CHAPTER THIRTYݍSIX
IN DIVINE INTERVENTION
y body didn’t understand that it wouldn’t be getting what it craved, thatM Valen was gone, that relief would not come.
The fire he had ignited with his blood raged through me, a molten river that scorched every nerve ending, pooled in my core, and left me hollow and aching. I staggered to the corner nearest my harbinger, legs buckling beneath me until I slid down the cold stone to land in an ungraceful heap of torn silk
and trembling limbs.
I was uncomfortable. So uncomfortable.
My throat was raw from screaming Valen’s name, my wrists bruised from the binding and subsequent struggles. I pressed my cheek against the cold stone wall, seeking relief from the heat that consumed me from within. It didn’t help. Nothing helped. The hunger that had overtaken me when Valen’s teeth broke my skin continued, a gnawing emptiness that demanded to be filled.
I curled in on myself, knees drawn to chest, arms wrapped tightly around them as if I could physically contain the maelstrom raging inside me. My gown clung to sweat-slicked skin, every brush of the fabric against sensitized nerves sending fresh waves of unwanted arousal through me. I was burning up, consumed from the inside out by a need so primal it transcended thought.
“Stop,” I whispered to my own body, the word falling into the darkness like a stone. “Please, stop.”
But the madness didn’t listen. It didn’t care about my pleas, my shame,
my rapidly returning awareness of what I had done—how I had behaved before Valen and the guards.
A sound emerged from my throat—not quite a scream, not quite a sob, something feral and frustrated that echoed off the stone walls of my prison. I curled forward, pressing my forehead to the cold floor, hands clawing at the stone as if I could dig my way out, dig my way to him.
The hunger would not abate. If anything, it was getting worse.
Developing into a gnawing emptiness that devoured me from within, an itch beneath my skin that couldn’t be scratched. My thighs trembled with the force of it, my core aching with a need that had no outlet, no resolution.
Valen’s blood was drying on my chin, flaking away, but the taste of it lingered in my mouth, on my tongue, a persistent reminder of what had transpired between us. Of what had been awakened. Of what remained unfulfilled.
I wanted to hate him. Needed to hate him. He had reduced me to this trembling, needy creature ruled by impulses I didn’t understand. He had taken everything from me—my family, my freedom, my dignity, and now, it seemed, my very sense of self.
Yet even as these thoughts formed, I yearned for him. The memory of his teeth in my flesh, his hand at my throat, his body pressed against mine sent fresh waves of heat through me, and I couldn’t find the will to deny it.
I’d thought I’d known desire before. I’d thought I’d understood need, want, longing. But this—this was something else entirely. This was consumption, possession, madness. It burned along my nerves like wildfire, pooled molten between my thighs, throbbed in my veins with every beat of my heart. The bite on my neck felt like a brand, a connection that hadn’t been severed by Valen’s departure, a channel through which this terrible hunger continued to pour.
Was this Valen’s true revenge, then? Not the physical pain or the solitary confinement he had inflicted over the past month, but reducing me to a creature of pure need, stripping away every vestige of dignity and control, leaving me to writhe alone in the dark with a hunger that could not be satisfied?
A particularly vicious surge of desire crashed through me, drawing a broken cry from my lips as my fingers moved between my thighs. But as soon as I reached my core, it was as if everything turned numb, not allowing me to find my own release myself while desperation still thrummed within
me. Is this what he meant? That I needed him to bring me relief?
I slammed my fist against the stone floor with a scream, welcoming the sharp pain that shot up my arm, needing any sensation that might override the
maddening ache between my thighs.
It didn’t work. Nothing worked.
If the blood singing through my veins would not be denied, and if Valen would not give me what I needed, I would find another way to take my relief.
“Death.”
It was barely a whisper, broken and desperate, not even loud enough to carry beyond the confines of my own huddled form. But it was all I had left —this tenuous connection to someone, anyone, who wasn’t Valen.
I pressed my forehead against the ground, closing my eyes as another wave of heat rolled through me at the mere thought of his name.
