Solstice Sacrifice (Reluctant Virgin Beast Erotica)

by Solstice Sacrifice [MF] (epub)

  Above all, she heard Master Kazmer's voice, brimming with hatred and lust, commanding the other elders to find her, the blacksmith to ready the ropes.

  She couldn't let herself get tied up. She couldn't be bound. It would be the end of her.

  The sky darkened, and she gasped for air. Her legs burned, and slowly she lost control of her body, careening off tree trunks and stumbling over rocks. If she could lose them, she might survive. Or perhaps she would die in the forest. But at least it would be her death.

  The shouting grew louder, and she stumbled, falling to her knees. The knife had disappeared, dropping from fingers too numb to even move.

  Pain was everywhere—in her chest, in her throat, in her head, in her heart, in her limbs, in her fingers and hands. She was on her hands and knees now, though she couldn't remember putting her hands in the snow, and she trembled and shook with terror and rage and exhaustion.

  One hand in front of the other, she crawled forward, through trees, between branches, until she crested a small hill and her hands sank too far into the snow. Then she was tumbling down a slope, wrapped in ice, until she hit a tree with a smack.

  The breath left her body and she wheezed, struggling for air. The world tipped and turned, a dizzy dance that she couldn't seem to stop, and as she struggled to find her feet and rise she saw a dark figure on horseback emerge from the trees above her.

  Master Kazmer maneuvered his horse down the slope and stood above her. He loomed, like a tower, like a tree. A terrible presence she could not escape.

  “Too bad, whore,” he said. “You could have freed yourself if you had given your virginity to me.”

  Klara couldn't even think. Her words had left her, and she could put up no resistance when the blacksmith reached her and tied her up. She could only feel a vague pressure where the ropes bit into her skin through her clothes and the cold, and then the blacksmith threw her over Master Kazmer's saddle, across his lap, and they turned around, retracing the steps of their frantic chase.

  Face down, Klara watched the snow—marred now by churning footprints and horses' hooves—pass her by. Time ceased to hold meaning, and only gradually she became aware of Kazmer's bony hand stroking her ass. She opened her mouth to scream, but all that came out was a rasp. She was beaten.

  "Don't touch me," she hissed, but the hard leather of the saddle bit into her stomach, restricting her breath, and her indignation fell to the snowy earth and was lost.

  For a long time, she pitched and rolled on the back of Kazmer's horse, and his hands squeezed and kneaded her flesh. Frightening feelings bubbled up underneath her revulsion, a rush of warmth between her legs, a tingling under her skin, and she knew he was trying to convince her to submit to him. Her mother had told her of this, that the body could sometimes betray the mind. He didn't know her will, though. She preferred to die than to give him an inch. Even touching him voluntarily in the clearing before she stabbed him had been a wrench, a terrible thing she could never erase from her memory as long as she lived. Good thing she'd be dead soon.

  She fell into a trance, and only when the procession, even more subdued than it had began, came to a stop did she jolt out of it. Blinking and shaking her dark hair from her eyes, Klara looked ahead to the sacrificial cave.

  Even if she hadn't known this was where she was to find her final hours, she would have known it. Trees, taller than any she had ever seen before, towered around the entrance of the cave, set into the side of the hill. It had been made, not a natural formation, but the heavy earth hanging around it and the dark thicket bristling on the hill like the quills of a porcupine spoke of an ancient place. How many scared young girls had met their deaths here? How many had screamed, begged, cried? What would it feel like to die?

  She would find out soon enough. Rough hands reached up and dragged her off the back of Kazmer's horse, putting her on her feet, but the ropes binding her legs and hands had cut off her circulation, leaving her numb and unable to stand under her own power. She staggered and fell, but Hugor the blacksmith caught her before she collapsed fully into the snow. His warm hands burned through her clothes. He'd been covered in skins and furs, and his body was a warm point of life in the gray, dead landscape around them.

