CHAPTER 9

HE’S A MONSTER.

I deluded myself into thinking he’s some misunderstood hero who does light breaking and entering to rescue women being tortured by bored billionaires. But it is so much worse than I could have ever imagined.

Shame and fear send me skittering away from the plaintive cries for help. I can’t face them after what I’ve done. My body tumbles through the archway, my feet nearly slipping out from under me.

I dig into the corner of the wall, panting. My skin broils at the people, the children, trapped under my feet. How many…? How long…? Does he tear them from their beds on Christmas Eve and force them to mine coal for the big guy?

What the fuck is wrong with this world?

A scream tears out of my throat when I blink and spot the red door. If I go through it, all of this will vanish. I’ll forget everything, my kidnapping, theirs… How I sold my soul for a monster’s cock.

The tiny pleas for help bite through me. I jerk, realizing my hand’s already around the knob. I can’t stay here. He’s going to throw me down there too once he’s had his fun. I have to leave. I…I’m sorry.

I turn the doorknob.

A great frozen wind blasts me, tearing the robe off of my shoulders. I blink against the white light streaming not from the closed red door, but the entire back wall torn away. That was a door the whole time? Darkness marches through forming the shadow of a creature I’ve seen before.

Gnarled thorns rise from its head, the chest lumpy and misshapen as it towers a good ten feet above me. I stumble to my knees, my jaw dropping. What other horror has come to torment me tonight?

The shadow steps across the threshold. Black fur hides all of the face so I can only see a sunken pair of red eyes. It shakes, scattering blinding white snow that melts before it touches the floor.

I skitter back, trying to find my escape. I can’t go back to the throne room, and worse horrors could lurk down the other path. All that remains is the hot springs in a glass prison.

The monster heaves a shoulder and a set of antlers fall forward. I blink, realizing it isn’t one creature but two. Then he tugs back his hood and stares at me.

“Ah, you’re awake.”

Krampus stands unaware I’ve found his secret. I try to put on an assuring smile, but I can’t look away from the dead deer he’s got strung across his shoulder. Just like I was last night.

“What’s that?” I gulp, pointing to the silent head resting on his chest.

He glances toward it for a moment before smiling. “Dinner.”

Am I to be next?

“I didn’t…” My teeth keep chattering in my jaw. Stop it, you’re going to give yourself away. “I didn’t hear a gun,” I say.

He grunts in my direction then takes off down the unexplored black path. “Why would you?”

This is my chance when his back is turned. Just leap through the red door and…

“Are you hungry?”

I freeze mid dash and smile at him. “No. I’m…I’m good. Not—” I move to pat my stomach and it gurgles loud enough to wake the dead. “Not hungry at all.”

His eyes peer through me like x-ray machines. He knows I’m lying. He’s gonna call me on it, drag me down into that fiery pit and… “If you wish to eat, follow me.” With that, Krampus takes off down the hallway, never looking back.

I’m frozen. I need to run. The smart thing would be to escape. Of course, I’m also assuming that he didn’t lie to me about the door, and I won’t drop fifteen feet to a cement floor and shatter my legs.

But hardest of all, my heart cries out for an explanation. Why is he brusque but kind one minute, then stealing children from their beds the next? This doesn’t make sense. I’m missing a piece and it’s driving me nuts.

I cast one last glance to the door, clench my fists, and take off after the monster of the castle. He hasn’t gotten far down the hallway. Either the deer is weighing him down, or he waited for me. Both assumptions churn my famished stomach.

“Why are you eating deer?” I ask nervously. Krampus pauses in his slow march to cast a single red eye my way. “I mean, why not chicken or pork? Beef?”

“If you know of a chicken that can survive subzero temperatures and white out conditions, I’d love to hear of it. In the meantime, I do what I must to survive.”

“That…makes sense.”

“I’m relieved you approve.” He grunts and hurls the deer off of his back. It hits the table with a loud thwack, and I look up.

Wow. This place is…

If someone wanted a dream kitchen, huge open floor plan, prep island, massive stove with flame burners, but also wanted it to be Satan’s private galley that would be this room. The same dark black stone with red veins forms the counters and tables that stretch across an entire wall. Krampus pushes a pedal with his foot and water spurts from a pipe into a bucket.

He washes his hands over it, the bottom of the bucket turning crimson. I start to peer over when he approaches one of the racks above my head and extracts a foot-long knife. Oh, I can’t watch this.

My eyes close tight and I turn away.

I flinch with a single loud thwack. Something empty hits the counter and rolls away.

“Here.”

Cool metal presses into my bare chest. I jerk at the touch and look up. Half of a pomegranate sits on a plate. He holds it out to me while red juice dribbles down the blade of his knife.

“Th…thank you?” I say and take the plate.

He gives a single grunt and returns to dicing up vegetables—carrots, potatoes, leeks, and turnips by the look of it. “That should hold you over until the stew is finished.”

I pick out a pip with my nails, watching the juice stain my fingers red. He could be poisoning me. My stomach cries out again, reminding me that all I’ve had in a day was spiked liquor. I drop the pip into my mouth and suck down the vibrant pulp. It pops down my throat and I eat two more without thinking.