“Harbinger,” I whispered again, louder this time, the name emerging as a plea. “Please.”
I didn’t know what I was asking for. Company in my shame? Relief from this torment? The mercy of oblivion? It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except the desperate need to not be alone with the fire consuming me from within.
“Death,” I called one more time, voice cracking on the single syllable.
“Please... help me.”
“So she calls for me at last.” Death’s voice rumbled through the darkness, restrained and frustrated and terribly intimate. It seemed to come from everywhere at once—from the wall behind me, from the shadows of my cell, from inside my own heated mind. “Such pretty sounds you made for him. I particularly enjoyed your begging. So raw. So desperate. Almost entertaining in its degradation.”
I bit back a moan at the intimacy in his voice, pressing my forehead harder against the stone. Gods, had he always sounded like that? His voice was so deep, so sensual, even with the anger threading through it. I had to press my fingers into my palm to stop myself from reaching between my legs.
“Now, now, little fawn. Don’t be shy. You called for me, remember?
Three times. Quite insistent.” He hummed, the sound shooting directly to where I needed release. “Was there something you wanted?”
My body responded to his words, a fresh surge of heat pulsing through me, settling low in my belly. I held in a whimper, pressing my thighs together
in a futile attempt to ease the ache.
“No?” Death questioned, his tone threaded with mock concern. “Pity. I was hoping to see if you would beg me for it.”
I pressed my fists against my eyes, as if I could physically block out the want that gnawed at my sanity like a starved beast. His voice—Death’s voice —sliced through my defenses, each syllable as sharp as a blade, as sweet as sin. I wanted to strike him for his tone, for the amusement that dripped like poison from his words while I burned alive in my own skin.
But I couldn’t. Not if he might offer even the faintest chance of relief.
“Make it stop,” I whispered, the words emerging broken and raw. My pride lay in shreds around me, as tattered as the silk gown that clung to my sweat-slicked skin. “Please, my harbinger. Make it stop.”
The silence that followed my plea stretched. I could feel his attention sharpening, focusing on me through the stone that separated us. When he finally spoke, his voice had changed—still mocking, yes, but with an undercurrent of something strained, something hungrier.
“And how,” Death asked, “would you like me to make it stop, little fawn?” The question made my throat tighten in anticipation. “I am chained in this cell, as you are locked in yours. I cannot touch you.”
Another wave of heat crashed through me, more intense than the last. My spine arched involuntarily, a guttural cry escaping my lips before I could swallow it back. The sound echoed in the darkness, raw and animal and deeply, deeply shameful.
“I don’t care how,” I gasped, my nails digging crescents into my palms.
“Just... anything. Talk to me. Distract me. Put me out of my misery. I don’t care.”
A low, frustrated sound rumbled through the stone. “What would you have me do?” A pause, weighted with restraint. “I warned you about the madness that befalls mortals when divinity passes their lips. And Vharok’s blood? Drank directly from the vein?” He tsked.
The mention of Valen—of Vharok—sent another pulse of desperate need through me. I bit my lip hard enough to go through skin, trying to focus on that small pain rather than the vast, consuming ache between my thighs.
“Don’t,” I hissed. “Don’t speak his name. Don’t—“ My voice broke on a wave of need so intense, my breath came in deep bursts. “If you’re truly what you claim to be, if you’re truly a god, then you can easily make this torture end. You can help me.”
“If I’m truly what I claim to be?” He repeated, his voice going dangerously soft. “You still doubt me? You question my divinity?”
Frustration surged through me, hot and sharp and sudden. I slammed my palm against the stone wall, the sting of impact doing nothing to distract from the deeper, more insistent pain.
“Prove it, then!” I snarled, beyond caring how I sounded, beyond caring about anything except the relentless, maddening need. “If you are a god, then do something godly and end this torment. Or have those chains rendered you completely useless?”
The temperature in my cell seemed to drop ten degrees in an instant. The air thickened, pressure building against my eardrums until they ached with it.
