my skin. They sound like an accusation, a warning, making what comes next feel even worse.

“Not by anyone’s hand, but my own. I was not the only one, of course, we all atoned, but…I thought…I thought I could bleed my doubt, that if only I could apologize to God, he would free me from it, that I could think like the others. I could simply be content in the life that was laid before me.”

His hand is light as he touches my back, my eyes glued to his reflection in the water, knowing that once I turn toward him, the soul deep sorrow on his handsome face I see now will be veiled again .

“What you found in the woods was a runaway bride. I was next in line to accept our leader, Joseph, into me. To bring another life into New Eden.”

“The scar on your finger…”

“A ring, a vow to a monster, a true one. One that had no fangs, magic, or could not shapeshift into a fox. He was not bronze, nor was he special. He was just a man, filled with delusions of lust and greed. I was to be his–” I choke on my words.

The weight of speaking this out loud, breathing its vile nature into this space that had been so warm… so loving, makes my stomach churn.

My tears spill over quicker than I can blink them away as Elric leaves my side.

I realize I don’t truly want to hide them at all, that here it feels okay to cry.

The feelings are not bursting from me because I give myself permission to feel them, however horrible.

My eyes find his as he lowers himself into the bath, his pants getting soaked while his chest remains bare.

His hands are icy, wonderfully so as he grips my face between them, bending in front of me, fitting his colossal frame inside with ease.

A sob works free from my chest because, for a moment, there is no veil.

For a moment, I see it, the grief, agony, and sorrow in his eyes.

I hear the intense truth behind his words when he speaks.

“You were never going to be his; your heart, your soul, as always, rested safe with me. Those parts of you remain untouched.”

My tears pour from my eyes, my chest hiccupping as he runs his thumb along my lips, making no move to wipe them away. He doesn’t try to hide my tears as they fall. He sees them, each one without annoyance or apprehension.

“There is not a plane of this realm in which I have not loved you, Molly.”

It’s just words strung together beautifully. A simple enough statement, but it has changed me .

“I think,” I sniffle. “That I felt no love for the others because it had always been reserved for you. I do not possess enough in me to have shared even a fraction of it.” I melt as he tugs me into his arms, humming that familiar song that makes my heart flutter.

He doesn’t respond; he doesn’t have to. I have never known something so tangible, so confidently, as I know his adoration for me.