The Hunted

by Jaid Black

  Peggy and Michelle glanced at each other warily, then broke apart to form a single file line. Peggy stepped in front of the younger woman, unconsciously trying to shield her from the trainers and the whip-holding man whose name they had still not learned.

  The other captives got in line behind them, all of them looking solemn. Even the women native to New Norway seemed to tense up at the mention of this field trip.

  Peggy stepped in line behind Ivara and another trainer, preparing to follow them to wherever it was the captives were to be led. The giant with the whip and the third trainer took their places at the end of the line, keeping a vigil to make certain nobody dared try to escape. The giant’s eyes flicked over Peggy’s body as he took to the end of the line, a gesture that made her conscious of her nudity. She blushed, her hands instinctively flying up and cupping her breasts to shield them.

  He grunted and continued on. She blew out a breath of relief.

  As the naked women were led from the large underground earthen room they’d been closeted in, Peggy noticed that there were several stone doors dotted all around it, leading to what were presumably connecting chambers. She was curious as to what all the doors led to, at first assuming that they permitted natives to reach the “breeding stalls” from various points in the primitive underground kingdom. But she assumed incorrectly, a fact she was quick to find out.

  Peggy’s heartbeat accelerated when the captives passed by an open door. She immediately recognized the rooms for what they were—trysting chambers. A place for the men of New Norway to be with their captives in private. A place where they could—she gulped—breed them.

  The individual rooms were much smaller than the large inner chamber they were adjoined to. There was enough space in each one to fit two people and a bed, but nothing else.

  Her thoughts turned to young Sara. She wished she had heeded the twelve-year-old Inupiat girl’s whispered advice more than words could say. She had been a fool to dismiss the stone-dweller legends as just that. Her present circumstance was living proof of the fact that the tales were true.

  What now, Peggy? How the hell are you ever going to break out of this place?

  Escape was looking grimmer by the moment, she silently conceded. Even if she could find a way to sneak from the breeding stalls, she had no idea where they were located in conjunction to the ice-coated stone door leading to the outside. And even if she made it to the outside, what then?

  On the way here their party had driven by dogsled for days without seeing a single soul. How in the world would she ever manage to find civilization on foot?

  Peggy shivered as the captives were led from the breeding stalls and down a frigid earthen corridor that wasn’t heated. Her nipples immediately plumped up, the ice-cold air making them stiff. Her hands dropped to her sides, her nipples too sensitive to continue palming her breasts in a fruitless mission to keep them covered. It wasn’t like it mattered anyway, she thought resignedly. Anybody passing by could see the rest of her naked body.

  “Here is our first destination,” Ivara announced in thickly accented English. She stopped before a tall door made of wood and iron bars, then turned around and faced the group, her expression grim. She threw a blonde curl over her shoulder. “In this room,” she said in an authoritative tone, “you will bear witness to what becomes of recalcitrant brides. This large cavern we are about to enter is called the Commons Chamber, or more simply, the Commons.” She waved a hand towards the door. “The females inside have been sentenced as laborers here. They see to the needs of all males covetous of their bodies, rather than just the one male who was to be their husband,” she said pointedly.

  Peggy could feel Michelle tense up from behind her. She held out her hand without turning around, letting the young girl clutch onto her for comfort. Lord only knows, Peggy thought as she nibbled on her lower lip, that she could use a little comforting herself.

  The captives were ushered in single file through the door and paraded in front of a group of loud, boisterous—and huge—men. The men immediately took notice of the captives and began to whistle and shout out things at them in their native tongue.

  Peggy tensed up, yelping when a heavily muscled blonde man ran his callused palm over her exposed breasts, squeezing them as she walked past. Ivara said something to him in a reprimanding tone, to which the giant only grinned.

  Peggy blew out a breath of relief even as her heart rate picked up. She quickly forgot about the man who’d groped her, concentrating instead on gawking at her surroundings.

