Eager, desperate for release, she did as he asked, grabbing her knees and pulling them high, then opening them lewdly wide.
Her entrance stretched, she could feel cool air against flesh that had never felt a draft before.
Never slowing the lazy scrape of his thumb, he bent over her and placed his cock at her entrance.
“Lovely, so fucking beautiful . . . See how I fit there? See how well we fit together?” he said, as he slowly pushed inside.
She watched as the tapered head sank inside her. Groaned as the thick shaft disappeared, pushing deeply through her narrow channel. Her walls were thick, pressing around him, forcing him to tunnel. Each pulsing shove crammed deliciously until he was seated; then he pulled back two finger widths and began the back-and-forth motions that matched the heavy thud of her heart.
“Squeeze your inner muscles around me. Now release. Do it again.”
She squeezed harder and felt the ripples working up and down inside her, felt how her body clutched around him, urging him deeper. But he moved too slowly to suit her. “Please, Baraq,” she whimpered.
“Need more?”
“Yes, oh, yes!”
He thrust deeper, gliding easily in a fresh gush of fluid that was so copious it trickled down between her buttocks. The nasty feel of it, and the way he watched her pussy so avidly, as though the lewd picture she made fascinated him, loosened something inside her.
A wave of pleasure caught her off guard and her back arched off the mattress. She gave a groan, then arched again as he began to move faster and faster, his strokes deepening, strengthening.
When he lifted his thumb, she found she didn’t need it anymore. His groin crashed against hers, each jolt slapping her clit.
And the movement was enough.
She gave a strangled scream as her orgasm swept over her in a hot tide. Her skin tingled. Her belly quivered. Light exploded behind her eyelids, the pressure in her head stealing away all thought except the exquisite feel of him moving inside her.
Slowly, she came back to herself to find him studying her. Masculine pride showed in the curve of his firm mouth. She’d allow him a moment to gloat.
He’d proved she was made like other women, after all.
Birget strapped herself into a seat in front of the viewing screen as the Daedalus rattled through its approach. Cyrus had ceded control of the ship to ground control moments ago. Remote guidance would land the vessel in its assigned slip on the ground.
Everyone aboard the starship crowded onto the command deck, watching the approach. Judging by the stern cast of the faces of the Vikings planted on every available seat or stair, she wasn’t the only one feeling a little nervous about what lay ahead.
She shot Baraq a glance and found his gaze was on her, not the screen. Although not smiling, his eyes gleamed. She hoped she didn’t look as well satisfied, not that everyone aboard didn’t know about their intimate relationship. Still, she had a reputation to maintain. No one needed to know that inside her Valkyrie’s body, she purred like a pussycat.
Baraq gave her a wink.
She turned sharply away, heat rising on her cheeks. She hid a smile and turned her attention again to the front of the deck.
The view as they burned through Helios’s atmosphere took her breath away. A large green and brown continent grew before her eyes. Green along the edges of a dark blue ocean and in the deep valleys surrounding wide rivers. A dusty brown everywhere in between except for a long, rugged ridge of white-capped mountains to the northwest. Those whitecaps were the only similarities in the landscape this world shared with hers.
As they drew closer to the ground, her focus homed in on the largest river and the city that sprawled at its wide mouth and then tapered southward along its banks.
“The Blue Nile. The lifeblood of the continent. Fed by runoff from the Olympian mountain range,” Cyrus said behind her.
“’Tis Heliopolis?”
“Yes. The capital. A Greek name for an Egyptian city from the old world.”
Without taking her gaze from the screen, she murmured, “We think of you Helios as a single people.”
“We’ve become that, but we still have those who take pride in their ancestry, whether it is Greek, Roman, Persian, or Egyptian. Our culture is a blend. As is our language.”
“It’s our language too,” she said, her tone bitter, “since you tried so hard to eradicate our Norse tongue and culture.”
“I see how well that worked for us,” he drawled.
Nerves must have made her smile. “You live in the open, without walls around your city?”
