Chapter 6 A Wrong Choice

• My lips whitened. “You wouldn’t. You’re bluffing!”
• “I absolutely will.”
• “No.” I shook my head vehemently. My voice hardening. “You’ve had me all you will. You’ll not keep me your hostage, warming your bed.”
• “Funny you should say that.” He smiled. “I was just thinking on keeping you my captive.
• “For just that reason.” He brushed a finger down the tip of my nose. But the threat was unmistakable.
• “You’re a despicable cad.” I spat on his overcoat.
• “Do you see!” Mathis turned and gestured to the spittle seeping down his shirt. “She’s still possessed by the witch. She told me this one commands her.”
• He turned on Udora.
• “What?” Udora blinked in horror. “But I’m not a witch! I don’t command Saria. If anything, she tells me about!”
• "It’s true!" I cried. Trying to defend her.
• Mathis gave a whistle that echoed through the corridors and foyer of WitchFall.
• Six large men were summoned by the call.
• Mathis nodded toward Udora. Linking his hands behind his back as though he were hapless man, and not the one commanding whatever horrible fate he was condemning her to.
• “No. No! Me! I’m the witch!” I shouted as I clawed at his sleeve. Shouting loud enough I could get everyone’s attention.
• Mathis looked at the Mayor. “Don’t listen to it. It’s that one's witchery.”
• He nodded toward Udora meaningfully. "I’ll correct her."
• "And," Without looking at me, he outstretched his arm sideways and pointed his finger at me. "free this one."
• “Please don’t do this!” I begged Mathis.
• “You had your chance.” He said under his breath. His head swinging quickly to look at me and for a moment, his eyes flashed gold, absent a pupil.
• Glinting like a coin.
• ***
• Four of the men dragged a sobbing Udora off.
• Two of them grabbed me and hauled me across the foyer and out the front door behind Mayor Marx. They forced me into the Mayor’s carriage and closed the door.
• I could still hear Udora shouting from inside, but her voice was fading as they took her down to the dungeons.
• No.
• But before I could rip open the door, the Mayor shouted for the driver to go. The Mayor hung onto my arms with both hands, to keep me from bailing out the door to go save Udora.
• I can't leave her in there!
• As the lanterns of the drive faded one after another, I peered back at the house and saw in the wide double windows of the Dining Room, Mathis' silhouette standing outlined there, with the curtain pushed aside. His younger form readily apparent as he waved stiltedly at me.
• Like puppets I had seen in tiny booths.
• A taunting goodbye.
• ***
• I could think of nothing but Udora.
• Wondering what he was doing to her.
• What’s happening to her right now?
• What if some master of torture is carving her up? Or Mathis himself is tormenting her.
• I thought about going back in the dead of night and trying to kill him in his big damn fortress. But I had no idea how to get him to let me in and no idea how to get to Udora.
• My father must’ve guessed what I would do because he was keeping me locked in my room. He’d nailed boards over the window and put a padlock on the door to my room.
• “Pa!” I banged on the door. “We have to go up there. We have to get her out.”
• “We can’t Sweetheart.” He called through the door. “You’re still under her witchery. Your choices are not sound!”
• “She was never the witch! He is!”
• “You’re bespelled, Daughter.”
• “Please! We have to get to her!”
• “No, Saria!” He said.
• ***
• It’d been nearly a sevennight when finally, I was permitted to leave the house to go the trader’s market. And that was only because I’d subsided into utter silence. So, they thought I was back to sound mind.
• Instead, I was utterly hollow. Feeling like I’d forsaken my best friend. I wandered the booths, hearing people calling as they tried to huck their wares but barely registering they spoke. So lost in my miserable thoughts.
• Why didn’t I just agree to go to his bed?
• I could’ve sharpened a twig and stabbed him in the throat for his crimes. I chided myself.
• “Feeling remorseful, are we?” A tanned hand reached around me to grab an apple from the booth before me.
• I knew that hand. Framed by the frilled white sleeve creeping from beneath a blue velvet overcoat.
• “I hate you.” I whispered.
• “Tsk. Tsk.” He said. “What if I told you I haven’t touched the girl?”
• I rounded on him. “Then I’d ask who you had do it for you?”
• He gave me a thoughtful look. Lifting a sleek black brow. “Clever one, aren’t you?”
• He leaned close enough his nose nearly brushed mine. “But the answer would still be that no one has touched her. She’s sat in my dungeons, weeping like a child who’s lost their favorite toy.”
• “I feel like that’s a better description of you.”
• “I haven’t had my hands on my favorite toy in awhile.” His implication was clear.
• He means me.
• I glared up at him. Assessing his expression. But his face was unreadable. As always.
• I heard a coin click to the counter behind me, and knew he was sliding it over to the owner for the fruit.
• It appeared today that he wasn’t wearing his old man disguise atall. His jaw was chiseled. The high cheekbones arrowing to a full, mobile mouth.
• “Not even hiding what you are today?”
• His perfect squared teeth sunk into the apple. “You’re the only one that can see me.”
• He flashed a grin and slitted dimples appeared, framing the corners of his mouth. Making him look even more devious.
• Yet, not nearly doing him justice. I now hated the mere sight of him.
• I wanted to slap those perfect features so hard, that powdered wig fell off his head.
• “Try it.” He offered. Reading my thoughts on my furious face.
• I reared back my hand to do just that.
• He blinked a moment too long and all motion in the market stopped. I suddenly felt like I was spinning.
• I shook my head against the dizziness. I felt his hands gripping my shoulders and heard the thunk of the apple hitting the ground.
• ***
• Everyone seemed to be frozen. Every spinning glance I got of them, they were utterly unmoving. Soon I was twirling in the trees and when I stopped, I was facing only him in the dark grove.
• Oh, no.
• “So, let us discuss something.” He guided me to sit down.
• I stumbled once and managed to land on the log he aimed me toward. I put a palm to my forehead and felt myself sweating and disoriented. “You used magic on me.”
• “Yes, I did.”
• “Why?"
• "To get you here. Alone.” He gestured around. "I'd think that readily apparent."
• “What do you want, Mathis?”
• “You know very well what I want. But let’s discuss how it’s going to go. You’re a spirited, defiant creature. I admire that. But when I have you, I want you obedient. Doing as I command.”
• “That’ll never happen.” I was trying to focus on the gap in the trees. Wondering if I could make it out of these woods once in a normal state, now that I somewhat knew the way.
• No. I don’t know it well enough. And it’s unlikely I can walk right now. I felt as I once had, when I’d been drugged with herbs as a child. It'd been because I was in great pain from breaking my arm.
• “Please understand,” He corrected. “it will. One way or the other. But I’d rather do it the easier way then deal with you constantly fighting me.”
• “You had my friend hauled down to your dungeons for God knows what to happen to her.”
• “But not your father and mother-yet.”
• I gave him a shocked look.
• “Oh, yes. They’re next on my list.” He said tonelessly. Standing over me with a confident aura.
• “I’m not going to your bed.”
• “You are.”
• I shook my head. Wiping more sweat from my brow.
• He gave me a pensive study as he sat next to me. “How about this then. How would you like to see your friend? See if I’m lying?”
• “In the dungeons?”
• “Why yes…Of course.” He smiled evilly.
• Something wasn’t right. But the need to see Udora, to try and get her out, overwhelmed that feeling.
• “Yes, I’ll go.”
• “Good…” He purred.