by Zoe Blake
“I would never believe you not to be smart,” I interrupted. “Not at all.”
Steen walked toward the door with the fur and the boots in his hand. “Just don’t push me.” He looked over his shoulder. “Things would be so much easier for you, Snow, if you would just stop trying to run. We are huntsmen. We will always hunt you down.”
Seven
Freyr took two large steps into the room and stood before me. He looked exactly like Steen except he appeared cold…angrier. Dark hair, dark eyes, and dark mood. Freyr didn’t have to say a single word to make me understand that he was not a man to be messed with. Power, mystery, and dominance pulsated from his body at the same rhythm as my heartbeat. His firm jaw that clenched while he examined me from head to toe pulled my attention away from his hypnotizing glare. Twin brother with Steen, yet this man before me looked completely different in so many ways.
“Why aren’t you tied?” he asked.
“I…uh…Steen said if I was good, I didn’t have to be tied. I swear I won’t try to escape again.”
He remained silent, stony, and cold.
Swallowing back the large lump in the back of my throat, I said, “I need to relieve myself.” Maybe it was my body’s way of trying to buy time, but I desperately needed to go.
He silently nodded and spun on his heels and walked out the door. Once past the threshold, he looked over his shoulder at where I still stood frozen. “Follow me.” His deep voice was firm, direct and sounded so opposite of the way Steen spoke.
I willed my body to follow the man, even though warning bells were going off that this man was not to be trusted. But again, my bladder didn’t give me much of a choice.
Leading me outside, to the gathering of large shrubs. I followed him into the area and then turned expecting him to exit and leave me alone. When he remained in place, I asked, “Can you leave?”
“No,” was his simple reply. His eyes scanned the area as if he were on guard and my life was in possible danger.
The idea of relieving myself in front of this man infuriated me. “I don’t need you to watch over me. I told you that I wouldn’t try to escape again.”
“Go.”
“No,” I declared. “I’m not going to go in front of you.”
His expression hadn’t changed since the moment he’d come for me, but I could see his eyes darken at my refusal.
“Go now.” This time his voice stabbed into my soul. I was not going to win this battle, but I still was not going to go in front of him.
“All I ask is that you leave the area a little. I would like some privacy. Please.”
“Either go now, or I’ll take you back to the house. You can sit in your own filth for all I care. I don’t care where you go.”
“Fine,” I said as I raised my borrowed shirt. “If you don’t care where I go,” I added as I squatted right in front of him, “I’ll go right here, thank you very much.” I emptied my bladder right in front of the huntsman, staring directly into his eyes as I allowed every ounce of liquid to release from my body.
Freyr remained emotionless. He didn’t say a single word or do a thing. His lack of anger was far worse than any wrath he could inflict. My knees wobbled as I remained in my squat, and I just hoped I wouldn’t fall. He scared me. There was no doubt about that, and yet here I was. The fool pissing on the ground mere inches from my captor’s boots.
He didn’t move. He didn’t speak. If I didn’t know better, I would say he wasn’t even breathing. My action had no effect on him, and I instantly regretted it. My childish tantrum gave him the power. I was now the woman squatting in front of a man with my own waste dripping out of me. Humiliation for me, honor for him. Without doing a single thing, Freyr won this battle, but I had handed it to him.
As I stood and adjusted my shirt, Freyr raised one eyebrow and asked nonchalantly, “Are you done?”
Clenching my teeth, I straightened my shoulders and tried to muster as much dignity as I could as I glided past him, back to the house. I could hear his footsteps behind me, and could almost feel his smugness burning against the back of my head.
I didn’t know why I was afraid of the man. He wouldn’t kill me or risk upsetting the other huntsmen who all wanted to share me. I was worth a high price to each and every one of them for physical companionship alone. But there was something that terrified me about him. He seemed scarier than some of the other huntsmen.
