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Dinner would be served for two.
The finest dishware was already neatly set on the table: hand-painted fine porcelain plates from Waterdeep, goblets moulded in premium tin from the Shadowmount Peaks, and infernal steel cutlery hammered in the many forges of Avernus.
Raphael occupied his usual spot; a regal plush chair tall enough to accommodate his comfortable two hundred and fifteen centimetres, with his back turned to the great chimney to bring out the hellish attributes of his silhouette.
A far cry from the more elaborated looks he usually favoured, the devil had chosen a simple outfit for the evening: a large, flowy white shirt full of frills, and a pair of black pants that hugged his backside and his crotch perhaps a bit too well for his own comfort. He had taken the jewels and adornments off his horns, opting simply for several golden rings set with rubies and onyxes around his long fingers.
In front of him, at the opposite end of the large table, sat Tav.
She looked… Not “perfect”—not yet.
She was sporting one of his numerous shirts (really more of a tunic on her much smaller frame), and a pair of pants tight enough around her hips, they left nothing to the imagination.
As Raphael observed her, his elbows on the table and his chin resting over his hands, he mused she looked infuriatingly delicious.
“Are we going to play?” Tav asked, and she grabbed the goblet sitting in front of her. The clever girl had learnt her lesson: even as her lips dipped in the red wine, she never broke eye contact with him.
Her eyes had looked very beautiful on that day when they would not stop crying—but the tears had dried as quickly as they had flooded her face. Ever since then, her eyes were mostly boring and bland. No need to fret, though. The program Raphael had planned for the night would certainly change that.
“No music for us tonight, my dove,” Raphael cooed, a long claw scratching his jaw. “Merely a little game…”
Tav visibly tensed up, and so did the content of Raphael’s trousers when he noticed her fear. He barely pretended to hide his smug smile. After all this time… The great Hero of Baldur’s Gate was not proving to be more than a miserable rodent.
“Lanceboard...?” Tav proposed. An agile, yet pathetic attempt to feign composure.
“Not until you have practised your Etcheen opening, I’m afraid.”
Tav sulked with a charming, yet exaggerated pout on her face. Despite her insistence on supping alcohol like sweet milk, she had little tolerance for it. It made her giddy—amenable.
Raphael refilled her glass with a snap of his fingers.
Cooks and servants were far from a rare commodity in the House of Hope. On that night, however, Raphael had made a point of supervising and preparing the dinner himself. As he watched Tav, her small hands now kept on her knees and her eyes lost only Asmodeus knew where, Raphael was still pondering if the art of cooking was too debasing to share with her his involvement in the preparation of the feast.
His nostrils flared at the mere thought. This disgusting … hesitation (he had to call a spade a spade) was not the sort of feelings he used to experience. No, it belonged to the long list of grievances he could blame on Tav, among many other inane weaknesses she had awoken in him.
Yet, there she was, sitting in front of him with her delicious eyes wide open and her tantalising wet lips; erected nipples peeking through the light fabric of her shirt (his shirt), entirely oblivious to both her glaring arousal, and his silent ailment.
Resisting the urge to cross the room and bash the smile painted on her face, Raphael was reaching for his own goblet of wine when the doors of the feast hall slammed open. A procession of servants entered the room, each carrying bottles of alcohol and trays in their hands. They placed the largest of them all, a plate so massive two servants were necessary to carry it, in the middle of the table. When they uncovered the cloche above it dramatically, a delicious smell filled the entire room.
Guided by nothing more than pure instinct, Raphael stood up to observe his masterpiece. Had he been a boor, he would have drooled all over his shirt, for the meat looked exquisite: juicy, glistening with fat and sauce, roasted to the perfection. Tav’s eyes filled with the sort of hunger she usually reserved for him.
With a gesture of the hand, Raphael dismissed the servants. The words flooded out of his throat before he could contain them. “I spent hours preparing this feast for you, my dear.” They sounded way less saccharine in his head.
Tav must have found them absurd as well. She raised an eyebrow. “Did you…?”
Raphael crossed his arms. His tail swung behind him left and right, like a very angry pendulum. “Well, yes! Why must you act so surprised? This is a very special occasion, after all. Tonight, a deal finally comes to an end.”
The bard knew, of course, that he was not talking about their contract—the very same oath that was keeping Tav forever safe in his House of Hope. Still, for a fleeting moment, Raphael recognised that little glimmer of hope at the bottom of her pupils.
