Page 33 of Wicked Vows (Cursed Darkness (DarkHallow Academy) #1)

Lysithea

H is question hangs in the air, a blade poised over my throat. The memory of the pain is a phantom scream in my bones. I don’t want to find out. I don’t want to feel that again. Ever.

My gaze drops to Evren’s hand, still a cold weight on my breast. His fingers are stiff, his touch a reluctant penance. He’s as much a prisoner in this moment as I am. This isn’t desire. It’s a ritual.

My body is a chessboard, and this book is playing a game with my nerve endings.

I look at Dathan, the self-appointed high priest of this new, fucked-up religion.

Then Verik, the architect trying to read the blueprints of our damnation.

Then back to Evren, the silent executioner forced to wield a blade of intimacy.

My monsters. My jailers. My protectors. The irony is a razor blade in my throat.

Slowly, deliberately, I lift my hand and place it over Evren’s. His skin is like marble. Cold, smooth, dead. I press his hand firmer against my breast, a silent act of capitulation. A surrender.

The roaring fire on my back fades to a dull, throbbing ache. The god is pleased.

Evren’s eyes close, a flicker of profound relief and self-loathing crossing his face. I’ve accepted his touch, and in doing so, I’ve damned him as much as myself. We’re all in this cage together.

The grimoire on the floor flips another page. The text is no longer red. It’s black, a simple, declarative statement.

You’re learning.

Learning. Learning how to play this manipulative game.

Evren’s thumb brushes over my nipple, and my gasp of surprise and pleasure causes the book to flip its pages in excitement.

“Ugh!” I spit out and shove Evren’s hand away, pulling the duvet up to my chin again. “That thing is a pervert!”

“Told you,” Dathan says with a smirk.

“The oldest rituals always involved sex and blood,” Verik says from over by the window. It has healed, but the hellfire architect is standing guard, it seems. “Expect a lot more of the same because that book is ancient.”

“I’d rather burn,” I spit, the words laced with a venom I don’t feel entirely. A part of me, a dark, traitorous part, hums with a low, dangerous curiosity.

The book on the floor isn’t amused. Its single eye is fixed on me with a hungry, leering gaze.

“The book isn’t giving you a choice,” Dathan says, his voice a low, possessive rumble. “None of us has a choice.”

Evren retreats to the corner of the room, a statue of guilt and rejection.

I sit up, clutching the duvet to my chest like a shield. “So what? I’m just supposed to lie here and be your ritual sacrifice?”

“You’re our queen,” Verik corrects, his hellfire eyes serious. “And this is our coronation. It’s just a little messier than most.”

I stare at him, the word ‘queen’ a bitter irony. A queen isn’t a puppet. A queen isn’t a sacrifice.

The grimoire flips another page. The text is simple. One word.

Choose.

My gaze snaps from the book to the three monsters arranged around my bed. Choose what? Choose who?

“What does it mean?” I whisper, my voice trembling.

Dathan inhales sharply. “I think our new god wants to know whose turn it is next.”

“This is insane!”

The word is a death sentence. A command to pick my own poison.

My gaze flicks from the book to the three monsters surrounding my bed.

This isn’t a choice. It’s a test of who I fear the least. Or who I hate the most. “No,” I state, climbing off the bed and letting my dress pool at my feet before I step out of it.

I cross over to the grimoire. “I’m not choosing,” I say, picking it up.

Its pages flutter, an impatient, rustling sigh.

The brand on my back answers with a sharp, warning throb of heat. A reminder of the price of defiance.

“I’m not choosing,” I enunciate.

All of them?

The text is a blur as the book practically salivates at the thought.

“All of them.” I place the book down again on my desk and turn to the men. They are watching me with hunger, reluctance, savage lust. “Touch me,” I demand. “All of you, together.”

“Are you sure about this?” Dathan asks as Verik moves closer.

“I’m in pain,” I whisper as the brand flares hot. “Please, just give it what it wants.”

There is nothing left to be said. Verik and Dathan sandwich me between them, touching me, squeezing me, pinching my nipples until they are aching peaks. Evren is hesitant, but when I hold my hand out for him, he comes closer.

My skin crawls with the contact of so many hands.

I want to push them away and hide under the bed, but there is no getting away from this.

Not unless I want to be punished, and I’m tired of being kicked.

I’m tired of being used and abused. I just want the pain to go away.

I close my eyes, squeezing back the tears as I let these men maul me all in the name of a god we don’t know, who is playing with us like a cat would a mouse.

It is revelling in my revulsion, in my pain, and latching onto the tiny sliver of reluctant desire as Dathan’s mouth closes over my nipple.

The grimoire feeds on it, making it grow, making me feel things I’ve never felt before, not even with Jenson.

My moan of desire is torn from me as Evren’s hand lands on the back of my neck, his lips brushing over mine.

My pussy soaks my knickers, and I shudder knowing that the book is orchestrating this whole sick symphony.

Verik’s fingers dig into my hips, a rough, possessive grip that anchors me.

Dathan’s tongue traces a wet, hot circle around my nipple, and I arch into him, a traitorous whimper escaping my lips.

Evren’s kiss is a claiming. His lips are a brand of a different kind, and the life he pulls from me is a torrent.

The book flips its pages faster, a frantic, hungry applause. The brand on my back isn’t burning anymore. It’s a supernova of shared power that floods every nerve ending, turning my revulsion into a sharp, terrifying pleasure.

I’m being consumed. Remade. Forged in their fire and ice and fear. My power surges, a wild, untamed thing that answers theirs.

I don’t shatter. I resonate. A single, perfect, cataclysmic note builds in my throat. Not a scream of pain or pleasure, but a song of ascension.

The note leaves my lips, a clear, resonant chord that doesn’t shatter. It builds. The power that flows through the brand is a tidal wave. It’s our voice, all woven into a single, impossible sound.

The Tenebris Vinculum glows with a soft, white light. Its pages snap shut. The single, unholy eye closes. Satisfied. For now.

The note fades, leaving a ringing silence in its wake. They pull back slowly, their movements uncoordinated, their eyes wide and glazed with a shared, chaotic power. I’m left standing in the centre of them, trembling and slick and raw.

I look from one dazed monster to the next. The lines have been irrevocably blurred. They didn’t just touch me. They marked me, broke me, and then rebuilt me into something that fits them. Fits this.

Whatever this is.

I move away from them and crawl onto the bed, pulling the covers over me, feeling vulnerable and exposed.

The silence is thick and heavy with the scent of sex and magic. My skin still hums where they touched me. I hate it. I crave it. The contradiction is a sickness in my gut.

I risk a glance over the edge of the duvet.

They’re still there, scattered around the room like the aftermath of a storm.

Dathan leans against the door, his silver eyes dark, unreadable.

Verik stares at the pristine, healed window, his jaw tight.

Evren is a statue of shadows in the corner, his face turned away.

The air crackles with a new kind of tension. Something possessive. Something shared.

Dathan pushes off the door, his movements slow, deliberate. “That was the hardest part,” he says, his gaze locking on mine. “The first real sacrifice. Now you know.”

Know what? That my body is a traitor? That my power is a leash?

He walks to the bed, and I flinch, pulling the duvet tighter. He stops, a flicker of something that might be regret in his eyes before it’s gone.

“Now you know we’ll do whatever it takes,” he finishes. “All of us.”

The promise hangs in the air, a threat and a vow. My cage just got a lot smaller, but a whole lot stronger.