Ravished by a Viking (25 page)

Her breath caught in her throat and her eyes bulged. “What did you tell him?”

“That the only wolf you’d breed with would be me.”

In that instant, Honora acknowledged that her body didn’t have an ounce of pride left. Her bones melted like honey, and her blood thrummed in her veins.

The answering flare of his nostrils said he knew she was aroused and that once again, she was pliant, ready to let him wrest control.

His hands tugged her closer.

She stumbled against him, her palms pressing against his chest. Glancing up, she didn’t bother hiding what she felt—every shred of trepidation and hope. “Are you angry I came here?”

He bent toward her, his mouth inches from hers. “I promised you I’d find you. I didn’t have as far to look as I expected.”

“So now I’m convenient?” His masculine grunt caused her belly to clench.

“Hardly so. You nearly brought us both to our deaths on the ice.” His thigh slid between hers, pressing high until she rode it.

She bit her lip to still a moan. “I was trying to rescue you.”

Dagr rubbed the end of her nose with his, and then drew back, his face freezing again. “I am the Viking. I know the creatures and the ice. You were reckless. I should punish you.”

When he pulled her closer, she shivered. Although this time, not just from the chilly air. His cold, cold eyes pierced her, opening a deep wound she thought might never heal. He regretted her interference and didn’t respect her strengths.

“I’m cold,” she said, tired of waiting for an indication of what he wanted. Tired of wanting to hear something he’d never say again.

“You will take better care of yourself,” he said, his tone gruff.

Honora pushed at his chest, trying to free herself. “Why do you care? I’m one of those responsible for your brother’s kidnapping. Why aren’t I in the dungeon?”
Say something, Dagr. Tell me why I’m here.

Disappointment deepened the longer he stared. Then, abruptly, he released her and turned away, his jaw working as he stared out over the icy sea.

Honora drank in the sight of him, her body and soul captive to her Viking warrior. Knowing she was at the end of her pride. “I accept your offer,” she said softly.

His head swiveled toward her, brows drawn together. “Which offer was that?”

“The one to become your concubine.”

“Huh,” he grunted, and his jaw tightened. If he’d looked angry before, now he was furious.

“That is if you still ... want me. Dammit, I’m a fool.” She backed away and turned, heading toward the stairs. When a scuff sounded behind her, she ran.

Hard hands landed on her shoulders and spun her around. Dagr pushed her back against the cold rock wall. “If you cry, your tears will freeze, and if you sicken and die, I will beat you.”

“Again, why do you care? You have everything I could give you.” The backs of her eyes burned but she refused to allow tears. Not where he could see them. “There’s nothing more to take.”

“I have everything?” Dagr cupped her cheeks, preventing her from glancing away. “Do I still have your heart,
elskling
?”

Her lips trembled, and she couldn’t stop the sob that rocked her body. He wanted everything, every ounce of love and pride she had left. And yet, he’d offered nothing of himself in return. “I love you,” she blurted, then blanched at the baldness of her admission. “I shouldn’t. I know I’ll only have a small place in your life, but I’ll take it if it means I can be with you now and then.”

“You’d accept so little?” His gaze honed. “Would you truly lie wedged between my other two concubines?”

She ducked her head. “You don’t have to mock me.”

“I promise I am not.” His callused thumb slipped under her chin and lifted it. A slight smile curved his hard mouth. “It’s odd. But hearing myself say that made me angry. For you.”

Honora didn’t understand, but stood silent while he studied her face. She studied his. The hood of his cloak rested on his shoulders, and she wondered if he cared that he’d lose his ears or nose to the bite of the bracing wind. But the wind wouldn’t dare, would it? He’d plunged beneath frozen water, riding a dragon—to save her.

Why did she doubt him? Was she really that insecure? “I’m sorry, Dagr. I owe you my life. I haven’t any right to make demands.”

“You would never have been in danger if I hadn’t invaded your ship.” His ungloved fingers ran lightly along her neck. “But why are we talking? We find ways to twist our tongues and our meanings every time we do.”

The silence stretched between them, and Honora felt the knot of her insecurity loosen. The Black Wolf wouldn’t be freezing his bollocks off on a wallwalk if she didn’t mean something to him. He could have his choice of any woman in his kingdom. And yet he stood here, pressed against her, his body rigid, his expression waiting ...

