Chapter 6: Profane Communion
The chapel door screamed on rusted iron hinges as Kadri shoved it open, hauling Ca inside by the front of his shirt. Dust motes, disturbed from a century of sleep, danced in the slanted light cutting through shattered stained glass. The air was thick with the smell of dry rot and forgotten prayers.
“Enough of this,” she snarled, her voice echoing in the hollow space. She drove him backward, his heels scraping on the grit-covered stone, until the small of his back hit the solid edge of the altar. It was a massive, rough-hewn block of stone, scarred and stained. “You’re going to tell me how to break this.”
“I believe we’ve covered this,” Ca said, his tone infuriatingly calm. He made no move to resist, just watched her with those deep, knowing eyes. “There is no ‘break.’ Only a bend.”
“Then show me how to bend it into a weapon.” Her fingers tightened in his shirt, the fabric straining. The sigil on her chest was a cold brand against her skin. “This… this adoration is a poison. I won’t be neutered by it. I will use it.”
A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched his lips. “You can’t. That’s not its nature. It’s a shield, Kadri. Not a sword. It’s meant to protect you from yourself.”
“From myself?” A raw, ugly laugh ripped from her throat. “You arrogant bastard. You think my ambition is something I need protecting from?”
“I think it’s a fire that will eventually consume nothing but itself. This… this curse, as you call it, gives you a different kind of fuel.”
“I don’t want different fuel! I want my fire back!” In a surge of fury, she swung a leg over him, pinning him against the altar with her weight. She leaned in, her face inches from his, her hellfire eyes blazing. The ornate curves of her horns framed her wild hair like a crown of wrath. “Tell me how to turn it, Ca. Or I swear by every forgotten god in this place, I will carve the answer from your flesh with my teeth.”
She meant it. The primal violence of the threat hung in the dusty air between them, a tangible promise. She could taste the copper tang of his blood in her imagination, feel the tear of skin and muscle.
Ca didn’t flinch. He didn’t even look concerned. He just studied her face, the frantic pulse in her throat, the wild desperation in her eyes. His voice dropped to a low, intimate murmur that was somehow more terrifying than a shout.
“Are you sure,” he asked, “that’s the way you want to go?”
The question wasn’t a challenge. It was a warning. It was the calm certainty of a man watching someone step onto a trapdoor, knowing exactly what lay beneath.
It was the last straw.
A sound of pure, undiluted rage tore from her. She lunged, not for his throat, but for the column of it, her teeth bared. She would make him hurt. She would make him scream. She would make him regret ever laying his hands on her, ever marking her, ever thinking he could cage her.
But her assault wasn’t a calculated attack. It was a storm. A frenzy. Her teeth scraped against his skin, but her hands were shaking, her movements clumsy with a fury so absolute it became self-defeating. She clawed at his clothes, her nails catching on fabric, trying to inflict any kind of wound, to prove she still could, that she wasn’t already tamed.
He let her try. He endured the frantic, useless violence for a handful of seconds, his body a rock against her tempest. Then his hands came up. Not to strike her. Not to push her away.
They settled on her hips, his grip firm, grounding. The contact was a electric shock that jolted through her rage.
She froze, panting, her body trembling with spent adrenaline and a sudden, shocking wave of exhaustion. The fight drained out of her all at once, leaving her hollow and shaking atop him. She’d really tried. She had put every ounce of her will into ravaging him, and he had just… absorbed it.
Tears of frustration pricked at her eyes, hot and shameful. She tried to blink them back.
“See?” he whispered, his thumbs moving in slow, gentle circles on her hips. The simple touch was an agony of tenderness. “That’s not your way. Not with me.”
The last of her resistance crumbled. The anger dissolved, leaving behind a raw, aching vulnerability that was far more terrifying. She slumped against him, her forehead coming to rest against his shoulder. His arms wrapped around her, holding her together as she fell apart.
His hand came up, tangling in the wild dark mane of her hair, tilting her face up to his. There was no triumph in his gaze. Only a deep, ancient understanding that felt like looking into a still, bottomless pool.
He kissed her.
It wasn’t like the first time, which had been a battle of wills and magic. This was a surrender. A slow, deep claiming that seeped into the cracks of her soul. She kissed him back, not with strategy, but with a desperate, hungry need for an anchor in the chaos he had created.
Her hands, which had moments before been weapons, now fumbled with the fastenings of his clothes, then her own. The cool, dusty air of the chapel touched her skin, but his hands were warmer than any hellfire. He laid her back on the rough stone of the altar, the cold a stark contrast to the heat building between them.
There was no more curse, no more garden, no more village. There was only the weight of him, the scent of dust and his skin, the feel of his mouth tracing a path down her throat, over the pulsing sigil. He moved in her with a devastating patience that unraveled her completely, each slow, deep thrust a silent answer to a question she hadn’t known how to ask.
She cried out, a broken, gasping sound that echoed off the crumbling walls, her fingers digging into his back as the world shattered into a constellation of pure, blinding sensation. He followed her over the edge, his own groan muffled against her skin, his body shuddering against hers.
For a long time, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing settling into the quiet. The colored light from the broken windows painted their tangled bodies in shades of ruby and sapphire.
Kadri kept her eyes closed, one hand still fisted in his hair, the other resting on the altar stone beside her head. The cold, unyielding reality of it was a anchor. She had come in here to wage a war and had instead found a temporary, devastating peace. And she had no idea which was the greater weapon.