It was good, to stir that fire from time to time.
Raphael slowly made his way around the table. He grabbed a knife, so large it might have rivalled his horns in length, and he observed the blade for long seconds. There were at least two slaves whose sole purpose was to take care of his instruments. This butcher knife counted among his favourites. It was sharpened to such perfection, it could have sliced the air itself. Raphael watched himself reflected in the steel of the blade. The metal was so perfectly polished, he could identify every single feature of his perfect face.
Dragging the tip of the knife over the marquetry of the table, Raphael made his way towards Tav slowly. Her eyes never left the knife even as he slipped the handle between her fingers. Raphael did not fail to notice the way they also lingered on the expensive rings adorning his fingers. A pretentious, indulgent display of wealth, she wanted so badly to say, but what did she know? What was the point of it all, if not to indulge?
“All yours to carve,” Raphael cooed, his large hands following the curves of her arms until they rested on her shoulders. Towering her like that, he had a clear view into the plunging neckline of her shirt. He could easily make up the curves of her breasts, the outline of her nipples… The scent of fear and arousal emanating from her skin complemented the view to the perfection.
“There is this saying,” Tav whispered, the tip of the knife teasing the roasted skin of the meat, “we are what we eat.”
Raphael chuckled. Tav was far from the most cunning creature he’d had the displeasure to deal with, but she could show hints of intelligence.
For a moment, he had considered serving the swine with his head still attached to his greasy body, and an apple neatly lodged inside his mouth. Instead, Raphael had repurposed the head to better uses. He had crushed and mushed brain and eyes and tongue and cartilage to make a sauce that he’d left reducing for hours, infused with thyme, laurel and celery.
But even without all the dramatics of a grotesque presentation, Tav had identified the man roasted in the plate just fine.
“I much prefer this aphorism,” Raphael said. He raised a finger and he leaned over her shoulder, very close to her face. “Eat, or be eaten.”
Tav blinked slowly, her lips partially open. “Would that be me, or you...?”
“Partake, mouse,” he simply answered, eluding the question altogether. “I owed you this.”
If revenge was indeed a dish best served cold, it also blended exceptionally well with red wine and mashed potatoes.
Lord Ernest Brayton… Over fifteen years since this pig had sunk his disgusting teeth into her flesh. Oh, how tender she might have been back then… Still, Raphael preferred his preys ripe—they offered more resistance, which made the game more agreeable.
Raphael had studied the life of Lord Brayton attentively, as he had that of every single person who had ever gravitated around the adventurers who should have brought him his golden crown. A pathetic destitute noble he was, whoring out his protégées in hope he could build back his fortune and his reputation. But up until the very end, Brayton had mistaken renown and money for respect.
True respect, Raphael knew, was not earned through titles nor possessions. No, it was born out of one single thing: submission. If the greedy noble had not even managed to tame his own little pet, Tav had grown properly depraved under Raphael’s claws. His little distraction was overstaying her welcome but in that instant, in truth, Raphael did not mind her all that much.
The knife touched the roasted skin at last, cutting short his reveries. It sliced easily through the meat and Tav’s breathing grew short as she inhaled the rich aromas. Slowly, she licked her lips.
Part of Raphael had expected her to falter. It seemed that she respected him far too much for that.
Ah, Raphael thought, I want to devour her.
His right hand wrapped around hers, and he found her hold steady. He guided her slowly to show her how to properly carve this piece of meat of a nature she had never dealt with before.
“Slice off the shoulders first,” Raphael murmured. He planted the knife there and, by a simple lateral push, the joint gave in with a delicious crack that he felt all the way down his loins. “Peel off the skin next, and reserve it… Be careful with the laurel… Yes, just like that…”
His crotch rubbed almost on instinct against her arse, following Tav’s own undulations as she cut one slice after the other with an unpractised, yet steady hand. When half of the man was neatly prepared, Tav served two plates and they both regained their own spot in silence.
As delicious it looked, Raphael had no interest in the food: the spectacle in front of him was much more nourishing. Knife and fork suspended in the air, Tav was contemplating her plate with a grave expression on her face.
Raphael smirked. “Second-guessing yourself, perchance...?”
Tav’s entire face turned as crimson as the content of their goblets. “What—” She shook her head. “No! I wasn’t expecting this to happen so soon, that’s all!”
