Page 157 of Decimation

Desire.

Not for Ezekiel. Never for him but for the power that crackles in the air around him, the power that the women have tasted and that I have tasted too. The power that comes from surrender, from letting go, from becoming something other than yourself.

I have spent my whole life being used. By my father, who sold me. By Ezekiel, who moulded me. By Konstantine, who saw me as nothing more than a vessel for his dead wife.

But Lazarus…

Lazarus sees me differently. Lazarus loves me. Lazarus has promised me revenge, and I have tasted it already, my father’s skull turned into a drinking cup, his bones ground to dust beneath my feet.

What would it feel like to have that kind of power for myself?

The thought terrifies me. It also excites me in ways I cannot name.

The women are moving again, arranging themselves in a circle around the stone slab. They join hands, their sheer dresses glowing faintly in the darkness and begin to chant, low and rhythmic words in Aramaic.

Ezekiel raises his hands, and the chanting grows louder. The colours around him pulse and swirl, and I feel the drug in my veins respond, sending fresh waves of heat through my body. My hips shift against the stone, my thighs pressing together, seeking friction, seeking relief.

“Behold,” Ezekiel intones, his voice ringing through the chamber. “Behold my Covenant Brides. Behold my vessel of the divine. Behold.”

The women turn toward me as one. Their eyes gleam in the darkness, and I see their mouths curve into identical smiles.

“Behold,” they echo, and the word is a caress, a promise, a threat.

I close my eyes and let the colours take me.

Time loses all meaning.

I drift in and out of awareness, the drug pulling me under and then releasing me, over and over, like waves breaking on a shore. Each time I surface, the scene has shifted slightly. The women have changed positions. The chanting has grown louder or softer. Ezekiel has moved closer or farther away.

But always, always, the touching continues.

Hands on my breasts, my stomach, my thighs. Mouths on my neck, my shoulders, the sensitive hollow behind my knees. Fingers sliding inside me, stretching me, filling me, bringing me to the edge of climax and then pulling back, leaving me gasping and desperate.

I lose count of how many times I come. The orgasms blur together, one bleeding into the next until I cannot tell where pleasure ends and pain begins. My body is no longer my own. It belongs to the drug, to the women, to the ancient stone beneath me and the ancient darkness above.

And through it all, Ezekiel watches like the very devil.

I feel his gaze on me like a brand, burning into my skin. I feel his satisfaction, his anticipation, his certainty that he has won. That I am his creature now, broken and remade in his image.

He is wrong.

Even through the haze of the drug, even through the pleasure that wracks my body, a part of me remains separate. A part of me that watches, waits, and remembers.

The women are touching me once more, their hands slick with oil that smells of myrrh and something else, something that makes my skin tingle and burn. They are anointing me, I realize. Preparing me for whatever comes next.

One of them straddles my face, and I taste her; salt, musk and something sweet, like honey left too long in the sun. She rocks against my mouth, and I let my tongue do what it has been trained to do, let myself become the vessel they want me to be. Her thighs tremble on either side of my head, and when she comes, her cry echoes off the ancient walls like a prayer.

Another woman takes her place. And another. And another.

I lose myself in the taste of them, in the feel of their bodies against my mouth, in the colours that swirl and dance behind my closed eyes. Violet, green, orange and gold, all bleeding together into something new, something that has no name.

And then, finally, Ezekiel speaks again.

“Enough.”

The word cuts through the haze, each syllable echoing in my head. The women withdraw, their bodies sliding away from mine and I am left alone on the stone slab. Trembling and slick with sweat, oil, and the evidence of their pleasure.

Ezekiel approaches. He stands over me, and I see his face clearly for the first time; the sharp angles of his cheekbones, the dark glitter of his eyes, the smile that curves his lips like a wound. He reaches down and traces a finger along my cheekbone, following the line of one of my scars. His touch is cold, and I flinch away from it, but the ropes hold me in place.