Page 7 of The Krampus' Queen
Mouth hanging, I try to stare up into his eyes. A hint of his face lurks below, but I can’t make out much. Do I really want to sign up for punishment from a man I can’t even see?
“Yes?” slips out of me. As it does, my lungs plummet, reminding me how to breathe. I suck the air in hard, but it comes back out in spurts. He stares down at me, a calm hand raised as if he’s about to cup my chin.
Before he touches me, he leans back. Those hooves stomp on the floor as he turns and walks back toward the darkness. On the edge of shadow and light, he pauses. “That’s who I am,” he says. “I’m punishment.”
The robe plummets from his body, and my jaw goes with it.
Gray, glistening skin.Somany muscles. A line of black fur curving over the top of his ass. That ass! A tail covered in the same fur. The end swishes, revealing gold hoops pierced through the white tip. I try to watch, but my eyes keep going back to his ass. Oh fuck me, it’s so round but also defined. I could bounce a steel safe off of that thing, and it’d bean me in the head.
Just as I’m trying to figure out how to climb over and take a bite of his apple bottom, he pivots his head. Nearly everything is left in the shadows, but I catch the tip of his nose. His eye glows from the side as he declares, “But most know me as…” He grins wickedly and his tongue curls out. Then it keeps going and going, and…Holy shit!
With a nimble twelve-inches wagging in the air, he declares, “Krampus.”
My body shuts down as the monster, this Krampus, throws open the door and walks away. All the while, he swishes his tail, the gold hoops jangling like a soft carol of bells.
CHAPTER 4
“WAIT A MINUTE.” I drop my foot off of the bed, but a bone-breaking cold zaps up my leg. The clopping hooves vanish into the distance. Without thinking, I wrap one of the furs around my shoulders and speed after him. “Who or what’s a Krampus?”
He doesn’t have a care, brazenly parading down a hallway bare-assed. The tail swishes like a teasing metronome, almost but never quite smacking into the walls. I get a couple of steps out of the bedroom before my mind splats. The halls are all wood. Not that printed wallpaper designed to look like wood. No, this is the real stuff.
Holy shit is it the real stuff. Every square inch of the walls are carved with hyper realistic animals. Herds of deer—with antlers rising to the heavens—frolic between pines. Tiny villages are nestled at the foot of a mountain. Wooden smoke pours from their chimneys. Archways stretch between the walls every ten or so feet. Each one is carved so the scene on the wall carries over to the other side. Fish leap in streams. Waterfalls cascade down from the ceiling. It’s magnificent and terrifying.
“I already told you.”
That shot of espresso voice tears me from my gawking. I catch sight of his black hair vanishing down a staircase at the end of the hall. Hitching up the fur that’s fallen past my ankles I give chase. “Well, do it again,” I shout.
He slips around the curve of the staircase just as I hit the first step. “Do you know of Saint Nicholas?”
“What? Santa Claus? Jolly old fat man? Wears red? Gives presents to the good kids and coal to the naughty?” I grab onto the railing embedded with veins of gold and silver. It’s so smooth, I swear it moisturizes my palm as I chase down. The stairs twist in a spiral. As I go, stones of marble and granite overtake the wood like a mountain consuming a forest. The smooth white becomes gray, then finally an onyx black.
My toes touch the ground floor and heat seeps up through them to the point of pain. Yelping, I leap back to the stairs. Down here everything’s obsidian. Small flecks of copper dance through the black floor and walls. I try to crane my head back to see the ceiling, but it’s fallen into shadow.
The Krampus has stopped in front of me. As hard as I try to not stare, my eyes take in the acres of hard muscle towering above me. All of it is very naked, and starting to glisten like hard, sculpted snow. I gulp, realizing that I’m baking under the fur. Needing a breath, I lower it off of my shoulders.
A little jingle dances in the air as Krampus turns his head. The bonfire torchlight catches on three gold hoops in his ear. I scurry to cover myself again, but he doesn’t fully look back. “I am much like Saint Nick.”
I’m not one to question the eight-foot-tall creature on hooves, but I can see his bare ass. There doesn’t look to be an ounce of fat on him. And he doesn’t strike me as jolly…unless one can be menacingly jolly.
“I punish the wicked.” At the final word, his tongue flicks out like a serpent’s.
“And reward the good?” I ask.
Krampus scratches his chin. “You live, do you not?”
“Uh, I think so.” I look down as if that can prove my state of aliveness.
“Is there any greater reward than life?” He points to a smaller door on the right, not much more than six feet tall. It’s painted red with white trim curving above the top. “Your exit is through there.”
With that final cryptic remark, he takes off toward a huge set of doors. They look like they were stolen from a medieval castle. Of course, for all I know, I’m in a castle right now. Just hopefully not one made out of bones.
“Wait!”
He pauses. “You do so love that word.”
“I don’t understand. You kidnapped me.”
He grumbles at that word.
