Chapter Text
For a while, he’d lost his sense of self. Visions haunted him, the blurred edge between dreams and reality too far beyond him to decipher.
Large stones rolled through the dense thicket of the trees to escape the evil in that clearing. Wide, brown, birch eyes blinked, observing, and the warlock stood with them, watching the scene unfold from the cover of the branches. You were there: spinning in circles, following the gust of the wind and the leaves as they twirled around you. Your fingers stained purple, your hands clutching a fleshy, bloody, beating heart – you held it high in the air, laughing with drunken mirth and letting the thick, dark liquid drip down on your breasts and stomach. A body sat crumpled by the bank of the creek, withered and old, cupping handfuls of the water to his lips and drinking deeply. The crimson liquid slipped through his fingers and fell upon the earth, making tendrils of rotten smoke and steam curl through the air and towards the sky.
König had spent an eternity here. Or a day. He couldn’t tell. He felt restless… where was his body? He tried to speak, but his tongue was heavy against the roof of his mouth. He felt your lips on his, and he tried to kiss you – but you were speaking, sweetly whispering secrets against the corner of his lips.
With the limerence your restless heart bleeds, I bid thee, rest;
Rest, and lie with the ash, until the embers stir again.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
König had been awake for a while by the time he realized he was staring at the ceiling of your hut. The gentle knocking of the door against the frame slowly coaxed him from his troubled sleep, rhythmically beating within the walls of his own mind, as if trying to rouse and save him from his doom. The wind howled outside, yet the inside was warm, and something spicy and sweet wafted through the air –for a moment, it brought him back to his childhood. Sitting on his mother’s lap, chewing on a warm handful of Lebkuchen and listening to the tales she told in a low, whispered tone, her breath gracing the shell of his ear.
Almost as soon as he had conjured up the memory, it was torn from him as the scent became too sweet – borderline sickening. It invaded his nostrils and worsened the headache that angrily pulsed between his eyes.
He noticed the lull of a voice – your voice, humming sweetly throughout the hut. He heard you behind him, then in the far corner, then beside him, then back to the corner again. He never thought he would admit it, as he blinked slowly through the fog in his mind… but it brought him relief. You hadn’t left him, alone in the woods – you didn’t vanish from him like you did to the warlock.
You continued to move idly through the small space – bottles clinked and a liquid bubbled and boiled, hissing and snapping with attitude as you tossed something into the cauldron’s brew. He felt the air grow warm and humid, and his chest felt heavy with both unease and the need to see you within the dim candlelight.
His head throbbed again, more intensely than before. He groaned, lifting his arm to shield his face from the flickering shadows and light that danced on the walls of the hut; however, his arm stopped short of a few inches from the damp earth. He tugged again with confusion, and suddenly noticed the leather cuffs around it – as well as his other wrist, and both of his ankles. They were restrained in a way that had him spread open, the cuffs tethered to thick, sturdy roots that curled out of the ground. Soft, velvet blankets and warm pelts – one of them being his own, he recognized – lay beneath him as some sort of sleeping pile. If this was a bed, it was pitiful enough to make him forget his current predicament and feel sorry for you. But he still wondered: what had happened to him?
“Are you finally awake?”
Your voice tugged at him like a noose around his neck, making him tilt his head backwards to look at you. You were completely naked, your body contoured by the light of the candles that were scattered about the hut floor. You walked over to where he lay, chained and on top of a pile of soft furs, blankets, and several lumpy pillows. You had an air about you that made him think this was a situation you were commonly in, which made him concerned as to what you had planned.
It wasn’t until he felt his cock twitching as it grew, that he realized he had been stripped naked – most likely by you. Which only made him groan with arousal.
“I like to have my work finished by dusk,” you commented, sitting with your feet tucked to the side, next to his body on the furs. “but you were out for quite a while.” You watched with a smirk as his eyes trailed down your body, from your soft, supple breasts, to your sex that you barely attempted to cover with an arm draped over your lap.
“What-“ he glanced around, eyes darting anywhere except on your nudity, trying to calm the thunderous beating of his heart – “what have you done? What is this?” He yanked at the chains holding him down, though more out of desire to pull you onto his lap than to escape.
You chuckled – that sweet, sweet sound of yours he loved so much had him staring back at you, eyes softening. “The end of the hunt, König.” You traced circles over the center of his chest, making him suck in a breath through clenched teeth. “Or trap, if you’re a stickler for the correct wording. This is where I collect the fruits of my labor.”
König suddenly remembered the warlock’s words. She’ll swallow you whole, saving only your heart for last.
“Wh-“ he tried to focus, squeezing his eyes shut and exhaling as he attempted to get the feeling of your fingertips on his skin out of his mind. “Mein Herz. What for?”
“Oh, for many different things…” you said, lips curling into a smile, excited to explain exactly what you would use his heart for. “Any sort of hex or potion that needs an animal heart can be amplified with a human one. Also-“ you reached across him, your breasts gracing the skin of his face, making him inhale sharply as a shudder ran through his cock – “the most important factor in a love potion, such as this.” You pulled yourself back and presented to him a small bottle, full of a translucent, viscous liquid with chunks of what he could only assume to be a human heart settled at the bottom. “The last hunter who had been sent to kill me – well, you can thank him for this.”
König’s stomach churned in disgust, but not fear. The thought of consuming something unfit for consumption, such as bits of human heart, made him queasy. But not the thought of you carving that heart out of some poor fellow much like himself. Not the image of you, straddling his thick, swollen length, tracing a knife over the skin of his chest, drawing blood from the fair skin there.
“But-“ he stammered, recovering from the allure of his own thoughts. “but why? I don’t- why a love potion?” You didn’t need to give one to him to have him worshipping your body – he’d do it right now, if it wasn’t for these verdammt cuffs.
