Page 33 of The Krampus' Queen
“I did?”
“Do you mean it?”
We have been together for months, at least more than nine. We fuck damn near every day. I look forward to seeing him in the morning, to being held by him at night. He may be some kind of goat demon tied to the winter solstice who lives alone on a mountain, but that still sounds like boyfriend behavior to me.
“Yeah.” I run my finger over his hand, tracing the veins. “I do.”
“Then imagine how I feel, seeing my girlfriend throw herself into mortal danger.”
“It wasn’t mortal danger. It was more like…ouch!”
“Sorry,” he whispers, slipping off of the biggest bruise to work on the small of my back.
“Like a light pummeling. No worse than what you dish out in bed.” I bat my eyes at him, a coy giggle daring him to throw me over his shoulder now.
He doesn’t give in. “I far prefer for it to be me who gives you the bruises and not the mountain.”
My ribs ache from the roll, but I can withstand every glance of his fingers over my bruises until he touches my wrists. I yank them back without a thought and start to rub the hidden welts.
“Do they still hurt?” he asks.
“Yes.” I gulp, my head dropping in shame.
He answers by running his hand through my wet hair. I lean into his palm, wanting to cry. He can do damn near anything to me and I’m game. Split me open on his cock, whip my ass with his ruten, fuck my mouth while I’m laying like a bearskin rug… But the second he touches my wrists, I’m back at that night.
Terrified.
Crying.
Shaking because I know I’m gonna die.
I don’t know why he was able to hold them that first time in the hot springs, but overnight this trauma bloomed like a nest of briars and it won’t go away. “I’m sorry,” I mutter.
“There’s no point to apologize. It’s not your fault.”
Isn’t it though? I’m the one who can’t give it up. I can’t forget that night, I can’t let DeVere get away with it again. But I’ve found nothing. All the books about the Krampus, that don’t sing his praises or warn children about him, say the same thing. Any who go through the door will forget, and there is no way for a mortal to make it down the mountain and survive.
“Your beard.” I point to his chin. The dimple is long buried in a waterfall of black fur. “It’s gotten an inch longer.”
“Has it?” He picks up the hair as if he can’t believe it’s grown at all.
I’ve never seen him shave. He just went from one day having sexy cowboy muttonchops to a full-on hermit beard that keeps growing. I swear, his fur is getting thicker too, and the nights are drawing longer. He doesn’t have to say it.
Christmas is coming.
Once again, Damien DeVere will trick another young girl into his house where he’ll drug and chain her up as a sacrifice to the monstrous Krampus.
I run my fingers over the skin of my pristine wrists. I don’t want to keep going back there. I don’t want to flinch every time he holds my hand and his thumb brushes over my wrist. I don’t want to shy away from him using all that rope to tie me up into his perfect Christmas present.
“Hon,” I whisper, my breath hard as stone.
He looks up from his book about a fisherman who solves murders.
I clench one hand around my wrist, then hold the other. “I want you to suspend me.”
“A swing wouldn’t be too difficult to fabricate.”
“By my wrists and ankles.”
