by Lee Savino
Dagg sat behind me and gathered me onto his lap. He hooked my legs on either side of his and spread me wide.
“Even in those first days, you were never really afraid,” he nuzzled my ear. “That is how we knew you belonged to us.”
Svein bent to his task. I shut my eyes. In some ways it was worse, being perfectly attuned to the feeling of his fingers stroking across my soap-slicked skin, the wet sound of the blade separating the red down from my flesh. Dagg kept my legs firmly apart. Svein pressed a hand above my pubic bone, holding me still. I lay perfectly open, my bones melting into Dagg’s sturdy form, my body rising and falling with his breath. I had no being, no sense of myself beyond the points of where they touched me, claimed me, owned me.
And when Svein was done, they lay me down and took turns showing me how I belonged to them. I begged and begged, but they did not mark me. Not yet. But I knew they would soon.
26
“Now that the snows are less, we might have visitors.” Svein commented the next morning. He squatted by the firepit, poking leaves into the ashes to see if one would light.
“Visitors?” I asked.
“Some of the pack, hunting us.”
“But, the Alpha’s cut you off.”
“Yes,” Dagg said, coming in with an armful of wood. “and there’s one benefit to that. They won’t be able to find us as easily.”
“They can track us,” Svein commented, moving out of the way so Dagg could finish the fire.
“We can hide out tracks.”
“Wait,” I said. “Why don’t you want them to find you?”
Svein had his knife out now and was rubbing soap on his face to shave. He caught me watching and grinned. The memory of that knife sent heat flooding to my lower half, and I blushed.
“They’ll take you from us again and drive us away. My guess is the snow is what kept them away so long,” Dagg said.
“If they bother,” Svein mused. “My guess, they won’t risk this happening again. They’ll call for our death.”
I gasped.
“The blizzards kept them away, but now we must be careful.”
“I do not want you to die,” I said.
“Nor I,” Dagg murmured. “Not when we found a reason to live.”
Once the fire was built, and Svein tested the smoothness of his cheeks by rubbing them on my face and kissing me, both warriors rose.
“We need to go hunt.” Svein strapped on his knife and axe, while Dagg studied his hand, curling his fingers inward like they were tipped with claws.
“Both of you?”
“It takes two to bring down big prey, little red.” Dagg cupped the back of my neck and pulled me forward to plant a kiss on my brow. “We’ll return by sundown.”
“Stay in the cave,” Svein ordered.
I tidied up and took the time to properly wash. I spent some time examining the place they’d shaved bare but did no more than stir up a little longing for the warrior’s earlier return. Wrapping myself in a pelt, I sat and stayed warm by the fire. I found myself staring at the flames in a trance—but without a dreadful vision. With Dagg and Svein around, I was safe.
Things were going better than I dared hope, but there were still challenges. The time would come when my mates would mark me, and then what? Winter would not last forever. We belonged back on the mountain, with the pack. I missed my friends, and surely Dagg and Svein would wish to be accepted by their fellow warriors.
An earthy grunt caught my ears, and I wandered to the front of the cave. Booted footprints led away, but there was no sign of the warriors. Only a slight rustle in the forest beyond. I pulled a pelt around me and ventured out.
There, hunched behind a few holly bushes. Was that black fur?
“Dagg?”
Had he returned? Was he no longer a man, but a monster?
The creature ambled out from behind the bracken and I froze. It wasn’t a Berserker monster, but a bear, woken before it’s time. Lean, angry, and very, very hungry.
Slowly, I took a step back. There was a chance it would not see or scent me, or that it would smell the fire on me and stay away.
A half step back, and another. The animal grunted and shuffled closer. It had found something interesting under the bush. The bones from a past meal. Dagg had left them there. As I stood there, willing myself to inch further toward the cave, the bear lumbered along the edge of the bushes, sniffing for more bones, and suddenly was between me and the cave. It went on ripping and gnawing at its newfound meal, while my eyes darted around, frantically looking for an escape route.
