I tugged at the manacles that still held my wrists, and they grew hot, but I was not burned. They dropped to the floor with a finite clang, glowing red. I spread my legs wider, my skirt riding up as the rough fabric of his cassock dragged against my cunt. Beneath it, I felt the rigid hardness of him, and every inch of my skin tingled as everything became so clear.
“Your power is mine. Your devotion is mine.”
“Yes.” He was shaking now, his whole body wracked with tremors. “Yes, my dove. My beloved. My divine.Yes.”
I smiled, and the shadows gathered around us like a congregation of the damned.
They licked up my legs, pulling my skirt higher as I unbuttoned his robes. My hips ground down hard until his eyes rolled back, the column of his neck exposed to me. I leaned forward, sucking the soft flesh below his jaw until a deep red mark marred him.
Mine.
My hands ran over his chest, baring his flesh to me. I realized I’d never seen it—that he had seen the deepest parts of me, but I had known so little of him. My fingers traced deep scars on his shoulders, lash marks both old and new that I followed far down his back.
“Do you doubt my devotion to you now, my Katharina?”
“Heinrich, why did you?—”
He grabbed my wrist, bringing my fingers back up to the bruise on his neck. “You claim me here, but I devoted myself to you long ago. Long before Walpurgisnacht, I was yours.”
“I never wanted you to suffer.”
His hand brushed a curl from my face. “I know that. But to love something is to suffer. To have your heart carried by another is a dangerous thing. This pain was nothing compared to what Ifelt as I resisted what was in my heart. Please, don’t make me wait any longer.”
The shadows coiled around my thighs, his hands on my hips urging me forward. I kissed him one more time, softly, because I knew there would be no more gentleness past this point.
I reached between us, gripping him through the fabric of his breeches until he let out a low whimper, the sound desperate against my skin.
“Katharina, please…”
I untied the laces, pulling his cock free, the shadows drawing tighter as I did. The tip glistened, an offering that made my mouth water. But we were past the point of games, and I rose to my knees. He guided me until we stood at the edge of the ultimate sin, both unmoving.
His hands were shaking against me. I gripped his chin, raising it so I could admire every angle of his face.
“Are you afraid, Heinrich?” I asked, my lips quirking slightly.
“Terrified. Don’t stop.”
Our shadows converged on me, wrapping tight and pressing until I couldn’t resist their weight, sinking me down onto him slowly. The stretch burned, and I bit my lip to keep from crying out.
“Embrace the pain, my dove. It is the only way to truly be free.” Fire danced behind his eyes again, but it wasn’t the fire of pyres, but the fire of stars, burning so bright all darkness was driven away.
I sank lower, and sharp pain cut through me. But the shadows were there, caressing my clit and nipples until I opened for him, our hips finally meeting.
In truth it was such a small thing, had taken no more than a moment—but how many women had burned for it? Been called witch and whore, been burned for this simple thing?
“Yes, I see your rage. Use it, my dove. Use it and take me. Take the power they stole from you so long ago.”
I rose and sank back down slowly. Then again, andagain. He moved with me, thrusting up to meet me, each one sharper than the last. The shadows encircled me as they did during Mass, but now I embraced them as they caressed and consumed.
I tugged his head back by his hair and watched his eyes flutter closed in ecstasy at the roughness of it.
That delicious pressure he’d taught me so well swelled, and then everything shifted. The shadows became solid, glistening with black scales as they entwined me. The cool kiss of a forked tongue flicked my ear.
“Say my name, my dove. Say my real name, and it can all be yours. But know there is no turning back.”
I had once feared damnation, feared it more than the pyre. But evil wasn’t a devil or a man, but those who allowed power to go unchecked, to fester into selfishness and a lust for control. And its greatest ally was not desire and darkness, but standing idle when you had the power to do more.
I gazed into the light in his eyes, then leaned in, kissing the scars on his collarbones and shoulders, trailing up his neck until I reached the shell of his ear, and in a voice quieter than the breaking dawn, I whispered his name.