“We live in peace and are ruled by a single entity, an elected council. No need for curtain walls or castles for defense.”
“There are roads and buildings in the center of the river.”
“We built up the islands in the estuary. The river is controlled by a series of dams. We no longer worry about flooding, so the islands are now considered prime real estate.”
She looked back, troubled by how insurmountable her goal seemed at this moment. “The city’s so large. How will we ever find them?”
Cyrus sighed. “If what Dagr suspected is true, that the men were abducted for breeding purposes, then that narrows our search.” Despite the shaking of the ship, he pushed up from his chair and walked to the screen. “Computer, zoom in.” He touched the screen at a place to the west of the river. As though they fell toward the ground faster, the view tunneled down before opening again over a long road with a series of paved lots lined up one after another. “We’ll dock here.” His finger trailed up the road, the screen switching quickly, turning to the west, through a densely constructed area. “We should move freely through this district and gather intel. But this—” He pointed toward a large collection of uniformly shaped white buildings surrounded by a waterway. “This is Pandora’s Garden. My best guess is that the men will end up here.”
Birget studied the map. “I’m assuming that we should infiltrate under the cover of darkness.”
“Your pale faces and large builds will be pretty conspicuous in daylight.”
She nodded, for once not wishing to argue with his every statement. She had more important things to worry about than their ongoing distrust. Before this day was through she’d be leading a contingent of Icelanders into an Utlending city. The first time her people had stepped onto another planet since crossing the Bifrost to New Iceland centuries ago.
What would Dagr or her father say to his men on this momentous occasion to stir their blood for the coming fight? She’d never given a rousing speech and hadn’t a clue how to begin.
With a shove, she pushed up from her chair, ignoring the rumbling beneath her feet, and walked along the aisle. She eyed Grimvarr, Dagr’s younger cousin. “You may stay aboard the ship,” she said. “Even now, you may be the only Ulfhednar heir.”
With reddish brown hair and a trimmed beard that skirted his mouth and chin, he was nearly as handsome and as largely made as Dagr. Shoulders squared, he gave a grunt. “I’m Wolfskin. I’ll not sit back while others toil.”
Not expecting any other response, she nodded. “Then I am glad you will be with us.” To the group at large, she said, “When we debark, we will split into teams of two. The smaller groupings will make us less noticeable and give us a chance to cover more ground. We’ll search at night, then return to share what we’ve learned before morning rise.”
She aimed a glance around the deck, saw a few nods and some fierce smiles. The Wolves were as eager as she was to quit this ship.
“You must wonder why Dagr put me in charge of this mission and of you.”
This time gazes narrowed and stances shifted.
“It’s not our place to wonder,” Grimvarr said, his tone soft.
An underlying firmness infused his words, hinting that she should stop. Raising her voice to be sure everyone heard, she said, “I’m a Bearshirt.”
Grunts, nods, followed. She’d stated the obvious, but she had the
ir attention.
“True, I’m betrothed to Eirik. But I’ve never met him. I have no affection for the man. I don’t battle to save him. I do this for my own family’s pride. Dagr understood this about me. My loyalty to the Wolfskins was sealed when he made me your leader.” Her gaze skimmed over the assembled group. “You are mine to command. I’m bound to you as you are to me.”
She strode toward Cyrus at the front. The ship shimmied and she clapped a hand on one of the Wolves’ shoulders.
His eyebrows gave a waggle.
With the mood lightened, she smiled. “I’ll not land in your lap.”
Chuckles sounded, which she didn’t mind. Humor before a fight strengthened a Viking. “Scour the ship for clothing that will be less conspicuous. If you must, steal it after we hit the ground. Our furs will mark us. We carry no weapons we cannot hide. So leave your daggers and swords in their scabbards aboard the ship.
“Do not lead anyone back to us. Keep to the shadows. Do not engage in conversation in crowds. Your accent will give you away. Seek no fights, only information. Cyrus will give each of you ore should you need it to loosen tongues.” She paused, searching for the words she needed to strike a fire.
