Page 83 of The Devil's Canvas

“The infernal what?” I raise an eyebrow.

He doesn’t smile. His expression shifts—darker, weightier, like he’s speaking something sacred and dangerous.

“It’s not a spell,” he says, his voice like a prayer sealed with ash. “Not a ritual. It’s a progression. A descent. It begins the moment your soul reaches for mine—not with words, but with need. And yours already has.”

My breath catches. “What does that mean?”

“It means,” he says, dragging a hand through his hair, “the first call happens when you think of me. Not casually. Not in passing. It has to be real. Intimate. Vulnerable. When you feel something deep enough to break you open… the bond answers.” His throat works. “That first time—you invoked it. You didn’t know. But I felt it. In my blood. In every part of me.”

I look away, heat blooming beneath my skin. “You mean—”

“Yes.” His voice tightens. “That was the spark. That’s what woke it up.”

He continues before I can speak. “After that comes the kiss. The real one. That’s when I give you a piece of my essence. It latches into you—carves itself under your skin. That’s why you saw what you did. That’s why it felt like something ancient waking up.”

I nod slowly. “I remember.” The fire. The visions. The way it wasn’t just mine.

“Next comes the corruption touch,” he says. “Your body starts to respond. You’ll feel heat. Pain. Need. Even when I’m not there. The bond tightens. It feeds on proximity, on want, on denial. The more you resist, the more it takes.”

“It already is,” I murmur.

“I know.” He watches me. There’s a flicker of guilt there. Or maybe reverence.

“And the final step?” I ask.

He exhales, slow and deliberate. “Consummation.” He meets my eyes. “But not the way you think. It’s not sex that seals it. Not entirely. It’s what happens after. What you give.”

“What I give?”

“Yourself,” he says. “Your mortality. Your softness. The part of you that isn’t ready to become something else.” A beat passes. “It hurts. Only you can do it. I can’t help you. I can only hold you through it.”

Something cold and electric dances down my spine. “And after?”

“If you survive it,” he says, voice almost reverent, “you’re rewritten. The Mark completes. The bond finalizes. But not with a bite—not anymore. Not with blood. With will. With sacrifice. With something you can’t take back.”

I go quiet.

“Then,” he says, softer now, “if you want… you speak my true name. That’s the knot. The end. If you say it, you bind us. Forever. If I die, you suffer. If you die, so do I. If we’re apart too long...”

“It hurts,” I finish for him.

He nods once. “More than anything.”

The silence stretches between us, dense and trembling.

“What if I don’t want to?”

His voice doesn’t waver. “I won’t take you. This isn’t about power. This is about choice. Yours.”

I think about Julian. The bond. I don’t know how to hold all of this. It doesn’t fit inside me.

My father didn’t just ignore me. He didn’t just favor her. Hesoldme. Carved out my soul and handed it to Melanie like a gift, wrapped in applause and red carpet lighting.

And I didn’t even feel it go. I just knew something inside me had broken, and no one ever told me why.

I thought it was me. That I was too much. Too sensitive. Too intense. I thought maybe the world had just moved on and forgotten to take me with it.

But it wasn’t me.

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