Freyr reached for my upper arm and took hold. It didn’t hurt, but his grasp was tight. He led me into his room and forced me to sit on the edge of the bed by pushing me down. He knelt and reached beneath the bed, pulling a long rope from underneath. He tied one end of the rope around the wooden leg of the bed with several tight knots.
“You don’t need to tie me. I told you that I learned that there is no point in running. It won’t happen again, I assure you,” I said as panic began to set in. “I have no intention of trying to escape.”
He didn’t reply but instead grabbed me by the back of the neck, pulled my head into him, and looped the rope securely around my neck. It was tight enough that when I swallowed, I could feel my flesh connect with the cool restraint.
Tugging on the rope to make sure it was secure, Freyr said, “You will discover soon enough that my brother and I have very different rules. You will remain tied until I say otherwise.”
I reached for the rope and tried to pull it away from the front of my neck to no avail. “Please. It makes it hard to breathe.”
“Yes.” He stood up, not caring in the slightest.
“Please.” I took a deep breath, feeling the walls close in. “I can’t breathe. This is making me—”
“Enough,” he interrupted. Without saying another word, he exited, leaving me grasping at the rope around my neck, struggling for air.
My heart beat so hard against my chest, that I was positive I would die from the hysteria overwhelming me. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe! I did everything I could to pull the rope away, but the more I struggled, the worse it seemed to get. The rough edges were rubbing my skin raw as I pushed and pulled.
I got up and walked to the mirror to see if I could find a way to remove the restraint. Maybe I could loosen the knots. The heavy rope dragging behind me only pulled at the loop around my neck more. There was enough rope that I could maneuver around the entire room, though awkwardly. When I saw my reflection in the mirror, the contrast of the rope to my white skin made my awful situation even more of a reality. Staring back at me was nothing but a prisoner, tied, restrained, captive.
Running over to the door, but not being able to make it to the threshold completely due to the rope, I screamed loudly, “I can’t breathe! This rope is too tight. I can’t breathe. Do you hear me? Come back!” I yanked at the rope as hard as I could.
No response.
“Please! Freyr! Steen! Anyone! I swear to you that I will be good. I’ll be good and never give you any trouble again. Just please remove the rope around my neck. I can’t stand it. Please! I beg you.”
No response.
My chest constricted and I wheezed with all my might to take in some air. I would suffocate. I would die. I would die right in this room if someone didn’t come and help me.
Crumpling down to the ground, I pulled my knees to my chest and allowed the tears to fall. With my fingers between the rope and my neck, I slowly managed to calm myself just enough to know I wasn’t going to die like I’d thought only seconds before. But maybe I wanted to. Maybe I wanted to die so I didn’t have to endure being with the huntsmen any further. Seven monsters. Seven demons leading me to hell.
I was so lost in my misery that I didn’t hear the door to the room open. The large frame of Steen caught the corner of my eye, notifying me that he had heard my plea.
Looking up at him with tears streaming down my face, I begged, “Please, Steen. I can’t survive with something so tight around my neck.” I pulled at the knotted rope to emphasize my appeal.
He knelt down beside me and looked m
e straight in the eyes. “Look at me and take slow, deep breaths.” He placed his fingertip on my cheek and stroked softly. “Calm down. You are going to be just fine.”
I shook my head. “No, I can’t breathe.”
He moved his fingertip and gently ran it along the rope where it met my neck. He dipped his finger between the knots and flesh and said, “There is plenty of room. It’s all in your head. You can breathe.”
“No,” I wheezed, continuing to cry. “Please. I already told Freyr, and I will tell the others when they return, but I won’t try to flee again. I swear it. I have learned my lesson.”
He removed his hand from the rope and placed it on my head. Slowly he stroked his fingers through my hair, never taking his eyes away from mine. “Shhh…just calm down. Calm down. Once you are calm, you will see that the rope is giving you plenty of room to breathe.”
“Why can’t you untie me? Please!”
He shook his head. “Freyr tied you up, which means Freyr is the only one who can untie you. We don’t undermine each other around here. His choices are his.”
