“What’s so special about it? Drink it yourself, maybe then I’ll drink too.”
Then suddenly, his tone changed.
He raised his voice, sharp, furious.
“Oh, because I’m begging you? Who do you think you are? You must drink it!”
For the first time, I saw real anger in his eyes.
I leaned back a little. “So now it’s a must?”
“Yes!” he barked. “Take this and drink now! Don’t waste my time!”
I shook my head slowly. “Then I’m leaving this house. Right now.”
He laughed, a cold, wicked laugh.
“Leave? And go where? Orphan like you, no family, no home. I made you who you are. Marrying you was a favor. You’ll do what I say, when I say it.”
I opened my mouth, but no words came out.
The pain of remembering my parents… the loneliness… the struggle growing up… it broke me.
Tears rolled down my face.
I looked up at him and said, trembling,
“Yes, I’m an orphan. Call me whatever you want. But if man fails me, God never will.”
He stared, but before he could speak, a knock came at the door.
The room went silent.
His hand trembled, and the tea spilled thick, dark, dripping slowly down the cup.
I saw it. My stomach turned.
Was this really what I’d been drinking all along?
The knock came again, softer this time.
I steadied my voice. “Yes, hold on, I’m coming.”
I moved toward the door.
He shouted, “No! Don’t open it!”
The knock came once more, slow, deliberate… almost careful.
Panic filled his face.
“I said don’t open the door!” he yelled.
But I didn’t care anymore.
I reached for the handle.
I turned the handle.
My husband lunged forward as if to stop me—but he was too late.
The door opened with a soft creak.
Standing on the porch was an old woman, thin, pale, with long silver hair braided down her back. Her eyes were unnaturally bright… almost glowing.
She looked straight at me.
Then her gaze dropped to my husband behind me.
He collapsed to his knees.
The woman’s voice was soft but carried a strange echo.
“Child… you must stop drinking what does not belong to you.”
My breath caught. “Who… who are you?”
She didn’t answer me. Instead, she held out her trembling hand.
Resting on her palm was a small empty pouch, stained dark red.
My husband let out a strangled cry.
“I–I paid you! I did everything you said!”
The woman shook her head sadly.
“I told you… the blood tea is not meant to bind love. Only to return what was stolen.”
I felt cold all over.
Blood tea.
Blood.
The woman turned to me again.
“You have drunk enough. Any more… and your soul would not return.”
I stepped backward, dizzy, horrified.
My husband crawled toward her, desperate.
“Please! One more month! She’ll stay with me, right? She’ll never leave—”
The woman’s eyes hardened.
“That is not love. That is captivity.”
Lightning cracked somewhere in the distance.
She touched his forehead with one finger.
He screamed—louder than I had ever heard—then collapsed, motionless.
The woman looked at me one final time.
“Go. Leave this place tonight.”
And just like that, she turned and walked into the darkness, her figure fading like smoke.
My husband lay on the floor, breathing but unconscious.
The cup rolled beside him, spilling what was left of the tea— thicker now, black-red, like something that should never have been inside a human body.
I grabbed my keys.
My knees trembled.
But I walked out the door.
I never looked back.
And to this day… when I smell anything warm and faintly sweet at midnight…
my stomach turns, because I know now— love never needed a tea that came from the hands of a stranger in the dark.
