Page 59 of Hollowed

Because it meant he thought I might break now that I had finally been kept.

But I wouldn’t.

I didn’t want to be devoured.

I wanted toremain—even if it meant staying whole was harder.

So I stayed.

Not because he would return.

But because I would meet him in the stillness, again and again, until he learned that reverence could last longer than ruin.

I rose slowly, knees stiff, thighs raw. My pussy still pulsed from the last time he’d been inside me. I liked it. I wanted it to stay sore. To throb when I breathed too hard or shifted too quickly. I wanted to remember.

I cleaned myself. Quietly. The water was cold, but I didn’t flinch.

I tore the bread with my fingers. Let it dissolve on my tongue. It was rough, dry, a little sweet. I imagined him making it. Not kneading, not baking. Just preparing it in silence, the way he prepared me. With purpose.

I dressed.

The robe smelled like him.

Ash. Iron. Skin.

I didn’t tie it closed.

Let it fall open down the center. Let the air kiss my chest, my ribs, the curve of my belly. I wanted him to see that I hadn’t hidden the marks. That I hadn’t erased what he left behind.

I stepped out into the chapel slowly.

He wasn’t there.

But I felt him.

The place still carried his weight. The walls breathed it. The floor ached with it. I walked past the altar, past the basin, into the light where the windows bled color.

And I knew he was watching.

Even if I couldn’t see him.

He was watching the way I moved now.

Not because he needed to punish me.

Because I had become a thing worth witnessing.

And I knew then?—

He didn’t stay away to protect me.

He stayed away because he was still learning how to keep me without breaking me.

And I wanted him to learn it.

Slowly.

With me.

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