The bear shuffled around the front of the cave, grunting at the fire smell. Then it’s head swung to me.
I ran before it charged. Branches whipped my face as I crashed into the bracken, the bear a dark shape behind. I fought free of the briars holding me and raced into the forest, zig zagging between the pines.
A grunt behind me. The bear was gaining ground. It was big and hungry, and I was lost on unfamiliar terrain. Snow sucked at my boots, dragging me down, and I staggered, wrenching my body forward as fast as I could.
Dark fur flashed to my right and I veered away, only to collide with something white and solid and warm. Not a snow drift. It lifted me while my legs still pumped and held me fast. I screamed, clawing and fighting, but it held me easily, clutching me to its great body.
Be still. Golden eyes pinned me. The creature holding me was big with white and grey fur. It had a wolf’s muzzle and shaggy body rising up on two legs, taller than any man.
A growl shook the air and went through me. Two dark forms rose up and clashed together. The bear and... something else. Another monster covered in dark fur.
“Dagg,” I breathed as the dark monster roared loud enough to shake snow from the trees. The bear turned and ran. Dagg dropped to all fours, shrinking a little into the form of a wolf.
The white and grey monster huffed and started striding back to the cave.
“Svein,” I murmured as he cradled me in his arms. I traced the monstrous features, the fur lined neck, the sleek muzzle. Golden eyes watched me explore. When I got close to his teeth, canines long as knives, he turned his head and nipped at my fingers. By the time we returned, his form was a man’s, not as big but just as powerful. The Change left a white and grey fur across his shoulders. As soon as we entered the cave, he tossed the pelt down.
“What—” I started to ask, when he whirled and advanced, looming over me. He put his hands on my neckline and tore my gown straight down the front. Too shocked to speak, I stood shivering in my shift as he pawed over me, the animal qualities of his face receding further.
A dark hulking form entered the cave. Dagg. His hands were more bear like than human and tipped with scythe like claws.
I heard clearly their voices in my mind.
She must be punished. They agreed and turned their golden gaze on me.
I swallowed and stepped back. Dagg and Svein, I reminded myself. Dagg and Svein. They would not hurt me.
Are you so sure, little red? Svein’s growl held amusement. Again, I had the impression he’d spoken but heard not words.
You broke your word. You left the cave. Svein’s face bore no trace of humor.
“I only—”
Take off your shift. Now, he added when I hesitated.
I stripped in haste, lest he tear it again as easy as breaking a cobweb.
Now go to the pelts, all fours. Arse in the air.
I dropped to the bed and scrambled to obey. My neck prickled at the incredibly vulnerable position. On all fours with a cheek pressed to the pelts, my haunches were exposed. They could do anything they liked with me.
As I thought this, a large hand rested on my bottom. Fingers lightly bit in to my flesh and drew downwards. If he was in beast form, the claws would leave bloody furrows. How easy it would be for the monsters to deliver death.
Oh, little red, we will not harm you, not in that way. But there are consequences. The hands settled on my hips and
propped them higher. Hot breath gusted over my lower lips. Teeth, the canines long and not quite human, nibbled on my exposed center.
A large body laid out beside me. I kept my head down in case looking around would not please them. The mouth between my legs kept up its leisurely exploration. A large finger brushed my breast. My breath caught as a claw traced a lazy circle around my nipple. I was shivering for a different reason than cold. In fact, in the past few minutes, it’d grown very warm.
“You do well to obey us,” Dagg murmured at my side.
“I didn’t mean to run into danger.”
“You’ve been running into danger since the night you came to us,” Svein sounded stern. “And we are grateful. But it ends now.”
“You want us to protect you. We will.”
Dagg kept fondling my breasts as Svein’s fingers skimmed the line of my buttocks. Ripples of sensation shot straight through my core.
“Relax. I’m going to punish you now.”
