Page 71 of Hollowed

I pressed the cloth to his chest.

Over the sigils. The scars. The places I’d kissed but never named.

He held still. His breath sharp. His body tense.

But he didn’t stop me.

When I was done, I sat beside him again. Shoulder to shoulder. Bare skin against scar.

“You were never supposed to be soft,” I said.

“And now?”

I looked at him.

“Now I know softness is what happens when discipline falls in love with surrender.”

He didn’t speak.

But his hand found mine.

And that was answer enough.

Later, when the chapel darkened again and the fire curled in the hearth like a secret, he touched me beneath the robe I wore.

Not to claim.

To remember.

His fingers traced my ribs. The curve of my breast. The inside of my thigh. No urgency. Just knowing.

And I realized then?—

He had hollowed me.

But now he was learning to live inside what he’d made.

And I was letting him.

Because if I had become sanctuary,

Then he had become the prayer I no longer needed to speak.

I needed to see him undone.

Not ruined. Not broken. I’d seen him fierce, still, cruel in silence and savage in worship. I’d felt the weight of his body claiming mine like a vow written in skin. But I had not seen him surrender.

Not the kind that bled. The kind that asked to be held.

He was always composed. Measured. Like control was the only thing that kept his hunger from swallowing him whole.

But I didn’t want his control anymore.

I wanted his ache.

I found him by the altar.

Not kneeling.

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