Love Like Gilded Bones: A Toll Of Flesh Novella #1

by Cyran Faringray

If I wore my soul as skin, stretched across flesh and bone like a living shield, I would have been covered in scars from head to toe.

A tiny, secret ritual of self-sacrifice as an offering to placate the ever-demanding, cruel God of anguish in my head.

So I never gave in to the thrum of war in my own blood, the rising call for violence stuffed beneath a layer of well-trained friendliness.

“There is a bit of starlight in all of us, River. Arguably, the brightest resides in hated creatures deemed the most aberrant and unnatural.”

“The ways we cope are not always pleasant. What matters is that you are still here. How you arrived here is of no importance. All I see are scars collected in battle, fighting for your life. Proof of your courage. And proof of your countless victories.”

“You will not harm yourself. You will come to me, and I will fulfill your darkest desires. You will find relief only at my hands. Is that understood, River?”

Tonight, I shall be your guide into the delightful depths of macabre sin.”

“Hush, my dear. I promise I will not hurt you all too much,” he murmured and kissed me, his unnatural tongue licking against my lips. “Just enough to make you scream.”

Look at how beautifully you suffer.”

“I love how you bleed for me, River.”

He set the scalpel aside and brushed over my cheek, painting me with his sin. With our sin.

Baptized by sanguine depravity.