Chapter 13 Katharina
Katharina
“God in Heaven,” I hissed as the knife cut through the pad of my finger. It was the second time I’d cut myself that morning collecting herbs from the garden. The work was normally enough to keep my mind from wandering, but not today. Not after…
I stuck the digit into my mouth, tasting the hot metallic tang. I’d done it a hundred times before, but today it felt more obscene. Everything did.
My legs trembled at the memory of the confessional, at the memory of Heinrich’s hands and the warmth of his mouth on my throat. At the memory of the dark look in his eyes.
I shook my head. Yesterday, for the first time in as long as I could remember, I’d missed our morning lessons.
Cowardice—there was no other way to describe it.
I had been afraid to see him. But what I didn’t know was whether it was because I was afraid of him, or because I was afraid of what I would do if I was alone with him again.
I gathered the chamomile I’d cut, dropping it into my woven basket. The sun beat down on me, and I wiped the sweat gathering at the edge of my bonnet. I hadn’t let my hair down since then either.
Keep to the shadows. Help who you can.
Everything had been turned upside down. Nothing about this was discreet or charitable. It was pure hedonism.
The chapel bells rang the hour—time for today’s lesson. My stomach flipped at the sound. I could skip again, claim duty or illness, but what if Heinrich came looking for me? The thought of him finding me alone in my chamber…
Lead us not into temptation, I prayed silently, though the words felt hollow. I was already so far into temptation I couldn’t see the path back. But I would resist. I did not know what kind of test this was, but I would not fail. Not this time.
It was for his sake. I couldn’t endanger him like that. I’d always had a target on my back; I’d learned to live with it. But to drag him down with me was something I could not stand. It strengthened my resolve.
I would confront him about what had happened, make sure it never happened again.
Besides…I shifted, and the rags I had tied between my legs shifted too, already soaked with blood. No man craves a woman during this time. My courses had come early, perhaps my body’s own defense against my unholy actions.
I rose, wiping my hands on my apron and making my way to the rectory, each step quiet. But when I knocked, no answer came. The door stood slightly ajar. I pushed it open to find the room empty, our usual books absent from the table.
“Heinrich?” My voice echoed in the hollow space.
“In here.” His voice drifted from the chapel. I let out a relieved sigh. Yes, the chapel. Public, nothing could happen there. But my gaze strayed to the confessional along the aisle as I walked toward him.
No. My nails dug into my palms. I would resist temptation for him.
I found him at the altar, cleaning up after morning Mass. He didn’t turn when I entered, but I saw his shoulders tense, knew he was aware of exactly where I stood.
“You missed yesterday’s lesson,” he said mildly, as if this were just a normal day, as if he hadn’t made me come apart with his fingers while I bit my lip bloody trying to stay quiet. As if we hadn’t turned this holy space into something profane.
“I did not know if you wanted to see me.”
“I always want to see you, my dove.” He turned then, and his eyes held the same darkness I’d seen in the confessional, though his expression remained pleasantly neutral. “It’s unfortunate. I had such interesting passages prepared for you.”
“Why are you doing this?” My voice cracked with the question, but I rooted myself to the stone floor. I let the very church itself be my foundation.
He tilted his head. “Doing what?”
“Acting like—like we didn’t…”
It was shocking how quickly the neutrality left his face.
He took one step, then another, closing the distance between us in a breath.
I put my hands up to stop him, but his arm wrapped around my waist so I couldn’t move away.
My fingers curled around the rough wool of his cassock, but I didn’t struggle as the warmth and smell of him enveloped me.
Damn him. No, that was what I was trying to avoid. But then why did it feel so right to be entwined with him like this?
He leaned in so I couldn’t see his face, but I felt his breath on the skin of my neck. “Were you thinking about how it felt? How your body responded to something you’ve been taught to fear?” His lips ghosted over the soft place beneath my jaw, and I squirmed as his grip tightened.
“Heinrich, we can’t.”
He laughed. “More lies. I think you know we very much can.” His teeth grazed my skin until I shivered.
“Stop.” Don’t stop. Oh God, I’d broken immediately.
“But you don’t want me to stop.” His voice dropped lower. “That’s what frightens you. Not me, but yourself. How easily you succumbed to me. How desperately you wanted more.”
His hand traced up my spine, but I found the anger to finally override my desire, and I shoved him back to look him in the eye. “Is this your idea of a lesson? To torment me with my weakness?”
“Weakness?” He chuckled again. “My dear Katharina, what you call weakness, I call strength. Do you know how much courage it takes to choose pleasure in a world that would burn you for it? To fight against the very nature they have tried to write into you since your birth into this tainted world?”
The hand on my back moved up into my hair, tugging until my scalp tingled as he leaned over me. “I don’t see weakness in you, my dove. Only strength and fire I hope to stoke into something so blinding that all will fall to their knees before you.”
Even as his words set every inch of me alight, that inescapable tension building between my legs, the specter of doubt and sadness wrapped around my heart. I knew deep down why.
“Heinrich, what’s happened to you? This isn’t you. This is wrong.” What happened to you in those woods? But I was still a coward, hiding within my own delusion, so instead I asked, “Are you still a man of God?”
The fingers in my hair relaxed, and he slowly slid down my body, landing hard on his knees on the stone floor. But he did not wince as he once might have. Instead, he looked up at me with so much devotion it stole my breath away.
“Am I still a man of God?” He nuzzled his cheek into my palm. “Tell me, what is prayer but yearning? What is faith but the ache for union with something greater? I have never been more devout than I am now, on my knees before you, worshipping at an altar the Church would call profane.”
