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I nod. “Everything after that was just…shadows. Anger. Hunger…”

“What happened to your family?” she asks in a small voice.

I give my head a shake. I can’t admit it, even to her, even though, somehow, I know she would understand.

Clearing my throat, I get to my feet. “I better go back to my house,” I tell her. “Another villager might stop by with more bread.”

She blinks at me. “You’re leaving me again?”

I’m about to tell her yes and walk away, but I remember her hands are undone. Despite what I just confided in her, the intimacy between us isn’t real. She is still my prisoner, my captive, my pet, and she will do all she can to escape.

Even kill me if she has to, I think. I’m even more glad I didn’t tell her how.

I pick up the rope and stand over her, and she flinches, backing up as if trying to get away.

“I’m sorry,” I say, reaching for her arms. She tries to yank them out of my grasp, but my hands are large, my grip strong.

“No, you’re not,” she cries out softly, still fighting me.

“I am sorry,” I snap, quickly wrapping the rope around one wrist before pushing her over on her stomach and tying her hands behind her back. “I wish I wasn’t this way, but I am. I’ve done far worse than what I’m doing to you. Perhaps you should try to be a little grateful.”

“Grateful?” she yells through her ruined voice. “Grateful that you keep me here to use for whatever you want?”

I flip her back over and lean over her, grabbing her chin between my fingers. “Don’t act like you’re not trying to use me too.”

“Use you for what?”

“A stepping stone for what you really want.”

“And what’s that?”

I press my lips together in a grunt. That’s the problem: I don’t know what she really wants, but it’s something.

And it’s sure as hell not me.

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” I tell her, letting go of her face and straightening back up. “Bring you some water so you don’t have to drink the church’s wine. More food if you’re hungry. Perhaps even a proper bed.”

I leave her there on the floor, on a pile of dresses that will probably never see the light of day, making sure to lock the door after me.

The evening is darker than sin as I step out of the church and walk toward my cottage. The lone candle in the window would look inviting to anyone else but me. The fact is, I don’t want to be with my thoughts. I want to be in the back room with her, even if I’m telling her things no one but Abe would know. But that’s all the more reason I must be alone.

Suddenly, I sniff an unwelcome scent in the air.

I’m not alone after all.

“Father Aragon.”

I turn to see one of the soldiers walking past the church and coming toward me, the same suspicious one I dealt with after Larimar’s attack on the fishermen.

“What is it, son?” I ask as a caring priest would, pressing my palms together as if in prayer.

“You’ve been quite busy these nights,” the soldier says, stopping a few feet away. “Always coming and going into the church.”

How damn observant of him.

“God is active at all hours of the night,” I tell him with my most patient smile. “I don’t take time off from my mission.”

The soldier’s eyes are cold, and I wonder if mine look the same.