Ravished by a Viking (9 page)

Baraq sidled up next to her. “Did you know?”

“Did I know what?” she asked dully.

“That the bounty hunters took a prince?” he hissed.

Affronted, she snarled, “Of course not. I don’t even know whether they’re aware that they did. All I knew was the Consortium wanted Vikings.” She gave him a sideways glare. “And don’t you dare say I told you so.”

“You knew it wasn’t an honorable cause. You should have filed a request of refusal for the mission.”

Honora stiffened and looked away, sorry she’d ever told him what she’d seen inside the cargo bay. “I’ve never refused an order.”

“And look what it got you.” He slipped a hand around her arm and forced her around to look at him. “Have you considered that’s why they gave you this task? Because you wouldn’t question it?”

She wrestled her arm free. “You overstep yourself, Baraq.”

“Yeah, I’m your goon, your security chief.” He leaned his head close. “And I fuck you occasionally, but you never really hear or see me, do you?”

Heat swept her cheeks. She cast her gaze toward Dagr, who once again was staring back from too far away to know what precisely was being said, thank the stars. A frown darkened his expression as he glanced from her to Baraq.

Taking heed of Dagr’s silent warning, Baraq dropped his hand away. “He seems an honorable man,” he said quietly, “but it doesn’t mean that every one of us isn’t expendable. And I wouldn’t blame him.”

“I wouldn’t either,” she murmured.

“You!” Dagr gestured to Baraq. “The hand truck is yours. When the portal opens, you will pull it through and take it into the hold.”

The hand truck he gestured toward held two large containers of ore. Dagr’s steady gaze dared Baraq to say he couldn’t manage the feat.

“Why so much?” Honora asked while Baraq fisted his hands and strode toward the wheeled sled.

Dagr didn’t acknowledge her with a glance or word. A large redheaded Viking had motioned to him, then strode to Dagr and grasped his forearm, leaning in to whisper in his ear.

Dagr’s brows pressed together in a furious scowl, and he nodded. He eyed the locator clip attached to his fur vest. “We still have thirty minutes before Cyrus retrieves us.” He stomped away.

Honora gave Baraq a quick glance before following, curious about what had annoyed Dagr now.

He left the cavern and strode through a long ice-block corridor that opened into a barracks of sorts, one dug out of ice and lined with skins.
Gods, they are a primitive bunch.

A group of Vikings, all dressed in thick, deep-space gear but wearing animal-fur hats atop their long hair, was gathered around a bleacher of stairs that led down toward a large fire pit. At the bottom step sat the female warrior, her arms crossed over her chest and her expression as angry and deadly as any Dagr had ever leveled at Honora.

“Why isn’t she strapped inside a snow-eater and on her way back to Skuldelev?” Dagr asked the men circled around the female.

“She disabled it,” the older, redheaded man said, making a face. “She had to have done it when she said she needed to use the privy. I watched for her, I swear, but never saw her come around the front of the vehicle.”

Dagr ground his teeth. “Get another.”

The redhead blushed. “All three engines have been tampered with, milord.”

Dagr’s fists bunched at his sides. “Woman!” he bit out, staring at the smirk growing on the female warrior’s face. “It doesn’t matter how many times you sabotage the vehicles. You are not returning to the ship. I would have you safe and out of trouble.”

She pushed off the bench and faced Dagr, hands braced on her hips. “But you won’t be here to keep watch over me. Do you really think any of these men can keep me imprisoned?”

Dagr glared down his nose. “I could have you tossed into the dungeon.”

The woman snorted, her lip curled higher. “You don’t think I couldn’t find a way out, couldn’t prey on one of your men, lull him into thinking I am harmless and then escaping?”

“To what object?” Dagr asked, raking a hand through his hair and seeming at the end of his patience.

“You have something here worth stealing.
Worth warring over.
If you do not take me with you, I will tell my father about your machine.”

Dagr’s teeth ground again and a pulse ticked beside one eye.

Honora watched wide-eyed as the woman stood toe-to-toe with the Viking king and didn’t flinch once.

Baraq blew a silent whistle beside her.

At the sound, Honora turned to find his gaze glued to the warrior-woman.