You sighed, apparently bored with having to explain your reasonings to yet another, confused prey. “You get lonely, König – don’t you?” You cooed, laying your head down against his chest and listening to its rapid thrum against his ribcage. Like sugar you were, molasses dripping into his hungry mouth, sticky and sweet – his teeth ached with the thought of his fate, but he didn’t care. König longed to be able to stroke your hair, to pull you closer to his lips so he could kiss the crown of your head and press his nose into your locks.
“I do too. Living so far into the woods is dreadfully boring, especially when you’re alone. But, at the same time, I hate the others. Their ignorance, their injustice – and their useless judgements and opinions. Their lies. It sickens me.” You slid your hand over his chest and upwards until your fingers landed on his jugular, feeling the steady pulse through the warm skin. “They’re selfish. They don’t care what happens to anyone but themselves. If you’ve got a cunt, they lose all respect for the person attached to it. Disgusting, really. But-“ you sighed, pushing yourself to sit upright, your cunt resting on the trail of hair from his naval and downwards. König noticed that you were apparently wet, and a faint satisfaction flowed through him. At least he wasn’t the only one getting off from the current situation, he realized.
“Even I miss the thrill of a hard cock…” you unexpectedly reached back and gently wrapped your hand around his length. König threw his head back and groaned through clenched teeth. He pulled on the restraints, desperate to touch your skin, to grab your hips and pull you where you belonged – nestled atop his leaking, sore member.
He wondered if the warlock had been right, if you really were a succubus in your previous life. Was there an angelic version of that? Because he couldn’t find any fault or sin in you at this moment – he realized, like with everything else he was forced to entertain, he didn’t care. Demon or angel, he wanted your soul all the same, no matter how cold it was. He would warm it up.
“… And the way their faces change, when they realize I’m not only interested in fucking them.” You said, leaning over him with your free hand planted on his abdomen. Your brow furrowed, and your lips curled into a smirk. “You’re different, though…” you traced a finger along his jawline, wondering if König would try and bite it off, like the others had.
König was only thinking of how he wanted those fingers wrapped tightly into the locks of his hair.
“Most of them aren’t as calm as you are, even after the potion. They still put up a fight.”
Truth be told, he couldn’t tell if he was so turned on because of the potion you’d given him, or if he had been predisposed to your charm when he first saw you out in the woods. He was fairly certain that, after the potion wears off, he’d still be willing to make you his. He was figuring out how to make arrangements so that you would fuck him like this every day – and therefore, making sure that you’re by his side for the rest of his life. What if he built you a proper bed? Not some nest on the ground, with blankets that barely cut through the rough stiffness of the floor. One that was sturdy and raised off the ground, with a mattress and down pillows, near to the fireplace he would build you, so that you would never have to suffer from the cold again. It would have to withstand his thrusts as he pounds into you the way you deserve. Hell, he’d even fix on some metal hooks so you could restrain him all you’d like, if it means that you’ll keep him.
Despite his delirious thinking, there was one question that stayed in the back of his mind. It was nearly drowned out by the rest of the clamor, but the unfurled, unanswered edges of it caught each thought that whizzed by.
“Was it a lie?” he managed to groan out with his chest heaving.
“Hmm?” you raised your brow, urging him to continue. “Was what a lie?”
“Everything.” He sucked in a breath when you ran your fingers through his hair; he tilted his head into your palm to chase the tenderness in the action, despite it being a thin mask over the grim intentions.
You chuckled, watching him fight himself between the desire and the panic. “Nothing I said was a lie. None of it. It just wasn’t… everything.”
You resumed stroking his cock – his hips jerked upwards and he whimpered, not even realizing that you had stopped in the first place. “Mph… scheisse – how can I believe you?” he asked. He believed you anyway; he knew you had played your cards right, telling him only what he needed to know and letting him walk right into your palm. Still, whether he had seen it now or earlier, he fully believed there was no trick you could play on him that would make him despise you.
“Oh, I’m not going to make you believe me…” you leaned over him again, your strokes slowing down and making him growl. “Believe me or not, I don’t care. It won’t matter to you, not in a little while…”
You closed the distance, pressing your soft, sweet lips against his. He tried to suck you in, your air, your taste, your essence – each exhale through your nose had him inhaling, trying to meld with you as much as you would allow him. But your lips moved slowly, passionately, completely contradicting everything you had said and done to him. He forced himself to match your rhythm, drinking you in like sweet nectar from summer fruit. You kissed him with devotion, like two lovers that had stood the test of time – but, to you, it was just another mark of death. Your calling card, if you will.
For a moment, König thought he could taste it. What he had tasted, so often that it had become bland with time. The loneliness, your strain to replicate something real, something devoted, intimate, and fond. Something that would never fit in the cards you had been dealt. He could feel you trying to believe this stolen intimacy was something else; a shower of affection that you and your lover shared every day. He could taste the faint bitterness in the back of your throat, and he understood.
He could make this real. It was real for him, love potions be damned. He would show you that he could love you, that he did love you.
When you eventually pulled away, he let his head fall back again. He panted like a dog, his eyes flicking between your breasts, your sex, and your eyes. “Please-“
“’Please’ what?” you interjected, your smirk growing bigger at the signs that König’s resolve was beginning to cave. “Are you going to beg for your life?”
König couldn’t give a fuck if you stabbed him now, as long as you let him show you what you meant to him, and blessed him with the feeling of your cunt, first.
“No-“ he gasped, bucking his hips into your hand again. He never thought he would find himself so desperate, that he would be the one begging underneath someone… but he would swallow his pride for tonight. He added the idea of convincing you to let him be on top every so often to his to-do list – of course, once he did actually convince you that you needed him to stick around. “Just- please, I need to feel you, need to fuck you.”
You chuckled. “You need to earn that, König.” You said, pushing your hips back and up to hover over his erection. You grasped it once again, giving it a squeeze that had him hissing and arching his back. You slowly brushed his tip along your entrance, sighing softly – it was going to be a tight fit, but you would be lying if you said that didn’t excite you.
