Chapter 5
Chapter Five
The cellar was a hole carved out of the earth, stone walls slick with moisture, a packed dirt floor that smelled of mold and rot. An old crate sat rotting in the corner. I twisted my wrists against the rope. The knot held.
There was nothing I could do. Not yet.
I pushed myself up from where I’d fallen and it took longer than it should have, no hands to brace with, nothing to push against, just my knees and the wall and three tries before I got my feet under me.
My shin was bleeding where the stairs had caught me and my shoulders burned from the angle my arms were wrenched at, and by the time I was upright I was already breathing hard.
I stood in the middle of that small dark space and knew I wasn’t getting out.
I sat on the crate with my back against the wall and bowed my head. Tears I didn’t know I still had slipped free. Tomorrow I would drown. If I survived that, I’d burn. Unless something changed.
I thought about Anna. How they drowned that young girl today. It was exactly the way I’d seen myself go.
My death was coming. I could feel it like a hand around my throat.
Hours passed. The light through the window faded from gray to black, and the sounds above me quieted as the village went to sleep. My lids grew heavy. I was still on the crate when the scrape of the bolt made me straighten and I stood immediately.
Torchlight spilled down the stairs. A shape descended — big and broad, blocking out the light behind him.
Klaus. He’d changed since Anna’s drowning.
Fresh clothes, combed hair, cologne that couldn’t quite mask the sweat underneath.
He closed the door behind him and set the torch in a bracket on the wall, then stood there looking at me.
“Red.” He rolled my name around in his mouth, his lips peeling apart in a slow grin. “We’re alone now. No one to hear us.”
“Leave me alone.” I pressed my back against the wall.
“Is that any way to speak to the man who holds your life in his hands?” He stepped closer, his shadow swallowing the torchlight, his eyes traveling down my body the way they always did.
“I’ve been patient with you for years. Watching you waste yourself on widowhood and stubbornness. Waiting for you to see reason.”
He pulled a knife from his belt.
My pulse kicked hard against my throat. But he just gripped my shoulder, turned me, and cut the ropes.
“There.” He tucked the knife back into his belt, his smile spreading slow and satisfied. “I’m not a monster, Red. I want you willing.”
I rubbed my wrists and watched him. He was bigger than me, stronger, and there was nowhere to run. I pressed my back to the stone. “What do you want?”
“The same thing I’ve always wanted.” He leaned back on his heels, the torchlight catching the stains on his teeth. “You. In my bed. Whenever I call for you.”
My stomach turned. “You have a wife.” I dug my nails into my palms.
“My wife is old.” He waved his hand, dismissive. “Dried up. She hasn’t warmed my bed in years. A man has needs, Red. Surely you understand that. You were married once.”
“My husband never needed to trap women in cellars.” I met his eyes and held them.
His smile flickered and malice moved behind his gaze.
“Your husband is dead.” His face went hard.
“And here you are. Alone. Tomorrow you will be accused of witchcraft and the entire village will agree. You will face the river. You’ll either die in water or by fire.
” He leaned closer, close enough that I could smell his breath, stale wine and decay.
“I’m offering you a way out.” His tone dropped, almost gentle.
“Be my mistress. Come to me when I call. Give me what I want. No one from the village saw you get arrested, only my men know. They’ll keep quiet.
You’ll walk out of here tomorrow morning, free and clear.
No drowning. Just a quiet life under my protection. ”
“Your protection?” I almost laughed.
“Would you rather die?” He tilted his head and studied my face the way a man studies something he’s about to break.
“Tomorrow they’ll hold you under while I count to forty.
Slowly. And when the water fills your lungs and your body starts to fight.
I’ll have them pull you up. Let you breathe.
And then they’ll push you down again.” He spread his hands. “The choice is yours.”
My mind went straight to Anna, her empty eyes, her blue lips, the way her body had jerked once, twice, then gone still.
To Sophia, walking into darkness and reaching for a man’s shape and never coming back.
Every woman who had ever been trapped by a man like Klaus.
Every woman who had said yes because no meant death.
“No.” I lifted my chin.
Klaus blinked, his smile faltering. “No?”
“I won’t be your whore.” I did not look away. “I won’t spread my legs for a man who drowns girls and calls it justice. I’d rather die.”