“I don’t really want to talk,” she whispered, then stroked her lower lip with her tongue.

His expression heated, his eyelids lowering.

Since she hadn’t much practice looking like a stone, she knew he had to read every little thing she felt. “I love you,” she said again, knowing her need and love for him was naked on her face. “I can’t help it. I wish I didn’t, not so much anyway, but I do.”

His mouth stopped her from talking, landing on her opened lips, his tongue thrusting deep. Stopping before he could give her back the words. If he ever would again. Had he only said he loved her to make her strong?

Honora clung to his arms as her knees gave way. She moaned into his mouth, mewling as emotions swept through her, so alien, so welcome. For the first time in her life, she felt tethered to a place, to a man. She belonged.

Twenty-two

Dagr’s sigh was so deep, so long, he had the whimsical thought that the sound had come all the way from his toes.

He lay on a bed of soft grass beside a pond, pure light blazing from a wide vein in the ceiling of the tall cavern. Honora’s shivers from the walk to the cave’s entrance had finally abated. Sweat oiled her skin, which aided the rhythmic glides she made, forward and back, as she rode his cock.

She paused midstroke, certain of his attention, or so the one-sided smile said. “Answer me one question?”

“Anything,” he growled, reaching for the notches of her hips to push her into motion again.

Her eyes slid shut, and she bit her bottom lip, the sexy dent between her eyes deepening as he slid his thumb between her folds and rasped the callused pad over her clitoris. She shook her head, her sleepy-eyed stare making him smile. “Um ... I have a question.”

“So you said.”

With a quick move, she reached between her legs and pulled back his thumb. “How did you board my ship? I don’t know why I didn’t think to ask before, but now the curiosity is killing me.”

“As is the anticipation,” he muttered.

Honora’s grin was impish and adorable. Adjectives he hadn’t thought were in his vocabulary, but his lady captain was expanding his horizons by the minute.

“Such a grumpy wolf,” she purred. “You’d think the number of times you came last night would have taken off the edge.”

“How can my interest wane when your climaxes are so loud they rob me of concentration? My needs are more refined than a simple spasm. I want—”

“To explode like a cannon?” Her eyebrows waggled. “If you hurry and tell me, I’ll oblige you.”

Dagr didn’t worry that she’d betray him. But he did like surprising her. Surprises always led to rewards for his thoughtfulness. And he was imagining how her excitement over the revelation of the artifact would transfer to his cock. He imagined a dozen different ways she’d take him, hopefully with her mouth sucking his essence from his balls and her tongue stroking him with wild abandon. He couldn’t help the matching grin that stretched his mouth.

She bent back his thumb more. “Dagr! Pay attention!”

The intent look on her face aroused him further. “Have you no sense of decorum?”

“Decorum? You’re a Viking.”

“And you’re not. I’d expect a little more fear and awe from a puny thing like yourself.”

“Just because your ... proportions ... are nearly large enough to make me come like a rocket the moment you push inside me, it doesn’t mean you can rest on your laurels, milord.”

“I like the way you say that.”

“What? Come like a rocket?”

“
Milord
,” he growled.

“I’ll only say it when you’re very, very good.”

Dagr pulled her down, his arms encircling her and squeezing. With her breasts flattened against his chest and his cock pulsing inside her, they couldn’t be any closer, physically, than they were at this moment.

He freed a hand and pushed back the hair sticking to her cheek, then reached up to plant a kiss on her soft mouth. Her tongue charged forward, pushing against his, daring him to take.

Dagr rolled, bringing her beneath him. When she’d wound her legs around his buttocks and her arms around his back, he leaned up on his elbows. “You’re happy here, aren’t you?”

“Are you wondering if I’ll be satisfied here, earthbound as I am?”

He nodded, not liking that her mind had caught his meaning so quickly. Was it because her loss was foremost in her mind?

“Dagr,” she said, her fingers twining around a strand of his hair, “I’ve come to realize that my ambition was a reflection of my need to regain pride in myself. My father’s fall from grace changed my world, stole the ground beneath me. For the longest time, people would stare after me and whisper about my father, our family. His foolishness allowed a spy to infiltrate his command. He wasn’t the only one who was punished. He died in prison, but I had to fight for respect. I followed in his footsteps, gained my own berth, to bury the hurt he caused me.”