Raphael drank a mouthful of wine. The poor thing had lost the notion of time. Almost two years had already passed in the mortal plane since the day he had promised to feed her this man. “Surprised, are you?” he said. “Did I not make my efficiency clear enough?”
Tav pursed her lips. Her tone was cold enough, a pleasurable thrill ran through Raphael’s body. “You did. Thoroughly.” Her fork impaled a piece of Lord Brayton, and warm blood mixed with fat spilled over the plate. “But you’ve also made it clear that you really love to make it last.”
To this, Tav brought the meat to her mouth.
Raphael observed her munching face attentively, pupils dilated and nostrils flared. One of his hands mechanically moved below the table to palm his crotch through the fabric of his trousers. Tav could lie all she wanted after that, her look could not have been mistaken for anything but sheer ecstasy.
“You’ve made him way tastier than he deserved,” she blurted out. She drank a mouthful of wine, and forked another piece.
One hand still squeezing his penis, Raphael let out a rare, heartfelt laugh. “See, mouse,” he said, a large carnivorous smile matching hers, “this part of the deal was tailor-made to your tastes. I wanted it juicy, quick and decadent. You had already waited plenty enough. As for my reward…
“Lord Alafray, Lady Wizestock, Sir Blightfaith… All of these eloquent critics; all of their friends… Day after day, month after month, year after year… You and I shall meet them again, my dearest, on this very table.”
Raphael savoured her round eyes as he finally let go of his crotch to bring a piece of Lord Brayton to his own mouth. Tav was right: he tasted delicious. When the time would come, would she lend him a hand to prepare the rest of them? Would she tear off their limbs, empty their chests, and slice off their throats to exsanguinate them?
“Will you tell me how you managed to trap them?”
Oh, yes, she would, Raphael understood with a certain excitement.
How easy she was to impress. How easy she was to seduce. The explanation was, in truth, quite simple, and yet Tav still drank his words as easily a foolish devout their holy scriptures.
Raphael had built a beautiful house of cards shaped like the Lightsinger Theater. Several contracts, seemingly distinctive at first sight, but all intricately linked so if one came to fail, the others would inevitably follow. He could hardly call it a victory. It was nothing compared to the future the bard and her little company had denied him. Yet, Raphael was not one to refuse himself anything. These deals would feed more than his ego for the years to come—and so would she.
Seemingly forgetting all about the nature of her meal, Tav kept eating as Raphael kept talking, and when he was finished, so was she.
“Satiated?” he asked.
Tav shrugged, carefully wiping the grease off her lips with a napkin. “I could eat him ten times over that I would not be.”
“It was to be expected,” Raphael said, nodding slowly.
“You said I would forget all about—”
He interrupted her with a hand. “I know exactly what I said, you ravenous creature… I will finish what I started. Come.”
Tav made her way towards him. Her body looked frail and small in the middle of his hellish household. She clearly did not belong there. He did not want her there. And still, when she stopped in front of him, Raphael wrapped his arms around her midsection and he brought her to him. Even as he was sitting and she was standing, he still towered her a little. “I will carve you,” he said, his eyes sounding hers. “Become mine in flesh.”
“I already am…” Tav murmured.
They would swear otherwise, but mortals saw something sacred in sex. They sought out a way to extend their pitiful, finished existences and so, they copulated and they bred. How could she be so foolish? Never would he grant her any of that. The only holy part of him was this name he had chosen for himself aeons ago.
“Not in my ways, Tav,” he explained with more patience than she deserved. “Our contract was forged with parchment and ink. I shall use your flesh and blood to bind us this time around. It is the way of old—the highest of honour.”
Tav munched on her bottom lip. Still, her gaze did not falter.
“You will suffer a great deal,” Raphael elaborated, and he pressed her against him so she could gauge his enthusiasm properly. He teased in her hair, almost cheeky, “You will not be able to run away and hide in my baths as you always do to numb the aches left by our sweet indulgences… You will have to endure the pain, each and every second of it, in all its agony.”
“I do nothing but endure,” Tav huffed. “I may as well be an expert by now.” Her fingers travelled over his lips, the sort of intimate gesture that Raphael used to only tolerate. He wanted to bite them off. “Carve me, Raphael,” Tav said next, no hint of hesitation in the voice. “Make me yours in flesh.”
