Page 81 of Hollowed

And he caught me.

Because he knew.

He had hollowed me.

And now—I had filled him.

ChapterTwelve

He fed me that morning.

Not with worship.

Not with command.

Just with his hands.

Quiet. Steady. Still half-cloaked in the silence that wrapped itself around us like old cloth.

He laid the food out on a piece of linen—a wedge of cheese, a cut of bread, and two pieces of fruit.

One red. One gold.

I sat across from him in the low light near the altar. My thighs still trembled from where he had filled me. My wrists still carried the mark of the ribbon he had used to bind me. My body ached like it had been sanctified and cracked open and made new.

He passed me the gold fruit.

His fingers brushed mine.

That was all.

No ceremony.

Just care.

I brought it to my mouth.

Bit into the skin.

Sweetness burst on my tongue. Ripe. Soft. Familiar.

But then?—

The taste shifted.

There was a sourness under the surface. A softness that wasn’t meant to be there.

I pulled the fruit away. Turned it in my hand.

The other side was bruised.

Not black. Not ruined.

But wrong.

Browning.

Spoiled from the inside out.

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