“Has that hurt gone? I robbed you of your victory.”

Her hand cupped his cheek, and her wet gaze locked with his. “I was enslaved to an idea, and I didn’t know it. I don’t need to be a starship captain to be fulfilled. But I must have a place in your keep, and a purpose other than fulfilling your sexual needs.”

His brow lowered. “I cannot let you war.”

Honora gave him a small smile. “I will still train. Just in case. But I won’t insist on fighting dragons or Consortium soldiers, hand to hand.”

Dagr grunted, surprised she’d conceded so readily. “You have a place.”

She rolled her eyes. “Wedged between your concubines. I know. But even Tora and Astrid have important duties of their own.”

“Have you seen either of them in my chambers?”

Honora shook her head slowly. The hope that beamed from her amber eyes made him feel mean for not having explained it to her before. “Astrid has agreed to go to Frakki. And Tora has accepted Odvarr’s offer of marriage.”

“So they’re no longer your concubines?”

“Nor will I take another.”

Honora’s eyes filled, warring with her happy smile. “I made no demand.”

“And I served my own needs,” he drawled. “I want no other woman in my bed, save you. However, I don’t want you as my concubine.”

Her smile faded, her lips thinning with annoyance. “Are we back to me being your thrall?”

He quirked a brow. “Why would you think that?”

“Because it’s the only other position you’ve offered me.”

“Huh.” Dagr grunted, then laughed. Trapped with his cock buried deep inside her body, crushed beneath his weight every chance he got, no wonder she’d assumed he wanted her as his sex slave.

Eyes flashing, Honora smacked his shoulder. “Laugh at me, and you can forget about me ever obliging you again.”

Dagr wrapped his hand around hers, and then grabbed the other when she smacked his arm, and stretched both high above her head.

Her scowl was dark, but about as intimidating as a grumpy kitten’s. He couldn’t help the next bark of laughter or the one that followed when she began to squirm and buck furiously beneath him. Did she know the more she fought, the harder her pussy clenched his cock? He thought better of mentioning it.

At last she fell back, panting beneath him, her scowl softening into a look of feminine puzzlement.

He relented, dipping to kiss her mouth, then the tip of her nose. “I don’t want you as a sex-thrall, although the thought of having you play that role for me in private is worth exploring. Honora,
elskling
, I want you for my wife.”

She lay silent a long time, and then drew a shaky breath. “Why?”

Not the response he’d expected. He knew she loved him. He’d thought she’d screech happily and press kisses about his face.

Instead, she gave him her stubborn face, her chin jutting, a militant gleam entering her eyes. “I haven’t held back a thing, Dagr,” she said slowly. “Not about what I feel for you.”

“Do you think me lacking in courage?” he said, softening his voice too, because he knew where she was leading him.

“Never. You’re the strongest, bravest man I’ve ever met. But I would know how deeply it is possible for you to feel.”

“I’m a warrior.”

Her features tightened, as though she girded herself for injury. “Yeah, yeah, and warriors don’t love.
Ever
, right?”

“Is that what you want from me? Love?”

“Not if I have to force you to say it. And definitely not if the words aren’t the truth.”

“I didn’t tell you a story before simply to give you strength and make it easier for you to say good-bye.” Dagr bracketed her bronze cheeks with his palms, cupping them tenderly. “I believed what my father taught me. That love weakens a man, makes him vulnerable. And yet, I fought a dragon for you. He was wrong.” Tears leaked from her eyes, and he swept them away with his fingers. “I want you for my queen. I will cleave to you alone, take no others to my bed. Because I do love, Honora. I love you.”

Her arms surrounded him, her hands clutching him hard. Her face scrunched up, mouth trembling, eyes drowning, and yet she’d never been as beautiful as she was at that moment. Arousal stirred, awakening a new energy, a fresh desire to mark her as his. Only when she grew full with his child would the primal hunger inside him abate.

As he entered her, his strokes fierce and raw, he let go of his disappointment that he hadn’t solved the problem of his brother’s return, let go of the rage against her kind that had driven him. Instead, he’d trust in the powers that be, the ones who had delivered his enemy to his bed, who’d shown him how much stronger a force love could be than hate, or even honor.

As Honora’s tears dried, her skin blossoming with ruddy excitement, her golden eyes sparkling with happiness, he couldn’t help but believe that a higher purpose had been served. He’d trust in it, and in Cyrus’s cleverness and Birget’s stubborn pride, to save Eirik.

