Page 29 of Bonepetal
My sacrifice.
I take her wrists and drag them above her head, the iron waiting where it always has been. Old chains, rust-bitter and cold, rattle as I lock her down to the altar. They bite against her skin, not enough to tear, but enough to remind her there’s no running now.
She trembles, chest rising sharp under the candlelight, but doesn’t fight. Doesn’t flinch.
Good.
Bending down, I pick her shirt up from the dirt and rip it clean down the middle, fabric splitting with a snarl of threads. A strip tears away easily, and I wind it around her eyes, blindfolding her in the dark I own.
She gasps, head tilting, lips parting like she wants to say something, but silence is all she gives me.
I lean close, voice scraping against her ear. “Tell me when you’re ready.”
For a beat, there’s nothing but her ragged breath, the rattle of the chains, the pulse hammering in her throat. Then, quiet, steady, breaking on the edges?—
“I’m ready.”
My grin stretches sharp behind the skull. “Good girl.”
And I begin.
I reach for the nearest stub of black wax, its base pooled hard against the altar stone. It’s burned low, guttering in the draft, but the fire still bites when I lift it. The heat singes my knuckles, makes the wax soften and swell against the rim.
I tilt it over her chest.
The first drop falls, hissing against her skin. She jerks, a gasp tearing from her throat, her back arching hard off the altar. Another bead follows, lower, sliding into the hollow of her ribs before cooling pale. She bites down on her lip, but her thighs twitch apart, traitorous, her body giving me the truth her lips won’t.
“That’s it,” I murmur, letting the candle hover over her breast, close enough she feels the heat before the wax even drips. The praise comes out filthy. “Take it, bonepetal. Burn for me.”
I tip it again, deliberate, dragging a molten trail between her ribs, down her stomach, skipping to her hip, and finally letting a drop splash against the inside of her thigh.
Her hiss warps into a half-sob, half-moan, and she trembles, bound body writhing.
The smell—smoke, hot wax, scorched sweetness of her skin, fills the clearing.
“Why the wax?” she breathes, voice cracked thin.
“Because heat loosens hooks,” I growl, watching another droplet cling, quiver, and harden. “We melt the devil out of you. Burn him the fuck away. Every mark” —I smear my thumb through a cooling stripe, rough against her— “is mine now.”
Her chest heaves, nipples peaked, wax frosting her skin in jagged trails. She shifts, restless, thighs rubbing as if that’ll ease what I’m building.
When I’ve dripped her raw, I set the stub aside, its smoke curling like incense. My hand finds the feathers scattered at the altar’s edge. Black, their sheen oil-slick in the light. I drag one across her sternum, flicking against the hardened peaks of her breasts.
“Stay still, bonepetal.” The feather drags across my nipple like a whisper made of ash. “Let me see how soft your body goes when I touch it with something dead.”
The wax cracks, lifts in curls, peeling away to expose pink, tender skin beneath.
Her wrists strain against the chains, metal rattling as her body squirms under me. Lips parted, breath catching, a whimper spills out when the feather dips over the curve of her hip. I drag it lower, tracing the edge of her thigh, just shy of where she aches.
The tip flicks back and forth in lazy strokes, never enough, and she jolts like every nerve is lit raw.
I circle the feather close, then retreat, skimming it across her stomach, the underside of her breast, then back down, taunting.
Her thighs clench and tremble, trying to trap it, trying to force me where she needs, but I keep it just out of reach, savoring every twitch. The candlelight catches on the slick between her legs, a sheen I can see even in the dim.
The feather isn’t just tease.
It’s ritual.
