Page 181 of The Beautiful Dead

The first layer of skin peeled away in ribbons, curling from my knife, exposing the raw, glistening flesh beneath. Then another. And another. Deeper.

Until I saw the pale curve of his ribs—an untouched canvas beneath ruined muscle, waiting to be shaped. I traced my fingers along the bone, mapping out its structure, its possibilities. I could see it already.

His wings.

One by one, I shaped them.

Carving the ribs into feathers, fragile and elegant, each one painstakingly etched, transforming his broken body into something almost divine.

A fallen angel, stripped of his grace.

A symbol of those he had tormented, those he had torn apart.

I worked in silence, threading hooks through the base of each fractured rib, securing the wire, and lifting the wings into place. The body sagged against its restraints, but his wings held. Suspended. Displayed.

The spotlights cast their glow across him, sending long, twisting shadows stretching over the white walls. A grotesque halo. I took a step back, wiping Casius’s blood from my blade with the sleeve of my shirt.

Perfect.

A masterpiece.

A monument to his sins. And then—I destroyed him.

With a single swipe of my blade, I severed the delicate carvings, watching as the ribs cracked, snapping under their weight, wings collapsing in a heap of bone and sinew.

A ruin of what he could have been. What he never was. Casius Moreau was nothing now. Just another forgotten thing. And I had never felt more alive.

The world was nothing but the sound of my breath, heavy and uneven, my chest rising and falling in sharp, erratic bursts. The gallery around me blurred. The blood-slicked floor, the macabre display of Casius’s ruined form—faded into the background.

All I saw was Domino.

He stood there, looming like something carved from the very shadows, his presence sinking its claws into my skin like ownership. Just like that night in the alley—the night he made me his. He struck fast. Unrelenting. Absolute.

My knees hit the floor with a dull crack, pain sparking up my legs before dissolving into nothingness, drowned beneath the weight of his hands.

He forced me down.

Pushed me into place with a cruelty that made my blood heat, with a precision that told me he knew exactly what I needed.

His fingers curled into my hair, twisting tight, controlling me. My breath stuttered when he dragged my head back, my pulse pounding, my throat already open for him before he even spoke.

“Open,piccolo agnello.” I obeyed. Instinctively. Like breathing. “You’ve kept me waiting too long.”

His bloodied fingers pried my lips apart, pressing inside, stroking my tongue. A shiver slithered down my spine as the taste of iron and sweat mixed on my taste buds, filling my mouth with the aftermath of creation.

With practiced ease, he freed his cock. My pulse thundered. Thick. Hard. Already leaking. The fat, swollen head glistened, the evidence of his arousal was proof of what I’d done to him.

What I always did to him.

Watching me turn a corpse into art had been the best kind of foreplay.

His grip in my hair tightened. Pain bloomed, sharp and perfect, and I gasped, my jaw stretching wider as he pulled me closer—exactly where he wanted me.

Where I belonged.

His voice was a dark, merciless command. “You’re going to take everything I give you, Remi, and hold it on your tongue.”

A declaration. A promise. A sentence.

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