  Males were seated all around the Commons, a room that looked to be a large tavern. Naked women were scurrying about everywhere, waiting on tables and catering to the men here. The only difference Peggy could see about the females in general was that rather than having a small triangle of hair between their thighs, all of their pubic hair had been shaved bald. Also, their feet were not painted. Otherwise, they looked the same as everyone else here. Naked, she thought grimly.

  But that wasn’t what was making her gape at the people inside of the tavern. The upsetting part was that Ivara hadn’t lied. The bodies of these poor women were being groped and fondled, pinched and played with, and none of the males seemed to be asking for permission. Men were pulling the serving maids down onto their erect laps and doing whatever they wanted to do to them. Suck on their nipples, shove the women’s faces down to give them blowjobs, fuck them—they did everything.

  Peggy’s hand unconsciously flew up to cover her mouth. She watched in morbid fascination as the body of a beautiful brunette was stretched out onto a table by four men. The men were laughing and boisterous as they sucked on her stiff nipples and played in her cunt. They spoke in their native tongue so she had no idea what was being said.

  “Oh my god,” Michelle whimpered, threading her fingers through Peggy’s. “Look what they’re doing to her.”

  Peggy could only nod, her gaze snagged by the scene across the room. She watched as the woman was turned over and placed on all fours. A groaning Viking sank into her pussy from behind, his fingers digging into the flesh of her hips as he rode her body hard. The woman gasped, giving another male the opportunity to shove his swollen cock into her mouth.

  The men rode her body hard, stuffing her cunt and mouth full of cock. She could hear the woman moan from around the penis fucking her face, and didn’t know what to make of it. Were they moans of pleasure? Or, she thought wide-eyed, moans of horror at what was being done to her?

  When a third man slid underneath the serving maid and began to frenziedly suck on her nipples, Peggy looked away. She glanced toward Michelle, feeling sickened by how ill the girl looked. “Are you okay, honey?” she whispered.

  “No.” Michelle closed her eyes briefly and took in a deep tug of air. When she looked at Peggy again, there were tears in her eyes. “I’m a virgin,” she quietly admitted.

  Peggy’s breathing stilled. Good lord in heaven, she thought, please don’t let these men violate a child. “How old are you, sweetheart?”

  “Eighteen. Almost nineteen,” she whispered.

  Peggy nodded. She squeezed Michelle’s hand. “What do you want to do?”

  “Escape!” the girl fervently whispered. “I can’t believe this has happened. I feel like I’m living a nightmare!”

  Peggy couldn’t disagree with that. But, she thought warily, if they tried to escape and were caught, she’d never forgive herself if Michelle’s first time with a man was the result of a gang rape in the Commons. “What if we’re caught, sweetheart? You don’t want to end up here,” she said quietly. She glanced around, noting that Ivara was watching them like a hawk. “The trainer hasn’t taken her eyes off of us,” she murmured.

  “I know,” Michelle softly cried. She closed her eyes tightly and took another deep breath. When she opened them again, she seemed a bit more in control but not by much. Peggy could only imagine how frightened she must be—she was eleven years older than the girl and even she couldn’t recall ever having been mo
re scared than this.

  “I think we should go through with the marriages,” Peggy whispered. “And escape when everyone isn’t watching us so closely.”

  “Look at this beauty!” a drunk Viking interrupted in heavily accented English as he pulled Peggy down onto his lap. Her gaze wildly darted toward Ivara, looking for an escape from this groping. But Ivara was embroiled in a conversation with her whip-wielding giant.

  Oh shit, she hysterically thought. Of all the times to not be watching me like a hawk…

  Peggy’s heartbeat sped up and her breathing grew labored as the muscular man set her on his knee and began kneading her breasts. His blue eyes so much like Geirwolf’s were narrowed in desire, his words thick. “Such a pretty little girl you are,” he said hoarsely, his thumbs grazing her nipples, causing her to gasp. He rotated his hips a bit, letting her feel his solid erection under her bottom. “Do you feel the treat I have waiting for you?”

