Chapter 10 – Kiss of the Forgotten Queen [WARNING 18+]
She didn't kiss me like a goddess.
She kissed me like a woman who'd waited a thousand years to be touched again.
The shrine pulsed with golden light.
Not the divine kind—the alive kind. Warm, breathless, holy in a way no prayer could describe. I knelt before the Matron's statue, holding the final Devotion: a carved flower, its petals etched with old names.
I pressed it into the hollow at her feet.
The air thickened.
A hum vibrated through the stone as vines burst into bloom, lanterns flared to life, and the statue—
She moved.
Her fingers curled first. Then her shoulders rose. Stone cracked and fell in slow, glowing flakes. Beneath it: skin.
Dusky. Luminous. Touched by divine heat.
She stepped forward barefoot—mist curling around her legs like it obeyed her.