Free Virgin Sacrifice: Bred to the Beast by Fannie Tucker

Virgin Sacrifice: Bred to the Beast
    By Fannie Tucker
    Copyright 2012 Fannie Tucker
    Kindle Edition
    ***
    A stiff gust blasted through the dark vale, lifting the dead leaves in whirlwinds that rustled through the forest like ghosts.  The sun still stood above the high ridge to the west, and dim light filtered through bare branches to leave mottled shadows on the deadfall.  Anja's basket was only half-full of the dark truffles she'd come to find, but she hurried to the trail.  She wanted to get back to the village of Krall well before dark.  Somewhere in the woods, an owl hooted.  Old women in the village claimed that hearing an owl during daylight meant bad luck.  It's just an owl, Anja told herself, but she suppressed a shiver and quickened her step.
    Anja felt a prickle along her shoulder blades, as though someone was watching her.  She spun around to peer back into the trees, sharp blue eyes searching.  Nothing moved except a few dead leaves that skittered along the ground.  Anja clutched her basket and lengthened her stride, but she didn't feel comfortable even when she passed the first of the outlying farms that surrounded the village.
    Tall trees crowded the edge of a field where brown stalks lay crumpled in the black soil.  A stone farmhouse sat back from the road, with shutters closed and doors shut tight.  Nothing moved in the yard; even the livestock were already hidden away.  This time of year made people nervous, and with a Sending so long overdue, no one wanted to be caught outside at night.
    Harvest was almost over, and the chill of early winter had left its morning frost on the dead grass two days running now.  It had been almost twenty years since the last Sending, and for Anja and the other girls her age, the dread would last right up until the first snows fell.  Right up until another girl was chosen, in fact.
    For as long as the people of Krall could remember, a Sending had happened once every generation.  Girls who had come of age would draw tokens from a clay jar.  She who drew the red token would journey into the Howling Ravine high on the slopes above the village, to the lair of the Beast.
    The Krall folk rarely spoke of the Sending, except to remind young girls of a certain age that it was a high honor to be chosen, but their eyes slid away worriedly to glance up at the mountain.
    Children spoke more plainly, and Anja had heard whispers of the Beast since she was a little girl.  It was said that the Beast was twenty feet tall, and he feasted on the virgins sent by Krall, then slept on a bed of their bones in the back of a dark cave on the mountainside.
    Anja knew that couldn't be true.  Before she was born, Lucas Salkar's mother Lena had drawn the red token at the last Sending, and she had returned to the village and married a man from the lowlands.  If she was a bit quiet, if she spent entirely too much time alone on the sprawling Salkar farm at the edge of the village and stared into space when you spoke to her, what of it?  Lucas was a fine young man, strong and handsome, and already the best hunter in the village.
    Anja blushed at the thought of her betrothed, with his broad shoulders and sharp, intelligent eyes.  The Village Elders wouldn't allow them to marry until spring, and she prayed that the snows would fall soon, and another year would pass without a Sending.  Anja and Lucas would be married by the next Harvest, and no one could make her draw a token then.
    Of course, Anja didn't deny that the Sending protected the village, somehow.  In the lowlands, sheep and cattle regularly disappeared, carried off in the night.  Everyone said it was wolves, but wolves ate their kills where they fell.  The farms closer to Krall never had problems with the so-called wolves, even this close to the forest.
    On the village square, a farm wife might give her neighbor a firm nod and call the Sending was a harmless tradition that brought good fortune.  But at night, children would