  If she had met him on the street, she idly considered, she would have found the man dangerously handsome with his piercing blue eyes and dark hair. But under the conditions in which she found herself in, naked in the lap of a man who’d had too much to drink, all she felt was acute fear. “Please don’t,” she breathed out, her breasts heaving from her labored breaths. “I—I—I’m promised to another!” she stuttered out in a rush.

  His hands stilled on her breasts, though he didn’t release them. She bit her lip as she watched his gaze stray down to her cunt. She realized by the disgruntled look on his face that having pubic hair apparently meant that you were protected from all this, a fact that made her release a pent up breath.

  The man muttered something in his Viking tongue, his irritation as he released her obvious. Peggy scurried to her feet, preparing to dash away, when he pulled her in close, her nipples just inches from his awaiting mouth.

  “Tonight, I have no luck,” he mumbled. The man’s blue eyes, glazed over with inebriation and lust, fixated on her nipples as he flicked them back and forth with his forefingers. He played with them for a solid minute like a cat with two toys, making Peggy bite her lip.

  Peggy’s body reacted to the stimulus, arousing her, a fact that didn’t sit well with her. But between standing naked in front of a clothed man and watching helplessly as he fondled an extremely sensitive erogenous zone, there wasn’t much she could have done to prevent it.

  But eventually, thank the lord, he stopped. She’d never felt so relieved as she felt the moment he put her away from him, apparently having decided he’d contented himself enough after rubbing her nipples for a while.

  She turned to Michelle, who looked pale as a sheet. There was nothing she could say to comfort her and they both knew it.

  Peggy took a deep breath. It was either succumb to the training or end up here. She would definitely not end up here. Nor would Michelle. A situation like this would break the young girl’s mind.

  “Well now that you have all had a taste of the Commons,” Ivara called out, “it’s time to see what happens to the females who are given no more chances after receiving their punishment.” Her eyebrows rose. “The next stop is the Dungeon of Shame.”

  Peggy and Michelle glanced at each other. They both implicitly understood what the other was thinking without saying it aloud:

  They found the Commons deplorable enough. By the time they left the Dungeon of Shame, they both knew that Ivara would have won and they would succumb to whatever fate lay ahead.

  * * * * *

  “I’m going to faint,” Peggy said weakly, muttering to herself. “I’m going to fucking faint.”

  Her eyes wide, nausea churning in her belly, Peggy stared surrealistically at the caged women, the jails they had been locked into dangling a few feet above the ground. The women inside of the cages had been blindfolded and chained down on all fours, depriving them of movement and visual stimuli.

  The caged women were all naked, of course, their legs obscenely tied apart so that the bald, awaiting flesh between their thighs was exposed to any man who entered the dungeon. Viking men walked by and fondled the display of cunts in any manner of their choosing. If a man took a fancy to one, he asked the warden for the skeleton key to the cage, opened the iron door, grabbed the female prisoner by the flesh of her hips, and sank into her pussy from behind. If the woman came during the sex session, then the male would throw food bits into her cage when he was finished fucking her, treating her like an animal at a petting zoo.

  Peggy’s hand flew up to cover her mouth, horror lancing through her. She leaned against an equally terrified Michelle, feeling as though she might faint. This is not happening, she thought. For all of his faults, I can’t believe Geirwolf would condone a society that would do this to women.

  By the time Ivara called an end to the twisted field trip, Peggy was resolved to see the marriage to her captor through. She wouldn’t try to run, or help Michelle escape, until she was fairly certain they could make it without being recaptured.

  Because one thing was for certain: there was no way in hell either she or Michelle would end up dangling from the ceiling in suspended cages, their bodies splayed out for any man to take.

  Peggy closed her eyes briefly and took a steadying breath, her body shaking slightly from nerves and ice-cold fear. There was no way in hell.

  Chapter 10

  On the eve he was to trade vows with Peggy, Geirwolf prowled towards the thing—the meeting place of the leaders of New Norway—with another of the groomsman. Anticipation of wedding and then breeding his future wife making his cock stiffen and his stomach muscles clench. The ceremony, he hoped, would be the easy part. It was the ritualistic bedding to take place after the binding ceremony that had him worried. He hoped Peggy would prove agreeable to it…or at least tolerant of it.

