Solstice Sacrifice
Ava Lore
Copyright 2012 Ava Lore
Nook Edition
Discover other titles by Ava Lore at B&N.com
Nook Edition, License Notes
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, the please return to Barnes and Noble and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the work of this author.
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons either living or dead is purely coincidental.
Solstice Sacrifice
Ava Lore
The knock on the door came sooner than Klara expected, and she jumped, jabbing her needle into her finger. Blood welled up, black in the firelight. She thought at first of licking it away, but instead she watched it as the knock came again, until it spilled over and ran down her skin to drip onto the pale linens she was embroidering. It spread out, a stain spiderwebbing its way across the fabric, pooling in the edges of the flowers she had only half-finished. Her wedding linens. Useless now.
The knocking came again.
In the chair next to her, her mother began to cry softly as her father, ashen-faced, rose to answer.
The door behind her chair creaked open, a familiar sound she might never hear again, and bone-cracking cold slunk into the room, prowling across the floor. For a long moment, no one said anything, and Klara stared into the fire, willing it to leap into her head and burn away the knowledge of the fate awaiting her.
"It is time," a gravelly voice finally proclaimed. Kazmer, the head of the village. Klara pressed her lips together and slipped her hands beneath her embroidery. Her fingers drifted down to the dirk she concealed beneath her heavy skirts. If they thought she would go quietly, well... they were wrong. She knew who had decided. She would not let him get away with it.
She stood then, placing her embroidered linens on her chair. Without looking at her weeping mother, she crossed the tiny room to the hooks behind the door, where her cloak hung.
"Master Kazmer," her father was saying, "please, she is my only daughter. My only child. Is there... is there nothing you can do?"
There was a pause. Klara held her breath.
"No," Kazmer said at last. "The fire has spoken. The stones have been cast. It must be your daughter or we will all die."
Liar, Klara thought. But only half a liar.
She closed her eyes and bit her lip, swaying on her feet. That was the worst of it. She knew it was true. If she went, she would die alone, frozen and starved in the dead of winter, and if she didn't go everyone in the village would be subject to that very fate. Darkness would descend, wind would shriek as it ripped across the sky, snow would shroud every living thing, and never again would the sun rise.
The winter had only just begun and already it had gripped the village in its frozen hands. Summer had not been kind either. The crops had failed. The harvest was meager. Many would die anyway.
But only the sacrifice of a virgin could bring back the sun. A new beginning. A new chance for most of them.
Not for me, though, Klara thought, and the knowledge slid down the back of her throat, burning and acrid. Not for me.
Lifting the cloak from where it hung, Klara swung it over her shoulders and fastened it around her throat. Drawing the hood up, she stepped from behind the door.
Master Kazmer's eyes found her, and a chill ran up her spine, they way it always did when their gazes met. He'd been watching her for a long time. A long, long time. Even when she had been a very young girl, not seven summers old, his watery blue eyes had undressed her where she stood in the village square, chatting with the other girls. Even then, she'd been afraid of him, and the older she grew, the deeper the fear ran.
Except now. She wasn't afraid of him now. Ten days ago he'd cornered her at the village well as she had been walking home from checking up on old Mother Rozsa, so early and dark in the morning that she couldn't tell who was following her until he grabbed her and spoke.
"The time of sacrifice is coming," he had told her. One long, bony hand gripped her arm, pulling her toward him. His lean frame, a rickety collection of bones and spent flesh, was much stronger than it looked. "Yield to me, and you will be spared."
Master Kazmer was the worst sort of man, a man who used and abused his position to victimize the innocent. Aliz had told her, once and never again, that Master Kazmer had cornered her on her family's own lands and did terrible things to her in the barn where no one could hear. And that had been long before Aliz had been a woman flowered. Other tales of Kazmer's depravity had reached Klara's ears as well, each of them spoken in whispers and hinting at dark, wretched things. The bitter wind had drawn tears to her eyes, and her lashes were decorated with ice, but the sudden, gut-wrenching revulsion she felt for him heated her blood with rage.
"Never," she hissed. "The gods determine who will be sacrificed, and I'll not yield to you." The rite of sacrifice was an old one, only brought forth in the worst of times when the church was forced to turn a blind eye.
"The gods old and new have turned their faces from us," he bit back. "Why do you think the sun no longer shines? Why do you think the crops failed? They must have a sacrifice, and unless you open those legs for me, it will be you chained to that cave wall."
Roughly he pulled her to him and she cried out and stumbled, her foot slipping on a patch of ice on the cobblestones. She fell against him as his other hand found its way under her cloak, reaching around and grabbing the lower swell of her behind, his scrabbling stick-thin fingers groping for her guarded, secret place through her skirt. He pressed her against the well, his clammy breath chilling her throat as he tried to force entrance even through the thick layers of wool swaddling her body.
Disgust roiled in her, and she reached out, searching for a weapon. Something. Anything.
At first only the heavy stone of the well walls were all she could find, but then the frozen rope of the bucket met her numb fingers, and with a great wrench she pulled the bucket to her and swung it straight at Master Kazmer's head.
