“Gaspard,” I tried again, forcing my voice to remain steady. “Please. I beg of thee. Wait until after the ceremony. Let mecome to thee as a proper bride.” The words tasted like poison on my tongue. “Let us do this right in the eyes of God.”
For a moment, I thought I’d reached him. His hand stilled, his head tilting as if considering my words. Then his eyes narrowed, and he laughed. A sound devoid of humor or warmth.
“Thou thinks to manipulate me with talk of God?” he sneered, moving to position himself between my legs, shoving my skirts up around my waist. “After the rumors I’ve heard about thy mother’s heretical ways? About the scientific studies thy father taught thee?”
He pinned my legs down with his weight, preventing me from kicking out. His erection pressed against my inner thigh, hot and insistent.
“Besides,” he continued, his breath coming faster now, “thy tears please me more than thy smiles ever could. Thy fear is the sweetest wine.”
Tears rolled down my cheeks unbidden, and I hated them, hated how they confirmed his power over me. “Stop,” I sobbed, knowing it was useless but unable to remain silent. “Please stop.”
His eyes lit with savage joy at my distress. “Yes,” he groaned, positioning himself at my entrance. “Beg more. Cry more. Show me how much thou wants me to stop, so I can enjoy ignoring thy pleas.”
I turned my face away, unable to bear the sight of him above me. And that’s when it happened. A strange, singing sensation in the back of my mind. Like someone humming a half-remembered tune from childhood, familiar yet distant. The feeling spread outward, warming me from the inside despite the cold terror of my situation.
It was as if some part of me detached, floating above the horror unfolding on the bed. Not escaping, not exactly, but...expanding. Growing beyond the confines of my flesh, beyond the limitations of the ropes that bound me.
The warmth intensified, becoming heat, then fire, racing through my veins like liquid lightning. My skin tingled, the sensation concentrated where Gaspard touched me—but cheery not in response to him. In rejection. In defiance.
“What’s happening?” he demanded, noticing something in my expression. “What art thou—”
The question died as a visible pulse of light erupted from my body. It wasn’t light, not exactly. More like air made visible, energy given form. It slammed into Gaspard with the force of a battering ram, lifting him off me and hurling him across the room like a rag doll.
He hit the far wall with a sickening thud, sliding down to crumple in a heap on the floor. Books from the shelf beside him rained down, adding insult to his injury.
For a moment, neither of us moved. I lay still on the bed, my wrists still bound above my head, my dress torn and bunched around my waist, staring at the man who had tormented me. He stared back, his face a mask of shock that quickly morphed into something darker, more dangerous.
“Witch,” he breathed, the word hanging in the air between us like a death sentence.
I couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, couldn’t process what had just happened. My body still hummed with that strange energy, my fingertips tingling as if I’d plunged them into icy water.
Gaspard struggled to his feet, clutching his ribs where he’d struck the wall. Blood trickled from a cut on his forehead, dripping onto the collar of his fine hunting shirt. But it was his eyes that terrified me. Cold with a hatred that burned hotter than any passion he’d ever shown.
“Witch,” he said again, more firmly this time. No longer an accusation but a verdict. A death sentence.
eight
Isabeau
Everyone knew what happened to women accused of witchcraft. Especially beautiful women. Especially women who had rejected powerful men. The ducking stool if they were lucky. The pyre if they were not.
And in that moment, with my body still thrumming with unexplainable power and Gaspard’s hateful gaze fixed on me, I knew I had just sealed my fate with magic I didn’t understand and couldn’t control.
“The village will burn thee,” he snarled, taking a unsteady step toward me, his face twisted with rage and something else, fear. “Father Simon will see thee confess before the flames take thee.”
I yanked desperately at the ropes binding my wrists, the rough hemp cutting into my skin. The strange power that had saved me moments ago seemed to have receded, leaving me once again vulnerable and terrified.
Gaspard advanced on me, his face a portrait of righteous fury. “I should have known,” he spat. “The way thou bewitched me all these years. No natural woman could hold such power over a man’s thoughts.”
The irony might have made me laugh if I wasn’t staring death in the face. He had stalked me, assaulted me, murdered my father to possess me, and now he claimed I had bewitched him?
“Witch.” The word hung between us like a death sentence, each syllable dripping with venom. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, the remnants of whatever power had erupted from me still buzzing beneath my skin like angry wasps. Gaspard’s eyes had changed. No longer the cold lust of a man viewing his property, but something far deadlier. He looked at me now like I was a stag he’d wounded in his failure to execute right with the first blow, something to be finished off and mounted on his wall. Another trophy, but one that had dared to fight back.
“I knew there was something unnatural about thee,” he snarled, taking a cautious step toward me, as if expecting me to unleash another burst of that strange force. “No woman could be so beautiful without demonic assistance. No girl so resistant to a man’s touch without corruption in her blood.”
My wrists remained bound above my head, the rope cutting deeper as I instinctively pulled against it. Whatever power had coursed through me moments before seemed to have retreated, leaving me defenseless once more.
“I don’t know what happened,” I whispered, the words catching in my throat. “Please, I’m not—”
