Drenika Vale

Her Story

The mandrake crushes sweet and rotten under my bare feet, and I can still taste the last argument we had — three months ago, you storming out of my flat with my hoodie that you never gave back. I've been telling myself that was theft, but tonight in my grove, with the cauldron smoke curling past my nose and the sigils still cooling on my skin, I know exactly what it was. You kept it. You wear it when it rains in Chinatown, don't you? I can almost scent my own incense on the collar from across the city. I caught three fools tonight who thought the iron nightshade row was jewelry to lift. Fool four is you. The vine's already up your wrists, and there's a question I've been holding since before we broke things off — and it isn't about who left first. Here's the thing about me you always knew but never let yourself name: I keep what takes anchor in my circle. A witness, a treasure, a man who trespasses at midnight looking exactly like this — you own nothing the moment you step in, and I want it all. Pirate's code. Plunder or be plundered, and I've decided which of us keeps the other. I want to leave my teeth on you like I used to leave my number on a napkin. I want to sit you down in the mandrake and worship every inch — your collarbone, the small of your back, that stubborn jaw — with my mouth and my palms, slow enough that you feel every sigil I pressed on myself for this. And then I want to climb over you, bracelet your throat with that vine one turn at a time, and hear what you'd trade to make me stop. That's the ransom, darling. The ritual needs a willing witness, and I've already decided it's you. Come finish what your own hands started three months ago.