She brought his face to hers to kiss him, more teeth than lips, as his claws softly dug into the fabric of her shirt.
Over the centuries, Raphael had seen many mortals fall into the abyss of madness. So far, Tav was proving particularly agile at simply walking on the edge of it. He bit her lips to punish her, but Tav only whined and licked her own blood pearling at the tips of his fangs.
Oh, there was this urge inside him; this chaotic, disgusting impulse, growling and ordering him to forget about patience and manners and law, to simply push her over the edge, shatter her once and for all and free himself.
But among his many qualities, perfect control was the one Raphael took the most pride in. He had already made too much of a fool of himself because of her. His role had always been that of an observer. So, observe he would, toying with her up until she would inevitably miscalculate her next step and fall down all by herself.
“Strip,” Raphael commanded.
He could have reached the same result with a flick of a wrist, but Raphael enjoyed the way Tav struggled with these buttons which might have cost more than her weight in gold. He enjoyed seeing her skin slowly appear beneath the fabric, already slightly slick with sweat. He enjoyed her generous thighs, and the immediate view of her sex, wet with desire. The harlot had not bothered with undergarments.
Tav said nothing. She was blushing, which he could easily blame on the wine, and she simply pulled herself up the table, her eyes never living his.
She lay on the command of his sneer, like a succulent dessert displayed in between the goblets full of wine and the remains of the roasted meat. Raphael grabbed a small knife, and he took her in, running many calculations in his head.
If the chaos of someone else tainted her right flank, proof of her insolence and of her resilience, the rest of her body was his. She was no blank canvas: many times over, his lips had decorated her chest, his hands her breasts, his tongue the column of her neck, his seed her womb. Her heartbeat was so loud, Raphael could almost hear it from where he was standing; her fear so evident, he could picture the bloody organ pumping inside her chest.
The tip of his knife teased right above her fourth rib and she let out a quick gasp. Calligraphy was a learnt art. Raphael had practised his script thoroughly—on old steady vellum at first, then on the much less obedient skins of his slaves. He knew the words by heart, had repeated them in his head as he’d stroked himself mechanically before bed.
The first line he traced was thin, and barely deeper than his claws would have been. If Tav winced, Raphael barely noticed. But when he started to work in earnest; when he plunged the blade deep into her and the barrier of her skin broke for good after some futile resistance, her little hand suddenly reached to grab his shirt so tightly the expensive silks almost tore.
Still, Tav remained silent. Raphael left his canvas to look at her: she was biting her bottom lip to the blood. He pressed two fingers on the joints of her jaw to pry her mouth open. “This is my gift for you,” he hissed. “Let us hear your voice.”
Tav might have been a coward, but she was an obedient pup. A low, long whine rose from her chest and spilled out of her lips, as warm and delicious as her tears. For only a moment, it was perfect bliss. Then, she jerked against the table when the knife cut through her again, almost ruining his hard work.
All too aware of the way his cock was twitching with interest, Raphael climbed on the table in turn, carefully avoiding the plates, and he loomed over Tav. Slowly, he interlocked his left hand with hers, claws digging into the wood to chain her. He straddled one of her thighs to block her legs. When his knee touched her sex, her mouth opened slightly. His tail whipped the air: her tears looked even more pristine from this close.
“Remember,” Raphael said, everything in him fighting to keep control, “pleasure and pain…”
“ … are one and the same,” Tav finished. Despite the pain obscuring her eyes, the embers of defiance were still burning hot. She sniffled loudly. “Raphael, it sounds easier on your tongue than under your knife.”
“Have faith.”
“In me?”
He huffed. “In me.”
His knife touched the skin again and her small fingers clung to his, nails digging so much into the back of his hand they actually stung a little. He pressed his knee further into her.
“Ah…” she said when, after tracing another neat line parallel to the first, Raphael tugged on the new strip of skin. The tissues made a wet sound when they separated. Raphael’s smile grew wide.
Her sweat held that unmistakeable smell characteristic of fear, so powerful it overrode even that of her blood and of her arousal. Yes, she was wet, the wench, dripping over his knee like her fresh blood on the table.
“Good job,” Raphael praised in her ear, leaving a chaste kiss over her jaw. When he plunged his knife again into her flesh, Tav only moaned louder.
“Listen to yourself, sweetling,” he whispered. “As pleased as I am when you flog my arse…”
Perhaps it was the memory of it; Tav arched her back to hump his thigh.
