The Full Moon Breeding Club novel · Chapter 9 of 24
Chapter 9: The Cellar
The cellar door was in the floor of the lodge kitchen, under a braided rug.
Eero lifted the rug and the trapdoor under it, and a breath of cold stone air came up the stairs.
It was Friday night.
The house had gone quiet.
He went down first with a lantern, and I followed him with my scarf wound three times around my neck.
At the bottom of the steps, he set the lantern on a shelf and stood very still.
The cellar was one long low room with a vaulted ceiling and a dirt-packed stone floor.
There was an iron cot against the far wall, with a grey wool blanket folded at the foot.
Above the cot, bolted into the stone at shoulder height, hung a chain.
It was thick, black, as long as my arm and then some, and it ended in two leather cuffs.
The leather was dark and worn, and shaped, I saw with a horrible slow understanding, by wrists.
"This is it," Eero said.
I walked across the floor.
I put my hand on the chain.
It was cold and heavy, and the links were smooth where they had been rubbed over and over by someone moving.
"How many nights?" I said.
"Seventy-two. From nineteen to twenty-five."
"And then?"
"I came down on my own." His voice was dry. "It was easier than watching them do it."
I turned around.
He stood by the stairs with his arms hanging.
He looked like a boy and like a mountain, both at once.
"Come here," I said.
He crossed the room.
I took his face in my hands and kissed him, slowly, with my whole mouth.
He kissed me back.
I undid his coat and his flannel shirt, one button at a time, with the lantern light moving over us.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of The Full Moon Breeding Club are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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