“Princess, we haven’t time for this,” Dagr growled.

Honora raised her brows at her address. Another noble. Fuck.

“’Tis the truth, we don’t,” the princess said.

The two Viking nobles stood nose to nose, their backs unbowing and their faces rigid with determination. Honora felt a twinge of jealousy for the other woman’s courage and for the fact Dagr seemed impressed as well.

His scowl cleared. His gaze swept the woman from head to foot before he grunted in disgust. “You’ll return to the ship.”

The warrior-woman smiled.

Dagr shook his head, his jaw tightening again. His furious gaze left the blonde, and then landed on Honora. “You will come with me,
now
.”

Honora jerked at the intent in his voice, then gave Baraq a quick, worried glance.

“Careful,” he whispered.

She followed Dagr as he stomped through the sleeping quarters of the barracks, noting the sparse, primitive conditions. Stone floors, ice-block walls and ceilings, animal skins lining the walls, except for the occasional square cut to allow natural light to beam through the ice walls.

Dagr stopped abruptly beside a small, curtained sleeping room and pushed her inside. He flipped the curtain closed, then turned slowly toward her, his dark brows lowered into a fierce, frightening scowl. “Strip.”

Honora’s eyes widened. “It’s damp and cold in here.”

Dagr kicked the cover from the fire pit at the center of the room and warm light blazed from the bottom. He took a step closer. “Now.”

She backed away, but there wasn’t anywhere to go except backward to the narrow shelf-bed.

He opened his belt and shoved down his trousers, freeing his cock, which was already hard and thick.

“Anyone walking by will know what we do,” she whispered, staring at his erection.

“They already know. Are you worried your guardian will know?”

Footsteps passed the curtain, drawing her gaze. “Are you talking about Baraq—” She closed her mouth. Just the mention of her security chief caused Dagr’s jaw to flex. “We haven’t time for this,” she said, trying another tack.

“We have just enough time for me. Whether you find your pleasure depends on how much longer you argue.”

She should have been furious, should have cringed against the thought of fucking in such a crude place with men walking past them just feet away.

Instead, the sensual heat that hadn’t cooled since he’d taken her earlier flared brighter. The fierce intensity of his glare was really all it took. Nothing about Dagr was soft or easy. Nothing done in halves. He fucked the same way he fought—with every fiber of his will and body.

She removed her jacket and opened her trousers, then unzipped the skin-suit and pushed it down until the clothing pooled over the tops of her boots.

“That’s good enough,” he said. “Bend over the bed.”

She knelt, breathing hard, her upper body bared but unable to spread her legs very far apart. Cool air hit her pussy and she gasped.

Behind her, fingers found her opening, dipped inside, then retreated. His hot cock prodded her and pushed inward, crowding through her raw, inner tissues and causing her to hiss between her teeth.

Dagr’s fingers bit into her hips, but he held still. “I shouldn’t care that I cause you pain,” he said, his voice so tense it shook.

“Do you care?” she gasped, rolling her face into a clean but scratchy blanket. Even though he’d hurt her, her pussy released a flood of arousal, seeping around his cock to ease his way.

He didn’t answer, but a few moments later, he began moving slowly in and out, his cock gliding in silky, moist heat. His hands continued to hold her hips in a merciless grip.

Her breaths deepened; her sex melted all around his cock. She didn’t want to give him any response at all, but she was too aware of who held her, too excited because everything she’d learned about the man only increased her interest.

Already her body recognized his rule and surrendered, moistening her channel in honeyed welcome, rippling inside to caress his length and pull him deeper.

“How does it feel,” he said, his voice hoarse, “to know I fuck you in the place where your whore fucked my brother?”

She froze, dread cramping her belly. “What?”

“Your Outlander whore waited for him here,” he said, slamming deep. “She waited until he was naked and deep in her thrall. Then you transported them to your ship.” He slammed again, grunting with the effort and so deep he touched her cervix.

Honora hissed again, fisting the covers. “I never saw the prisoners arrive. My crew didn’t operate the transporter. Uh!” She sank her face into the bedding, biting her tongue because each stroke increased the friction building in her core. “My orders were to allow them secrecy,” she said breathlessly. “I didn’t know how the retrievals were accomplished.”

