12

We don’t speak of that night for three days. She brings me food, tidies the room, then flees my presence. When I need to relieve myself, I crawl to the bathroom alone.

Halfway through my recovery, I remember a set of charmed silver armbands that might help speed the healing process. I have no idea where they might be, but when I mention them to Feather, she locates them immediately, having noticed them before when she was organizing my room. I suppose there’s some benefit to keeping things neat .

She stays long enough to place the silver bands on my forearms and wrists, but then she hurries away again, like a skittish animal who has been wounded and is now leery of me.

I’m angry with myself for the conversation we had. Not for the information I imparted, but for letting myself come so close to fucking her. Over and over I have vowed that I won’t touch her that way, and yet each time I see her, my resolve evaporates.

On the third day, when she opens the bedroom door and carries in the tray, I spot the Bahkauv right behind her.

“Shut the door, quickly!” I cry, sitting bolt upright.

“What? Why?” She glances over her shoulder at the beast with its dull red eyes and its calf’s muzzle full of fangs. “Oh, it’s just him. He’s been following me around.” She jerks her head at the Bahkauv. “Go. Run along.”

With a strange, bawling cry, he slinks away. Feather kicks the bedroom door shut and brings the tray to my bed. “Close your mouth, Krampus. Your tongue is sliding out.”

I retract my tongue and close my gaping jaws. “He… follows you around?”

“He’s not as scary as I thought.” She shrugs, pouring out a cup of tea.

“Yes he fucking is.”

“To you , maybe.”

I take the teacup, my lip curling with faint resentment. “I think you’ve become comfortable here far too quickly.”

Triumph sparkles in her gaze and fuck , where did she get such huge, gorgeous eyes? No wonder that piece of shit kidnapped her. She must have been adorable as a child. And her family—how they must have missed their small, beautiful daughter, and mourned her when all hope was gone.

“Do you remember anything about your life before you were taken?” I ask .

“No.” Her expression becomes shadowed, furtive, and she retreats toward the door like a deer about to bound away through the forest.

“Wait!” I call, with all the strength I can summon.

The dress she’s wearing today is the same one she wore when she saved me. She has washed it, but it still bears discolored splotches where the bloodstains wouldn’t quite come out. She isn’t wearing stockings or shoes; she stands bare-legged and barefoot, and somehow that’s worse. She has such tiny, crooked, kissable toes.

I drag my gaze back up her body, trying not to linger too long on the twin points of her breasts beneath the tight black fabric. Locks of wavy brown hair lie against her chest, shifting lightly with her breath.

“What is it, master?” Her voice is crisply polite and cold.

“I’m feeling better. We should begin your lessons.”

“Lessons?”

“I need to prepare you for the party at the Mayor’s house.”

Color drains from her face. “You’re going to bring me with you?”

“It was your idea.”

“Of course, yes. But you said—”

“I changed my mind.”

“Perhaps I’ve changed mine as well.” She winces. “I want to help you. But I’ve been thinking about it, and I realized… there will be people .”

“Yes, there generally are people at a party,” I reply. “That’s rather the idea of it all.”

Her thin fingers twist together. “I’m not used to people. When I walked into that tavern, in the town where you left me, it was terrifying. All the faces, the voices, the noise and the eyes… ”

“We’ll go out at least once before then,” I assure her. “In fact, you can come with me tonight, to one of my favorite pubs. With practice, you’ll acclimate to being around other humans.”

“Are you sure you feel well enough to go out?”

“I’m healed. A little stiff, but it’s nothing a stein of good beer can’t mend. In fact, a drink would do you good as well, I’d wager.”

“And should I wear this?” she asks, indicating her maid’s dress.

“God-stars, no. If I had all my Fae powers, I’d conjure you a dress…. Though I was never much good at making clothes. We’ll have to find something of mine for you to wear. Go on, take a look. You’ve laundered and organized it all anyway—you should know if there’s anything that might suit you.”

“I’m not sure what suits me,” she answers quietly. “I’ve always worn what I’ve been given. I dressed only for him .”

For her captor. Fuck him. Fury spikes through my veins, a rush of violent heat. “I should have killed that bastard more slowly. Taken my time. Made it hurt.”

“No.” She comes a step closer, her face white and earnest. “I preferred a quick death for him. Quick is better. It’s the end. No fear of him returning.”

“You wouldn’t have wanted to torture him yourself? Paid him back for all the years he kept you prisoner?”

She looks down at her hands. “I don’t think I could have.”

“Why not? He was a rotten motherfucker, a murdering asshole.”