“I’ll do anything,” I gasped, although I did seem to be breathing better as the moments passed. His gentle touch and petting of my hair did seem to ease some of my distress.
“Deep breaths,” he cooed as he leaned in and kissed my cheek with the most tender of touches. “Breathe in, breathe out.”
I followed his command and did my best to regain control of my body.
“That’s a good girl,” he praised. “One breath at a time.” He kissed my cheek again and then my forehead, continuing to stroke my sweaty hair. “You are going to be just fine.”
Would I be? How could I be just fine ever again? I had never been just fine—even before the huntsmen captured me. My stepmother had made sure of that.
“Do I deserve to be treated like an animal?” I asked. It appeared that my words did make a difference as he seemed to be bothered by my question when his eyes narrowed, but I also got the sense that there was no use trying to convince Steen to go against his brother. They had rules and some sort of code that clearly none of them would break.
Steen placed his palms on each side of my face and forced me to stare directly into his eyes. “You need to behave. If you continue to disobey and act out, I promise you that this rope around your neck will be minor in comparison to what will happen in the future. Behave. Do you understand me? You have nowhere to go. No one to protect you other than us. You will only be hunted down again and suffer the consequences—but with huntsmen with far less patience than I.”
He extended his hand to assist me up now that I was breathing normally again.
Standing, I took a moment to allow the slight dizziness to dissipate. Steen placed his arm around my body to hold me steady while the room swirled around me. It hadn’t taken long to return to my old self.
“Are you hungry?” he asked.
I nodded.
He reached down to the rope and began working at the knots with his thick fingers. “I can untie you from the bed so you can follow me into the kitchen, but I won’t remove the rope from your neck. That will be Freyr’s choice as to when that can happen.”
Steen eventually untied the rope, and the removal of the weight helped ease the pressure on the restriction around my neck a little. He then grabbed my arm and led me out of the room. Entering the main room, I saw Freyr sitting at the table. The room was dimly lit, so the red light emitting from the roaring fire was all the more pronounced. When he looked up, he scowled seeing me walking beside Steen.
“What is she doing out of the room? I’m tired of her antics,” he said.
“She’s hungry,” Steen replied as he pulled out a chair and softly forced me to sit down across from Freyr.
“Feed her and then send her back to the room until the others return,” Freyr commanded as he stood to leave the room. It was as if the sight of me made the man sick. How was that so? I had done nothing—well, unless you counted relieving myself in front of him—to warrant such hatred. “I don’t want to be held accountable if she tries to escape while the others are away.”
Steen quickly did as he instructed and made me up a meal of dried meat and vegetables. Vegetables! I hadn’t had a real vegetable in years due to being locked in the castle for so long. My mouth watered as he put the tin plate in front of me. As I ate bite after bite with pure joy, I temporarily forgot that I was nothing but a captive tied and captured. For now, I ate.
Eight
Finding a way to lie on the bed comfortably with the rope still so tight against my flesh wasn’t easy, but I knew I had to learn how to accept it, or risk having continual panic attacks which couldn’t be an option any longer. I needed to be strong. I had to find strength to survive. I had to. Finding my own internal peace would be the only thing to get me through this ordeal. It had been about an hour or so since Steen had escorted me back to the room, and I had no choice but to just wait. Maybe when the others returned, I would be able to convince one of them that I didn’t need to be tied like a mangy mutt.
When the door to the room finally opened, sitting up to face whoever entered, my heart stopped when I saw that it was Freyr who marched into the room.
I remembered once when I was really young, my father and I had watched a huge storm brewing from the west. The clouds swirled around and came at us faster than we could take shelter. We had run as fast as we could while the wind howled around us, slapping at our faces. Rain, lightning, hail. A torrential downpour of chaos all around. I remembered that storm clearly.
Yet…it was nothing compared to the storm standing in the room.
“Do not ever try to appeal to my brother’s kindness again,” he bellowed, stomping straight toward me.