When Death spoke again, his voice was no longer just a voice—it was the rumble of earth shifting beneath mountains, the silence between heartbeats, the void that waits at the end of all things.
“Be very careful what you ask for, Mireille.” My name in his mouth was a forbidden thing, a spell, a curse. “There are prices you are not prepared to pay.”
I shuddered, some distant, rational part of me recognizing the danger in his words. But that part was drowning in the sea of desperation that had become my entire existence.
“I don’t believe you could do anything to help me, chains or not,” I said, the words emerging as bitter as bile. “If you could, you would have done it already. Instead, you sit there and mock my suffering.”
Chains rattled against stone, the sound deafening in the silence that followed my accusation. For a moment, I thought he might not respond at all.
Then, a sound emerged from beyond the wall—a growl so low, so elemental, it seemed to vibrate through the very foundations of the dungeon.
“You have no idea what I wish I could do to you.”
The words slithered into my consciousness like serpents, coiling around my thoughts, sinking venomous fangs into what remained of my sanity. His voice had changed again, dropping to a register so deep it seemed to bypass my ears entirely, resonating instead directly in my bones.
“How I would ‘make it stop,’ as you so put it.” Each word emerged with careful, measured precision, as if he were granting me a glimpse of something dangerous, something sacred. “If these chains were broken, if this wall between us was dust... I would show you the true meaning of divine intervention.”
I pressed my forehead harder against the stone, as if I could somehow melt through it, as if enough pressure could bring me closer to the being on the other side. “Tell me,” I whispered, the words barely audible. “Tell me what you would do.”
A pause. The air in my lungs seemed to crystallize, time suspending as I waited for his response. When it came, his voice had regained some of its control, though the dangerous edge remained.
“I would take Vharok’s corruption from your veins and replace it with my own.” The confession emerged like a secret dragged from the depths of an ancient sea. “I would erase his touch from your memory until you remembered nothing but my hands on your skin. I would make you forget his name, little fawn. I would make you scream mine.”
Fresh heat surged through me at his words, but it was different now, not just Valen’s blood singing in my veins, but something new. Something that responded to Death’s voice, to his promises, to the dark hunger that colored his every word.
“Do it,” I whispered, abandoning the last shreds of my pride. “Please, my harbinger, I can’t bear it anymore.”
A groan—not of exasperation, but of decision—whispered through the
stone.
“Souls be damned, fine.”
A surge of triumph shot through me. He was surrendering.
“But know this,” he continued, “if I help you, there is no going back.
What begins here cannot be undone.”
I almost laughed at that. As if there was any going back from what had already been done to me, as if I wasn’t already transformed beyond recognition. “I understand.”
“No,” he said, his voice suddenly sharp. “You don’t. But you will.”
Another pause, this one filled with the echo of ancient restraint. “You cannot be thinking of him, craving him, while I ease your suffering.”
My heart thundered in my chest, anticipation and fear and desperate need tangling together until I couldn’t separate one from the other. “What would you have me do?”
“If you want the madness to stop,” Death murmured, “it must be consumed by a stronger madness.” The rustling of chains, the subtle shift of a body moving closer to the wall that separated us. “Put your finger to your mouth. Bite until you draw blood.”
I didn’t hesitate. Without the slightest pause for thought or consequence, I brought my index finger to my lips and bit down hard. The coppery taste of my own blood flooded my mouth, oddly comforting in its familiarity. A small point of pain amidst the vast sea of need.
“Now,” Death continued, his voice dropping to that silken whisper that seemed to touch my skin directly, “give it to me.”
I extended my hand through the bars, pushing it as close to his cell as possible. Stretching so far, I could no longer see the blood beading at the tip of my finger, my tiny crimson offering in the darkness.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, I felt it—the brush of his skin against mine, barely there and then gone. His finger, I thought, sliding along the length, gathering the blood I had spilled.
A sound emerged from his cell—a groan so deep, it sent fresh shivers racing down my spine. The sound of a being tasting something forbidden, something dangerous, something exquisite.
“Your taste,” he murmured, his voice thick with something I couldn’t name. “Fate curse me.”
