The forest king approaches, one measured step at a time. It’s like something taken out of a horror movie.
I put in more strength.
“Let me go!” I yell, and that’s when the tears truly let loose. Hot drops streak down my cheeks in unbroken streams, and choked sobs rip from my throat. I try to contain it, but there’s no controlling anything.
I want it all to stop, but at the same time, part of me just wants to cave in—stop fighting and give myself over to these people and the strong pulses of the music and the life of the forest. I feel like I could disappear into it all somehow.
My mind becomes a battlefield as the two men lead me forward. Stuck in a spiral, I can’t stop fighting, kicking my legs and jerking in their grips, and they end up half-carrying me. Closing my eyes, I scream as we near the king. He might not wear face paint, but that antler crown shadowing his eyes and the huge fur make him look more beast than man, agitating the already thrumming palpitations of my heart.
The men drop me onto my knees before him. I watch his bare feet sink into the moss as I come apart, utterly broken and shamefully exposed, realizing I’m completely naked in front of a crowd. Naked, weeping, and kneeling.
I try to connect with my logical mind and remember that I know this man before me—I’ve received his pain, his dominance, and his comfort. I know all the other people here too. I can’t seewho is who, but I know them. I try to cling to these thoughts, but the fear is too loud, throbbing over the drums and drowning out everything.
Then a thought strikes that doesn’t need to rival the fear.
Embrace the fear,Asbjörn said.
Everything inside me screams to fight—to run. But I can’t. So I give up.
I curl in on myself, hugging my arms around my middle—trying to physically embrace the fear. The sound of the drums and the hypnotic singing seem to close in as I shut myself off. They keep going in a steady but complex rhythm, rising and falling in intensity, creeping into my senses and hypnotizing me. They’re so loud I can’t even hear my own breathing. For a moment, I let the sound consume me, becoming my escape.
“Look at me,” a deep, powerful voice says. It seems to reverberate through me with the same intensity as the music. I lift my head and face the forest king.
At that moment, when I meet his eyes—seeing them clearly—something changes. The world around us fades into a blur. The people and the fire become a halo around him, and the music enhances the bubble, wrapping around us, trapping us—or maybe cocooning us.
He presses the handle of his whip against my chin until my head is leaning back, my chest wide open.
The tears keep streaming, the vulnerability becoming achingly acute, but the sobs cease as the trance weaves tighter.
Unlike all the others, his face is clear, revealing familiar features. A face that has been haunting my dreams as well as every scene I’ve done with Asbjörn.
He just watches me, chin high, posture tall, even as he’s looking down at me. The air crackles between us the same way it’s done all those times he’s watched me succumb to Asbjörn’s dominance—or maybe Asbjörn wasn’t the one I surrendered toat all. Uncertainty filters into all those memories, but at the same time, everything is clearer than it ever has been as I get lost in those stark, terrifying eyes that command the very air I breathe. It’s just us. The conqueror and the conquered. The master and the slave. The beast and the prey.
“Who do you belong to?” Ulf asks, eyes widening with feral intensity.
“You,” I say, the word coming unfiltered, surprising me in its clarity.
A hint of a smile lights up his eyes. But it disappears as quickly as it came. He draws a deep breath that has his nostrils flaring, his entire stance growing taller.
He lifts a hand, and the music stops. The silence is deafening, my ears still echoing with the steady rhythm of the drums.
Ulf’s voice is startling in the quiet as he imbues it with authority and importance. “Will you be mine, Elina? My sub, my girl, my companion—the end of my journey.”
I swallow hard against the emotions that coalesce and lodge in my throat. I thought he was gone. That I didn’t mean anything to him. That he was just a phantom that would always haunt me with its presence, right there yet out of reach.
I nod. It’s the only response that makes sense. I’m already his. I haven’t dared to form the words in my mind, but he already has his claws deep in my heart—in my submissive soul. He’s the pulse that beats with new life in my veins, and he’s the fresh air that has brought new purpose to my spirit. And now, finally, the man I’m going to give it all to.
He removes his whip, but my head remains where it is, ensnared by his magnetic power.
“Do you vow,” he starts, “before all these people—your brothers and sisters—and before the mighty ash tree, to follow and obey me? To let me lead the way and provide safety and comfort?”
A swoosh of something quiet, yet urgent surges through me—through my legs, my torso, into my arms, and my very fingertips. My head clears, every thought and trail of fear vanishing in a blink. All that’s left is Ulf’s words.Follow and obey. Safety and comfort.
New tears pool in my eyes—a different kind. “Yes,” I say, somehow managing to clear my voice of the rawness and let it drift into the open, articulate and audible for everyone to hear.
“This vow is sacred. Our bond can only be broken through grave offense or if the group deems that our time together has run its natural course and a new journey must begin. I cannot sever our sacred bond; you cannot sever our sacred bond. Do you understand?”
His clarification is overwhelming and scary, but no part of me wants to argue or question. Because Iwantthat finality with him—that unbreakable bond. So I repeat my answer with purposeful clarity. “Yes.”
