The Raiders

by Angelique Anjou

  Maybe that was it? She didn’t have enough … spunk? Maybe he was so used to the women struggling that her going limp was like reeling in a … dead fish? Maybe he lost his hard-on the minute she turned to mush?

  Or maybe they were physically different where it counted and he knew it and he hadn’t figured out what, if anything, could be done about it?

  She didn’t know, but she did know he was driving her crazy!

  She’d gotten over scared.

  Well, most of it.

  Maybe it would be more accurate to say she’d gotten over terrified? She wasn’t absolutely, blithering idiot terrified after having been around him through the capture and several days of captivity?

  Because there was no indication that she needed to worry about anything painful.

  Because even though the warrior women had acted as if they were terrified and panicked when the barbarians had come after them, and they had maintained distain and a lack of cooperation since capture, they didn’t behave as if they knew the torture would start any minute.

  Truth to tell, she was starting to get bored.

  Given her situation, she supposed she needed her head examined. She was a captive and she still didn’t really have a clue of what was to become of her, or what the plan was.

  She was pretty sure, though, that this is how the women were reproducing! So much for the idea that they were asexual!

  They should have known that it was highly unlikely that any higher life form would evolve in such a way as to spontaneously reproduce!

  Of course, she’d begun to suspect when she and Monica had been taken to the river to bathe that they’d been mistaken about all of the villagers being female anyway. She’d forgotten that observation in light of the frightening events directly afterward, but she remembered then that she’d thought maybe the natives simply dressed androgynously, that there actually were male and female natives.

  That must make things … unpleasant for the raiders when they captured a male instead of the female they were hoping for!

  Or maybe that didn’t matter to either of them?

  There was still more that she didn’t understand than there was that she did comprehend about these people of the sister worlds.

  * * * *

  Drak may have been known far and wide for his acute sense of fairness, but he was not famous for his patience. He steered clear of Noelle for days after the near total breakdown of his self-control.

  It was nothing short of amazing that desire could make the most unreasonable things seem perfectly reasonable, he thought with a mixture of wry amusement and irritation.

  Not that expending himself on her would have been the least bit unreasonable under typical circumstances. They went to outrageous lengths to have a woman to warm their beds and expend themselves on during the frigid winter months.

  But he found it highly annoying that he could be ruled by his desires instead of in control of them.

  Generally, he was in control!

  Was he getting old, he wondered in self-disgust? Or was there just something about Noelle that weakened him?

  “Women,” he muttered, drawing Kulle’s attention despite the fact that the noise level in the great hall was nearly deafening with the revelry of the men. He shook his head at the questioning look the older man sent him and abruptly pushed himself to his feet. He had spent three days in the damned uncomfortable great hall with his men to give Noelle time to calm down after his last near disastrous loss of control. That should be enough! And he was damned tired of trying to sleep on a hard pallet by the hearth instead of his bed.

  Maybe he was getting old?

  And soft?

  His men would not have agreed with that assessment. In point of fact, although Drak did not notice it, the moment he got abruptly to his feet it so unnerved the men close enough to notice that they fell immediately silent. By the time he reached the stairs there was not a man—or woman—that had not noticed his thunderous expression or his abrupt departure and the hall was considerably quieter than it had been. Most of them had the sense to pick up their conversations again as soon as they were certain they weren’t the target of his wrath, but some of them had been too unnerved to recall what they’d been saying and there was no getting around the fact that a good bit of the revelry had soured.

  What he needed to do, Drak decided when he reached the top of the stairs, was to steer clear of the bed and see what information he could pump from her by engaging her in conversation.

  It was rather unfortunate that the word ‘pump’ leapt into his mind, because it completely diverted him from his original purpose.

  * * * *

  Noelle was startled when Prince Drak entered the room.

  Mostly this was because she hadn’t seen him in a few days—not since the night he’d teased her with the possibility of ravishment and then left her feeling as if she’d missed something she regretted missing. But also because she felt guilty because she’d spent most of those days plundering his room to see what she could find of interest.

  She’d done her best to cover her tracks and was hopeful he wouldn’t be able to discern her intrusion, but she wasn’t as certain of that as she would’ve liked to have been.

  The young boys that had been seeing to her needs had damned near caught her twice—until she’d gotten used to the times they arrived with food and or more fuel for the fire they’d, thankfully, kept burning since her arrival so that the room had finally reached a point of being a tolerable temperature.

  Actually, as embarrassed as she was to admit it even to herself, the leap in her pulse wasn’t entirely from either surprise or guilt. Hopefulness had also played a part.

  Because she’d spent a good deal of time reliving those moments when he’d kissed her and raised her core temperature with desire and she was no longer convinced that being the Prince’s sex slave was completely repulsive to every feeling.

  Instead of instantly whisking her to the bed to finish what he’d started, however, the Prince settled in one of the large chairs near the hearth and studied her thoughtfully for some moments.

  “My son has seen that your needs have been attended?” he asked after a few moments.

