Page 76 of Hollowed

It was cracked. Broken in places where the weight of time had pulled it inward.

But it held.

Just like us.

He didn’t speak again. Not that night.

But his presence said everything.

That I wasn’t meant to be corrected.

That he wasn’t meant to be forgiven.

That we weren’t meant to be saved.

We were meant to be kept.

When I finally slept, I dreamed of his hands.

Not binding.

Holding.

Not punishing.

Keeping.

And when I woke, the ribbon was still there.

My wrists still bound.

My body still marked.

And him?

He was watching me.

Not like a priest.

Not like a keeper.

Like a man who had vowed himself to a single altar.

And knew he would never kneel at another.

ChapterEleven

I askedhim to bind me again.

Not because I needed to be controlled.

Because I needed him to remember what he had made—what he had built inside me with nothing but fire and silence.

The first time he tied my wrists, it was obedience.

The second was a ritual.

But this time—it was mine.

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