Page 38 of These Hallowed Bones (Bloody Desires #3)

I surged up from the chair, ripping my arms free.

Julian whirled toward me at the same moment the door to his workshop swung open.

Too slow. I caught his arm as he tried to jam the needle into me and smashed my face into his.

It was sloppy, but it was enough. Julian stumbled backwards, crashing into his shelves of solutions and organs, sending the jars cascading to the floor.

He screamed as the glass cut into him, letting the solution sting.

When Julian tried to push himself up from the floor, he promptly found Ezra’s heel on his neck. “I would stay down there if I were you.”

Julian gritted his teeth and turned to me, frantic. "You think he loves you? He doesn’t. This is trauma bonding. Do you really think he’ll just let you go when he’s done with you?"

"That’s what you got wrong,” I said, fighting to free my legs. “He's not my captor. He's my sanctuary. And he didn’t just choose me. We chose each other."

Julian's face cycled through confusion, hurt, rage, desperation. The fantasy he'd built, where I was some broken boy unworthy of Ezra’s attention, crumbled before his eyes.

"You're both insane," he whispered.

"No," I corrected, moving closer. "We're artists. And you're about to become our collaborative masterpiece."

I reached for a bone saw from his collection, testing its weight with my maimed hand. The tool felt good in my grip, my missing finger joint changing the angle but improving leverage.

Julian scrambled backward, not caring that he was crawling through glass and whatever preservation solution he used. "Wait. We can make a deal. Real partnership this time. I'll teach you my methods; you teach me yours. We can work together, the three of us."

"Too late for partnerships." Ezra moved to flank him from the other side. "You touched what belongs to me. Threatened what we've built together. There are consequences for that kind of presumption."

Julian's back hit the concrete wall, then scrambled to his feet. He tried to bolt up the stairs. Ezra's blade caught his Achilles tendon as soon as he passed the second step, dropping him with a scream. I caught his right ankle, the bone saw's serrated edge sliding between tendon and bone.

Julian collapsed, legs useless, crawling on ruined hands.

"Get him on the table," Ezra said, gesturing toward the nearest medical surface. "Strip him down. I want access to everything."

Julian tried to resist, but his severed tendons gave him no grip. We hauled him onto the stainless steel surface, his blood leaving streaks across the metal.

I began cutting away his expensive clothes while Ezra secured restraints around his wrists and remaining good ankle. Julian's designer suit fell away in tatters, revealing pale skin already mottled with bruises from our earlier violence.

"Much better," Ezra murmured, running his hands over Julian's exposed torso. "Now we can work properly."

I selected a scalpel from Julian's instruments, testing its weight in my maimed hand.

The tool felt natural despite my missing joint, as if made for this purpose.

Clarity descended over me, a sense of artistic certainty I'd only experienced once before—the night I'd destroyed the face of Christ in my triptych.

"I know exactly what to do with him, Daddy. He wants to be part of our work so badly. Let's make him our canvas."

Julian's eyes widened in terror as understanding dawned. "Wait—please—"

"Remember my thesis piece?" I asked Ezra, my voice calm and focused. "The one that first caught your attention. The one where I destroyed the face of Christ to reveal the void beneath divinity."

Ezra's smile was slow and appreciative. "Perfect symmetry."

I placed the blade against Julian's forehead, finding the hairline.

"He's spent years watching us, studying us, believing he understood what we do.

But he never truly saw." The first incision was shallow, precise, just breaking the skin.

Julian screamed. "So we'll take away his ability to see.

We'll take his face, just as I took the face of divinity. "

"No, please," Julian begged, tears streaming from the corners of his eyes. "I just wanted to learn from you."

"And now you will," I whispered, deepening the cut, working my way down the side of his face. "You'll become our lesson in humility."

Blood welled up around the blade as I worked, following the contours of his face—down the temple, along the cheekbone, under the jaw. Ezra stood opposite me, mirroring my movements on the other side, our blades moving and meeting with perfect symmetry.

"Look at his eyes," Ezra murmured as we worked. "He finally understands."

Julian's gaze darted frantically between us, the realization sinking in that he wasn't just being killed. He was being transformed, becoming the very thing he'd failed to understand. The ultimate irony, the final lesson.