“Yes. And he was the only constant in my life since I was six years old,” she says softly. “He put me to bed every night. Held me. Kissed my cheeks. Brought me presents and clothes. He beat me sometimes, but he always cried afterward. I would comfort him, and then everything was alright between us. He always brought me something especially nice after a punishment. A few times he brought cake. ”

I stare at her, immobilized by the storm of emotions in my chest. It’s too much for me to cope with—I’m half afraid I might explode.

I’ve been alone for so long, moving through my usual routine: doing my work, then transporting myself to some tavern to drink away the memory of the carnage—fucking a stranger to make myself feel something again.

But with Feather, I am always feeling things. Rage, lust, longing, disbelief, sorrow, surprise. And another feeling—the sense that I, a rejected Fae infant sold to a trollish clan, the murderer of over a hundred mistreated children, the master of bloody vengeance and emissary of the Wild Hunt, am laughably ill-equipped to help this woman heal from all the wounds to her heart and mind.

I don’t know how to respond to her revelation. So I clear my throat awkwardly and say, “Look in the wardrobe and bureaus. Find something to wear. Something you like.”

While she selects a few items of clothing, I devour the food she brought. We’re nearing the end of our supplies, but she managed to create a delicious meal of sausages, potatoes, and carrots, with a thick gravy.

“Your cooking has improved,” I tell her.

“I found some old cookbooks in one of the kitchen cupboards.” She holds up a sky-blue silk shirt, some brown pants, and a fur-trimmed leather vest. “May I wear these?”

Her slight frame will be lost in them, but I nod. “Try them on. I want to see how they look.”

She starts to remove her dress, and I exclaim, “In the bathroom! Try them on in the bathroom.”

Her lips tighten, but she goes into the bathroom without protest. When she comes back, dressed in my clothes, she looks so stunning I nearly drop the cup of tea I’m finishing. The sky-blue silk contrasts beautifully with her porcelain skin, and her brown hair perfectly matches the fur trim on the vest. But she’s holding the pants up with one hand, and the shirt is much too long and baggy.

“You need a belt.” I rise from the bed, and her eyes widen with horrified anticipation until she sees I’m not naked; I’m wearing a pair of undershorts.

My body is still stiff in places, particularly across the chest, even though the gashes have nearly healed. A normal Fae would have taken even longer to heal from such wounds, if they healed at all. But I have the charmed jewelry and an extra dose of strength, thanks to my status as a member of the Wild Hunt.

Powerful as I am, those men should have been quick work for me. But I was caught completely off guard. I didn’t expect so many, didn’t know they were anticipating my arrival. I didn’t move fast enough when the first man swung his iron ax.

I crack my stiff neck and walk over to a dresser. “Where did you put the belts?”

“Second drawer down, on the right.”

In the drawer I find belts that I haven’t seen for years, including two of my favorites. I choose a wide one of soft leather, imprinted with swirling leaves and flowers. Then I walk over to Feather. “Take off the vest.”

She sheds the vest, and I can’t help noticing the way the silken shirt moves against her breasts.

“Lift the shirt out of the way,” I tell her.

She gathers the folds of blue silk and holds them up, baring her slim waist. Her belly is flat and smooth, except for a gentle swell right below the navel, and I find myself compulsively yearning to run my fingers over her stomach, to settle my hands on her waist.

Instead I run the belt through the loops on the pants, my chest tightening each time my knuckles graze her skin.

“Before I fasten the buckle, we’ll tuck in the shirt,” I say hoarsely. “Let go of it. ”

She obeys, and I lower the pants just below her hips, correcting the fall of the fabric, smoothing the shirt as I tuck it in. Then I cinch the belt tight and buckle it slowly, conscious of how close my fingers are to that tender spot between her legs. I have to bend nearer as I’m fastening the belt, and her light, soft breath stirs my hair.

I loosen the shirt, ensuring that it’s not tucked in too tight. “It looks better if there’s a bit spilling over the belt, like this.”

“Oh,” she says faintly. “Thank you.”

Her shoulders curve inward, hitched up slightly, as if she wants to withdraw her head inside herself like a tortoise. It’s a position of cowed submission. And her spine arches like someone who spends days on her knees, scrubbing floors.

“Stand up straight.” I place one hand on her back, between her shoulders, and I lay the other hand on her stomach, exerting firm, gentle pressure in both places. “Shoulders back, chin up. Like a woman who owns the world and expects every man to worship her.”

She lets me adjust her body. Her pliant obedience heats my blood, and I struggle with the urge to place her in the most wanton of positions, with her hands on the floor, her ass in the air, her legs braced in a wide triangle, and her damp little slit open for the taking.