“Is it ok?” I asked, suddenly unsure, suddenly afraid in a way that had nothing to do with Valen’s corruption and everything to do with the way Death’s voice had changed.
A low laugh, rich with disbelief. “Oh, little fawn. You truly have no idea.”
Before I could ask what he meant, his finger appeared, pressing against my own bars. “Here,” he said, and even through the shadows, I could see the gleam of something dark and luminous at the tip of his finger. His blood, shining like liquid starlight in the darkness. “Take it.”
My throat went dry at the sight of it. If Valen’s blood had called to me, Death’s blood sang a melody so ancient, so perfect, it seemed to resonate with something buried deep within my soul.
I jerked forward, the bars cold against my cheek as I gripped his wrist with desperate fingers and pulled his bleeding digit into my mouth. A sound escaped me, half-gasp, half-moan, as his taste exploded across my tongue, ancient and sweet and burning like the heart of a star.
Nothing could have prepared me for this. If Valen’s blood had been fire and metal and conquest, Death’s was the cosmos itself, vast and ancient and impossibly complex. It tasted of honey and lightning, of forgotten stars and promised oblivion. It tasted like the first breath after drowning, like salvation
offered in the form of sweet destruction.
I sucked hard, desperate for more of that golden essence, my tongue swirling around his finger to gather every precious drop. The stone wall between us scraped my cheek raw, the bars bruising my face, but I didn’t care. Nothing mattered except getting more of him inside me, letting his divinity wash away the corruption that Valen had left behind.
From his cell came a sound I hadn’t heard from him before—a growl so primal it seemed to originate from the foundations of the earth itself. The sound vibrated through the stone, through my bones, settling in my core with a weight that made me squeeze my thighs together.
“Mireille,” he gasped, my name emerging rough and broken.
His finger pressed deeper into my mouth, as far as the awkward angle around the wall and through the bars would allow. There was nothing gentle in the gesture, nothing careful or restrained. This was for his own pleasure, using my mouth as I was using his blood, both of us taking what the other offered with equal desperation.
I responded by sucking harder, drawing his long finger into me with greedy determination. My teeth scraped against his knuckle, and I heard his sharp intake of breath. The thought that I could affect him, that I could make a god gasp with nothing but my mouth, sent a fresh wave of heat spiraling through me.
For a moment—one blessed, golden moment—I felt Valen’s madness begin to recede. The fire in my veins cooled, the desperate need dimming like a candle flame deprived of oxygen. I could breathe again, could think beyond the consuming hunger that had driven me to beg, to crawl, to abandon every shred of dignity I possessed.
I almost wept with relief. Almost thanked him, almost withdrew to savor this moment of lucidity.
But then it returned—not slowly, not gradually, but in a tidal wave of sensation that drowned my momentary clarity. The madness crashed back through me with redoubled force, obliterating thought, reason, restraint. But this was different. This wasn’t Valen’s madness, wasn’t the need he had planted in my veins.
This was new. This was Death’s gift, Death’s curse.
If Valen’s blood had made me want, Death’s blood made me worship. If Valen’s essence had created hunger, Death’s created devotion. The need that coursed through me now was more profound, more fundamental—not just the
physical craving for release, but something that touched my very soul, that whispered of belonging, of completion, of finding the missing piece I hadn’t known I was seeking.
I wanted him—not just his touch, not just his body, but all of him. I wanted to crawl inside his chest and nest beside his divine heart. I wanted to drown in his essence until nothing remained of me, until I was merely an extension of his will, his desire, his existence.
And gods help me, I wanted him to want me too. Not as a pet, not as a distraction, not as a momentary amusement to pass the eternal tedium of his imprisonment. I wanted him to need me as I needed him, to crave me as I craved him, to be unable to imagine existence without the taste of my skin on his tongue.
I knew, with bone-deep certainty, that if I did not get release—not just physical, but the deeper release of being claimed, being wanted, being his—I would shatter into fragments too small to ever be reassembled.