“What? I don’t know what you mean,” I stammered, feeling the rope tighten as I scurried back toward the headrest of the bed, terrified at the fury I saw in Freyr’s eyes. Steen must have tried to change Freyr’s mind about keeping me tethered like an animal. He must have tried to plead my case about the rope around my neck after all. Steen strove to be my lionheart. And evidently…he had lost the crusade.
Freyr bolted in my direction and reached out, grabbing a handful of my hair, pulling me mere inches from his face. “Do you think tears will work? Do you think that begging for mercy will make my brother go against me? Against my will? Do you think you can use your womanly ways to seduce my dope of a twin?”
“I’m sorry,” I squeaked. The sting from my hair being yanked by the man caused tears to well in my eyes. “I felt as if I couldn’t breathe.”
He tugged my hair harder, forcing my head to go back so I had to stare into his predator eyes. My throat stretched—so exposed. I wondered if he would bite down and suck my blood like an ancient monster of which tales were told.
I wanted to apologize. I wanted to plead for compassion. I wanted to reach into the depths of his core and pull out even an ounce of humanity. And yet, the beaten down fighter in me still wanted to kill. He’d claimed earlier that he was tired. Well, I was tired. I was exhausted of being the victim. I had no one. No one would save me. I had to save myself. Somehow. Someway. I wanted to decimate. To destroy. To rip his flesh from his bones with my teeth. Beg or kill. Plead or destroy. The soldier that I didn’t even realize was locked away inside me won this battle. The soldier in me took full control.
I spat in his face, smiling when I could see the shock caused by my rebellion twinkle in his eye.
“I hate you,” I said. “You are nothing but a beast. A savage. A cruel man. You are far worse than any of the other huntsmen.”
Without wasting another second, Freyr tore my clothing off so fast and furious that I didn’t even have time to comprehend and try to stop the onslaught. Soon, clothes that once concealed my body, became shreds of fabric tossed around by a creature far from a man before me.
I tried to fight him off, even though I knew it was pointless. He was bigger. Stronger. Freyr would win this battle regardless of how hard I stru
ggled.
But that didn’t mean I wouldn’t try.
“Don’t you touch me!” I screamed as I tried to scratch out his eyes.
Gripping my hands above my head, he flung me back hard against the bed, only giving me a second to realize I was completely nude at this point.
“I will do more than touch you,” he growled. Gripping both my wrists with one of his beefy hands, he unfastened the rope with his free hand and his teeth as he worked to untie the knot. “Don’t want the rope? Allow me to help you then,” he said as he removed the rope and tossed it to the floor.
I took a deep breath and ceased in my struggles. Freedom. Unrestricted air.
Still holding my hands firmly above my head, he reached for his belt buckle and released it from his waist. “Not a fan of the rope? How about a different type of binding?”
His eyes told me what he was going to do even before his actions did. The malice pulsed all around the darkness of his demanding eyes. I knew that very moment that I had no choice but to succumb to his vexation.
I shook my head. “Please,” I begged as he wrapped the leather around my neck, pulling it through the clasp.
He tightened the belt even more as he straddled my body. He had released my hands, so I was able to pull at the leather to no avail. The more I struggled, the tighter he pulled.
“Can you breathe now?” he asked with savagery lining his question.
I couldn’t speak and could only shake my head as my ears began to ring. I really couldn’t breathe as the leather got tighter and tighter.
“Look at me,” he demanded. “Look at me!”
I opened my eyes and stared into his eyes, silently begging for my life. My trachea felt the pressure of the belt, so much so that I couldn’t even swallow the saliva building up in my mouth.
“I want you to remember this. Whenever you think something I do, or something I dictate is so awful, I want you to remember that it can always get worse. I bet you are wishing for the rope right about now.” He tightened the belt even more, causing blackness to edge around my vision. “If you doubt me, if you disobey me, if you ever question my actions, just know that it will be much worse for you. You may think that being with us huntsmen is the worst thing that can happen to you…but you are so very wrong. Deadly wrong.”