The wood met his skull with a sickening crunch and he let go of her, stumbling sideways. Turning, Klara ran, her nimble young feet serving her far better on the ice and snow than his heavy, uncertain tread. She hadn't stopped until she'd reached home, and she had slammed and locked the door behind her.
Two days later, the village had gathered for a meeting. The meeting. Master Kazmer had made a great show of reading the broken cracks in the ash branches and the stones he threw upon the wooden table, but in the end the sacrificial virgin was already chosen. She'd chosen the fate when she had refused his advances.
Now Klara stared back at him haughtily. She wouldn't allow him to scare her any longer. The worst was going to happen, and she would meet it with dignity. Her unfinished bridal linens would be packed away in a chest by her weeping mother, and her body would be collected and burned in the spring, her ashes floating out to meet the wind. But Master Kazmer would not have touched her. She had to remain a virgin for the sacrifice to work. He would go to his own grave never knowing her, and she was content with that.
"Klara," Master Kazmer said. The other elders of the village watched her with impassive faces. Of course, none of their daughters or nieces or granddaughters had been chosen, or ever would be chosen. She knew each one of them was relieved. Sad, in his own way, that a young life would be snuff
ed out, but nevertheless relieved that the burden had not fallen to his family. Hypocrites, the lot of them. Klara shifted and the dirk on the inside of her thigh rubbed against her skin. Could she kill all of them? No, probably not. But she would take someone out with her if she could. Sacrifice should cut both ways.
"I'm ready," she said. Her voice rang out loud and clear, and her mother's soft tears turned to the wails of the grief-stricken. Klara didn't turn and look at her mother. She might break if she did.
Next to her, her father reached out, his useless fingers feathering against her sleeve. She knew he roiled with guilt. His daughter had been chosen. He could not take her place. It was only her, and no one else. He couldn't protect her.
She wanted to tell him it was all right, that she would avenge herself on her own, but she couldn't. Instead she let her hand drift up and grasp his, giving it the barest of squeezes before letting her fingers fall away and stepping forward.
The elders of the village parted before her, and she strode through them, the cold of the deepening winter threatening to bow her head. Ice gathered on her lashes, but she held herself up, and climbed into the wagon on her own. She'd heard stories of sacrifices past, when the poor girl had to be trussed up like a pig and screamed the whole way there.
She'd not be like that, if only because trussed pigs couldn't fight back.
Settling onto the straw in the wagon, Klara threw her head back and stared straight ahead. Hugor, the village blacksmith, drove the wagon. His huge shoulders hunched against the wind, and the horses, covered in thick blankets, shifted and snorted, nervous and eager to be done with their work so they could return to their warm stable.
Wind sliced through her, and Klara shivered, but she stared straight ahead and didn't waver. The dark gray sky covered in leaden clouds weighed down on them, and a light snow was beginning to fall. Other horses whickered and whinnied as the procession drew into place, and then they were moving, heading out of the village.
The dark, shadowed forest loomed ahead, and Klara clenched her teeth. Unbidden and unwanted, a few tears spilled over her lashes, and the wind froze them on her cheeks.
The procession moved on.
*
It was warmer in the woods, if only because the trees afforded some protection from the wind, and the piles of collected snow insulated the forest from the open, icy air. Black branches stripped of leaves cut dark paths against the iron-gray sky, and the only sound was the whistling of the wind and the rustling of each dying tree as it reached for its companions, like drowning men clinging to each other as they went under.
"How much further?" Klara asked. She had never been to see the sacrificial cave. It had been years since it had been used. Many of the boys in the village had gone there on dares and for bets, sometimes even sleeping there despite the restless ghosts of sacrifices past that surely haunted the place. They only ever went in summer, of course, and only a few girls were brave enough to see it for themselves. She had never been curious. Now she wished she had gone. The fear would be less if she were familiar with the place of her dying.
"We will be there by nightfall," Master Kazmer said.
Klara watched the snow-covered branches pass over her head. They had left mid-morning. Her nerves were so frayed and she almost wished the cave were closer, but at least the hours of trundling along in the sacrificial procession had given her time to work out a plan.
"Perhaps you will allow me to relieve myself, then?" she asked.
There was an awkward silence around her, as though the elders had already relegated her to the realm of the dead in their minds. That she still spoke and still had human, living needs made them clearly uncomfortable.
Good, Klara thought, a vicious satisfaction curling inside her. They should be.
"No," Master Kazmer said after a moment.
There was a general murmuring, and then Master Fredek spoke up. "Surely she may relieve herself, Kazmer. It is such a small request, and there are several more leagues to go..."
From the corner of her eye, Klara saw Kazmer's head snap around as he glared at Fredek. "And have her escape?" he said. "No, she shall stay here, under our watchful eyes."
Perfect, Klara thought.
"Then surely your watchful eyes should follow me," she said. "I shall tend to my business with a guard, if that would calm your fears."
"That would be, er, most unseemly," Fredek said. "A young, unmarried woman and a village elder..."
