Page 7 of The Sacrifice

A deep groan rumbles from his voice as he reaches up to knead her breast before lowering his mouth to the peaked tip. I step back, only for my sister to open her eyes, knit her brows together, and frown at me. No doubt, she’s already read my brief train of thought. Thankfully, Qora helps shadow my mind, so Darya can’t steal too much. And I’ve worked infinitely harder over the years because there’s nothing Darya loves more than to spy. Our father has put her to proper use.

He wanted sons, but our mother gave him three girls instead. I pity her. Not as much as Rylinne, but I know Darya became the sword Pater wanted her to be in order to thrive. I just survive.

As if sensing her tension, the man swings his head back and chortles a rasp.

“Let the gray girl watch,” he says without stopping his rutting. “It’s not like she will be alive after tonight to say anything.” Darya giggles in response and thrusts her large breasts out, the rosy nipples swelling from every lick of the man’s tongue.

Oh, he’s a flesh-binder, I notice when he changes the shape of that tongue.

My heart thunders. I know I should run past them, beyond the gate, and return to the manor. But I can’t seem to stop watching, fascinated by the sight.

I’ve read too many books about a dark, dangerous masculine warrior designed to tear breath from a woman’s lungs while strong, callused fingers rip her bodice down the middle. Throughout my twenty years, I’ve fantasized about such dark lust, a desire for the carnal and primal. That someone would crave me to the point of erotic assault and sinful hunger, until he drove himself so hard into me, I’d finally feel something other than numb. Countless nights, I’ve rubbed my small but high breasts and little knot between my thighs, chasing an illusion.

I am limbo in a body. I feel nothing.

You are nothing, my father’s voice batters into my consciousness.

There is nothing dark or dangerous about the man fucking my sister. He chases his pleasure the entire time. Far too crude, he can’t even pass for filthy. No seduction or charm either. Darya is doing this to spite our father. But more than that, her eyes narrow upon mine, burning me with her gaze as she moans and the fence posts behind her rattle. My chest caves in on itself, my breath hitching.

First-born daughters are always married off to a Brother while a second-born daughter chooses her husband. But Rylinne will never marry. The responsibility passes to Darya. And she hates me more for it as Rylinne hates me for why she can’t marry.

Weighed down from an unseen force, my heart sinks low in my chest as the man finishes inside Darya with a final thrust, groaning deeply against her bosom. She cries out, but I roll my eyes, knowing the sound of my sister’s true cry.

I can’t hope it will ever happen to me, but if it does, I want it to be feral and violent. After letting countless men in the Borderlands use my dead pussy, I’ll need something heated and so unholy, the saints will blush. Savage and forbidden, deep and hard enough to feel it down to my core. Heart-crushing, soul-obliterating, suicide by sex.

What a delirious way to go!

I’m still trembling when Darya rights her skirts, throws her blouse on, and stomps over to me to grip my wrist and tug me toward the house. “Come along, gray girl, time to prepare you for the Sacrifice.”

* * *

No amount of lace embellishing my body could possibly conceal the scars. I cringe as if I can already smell the bitter aroma of blood, hear the crunch of bones under mighty paws, and smell their sulfuric breath curling on the back of my neck.

While Rylinne weaves more of my bone-straight, gray hair into braids, I rip off the lace gloves, pulling at tiny threads. Darya tightens the whalebone corset, but it could never plump my small breasts enough to matter much. As the eldest, Rylinne is given the most food, followed by Darya, and then me. And with how my half-ghost body digests food, a fuller figure is impossible.

Darya pulls harder, siphoning my breath as if to punish me for stumbling upon her earlier interlude. If she were to crack a rib, I doubt I’d register it.

Our house ghost, Townsend, shuffles back and forth through the boudoir, nearly in full flesh form. At least he’s harmless enough, more of a busybody than anything. And anxious. I’ve had to remind Qora countless times to leave him to his frets. I sigh because she swings back and forth in front of him, forcing him to change directions until he reminds me of a mouse in a maze.

Rylinne finishes with the strands. Silence and heartache between me and my oldest sister fill the deep hollow in my chest. Whenever she turns the left side of her face in my direction, bitter poison slithers down my throat. I may have countless more scars than Rylinne, but mine are from my hands, my blades. Her scars are evidence of my failure to heal her after she survived the Sacrifice. The deep slash marks marring her otherwise lovely face trail all the way to her neck and mangle one corner of her mouth into a perma-frown. My sister hasn’t smiled since that night.

As she binds the braids with a long white ribbon, Rylinne tells me, “Remember, Quinn, you cannot fight them, so don’t even try. Stay as close to the trees as possible, and if you hear a banshee, run to them. They are your best allies tonight.”

“Unless the monsters pluck her and take her back to the Waste where she belongs,” interjects Darya, knotting the base of my corset before shoving the overlaying, ruffled dress at me.

Ignoring her, I turn to Rylinne and offer her a weak smile. “Don’t forget rubbing myself down with dirt and manure to conceal my scent.”

She nods, her warm, whiskey-colored eyes meeting mine for a fraction of a second before they lower. Beautiful to me as always despite the scars riddling her face. Especially when she turns to the houseplant in the corner of the room and touches a fingertip to the soil, enriching it and encouraging the plant to grow. Rylinne inherited our father’s earth-binding, but thanks to her scars, she can do little more than gardening.

With her abundant, birthing hips, raven-dark hair flowing to her waist, fair skin, and generous bosom, Rylinne would still make a fine bride for an Elder-Brother. But she is monster-scarred, her blood and body corrupted and impure according to the Brothers. My blood simmers at the knowledge because it’s not fair. Survivors of the Sacrifice should always be celebrated and rewarded, not shunned. So many nights I gave her false hope whenever I assured her my vym could remove the scars, but whatever monster clawed her, its venom is powerful enough to circulate in her blood to this day. Beyond my skill to heal.

After I secure the white Sacrifice dress over my corset, Rylinne tenderly takes a few laurel flowers from the plant and tucks them into my hair, finishing with a touch-me-not nettle circlet upon my head for protection.

Qora flits closer, her shadows curling toward me, fingers longing to touch my hair and the flowers. On Hollow Night when she’s not preoccupied with killing me, she enjoys petting me. To this day, I wonder if she can feel anything, or if her nerves are hushed like mine.

Once we step into the hall, our father is waiting, hands clenched behind his back, lips pressed into a firm smile as he regards me. My entire being shudders before him.

“Rylinne, Darya,” he greets each of them and welcomes their kisses upon his cheeks. The ache inside me grows whenever he thumbs Rylinne’s scars and places a delicate kiss upon them. None of my scars matter even if my blood is writ into every object in this house. Even the walls bear my blood-binder signature, considering he’s used me all these years.

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