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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 yanked 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 starkness of the rope against my white skin made my awful situation even more of a reality. Staring back at me was nothing but a prisoner, tied, restrained, captive.