“Please-“ he begged again, pulling at his restraints. “I need- want to hold you, liebe.”
You cooed, fisting his cock even faster, making a string of German spill from his lips and his head fall back onto the pillows. “I know you do, König… but not yet. You deserve this first – consider it a ‘thank you’, for what I’m going to do to you.”
You released his cock – his head shot up with a look of confusion, and you could see just how flushed he had become. You shifted back, hovering your glistening pussy over his swollen member, looking down at the flushed thing as it wept with precum. He groaned as if you were already wrapped around it, watching with an eager expression as you finally, finally sank down onto it.
It was a new experience for both of you. You had never had someone so thick, so big… it stretched your walls to the point where they burned, and you thought you might tear. König had never felt a cunt as soft and perfectly molded for him as yours. After you pushed his head into you, your warm walls had sucked the rest of him up in one go, making his eyes screw shut and the air force itself from his lungs in a stuttering exhale. You let out a moan (louder and more strained than usual, but when had anyone filled you until they were visible from the outside?), followed by a broken groan from König.
Your ass was flush against his thighs – the need to take handfuls of it and squeeze until you were spilling out of his fingers was unbearable. He dared to open his eyes again, watching as your head was tilted back in pleasure, maybe even a bit of pain. “Gah- Heilige Scheiße-“ He bucked his hips once, making you jolt and gasp and plant your hands on his chest to support yourself.
Much to slow for König’s liking, you ground your hips against his, letting your clit graze across the hair above the base of his cock. You began moaning airily, your eyes squeezing shut as he filled you to the brim with his length. It sent warm electricity crashing through your abdomen like a wave, shooting up to your breasts and making your nipples turn into stiff buds. The head of his cock dragged along your walls, catching on that one spot that made you clench around him and squeeze your thighs against his.
Each time you squeezed the life out of his dick, König let a strangled groan escape from his lungs. He was forced to feel the full effect of your sex – he couldn’t grab your hair, your thighs… he couldn’t crash his lips into yours, swallowing the both of your moans. He couldn’t even plant his feet on the ground and properly fuck up into you the way you deserved. He was subject to feeling nothing but your slick pussy desperately pushing and pulling at his erection, and it was intense.
He looked down with desperation at where your hips connected with his. “Mph- bitte, bitte Liebling, genau so, bitte...” Every exhale was a moan – nearly a whine – as he watched you languidly roll your hips against him, clearly seeking your own pleasure. It wasn’t enough to satisfy him. He loved your soft mewls, but he wanted to hear you crying out from each rough smack of his hips punching into yours. He adored how you were treating him like a toy – you had no regards to his own pleasure and you were perfectly fine if he didn’t end up cumming at all. As long as you got decent use out of his dick, before you ended up carving out his heart. But he knew how to make you scream his name, he knew what would have you clawing at his back and crying loud enough to rouse every creature in the forest, living or dead. If he ended up reaching his own orgasm too, that would be a privilege on its own.
Maybe I must earn that, too. He thought.
As much as he could with his ankles restrained, he started bucking his hips upwards again. The tensing of his thighs had you springing upwards and off of him, making you yelp at the sudden force that crashed into your cunt. You looked down at him, a lustful and impressed grin upon your face.
“Is it not enough for you?” you cooed, leaning down towards his face and arching your back. “Am I going too slow, König?” you spoke into his ear with a syrupy tone, your breath caressing his skin and sending a shiver down his spine. He huffed, trying to buck into you again, but you hovered your hips above him just enough so that the last inch of his cock wasn’t sheathed inside you. “What do you want from me, hmm?”
He attempted to speak, but the first few sounds from his mouth were choked gasps. “Need to fuck you-“ he begged. He hated that he was begging… but if he could just convince you that you needed to let him take control, he wouldn’t mind begging for a little while. “Need to make you feel good, need- scheiße, hha- fuck you deep, prinzessin.” His hands clenched into fists above his head as he imagined how he would grab your hips and hold you down, slamming his cock into your wet hole.
You chuckled. It was rare that your victims would want to pleasure you, let alone even speak about it – typically, they only sought out their own high. You wondered what you had put extra of in the potion, and if you could hopefully replicate it for the next man who fell into your trap.
“You need to cum, don’t you?” you purred, licking and placing a wet kiss at the base of his throat.
“Scheisse, Ich muss dich zu meinem machen-“ He bucked his hips again, groaning painfully when he couldn’t get the friction he needed.
“You promise to be good if I let you go?”
He nodded vigorously, his lips parted with desperation. He felt he might go insane if you teased him any longer. “Bitte - Ich werde gut sein, lass mich einfach in dir vergraben.”
You hummed thoughtfully, teasing his cock as you rolled your hips back and against its length. He whined and looked at you with nothing short of blissful agony. You’d certainly had more difficult victims – ones who cursed and threatened you as they chased their high, shouting that they would kill you after you drew their orgasm from them. König was one of the rare ones, so affected by the potion that they were too worried about fucking you until you both melted away into nirvana, most likely too exhausted afterwards to protest as you drive your knife into their chest.
You sighed, reaching above him and grabbing the shackles around his right wrist. Your supple breasts hovered tantalizingly above his lips; he took the opportunity to run his tongue along your hardened nipple, sucking as much as he could into his mouth when you lost your balance from the jolting sensation. You tutted and grabbed his hair with one hand, yanking him away from your breast – he hissed from the pain, but continued staring at the mound that hovered just out of his reach.
You whispered an incantation, quiet and foreign, and his wrists sprung free from the cuff. Both ankles were also released, and instantly, he wasted no time wrapping his hands around your lower back and sitting up. You giggled when you saw his half-lidded eyes and the flush across his cheeks. You weren’t worried about whether he would try and stab you (at least, besides his painfully hard member); he was too lost in the euphoria to think of anything other than your cunt.