For the first time, Klara turned her head and pinned Fredek with her own blue eyes. "Surely nothing can happen?" she said, all innocence. "I am to remain a virgin if the sacrifice is to work."
The old man's cheeks flared and Klara almost laughed at the absurdity of it. Their own hands would condemn her to die a horrible death, and yet he blushed at the thought of watching her piss or the reminder of her untouched body. She suppressed the urge, however, and merely gave him a placid smile. “I'm sure someone here is of such incorruptible character that they can stand guard over me.”
Her bait. Master Kazmer would know something was up, but he did not know of the knife on her thigh, and if she had her way he would remain ignorant until it was buried in his neck.
Master Fredek turned to the village head. “Then Master Kazmer should accompany you,” he said. “His moral character is unquestionable.”
Meaning no one dares question it, Klara thought bitterly. Not even the other girls he had managed to deflower. She was one of the few to hold him off on her own, and only through good luck. The other girls, many younger than she, had not been so lucky, though of course it was she who was about to be sacrificed and not they, so luck was, perhaps, a matter of perspective.
For a long moment, Master Kazmer stared at her, his eyes narrowed. Then he gave a regal nod, and dismounted from his horse.
With as much dignity as she could muster, Klara slid down from the wagon, her heavy skirts and worn cloak crackling with a thin crust of snow. Without looking at Master Kazmer, she lifted her chin and marched from the narrow path into the woods, searching for a thicket to hide behind.
As soon as they were far enough away from the procession, Kazmer spoke. “Have you rethought my offer?” His voice was low, but beneath his words she heard a hunger. He still desired her. She suppressed a shudder.
“Perhaps,” she told him. “But first, I truly do need to relieve myself.”
“Here is far enough,” he told her. “No one but I can see.”'
Frankly, that was still entirely too many people for Klara, but she would take what she could get. Turning toward the nearest tree, she spread her cloak out behind her and squatted down, being certain Kazmer could not see what she was doing. Hiking her skirts up, she slipped the dagger from the holster on her thigh. She'd stolen it from her father's hunting gear, and it had chafed against her bare skin, but it was worth it. Pretending to adjust her clothing, Klara concealed the knife in her sleeve and stood. The chill of the blade against her skin made her feel cold and powerful.
She turned to meet Kazmer's eyes.
"What were you saying about rethinking things?" she asked him. If I can get close... If I can just get a good angle...
But Kazmer was studying her, clearly suspecting something, and Klara despaired inside. She tried to meet his watery eyes. Entirely aside from the winter surrounding her, she felt frozen inside. Fearful. The knife was her last chance.
She tilted her head and tried to give him a tempting smile, though she had never known but a few heated kisses with the village boys.
"If you were not a virgin any longer," Kazmer said at last, "then the sacrifice would move to another young woman." His eyes slid up and down her body, and though she was swaddled in heavy winter clothing Klara felt as naked as the day she was born.
"Then perhaps I should unencumber myself," Klara said. Her voice cracked and his gaze flickered with desire. Good, she thought. Perhaps he will think I am only afraid to lie with him. The dirk was dead weight against her arm.
&nb
sp; Kazmer extended a hand. "Perhaps you should," he said. "Though you have waited until the almost the final hour to rid yourself of your purity."
Klara swallowed and started toward him. Lifting the arm without the knife, she took his gloved hand in her own cold fingers. "The nearness of death has a way of bringing certain things into focus," she told him.
"Indeed," he said. But instead of drawing her closer, he lifted his chin and glanced over her shoulder.
No urine on the ground, Klara thought. She should have truly relieved herself.
With a jerk of her arm, she let the dirk slide down her skin until the hilt landed in her palm, a maneuver she had practiced over and over in the dead of night, slicing the skin of her hand and wrist in a thousand tiny cuts. Her fingers closed around it, but Kazmer was already stepping away, his shrewd face pinching in realization.
"You little slut," he hissed.
It was futile, she knew. She couldn't reach his throat, but she would do what damage she could. And then she would run, though the fresh fallen snow would reveal her tracks. But the trees were thick, and they were on horseback while she had the advantage of agility. Perhaps, if she could get enough of a headstart, she could outrun them—
She clamped her fingers down on his hand, keeping him in place as she thrust the dagger into Kazmer's forearm. The old man howled in pain and Klara leaped away, adrenaline and panic beating back her previous calm and caution.
Her boots sank into the snow, and she fled through the trees, Kazmer's scream of rage chasing her into the shadows.
*
She ran for what seemed like hours, until her heart died in her chest and her breath became glass, splintering in her throat with cold. Her cloak and skirts weighed her down, becoming sodden and heavy with snow, and all the while, behind her, she heard them coming for her through the trees.
They were never far away. Their shouts urged each other on, pointing to her trail, which was easy to follow. Though the horses could not maneuver through the woods as easily as a young woman on foot, their strength was far greater than hers, and they did not flag. It was a hunt of attrition, and she was losing.
Solstice Sacrifice (Reluctant Virgin Beast Erotica) Page 1
