Page 18 of The Krampus' Queen
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?”
