Page 34 of Wicked Vows (Cursed Darkness (DarkHallow Academy) #1)

Verik

I watch Dathan play the solemn protector. It’s a good look for him, but it’s just another variable in a chaotic equation. The important thing is, the equation balanced. The test was passed. The structure holds. For now.

Her power, woven with ours, was like discovering a new element. Not just a voice that shatters, but one that builds. Forges. Creates. The note she sang wasn’t just sound; it was a framework. The possibilities are fucking endless.

I look at her, small and trembling, wrapped in a duvet. She thinks she’s broken. She has no idea she’s just been tempered. The fire didn’t destroy her; it made the steel stronger.

This isn’t about her pleasure or our guilt. It’s about structural integrity. The book wants us bound, a single, functioning unit. It uses intimacy as mortar. Crude, but effective.

I walk over to the desk and pick up the sleeping grimoire. Its leather is smooth, warm. Not an object, but a client with very specific, very fucked-up demands.

“We can’t afford another failure.” My statement hangs in the air, a cold, hard fact.

Dathan snorts, a humourless sound. “And what’s the next variable in your grand design? A fucking rota?”

“Compliance,” I say, turning the grimoire over in my hands. The eye stays shut. “The book is the client. Lysithea is the foundation. We are the load-bearing walls. If one of us fails, the whole structure collapses. On her.”

I glance at Evren. He’s still staring at her, a ghost haunting the scene of his own fuck-up. His guilt is a stress fracture. A weakness in the design.

“Get your head in the game,” I tell him. “Pity is a luxury. Her pain is the price.”

He flinches, but nods, and he doesn’t look away from her. His jaw is a hard line. He’s processing. Good. Emotions are just data points. He can use them or be crushed by them. His choice.

I place the grimoire carefully back onto the desk.

“We rest, we eat, we play student,” I say. “Then tomorrow night, we go back down. The Blood Court, the Forge, are waiting.”

A muffled sound comes from the bed. “No.”

I turn. Lysithea sits up, the duvet clutched to her chest like armour. Her eyes are violet storms, her face pale but set with a familiar, stubborn fire.

“The foundation doesn’t get a vote,” I tell her, my voice flat. “We move when I say we move.”

“This is my body,” she spits. “My life. You don’t own me.”

“The book does,” Dathan says. “We’re just the fucking wardens.”

It’s a brutal truth. I see it land, see the fight in her flicker. She’s exhausted, physically and emotionally. Pushing her now is a risk. But stopping is a greater one. The book is sleeping, which means we sleep.

The logic is sound. We follow the rhythm of the power source. When it rests, we consolidate.

“Get some sleep, Lysithea,” I say, the words an order disguised as a suggestion. “You’ll need your strength.”

She glares at me, a silent promise of future retribution. The fight isn’t gone, it’s just recharging. Good. We need that fire.

I look from the sleeping grimoire to the girl in the bed. Two volatile, unpredictable power sources. One client, one foundation. My job is to make sure one doesn’t destroy the other.

Lysithea turns on her side, her back to the window, and she closes her eyes.

It doesn’t take long for exhaustion to pull her under.

I move to her wardrobe and fling it open.

She has very few clothes, but I pull out a simple black dress, the last one hanging up, and place it over the chair.

Then I open the drawers and pull out her underwear, getting her clothes ready for the morning.

It’s a simple ritual that eases the frustration that is building, the impatience, the sheer fucking chaos surrounding us.

I lay the black cotton knickers beside the dress. A different kind of claim now. Not a violation, but a provision. An architectural detail in her new life, designed by me.

We settle on the bed, surrounding her. I lie across the foot of the bed, on my back, staring at the ceiling. The other two go silent, possibly sleeping, maybe not. My eyes close and go with it, knowing that whatever fight we picked with this god, we are only at the beginning of it.

My eyes snap open when I sense someone staring at me.

I turn my head to see Lysithea, sitting up in bed, her gaze on me. Dathan and Evren are still sleeping next to her. Although in Evren’s case, sleeping and flinching from his nightmares are one and the same.

“You should be sleeping,” I say.

“It’s morning. We have classes.”

“Fun,” I grit out and sit up, rubbing my face. “Go and shower, get dressed, and we’ll go for breakfast.”

“Don’t you want to shower?”

“I’m not leaving you until the first bell rings. Then you are Blackgrove’s problem.”

She glares at me, the duvet still clutched to her chest. A cornered siren in a cage of her own bedding. “Fine,” she says, the word a clipped surrender. “Then turn around.”

I raise an eyebrow. “We saw everything last night, hellcat. A little modesty now is a flawed design element.”

A pillow flies at my head. I catch it easily.

Dathan stirs, stretching with a groan that sounds entirely too pleased with himself. “Morning, everyone. Did I miss the ritual sacrifice of Verik’s ego?”

Evren is already sitting up, his gaze fixed on Lysithea, a silent, heavy weight of guilt and longing. He’s a structural weakness we can’t afford.

