Page 88 of Devoured
“Do you, Zahra Mitchell, take this King of Suffering as your husband?”
The compulsion hit like a fist to the throat. But as my mouth opened, something else slipped in. A whisper that didn’t touch my ears but settled in my bones.
Yes. Let him bind himself to you.
Young. Female. Older than the stones but somehow still innocent.
“I do.”The words tore free, but that presence lingered, almost pleased.
The Seamstress brought rings made from finger bones, yellow and grooved. They fused to our skin with the smell of burning meat.
“Speak your promise,”Father Gallows intoned.
I looked at the Judge. At this thing that had fed on misery for millennia and called it divine.
“I will give you all of me.”My voice barely existed. “Everything I am. Everything I carry. All of it.”
He smiled. The fool smiled. “Time for consummation.”
Shadow curtains fell around us. He pushed me onto the bone altar. The ribs of dead women dug into my spine. “Six hundred years.”His hands left burns wherever they touched. “Six hundred years of waiting for the perfect bride to share my throne.”
I stared at nothing and prepared to float away from my body like I’d learned with Theo. But then the presence returned, stronger now. The air around me shifted. Not cooler exactly, but... cleaner. Like finding one drop of fresh water in an ocean of blood.
Give him everything.
The voice was clearer now. I could taste its sorrow—centuries of watching this place corrupt everything good.
Your guilt, child. It’s already dead inside you. Rotted into something he’s never tasted.
My skin prickled. I smelled something impossible—wildflowers and rain on stone. Things that belonged to the world above.
We both died rather than submit. Now make him choke on what that created.
The Judge lowered his massive head for the binding kiss. The one that would seal our union forever.
Pour it all. Every drop of poison you’ve been brewing. Show him what happens when you break a woman until there’s nothing left but venom
I opened my mouth.
Let him in.
And began to pour.
Chapter 27
At first, he moaned into my mouth like I was wine. His burning tongue invaded deeper, drinking my sorrow. The Judge pressed against me, lost in triumph. The bone altar hummed as our essences began to merge.
“Yes,”he breathed against my lips. “Your pain makes me stronger.”
Then his movements stuttered. His tongue went rigid. He pulled back, confusion on his face.
Black veins appeared under his skin, spreading from where our lips had touched. They pulsed with each heartbeat, mapping corruption across his perfect features. “What is this?”
“Everything you wanted.”My voice came out hoarse. “All my guilt. All at once.”
“No, this is wrong. Sorrow feeds me!”
“Normal sorrow does. The kind that comes and goes. The kind with hope mixed in.”I watched the poison spread across his face like ink in water. “But this? This is guilt turned to acid. Shame that ate itself hollow. You finally ate something already dead inside.”