Three pomegranate seeds. “If I eat three more, I’ll be stuck here,” I say as a half laugh.

His methodical dicing freezes. “What?” The red eyes pin me to the floor.

“You know. The myth, about pomegranates?”

All I get is a slow shake of his head.

“Hades and Persephone? He abducted her down into the underworld to be his bride and, because she ate six pomegranate seeds, she had to spend half of the year with him.” Oh, I didn’t stop to think how familiar that situation sounded. Okay, I don’t know if Persephone pulled on Hades’ cock piercing to get him to fuck her harder than she ever had been in her life. But she’d probably consider it.

Krampus stares me up and down. Steam buffets from his nose and the tip of his tongue traces down to his chin. I start to mimic him without thinking and taste the twang of juice. He returns to his vegetable chopping. “I don’t understand. Why spend half the year where you don’t want to be and the other half where you do?”

“That’s the point of the pomegranate. Eating food in the land of the dead traps you there.”

He snorts and grabs the other half of the pomegranate. “Or an excuse so she could stay where she shouldn’t be.” His huge fist crumples behind the hard flesh, shooting almost all of the pips into his mouth. As he swallows them, rivulets of scarlet trace down his chin and land on his chest like little droplets of…

I shiver and stare at my barely touched fruit. Only three more seeds to trap me for six months. And if I ate the whole thing…? Would he chain me by my wrists, tease me with his tongue, and fuck me until my spine breaks in half? Or would I become another deer on the table?

The children…

“You’re in my robe.”

“Huh?” I shake from my thoughts to find him staring at me.

A snicker lifts his lips. “Barely in my robe.”

“Oh.” Damn it. In my panic, I didn’t realize it’d fallen to the point nearly all of my tits were out. I grab the middle and pin it closed just as the sleeve unfolds and hits the ground with a thunk.

He turns his back to me to resume dinner work. “I’d say it looks good on you, but…I prefer it on the floor.”

Candlelight flickers on the knife. It flashes with movement, and I lunge back. Then I hear the plop of vegetables hitting water. He keeps scooping them down into his stew, but eyes me up at the same time. “You’re hiding something.”

Fuck. Why don’t I have a poker face? I start to shake my head to assure him that I would never…break into his throne room, step on the sigil, and discover he has children hidden under his floor.

“I don’t abide liars.” The knife scrapes down the cutting board and I flinch. It doesn’t take much for me to picture it chipping off bone as he slices the red meat away. “What…!” He brandishes the knife, the point zigzagging just in front of my nose.

I try to run away, but my knees lock. I can’t feel my fingers and my chest aches. A single whimper slips out at the hulking monster waving a blade in front of me. He doesn’t even need it. Those claws could disembowel me with one thrust.

His arms droop and the knife falls away. Shaking his head, he slips it back into the block with the others. That doesn’t do much to calm me, especially as he digs his palms into the counter. I’d seen those muscles at work. He’d torn apart stone bricks without trying before. What will he do if he learns I know his secret?

“Tell me.”

Nope. I inch for the exit, but my heel catches on the robe. It wrenches my shoulder back and thrusts my chest out at him.

He closes his eyes. “You are betrothed and feel shame for breaking your vows?”

What?

“Neither he nor you will know what transpired in my hot spring…”

I shake my head hard, a laugh rolling off my tongue. “Me? Engaged? Ha! That’ll be the…oh. Um. No. I’m not engaged. Betrothed.”

“Then what? You’d intended to leave, but my return halted you.”

Fuck, he saw that. He’ll never let me get near the door. I’ll be chained up to his bed, my bare ass hanging out, as he strokes then slaps…

Damn it, this coat is breaking my brain. I try to toss it off to escape the lustful haze of the musk, before remembering I’m naked under here. He’s staring, expecting an answer. What the hell do I tell him? I was leaving because your floorboards are infested with children. Stupid. Think, damn it.

The Krampus reaches for me.

This is it. I’m gonna be tossed into the mines with the kids, naked and screaming until my dying—

He plucks the pomegranate out of my hand and puts it next to the deer. “If you wish to leave, then go.” He steps back, giving me breathing room. With that, he drifts toward the cauldron and stirs. His back is to me. There’s no way he can see me.

I just have to run and never look back. Outpace the eight foot tall monster, reach the door, leap through, and I’ll be home. Safe. Without any of this on my conscience.

Why does he seem sad? There are no tears in his eyes, his voice level, nothing hinting at any pain. He told me to leave like he was dismissing a meeting. But I can’t stop staring at the hunch of his shoulders and how languidly he stirs his stew. Almost as if he assumed I’d leave, as everyone had before, and he’s telling himself it’s for the best.

I glance to the doorway, then back to him.

He doesn’t move.

Boldly, I rush for the exit, my bare feet slapping into the ground. There’s no disguising that I’m trying to flee.

He doesn’t move.

No. I’m not running away like this. Not with my tail tucked between my legs. I didn’t do anything wrong. He did.

Lifting my chin, I keep one eye on the exit, while the other burns into him. “I know.”

The stirring stops. “You know what?”

This is the stupidest fucking thing you’ve done since you opened your babysitting app on Christmas Eve.

Bracing myself, I declare, “I know about the children.”