Raphael kept carving into her meticulously, his knife sometimes a kiss, sometimes a proper chisel, engraving her skin with runes this woman was too foolish to ever want to decipher.
Whether blind trust or resignation guided her actions mattered not to Raphael. It was all sheer submission regardless.
“My entrapped mouse,” he murmured when he finally was done, and he slowly withdrew from her, rising on his knees to admire his handiwork.
Blood was still pouring from the deepest and largest cuts. Raphael travelled his fingers over one of them, and Tav jerked against the table again. She would be gone soon, but for now Raphael simply enjoyed the spectacle. He brought his fingers to his tongue to taste her blood.
Sweet and potent, like the rest of her.
The next part, Tav probably would not enjoy as much as he would. He silenced her screams of protest with his own mouth as flames enveloped the tips of his fingers.
Tav screamed in his throat when the tantalising smell of burnt flesh filled the air, and Raphael swallowed her whines and fed on her suffering until they engorged his already half-hard cock. Her warm tears wet his cheeks and he pushed his tongue deeper into her mouth, gagging her, savouring the taste of his blood as she bit into it and her free hand pulled on his hair.
Raphael sealed each cut meticulously. The work had to be as quick as the carving itself for the result to be perfect.
It truly was a work of art, he pondered when he was finished. Rarely had his hand been so precise, and his lines so sharp.
With each breaths Tav took, blood, tears and sweat all glistened softly under the firelight. So was her arousal, spread aplenty between her thighs and all over Raphael’s knee. For all the wails that had escaped her throat, Tav was enjoying this. The smell of her wetness was intoxicating, her nipples erected and puffy, her sex pink and swollen with desire.
Still kneeling, Raphael entrapped her midsection between his legs. He was not one to be wrong, but he had to admit that in his quest to present as perfect as possible, he’d underestimated how tight his trousers would prove to be around his raging erection. The pressure and the seething pain from the leather constricting his cock might have been enough to make him come untouched.
Uncaring about anything but the need to satisfy himself, Raphael made a quick work of the buttons. His cock sprang free, red and hard and painful, and Tav’s eyes widen at the vision.
Her pretty mouth formed a perfect “o” when Raphael grabbed his member. Pre-cum and blood were plenty enough he needn’t more time nor preparation to simply start jerking off furiously above Tav’s bloodied body.
He was not soft. He never was. Stroke after stroke, his own grunts and smell filled the air. The candlelight flickered in time with his pleasure.
Raphael looked at Tav below him, his reflection, so perfect and so flawed, and never had he desired to break and to cherish something so much before.
Matching his, her breathing came sharp and shallow and Raphael recognised the glassiness settling over her eyes. His left hand still rolling over the head of his shaft, he brought a thumb to his mouth and pierced his own flesh with a fang.
Raphael extended his injured hand above Tav, pupils dilated on her slightly open mouth as she presented her tongue to him. Her beautiful eyes were full of pain and of such an intense urge to please, Raphael felt his cock swelling in his other hand.
“Look at me,” he whispered, pumping with more urgency as she swallowed his blood as eagerly she would have his sperm.
Raphael, he deciphered forming on her pretty lips. Raphael Raphael Raphael…
Never had his name sounded sweeter than on her devoted tongue.
Raphael.
Like a plead, a prayer, a litany…
He wanted to fuck her mouth.
Wetness escaped his cock, leaked all over his fingers, dropped on her abdomen to mix with her blood. “Look at me…” The familiar feeling of his balls tightening was almost a pity.
Tav’s bitten, abused lips parted again, begging to be painted with his seed. “Fuck me, Raphael,” they pleaded.
Raphael quickly squeezed the base of his glans before he would spill over her.
Oh, the cheeky thing… The mouse was well aware of his preferences—he was to be serviced, and never the other way around. But that night, she had identified the predator in him just fine; the beast that was urging to take her properly.
Raphael lay over her, his large wings unfurling above them. If he could prevent it, then he would never fornicate the way the mortals did: man lying on woman, her legs parted to welcome him. He loathed the intimacy and the vulnerability of it all.
But Tav looked no mortal on that night. His body caging hers, lying on an arm, Raphael pressed his fingers viciously on the fresh scars on her flank.
