“Weakness?” He chuckled again. “My dear Katharina, what you call weakness, I call strength. Do you know how much courage it takes to choose pleasure in a world that would burn you for it? To fight against the very nature they have tried to write into you since your birth into this tainted world?”
The hand on my back moved up into my hair, tugging until my scalp tingled as he leaned over me. “I don’t see weakness in you, my dove. Only strength and fire I hope to stoke into something so blinding that all will fall to their knees before you.”
Even as his words set every inch of me alight, that inescapable tension building between my legs, the specter of doubt and sadness wrapped around my heart. I knew deep down why.
“Heinrich, what’s happened to you? This isn’t you. This is wrong.”What happened to you in those woods?But I was still a coward, hiding within my own delusion, so instead I asked, “Are you still a man of God?”
The fingers in my hair relaxed, and he slowly slid down my body, landing hard on his knees on the stone floor. But he did not wince as he once might have. Instead, he looked up at me with so much devotion it stole my breath away.
“Am I still a man of God?” He nuzzled his cheek into my palm. “Tell me, what is prayer but yearning? What is faith but the ache for union with something greater? I have never been more devout than I am now, on my knees before you, worshipping at an altar the Church would call profane.”
He leaned in, pressing his nose into my dress, into the apex of my thighs until I nearly groaned. “But you know as well as I that the Church has long lost its way, especially here in Bamberg. Does the Bishop rounding up our neighbors and loved ones serve God? Does suppressing all who challenge its authority lead us closer to salvation? No, and you know this as well as I. That’s why you’ve done the work you do.”
Yes, I had thought these things. They ran through my mindevery night as sleep avoided me. I’d used them to keep the fear away, as motivation to continue the work that needed to be done.
But he had the same doubts? I threaded my fingers into his hair, tugging slightly.
“But your vows…Heinrich, I would not drag you down with me.” I peered up at the stained-glass windows, at the saints rendered in colored glass looking down on us. What would they think of this—a priest on his knees, mouth pressed to a woman’s body through layers of fabric, speaking heresies in the House of God?
“Drag me down?” He laughed, the sound muffled against my skirt. His hands gripped my hips, drawing me closer. “Katharina, I am already fallen. I fell the moment I saw you. Every vow I’ve broken, I’ve broken willingly. Gladly.”
“You don’t mean that.” But even as I said it, I wasn’t sure. The way he was looking at me—like I was something holy, something worth damning himself for?—
“I have never meant anything more.” He pressed a kiss to my hip, then another, working his way across my belly over the fabric. “They taught me to kneel in submission to a distant God who watches suffering and does nothing. But you—” Another kiss, this one at my navel, making my breath hitch. “You act while they cower. You heal while they destroy. If that’s not divinity, what is?”
“That’s blasphemy,” I whispered, but I held him to me, unwilling to let go.
“Or is it the first true thing I’ve ever said in this place?” He lifted his gaze to mine, his eyes dark and burning. “I would break every vow, renounce every sacrament, if it meant keeping you.”
“Heinrich—”
He stood suddenly. “You do not believe me? You’re right—words can be empty. So let me show you.”
He guided me back until my hips hit the hard wood of the altar. Another push and I was seated on the edge while his fingers traced up my calves, dragging my skirt with them.
“Heinrich, wait…” He did not wait. Instead, he continued until he revealed the bloody rags I had tied between my legs. “It’s…it’s my monthly courses.”
He paused, and I attempted to shove my skirt back down, heat flooding my cheeks and chest. But he held my wrist fast, his other hand ripping the makeshift garment free and tossing it aside.
“Every Sabbath I consume the flesh and blood of God on this very altar. Do you think I would hesitate to participate in this sacred communion? Your body is mine, and so is your blood which is shed for me. Blessed is this fruit of the vine, once ripe and now my new covenant.”
“Someone will see—” But as I spoke, a great gust of wind slammed the doors of the chapel shut.
“No one will disturb us.”
“You can’t know that?—”
“Katharina.” He gripped my face between his fingers, squeezing gently. “Trust me.”
And that was the heart of it. I had always trusted him. Since the first day he’d found me trying to remain invisible at the back of Mass. Since he’d shown me that there was goodness left in this ashen world. I had trusted him more than I’d ever trusted the Church or its barren promises, its morality wielded as a weapon.
Even now, when I could not ignore the flames that danced behind his eyes, when the shadows of the nave moved like living things, I trusted him. He had been my strength through these last years of turmoil, and I would not flee him now.
I nodded, and he kissed me deeply as the tips of his fingers dug into my thighs, spreading them wide. Blood dripped down, staining the altar cloth beneath me. He kissed my forehead then knelt again, tugging me to the edge. His tongue traced the length of my cunt before circling lower as his nose pressed against the throbbing bud at my core.
He groaned, low and delicious, his lips and tongue caressing me until I rocked back against him.
But as my body sought the pleasure it now knew he could bring, I glanceddown to see blood smeared across his cheeks. The crimson was stark against his tan skin, and I froze.