“Please,” I begged around his finger, the word garbled and desperate.
“Please, I need —“ He withdrew his finger with a sudden, decisive movement, leaving me gasping at the loss. A sound escaped me—a whimper of protest so pathetic, so needy, I would have been mortified had I possessed enough self-awareness for shame.
He said something in a language I didn’t recognize, laced with what sounded suspiciously like profanity. The foreign syllables seemed to resonate in my bones, adding another layer to the symphony of need that was consuming me from within.
I reached for him, both hands outstretched through my bars, desperate fingers seeking any part of him he would allow me to touch. “Don’t stop,” I pleaded, my voice breaking on the words. “Please, I need more. I need you.”
“I can’t—“ The sound of fists slamming into iron reverberated through the dungeons, Death growling in frustration. “I can’t give you what you need.” His voice was raw, strained with what sounded like physical pain.
“Not like this. Not through these bars.”
I pressed myself against the wall between us, my body seeking his warmth through solid stone.
“Then tell me what to do,” I gasped, pressing myself as close to the bars as possible, my face turned toward his cell though I could see nothing in the darkness. “Tell me how to ease this. I can’t think, I can’t breathe, I can’t —“
“Touch yourself.”
The command cut through my babbling like a blade, simple and absolute.
My entire body clenched at the words, heat pooling between my thighs with such sudden intensity that I nearly sobbed.
“But I tried,” I whispered, remembering the numbness that had met my earlier attempt. “It didn’t work. I couldn’t —“ “You couldn’t because you were still his,” Death interrupted, his voice rough with something between anger and desire. “But now you’ve tasted me.
Now you’re mine.” The possessive certainty in his voice sent another wave of molten need through me. “Touch yourself, little fawn. Let me hear what’s mine.”
I didn’t hesitate. My hands flew to the torn silk that still clung to my sweat-slicked skin, fingers fumbling with the remnants of laces and hooks. I lifted the gown over my head in one fluid motion, discarding it in a heap of black fabric. The cold air kissed my naked flesh, raising goosebumps across my shoulders, my breasts, my stomach—but I wasn’t cold. I was burning, molten from the inside out, golden fire replacing the crimson heat that had tortured me moments before.
Only Valen’s collar remained, the leather warm against my throat, a reminder of the god who had started this madness. But even that seemed distant now, irrelevant compared to the voice that came from beyond the stone wall, the presence that had claimed something deeper than my flesh.
Kneeling beside the corner where our cells met, as close to him as the bars would allow, my hands trembled as I slid them down my body, one palm cupping my breast while the other traced lower, over the curve of my hip, between my thighs. The moment my fingers found my swollen, aching flesh, I gasped. Not from numbness this time, but from overwhelming sensation. It was as if Death’s blood had awakened every nerve ending, made them hypersensitive to touch, to pressure, to the slightest friction.
“That’s it,” Death’s voice rumbled through the stone, thick with approval and something darker. “Tell me what you feel.”
I circled my clit with trembling fingers, my back arching off the cold stone wall as pleasure shot through me like lightning. “I feel—“ The words dissolved into a moan as I pressed harder, the sensation almost too much to bear. “I feel everything. It’s so much, I can’t —“ “You can,” he commanded, his voice like velvet wrapped around steel.
“You will. For me.”
The possessive certainty in his words made my thighs clench, my body responding to his claim with desperate hunger. I slipped one finger inside myself, crying out at the relief of finally being filled, even if it was only by my own touch. But it wasn’t enough—would never be enough—not when what I truly craved was him.
“More,” Death ordered, and I could hear the strain in his voice, the way his breathing had grown ragged. “I want to hear you fall apart. Touch yourself the way I would touch you.”
“How?” I gasped, my fingers stilling as I pressed my forehead against the iron bars. “How would you touch me? If these barriers were not between us, if you could reach me… Please, I need to know.”
A low, appreciative groan rumbled through the stone. “Is that what you need, little fawn? To hear the ways I would worship you?”
“Yes,” I whispered, desperation making me shameless. “Please.”
