CHAPTER THIRTYݍTWO
A CLAIMING
he guards threw me back into my cell with the casual violence of menT disposing of refuse.
Their hands were rough against my arms, fingers digging into flesh already tender from Valen’s earlier attentions, propelling me forward with enough force that I stumbled over the threshold. I barely managed to keep upright as the iron door slammed shut behind me, the sound echoing through the dank corridors like the final note of a funeral dirge.
The lock turned with mechanical precision, each click a small death, sealing me away from the world above. These weren’t my guards—the men who had grown accustomed to my presence, and I, theirs. These were Valen’s creatures, indifferent to my suffering, viewing me as nothing more than a piece of property to be moved from one location to another.
The black gown still clung to my frame, its silk surface unmarred despite the degradation it had witnessed. Every fold remained perfectly arranged, every seam intact. A cruel mockery of elegance that transformed my humiliation into high theater.
The collar remained locked around my throat, though Valen had removed the leash before dismissing me with a cold smile and a whispered promise.
“Tomorrow.” Just that, a single word that contained more threat than an entire vocabulary of explicit descriptions.
My legs began to shake, the adrenaline that had sustained me through the feast finally abandoning me. For hours, I had held myself rigid with defiance,
had met my humiliation with endurance.
But now, in the privacy of my cell, with no audience to witness my collapse, the strength I had summoned deserted me like water spilling
through cracked hands.
I crumpled.
Not gracefully, not with any remnant of the dignity I’d tried so hard to maintain. My knees gave out first, sending me to the stone floor with jarring impact, before I fell fully onto my side, curling inward, drawing my knees to my chest, making myself as small as possible in this small space that had become my entire world.
The tears, when they came, weren’t wracking sobs. No, they were silent, slipping from the corners of my eyes, tracking warm paths down my temples and into the arrangement of my hair. It was as if I had forgotten how to make sound. The grief was too vast, too fundamental for noise, leaking from me as if my body had lost the ability to contain sorrow.
I cried for Lysa, out in the world without my love and protection, and for Isolde, who had trusted me enough to flee when I asked it of her. I even cried for my father, tyrant though he was, and for my half-siblings who hadn’t deserved their fate.
But mostly, I cried for myself, for the shell I was becoming, for the pieces of my soul being chipped away day by day, for the knowledge that whatever remained of me by the time Valen tired of his game would bear little resemblance to the person I had once been.
The tears eventually slowed, leaving my face sticky and raw, my eyes swollen and aching. But the hollow feeling remained, carved deeper now by the silence that pressed against my eardrums. It felt different tonight—not merely empty or full, but actively hostile, as if the very air knew of the spectacle above and judged me for my part in it.
I remained curled on my side, my fingers worrying at the collar’s edge, tracing the silver engravings. Each etched mark reminded me of Valen’s hands fastening it there, of the crowd’s laughter, of her painted smile as she whispered in the Blood God’s ear.
And still, I could taste him. The metallic warmth of his blood lingered on my tongue, though I’d swallowed it long ago. It haunted me—not just in flavor, but in feeling. Something in it had settled beneath my skin. Something
restless. Something loud.
“Mireille.”
Death’s voice was low, rough-edged with concern. My harbinger’s voice, calling me back from the void I had retreated into. I didn’t respond. Speaking required energy I didn’t possess.
“I know you are there.” His tone shifted, softened slightly as if speaking to something wounded. “I heard them bring you back.”
Still, I remained silent. What was there to say? Any words refused me.
“Come to me, little fawn.”
It wasn’t a question or a request. It was a command, simple and direct, cutting through the fog of my exhaustion.
I should have resented it—another being, another voice, telling me what to do. But I didn’t.
Because it didn’t feel like domination. It felt like he knew. Knew that a gentle request wouldn’t hold me together.
My body moved without conscious thought, driven by a need so fundamental it bypassed reason entirely. I uncurled myself from the stone floor, my limbs trembling with exhaustion and something deeper—a bone- deep hunger for the connection that had become my lifeline in this place of shadows and pain. The black silk of my gown whispered against the floor as I crawled toward the corner where our cells met, each movement sending fresh waves of humiliation through me.
My knees scraped against the rough stone as I reached the corner, my breathing shallow and ragged. Through the narrow gap between the bars, I extended my hand into the darkness beyond, fingers trembling as they sought his warmth.
For a terrible moment, I felt nothing—just empty air, my fingers grasping at darkness. Had he withdrawn? Had his command been just another cruelty, another being finding entertainment in my degradation?