  Geirwolf had no idea how much resistance she would give him when first he tried to mount her, though he had often heard it said that Ivara was an accomplished trainer capable of breaking down a woman’s reticence in mere hours. He took comfort in the knowledge that already three days of training had gone by, and more importantly, already Peggy had agreed to speak the ritualistic words that would bind them together for all time.

  He had no idea of the methods Ivara had used to train the captive brides, yet found himself hoping that the rumors were true and Peggy would prove amenable to not only his troth but also his lust. After all, the sooner he impregnated her, the sooner she could be moved from the stalls and into his own cavern.

  “Which of the females is yours, Wolf?” his cousin Ragnar asked, breaking Geirwolf from his thoughts.

  Ragnar, only twenty-three years old, had set aside his bachelorhood in lieu of marriage the moment he’d clapped eyes on the eighteen-year-old Michelle, an exotic beauty he was to wed with this eve. It had taken Ragnar a solid month of planning, but the young and handsome blonde Viking who had been named for the mutual grandfather their ancestry shared from over a thousand years ago, had managed to snag his captive bride on the third attempt. Not bad for a warrior of twenty-three.

  “Peggy,” Geirwolf absently replied, his thoughts focused on the night ahead. He and his cousin turned left when the earthen corridor narrowed and followed the dimly lit path to the Hall of Ceremony, the officious meeting place of the thing. Geirwolf’s father, the jarl, would be performing the binding ceremony for himself and Peggy, as well as for four other couples, Ragnar and Michelle included.

  “Ah! She’s quite a beauty!” Ragnar grinned. “But then so is my Michelle.” He sighed, sounding every bit a young man in the throes of his first true passion.

  A semi-smile tugged at the corners of Geirwolf’s lips. He knew precisely how his cousin felt.

  * * * * *

  Wide-eyed, Peggy gulped as she watched Geirwolf stride into the large, cool cavern with a younger man at his side. Her intelligent gaze raked over the giant she was to marry this evening, noting at once how finely he was dressed.

  He wore a long tunic made of black silk with tight, form-fitting b
lack braies underneath it. His tanned, not to mention massively muscled arms were bulging from around the gold arm bracelets he wore at either bicep, the dragon tattoo on his left arm ending just above the bangle.

  She glanced down at his hands and felt desire flicker in her belly. She blinked, shaking the feeling off, realizing as she did that he had conditioned her body to respond to them during the long dogsled ride to New Norway. Apparently, she thought grimly, he had conditioned her so well that her body responded to the mere sight of his masculine, callused hands.

  Well, she sniffed, her chin going up defensively, she could hardly be blamed for her reaction.

  Geirwolf smiled at Peggy, throwing her completely off guard. She hadn’t been expecting that. The man was not big on smiling. The small gesture made his grim features appear less threatening, laugh lines making his already handsome face that much more appealing.

  Oh damn, she thought as she nibbled on her lower lip, he’s already getting to me. Some martyr you make, Peggy! Stop it. Stop it. Stop---

  Geirwolf’s icy blue eyes flicked over her naked body, then narrowed in desire. Peggy squeezed her thighs together, her body’s embarrassing reaction to his intense perusal causing her to momentarily forget how much she hated him, how much she loathed the man for making her his captive bride. She glanced away, clearing her throat and blinking.

  “There he is,” Michelle whispered from beside her. “Oh Peggy, I’m so scared!”

  Peggy’s gaze followed Michelle’s line of vision directly toward…Geirwolf? Her heartbeat accelerated as the adrenaline kicked in. Oh damn, she thought. Are we both to be his brides? Her nostrils flared. Bastard! She decided to ignore the fact that jealousy was knotting in her belly.

  As Geirwolf drew closer, she realized that Michelle had been speaking of the young man at his side—a very nervous, and she had to admit quite handsome, young man who was staring at Michelle like a lovesick puppy.