  The question both startled and disconcerted Noelle. “Yes,” she responded cautiously, wondering which of the two boys was his son. Well, she supposed he must be referring to the elder of the two. The younger boy didn’t seem old enough to be given such a task despite the fact that he’d helped the elder very adequately.

  She had, in point of fact, been working for days on making overtures of friendship toward the two boys in hopes of a little company and entertainment if she couldn’t pry any useful information out of them. The younger of the two seemed willing enough, but the elder—apparently the Prince’s heir—was clearly suspicious of her motives. And not only wouldn’t let his guard down, he also prevented any attempts on the younger child’s part to talk to her.

  It occurred to her to wonder at the Prince’s motive for bringing it up, to wonder if he was trying to establish a rapport purely for the sake of entertaining himself or if he was leading up to something by pointing out that she had been treated well.

  Drak scanned the woman assessingly. “Kadin’s clothing seems to fit you quite well. I will see that the tailor uses those measurements.”

  Meaning she would be there and in need of clothing for a while?

  That possibility at least eased some of her anxiety since he surely wouldn’t be planning to do anything horrible—like kill her or torture her—if he was going to have clothing made for her.

  On the other hand, that also seemed to indicate he planned to hold her quite a while.

  “Kadin?” she asked, instead of posing the questions she really wanted to ask.

  His dark brows rose. “My son.”

  “Oh.” She glanced around uncomfortably and finally headed toward the stool on the opposite side of the hearth since it seemed to her that the time had come for the interrogation she’d
been dreading and she thought she might be too wobbly-kneed to stand throughout.

  She wasn’t going anywhere near the bed!

  Not that she was convinced she would find it appalling if he did decide to have sex with her, but she also wasn’t sure it wouldn’t be an ordeal and she saw no sense in doing something that might provoke him.

  He propped an arm on the arm of the chair, bending that arm to support his chin on his fist. “You are not of Aiper’s sister world, K’naiper, and you are certainly not from this world. Where is it that you come from?”

  Noelle stared at him owl eyed, trying to think if she’d worked up a believable lie to cover that particular question, but if she had, it abandoned her the moment he asked.

  “I suppose I should say, where are your people?”

  Noelle blinked at him. Not for a moment did she believe he wanted to know so he could return her. She wasn’t sure why he did want to know, but it was certainly not for that reason.

  More importantly, would it endanger the people of the colony if she told him?

  She was pretty sure it would.

  On the other hand, the colony was blatantly obvious if he should go looking—not hidden—and just as clearly alien so what would be the point in trying to lie and would it gain her valuable points in his favor if she simply went ahead and gave him information that he could easily obtain himself?

  “We have established a colony on K’naiper,” she responded after a prolonged moment.

  Amusement flickered in his eyes and she was certain that was because of her garbled pronunciation of the name.

  He looked away, studying the flames on the hearth. “So your people have decided to make a place for themselves there. You are warring with the villagers at Tealdim?”

  It was news to her that the place had a name, but she supposed he knew it since he was obviously referring to the village where she’d been held captive. And he seemed to know she’d been a captive rather than a welcome visitor. “It would be more accurate to say they were warring with us. We sent a delegation to make a treaty, but ….” She broke off and shrugged. “That’s when me and Monica were captured.”

  He frowned, as if trying to recall the incident. “The darkling that was with you?”

  Indignation fluttered in Noelle’s chest. “My friend with the dark skin,” she responded tightly.

  He looked at her in surprise and then with a mixture of amusement and anger. “You are offended by my choice of words and yet you use much the same description. Why is darkling offensive and dark skinned not?”

  Uneasiness slithered through Noelle. He was way too big—and powerful—for her to simply dismiss the possibility of pissing him off. “You called her a name. I described her,” she said a little weakly, it having occurred to her that she didn’t have a clue of whether he’d intended the comment as an insult or not.

  He looked genuinely puzzled. “We all have names—for ourselves as individuals, for our tribe or clan …?”

  Noelle felt her face redden. She didn’t want to try to explain prejudice even if it wasn’t something complicated enough she didn’t feel competent enough to explain it. Instead, she searched her mind for something to change the subject. “K’naiper means sister to Aiper?”

  The amusement was unmistakable this time, but he sobered at once. “Yes. More accurately, I suppose, she is the wandering sister. Long, long ago, in the distant memory of the people, she came. She brought much sorrow with her, much death and destruction. But then the god, Aiper, set her in her place and bade her to behave herself or he would cast her from the family once more and she would wander forever. She promised to behave and so Aiper made a place for her, taking this colder path for himself so that little sister could stay warm.”

  Noelle stared at him as she absorbed the story of the twin worlds, trying to decide if it was a story he and his people still believed in or if it was just how his people, in their distant, primitive past had explained what must have been a cataclysm to end all natural disasters! It sounded as if he was saying the sister world was a rogue that had wandered into their system and taken up a place, shoving their world further from the sun and making it far less habitable, maybe, than it had been.