Svein set my knees a few inches wider, giving him ample access to me. “This is ours,” he murmured, sliding up the inside of my legs to cup my pulsing core. “And this.”
“Yes,” I whispered.
Slowly, he slid a finger in. My muscles tightened around the intruder. After running the single digit around the edge of my needy opening, he added another. And another. The fourth pressed in soon after, stretching me.
“Ohhh,” I whimpered at the invasion, just on the edge of discomfort
“Calm,” Dagg stroked down my spine until I relaxed.
“That’s it.” Svein now had his fingers tight together, fitting all of them into the tight entrance to my body. “Open, little red. Open to me.
He pressed in and the uncomfortable stretch turned into an overwhelming sensation. I whimpered as my body flexed around him, little muscles tightening with pleasure.
Slowly, Svein retreated, murmuring something I didn’t hear.
“Let me,” Dagg murmured and the shadows moved over me as they switched places.
Hot breath hit my nethers, strong fingers holding my legs apart when I would squirm. Instead of fingers, his tongue worked in the furrows around my sex, finding the secret spots that pulled soft moans from my mouth as pleasure burned through me.
Large hands lifted and positioned me, gentle as if handling a bird’s egg. They set me on my back, then rose up on either side of me, mountains of shadow with golden eyes.
Svein set his hand at my entrance again. His fingers were slick and this time, he easily pushed inside.
“Deep breath,” he ordered, and with it, pushed inside me. I shook. Rivulets of pleasure ran from deep inside me, spreading through my whole body.
“Too much?” Svein asked. He was inside me, his hand filling me. My entranced stretched around his wrist.
I wanted to thrash and cry because it wasn’t too much, it wasn’t enough. I was full, every part of me, and I only wanted more. I wanted these men to fill me up, mind body and soul. I wanted to drown.
Pleasure burned through my mind. It seized and shook me so hard my back spasmed. Svein’s fist touched every part of me.
I was floating in another world when he withdrew. The warrior’s chuckles wafted above me.
Dagg propped me up and gave me water, his beard tickling my bare chest. I tugged him to me, nuzzling blindly at his face until I found his lips.
“You did well,” he murmured. “Will you mind from now on?”
My head rolled against his forehead as I nodded.
“Good girl.”
He rose up and I blinked in to the dark. The two warriors loomed over me, pulling at their cocks, their eyes fixed on me. One by one, they spent, splashing on my bare skin.
“Rub it in, little one. Take our scent. Everyone will know who you belong to.”
Dagg lay down beside me, turning me so my body fit against his. His coarse hair rubbed against my skin, sending prickles of awareness through my sated body.
“Sleep in peace, little dove. You’re ours, now.”
I sank into sleep, his voice echoing into my dreams. We own you.
I stood on a cliff, staring down at the world far below. My skirts whipped in the wind that shrieked along the heights. Below, the Corpse King’s army fought the Berserkers. Sword beat shield, axe cleaved bone. The wind carried the sound of battle and the stench of the undead.
“It’s over,” the Corpse King said. He stood at my back, black robes swathing his bony self. His mirage was slipping—he looked more like the undead he commanded than the human mage he’d once been. “You may as well give it to me.”
My hand closed over the jewel at my neck. Eldritch light escaped from between my fingers.
“It does not belong to him.” There was a third on the cliff, a woman with white gold hair. “Give it to your sisters, so we may all defeat him.”
I opened my hand, and the stone had disappeared. I still saw it clearly, shimmering at the bottom of a pool.
I opened my mouth to tell the woman.
“No,” the mage king screamed, and threw a cloud of shadow at me. “Don’t speak.”
I felt a hand wrap about my mouth, choking my breath. I could not even scream—
I was halfway up and across the cave before the warriors found their feet.
“What is it, little dove?”
I shook my head, my head pounding with the Corpse King’s command. Don’t speak. Don’t speak. Horrible things would come to pass if I let loose my voice.
Squinting through the pain in my temples, I stooped and drew on my boots.
