The grand hall had not seen guests in years.
Dust lay in soft veils across the wooden floors. The chandeliers above remained unlit, casting warped shadows from the fading dusk that bled in through stained glass windows. The ancestral eyes in every painting stared down like jurors at a sentencing.
And in the center, lit only by black candles and a fire that hissed in the old hearth—
Was an altar.
Not a religious one.
No. This was perverse.
This was personal.
It was made of Seraphine's memories: a piece of the vanity where she first touched herself while thinking of Elias; the broken frame of Augustus's portrait, now repurposed as a boundary marker; and on the altar itself… her mourning veil, stretched like a sacrificial cloth.
She stood at the threshold of the room, breath caught in her throat. The silk gown Elias had chosen for her that night clung to her curves like water. It was a deep, bleeding crimson — the color of sin. The hem brushed the dusty floor. Her bare feet felt like they stepped into consecrated filth.
Elias stood behind the altar, dressed in a suit that had once belonged to Augustus.
Her dead husband's suit.
His son had tailored it to fit his own lean, muscular frame.
"Do you know what today is?" Elias asked as he lit the final candle.
Seraphine stared at him in silence.
He smiled. "Today marks six months since your husband died."
The words hung heavy in the air.
"And today," he continued, stepping toward her, "you become mine."
She should've run. She should've screamed.
But instead—
She walked to him.
Drawn like a lamb toward the wolf.
"What is this?" she asked, voice quivering.
"A ritual," he said. "A vow. You wore black for him. You wept. You mourned. But now…" He reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring — obsidian, etched with thorns. "Now you marry your grief. Now you become the widow and the whore in one breath."
Seraphine's hands trembled. "This isn't real."
Elias tilted her chin up.
"Then why are you wet?"
She couldn't answer. Her body betrayed her — nipples hard beneath the silk, thighs quivering, breath coming fast.
He pressed the ring into her palm.
"Place it on your finger," he said.
When she didn't move, he did it for her — sliding the black band onto her ring finger, over the place Augustus's gold band had once rested.
"You belong to me now," he whispered.
Then he grabbed her waist and hoisted her onto the altar.
The veil beneath her crumpled like crushed innocence. Her gown bunched around her hips.
He pushed it up. She gasped.
"No underwear?" he mused. "Good girl."
He slid two fingers between her legs. She was soaked.
"See?" he said. "Your body knows."
Her breath hitched as he slid inside. No warning. No mercy.
Only the wet sound of her shame echoing in the grand hall.
"Say it," he whispered, lips brushing her ear. "Say who owns you now."
She turned her face away.
He pulled his fingers out. Held them to her lips.
"Say it, or I'll make you scream it."
She licked his fingers clean. Shivering.
"You do," she whispered. "You own me."
"Louder."
"You own me!"
He pulled her hair, forcing her back against the altar, and unbuckled his pants.
The candles flickered as he entered her in one violent thrust.
She cried out — not from pain, but from the overwhelming rush of being taken.
He didn't move slow.
He didn't ask.
He fucked her like she was the sin he'd waited years to commit.
The altar groaned beneath them. Her back arched as he pounded into her, hands gripping her thighs, mouth at her neck.
The portraits stared.
The fire hissed.
And still, she begged.
"Harder," she gasped. "Please—harder."
He obliged.
She came first — a broken sob escaping her throat as she convulsed around him. He followed seconds later, spilling deep inside her, groaning like a man possessed.
They lay like that for minutes.
Breathless.
Sweating.
Connected by sin and memory.
Then Elias leaned down, brushing hair from her face.
"Tell me something, widow," he murmured. "When you came just now… were you thinking of him?"
She didn't answer.
He grinned.
"Liar," he whispered, and kissed her.
---
Later that night
Seraphine sat alone at the altar, wrapped in the veil, still trembling.
The room was dark now.
But in the silence… she heard a sound.
A rasping breath.
She turned toward the portrait wall.
Augustus's frame was empty.
But in the shadow behind it…
A figure stood.
Not Elias.
Not a ghost.
But something else.
Something that wore Augustus's face—half-rotted, eyes bleeding, mouth stitched shut.
It pointed at her.
Then vanished.
Seraphine screamed.
But no one heard.