Grimvarr cleared his throat, drawing her attention. “We haven’t shields to beat or Thor’s sword to swear by, but you do wear the Black Wolf’s totem.”
Grateful for the suggestion, Birget lifted the black stone and pulled the cord from around her neck. She raised it high. “For the Wolves! For Icelandia!”
Every man there shot to his feet; fists hammered the air. She passed the stone to Grimvarr, who faced the men and raised his arm high. “For the Black Wolf!”
As man after man shook his fist and shouted his allegiance to the Ulfhednar king and thus this mission, Birget felt pride burst inside her chest. The backs of her eyes burned with tears she refused to cry.
She and every proud Viking here would see this through—that or die trying, happy to ascend to Valhalla in the arms of the Valkyries.
Five
She’s an eel-skinner, that one!” Hakon said, his words slurring before he turned on his side and began to snore. He’d had a little too much of the tangy liquor the attendants served to the gathering as though it were water.
Eirik shook his head. His companion’s skin was reddened from exertion, his naked body gleaming with sweat. And he reeked of sex.
Except that his mind was clear, Eirik was in little better condition.
After Fatin had fled the salon, he’d plowed his way through half a dozen of the women who’d bought his favors, looking at the sexual play like a warrior might a day in the lists, since he hadn’t worked his body hard since his capture. The last of the women, a plump but attractive matron, whose hair was too pale a shade of honey to match her dark brown brows and the trimmed bush below, was still pressed against his side. She slept, a soft snore tickling his neck.
After the reckless abandon of the first hour when the Vikings had ripped away their clothing and chased squealing women around the salon before settling down to seek their pleasure—an unchoreographed moment that Aliyah had been quick to claim as her own idea—the debauchery resembled the mindless repetition of a mining crew’s labors. Drill, toss a shovelful of minx, and then move on to the next shining vein to plunder.
Aliyah opened small chamber rooms just off the main salon to allow the women who could afford it the luxury of privacy. As the beds were large, the bleached blonde and her girlfriend decided to pair up and share a bed and men. Not an uncommon thing on his own world, but he was grateful not to be on display anymore. Although he suspected the large gilt mirror on the far side of the room was intended for private viewing.
Let them watch, he’d growled beneath his breath, and then he’d given them a show they’d not soon forget. Everything he’d learned while sampling the many women who’d swarmed him in his own keep prepared him well to pleasure and surprise these jaded women. He and Hakon took their turns with the girls, happily spanked and pounded away, competing to elicit the loudest moans and screams.
However, pleasure, when dictated, soon tarnished. And since he hadn’t drunk as deeply of the aphrodisiac that kept everyone else’s spirits and libidos running high, he’d grown bored.
Unable to nap while his patron dozed, he studied the room until he counted the tiles on the floor and every fold in the curtains that drifted in the warm night air, wafting through the open window.
A streak of orange fire ran across the wall opposite his bed. He jerked until he realized it was one of the small, double-headed creatures the Helios treated like pets. They fed on insects, long tongues whipping out of their mouths to wrap around a bug and pull it squirming into their bellies.
He shuddered. For his peace of mind, the small creatures were too reminiscent of his own planet’s giant ice dragons that lurked in the ocean beneath the icy crust, save that their bodies were smooth, not scaled and spiked.
Wondering whether he could roust a man for a bit of hand-to-hand to relax, he edged from beneath the woman’s cheek, which was plastered to his skin, and climbed off the sumptuous bed.
His back hurt, his pride felt dirtied, and he was grumpy as hell.
Walking back through the dimly lit salon, he didn’t keep his footsteps quiet, slapping his feet noisily on the marble. But he needn’t have bothered. Bodies lay in piles, women using male and female chests and bellies as pillows on the floor, the couches—any soft or hard surface—lying in unattractive sprawls.