With the spiraling explosion sharpening his thrusts at the end, he wrapped his arms around Honora, pressed his lips against his lover’s mouth, and sailed over the shimmering bridge.

Eirik tried not to breathe too deeply. The rotten, sour smells of his dark, dank prison already made his skin stink. He didn’t want the awful stench inside his lungs or belly.

He hadn’t seen the other prisoners, not after they’d been herded like cattle through a chute once the hatch had been opened at the side of the ship and his keepers applied their prods to their backsides to move them out in single file.

With only brief impressions of his new home, of searing heat and blinding, harsh sunlight, he’d shielded his arm over his eyes and stumbled down the gangway, through the iron-barred alley that disallowed any thoughts of escape.

He’d been led to this cell, deep inside an enormous stone building. A brief glimpse of an open arena, and then he’d been shoved down two flights of narrow stone steps.

Once they’d slammed the solid door and slid the eye-level window closed, he’d been left alone, no sounds penetrating his prison other than the hum of the light above him, and the sounds his own body made.

His thoughts drowned it all out, screaming inside him. He’d wanted to beat his fists against the door, rail at his captors, but he didn’t know if anyone watched him, and wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of knowing how close to abject despair he was coming.

Hel, he’d even suffer Fatin’s derision, her cold, calculating touch, just to feel or hear another human being.

He didn’t know how long he’d been here, there being no window, and no way for him to know how the natural passage of time was counted on this planet, but he knew it was long enough he’d stopped believing that anyone would come to his rescue.

They must think me dead,
he thought. Like Father, lost on the ice. One day waving as he skimmed away across the frozen blue water, never to return. Only Eirik wasn’t lost. He wasn’t dead.

A key grated in the lock at his door, pulling his glance. The heavy door swung open, and two sweet-smelling women strode inside, dressed in short, white skirts. Their breasts were bare. Leather sandals with straps that laced up to their ankles. Both dark-haired and ombréskinned. Like the witch, Fatin. They carried an urn of water and linens.

He pressed a hand against the wall of his cell and pushed up from the floor.

“There’s a guard outside the door,” the one nearest him said. Her dark, sloe eyes glittered as they raked his body. “We’re here to bathe and dress you.”

Pushing past them would earn him nothing. He clenched his fists at his sides and held himself still as they brought their clean, sweetly fragrant bodies close enough to strip away his clothing and bathe him like a mother might a child. Only their hands lingered over his sex, and although he might have wished otherwise, his cock unfurled, coaxed by their hands and then their lips to deliver his body’s nectar. Or so they called it.

Dressed now, and more relaxed, he allowed another woman just outside his cell to lead him through a winding warren of corridors until they climbed a final set of steps and she pushed open the door, letting sunlight drench them.

Eirik closed his eyes, lifting his face to the light. But he wasn’t allowed to savor the sensation. A prod behind him reminded him not to dally. He stepped out onto a platform in the center of the arena. A stage surrounded by thousands of men and women dressed in long robes and jewels.

A blended roar of voices greeted him. Women’s excited chatter, men’s laughter. He emptied his mind of the indignity, of standing in the center of the stage, hands rising, voices shouting. Then one voice separated from the throng , for it was nearer and familiar. His head swiveled toward the sound, caught the triumph glittering in Fatin’s eyes as she met his gaze for a moment, then turned back to the crowd, accepting rapidly escalating bids.

A woman near the front of the stage shouted something that sent the crowd into gales of laughter.

Fatin turned toward him, warning him to behave with her cold, black gaze. When she was within arm’s reach, she pulled at the tie on his hip and unlaced it, letting the short, skirtlike garment the women had dressed him in fall away.

He stood nude, his body exposed to the air and the rapacious gazes of the crowd. His head cleared of the numbing despair, all focus homing on Fatin’s slender frame. No matter the outcome of today’s shameful events, he vowed to have his revenge. One day, Fatin would be the slave; one day she would know the shame he felt.

Something of what he thought must have transmitted. Fatin’s look of triumph faded, and her eyes became dark mirrors of doubt.

Slowly, his body warmed; his cock expanded. The things he would do to her, the many ways he would take her, filled his mind. No woman would ever know the depths of depravity he would visit on her body.