God-stars… I haven’t fucked anything in far too long. I need to find someone tonight, at the pub, or I might lose my mind.

“Master?” she says tentatively. “Am I not doing it right?”

She’s asking because I haven’t removed my hands from her body. In fact, the one on her belly has slid lower. My traitorous fingers want to dip between her legs and show her the pleasure she’s capable of enjoying.

With an effort, I let her go. “Chin up.”

She lifts her face to mine. “Like this? ”

“You should look even more arrogant. Lower your eyelashes, relax your mouth. Good. Now give me the slightest of haughty smiles.”

Feather tilts her head and gives me an imperious little smirk.

She is truly a wondrous actress. Her talents were wasted in that cabin—or perhaps they were honed by the demands of her captor. Either way, I can’t take my eyes off that pert, conceited mouth.

I’m standing too close to her. If she keeps smiling at me in that naughty way, with those dark lashes draping her lovely brown eyes, I’m going to seize her and crush her against myself and kiss her until—

“Walk,” I bark, stepping back. “Walk the room. Elegance and grace. Go.”

Her walk is good, if only she can remember to keep her shoulders back, her chin up, and her chest out. When she looks to me for approval, I nod. “No more cleaning today. I’ll bathe and dress, and then we’ll go into town. Don’t worry, it’s not the town where I left you last time.”

She chews her lip thoughtfully for a moment. “I know you can transport to various places with your chains—”

“Geistfyre,” I put in.

“Geistfyre. And you said we’re near Rothen-something...”

“The house is at the bottom of an abandoned quarry near Rothenfel, the largest city in the region.”

She nods hesitantly. “I do think it’s odd that this house has no doors leading outside, not even from the kitchen. And behind the drapes, there are no windows, just walls.”

“Ah… well, that’s because the only way to get in and out of this house is transportation by geistfyre.”

“Then why are you afraid of the Fae-hunters finding it? Even if they find it, they can’t get in. ”

“They could neutralize its magic, disrupt my geistfyre so we can’t leave, and then burn it down with us inside. This place is powerful, but not invincible. Once they discover it, there are many ways they can cause us harm.”

“Seems like an escape route might be wise,” she mutters. “Or at least a window where someone might look outside.”

After a moment’s hesitation, I confess, “There is one very special door, but I’m not sure you’re ready to know where it leads. You might go mad.”

Feather arches one eyebrow. “I’m sure I can handle it.”

I’m tempted to deny her, but I’m also curious to see her reaction, to gauge the extent of her courage. So I relent. “Come along then.”

The iron poisoning has made me more sensitive to temperature, so I snatch a fur-lined cape from the wardrobe and pin it around my bare shoulders. Since the vest alone might not keep her warm enough, I toss her a blue cloak that nearly matches her shirt.

We make our way to the cluttered ballroom where I collapsed from my wounds just a few days ago. The floor is spotless—not a bloodstain in sight.

“You cleaned this well,” I comment.

“I’ve had plenty of experience with blood,” she says. As if it’s the most natural thing in the world for a young woman to be familiar with mopping up gore.

When I head for the stairway leading below, she hangs back. “You said the Meerwunder is down there.”

“So is the door I want to show you.”

Still she hesitates, her dark eyes huge in her pale face. “What if he doesn’t like me?”

“Do you think I would let anything hurt you, if I could prevent it? I’d die first.” The last three words jerk out of me, an impulsive snarl that sounds more threatening than reassuring .

But instead of recoiling in fright, Feather seems to relax a little. “Very well.”

As we descend the stairs, I mutter, “I think everything down here is dead. It should be. Except for the Meerwunder, of course. Stay close.”

“What do you mean, you think everything is dead?” She crowds against my back, clutching my elbow as we descend into darkness.

“Sometimes I bring my captives back here for torture. It depends on the crime, the dictates of the god-stars, and my mood. Sometimes I need something to ruin.”

“If you found out that I was very, very bad, that I had committed some great sin, would you ruin me ?” Her soft voice flutters in my belly. The sound of it, blended with the suggestive nature of the question, takes me utterly by surprise, and my cock stiffens. Which makes me helplessly furious at both her and myself.

“You’ve done nothing worthy of death,” I reply roughly.

“You don’t know that.”

I whirl around, conscious that my eyes are glowing green with arousal in the dark. I can see their reflection in her gaze. “Where is this nonsense coming from? What happened to you wasn’t your fault. You were a victim, not a perpetrator.”