Death’s breathing deepened, and I could almost feel his presence pressing closer to the wall that separated us. When he spoke again, his voice had dropped to a register so low it seemed to bypass my ears entirely, vibrating directly into my mind.
“If I could reach you now,” he began, each word measured and deliberate, “I would start with my hands in your hair, tilting your head back to expose that delicate throat of yours.” A pause, filled with the sound of chains shifting. “I would rip off his collar. Cast it into darkness where it belongs.
Replace it with the mark of my teeth.”
I shuddered at the image, at the contrast between tenderness and violence, as my fingers resumed their circling, slower, to match the cadence of his voice. “And then?”
“I would taste you,” he continued, his voice roughening. “Not just your lips, though I would claim them thoroughly. I would taste every inch of your skin, starting at that pulse point beneath your jaw. Feel how it beats faster for me.”
My free hand rose unconsciously to touch the spot he described, imagining the press of his lips there.
“I would lay you out before me like the sweet offering you are. And I would take my time—hours, days if necessary—exploring every inch of your skin, learning the landscape of your body until I could navigate it blind.”
My breath caught, imagining those strong fingertips tracing over every exposed piece of me.
“I would discover every place that makes you gasp, every spot that makes you tremble.”
My fingers circled my clit faster as his words washed over me, my body responding as if it were his touch and not my own.
“And when I reached your thighs,” he said, “I wouldn’t rush. No, I’d tease you, kissing along the inside of your knee, working my way up so slowly you’d be begging before I ever reached where you needed me most.”
I moaned, imagining it, his mouth on my inner thigh, the scrape of his teeth against sensitive skin.
“And when you couldn’t stand it anymore, when you were wet and desperate and pleading,” Death growled, “only then would I taste you properly. I’d spread those pretty knees wide until I could see every glistening inch of you. I’d lick into you so deep you’d feel me in your fucking soul.”
My back arched, fingers working faster between my thighs. “Please,” I whispered, not even knowing what I was begging for.
“I would devour you, little fawn,” he said, voice deepening with each word. “I’d make you come on my tongue again and again until your voice was hoarse from screaming my name. I’d suck that sweet little clit until you begged me to stop. Until your thighs trembled around my head. Until you thought you couldn’t possibly take any more pleasure.”
My body jerked at his filthy words, a strangled whimper escaping my throat. No one had ever spoken to me like this—raw and unfiltered with desire.
“Of course, I would prove you wrong,” he continued, and I heard what sounded like a wicked grin in his tone. “I would slide my fingers inside you, feeling how hot, how wet you are for me. I would find that spot deep inside that makes you see stars and stroke it until you’re sobbing.”
A high-pitched whine released from my throat, my fingers moving faster, sliding through slickness as I imagined his hands on me, in me. I added another finger, stretching myself, desperate to feel some fraction of what he described.
“Join me,” I pleaded, my voice shattering into desperate fragments.
“Please, my harbinger. I need to know I’m not alone in this madness.”
The silence stretched for a heartbeat, then two, before his voice returned —deeper than before.
“You wish me to join you? To stroke myself as you touch that sweet cunt for me?”
“Yes,” I gasped, pressing my forehead harder against the cold bars.
“Please. I need to hear you. I need to know this affects you too.”
A low, rumbling groan vibrated through the stone between us, followed by the unmistakable sound of chains shifting, links sliding as he adjusted his position.
“For you, then,” Death whispered, his voice deep and rough. “Because the sounds you make are driving me to madness. Because listening to you pleasure yourself for me is the sweetest torment I’ve endured in centuries.”
The chains rattled again, more deliberately this time, and I heard the rustle of fabric, the subtle shift of weight against stone. My breath caught, a grin spreading across my face in the knowledge that, beyond this wall, this god was touching himself because I had asked it of him.
“Please,” I gasped, my back arching as the pleasure built. “Talk to me.
Tell me what you’re thinking about.”
A low groan vibrated through the wall, and when he spoke again, his voice was thick with desire.
