> "Not every god deserves worship. Some are made for war. And some—some are made to be broken by love."
---
It rained blood on the seventh day.
Not a deluge. Not dramatic. Just quiet, steady drops—crimson pearls falling from a sky that remembered things the world had long forgotten.
Lyra stood at the highest spire of her tower, arms stretched wide, letting the blood soak her skin like it was holy water.
Dominic watched her from behind.
She wasn't praying.
She was daring the gods to look away.
---
"I felt it," he said.
Lyra turned slightly, her naked body slick with the blood-rain. "Felt what?"
"That something has woken."
She walked toward him, slow, like a huntress returning from a kill. "Something older than the Hollow Prince?"
He nodded. "Older than me."
Lyra tilted her head. "Good. Maybe they'll have the decency to scream when they die."
Dominic's jaw clenched. He loved when she talked like that. Fierce. Fearless. Divine.
But there was something new in his eyes tonight.
Fear, yes.
But also devotion.
---
Later that night, he tied her to the obsidian bed with shadow ropes—ropes she had forged, once upon a darker time, to punish gods who begged too sweetly.
Now, they wrapped around her wrists and ankles like silk, holding her open for him.
"You know this won't stop me," she teased.
"It's not meant to," Dominic said, his voice low.
Then he entered her slowly.
No rush.
No desperation.
Just reverence.
Like he was worshiping the war itself inside her.
---
Their sex wasn't lovemaking tonight.
It was summoning.
Every thrust was a spell.
Every moan, a curse.
Every time she cried out his name, another seal shattered in the underworld.
By the time he spilled himself inside her, something ancient had heard them.
And it stirred.
---
The morning after, the birds didn't sing.
The winds didn't blow.
Even the shadows dared not move unless Dominic stepped first.
Lyra sat on the edge of the bed, bruised with love, marked by his teeth.
She smiled.
"I think we just woke a god."
Dominic, still shirtless, stood near the window, the sun casting gold across his back. "No. We woke a monster."
She walked to him, pressing her lips to the scar on his shoulder. "Good. Monsters are easier to kill than gods."
---
A scroll appeared on their doorstep that evening.
Black parchment. Crimson wax. The mark of the Obsidian Tribunal.
Lyra's eyes narrowed.
"The gods' executioners."
Dominic unrolled it.
> "You have been marked for unmaking. Come forth and kneel—or we shall take you by force."
—Obsidian Seat of Judgment
Lyra laughed. "They think we kneel?"
Dominic's smile was cold. "Let them come. Let them bleed."
---
That night, Lyra summoned a council.
Not of gods.
Not of mortals.
But of forgotten things.
She stood barefoot in a circle carved with the blood of angels, calling names that had not been spoken since time was a child.
Shadows slithered in.
A wolf with eyes of bone.
A siren wrapped in silence.
A man with no face and too many hearts.
And last…
A girl with white eyes, hovering upside down, humming.
They bowed.
"You dare summon us?" the Faceless One asked.
Lyra smiled. "I don't dare. I command."
Dominic stepped beside her, holding a blade forged in the hollow between stars.
"You will fight for us," Lyra declared. "Or you will die like the gods you once feared."
The siren hissed. "And why would we bleed for your war?"
Dominic didn't answer.
He simply kissed Lyra in front of them.
Hard.
Slow.
Like she was the only altar he'd ever kneel to.
And when she moaned into his mouth, the tower trembled.
When they broke apart, Lyra said simply, "Because we're not fighting for power."
She turned to the shadows.
"We're fighting for pleasure."
---
And the monsters howled in approval.
---
By the second day of preparation, word had spread across realms.
The lovers who defied gods.
The cursed girl who broke her own chains.
The billionaire CEO who became something darker, sharper, and more devoted than divinity had ever planned.
Dominic was no longer a man.
He was a storm in a suit.
Lyra was no longer a curse.
She was the cause.
---
On the fourth night, Dominic dragged her to the war room, slammed her against the ancient table, and whispered:
"I want you to mark me."
Lyra's eyes glowed. "You already bear my scars."
"No. Not scars. A brand. Make me yours. Forever. Let them all see it."
She didn't hesitate.
She bit into his neck, deeper than skin.
And she whispered her name in his blood.
When she was done, a sigil burned across his collarbone—a crown of thorns wrapped around a serpent's kiss.
The mark of her.
---
In the dark hours, Lyra often wondered:
Would they survive this?
Would the gods come crashing down with swords of light and flames of judgment?
Would the love she'd built from blood and ash be enough to burn through eternity?
Dominic answered her with silence.
And with every stolen touch.
Every whispered moan.
Every time he begged to serve her—not as a god, not as a king, but as a man who had chosen his doom.
---
On the seventh night, just before war could ignite, they stood on the tower balcony.
The moon had turned black.
An eclipse.
A sign.
"Are you ready?" she asked him.
Dominic turned to her, eyes like ruin. "I was born for this."
She smiled.
"No. You were born for me."
And when their lips met again, the stars above them blinked.
Because nothing in heaven or hell had ever dared to love like this.