He leaned in, pressing his nose into my dress, into the apex of my thighs until I nearly groaned.
“But you know as well as I that the Church has long lost its way, especially here in Bamberg. Does the Bishop rounding up our neighbors and loved ones serve God? Does suppressing all who challenge its authority lead us closer to salvation? No, and you know this as well as I. That’s why you’ve done the work you do. ”
Yes, I had thought these things. They ran through my mind every night as sleep avoided me. I’d used them to keep the fear away, as motivation to continue the work that needed to be done.
But he had the same doubts? I threaded my fingers into his hair, tugging slightly.
“But your vows…Heinrich, I would not drag you down with me.” I peered up at the stained-glass windows, at the saints rendered in colored glass looking down on us.
What would they think of this—a priest on his knees, mouth pressed to a woman’s body through layers of fabric, speaking heresies in the House of God?
“Drag me down?” He laughed, the sound muffled against my skirt. His hands gripped my hips, drawing me closer. “Katharina, I am already fallen. I fell the moment I saw you. Every vow I’ve broken, I’ve broken willingly. Gladly.”
“You don’t mean that.” But even as I said it, I wasn’t sure. The way he was looking at me—like I was something holy, something worth damning himself for—
“I have never meant anything more.” He pressed a kiss to my hip, then another, working his way across my belly over the fabric.
“They taught me to kneel in submission to a distant God who watches suffering and does nothing. But you—” Another kiss, this one at my navel, making my breath hitch.
“You act while they cower. You heal while they destroy. If that’s not divinity, what is? ”
“That’s blasphemy,” I whispered, but I held him to me, unwilling to let go.
“Or is it the first true thing I’ve ever said in this place?” He lifted his gaze to mine, his eyes dark and burning. “I would break every vow, renounce every sacrament, if it meant keeping you.”
“Heinrich—”
He stood suddenly. “You do not believe me? You’re right—words can be empty. So let me show you.”
He guided me back until my hips hit the hard wood of the altar. Another push and I was seated on the edge while his fingers traced up my calves, dragging my skirt with them.
“Heinrich, wait…” He did not wait. Instead, he continued until he revealed the bloody rags I had tied between my legs. “It’s…it’s my monthly courses.”
He paused, and I attempted to shove my skirt back down, heat flooding my cheeks and chest. But he held my wrist fast, his other hand ripping the makeshift garment free and tossing it aside.
“Every Sabbath I consume the flesh and blood of God on this very altar. Do you think I would hesitate to participate in this sacred communion? Your body is mine, and so is your blood which is shed for me. Blessed is this fruit of the vine, once ripe and now my new covenant.”
“Someone will see—” But as I spoke, a great gust of wind slammed the doors of the chapel shut.
“No one will disturb us.”
“You can’t know that—”
“Katharina.” He gripped my face between his fingers, squeezing gently. “Trust me.”
And that was the heart of it. I had always trusted him.
Since the first day he’d found me trying to remain invisible at the back of Mass.
Since he’d shown me that there was goodness left in this ashen world.
I had trusted him more than I’d ever trusted the Church or its barren promises, its morality wielded as a weapon.
Even now, when I could not ignore the flames that danced behind his eyes, when the shadows of the nave moved like living things, I trusted him. He had been my strength through these last years of turmoil, and I would not flee him now.
I nodded, and he kissed me deeply as the tips of his fingers dug into my thighs, spreading them wide.
Blood dripped down, staining the altar cloth beneath me.
He kissed my forehead then knelt again, tugging me to the edge.
His tongue traced the length of my cunt before circling lower as his nose pressed against the throbbing bud at my core.
He groaned, low and delicious, his lips and tongue caressing me until I rocked back against him.
But as my body sought the pleasure it now knew he could bring, I glanced down to see blood smeared across his cheeks. The crimson was stark against his tan skin, and I froze.
This was wrong. I gripped his hair to yank him away just as his fingers spread me wide, the heat of his tongue stretching me as he pushed inside.
I fell back against the altar, a cry leaving my lips that echoed through the vast nave. It encouraged him, and he intensified his efforts, his fingers replacing his tongue.
We had to stop, but I couldn’t stop—not as his tongue laved the bundle of nerves that made me cry out again, not as his fingers found all the same places they had before, those places deep inside me that only he knew. Not now that my body knew exactly how good it could feel.
The raging desire in me had been set free, burning away any shame as I ground against him, the ridge of his nose mine to use.
He groaned again—encouragement—and I rocked, chasing my pleasure until the pressure neared its breaking point.
The arches of the apse blurred overhead as all thought narrowed to this moment alone.
“Heinrich,” I moaned, my final plea as my legs tightened over his shoulders, shaking as he wrung my orgasm from me, his fingers pulsing with my body until it had nothing left to give.
Finally satisfied, he pulled back, his face a mess of blood. I should have been terrified or disgusted, but sin was a dangerous thing, and all I wanted was him. All of him. I reached for the belt at his waist, tugging him toward me so I could undo the buttons of his gown.
He chuckled, gripping my wrist gently to stop me. “Greed—another sin to add to your list. How will I keep up with your penance at this rate?”
He gripped my face again, and I looked up from the button I was struggling with as I felt my blood smear across my cheek.
“Patience is a virtue, my dove. Now go clean yourself up before someone sees. I’ll do the same.”
He helped me down from the altar, and as my skirt fell, I saw the bright red stain that had wept into the white cloth—a blood sacrifice to a god with far more dangerous appetites.