Page 19 of Hollowed

Shining.

Not with heat.

With reverence.

“You know what it means?”

I nodded.

“Say it,” he said. “Or not at all.”

I didn’t look away.

I didn’t hesitate.

“I vow silence.”

His hand came to my throat.

Not to close it.

To feel the words live there.

“I vow obedience,” I breathed.

His thumb pressed to the hollow of my neck.

“I vow to be claimed.”

And then?—

He kissed me.

Not my lips.

My throat.

Over the place where my vow had just taken root.

His mouth was fire and gravity and benediction all at once.

And I knew.

It wasn’t about the words.

It was about who I became when I spoke them.

I closed my eyes.

And I let them become me.

ChapterFive

I had never been touchedlike this.

Not the way his hands came to me, not the way his eyes found my skin before his fingers did. He touched like he was speaking into me. Like his palms were pages and I was the last scripture he would ever be allowed to read.

He didn’t hurry.

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