“You don’t know me.” Her voice cracks with pained anger. “I spent years watching him kill women. I did nothing to stop him. Didn’t try to escape, not once, because I was too frightened that I would fail and end up dead myself. I was loyal to him, don’t you see? Loyal, because I wanted to survive. That mattered more to me than helping any of them. And one time I even—”

She goes abruptly silent, unable to voice whatever she was about to confess.

“I don’t care.” In my fervor to make her understand, I clasp her upper arms. “None of it was your fault. It was him . You could never be deserving of the kind of punishment I deal out. If I ever ruin you, it will be in a very different way.”

“What do you mean?” She’s trembling in my grip. When I inhale, I can smell her shame, her raw grief… and her arousal.

Little deviant. She may not know exactly what I mean by ruining her, but she suspects it, and her body is responding to the idea.

Maybe it’s the fact that I’m nearly whole again—maybe it’s the depth of her emotion in this moment, maybe it’s the delirious scent of her, but suddenly I can’t resist. I shove her against the wall of the stairway and crush my body against hers. Her position, one step above me, brings us into better alignment than usual—chest to chest, cunt to cock. My lips ghost over her mouth, and I let my long tongue emerge to trace her jawline.

“When I ruin a woman,” I whisper, “I take every hole she has. Mouth, pussy, ass. All mine. I go balls-deep and fill each hole with my cum until she’s dripping my seed everywhere. I make her scream, make her thighs shake with ecstasy, and when she thinks she can’t come for me anymore, I coax the most exquisite, most violent orgasms out of her body. Afterward, each time she has sex with another partner, she’ll picture me. She’ll come for them while thinking of me, and she’ll wish she could feel the shape of my cock inside her again. That is what I mean by ruin .”

I breathe the last words hotly into her ear while she remains motionless, crushed against the wall, the thick roll of my cock pressing between her legs.

She’s panting, the scent of her arousal stronger than ever. But this sweet, tragic girl doesn’t know what she really wants. I’m determined that when she finally has sex, it won’t be with me. She will never experience the brutal passion of my depraved mind. Someone like her needs a calm, steady, human partner to keep her safe, treat her gently, and help her heal. I would only break her. I have the lurking sense that if I did fuck this girl, it wouldn’t be just once. I couldn’t stop there. I’d need more. I would want to use her up.

My thoughts end abruptly as her soft mouth touches mine.

I go rigid, motionless with shock.

It was tentative, barely a graze of lips… but she kissed me. A keen thrill traces through my whole body at the realization.

No. This cannot happen.

A guttural rebuke leaves my throat. “Don’t ever do that again if you know what’s good for you.”

“I’m sorry,” she gasps. “I don’t know why I did it. I’m sorry. Don’t throw me out, please.”

“Be silent, and walk behind me.”

As we continue down the steps, the smell worsens. It’s the odor of rancid flesh, rotting and melting from bones. Feather makes a choking sound.

“Hold the edge of your cloak over your mouth and nose,” I advise, and a rustle of fabric tells me that she’s following my guidance.

When I reach the bottom of the steps, the house automatically lights two lamps for me. The moment they flare up, something heavy slithers and thumps rapidly across the floor, retreating from the blaze. Meerwunder hates light. He stays in the distant shadows, the bulk of his body barely distinguishable from the darkness. I’ve never seen all of him, only flabby tentacles and the occasional slimy claw.

Along the edges of the huge room are the cages where I sometimes keep prisoners. The reek comes from a newish, rather gooey corpse I’d forgotten about. I open the cage door so Meerwunder can take care of the remains after we leave. Once that body is gone, the smell will improve.

In the center of the room are long narrow tables with manacles and shackles attached. Various torture implements, whips, and straps are strewn across the floor, lying where I left them. There’s a pile of switches, too, which I carefully selected for their pliant strength. They’re perfect for beating my victims.

Still holding a fold of the cloak over her mouth and nose, Feather crouches and picks up a long leather bullwhip. It’s one of my favorites, since I can use it to cause pain from a distance. I’ve even used it to keep the monsters in line occasionally.

Feather inspects the whip, then lays it on the table. The next second she spots the pile of switches and exclaims, “Oh, firewood! How perfect! We’re almost out.”

“No, that’s not—” I protest, but she’s already gathering an armful of the switches. “Fine,” I sigh. “We’ll use them as firewood. Give them to me, I’ll carry them.”

While she inspects more of the torture implements, I tie the switches together and swing the bundle onto my back.

“What’s this?” Feather gestures to a huge ring bolted to the floor.

“The trap door. The house’s one exit. I’m going to open it now, but don’t try to understand what you see, or you’ll go mad. You must simply accept it.”

She nods, wide-eyed.

I reach down and hoist up the trap door.