  But was that true? Or was it just made up to explain things much as primitive humans had tried to come up with stories to explain things that happened around them?

  And how had it come about that some of their people were here and others on the other world? Specifically, it seemed that the sexes had been separated and that didn’t seem likely to be accidental at all.

  Of course, she supposed they might have been separated and the women thrived there but not here and the men, maybe, were being systematically killed off in the raids these tribesmen made for females? Maybe that explained why the ‘Amazons’ made themselves up to look androgynous? It was to throw off the raiders?

  “Your turn.”

  Dragged from her thoughts so abruptly, Noelle stared at the Prince blankly. “My turn?” she echoed.

  “To tell me about your people,” he prompted. “You see, I have been trying to decide how you can be most useful to me and I thought you might answer that yourself.”

  Uh oh, Noelle thought.

  Chapter Nine

  Noelle wasn’t entirely certain of how it happened. She hadn’t thought she was within reach of the Prince when she’d settled on the stool. Clearly, she’d been mistaken, however, for he simply leaned forward, grasped her arms, and dragged her to him. One moment she was trying to think of something ‘safe’ she could say that would make her sound useful enough to insure her safety without getting her into deep shit. The next, she was sprawled awkwardly across his knees, watching his face go out of focus as it descended toward hers.

  She jumped when the heat of his mouth covered hers, sucking in a sharp breath. But that quick intake dragged his scent with it. A wave of debilitating dizziness followed. His taste, as he settled his mouth over hers and plunged his tongue into her mouth, lit her up like a Christmas tree. Electrical sparks zipped along every nerve ending, it seemed. Warmth flowed through her and became molten as he deepened the kiss and began to strum her body with his hands as if he was playing a musical instrument.

  It occurred to her as he rose with her and strode toward the bed—she assumed—that she was about to get teased unmercifully—again.

  Maybe it was his idea of torture, pleasurable but still miserable dealing with the unsatisfied aftermath?

  It could’ve been a very great deal worse, but she wasn’t inclined to think so at that moment.

  And yet she also couldn’t see much possibility of assuaging the hunger flowing from him and into her.

  He was actually amazingly adept!

  He had loosened the waist of the trousers and stripped them down her legs almost before she felt the tug.

  Unfortunately, they hung there on the damned boots!

  Plus her breasts felt achingly tight and full, throbbing for his touch.

  He shoved one hand beneath the tunic and tormented her by plucking at her nipples with his fingers and massaging her breasts all the while he explored her mouth with his and made her drunk with need.

  He broke the kiss, grabbed the tunic and jerked it over her face, burrowing his face against her breasts.

  Noelle came up off the bed in a bow as he caught one nipple between his teeth and pinched it hard enough it took her a few seconds to decide whether it was more pleasure or pain she felt.

  The muscles in her sex were not in doubt. They began to clench and unclench rather frantically, in a milking motion that pumped liquid want through her channel.

  He sucked that tormented nipple hard after he’d teased it with the edge of his teeth and then switched to the twin to torture it as he had the first. Noelle grabbed two fistfuls of his long, golden brown hair, discovering it was amazingly silky to the touch.

  His head felt absolutely enormous caught between her hands, making her suddenly acutely conscious of just how huge the man
was—as if the hand and mouth that engulfed her breast wasn’t enough!

  If everything on him was as big ….

  He distracted her by leaning away and jerking first the boots off and then her trousers.

  Actually, it wasn’t a distraction. It brought her to cold hard focus, ripped away the glow of heated desire.

  According to sex class and social protocols, a woman didn’t let a man get that far and then say ‘I’ve changed my mind!’—not if they were smart and wanted to avoid what might turn into deadly opposition to her conflicted desires. Men—Earth men who weren’t savages—weren’t inclined to take rejection well at any point, but they could get really nasty if a woman let them make it almost to the finish line and tried to yank the rug out from under them.

  She stared at him, wide eyed, trying to decide if it was possible that she could make it into the bathroom and bar the door before he could catch her.

  No, she decided, wasn’t an option at this point if it ever had been.

  His chest was almost as broad as she was tall!

  The muscles on his upper arms were bigger than her thighs!

  Oh my god! The man was a monster!

  Tossing his tunic off, he dove at her again, covering her mouth with his.

  Noelle struggled to retain her sanity and ignore the lure of his taste and scent and touch.

  It was a losing battle.

  Everything about the man—including his size—made her drunk with need, hunger, desire.

  The fear that he might rip her half—willingly or accidentally—played along the fringes of her mind, but she couldn’t make her body or mind see reason. The heat flowing through her demanded appeasement.

  She struggled to see what sort of ‘weapon’ he had to work with when she realized he’d unfastened his own trousers and unearthed his ‘man thing’ but didn’t manage to get so much as a glimpse before she felt the probe of his flesh as he searched for the mouth of her sex.

  The moisture that had made her slippery wet with need abruptly vanished. The mouth of her sex closed tightly the moment she felt the size of the thing butting against her.