Page 18 of Ma Petite Mort
Perfect.
Blood splashes across my chest like a benediction. Her body collapses in a twitching heap, mouth still gasping like she's trying to speak to Thor himself.
I step back, soaked. Hard. Burning.
The gods are fed.
But I don’t move toward the shadows.
Not yet.
Because someone catches my eye.
Long, dark hair. Fur pelt slung over his shoulders like it was made from the skin of something sacred. Calm, but not the kind that’s afraid to feel.
No, his is the calm of someone who’s felteverything, andsurvived it anyway.
He stands just outside the altar’s radius, not masked, not branded in red.
Black band.
He didn’t come here to die, or to fuck.
He came because he understands.
His arms are folded, combat boots planted like he’s not just watching the show—he’s part of it.
Like this ishisworld too.
His eyes lock on mine. Sharp. Steady. Familiar in a way that rattles something primal in my ribs.
He doesn’t flinch when Johnny drives the axe handle between another guest’s teeth, cracking through enamel and cartilage like wet bark.
He doesn’t blink when the blood sprays across Alaska’s grinning face.
He just… watches.
Unphased. Unmoving. Unholy.
And then I see it in his eyes—that same gnawing need. That same reverence for ritual. That same willingness to descend into the fire just to see what burns last.
He knows.
Knows the gods want more than pleasure.
That blood isn’t currency, it’s communion, and that death is just the price of devotion.
“You didn’t come to play, did you?” I mutter, low enough for only the gods to hear. “You came because you crave this. Because you live here… in the rot. In the ruin.”
A breath catches in my chest. Not fear.
Recognition.
“You’re not a guest. You’re a wolf in the wrong skin.”
I grip my axe tighter. My hands are slick with blood, but I barely feel it. All I feel ishim, standing there like an unanswered prayer, like the kind of omen they used to paint on cave walls when the sky cracked open.
He doesn’t need to kill to belong.