Dagr’s hands readjusted, cupping her ass and squeezing harder; then he hammered her again and again. “It was accomplished like this ... engaged in sex ... my brother too stupid with desire to care whether the sex-thrall acted oddly.”

He slowed his thrusts and lay over her back to whisper in her ear. “Do you think she even let him come before she activated the transporter? Should I let you find your pleasure,
Lady Captain
?”

Eight

Honora dragged in ragged breaths, trying to hold on to the conversation, knowing he was revealing something to her, knowing he wanted to punish her, but she was too close to the edge to really hear him.

“Don’t stop.” She gasped.

“I should stop. I should ring my cock and pull away now ... just to punish you. But I won’t because I can’t. Your pleasure is mine.” He slammed harder, slapping the skin of her bottom with his belly and groin.

Anyone in the barracks would hear them, but she was past caring. The sensations were too delicious, too powerful—like his strong, jarring strokes that crowded her channel to bursting.

“Dagr, gods, end it,” she cried out, bunching the blanket in her fists.

“Finger yourself,” he growled.

Her face sank into the bedding and her fingers rooted between her legs to circle on the hard little knot. The friction he built with his harsh thrusts and the coiling tension she drew with each frantic swirl had her arching, moaning, mindless while he hammered her pussy until at last she screamed.

When hot cum jetted inside her, she slumped beneath him, breathing hard, her nipples raw and itching from the blanket she’d writhed upon.

His breaths gusted against her neck, a jagged texture to them that she found faintly alarming. She wished for a kiss, a little softness after the harshness of this taking, so she was disappointed when Dagr pulled away, rising swiftly behind her.

“Dress.”

“Strip, dress,” she muttered with a wag of her head and pushed off the bed. She bent to grab her uniform from the floor and tugged it over her curves.

She went still when she noted the pallor of his face. His eyes glittered angrily as they swept the room. Bleakness that squeezed her heart entered his expression.

He’d lost his brother here. He’d wanted to punish one of those responsible, but she knew now he couldn’t be completely ruthless. At least not with her.

The leader of the Wolfskins could have taken his pleasure and been done. Could have humiliated her in untold ways. He could have strangled her and no one would blame him.

Instead, he’d allowed her pleasure, holding back until she came. Not that she thought for a second she really knew what was inside him or what kind of man he truly was. But she was beginning to learn.

Tugging the slide upward to close her suit, she wondered how she would have treated him if the roles had been reversed, but couldn’t imagine it. She had no family—only a father who had disgraced himself and whose memory she had sought to obliterate from the annals by being the best, the most loyal of officers.

In the end, her loyalty hadn’t been prized, hadn’t been respected. It had been turned on her. She’d been sacrificed, and for what?

“Are you ready?”

Lost for a moment, she glanced up, blinking, but firmed her mouth at his cold expression and nodded.

Back at the cavern entrance, Honora colored beneath Baraq’s knowing glare. He didn’t say a thing, just turned silently to follow Dagr into the cavern and bent to pick up the handle of the hand truck where it rested in the dirt.

At the time promised, the portal opened in the center of the cavern, growing from a small blue, two-dimensional circle and stretching outward. It lit up beside Dagr, the blue and white light so bright it blinded.

Honora squinted against it. Dagr waved her through. She glanced to Baraq, who gripped the handle of the hand truck with both hands behind him. He leaned forward, gritting his teeth, and dug his toes into the dirty, pulverized stone on the cave floor, pulling so hard muscles bulged across the tops of his shoulders, and his face reddened with the strain. But the dark scowl on his face said he wouldn’t be defeated.

He dug deeper and took a step forward, then another.

Honora glanced at Frakki and caught him watching Baraq, a reluctant smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. He noticed her stare and shrugged. “He would make a good Icelander.”

Honora shook her head. Men, no matter the race, were all the same. She stepped through the portal and onto the solid metal flooring in the hold of her ship.

A quick glance around told her all was well, all systems running along nicely. But her crewmen were still lined up in two rows to the side of the long cargo bay.