Working together, we carefully separated skin from fascia, the layers peeling back with wet, sucking sounds. Julian's screams dissolved into gurgles as we methodically removed his face, exposing muscle, nerves, and blood vessels beneath.

"The student becomes the teacher," I said, working the blade under his cheek with the same care I'd once used to scrape away the painted face of Christ. "You wanted to understand our art? Now you're part of it."

With a final, careful incision, we lifted the face away—a mask of skin and features, still recognizable despite the blood and trauma. Julian lay beneath, faceless yet alive, his chest rising and falling in shallow, panicked breaths.

"The void beneath perception," Ezra observed, holding the removed face up to the light, studying it as one might a rare specimen. "Just as you revealed in your triptych."

I laid Julian's face carefully on a metal tray. "Not the holy, but the profane. Not divinity, but voyeurism. Same technique, different subject."

Julian made wet, desperate sounds, his exposed facial muscles twitching in grotesque patterns as he tried to form words without lips or cheeks.

"Your face was your lie," I told him as he struggled. "The mask you wore while you hunted. Now everyone will see what you truly are."

He croaked out a final word. “Yes,” perhaps, or even “Amen.” I couldn’t be sure which. But after, Julian's eyes clouded as he slipped away, his life—what little meaning it had—fading into obscurity.

But then Ezra’s eyes found mine across Julian's cooling body, and something else entirely took hold. The adrenaline, the violence, the desperate relief that we'd survived this threat all crystallized into raw need.

For a long moment, we just stared at each other, chests heaving, blood drying on our skin. The air between us charged with something electric and primal.

Ezra pressed me against the blood-spattered wall and claimed my mouth hungrily.

"Mine," he growled against my lips, his bloody hands fisting in my hair hard enough to make me gasp. "My boy. My monster. My perfect, deadly creation."

"My Daddy," I replied. “My teacher. My god.”

His mouth moved to my throat, teeth sinking in deep enough to break skin. I cried out as he marked me, warm blood trickling down my neck to mix with Julian's spray across my shirt. The pain sent electricity straight to my cock, making me hard.

"He tried to poison you against me," Ezra snarled, biting harder, leaving deep impressions in my flesh. "Make you doubt what we have."

"Never." I gasped, head thrown back against the concrete. "I know exactly what you are to me. What we are together."

His hand found my cock through my pants, squeezing hard enough to make me whimper. "Tell me."

"You're my salvation," I panted, hips bucking into his brutal grip. "My Daddy. My dark god, who saw my true nature and worshipped it instead of fearing it."

"And what are you?" He demanded, biting a line down my throat while his other hand tore at my clothes.

"Your masterpiece." I replied, the truth spilling out as he stripped me against the wall. "Your perfect weapon. Your beautiful boy who kills for you."

He spun me around suddenly, pressing my face against the bloodstained plaster. Ezra kicked my legs apart and yanked my pants and underwear down without further ceremony.

"Stay still." He commanded, the sound of his belt hitting the floor making me shudder. "Let Daddy claim what's his."

I braced against the wall, feeling Julian's blood streak across my chest, my arms, painting me in the evidence of our shared violence. When Ezra's spit-slicked fingers found my hole, I pressed back against him desperately.

"Fuck, you're still loose from this morning," he growled, pushing two fingers inside me immediately. "My good boy, always ready for Daddy's cock."

"Please, Daddy," I begged, shameless in my need. "Please fuck me. Mark me. Make me yours again."

His fingers scissored inside me, stretching me open, finding that spot that made me cry out. He added a third finger, twisting them until I was sobbing against the concrete.

"That's it. Take it. Show me how much you need Daddy's cock inside you."

When he pulled his fingers out, I whimpered at the emptiness. His thick cock pressed against my entrance, the head already slick with pre-cum.

"You're already mine." He growled, pushing inside me in one brutal thrust that made me scream. "You've always been mine. Julian just reminded us both why."

The stretch burned perfectly, my body yielding to his invasion. He was so thick, so hard, filling me completely until I couldn't tell where I ended and he began.

He fucked me against the wall, each thrust driving me forward into the plaster. Julian's blood smeared between our bodies, mixing with sweat and pre-cum and the tears streaming down my face from the overwhelming intensity.

His pace became punishing, the sound of skin slapping against skin echoing through the room. One hand gripped my hip hard enough to bruise while the other wrapped around my throat, applying just enough pressure to make my vision blur.