You wrapped your arms around his neck as he slowly lowered you onto the blankets and furs. He took a moment to drink you in: your pink cheeks, the layer of sweat over your delicate, soft skin, the sound of your breath coming out in short bursts, the way the flickering candlelight danced over the curves of your hips and your breasts…
He was a man on death’s row, and you were his last meal.
He quickly dove down and began sucking marks onto your neck, listening to your excited mewls as he sloppily bit and licked at the skin there. He took one of your hands in his and pinned it by your head, locking your fingers together – with his other hand, he grabbed your hip and tilted your pelvis up. He sat on his haunches and tucked you into him – he easily slipped into you, balls deep, not an inch of room between your bodies.
You winced and gasped when he re-entered you, digging your fingers into his shoulders. “Fuck! Ha- mph-“ There was no room for you to wiggle and adjust to his size. His happy trail was still pressed against your clit, and as he started rutting into you, you nearly screamed from the intensity. You were positive that this was the best fuck you’d ever had in your dreadfully long life.
König’s breaths turned into grunts with each jut of his hips. He hooked his hands around your shoulders so he could properly fuck you, dragging you back down onto him as you were pushed back from each thrust. Your juices dripped down his balls, your folds sucking him nicely and tightly as he continued driving cock in and out of you. Pleasure vibrated throughout his abdomen, muscles tightening and vision dotted with stars as electric, white-hot bliss seared through every vein in his body. Your whines were painfully loud, but he was too focused on the warmth of your folds and the greedy, pulsing rhythm around his dick to care.
“Du bis- scheiße, du bis perfekt für mich...” he gritted out through clenched teeth, groans slipping out between each breath. “Ich behalte dich. Ich- fuck, mein Königin- Ich werde dich niemals gehen lassen ... Süßes Mädchen ...” His lips moved along the skin of your neck and up to your face, until he bit down on your cheek – not roughly, but enough to hold you in place.
You whimpered at the sudden action, squeezing your eyes shut. It was a bit too intimate for you – after all, you were just playing with your food. But you supposed that he deserved to get one last fuck in before his death, so you played along – that, and you couldn’t form a coherent thought through the euphoria and hormones swirling in your mind. Cries and whimpers were punched out of you, making you grateful that this particular monster of a man had been the unfortunate one to stumble your way.
You dragged your hand up and into the curly threads of his hair, scratching your nails at the base of his scalp. You’d be lying to yourself if you said that you weren’t enjoying his deranged, mostly-selfless need to pleasure you.
König growled in your ear, releasing your cheek from his teeth as his thrusts grew quicker. He was already close, despite wishing that this moment would last forever. The sound of his balls slapping against your pussy echoed in his head like bells inside a cathedral. His breath became strained, panting whines, his arms held you closer, as if to mold the both of you into one being, the way the Greeks had said humans once were. Eventually, each exhale became a zealous chant of fuck, fuck, fuck- “Ich komme- fuck, Ich komme-“ and he felt his balls tensing, seizing-
You weren’t the one in control anymore, and you knew it. But, from the looks of it, neither was König. The both of you were driven by primal instincts, and he was dragging your and his naked bodies through rough terrain and thick, wet mud until you found nirvana.
It hit you first. Your cunt clenched tightly around his cock, still pistoning in and out of you, squelches and slaps echoing against the walls of your tiny hut – pleasure ripped through your naval, your stomach, up into your breasts, and even further, dancing behind your eyelids as you squeezed them shut. Your legs locked against his hips as you screamed, loud and high, probably piercing through the still and silent forest beyond your door.
König didn’t last much longer than you. The grip with which you strangled his length made him sputter and choke, driving his hips in and out, in, and out, bouncing off of your pelvis, until his balls tensed painfully. He thrust one hand against the ground, bracing himself as his cock twitched and his mind ascended into thoughtless bliss – he roared as he came, his seed shooting into you and seeping around his dick, some leaking out with each pull out of you, before it was stuffed back inside as he thrust in again. His eyes were twisted shut, his teeth bared, and his back hunched as he ground his hips down, groaning and huffing and shaking from the intensity.
Eventually, he released you, slowly, still panting. You let your arms fall from his shoulders – a shiver ran down your spine as the air moved between your bodies, hitting your sweat-slick skin. You watched him, him and his glossy eyes, sweat dripping from his forehead as he hovered over you. You could tell he was still recovering from the aftershocks – as were you, with your cunt still occasionally squeezing him – yet that same, delirious, devoted look still lingered, creeping through the depths of his pupils and dragging itself to the cerulean surface of his irises.
A shame… you thought. Such a fresh face, such a strong and dedicated soul… you knew, however, that it was all due to the potion. Once it had worn off, he would be in a hurry to kill you for making him act so shamefully. You needed to be quick – you couldn’t spend time admiring each and every freckle on his face and shoulders, running your hand through his hair and basking in his warm, earthy musk. You needed to end this, to put him to sleep and take his heart, before he had any time to think. I can spare him a painful death, at least, as a reward for being so good.
You would miss this one, which was the first time you had realized that for any of your victims. He had reacted to the potion well, letting it consume his mind as well as his body. Maybe you could dissect his brain, throw it into your cauldron and see what fumes it produced, to figure out how you could replicate his behavior in your next subject.
König saw you staring, watching, calculating. The euphoria had washed away for you, and you were back to your cunning, grinning self. He was still lost in the abyss of his obsession with you. The fucking had only made it more intense now.
How was he going to do this? How was he going to convince you to keep him? Not for his own sake, for yours? Because it’s what you deserved? He knew it was only a matter of minutes, before you fully recovered and took what you wanted from him, doing gods know what with the rest of him. He saw it in your eyes, in your lips, pressed together in a thin line as you prematurely felt a hint of remorse for what you were about to destroy.
Maybe that was it – that weak, mock sadness could be what he needed to change the tide. He saw you reach a hand out to cup his face, and instead, he snatched your hand into the both of his, bringing it to his lips.
