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Hooves pounded across the wet earth, the quick gallop decapitating her past from her present like a sawing blade separating time. They traveled at a grueling pace for a full day, into the following night. She’d fallen asleep from pure exhaustion, only to be awoken when he yanked her down from the horse.
He took his rights that evening, in an open field with no shelter and barely a word to acknowledge that she was a living-breathing being.
Her cries did not go ignored. Whimpers were rewarded with more cruelty as he ordered her to keep quiet, brutally covering her mouth and viciously cleaving into her. His crushing weight was nothing compared to the paralyzing dread that pulverized whatever hope she held for their courtship.
His possessive claim was clear. She was his to do with as he pleased and he would not tolerate any show of frailty when it came to meeting his needs. He was her master and she, his servant. A slab of meat on the bone, for him to chew up and toss away.
“Open your mouth,” he ordered, tearing into his own wrist.
She obediently did as he said and he shoved his wrist between her lips, stretching her jaw.
“Swallow it.” Moonlight glinted off his fangs as he glared down at her. “More.”
His manhood stabbed into her, pinning her in place as she stared up at him with wide eyes.
“That’s enough,” he snapped, ripping his arm away and yanking her off the ground. He fisted her hair, jerking her head aside, as long fangs impaled her throat, and he gorged himself on her blood, drinking until she was dizzy and weak.
She took no pleasure from the act. And when he was finished, he left her trembling in the dirt with her shift pushed up to her waist, blood, mud, and his seed covering her thighs.
She watched the sunrise through silent tears. Under the golden rays of dawn, she counted her bruises, but there was little time to rest or heal.
They traveled for days, riding long into the night. When they stopped for food, he always ate first, saving only his scraps for her, tossing them in her direction as if she were less than a dog.
At night, he would take her body and blood again, slaking his hunger and forgetting to feed her. She feared his touch so much, she didn’t mind the hunger pains. But as her body became more battered and malnourished, the longer the bruises took to heal and the weaker she became.
Gentleness drifted out of her world with the force of a tornado. He claimed her body whenever the mood struck and only spoke to her in clipped commands. The moon had waxed and waned, and she still didn’t know his name.
He was a beast without a conscience or care for her well-being. When they found lodging, he would sleep for days but never let her out of his grip. And if she disturbed his rest, he’d punish her by rutting into her again.
Some nights he’d grow frustrated with her weakness, but rather than strengthen her with his blood, he’d throw her to the ground. “You lay there!” he’d yell if she tried to get up. “Move and I’ll break your legs.”
Naked and shivering on the floor, she cowered, grateful when he disappeared to find a mortal whore at the pub below. He’d bring the women back to their bed and make her watch as he took them, showing he was capable of gentleness and affirming that he intentionally showed her none.
It was clear he despised her. The mortal women would coo and smile for their coin, and many times he drained them of life before they were paid. The bodies sometimes rotted for days before he removed them, and she swore their sins left ghosts behind to haunt her for not intervening.
She felt responsible for their deaths. Her conscience couldn’t bear the mounting tally of souls they left behind in each village. Sometimes, she suffered his harsh treatment longer than her frail body could endure, simply to save those she could.
The legends of loyalty between called mates were false. He held a limitless disdain for her, proven by his dishonor every day. He never looked kindly on her or spoke with any sort of affection. She lived with a steady ache between her thighs that never had time to heal, flesh that was often more blue than pink, a hunger that never abated, and an unmendable crack within her heart.
She forgot what it was to smile, losing all sense of time and place. She no longer cared where they were going. They never stopped moving.
She tried to remember the soft, clean scent of her baby brother’s hair, but as more time passed, those surreal memories began to fade. After several years of him only calling her girl, she found it difficult to recall her own name.