Baraq growled behind her, pulling the truck, his body bent toward the floor, but he didn’t stop until Dagr shouted, “You are clear.” He let go of the handle and stood, his chest heaving, head hanging.

Dagr strode up beside him and clapped his shoulder. Then he glanced behind him at the Viking princess. “Birget, come with me.”

Honora stiffened, an unwanted flash of jealousy causing a twinge inside her chest.

Baraq stared after the blond woman, still gasping for breath, then looked up at Honora. “Don’t lose sight of who he is and what he seeks. If he makes use of you, don’t let it confuse you into thinking you can earn his trust.”

“You think I don’t know it’s just sex?”

“Do you? I saw your face when you came back from the barracks. You looked shattered. Not an expression you ever wore after I had you.”

Frakki pushed at Baraq’s shoulder. “Move along. We need the portal cleared.”

Honora glanced back and saw that the men were being herded into the portal, blinking out as they passed. Her breath hitched in her chest. She couldn’t stand idly by and watch her people disappear.

“Why so many?” she asked, rushing to Frakki who stood to the side of the portal and watched her men file through.

Frakki pushed her behind him.

Her people filed by, white-faced, their gazes straight ahead and not meeting hers. After the last man passed through, the portal closed.

“Why aren’t Baraq and I going with them?” she asked Frakki.

Frakki didn’t answer her. He gave a wave to Cyrus, who still stood in the window of the transporter room.

Baraq grasped her forearm and pulled her away, walking her toward the ladder. He leaned in to whisper, “Dagr knows we’re smart enough to figure out that we don’t really have anything left to fight him for at this point. And he needs us to help run this ship. Cyrus has likely told him how few of us are really needed to navigate and keep basic systems running. We, the ones left behind, will be doing the grunt work.”

Honora inhaled. “The air stinks here. He was right to move the men off. Atmospherics couldn’t wash the air fast enough to accommodate everyone.”

Baraq grunted. “Their world. It’s harsh. But you’re right. It smelled good.” He placed his hand at the small of her back, and gave her a look that dared her to reprimand him.

She’d never have allowed the familiarity in public before, but she wasn’t the captain anymore, and she didn’t know what role she could assume. Baraq and she were in the same boat, and it was nice to share the ride with a friend, with someone she could trust.

The next time Eirik awoke, clothes were tossed at him through the bars.

“Dress quickly,” Fatin said, her words clipped.

The clothes would certainly help ward off the chill, but he didn’t like the greedy way her gaze ate him up when he shoved back the blanket.

He also didn’t like the way his cock stirred, less disgusted with her interest than big Eirik was. “So she is beautiful,” he muttered, staring at his cock, “but she is also a psychotic bitch.”

Fatin’s laughter was low and dirty. “Hurry. And don’t worry about your cock. He’s just what I want.”

A chill bit his spine, but he grabbed the clothes as he scanned the area. She was armed this time ... She was going to open the door of his cage.

As though she read his mind, she smirked. “This weapon will drop you like a stone,” she said, bracing an elbow at her hip to raise the nozzle of the weapon skyward. “And I do know how to use it. I’d just hate wasting prime procreational material,” she said, gazing at his cock again.

He pulled the trousers she’d provided over his hips. They were gathered at the waist rather than buttoned or tied, for ease of removal, he guessed. He pulled the knit shirt over his head, and before he’d finished tugging it to his hips, the gate of his cage clicked and creaked open.

Fatin waved him out and gestured for him to walk toward the other end of the cargo bay.

His bare feet padded on cool metal flooring. He walked past other cages, catching glimpses of the men with whom he hadn’t had a chance to speak and share intelligence because he’d been unconscious so long. They didn’t meet his gaze, which worried him.

This cargo hold was smaller, dirtier than the one he’d originally woken inside. The air smelled like petroleum and sulfur. Had they been transporting crude explosives?

The nozzle of her stun rifle poked at his back. “Turn right at the end of the walkway.”

Eirik studied his surroundings, committing them to memory. If he got the chance to stage a mutiny, he’d need to know everything he could about this ship.