Then warm fingers closed around mine, strong and sure and undeniably real. Death’s hand, larger than mine, callused in places that spoke of ancient battles and hard-won skills. His thumb pressed gently against the back of my palm, a point of contact that felt like the only solid thing in a world turned
liquid with uncertainty.
“What did he do to you?”
His voice dropped lower, rougher, threaded with something dark. Not
rage, not yet. But the promise of it.
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.
How could I explain the spectacle of my humiliation? The collar now
locked around my throat? The hours spent kneeling, not in ceremony but submission, while courtiers laughed and whispered as if I weren’t even human? The words caught in my throat, too raw, too shameful to name.
Instead, I tightened my grip on his hand, clinging to that point of contact as if it were a lifeline thrown to a drowning woman. His fingers adjusted their hold on mine, enveloping my smaller hand more completely, offering warmth and strength when I had none left of my own.
“I can feel his power in you,” he said, voice deepening as he pressed for
my words. “Rushing through your veins.”
He paused.
“You reek of him.”
The words twisted through the air, causing me to flinch. Not from the harshness of them, but from the shame they unearthed.
Because he was right. I could smell Valen on myself, taste him on my tongue, a lingering presence of mountain air and metal and something darker that seemed to have seeped into my very pores.
I squeezed my eyes shut, my breath catching. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. But the tears came again anyway, hot against skin already raw.
“You weren’t there,” I whispered, my voice shaking with a mix of hurt and defiance. “You didn’t see what he did to me. What he made me endure.”
He froze so completely, that if his hand weren’t still wrapped around mine, I might’ve believed he’d vanished altogether. But the silence between us had a weight now. A shape. As if the shadows themselves were bracing for what would come next.
His voice, when it returned, came like thunder rolling through cracking air.
“Then tell me,” he growled. “What did he do to you?”
The stone trembled beneath the words.
It was not a question. It was divine fury held in check by the thinnest margin of control.
I tried to pull my hand back, but his grip held me in place with effortless strength. My fingers felt small and fragile within his grasp, mortal flesh captured by something infinitely more powerful.
I couldn’t tell him.
I couldn’t, I couldn’t, I couldn’t.
“Mireille.” My name on his lips was both command and plea. “Tell me.”
I paused, my breath quickening further. And then I felt a small
movement. His thumb, dragging across my knuckles so slowly I almost fell apart there and then.
How could such a simple touch threaten to undo me so completely?
“He—“ I started, then stopped, swallowing hard, gathering my courage.
The collar shifted against my throat with the movement. It made me want to retch. “He collared me. In front of everyone.” My free hand rose to touch the band at my neck, fingers tracing the silver fittings, the ring the leash hooked on. “Attached me to a leash.”
The air turned charged, electric, pregnant with violence barely contained, but my words came easier now, with his thumb continuing its gentle circles.
“He made me kneel at his feet. Fed me scraps from his own fingers.
Nobles from both kingdoms watched as he spoke of breaking me. They laughed.” My voice cracked on the last word, the memory of their amusement cutting fresh wounds in pride I’d thought already destroyed.
“I tried to be good,” I hiccuped, the tears not relenting. “Kas told me—“ I released a shuddering breath. “He told me if I just played my part, I would be fine, but Death,” my breathing came harder, “I couldn’t.”
For a moment, there was nothing. No movement, not even a breath, only the sound of me trying to hold back my tears.
And when he finally spoke, his voice held a quality I hadn’t heard from him before—wrath wrapped in perfect control.
“What did you do?”
I didn’t answer. Couldn’t. I felt, deep down, that I had done something wrong by biting the Blood God. There was no other explanation for why I still felt him beneath my skin, for why I was beginning to crave him.
“What, Mireille?” This time, my name was an order, sharp and unforgiving.
“I bit him.” The confession escaped in barely a whisper, but it might as well have been a shout for all the reaction it provoked.
Death went utterly still, his entire being focused on me with an intensity that made the air between us crackle with unseen energy.
“You bit him,” he repeated, each word measured and precise. “Where?”
“His hand. Between thumb and wrist. I—there was this woman, Eriseth, and she was touching him, whispering to him, and I just—“ I broke off, unable to explain the fury that had consumed me in that moment, the possessive rage that had driven me to sink my teeth into divine flesh.
“And?”
“I drew blood. Tasted it. Swallowed it.” With each admission, I felt something shift in the darkness beyond our shared wall. Not movement, but change—as if the very air was responding to Death’s mounting fury.