You immediately frowned. The sudden action had thrown you into a slight panic: was he already recovered from the potion? When he pressed an urgent, desperate kiss to your lips, you were confused. Maybe there was still some lingering neediness…
“Bitte-“ he spoke into your palm. “I need you, please.”
You smiled sadly at his profession. You reminded yourself that, if it came down to a struggle, you had your knife lying in the furs next to you. Hopefully, the hunter hadn’t noticed it in his haze.
“You don’t know what you need, König.” You said sweetly, watching as his brow creased with helplessness. “And I’m sorry – but this is what it is. This is the way it will always be.” You sighed, sitting back on your elbows, and he rested on his haunches, never breaking his stare. “I will say, though, this was the-“
A raven’s screech suddenly ripped through the air, filtering into the cabin’s thin walls, making your head jerk to the door. Your eyes glassed over with panic, and König faltered.
“Stimmt etwas nicht?” he asked quickly. “What-“
The door then swung open with a bang. König’s head whipped towards the sound, finding the warlock standing in the doorway. He looked crazed, eyes fully locked on you – he seemed entirely unaware of the precarious situation he had caught the two of you in, only fueled by his apparent wrath.
König’s heart dropped. The warlock wasn’t supposed to be here – he was never a part of the plan, beyond being the one to order it. Why is he here?
You cursed through clenched teeth, trying to shove König’s body off of yours. Before you had a chance to scramble to your feet, your head was thrust back against the pillows by an unseen force. You clawed at your throat, right before your hands were pinned by either side of your head. König watched with panic and concern in his eyes as you struggled to breathe. You stared back at him with a hateful, betrayed glare as you choked and gasped for air.
“I’ve finally got you, you bitch.” The sorcerer seethed. “Right in your own snare.” He slowly entered the hut, still staring at you, watching you twist and writhe as you desperately attempted to breathe.
König’s focus was also on you. He saw a mark similar to a hand print appear on your neck. He hovered his hands above you, curling over your entire body, all while you stared at the warlock and attempted to sputter out curses. How do I stop this?! His muscles screamed with the need to somehow give you air, but his mind offered no assistance on how to do it.
“Was this life better? Than what I freely gifted you?!” The warlock continued, oblivious to König’s shaking form; he assumed that the hunter was still coming down from the potion. He would be thankful after, once he had returned to his normal state of mind and realized the horrors and atrocities you had forced upon him.
“I gave you everything you know, I protected you, I loved you when no one else would!” the sorcerer stalked even closer, watching the skin on your face turn a dangerous shade of red. “And you run away, take my life’s work like you earned it! Like it was ever yours! And look at this place-“ he gestured to the dingy hut around him – “you call this home? You’re hiding in this pile of shit, and you think you’ve improved, compared to what you had? Pathetic!!”
König could hear every word the warlock said, but he only thought of you. For the first time since he was a boy, tears welled in his eyes at the prospect of you being snatched from him so soon. His throat felt tight and tense as he watched, helpless and desperate as your eyes began to flutter shut, and your struggling weakened. He can’t lose you – not now. You didn’t deserve to die like this. None of this was your fault, you were only doing what you could, how else were you supposed to live? He felt the last, pathetic ember within his chest dying out as he struggled to gather his thoughts and save you.
I can’t lose you. I won’t, not when I’ve just found you, found myself in you.
“I’ll let you do the honor, boy.” The warlock spat.
König looked back at him – his eyes were still transfixed on your form, his hands outstretched and clutching around the air, choking you merely with his will. “See what she has done to you, what she has taken from you? What she would have taken?”
König remembered your fingers tracing over his heart. The way your nail had slightly dug into his skin. Did you truly take anything from him, that he didn’t already give to you?
“Kill her, and I’ll give you all I promised.”
König’s mind froze for a moment – his eyes landed on the knife, tossed amongst the folds of the velvet and furs on the ground. He instinctively reached down, curling his shaking fingers around the handle. It was heavy in his hand, heavier than any blade he had ever carried. He stared at his own eyes in the blade’s reflection: tense, afraid.
What did he want? “Perhaps, to find a love of your own?”
He looked back down at you. Your cheeks were red from the lack of oxygen, your chest pushed forwards as you tried to wrench your arms free of the warlock’s invisible grasp. Tears streamed down your face as you struggled to stare back at König, but you were not afraid. You were not begging for your life from him. You were warning him, maybe threatening to curse him from beyond the grave, should he kill you now. Still, he saw no attempts to bargain for your right to live, the right you had most likely pawned off by now… just pure anger. You had lost.
But, if you did, so did he. He too would be lost.
The warlock had already shown him what he needed.
Without another thought, König turned to face the sorcerer. At the same time, he launched the knife towards him – it lodged itself into the side of his neck, cleanly piercing into his jugular.
The warlock gasped, then choked, pulling his hands back to rip the knife from his throat. Blood gushed onto the floor and down his robes as he tried to keep the gash from draining his life source. He collapsed onto his knees with panicked eyes.
As soon as the blade had struck him, you gulped in a breath of air, wheezing and coughing. You bolted upright – König tried to run his hands along your delicate throat with concern, but you hastily shoved him down. He fell back onto the furs as you scrambled away – you quickly collapsed next to the warlock, still dizzy from the lack of oxygen, and took the blade from the floor. With a furious cry, you plunged it deep into his heart, all while sprays of his blood smattered across your skin.
He glared back at you with anger and fear. He reached a hand out to your throat, but you quickly pinned it to his side. You scowled at him as you watched his life seep out of the wound, his eyelids growing heavier and his movements slowing by the second. He tried to mutter a curse in his dying breath, but you knew it would be futile. He didn’t have enough blood to get him through the cadence.
Eventually, with one last groan, he slumped against the floor. His dead eyes stared at the ceiling and his hand flopped to the ground. You scoffed, twisting the knife in his chest with a grunt.
