In spite of our subterranean location, the sky has access to the place. When I look up, I see bright spots where mirrored tubes have been carefully located. This has the feeling of an ancient tomb.
Again, I want to run, but the mental image of me rushing through these statues and columns barefoot in a flowing white gown, the muslin veil at the back billowing under the full moon—because of course it is a full moon, and of course there is muslin involved—makes me think I would only add to the dark romance of this moment. A sacrificial lamb makes a helpless bid for freedom only to be brought down by the wolf who walks beside her.
Aiden offers no comfort, of course. His tenderness, if you can call it that, is limited to ensuring that I do as I am told. Following his whims and wills in this dark night.
He reaches out and takes my hand just as a circle of firelight becomes visible through the columns. His hand is large, warm, and firm. It could be comforting, but I will not be comforted by the hold of a monster.
As we step into the grove, we are no longer alone.
There is a circle of men all wearing black masks that cover their eyes and noses, but leave their mouths free for speaking. The effect is chilling. They are all dressed as Aiden is of course, black three-piece suits and high boots that come up to the knee, shined to a high leather gloss.
I will never know who these men are. Allies of a kind, most likely. I have known evil before, and I know how it enjoys a good secret society and mask event. There are more of these groups in the world than anyone might imagine. This is what passes for friendship when you are truly rich and powerful, with a penchant for ritual.
In the middle is a stone altar, a place I know I am destined for. It is intricately carved and inlaid with images from various ancient stories, both biblical and pre-biblical. The sun, the moon, the scythe, the arrow, the horse, the deer, the fish. They are all picked out in stone, their meaning opaque to the uninitiated.
Leo came to my house to claim me in the night, but Aiden Levin is not content with that kind of personal invasion. He has brought me into his world, a place where I am small and even more vulnerable than I was in my bed.
I look around, trying to see anything that might save me. A detail of something, a hint of information, a whisper, a sneeze. The surrounding men are perfectly still, as still as the columns and statues that encircle us all.
I am put in mind of so many things all at once. Ancient druids. Modern board rooms. Power plants. War councils. All places powerful men gather to bend energy and reality to their will.
There is music playing, a soft Gregorian chant. My mother’s mother used to listen to those for fun when she was in a somber mood. She said it made her feel better, and more at peace.
Peace is the last thing I feel in this moment.
The concept of being prey has always been foreign to me. It is something men have projected onto me from time to time, but I have never claimed it. In this moment, I feel it more intensely and deeply than I ever have before.
Each of these men is here to see something terrible happen to me, to take something that is uniquely and only mine away from me. They will be satisfied when it happens. They will celebrate and enjoy it. It will likely make their soft cocks harden with sadistic joy.
Nobody has said a fucking word, but I know all of this to be true.
Aiden leads me to the altar.
I pull away, or try to, but his grip is like steel and no amount of scrambling will save me. I know I look undignified, but I don’t care. Something very bad is about to happen to me, and every ancient ancestral urge I have is telling me to get away. Do not let the big man take you to the stone. Do not let yourself be given to the dark this way.
I bite his hand hard enough to draw blood. It is the only red thing in this entire place. It should shine bright against black and white, but the effect of moonlight is to turn the blood black as well.
I have a sudden flash of a mental image of being covered in streams of this black ichor. In this place, even the life-giving essence is corrupted. There is a light murmur from the surrounding men. It sounds like excitement.
“Lie down on the altar,” Aiden says, barely acknowledging my savage bite. “You can lie down, or you can be held down and bound. The choice is yours.”
Just hearing the wordchoiceis perverse right now. I don’t choose to be here at all. If I had a choice, I would be at home in my pink pajamas with bats on them, eating cereal for dinner because vegetables and meat feels way too heavy for my stomach. Or I would be on a beach on the other side of the world, where the sun is shining and nobody has any concept of the horrors being perpetrated here.
“Lie. Down.”
He repeats the words and this time there are no softeners, there is just the order. He continues to seep blood from his hand. I imagine it hurts like hell. He should probably get a tetanus shot. Or at least a bandage. But this place is a place of pain, blood, and loss, and I think I just did him a favor by shedding it first.
I turn to sit on the altar. I have to put my back to it, and then swivel, because this damn dress is hobbling me. It is cool and heavy and again, old. Older than me by many thousands of years. I know that I am not the first to be placed here, and I am far from the last. I am joining a long lineage of sacrifices.
The moment I am securely on the altar, I am flipped face down. Cool stone presses against my belly, cheek, and thighs.
Crack!
I hear something loud. Then I feel pain. It takes a fraction of a second to realize I have been given a stroke of the cane. I look to the side and see Aiden over me, his powerful body arched in preparation to bring down another searing stroke of a punishment tool so notorious it makes grown men shiver.
Crack!
The sound fills the grove, followed by my pained cry. Nothing else is said. Nobody else moves. My wail is the only sound that follows that harsh stroke.