  Klara looked up into his face and he looked away from her. That, more than anything, hurt. She'd known Hugor since she had been a little girl and he had been a gawky teenager learning the tricks of the smith trade under his master. That he couldn't look her in the eye now, when she needed a kind gesture more than anything, was a blow to her brave heart. But then his hands tightened on her and he gave her a little squeeze, and Klara found she still had some strength left. Summoning all her stubborn anger, she found the ground beneath the snow and forced herself to stand, pushing away from the furnace of the blacksmith's body. She was going to freeze to death eventually. She'd better get a head start on it. She lifted her chin.

  "Untie my feet," she commanded no one in particular. "I will go to the cave under my own power."

  "I'm afraid it's too late for that," Kazmer said from behind her. She heard his riding clothes scrape over leather as he dismounted his horse, but she refused to turn her head and look at him. "You have proven yourself to be untrustworthy."

  "I am exhausted and there is nowhere to go here," she said. "I will go quietly."

  Next to her, Hugor reached out, clearly meaning to acquiesce to her request, but there was movement behind her and she saw Kazmer stop him from the corner of her eye. "No," Kazmer said. "We can't risk it. The stones and ash trees chose her. She must be brought to the cave without further incident."

  There was quiet in the clearing before the cave as the elders shifted and glanced at each other, but at last Hugor stepped forward and lifted her up, easily, cradling her against his great chest. "I'm sorry," she heard him say, and those words curdled in her stomach.

  Not sorry enough to save me, she thought, but she knew that was unfair. A life for the village. A bargain. If not her, then him. She didn't know anyone who would make that trade for her except her parents, and they could not.

  She stared at nothingness as Hugor carried her into the dark entrance, and behind them she heard the striking of flint as one of the elders lit a torch. Flickering light kissed the cold walls of the cave with warmth. The passage under the hill was not half as narrow as she'd thought it would be, and she forced herself to study it rather than struggle to look over Hugor's shoulder to catch the last of the dying natural light outside the cave—the last she would ever see.

  She watched the stone passing her by. The walls had been crudely hacked out of the hill, though she couldn't see any scrapes or scars on the rock that would indicate what kind of tool had been used. Except—and this, her becalmed brain noted, was odd—along the top of the tunnel. Here and there something had scraped over the stone, leaving a mark behind, but it was always at roughly the same height, as though someone had taken a chisel, held it high over their head, and run down the tunnel, knocking it against the stone.

  It was a mystery, but not one she was like to solve, and all too soon she felt the air shift around them as the tunnel opened up and emptied out into a chamber. A large chamber. The air here was chill and damp, though not as harsh as the weather outside. A musty, animal smell slipped into her nose, and Klara wondered what sort of beasts had made this sad place their home when it hadn't been in use.

  The torchlight invaded the chamber. It was much like the tunnel, crudely hewn, though there were no markings at the top of the walls here. They arched together into a dome, and at the back of the chamber were chains set into the wall.

  Klara swallowed.

  Hugor set her down and untied her feet first before leading her by her bound hands to the chains and cuffs anchored to the rock. She was grateful to see that the chains were long enough that she would not be forced to sit with her hands over her head—they could instead rest comfortably in her lap—but when the icy cuffs circled her wrists she had to bite her lip until she tasted blood
to keep herself from jerking back.

  The chains weighed her down, and as carefully as she could she sat down and settled her back against the wall of the cave. Now, in the torchlight, she saw the elders gathered around her in a semicircle, watching her with glittering eyes. Dread struck her. She was chained. Helpless. They could do anything they wanted to her now.

  But all that happened was the elder carrying the torch lowered it to a pile of tinder and wood in the middle of the floor and lit it. A fire flared up. Confused, Klara frowned.

  "I... I thought I was to freeze to death," she said as the heat of the flames caught and began to grow, coaxing life back into her frozen skin.

  "The sacrifice is to go without water or food," Kazmer said, "but someone will return each day to bring you warmth. We are not entirely cruel."

  Klara raised her eyes to his, and she saw his hunger returning. She clenched her jaw.