“I should have taken your heart all those years ago.” You seethed, spitting on the ground next to his head.
With a heavy sigh, you sat back on your heels, glaring down at the dead expression on the warlock’s face. You had spent a good amount of time fantasizing about his death a few decades ago, although you were fonder of poison or a hex, rather than spilling his worthless blood all over your dirt floor.
You glanced back at König; he was now kneeling on one knee, and seemed surprisingly calm for what he had just witnessed. His chest heaved from the urgency of the intrusion, but his eyes were relaxed. Or, relieved? It was hard to decipher him, as his eyes darted between the body on the ground and your blood-stained face. Still, he was unusually not worked up after having consumed the potion.
Your eyes moved to glance at the bottle on the nightstand, wondering if you might not have given him the entire dose. Upon seeing the vial, your heart leapt into your throat with dread.
It was completely full. You had never given him the potion.
Your wide eyes landed back on König. Questions raced through your mind at a thousand miles a minute. Was he trying to trick you? Why had he pretended to be under the spell? Why had he bothered to entertain your lust after you had released him from the restraints? Was there some kind of placebo effect? No, that’s not possible – was he just going along to have a good fuck before he would end up killing you? Playing you at your own game?
He must have known you didn’t give him the potion. Why didn’t he kill you earlier, when the knife was right there, and he had you boxed in underneath his body? Was this an attempt to gain your trust in the long run? It didn’t make any sense. He wouldn’t need to survive the long run – he could have killed you long before now.
Panic had settled deep underneath your skin, along with an angry confusion. You ripped the knife from the warlock’s chest and quickly hurled yourself at König, pinning him down underneath you as you pressed the blade to his jugular. He held his hands up near his head and let you shove him down. His eyes remained on yours – never scared, never angry. It’s like he expected your every move, and your stomach churned at the thought of it. Had he planned this from the start? Had he distracted you from giving him the potion? How could he have known this would work?!
“You bastard!” you shouted, leaning in and baring your teeth in your rage. The confused tug of his brow only angered you more. “How did you know?!”
He shook his head delicately, trying to avoid catching his skin on the edge of the knife. “I don’t understand.”
“The potion.” You retorted. “I never administered it to you.”
He dared to tilt his head up behind him to look for the vial, but stopped when you pressed the blade further against his skin. His breath became stuck in his throat. “I didn’t- I didn’t realize.”
You scoffed. “Don’t take me for a fool. Why did you do it? Were you so desperate for sex?! Did you know the warlock would come?!”
“I did not!”
“Why didn’t you try to kill me?!”
“I could never kill you – I won’t do it.”
You wanted to stab him then and there. Was this man so starved of affection – not even that, of lust, that he would risk losing his life for it? It can’t be that… no sane man would do that. And maybe he didn’t seem like he had all of his screws, but… you couldn’t understand his reasoning here.
“Why not?” you asked. Your voice had softened with confusion, although you still held the knife firmly to his neck. Why haven’t you killed him yet? Perhaps the loneliness was getting to you, too. And you had found someone as fucked up as yourself.
He swallowed hard. “You’re perfect. You’re perfect, and- and you deserve a home. I will build you one, I’ll keep you safe from the hunters, from floods and fires. I don’t care what you’ve done, and if you could forget my vices, I would do anything for you.”
König knew words could never be enough for what he felt – truthfully, he didn’t know exactly what these feelings were. Maybe it was a result of his insanity that he had become so smitten with someone who wanted nothing more than his cock and his blood, but he couldn’t fight it. He wanted to give you everything you never had – real love, comfort, affection, and security – and he wanted to be the one to give it to you, specifically.
You scowled at how he wasn’t afraid – it was clear that you didn’t have the upper hand in this situation, even though König was not trying to best you here. “I have killed countless men before.”
“As have I.”
“I will kill you!” You spat, leaning closer to him, as if your statement was a promise. You wanted him to cower in fear. What was wrong with him? Why was he looking at you with such sweetness, such longing? After everything you had done to him? He must be empty in the head – that was the only explanation. No one had looked at you with love like he did – never.
König could do nothing but pant and stare back at you. You, with blood splattered across your skin, flecks of crimson staining your hair. The vulnerability in your nakedness, yet the power in how you didn’t seem to care. You were not afraid of him.
He knew he was nothing more than a pawn to you, just a few meaningless moments of entertainment. But he didn’t care. It was you he wanted, whether that was with his rough fingers caressing your body, or your soft, open palm colliding with his skin. By the gods, if you had killed him now, it would be less painful than if you ushered him out of your hut for good. But, even if you denied him a thousand times, ten thousand times, he would still follow you like a loyal hound with nowhere else he would rather be than by your side. He didn’t refute that he was crazy – even you, the cursed witch that never dared to step foot out from the forest, would say he was insane. But the absurdity of it all paled in comparison to his adoration for you.
He slowly moved to take your hand from his chest – he did not reach for the one holding the knife, still pressed against his throat. He looked into your eyes – still angry, with a tinge of confusion. You couldn’t be sure if he was playing tricks on you right now. You pressed the knife flush against his jugular, creating a small nick in his skin; a warning. König hissed through his teeth, but he didn’t waiver. He interlaced his fingers with yours, still looking at you with utter devotion in his eyes.
“If it is by your hands that I die,” he said quietly, chest heaving, “I only ask that they hold me as you lay me to rest.”
You stiffened, your lips turning into a frown. Yet, your heart thrummed against your ribs like a dove in a cage, one that had not felt the warmth of the sun in decades. “Don’t say such a foolish thing.”
“I would worship you from the grave.” He replied quickly, as if you hadn’t spoken at all.
Had such a poetic profession ever been directed towards you, by someone who wasn’t under one of your spells? Had anyone ever spoken with such unconditional love since the great poets had walked this earth? The knife in your hand lowered, falling next to König’s head as you observed him with confusion and disbelief.