“Where are you going?”
I grabbed my cup and little pot and tossed it into the sack but got no further. Dagg caught me fast.
“You’re not going anywhere,” he growled.
Svein frowned. “You are upset. Will you tell us why?”
I shook my head. Tremors went through me. How had the Corpse King found me? My mates were supposed to keep the dreams at bay.
“Please,” Svein squatted before me. “Tell us what you fear. We would share this burden with you.”
I pressed my hands over my mouth. I felt the mage’s spell again, covering my mouth so my own screams filled my throat and choked me.
“Something’s wrong,” Dagg said gruffly. A low growl started rumbling in his chest.
“Fern,” Svein said. “if you tell us we can help you. Did something startle you?”
Dagg rose abruptly and started pacing, pausing only to raise his head. “Do you smell that?”
Was that a whiff of rot? Were the visions so bad they conjured the mage? Was he here?
This was my final fear: that the dreams would turn real.
I shivered hard and Svein tucked a pelt around me
“Was it a dream? Like the one you had before, when we were on the run from the abbey?”
“You were supposed to stop them,” I blurted, panting with the pain in my chest. “You were supposed to keep me safe.”
“We have failed you again, little one.” He pulled me into his arms, and I struggled.
“No, I must go. The visions will continue to come, until they are real.” it was my fault. I drew the dreams, and they grew more solid until they’d come to pass. Time and time again, it had happened. I’d seen the destruction of the abbey, the kidnapping of my friends. The Corpse King coming for the Berserkers in the mist. Then it had all happened, and I’d been powerless to stop it.
I had to go. I was a danger to everyone I cared about.
“Let us fight for you. Let us keep you safe.”
“No,” I wept. “I cannot. He will come for me and I will never be safe.”
“Who?
“The Corpse King,” Dagg growled. He stopped pacing, his limbs going stiff. With a great groan, he threw his head back. His face reshaped, bones popping with the Change.
“Dagg,” Svein barked. “Not here—run!”
The dark-furred monster rushed outside and roared.
27
I sat by the fire, m
y heart sick. Svein had gone out for a time, to find Dagg after his rampage. He made me promise to stay put and took my boots for good measure. I didn’t move. I was too tired and wrung out to run.
The visions had found me, even here. My mates did nothing to stop them. They would continue to get worse. Then the fits would come. Better for me to beg to be put down. I knew how Dagg felt, at the mercy of the battle rage.
Footsteps came to the cave, along with the scent of pine and fur. The warriors returning, stomping to make sure I heard them. Two pairs of boots came to my side, but I still didn’t look up. Dagg must be all right, if he’d returned. If I was lucky, he wouldn’t hate me for bringing on the madness.
They should send me away. The next time the visions came, the madness might take Dagg forever. It would’ve been better had I been burned as a witch by the nuns, then bring this evil to ones I loved. They could’ve chosen another spaewife for themselves. The pain that thought brought nearly crippled me.
Svein set my boots down near me. “We have decided. You will tell us the visions you see.”
My shoulders slumped. Don’t speak, don’t speak. My head hurt with a piercing pain.
“Fern,” Gentle hands settled on my head, eclipsing the ache. “You will obey.”
What did it matter, if I was to die?
“I see the Corpse King, only he is made of mist and bones. There are often women—ghosts—who try to guide me. I have a jewel on a chain I must keep safe.”
“Good girl,” Svein murmured, and the stabbing in my head lessened.
“The Corpse King wants the jewel. I don’t know why, only that he wants it. No one has it though,” I tried to remember the last of my dream. “It is lost. Hidden somewhere.” The image came to me again. “At the bottom of a pool.”
There was a long silence. I waited for the warriors to denounce me and take my head. Or perhaps they’d just throw me out to die. It would not take more than a few hours in this cold. It’d be quick.
“What is this stone?” Svein mused, almost to himself.
“It’s white, with a little blue. Sometimes it glows,” I said.
