Images strobe in my mind. The Oracles pin me down. The altar is cold against my back. The knife settles against my chest, and the Head Oracle gives a sharp command—no empathy or regret.

Stay still, Princess. Stop squirming.

My fingers tighten on the dagger’s hilt.

“This execution is the one thing you think you can control,” the Wolf mocks, jarring me from the memory. “Your last-ditch attempt to salvage some paltry scrap of dignity before the end. Because it kills you, doesn’t it? Knowing that no matter how earnestly you tithed or bravely you negotiated, you’ll just be another carcass rotting at my feet.”

I didn’t know it was possible to hate anyone this much. Some self-destructive impulse wants me to goad him. To see how far I can push.

“Maybe I should bury this blade in your throat and watch you die choking on it,” I say, baring my teeth.

“Points for ambition, but I’m not a demigod. It takes more than a Turpori dagger to kill an Eternal.” He gives a little laugh. “But I’ll let you in on a secret. A bit of wisdom from a god who’s seen more killing than most: we’re all just walking corpses in different stages of decay, waiting for the end. The only difference is how much of the world we take with us when we finally lie down. So accept what I’m giving you. It’s more than a Devaliant deserves.”

The air thickens. Something feral scorches through my veins, snarling, Hurt him. Hurt him like they’ve hurt you.

He must see it—that dark emotion building inside me, all my anger and repressed violence ready to spill out between us. His next words shudder through me, smoky and intimate. “Where do you want me? Where do you want to sink in your claws and teeth and tear?”

Before I can think better of it, I’m shoving him. He smirks as the backs of his knees hit the bed, and then the Wolf settles on my rumpled sheets like he belongs there.

Like he owns this space. Owns me.

This close, I can’t help but study the ring of molten gold limning his irises, the way his lashes cut stark shadows over his cheekbones. His skin has the luster of crushed diamonds.

I hate him. I hate him so much for the beauty that speaks to some base, primitive part of my hindbrain that looks at the monster and thinks, yes, please, instead of running.

I step between his parted thighs, reaching out until my fingers hover over his wing. I toy with the idea of seeing what sounds he might make if I tugged until those gold feathers came away bloody. “Everywhere is fair game? Even—”

His hand shoots out, and he seizes my wrist, giving me a stern look. “Let me clarify. No one touches a god’s wings. Not even pretty little sacrifices.”

“So it’s a universal law? Not a human restriction?”

His grip tightens. “Inviolable. For everyone.” Then he releases his hold and reclines on his elbows—an ancient god awaiting worship. “Well? Put that dagger to good use.”

I bring the knife up and lay the edge against his shoulder.

“Make me bleed for you, vicious girl,” he says.

And that? That’s my undoing. The last thread of my control snapping.

I slash the blade down in a shallow cut that’s more blood than pain. His breath hisses through his teeth, and his hands fist at his sides, but he doesn’t move. The sight of crimson welling against that glittering skin makes something fierce and hungry unfurl behind my ribs. Is this what power feels like? This dizzying, swooping sensation? This dark and covetous thing?

“That’s it.” His head tips back. “Let me feel it. Let me choke on your rage.”

A part of me screams to stop. This is wrong. This is madness. But that part is drowned out by the rush of my pulse in my ears, the savage joy clawing up my throat.

With a snarl, I lunge and straddle his hips, opening a matching line across his chest. He grunts at the impact. His hands close around my thighs, gripping me as I carve my anguish into him. My helpless fury at every injustice ever done to me in the name of sacrifice.

It’s power and depravity. Sacrilege. This body is a temple, and I am defiling it with greedy hands. Violating him. Claiming him. Marking him as mine. A profane consummation in steel instead of skin, a black mass spoken in the language of shared brutality. The hilt grows slippery in my grip, and my breathing goes ragged, but I don’t stop. I can’t.

My teeth ache with the need to bite. To rend and tear and mark in a way no immortal flesh can heal. To take all that monstrous grace and beauty and make it a ruin, because with every slash and visceral jolt of the blade sinking in, everything inside me quiets. The memories and the smothered screams. The swallowed grief and violence over all the times everyone told me that princesses can’t say no, can’t be angry, can’t fight back. We just lie down and take it.

“More,” he says. “Harder.”

I’ve spent so long hiding this hunger. This need to hit something, to hurt something. Images flash. The altar. The knife. The Void. Waking up to the numb reality of a life that isn’t really living. I’m sick of being the thing that breaks—a woman who climbs up onto a slab of rock and dutifully, prettily dies every two weeks.

And it’s like he sees it. Sees down into the rotting bedrock of me, the parts that the altar blade keeps chipping at with each death. The Wolf’s burning gaze never looks away. It devours me, memorizing my snarls and quick, uneven breaths. He watches me as if this is rapture, revelation. As if he wants to crawl into the wildness of me and revel in my unmaking. The veneer of Devaliant royalty stripped to this animal wearing her skin.

I shove the knife into his side. It sinks through flesh and muscle until it scrapes bone. He groans but holds still, gripping my thighs hard enough to bruise. Letting me take and take and take. And I’m so ravenous. Like I could eat the fucking world and crave more.

He must sense it, the flat dissatisfaction twisting my mouth. The grief. He reaches up to cup my face in his palms, smoothing his thumbs over my cheeks to catch the tears that spill down. I sob soundlessly as I watch his wounds knit back together. His skin glows with all that Eternal power as every mark and hurt I made disappears. Because even this brutal mastery—this fleeting dominion over a god—is as empty as an altar rite.

I’m still just a sacrifice. Still chained to the altar.

And he’s still the one who gets to kill me.

“It’s not enough, is it?” he asks, low and too-knowing. “All that fury, and you’ll go to your grave still starving.”

This is a joke to him. An obligation. He gets to fly away and wash his hands of me, go back to his life in Scillari, and celebrate a promise kept and a Devaliant killed. He’ll never understand what it’s like to be powerless.

“You want to know what I loathe about you?” I say. “You’re untouchable in a way I’ll never be. Powerful. Immortal.” I lean down until our noses brush. “And you squander it all on meaningless shit like this. It’s pathetic.”

A muscle tics in his jaw. Then he leans in and brushes his lips over mine. It’s not a kiss—not really. Just a meeting of mouths, cold and perfunctory. Like he’s mocking me.

It makes me want to bite.

“Show me,” he murmurs against my mouth. “Show me how much you hate me. Let me taste it.”

Fuck you.

With a growl, I surge against him and sink my teeth into his bottom lip until I taste copper. We’re panting into each other, sharing breath and blood. His hands twist in my hair.

His expression is almost tender as he yanks the dagger out of his side and angles the point over my thundering heart. “Let me see all that loathing in your face as you die. Any final words? I’ll be sure to carve them on your tomb.”

I lean into the blade, giving him the eye contact he bargained for. “Here lies Bryony Devaliant,” I sneer. “The stupid woman who still gave one last tithe against the Eternal’s orders when she should have spat in his face.”