“You drank his blood.” He paused. “Stars, Mireille… do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
I shook my head, sharp jerks that he was sure to feel. I hadn’t, nor was I sure I really wanted to. I knew there would be consequences, and with the taste of him still lingering on my tongue, the power and desire for more still running through my veins, I wasn’t sure I was ready to face them.
When Death spoke again, his voice was calm—too calm, with the kind of control that spoke of power held in check by the thinnest of threads.
“His blood should never have passed your lips,” he said, low and ragged, like the words had been torn from him. “Not his. Never his.”
The words hit me harder than a physical blow, carrying weight far beyond their simple meaning. There was history in them, knowledge I didn’t possess, implications I couldn’t fathom. But beneath it all was something else, something that made my chest tight with recognition even as my mind struggled to understand.
Jealousy. Not the petty, mortal kind, but something vast and ancient and absolute. The jealousy of a being who had watched from the shadows as another laid claim to something he believed was his.
“Do you crave him now, little fawn?” Death’s voice dropped to a whisper, low and lethal—a threat disguised as a question. “Did his leash feel like safety? Does your collar sing his name when you breathe?”
“No,” I whispered, but even as the word left my lips, I knew it wasn’t entirely true. There was something—a heat that lingered where his fingers had touched me, a memory that felt more like longing than revulsion. “No. I — I hate him. I hate everything he’s done to me.”
“Liar.” The word was soft as silk and twice as cutting. “Divine blood is not like the blood that runs in a mortal’s veins. It urges worship, demands submission, creates bonds that mortals were never meant to bear.”
I wanted to reassure him, to insist that I felt nothing but revulsion for Valen, but the words died in my throat. Because there had been something in that moment—when his blood had flooded my mouth, when I’d swallowed it with savage satisfaction.
“The effects vary,” Death continued, his tone growing colder with each word. “Some mortals become addicted, craving more divine essence until
they waste away from want. Others find their will slowly eroded, their desires reshaped until they believe their devotion springs from their own heart rather than divine manipulation.”
A chill ran down my spine that had nothing to do with the dungeon’s perpetual cold. “How long?” I whispered. “How long do the effects last?”
“That depends,” he replied, and something in his voice made my stomach clench with dread. “On how much was consumed. On the power of the god whose blood it was. On the mortal’s own strength of will.” A pause that felt like a blade sliding between my ribs. “And Vharok is one of the first. His blood carries the weight of eons.”
The truth of it settled in my chest like a stone. I could feel it now, that foreign warmth, that restless energy that made me want to move, to seek, to... what? Return to him? The thought made my skin crawl even as some traitorous part of me whispered that it wouldn’t be so terrible, that his touch had brought pleasure as well as pain.
“Why do you even care?” I whispered, my voice breaking under the strain of emotion. “Why does it matter to you if I fall into Valen’s desires or resist him?”
His grip on my hand tightened, fingers pressing against my pulse point with possessive intensity. When he spoke again, his voice held the suffocating grasp of absolute certainty, of truth delivered like a verdict from
on high.
“You are not meant to belong to him.”
The force of his declaration crashed over me like a tide, leaving me gasping in its wake. If I wasn’t meant to belong to Valen, if that fundamental truth rang certain with divine law… The question that followed tore from my throat.
“Then who?” The words came out breathless, desperate, raw with a need to know. “Who am I meant to belong to?”
I felt Death’s attention, could sense the careful stillness behind his pause, the way he measured each second before responding.
But he didn’t respond. Not with words.
Instead, his thumb traced that slow circle on the back of my hand, the gesture somehow more intimate than any caress I had ever received. There was knowledge in that touch, certainty, and something else—something that made my chest tight with implications I wasn’t ready to face.
I closed my eyes and drew in a shaky breath. I felt raw, exposed, ensnared
by powers greater than myself. Gods, I didn’t even understand.
His touch steadied me. Calmed me. But it also marked me in a way I couldn’t name—something more than comfort, something that reached
deeper than bone.
And that terrified me.
Because if I belonged to someone… If my story was already written in a divine quill… No.
A flicker of rebellion flared in the depths of my chest, hot and defiant. I would not belong to Valen, despite his collar and his claims and the divine essence that sang through my veins.
Not to Death, despite his protectiveness, his fury, the quiet circle his
thumb drew on my skin like a brand.
I belonged to myself.
That truth was my armor, my rebellion, the single piece of me they would never be able to touch. I had buried it beneath grief and guilt, letting it
suffocate under their will.
But not anymore.
I would reclaim what had been taken from me—not just my dignity, but my name, my future, my soul.
This was my life. My story. And only I would write its ending.
