A boy kneels down before a girl. He is drunk and his hair is in his eyes and his lips are swollen because all they've been doing for hours is kissing. He's grinning wildly, stupidly, and his eyes can't settle; they're flitting between her face and the full, shining moon, like he's unsure which is which. "Summon a god," he whispers. "In the old fashioned way."
She pictures a gutted lamb. She pictures a libation bowl. She pictures divinity in its raw, blinding entirety. She shuts her eyes to think. She's not sure she wants to do what he's asking. But when she opens her eyes again, he is still looking at her, and his teeth are shining like quartz and his hands have formed an imploring steeple. And then he is the god. So what does she have to be afraid of? To summon another god is no big thing when she already has one at her feet.
"Okay," she breathes, the thrill of the quest causing her heart to flutter. "Where will you be, while I am doing the summoning?"
"I'll be waiting right here for you," he says, without a moment's pause. They had run far away from the party and are on the edge of the woods. He looks like a crouching deer, the way he is right now, all his masculine broadness and solidity whittled away by the moonlight. It is not safe for him to stay here and yet he promises that he will.
"Even if I'm hours?"
"Even if you're eons." His lips stop smiling so that he can imitate sincerity, but it remains in his eyes. "I'll be here."
Except he isn't.
When she comes back in an hour with blood on her hands, he is nowhere to be found.
When she falls to her knees and cries out for him, there is no answer.
For all his promises, he has still left her alone.
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THE PROMISES MADE TO BELLE LOVE #ONC2024
Teen Fiction'In the middle of the night while all the girls are sleeping, a god comes back to life.' Genevieve Knight, studious and private student at the prestigious Palace School in Rome, finds herself drunk enough one night to hook up with Dante, the most p...