Eirik cursed the fact he’d landed on this Hel-world with a pack of lazy bears. His brother and he held a much tighter rein over the behavior of their own warriors. But then he drew back, sighing, and realized that he’d never trained with these men. And they didn’t have his measure either. When they assembled for the morning meal, he’d have to figure out a way to set an example so they would begin to look to him for how they should go on.
In the meantime, he would do what a leader must—learn his surroundings, test the limits of his prison.
Careful to hide his resolve behind a slackened expression, he slowed his steps and yawned, then rubbed a hand over his smooth chest and scratched. Damn, he missed the feel of hair on his chest. Anger flared again, but this time rather than letting it build until he stomped with a bearish tread, he kept up the facade of a man looking for refreshment.
On a nearby side table, he found a large bowl with ice melting in the bottom. The color was pale enough he didn’t worry that he’d spike his blood again with the seductive poison. He picked up the huge silver dish and drank noisily, letting the cold liquid slide down his chin and onto his chest.
In truth, the chill sobered him instantly. Reminded him of home. Of the icy ocean just beyond his keep’s curtain wall where he and his brother sometimes fished through ice holes for succulent black eel and feathered fish.
What did Dagr think had happened to him? An ache in the center of his chest had him tossing away the silver bowl to crash against the floor. The noise caused only a small stir.
One woman draped over the thigh of the red-haired Berserkir, Hagrid, lifted a lid, and gave him a tired half smile. She fluttered her fingers, and then turned her nose to nuzzle Hagrid’s cock.
Before she fully woke and thought to follow him, Eirik quickly headed through the open entrance of the latrine just off the salon.
Gold troughs on tall stems stood against one wall. He grabbed the edge of one bowl and raised its height, pointed his cock toward the center, and let his stream flow. All the while, he searched his surroundings with a sharper eye. Besides the urinals and another, longer trough with gooseneck faucets for washing one’s hands, the appointments were spare. There was only one closed stall in the room. And yet a large, lifelike statue of a creature with a man’s upper body and a horse’s lower, stood next to the entrance, its vacant gaze trained on the room.
Eirik shook himself, ignoring the automatic swirl of water, and studied the statue, finding it comprised entirely of fire-hardened clay, e
xcept for its concave glass eyes.
Here would be their captors’ view into the room.
Knowing what to look for now, he traced his way back through the salon, found the other “eyes” in gold-painted fish and frogs, in peepholes hidden in the murals and jeweled fabric covering the walls.
Satisfied he’d found most of their watchers’ devices, he reentered the room where Hakon and the two women slept. Just as he lay back, the door to the chamber swung inward and the whore-mistress, Aliyah, swept inside, snapped a finger to brighten the lights, and cleared her throat.
Eirik stiffened but didn’t bother to rise.
The woman beside him gave a sharp inhalation, grumbled, and then slowly opened her eyes. Glancing up, she blushed a deep red.
He gave her a scowl, which made her eyes widen. Perhaps fullblown arousal had lent her courage enough to approach him earlier. The chilly aftermath leeched every bit of strength from her. Her body trembled.
Feeling like a bastard, he softened his expression. “I don’t bite,” he said, growling the words.
Her wide brown eyes blinked; another flush swept over her cheeks. The hand lying on his abdomen twitched, then opened to glide across his skin.
“Leticia,” Aliyah drawled. “Your transport has arrived. The driver’s waiting for you at the hoverpad. You wanted me tell you.”
“Oh!” The woman abruptly sat up. “I have to go home. Marcus will be rising soon. I shouldn’t be late.”
Marcus? A husband, perhaps? Or a child?
He shook his head, wondering what constituted a normal married life among these people. Despite the freedoms afforded men in his own culture, women, once wed, were expected to keep their wombs pure to ensure that only their husband’s seed took root. That was, unless Eirik or his brother showed interest, and then a wife would be allowed the pleasure of their bed. A man was proud if his mate was singled out for such an honor.
As Leticia scurried off the bed, she dragged the top sheet with her, uncovering his body as well as Hakon’s and his companion’s.
Enslaved by a Viking Page 6