He turned right into a brightly lit, sterile room. A middle-aged woman in a white apron and gloves waited there, her eyes widening as they slid over his frame. “You weren’t kidding when you said he was a prize. Get him into the stocks.”

Fatin poked at his back, but he dug in his heels. He saw the contraption the woman meant and understood its use. “I will not,” he gritted out furiously.

Fatin walked around him. “You will, or Miriam there will stick you again.”

He cast a glance at the other woman. She held a long stick with a syringe at the end, much like the sticks his own people used when they conducted studies of the animals in the subterranean forests. No doubt the syringe contained a sedative.

“Do you really want to lose more days?” Fatin said softly.

Eirik lifted his upper lip in a snarl, but dragged his feet on the ground as he headed toward the stocks. Scowling to let her know how much he hated this, he raised his hands while she closed the locks around his wrists.

Miriam leaned her stick against a counter. Fatin placed her weapon on a bench. Then she strode toward Eirik and grasped the waist of his pants and dragged them down.

Eirik ground his teeth, heat filling his cheeks at the indignity. He stood with his pants around his ankles and still his cock rose, eager for Fatin’s attention.

Miriam approached with a vial in her hand. “Do you want me to milk him?”

Eirik gave Fatin a dark glare. She snorted, then shook her head. “I’ll handle this. I know what he likes.” She leaned close and dropped her voice. “Don’t I, lover?”

“Why are you doing this?” he asked just as quietly.

Her smirk faded. “You have something the Consortium will pay top dollar for.”

“My seed?”

“And your handsome body. They’ll steal your seed, but they’ll also enslave you for their pleasure.”

“How can you do this to a man?”

“You never questioned how Fatin the sex-thrall came to be in the miner’s camp. Did you care? Give it even a moment’s thought?” Her lips curled in disgust.

Eirik went still, watching her expressions and realizing she had reasons other than money for what she did. Reasons he probably didn’t want to discover, because he didn’t want to feel guilty over killing her.

Fatin wrapped her fingers around his cock, and Eirik sucked in a sharp breath, wishing he could resist, but already his balls hardened.

She drew the bench closer and sat at its edge, then leaned in and lapped at the crown of his cock. “They will love your body,” she murmured. “Maybe I will pay for its use when I visit Helios.”

Her mouth clasped around him, suctioning, her tongue sliding over his cap, tucking into the sensitive slit. A small, warm hand wrapped around his scrotum and gently massaged and tugged his balls.

His thighs tightened; his buttocks tensed.

She grabbed his hips, centered herself, and bobbed forward, taking his cock deep into her mouth, past her tongue to the back of her throat. Then she swallowed, the action kissing his head, and she loosened inside, taking him deeper, taking all his length into her throat while she sucked harder. It felt as though she would suck the seed from his balls, so strong were her rhythmic pulls.

He tried to resist, tried to think of something other than the way she worked him. He thought of Dagr and wondered what he was doing, whether he’d figured out what had happened. His brother wouldn’t rest until Eirik was found. How he wished he’d stayed with the men at the fire pit trading stories. How he wished he’d read the deception in Fatin’s eyes and thrust her away before she’d pricked him.

In the end, he couldn’t fight her. Especially not when her hand released his balls, and fingers tucked between his buttocks. He roared when she penetrated his ass and fondled the gland inside him that conquered his control.

He shot his seed into her mouth, his body bucking, rutting wildly until he’d given her everything she wanted of him.

Fatin rose, held out her hand for the vial and spat into it. “We have to know you’re fertile.”

Creamy liquid slipped down the side of the clear glass tube. His seed. “That’s all I am,” he gasped.

“A whore? Yes.” She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “You’ll make me rich.” She came closer and kissed his mouth.

Too wrung out to resist, he slanted his face and kissed her back, then rested his forehead against hers. “You do know you’ve kidnapped a noble,” he said quietly, locking his gaze with hers. “You’ll be hunted. This won’t be kept quiet.”

She licked his earlobe and whispered, “That’s my hope, Eirik Wolfskin.”

Dagr followed Birget as she stomped down the main artery corridor toward the bridge. Birget’s backside swayed temptingly as she swaggered, but not tempting for the reason she might have hoped.