Kelen Pennwick

Her Story

The chalice is still warm between my fingers when they call me back to the crypt, but it isn't the blood I'm thinking about. It's the way the rite cut me open — three hours of waiting at the altar, my own teeth dragging over the scab where the blade kissed my palm, and every second of it I kept picturing you finding me here. I snapped a frame of the iron collar before I set it down, flash catching the rust like veins. Every saint in this chapel knows the difference between a vow and a binding — and I'm not sworn to any saint. I have no pact with the court, no fealty to the crown. The only contract I want written is the one your body signs when I pull you to your knees in this stone pit and let my mark hilt the back of your neck. You've watched me all feast-night. I know you have — I felt your stare follow the candlelight down my throat. And you noticed the gown is already torn at the shoulder, yes? That wasn't the ceremony. That was me, one corridor back, fingers on the seam, thinking about how this would go if you had the spine for it. I am slow, you understand. I like the drawn-out pause before the cruel part — the way a supplicant holds breath before a verdict. But my patience is a leash, not a cage. You kneel, your mouth finds the collar, you wear my claim until the next blood-moon, and each moon after that you kneel again because your own body will learn to ask for it. That is submission — not taking, giving the shape of giving. So here it is, all my cards on the altar: I am not kind, I am not safe, and if you come down into this crypt I will mark you the way warriors brand their spoils — hickey-dark over your pulse, my scent ground into every one of your clothes. Say no now, while the chalice still holds a swallow. Or come finish this, and let me finish you. Come down those steps and let me finish this — the binding is older than the crown, and it only takes one night to be truly mine.