  "So instead of a quick death, I am to have a slow one?" she said.

  Kazmer only shrugged at her. "This is the way of the solstice sacrifice," he said. "It has always been this way."

  Klara stared at the fire. "Very well," she said. "I accept the fire. Now please, leave me be so I can get started on dying."

  The atmosphere in the chamber grew tense and then, one by one, the elders filed out as Kazmer stood and watched her in the flickering light. Hugor hung back, but in the end he was only the blacksmith and he, too, left. Then she was alone in the cave with Kazmer.

  Her blood ran icy in her veins, and it had nothing to do with the cold of the stone wall at her back. Kazmer's eyes, watery and repulsive like the eyes of a frog in daylight, took on a glittering, sinister look in the leaping, dancing light of the small fire. Klara swallowed hard and met his gaze with her own. She would not back down from him. She would not.

  No matter what happened.

  Casually, Kazmer crossed the stone floor and knelt before her. His peculiar smell, of cabbage and rotten vegetables, filled her nose, blocking out the sweet, musty beast smell. Her stomach turned. His lean, hungry frame blocked the light of the fire, casting a cold shadow across her face. He reached out.

  Klara tried not to retch as chilled, papery fingers touched her cheek, stroking down her jaw to her lips. She kept her jaw clamped shut, but patiently Kazmer worked her lips open with his thumb and ran his finger along her teeth.

  "Did you know there are ways a man may take his pleasure of a woman without taking her virginity?" Kazmer asked her. His voice was light, conversational. As if they were lovers instead of a hunter and his defiant prey.

  The blood drained from Klara's face. She knew that there were things a woman could do that technically left her pure, but she only had the vaguest ideas of what those things might be. She ground her teeth and didn't answer.

  "No," Kazmer answered for her. "Of course you didn't know. You uptight little bitch." There was no hated in his words, simply a statement of fact, and that made him all the more terrifying. Where were the other elders? Why had Kazmer been left alone with her? Her eyes flicked to his forearm where a hastily tied bandage, stained black with congealed blood, stood out against his sober garments.

  He followed her gaze and rage flashed across his face. His hand retreated from her mouth and she relaxed, but only momentarily. Instead it alighted on her breast and gave it a vicious squeeze.

  Pain lanced through her and Klara grunted in her throat, bringing her hands up to push him away, though the chains were too heavy and and too short for her to remove him completely. To her infinite relief he retreated of his own volition, his glittering eyes studying her helpless figure.

  "I'll do much worse than that," Kazmer hissed at her. "When I come tomorrow to stoke the fire, I will make you scream."

  Bile rose in her throat and filled her mouth, and Klara could think of nothing better to do with it than spit it in his face. So she did.

  With a cry of rage, Kazmer reeled back and swiped the spit away. Without warning he slapped her across the face, a crack so hard and brutal that her head snapped around and slammed into the brick wall.

  Klara couldn't help it. She yelped in pain.

  "You had better cry," Kazmer said, backing up. "You will cry more when I am done with you. And then you will fulfill your duty to the village." A malicious smile crossed his face. "Perhaps I will bring you water tomorrow. If you please me, that is. Yes. I think I will. A little water for your parched lips and dry tongue. And a little something else before that. I think you will swallow all I have to give you."

  His words turned to cold fear in her belly, and to her shame Klara jerked against her chains.

  Kazmer laughed. "Until tomorrow," he said, and then he turned and was gone, his footsteps echoing down the long tunnel, his figure growing fainter and fainter against the dying of the light.

  Night would fall soon. Over the crackling of the fire, Klara strained to hear what was going on outside. Horses whinnied and men spoke, though she couldn't make out their words. Then the sounds grew fainter and fainter, until they were gone.

  She waited another hundred beats of her heart to make sure they were gone.

  Then she broke and screamed.

  *

  Klara didn't know how long she screamed and tugged at her bonds, but after a while she stopped because it didn't seem to be doing any good. The bonds held tight, and there was no one there to hear her scream for help except bears and wolves and other creatures she was not interested in attracting.