“I’m thinking about how you would look spread beneath me. How your silver eyes would go wide when I first pushed inside you. How tight you would be around my cock.”
My breath hitched, my fingers pressing deeper, searching for that spot he had promised to find.
“Would you like that?” Death asked, his voice rough. “Would you like me to fill you, to stretch you, to make you forget your own name?”
“Yes,” I gasped, my head falling back as pleasure coiled tighter in my core. “Gods, yes.”
“I would take you against this very wall,” he growled. “I would lift you, wrap your legs around my waist, and drive into you so deep you’d feel me in your throat.”
My fingers curled inside me, palm pressing against my clit as I chased the release that hovered just out of reach. Each word he spoke wound the tension inside me tighter, higher.
“I would fuck you until these stones remembered the shape of your back,” he continued, his voice dropping lower, rougher. “Until the guards above could hear your screams of pleasure. Until every drop of his blood was burned from your veins by the fire I’d built inside you.”
The image he painted—of being claimed so completely, so thoroughly— sent me spiraling toward the edge. My fingers worked desperately between
my thighs, chasing the release that Death’s words had brought to a fever pitch.
“I would make you mine,” Death growled, his voice thick with possession. “Completely, utterly mine. You would wear my marks, carry my scent, bear the evidence of my worship in every bruise, every bite, every place my mouth had claimed you.”
I cried out at his words, my body barreling toward its peak. The fantasy consumed me, his tongue replacing my desperate fingers, his hands holding my thighs apart, him driving into me with divine hunger.
“Fates,” he groaned. “Fuck yourself on your fingers like you’d fuck yourself on my tongue. I want those thighs wrapped around my head so tight I cannot breathe.”
“Please,” I sobbed, my movements becoming erratic as desperation overtook technique. “I need— I can’t —“ “Please, what?” Death asked, voice sharp with his own desperation. “Tell me what you need.”
“I need—“ The words caught in my throat, tangled with moans and gasps as pleasure built to an almost unbearable peak. “I need to come. Please, let me come.”
A dark chuckle, devoid of any real amusement, resonated through the stone. “Then come for me, Mireille. Come with my name on your lips.”
The permission was all I needed. Release crashed through me, obliterating thought, reason, identity. My back arched off the stone floor, a scream tearing from my throat as pleasure more intense than anything I’d ever experienced consumed me from within.
“Death!” I cried, his name spilling from my lips like a prayer, like devotion, like worship. “Oh gods, Death!”
Wave after wave of pleasure crashed through me, each one threatening to drown me completely. My vision blurred at the edges, darkness encroaching as my consciousness wavered under the assault of sensation.
I heard him growl, the sound vibrating through the stone as his chains rattled violently.
“Zai esharael, Mireille,” he hissed, his voice strained with what could only be his own release. “Utteri kael’sor.”
As the waves of sensation gradually receded, I collapsed boneless against the stone floor, chest heaving with exertion, skin slick with sweat. The madness burned away. Finally, finally, I felt at peace.
For a long moment, only our ragged breathing filled the space. Then his voice emerged, low and molten, curling around my bare skin.
“Call out for the gods if you must,” he murmured. “Scream for them.
Whisper for them in your sleep. But understand this, Mireille—“ He paused, the silence rich with strain. With hunger.
“When you do, I am the God who hears you.”
His words slid into the hollow places still quivering with aftershocks. My pulse thundered in my ears. My limbs were trembling and loose, but it was his voice that left me truly undone.
“And in the end,” he whispered, each word laced with quiet certainty, “you—your soul—will belong to me. I will make you mine.”
There was no arrogance in the promise. Only conviction. Absolute, unshakable conviction.
Exhaustion was pulling at the edges of my consciousness, the aftermath of divine madness and earth-shattering release combining to drag me toward sleep. My eyelids felt heavy, my body unresponsive. The golden fire in my veins had banked to manageable levels, leaving me wrung out, yet strangely at peace.
But before sleep could claim me fully, I whispered one last truth.
“No. I will always belong to me.”
And then the darkness swallowed me whole.