He didn’t call you wicked, wretched, temptress, or bitch. He didn’t refer to you as the brine of the earth. He didn’t say heartless bastard, murderous whore, or spawn of satan. He didn’t look at you with hatred or repulsion – only desperation, ardency, and a need for you to understand him.
His fingers reached to touch your cheek, and you let them in your daze. “I love you.” He whispered, though he didn’t think it did justice to how he truly felt for you.
You frowned again, batting away his hand. He only caught your fingers in his, holding them gently, yet firmly. “Don’t lie.” You said, although it was less of a command, and more of a question.
“Let me wash you.” He said, massaging your blood-stained fingers. “Please.”
You were utterly baffled at his intentions. This couldn’t have been real. Even insanity couldn’t explain whatever reasoning coursed through his mind. But, it called to you. Your own heart, surprisingly still able to have an impact on your decisions, begged you to latch onto König’s outreach. His ribcage had been cracked and torn open by his own hands, and the blazing heat that radiated from it beckoned to you. You couldn’t find the strength within yourself to keep from falling into it, letting the ribs close in back around you and hold you tightly.
You let him slowly sit up, careful to keep you in his lap. He tentatively stretched a hand to take the knife from you, but you pulled it back. You still couldn’t fully believe that he wouldn’t try to kill you, despite his sudden and unusual devotion. He let you keep the knife, scooping your body into his strong arms and standing up from the pile of furs, grabbing his pelt along the way.
You felt vulnerable, out of place… when was the last time someone had touched you like this – gently, without the intention of maiming you?
He carried you over the warlock’s dead body, still bleeding out on the ground, and out of the hut, into the clearing you had claimed as home. He made a mental note to clean your floors later – after all, the mess was his fault. He thought about building you wooden floors, a foundation for your home – which he planned on calling his, too – one that would be even and smooth, without stones or roots that you might trip over or cut the soles of your feet on, one that would keep the both of you safe and dry should a bad rain make the river flood the forest floor. Maybe he’d build you a garden box, maybe two… he had to keep himself busy, since he wouldn’t be hunting anymore. Not for money or revenge, anyways, but maybe animals to keep you fed and healthy, or humans for whatever potion-worthy organs they held.
He gently sat you down on a large, flat stone by the fire pit, moving to kneel in front of you. He positioned his pelt to hang around your shoulders, nearly swallowing you whole. His hands never left your skin; he ran the both of them up and down the sides of your thighs as he stared at your distant expression. His eyes were locked on you with an intensity and adoration that poets dip their pens in before they write.
He took your chin in his hand – you were still too confused by his obsession, as well as too drunk on the newfound warmth in his doting actions, to pull away – and turned it side to side, inspecting the bruises on your neck. His lips turned down and his brow furrowed as he saw red and purple marks forming on your skin. He wondered how it was possible, as his thumb traced over each bruise, that the warlock had managed to do this without even touching you.
“I’ll get some water.” He said, squeezing the flesh of your hip. The gesture wasn’t sexual – it was reassuring. Comforting. I’ll be back. “Stay here-“
“Wait.” You commanded, grabbing his wrist before he could pull away from you. He placed his hand back onto your thigh as he looked at you expectantly – like a hound waiting for a command.
“What do you need?” he asked.
You looked back at the hut; the warlock’s body was partially visible through the entryway, supine and turning an odd, greyish color.
“Bring me his heart.” You ordered.
König looked back at the corpse – he didn’t gawk at your demand, nor did he question why you wanted the heart. He would do anything for you, no questions asked, other than to make sure he was doing what you desired in the most beneficial way for your needs.
“Is it still useful?” he inquired, wondering if it mattered that the heart had been pierced by a dagger.
“Useful enough.” You replied, turning back to look at König’s hand on your thigh. “It will be messy. Best to do it before bathing.” Who had you become? Why did you care to make this hunter’s life more convenient? If it weren’t for the warlock, König would have been the dead body inside your hut.
He grunted in agreement, then stood, letting his fingers grace your cheeks as he walked away. You huffed in anger at yourself. You hated it. You hated that his touch made you feel warm and good. You hated his blindness to your selfish and sinful nature. Still, the urge to snap at him and tell him to not touch you died in your throat when his fingers had pulled away, and you found yourself wishing they had lingered a second more.
It was never supposed to be like this. You always ended up spilling your story into the heart of your next victim, and of course, they took it like nectar from the sweetest fruit. They assumed that your loneliness would make it easy for them to be welcomed into your home, your arms, your cunt, before they would leave you dead in the woods with your eyes in their satchel. This game, turning the tide on each hunter that came to kill you – it was how you allowed yourself to feel and let go of your anger, of what had been done to you. It was therapeutic, even when you ended up killing the poor soul. Your confessions and emotions would be washed down the river, along with his blood.
This, you weren’t prepared for. You had thrown all of your faults, your feelings, and your atrocities into König, and he had absorbed it like a dishrag. Now, he had survived your game, by the luck of the warlock’s well-timed attack, and your own shock. He knew everything about you, and you had a feeling he wasn’t going anywhere.
What was worse, you had a feeling you wouldn’t be getting rid of him. You were afraid of how quickly you were becoming attached to him, to his delusional devotion. You had been craving it all this time, and here he was to offer it. The way he’d carried you from the hut nearly had you trembling with the ache it made you feel in your chest. Yes, he was after your sex, like they all were – but now that he’d had it, he was still here. And it terrified you, what you would do to make sure he stayed forever.
König returned, carrying the warlock’s body over his shoulder, unbothered by the blood that stained his back. You watched as he laid the corpse on the riverbank; he had your knife in his hand; he would have used his, not wanting to spoil any of your things with this worthless man’s blood – but he wasn’t sure if there was some sort of ritualistic power in your blade that made it better for the job. He began skillfully slicing and carving away at the greyish skin on the chest. His eyes held no abhorrence to what he was doing, only a trained keenness and observance as the blade peeled away the layer of flesh. He cracked open the rib bones and sifted through the other, useless organs with precision, carefully cutting the arteries and veins to separate the heart from the body.