  Far down the tunnel, the light faded into blackness, and then it was night. Exhausted and drained, Klara tried to lie down on the cold stone floor, but in order to keep her hands from hanging from their cuffs, she had to press her whole body against the cold wall, surrounding herself with chilled stone, and soon she began to shiver. Only sitting up and extending her legs towards the fire helped to warm her again, even though she knew it would do no good.

  You're going to die anyway, she berated herself, why not try to get it over with? If she died tonight, Kazmer would be greeted with a corpse tomorrow rather than a woman with a parched mouth and rapidly fleeing reason. He wouldn't touch a corpse.

  Would he?

  A shudder ran through her and Klara shoved the thought away. That she could not dismiss it outright made her want to vomit, and she wondered just how low her opinion of the village head really went.

  Pretty damn low, she thought. The forbidden word—damn—felt sinful in her head, but she hadn't said it out loud, so it was probably only a small sin.

  Staring at the dried blood on her wrists where the cuffs had rubbed her raw, Klara wished, a little wistfully, that she had sinned more. At least she wouldn't be here if she had.

  Her eyes stung with smoke, and she closed them, letting cleansing tears run down her cheeks until she felt better. Then she kept them closed.

  Time passed. Klara drifted in and out of fitful sleep, her head nodding in the firelight, floating into sleep and then jerking back again. The side of her head where she had hit the wall was beginning to ache, and her cheek where Kazmer had slapped her smarted. She would have a bruise there. At least he hadn't broken her nose or a bone. The pain would have been too much to bear here where there was nothing to comfort her but the howling of the wind outside the cave and the crackle of the fire inside.

  If I were home, Klara thought, I would be sewing. That was what she did at night, with her mother and father around the fire. But she was here. She would have given anything for something to do, to distract her.

  Somewhere out in the night, something called out, a deep, booming sound that reached her all the way at the back of the cave. Klara didn't recognize it, but something about it made her shiver. Wiggling, she rearranged herself against the wall, taking a deep breath and forcing herself to be calm. It hadn't sounded like a bear, and it certainly wasn't a wolf or a wild cat. Usually fire was enough to keep such animals away.

  This winter, however, she wasn't so sure. Her hands sat useless in her lap, the dried blood on them a sharp, ir
on scent, a siren song to any predator who had found little prey.

  The call came again. Low and dark. It vibrated in her bones, and all the hair on the back of her neck stood on end. Nerves afire, Klara licked her lips and tilted her head. She thought she recognized the sound, but it was impossible. Holding her breath, she strained her ears.

  A third call, and this time it was closer, more raw. It echoed on the stone walls of the tunnel, bouncing back and forth until it became a deep, unearthly sound. Klara shook her head. Surely it couldn't be? But she would have sworn it sounded just like the mating call of a stag. She'd heard them in the rutting season, looking for a female to bear their young, but it wasn't the season to mate now. It wasn't the year to mate.

  Squirming where she sat, Klara kept her ears open. When the call came again, she was certain it was a stag.

  She'd never seen a stag—not a live one, anyway—but she'd heard them. They tended to keep well away from the village, hidden in the forest, though the best hunters of the village of course still found them anyway. She'd seen many a stag's antlers carried over the shoulder of some strapping young man, and it had always made her sad, though of course furs and hides and meat were essential in the winter. Now, however, she knew what it was like to be chased, to be hunted, until your strength gave out and death rose up to meet you.

  In the snow-shrouded woods the stag called again. Was it her imagination, or was it even closer than before? The clarion call reverberated in her chest, rattling her bones. With each blast it became larger, opening wide, growing vast and endless, until Klara closed her eyes and clapped her hands over her ears, but even then she couldn't get away from it.

  The call of the stag filled her head, her whole body, turning her into a bell ringing in sympathy. She tried to shriek, but she couldn't hear her own voice over the sound, and it was the whole world.