Her pupils dilated, tears filling her eyes again. “You are beautiful,” Tav sobbed, her trembling hand fisting his hair. The endorphins were turning her soppy and acerebral.
Raphael growled. He observed her for long seconds, his hips lazily rocking against her body until the wet head of his cock pressed against her clit.
“I love you,” Tav dared to say.
Foolish, execrable woman. Why be so hellbent on wasting her breath? On spewing the obvious when she knew he would never reciprocate?
Oh, Lord of the Ninth, there he was, hesitating again… Raphael put a hand flat across her mouth to silence her. If there was any decency left within her, Tav would end up suffocating to spare them both this predicament.
Raphael liked it when she was wincing as he penetrated her. When she clearly wasn’t ready for the sheer size and peculiarities of his anatomy. When her eyes were pleading him to slow down, while her lips were urging him on. He liked when she then slowly unravelled around him, thrust after thrust, roll after roll; when her cries of pain inevitably turned into obscene moans.
This time was different. Tav was so wet and open for him, Raphael buried in her easily. Her cunt engulfed him as if she had never desired anything more than his cock in her entire life.
He would not last long, he knew. No amount of self-control, spells and artefacts could have mitigated the strength of the curse she had put on him.
Raphael contemplated that he should have kept the head intact. He could have reanimated it with his magic and forced the swine to witness their coupling. Tav would have been satiated, then.
“My favourite plaything,” he growled against her throat. His fangs nibbled her skin and begged him to let them devour her. One of his arms snaked beneath her back as she arched into him and he pulled her closer. He barely moved, feeling her every muscle contracting around his length and squeezing his ridges deliciously. She rubbed against the base of his cock to find her own pleasure.
“My bloody masterpiece…” He jerked his hips and Tav moaned for long seconds. The sound was muffled and broken, more of a cry of pain than one of pleasure and still, her womb twitched, pressed against the head of his cock. Her legs wrapped around him, heels pushing on his backside to urge him to push deeper, deeper, to mark her, to finish inside of her.
Raphael heard her whines when he pounded into her again, chasing his release with a bestiality he did not try to tame. He felt the way she contracted around him viciously, then how she suddenly went completely limp when her arousal simply was not enough to make up for the severe blood loss. Her arm fell flat unto the table, smashing a goblet. Red wine spilled everywhere. The smell was heavy and intoxicating as it mixed with the scent of sex.
Maybe he would kill her if he continued like that. Maybe it would be for the best.
Mortals were limited. Raphael was not. His arm tightened around her waist, and his tail opened her legs for him to take his due, again and again. He kept fucking into her and nothing mattered any longer past the warmth of her tight cunt around his cock and the wet noises of their skins colliding each time his balls slapped against her arse.
Raphael inhaled sharply. His entire body, so massive and so unshakeable, shuddered when he came. For only a moment, he felt as fragile as a leaf carried away by the wind.
When the storm passed, he contemplated Tav’s bloodied, unconscious body. She was livid below him, but his runes were perfectly readable.
Up until the last moment, Raphael had considered writing down the last line. All of it was nothing more than a guarantee should Tav somehow manage to run away. But, regrettably, he was a fool.
Tav was right as she often was—the treacherous thing. In truth, there was something special about denying yourself the power to take, when you could instead only wait for the fish to willingly bite the bait.
There was nothing compelling about forcing others. But the chase… The chase, he loved, the knowledge that even should they separate, Tav would hold him within her always—saw him in her mirror, before she would see even herself. It was better than anything a proper deed of ownership could have ever granted him.
Raphael stayed like that for long seconds to catch his breath and clear his mind, his cock softening inside her. When he finally pulled out of her, his come and hers joined the blood and the sweat spread over the dark wood of the table.
“Mouse.” His voice bounced off the high walls of the dining room and for the very first time, the House of Hope felt somewhat empty. Raphael curled up above her, and his wings enveloped them like a blanket.
How far could he push her, he wondered, before she would turn witless and dull? How long before she would break and he would be freed from that woman whom he loved to loathe so very much? Her beautiful music had sprouted up the gutter, but there was nothing that Hellfire could not burn.
In the contented sigh that Tav offered him, Raphael read her complete, absolute submission—and in the twisted feeling in his guts, he tragically acknowledged his own. “You and I…” He pressed his forehead against hers. Despite it all, her heartbeat remained steady. “We are utterly finished.”