Birch & Bone

Blue Hour: Kaspar

The fire had died down to just glowing orange embers. Long, flickering shadows were cast across the vaulted ceiling of my hall. For the first time in centuries, the silence of the mountain felt different. It wasn’t the heavy, stagnant silence of a tomb. It was the soft, breathing silence of a sanctuary.

Sloane lay tangled in the fox furs, her pale skin glowing like a pearl in the dim light. She was deep in the kind of sleep that only comes after a total shattering of the soul.

I sat on the edge of the stone hearth, my true form still unfurled. I watched the steady rise and fall of her chest, my amber eyes tracking the faint purple bruises I’d left on her hips. Marks of a claim I hadn’t realized I was making until I’d already sunk my teeth into her scent.

My tongue flicked over my lower fangs, still tasting of salt and the violet-wildfire of her climax. I had meant to break her. I had intended to be the cold, hard mirror that forced her to look at her sins until she begged for the mercy of the birch. Instead, I had been the one who broke.

When I had been between her legs, feeling her pulse race against my tongue, hearing the way she called my name - not with fear, but with a desperate, starving hunger - the beast had stopped pacing. The hunger for judgement had been replaced by a crushing, possessive need.

I reached out, my clawed hand trembling slightly. My touch hovered just an inch above her hair, afraid that even the slightest brush would wake her from this peace.

Queen of the Long Night.

I had said the words to taunt her, to push her into the role the mountain demanded. But looking at her now, I realized that the mountain didn’t just want a sacrifice. It had found its match.

A low, mournful howl echoed from deep within the salt mines. The sun would soon touch the peaks of the Dachstein. My time in this world was tethered to the dark. Normally, I would retreat into the deepest shadows of the abyss, dormant and cold until the next season.

But the thought of leaving her here, or worse, letting her walk back down the mountain to the sheep in neon jackets and the lies of the human world, made a growl of pure agony ripple through my chest.

She had chosen the monster. She had seen the horns and the hooves and the darkness that lived where a heart should be, and she had whispered that it was beautiful.

My hooves clicked softly on the stone as I walked to the high, narrow window that looked out over Hallstatt. Far below the village was a cluster of houses, insignificant and small. I could see the lights of the hotel where her friends were likely waking up, frantic and confused. They would come for her. They would bring their prayers and their priests and their pathetic human laws. They would try to “rescue” a woman who had already found her throne in the dark.

I turned back to the bed, my shadow stretching and covering her.

“Let them come,” I rumbled, the sound vibrating in the very roots of the mountain. “Let them try to take what is mine.”

I moved back to the bed and lay down beside her, the furs rustling under my weight. I pulled her small, warm body against my furred chest. Her head tucked under my chin as she shifted against me. The sun could try to rise, the world could try to wake, but in this lair, the Long Night was only just beginning.