Scanning the tiny cell, I checked the bucket was there, nice and clean from previous inhabitants. The fresh water tap still dripped through the wall, providing hydration. And a scratchy blanket—that was probably woven with thorns and rat hair with how uncomfortable it was—rested neatly folded in the corner.
If she woke, she’d stay alive for however long it would take to get my answers.
And then, I’ll kill her.
I wouldn’t be reckless this time.
I would restrain myself in the lust department.
I would get my answers, and then she’d be gone.
She’s secure and can’t leave.
I can wait.
Needing air, I spun and crossed the ten steps back to the door.
My cock bounced on my thighs in frustration. My heart kicked with age-old hate. And I swung the heavy wood closed.
I locked the padlock and palmed the key.
I sprinted back up the stairs to the sun.
* * * * *
I stayed away for nine hours.
Nine eternal hours where I stood by my window in the dormitory and drove myself to madness, weighing my options. Had she woken? Had she tried to escape? Would others appear from the forest any moment now, looking for her? Why was she here?
What does this all mean?
Was this secret place no longer a secret? And if that was the case, what the fuck did it mean for me and the history still haunting these four walls?
My thoughts collided and spun. My body was on high alert. My nerves flayed to their breaking point. My eyes ached from staring outside so intently, watching every leaf and glowering at every rodent.
I flinched at the smallest movement. The tiniest breeze in the foliage had me tensing and reaching for my butcher's knife. My heart rate never calmed, and shaky anxiety cloaked over the raw hunger in my blood, leaving me short-tempered, violent, and starving.
I hadn’t eaten all day.
I should’ve fucking eaten.
Go then. Cook. Stay strong.
I shook my head, fisting my knife tighter as dusk descended. It became harder to study the valley. No way would I let down my guard. No way would I sleep or eat or even sneeze until I knew where that woman had come from, how she’d found me, and why.
My cock twitched, reminding me of yet another need that I couldn’t forget about.
Knowing she was down there.
Soft and fragile. Imprisoned and mine.
It was enough to drive all sanity out of my mind and throw myself to baser instincts.
She’d trespassed on my turf. She was the one who’d entered uninvited. She was the one who found me, not the other way around. Didn’t that give me a right to take what she’d already taken from me?
She’d taken my privacy, my secrecy, my very way of life.
The least she could do was spread her legs for me.
My belly clenched as my mind filled with writhing limbs and thrusting hips.
Christ.
I clutched the windowsill, digging my nails into the wood so I didn’t reach for my cock and seek out the tingling pleasure it promised. I’d never, not once, given in to the urge. I endured wet dreams as I came in my sleep. I sometimes howled like the coyotes when I woke and thrashed in bed, needing a release. But not once had I put myself out of my misery.
Answers to why I didn’t lurked in the back of my mind. If I dared open those heavily fortified doors and pull out my sordid past, I would remember precisely why pleasure and fornication was the vilest sin on earth.
However, I had enough problems to deal with tonight without torturing myself with the past.
Night fell, blackness swiftly eating up the last remaining light. Creatures turned vocal with the darkness, making my skin prickle as I strained to hear foreign sounds that weren’t welcome.
Were they out there? Watching me watching them? Were they waiting for reinforcements before entering my property?
Unlike the woman below, they might be smart. She’d had no thought to her safety. No respect for someone else’s home. She’d strolled in as if this ivy-smothered building was hers.
My teeth ground together.
Nothing here belongs to her.
It’s all mine.
Looking one last time out the window, I allowed my back to relax, my knife to lower, and my rage to fade.
I supposed, after nine hours of her disappearance, if anyone was out there waiting for her to return, they would’ve given up being patient by now and raided my home. They would’ve appeared with their demands and either gotten killed in the process or succeeded in killing me.
The resident pack of coyotes slinked through the darkness, and a few weasels helped themselves to a drink out of the bowl that I’d placed by the back door for that purpose. Nothing was on alert. No creature acted as if anything was different.
I had to trust that they had better noses than me for sniffing out traitors.
I was alone.
Which meant the time had come.
I had to go back down there.
Fuck.
Dressing slowly now that a chill existed in the air, I hoisted on my ruined slacks and shrugged into the taupe shirt with destroyed cuffs. Pulling my hair back, I secured it at my nape with a rubber band from the study.
Shoving the key into my pocket, I clenched my jaw as I stomped down the stairs, bypassed the kitchen, and opened the cellar door. My stomach growled with discomfort, reminding me once again that I hadn’t given it any food.
Later.
Once she’s dealt with.
Once I have my answers.
My bare feet slapped on the damp concrete stairs, loud in the night.
Even though I’d memorized the cells below the house, I flicked on the lights, wanting illumination to see her, to watch her lies—to do my best to see her truth.
Because one thing was for certain—she would lie.
I’d strangled her, imprisoned her, and now I’d come to interrogate her. She’d hate me almost as much as I hated her. She wouldn’t be cooperative, and I was prepared to do what was necessary to get information.
The moment she’d stepped into my valley, her fate had been sealed. She wouldn’t be leaving here while breathing. And for that, I should’ve felt guilty. Instead, all I felt was absolute authority and obligation to be as merciless as required.
Moving toward the heavy door blocking her cell, I sucked in a breath. I swallowed to lubricate my throat, preparing for words that I hadn’t spoken in sentence strings for over a decade.
Thanks to my lonely existence, I’d embraced more animalistic tendencies. I didn’t talk. I didn’t fuss over my appearance. I’d forgotten what it was like to hold a conversation and be a man instead of a beast.
That was all I was now.
A beast.
A forest dweller who wasn’t fit for society.
And it was all their fault.
The day I was born, a curse was put upon me.
That curse grew up with me from boyhood to man. I had no mark to prove it. No doctor to confirm it.
But I knew.
A blackness had attached itself to me, and I was cursed.
So...what are you going to do with her?
My hands balled as I paced outside the cell where I’d thrown her.
I don’t know.
That was a lie.
I knew what I should do.
I’d told myself countless times.
So...do what you know is required.
I stopped.
I glared at the heavy wooden door, dropping my gaze to the rusty padlock that’d continued its role of imprisonment for far too long.