Page 3 of Bonepetal
The forest forgets how to breathe.
And the devil arrives like smoke, silent and slow. His presence folding around us like ash and shadow, a crown of teeth glinting in the dark. He doesn’t speak. He never has to.
But she does.
“Finn—no—what are you doing?”
Her hands clutch at me like I’m the only thing keeping her upright, fingers shaking, nails biting into my skin. Her sobs tear through the air, raw and desperate, but I don’t flinch.
She stares at the ruin around us—her family, our people—strewn like broken effigies at the altar. Her body trembles in her ruined white lace, blood soaking the hem, eyes wide and wild with grief and rage.
“You can’t,” she chokes out, voice cracking like glass. “You can’t do this. Not for me. Not like this.”
“I have to,” I whisper, pulling her face into my palms like she’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted to hold. My thumbs chase the tears spilling hot down her cheeks, but they just keep coming, falling faster, falling harder. “It’s me or you, Salem.”
Her head shakes furiously, dark hair tangled and matted against her damp face. “No—no, there has to be another way! We’ll find it, we’ll?—”
“There’s not.” My voice doesn’t waver. Doesn’t break. It’s steady, certain, the way it has to be. “The devil needs a soul,” I tell her, and my chest aches because I’ve already chosen. “But it won’t be yours.”
Her lips tremble against mine as I press my forehead to hers, breathing her in like this single second has to carry me through forever. Because it does, and it will.
Her nails dig into my arms, shaking, clinging like she could tether me to this earth. “Don’t you fucking dare, Finn—don’t you leave me here. Don’t you make me live without you?—”
“You have to,” I breathe, and my voice finally cracks, low and broken against her mouth. “You can’t stay here. Not after this.Not after what I’ve done. You run, Salem. You run and don’t you ever fucking look back. Not tonight. Not ever.”
Her eyes plead with mine, wide, wet and burning, but deep down she knows. She always fucking knows.
“I swear,” she chokes out, voice shredded, shaking like the vow itself is carved out of her bones. “I’ll never look back, and I’ll never love again. I swear it, Finn?—”
I crash my mouth against hers before she can say more, swallowing the promise like blood. Her sobs break into the kiss, salt and heat and everything I’ve lived for, all of it pressed into one last desperate seal. My hands cradle her face like she’s both holy and breakable, and I kiss her hard enough to brand the vow into her soul.
It’s not desperate.
It’s not lust.
It’s fuckingeverything.
Then I push her back.
Her long dark hair spilling around her like ink on the altar stone. The candlelight kisses every curve of her face, cheekbones carved like betrayal, mouth soft and quivering. She’s never looked more like sin dressed as salvation. Like something holy made out of ruin.
Mine.
I shove her back again.
Harder this time.
Her breath leaves her in a strangled sob, fingers clawing the altar as she stumbles, crying out my name, “Finn, no?—”
But I don’t let her stop me. I can’t.
I use whatever strength I have left—blood-slick hands, shaking limbs, rage and devotion colliding in my chest—and I drive the blade in.
Deep.
Straight through the carving I already left behind.The metal splits me like a promise. Like penance.
“MY SOUL FOR HERS!” I scream into the sky, into the dark, into the bones of the world that raised me.
