“Beg for forgiveness. Beg me.” His gaze never left my face.
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sin?—”
My breath hitched as he slid farther back, two fingers pressing inside me until the burn matched the sting at my wrists. “Recite twenty Hail Marys, my dove. Then you shall receive your absolution.”
“Hail Mary, full of grace…” I breathed as his mouth lowered over the hollow of my throat. Warmth spread from where his lips met my skin and plunged to where his fingers moved slowly within me. He pressed them deep until it felt he was touching my very soul—a soul reduced to nothing but desperate want. “The Lord is with thee.” I was barely breathing, and Heinrich let out a low, dark chuckle.
“Do you feel him with you now, my dove? No, of course not. He’s not here. I am. So let your body pray to me.”
I had never felt anything like this before. It was different from when I was alone. The pleasure twisted through every part of me, a deep shadow laced with burning embers, until my nipples rubbed painfully against the rough fabric of my dress as my whole body moved in a treacherous wave, chasing what he gave me.
I clenched around the intrusion of his fingers, and he moved his thumb in tighter circles, making my legs thrash. I kicked the small wooden door, and a ray of light lit his face, and he looked like someone else.
But I didn’t care who saw, who heard. All I cared about was that his eyes were on me, that he looked at me like I was his devotional, his sacrament.
Everything converged, and white light danced across my vision as my body shook. My eyes closed as sensationoverwhelmed me, my pleasure cresting through me. He didn’t stop, not until every wave had passed and my chest stopped heaving.
“Katharina.” His voice was low, so close. My eyes fluttered open to find him watching me the way I remembered. There was reverence, but the hunger was gone. For a moment we were just man and woman, not priest and sinner, not a servant of God and the woman who had condemned him. I wanted that softness to last just a little longer.
I leaned forward, my lips pressing against his. Now there was no hesitation as he opened for me, our tongues meeting in a slow dance. It was an orison in a language just for us. And for that moment, he was mine and mine alone.
Then he pulled back, the shadow of the confessional casting his face into harsh angles. My skirt fell as he withdrew his fingers, leaving me with an emptiness I had never felt before.
He raised them to his mouth, and I watched as he tasted the glistening proof of my sin that lingered there. The hunger returned to his eyes, along with a harshness that made my heart tighten.
Then, slowly, he began unwinding the rosary from my wrists. Each loosened loop was its own small agony as blood returned to compressed flesh. When he reached the last coil, he brought my hands down and pressed his lips to the red marks the beads had left.
“I’ll see you for our lessons tomorrow,” he murmured against my skin. “We have more sins to discuss.”
He released me, stepping back as the church’s main door creaked open. By the time the churchgoer—old Frau Weber, by the sound of her shuffling gait—reached the nave, Heinrich had vanished into the vestry, leaving me alone in the confessional with my burning wrists and racing heart.
I lowered my gaze to the marks the rosary had left—perfect red impressions of each bead, a sacred geometry of pain written on my skin. They would bruise, I realized, marking me as the sinner I was.
The thought should have terrified me. In a city where the Witch Bishop’s men looked for any sign of commerce with devils, these marks were damning.
Instead, I pressed my fingers to them, feeling the tender flesh sing with pain, and smiled.
The fire in my belly raged brighter than my fear for the first time in memory.
1 King James Version,Isaiah 9:2
Chapter 12
Heinrich
Förner was droning on and on.
The Bishop had summoned all the city’s priests to the cathedral to discuss a recent set of arrests. Eleven women taken in a single night. They sat in chains in the Drudenhaus now, awaiting theirrighteousquestioning.
I could still taste Katharina on my tongue.
“Divine providence has revealed a nest of witches,” Förner proclaimed from the pulpit, his hollow cheeks quivering with excitement. “Through blessed interrogation, we have uncovered their sabbath meetings, their commerce with devils.”
Sweet honey and bitter herbs. The way she’d trembled against the confessional wall, trying so hard to stay silent even as her body sang its truth. She’d confessed her desires to me in gasps and bitten-off moans, a more honest confession than any words could provide—the most honest she had ever given me.
“Father Heinrich.” The Bishop’s voice cut through my reverie. “You seem distracted.”
Twenty pairs of eyes turned to me. My fellow priests, these shepherds who fed their flocks to wolves.