His hand cracked across my face. The blow snapped my head sideways. Stars burst behind my eyes and blood filled my mouth where I’d bitten my tongue. “Stupid.” He grabbed my chin and wrenched my face toward his, fingers grinding into my jaw. “Stupid stubborn bitch. Just like your aunt.”
Everything in me went quiet. “What did you say?”
“Your aunt.” His lip curled. “Sophia. She was just as stubborn as you. Just as proud.”
“Don’t talk about her.” My hands curled into fists at my sides.
“I wanted her first.” His eyes went distant, remembering. “Before you. She was beautiful and young — that red cloak, that dark hair, the way she moved through the village like she was better than everyone else. I offered her the same deal I’m offering you. Protection. Security.”
His thumb pressed into my cheekbone hard enough to bruise.
“Even though you’re not her. Not as young, not as beautiful, a widow, used.
But I’m still offering. You should be grateful.
” His grip shifted on my chin, almost possessive.
“Because she didn’t take what I offered.
She chose Erik instead.” He spat the name, bitter and poisonous.
“That woodcutter. Lived in this village for years, right under my nose, and she picked him. Ran off with him in the middle of the night like a bitch in heat.”
Erik. Of course. He’d come to the village with his young son, settled near the edge of the woods, kept to himself.
I remembered Sophia around him — how she’d go quiet, how her hands would fidget with the hem of her sleeve.
She never looked easy near that man. The shape waiting in the darkness finally had a name.
Klaus must have seen it on my face. His teeth clenched.
“A man twice her age with a bastard son and nothing to his name. That’s what she chose.
” He let out a breath that was almost a laugh.
“A girl like that. Could have had a good life here. Instead she ran off and left her mother to die of grief.” His eyes found mine.
“Don’t make her mistake, Red. Take my offer. Live.”
His hand slid from my chin down to my throat, then lower. His fingers dragged across my collarbone and kept going. He pressed himself against me, hard and rank, and pawed at my chest like I was something he’d already bought.
He doesn’t get to have this.
I lunged at him. My teeth found his hand and I sank them into the meat of his thumb with everything I had. Bit down until I felt skin split and blood filled my mouth, bit harder until I felt cartilage crunch.
Klaus screamed. He ripped his hand free and left a chunk of flesh between my teeth. Blood poured from his torn thumb, spattering across my face. He backhanded me so hard I hit the wall. My vision doubled, tripled. The cellar spun around me.
“Bitch!” He cradled his ruined hand against his chest, his face twisted into something almost inhuman. “You rabid fucking bitch! I’ll make them burn you for this! I’ll build the fire so it takes hours! You’ll scream until your throat tears and then you’ll keep screaming!”
He came at me. His good hand closed around my throat, slammed my head back against the stone, squeezed until the world started going dark.
Heat woke in my chest. Deeper than my heart — something that had been sleeping my whole life, waiting for this moment, waiting for me to need it badly enough. It surged up from my gut, through my chest, down my arms, into my hands.
And I let it out.
Klaus flew backward. He didn’t stumble, didn’t trip — he flew.
His body lifted off the ground and hit the opposite wall hard enough to crack the stones.
Dust rained down from the ceiling and the torch flickered and nearly went out.
He crumpled to the floor and stared at me, eyes bulging with white showing all around.
His mouth hung open while blood kept dripping from his injured hand.
“Witch,” he hissed with pure hatred in his eyes. I couldn’t have cared less.
I stared at my own hands. They looked the same as always, scarred from years of working with herbs, ordinary. But I could still feel it, the heat, the power.
“Witch!” Klaus was on the ground. I hadn’t even seen him fall.
He scrambled backward, his ruined hand leaving a smear of blood across the dirt.
His shoulder hit the stairs and he clawed his way up them, threw the door open.
“She’s a witch! Get the men! Get the torches!
The witch is...” He yelled it through the building above.
The door crashed shut above me. The bolt ground home.
I sat in the flickering torchlight. My throat burned where his fingers had dug in, my face throbbed where he’d hit me. Blood dripped from my mouth — his blood.
But my hands. My hands had thrown a man twice my size across a room without touching him.
What was I?
I didn’t have time to think about it. Klaus would be back with men, with weapons, with fire.
My hands were free. The fool had cut the ropes himself.