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“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 emanating 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 gently 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.
CHAPTER 8
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 headboard 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.