He was much cleaner with the procedure than you. Typically, you’d be digging your fingers into the stab wound, ripping and tearing skin back, tugging at the ribs with frustrated snarls and grabbing fistfuls of organs before tossing them onto the surrounding earth.
Maybe, since König would be sticking around, you could learn a thing or two from him.
He slowly cupped the heart, pulling it from the chest cavity and inspecting his work. He then glanced around at the forest floor, before picking up two, decently large, wet leaves and wrapping them around the organ. He stood and walked back to where you sat, placing the wad of tissue into your palms. The leaves kept the blood from staining your fingers, which were still tinged a faint purple from the berries before.
“Does this please you, Herzblatt?” he asked, looking affectionately into your eyes.
Your lips turned down into a pout. Here you were, thinking you had the upper hand on this massive, devoted giant; yet, despite not knowing exactly what he had said in his native tongue, you knew he was trying to match your level of power in this new dynamic. Even so, you didn’t find the challenge insulting – only flattering, in some twisted way. You huffed through your nose, placing the wrapped heart into your lap. “Good enough. It will do.”
König chuckled and smiled for the first time that night, realizing that your bite had lessened quite a bit, now that you had decided against killing him. He stood back up and took a few steps back.
“I will wash my hands, then I will come back for you. Wait here.” He began walking back towards the bank.
“Wash yourself a few paces before the tree.” You said, and he briefly paused to listen to you. “Before the water hits the roots. He needs to drink, again.”
König was confused by your request, as he watched you stand and grab your basket, placing the warlock’s heart into it. You pulled clumps of wet dirt and leaves, murmuring foreign words into each handful before packing it over the organ. An icy blanket crept over the inside of the basket, crackling as it froze the contents.
He didn’t understand what you meant by the tree needing to drink – aren’t the roots submerged in the water enough as it was? Nevertheless, he obliged, and knelt by the creek, where the water rushed downstream and wove through the twisted wires at the tree’s base.
As he washed his hands, he snuck a glance back at you as you stood above the wicker basket that rested near the firepit; you were deep in thought, chewing your lip and brow furrowed as you hugged yourself. The night was cold, and your nipples were still perked up in the chilly wind. As he watched you move towards the bank a good distance from him, cupping handfuls of the cold water and scrubbing the blood from your skin, König silently made you a promise to warm you up tonight – he wanted to ravage your body again, make your voice hoarse and cracked with each orgasm he would pull from your body, but he figured that you deserved a deep, restful sleep after the day’s events. As he observed the bruising handprint around your throat from where he sat, he decided that he would settle for curling in close to you on the sleeping pile, and his body heat would be enough for tonight.
Suddenly, there was a groan – a heavy, long, tired sound that rumbled through the air. König’s head turned towards the sturdy oak where the noise came from, watching as the branches ever so slightly twitched and creaked. The red, vein-like lines that snaked across the bark now undulated and pulsed with life. His eyes fell to the creek at the tree’s base, and a slight fear stirred within his chest: the crimson cloud of the blood he had washed from his arms and hands had pooled by the tree, never making it further downstream. The roots sucked the colored liquid through the water, reaching out and trembling as they drank greedily.
The hairs on the back of his neck raised. He was overwhelmed with the realization that he was knelt next to something old, yet very much alive. It felt like the tree was observing König just as much as he was staring at the being. A dull buzzing echoed in the back of his mind, and if he focused hard enough, he thought he could hear a voice. The words were whispered, then hissed, though he couldn’t understand them. He strained to decipher the cadence, his fingertips gracing the surface of the water. His eyes landed on the roots as they sucked up the last of the red-tinged cloud from the creek.
Thank you, thank you, thank you-
“He doesn’t like being stared at.”
König nearly jumped out of his skin when your hand touched his shoulder. He looked back to find you standing behind him, skin glistening with water from the creek, watching him with a gentle smirk. You ran your hand down his pectorals, leaning over him to place a kiss to his scalp.
Just as he was thinking how unusually affectionate the gesture was, you ran your other hand through his hair, before locking your fingers into it and yanking his head back. He grunted from the pain and let out a wince as you pulled your fingers tighter, leaning your head down and pressing your cheek next to his. Your lips softly graced the skin there, and he could feel his blood already making its course back down to his cock.
“Make yourself useful, hunter,” you whispered against him, “and keep me warm tonight.”
You released his hair with a shove, making him brace himself against the cold earth. He turned his head to watch you with an indignant frown as you made your way back into the hut, the door clanging shut behind you.
No lock, no windows, no foundation… where would he start? Would you prefer your cottage backed up against the hill, where your current, collapsing hut was? Or would you prefer it in the middle of the clearing, with several yards of even ground surrounding it? With the right tools, he would be able to stain your windows, if you so wished to have the sun casting iridescent shades onto the walls of your home. He would still be able to return to the town, even if you wouldn’t, as long as no one was suspicious of the warlock’s disappearance after his meeting with him. Maybe you would realize that he’s more than just a cock to fuck, although he wouldn’t mind if that’s all you cared to use him for. He’d happily give it to you.
He sighed, running a hand down his face, and then stood up. As he walked back to the hut, he told himself that he would start by gathering wood. Whatever dry logs could be salvaged before winter came in, he would store for later and use to build your garden boxes before spring comes in. Then, he would start working on the foundation, after asking you where you wanted your new home to be placed. Hopefully, you would give him a real answer, and not laugh at him and tell him to sit down, calling him an oaf and odd for trying to improve your life at all.
He entered the hut, eyes narrowing as the doar groaned and squeaked. Maybe he’d start by oiling those hinges.