The vast bed was a battlefield of silk and sweat, bodies strewn across it like offerings after a long and savage rite. Moonlight slid through the high lancet windows in cold blades, cutting across bare breasts and parted thighs, across throats still flushed from screaming his name.
Three nuns lay tangled together, black veils long discarded, their fingers still laced with the crimson silk of the two female cardinals who breathed slow and deep beside them.
Another sister was curled against the headboard, lips swollen, a faint smear of Aiden's release drying on her inner thigh like sacred chrism turned profane.
The air itself was thick—musk, melted beeswax, the copper-salt sweetness of sex that refused to cool.
Aiden rose from the ruin of sheets without waking them. Their warmth clung to his skin the way incense clings to stone, heavy, intoxicating, impossible to shake.