Ignoring them both, Lysithea slides out of bed, the duvet wrapped around her like a toga. She stalks to the bathroom and slams the door. The sound is a satisfying crack in the morning quiet.

“She’s in a good mood,” Dathan murmurs, swinging his legs over the side of the bed.

“She’s contained,” I correct, tossing the pillow back onto the bed. “There’s a difference.”

He just grins, running a hand through his messy hair. He’s enjoying this. The chaos, the intimacy. It’s all just another flavour for him. Evren stands, a silent ghost, and moves to the window, staring out at the courtyard as if searching for an escape.

The shower starts. The sound of running water fills the silence. We wait. Three predators in a cage with our prey, pretending we’re not just as trapped as she is. The design is holding. For now.

“You two go and clean up. I’ll stay with her. My lectures don’t start until later, so I can shower then. Once she starts classes, she is under Blackgrove’s protection.”

“You hope,” Dathan says, but takes the opportunity to slip out.

Evren follows him, and I cross over to the grimoire. It blinks at me, assessing, seeking something I’m not sure I have to give.

I stare back at the unholy, unblinking eye.

A staring contest with a sentient book. It feels like it’s peeling back the layers of my mind, not just my thoughts, but the very structure of my intent.

It’s looking at the blueprints of my soul.

It wants fealty. It wants me to acknowledge its design is superior to mine.

Fuck that.

I place my hand flat on its cover, a claim, not a submission. A current of hellfire, low and controlled, flows from my palm. A reminder. I’m an architect, not just a brick. The eye narrows, a flicker of what might be respect, or maybe just irritation.

The shower stops. The sudden silence is a vacuum.

Lysithea steps out of the bathroom, wrapped in a towel. Her white-blonde hair is dark with water, dripping onto the stone floor. She stops dead when she sees the clothes laid out on the chair. Her gaze flicks from the dress to me, a question warring with suspicion in her violet eyes.

“What’s this?” she asks, her voice low.

“Provision,” I say, not taking my hand off the grimoire. “Part of the new structure. Get used to it.”

She just stares, her expression a blank wall I can’t read. She doesn’t thank me. She doesn’t yell. She just picks up the clothes and walks back into the bathroom. The lock clicks. A temporary wall. A flawed defence.

But a defence nonetheless. I respect that.

A sudden shot of pain hits my palm, and I snatch my smoking hand from the cover of the book. I glare at it as the pages flick open.

Sacrifice.

“What do you want from me?”

Of course it doesn’t tell me. The sacrifice is mine to make.

Something that will burn. It already demanded a sacrifice from Evren when it was disguised as a textbook; now it’s my turn.

It has me on my own, cornered, and flailing for something to sacrifice that will be deemed worthy enough or it will hurt her.

Lysithea comes out of the bathroom, and the book flips silently shut. It doesn’t want her to know what it is asking me. What do I have to offer it, and fast, before it burns her from the inside out?

Then it strikes me. Dathan’s words were not just a jibe, they were an unintentional forewarning of sorts. Verik’s ego. My arrogance is my shield. It’s well known and respected. To lose it, to show her behind that, is a sacrifice. One I hope will appease the grimoire.

“You are beautiful,” I murmur.

She narrows her eyes at me, expecting the punch line.

Instead, I drop to my knees at her feet, my head bowed. “I offer myself to you, Lysithea. I am yours to command, yours to use however you see fit.”

The silence is a weapon. A long, drawn-out moment where my pride is laid bare on the floor for her to stomp on.

I keep my head bowed, my gaze fixed on the carpet.

It’s a calculated act of submission, a piece of architectural theatre designed for an audience of one ancient, perverted book. But it’s also a truth.

“Get up,” she says, her voice a low, dangerous thing. “You’re being ridiculous.”

The burning in my palm subsides. Sacrifice accepted.

“Do you accept that I’m yours?” I ask, a slow smile curving my lips as I look up at her.

“I accept that you are a first-class arsehole, and if I could, I would make you bleed from every orifice.”

“That sounds unpleasant.”

“It would be,” she huffs and steps back as I rise. Her gaze follows me as I straighten up to my full height, towering over her petite frame. “I don’t know what game you’re playing now, but stop it.”

“It’s not a game,” I say, my voice a low rumble.

“It’s a truth.” I step closer, invading her space, testing the new boundaries.

The grimoire on the desk is a silent observer, a client judging my work.

My submission wasn’t just for the book. It was a foundation stone for what comes next.

Her breath hitches, a tiny, satisfying sound.

She doesn’t back away. Good. The foundation is holding.

“You’re a variable I can’t predict,” I continue, my gaze dropping to her mouth.

“That makes you the most dangerous, most essential part of the design.” I reach out and grasp her chin before I brush my lips over hers.

She shivers but then pushes me away. “Breakfast,” I murmur with a smirk, taking her hand lightly.

She surprises me by lacing our fingers together. It feels like she just handed me the victory over the rebels at home.

I smile down at her, a genuine smile of contentment that hasn’t adorned my features since I was a small child. The variables are shifting, but I find I’m pleasantly surprised with the direction in which they are going.