“Two on one!” he shouted, feeling foolish and clumsy, anger making his face hot. He grabbed Frakki’s shoulder and pushed him toward one captive heading to the upper walkway. Had any of them made their way to the command deck?
Propelled by Dagr’s shove, Frakki flew, arms outstretched. He wrapped them around the legs of the man he caught. “Now what, milord?”
What indeed? Dagr grimaced, watching from the opposite side of the bay from where he’d propelled himself. “Men, pull your way down the wall to the floor,” he shouted. “Cyrus is going to fix this problem and you will not want to be high up when it’s righted.”
All around him his men fought, blows swinging wide, or worse, connecting impotently and pushing their opponents out of reach. Dagr shook his head, never having felt so helpless or that his size and strength were a handicap. The woman was too clever for her own good.
Dagr spotted another of the crewmen, drifting toward the front of the bay and the bridge. He pushed away from the wall, stretching one arm in front of him and holding the other against his body to shoot like a slow-moving arrow toward the crewman. He caught up to the man, opened his arms, and clamped them around him. Then he used his feet pressed against the railing to propel them both toward the floor.
The lights flickered. A whine and a hum, weight pulled everyone slamming toward the floor, but the hum cut out again, and they were saved from injury at the last possible moment.
“Forget the prisoners! Get to the floor,” Dagr shouted, poking his fingers through the holes in the metal flooring to anchor himself while holding the thrashing crewman against his side.
The lights flickered again, and the hum resumed. The Vikings dropped, but thankfully not far, their prisoners landing beneath them, the breath knocked from their chests.
Laughter sounded from the upper deck and Dagr crawled to his knees and looked up to find Cyrus, holding Honora close to his chest. Cyrus hung on to the rail, bent double, his shoulders shaking.
The thunderous scowl on Honora’s face caused Dagr to bark with laughter, and soon the Vikings roared, their captives looking sheepish and joining them.
Dagr pushed to his feet. “Frakki, gather the prisoners.” He strode toward the ladder, taking every other rung, then climbed over the edge of the platform and stalked toward Honora, whose eyes widened as he approached.
Cyrus dropped his arm from around Honora, and she retreated a step, before stiffening her back.
Dagr reached out, grabbed her waist, and slammed his mouth on top of hers. The kiss he forced on her was brutal and hot.
Cheers erupted below and Dagr broke the kiss to stare down at her as she swayed, clutching his arms and gasping for air.
When she straightened, she slammed her palms against his chest and shoved.
He let her go, enjoying the stubborn pride she displayed in her proud posture and the defiant tilt of her chin.
Eyeing him warily, she said, “Why aren’t you angry?”
“Is that what you want? Do you want to fight me?”
“I want you off my ship.”
“That isn’t going to happen. Not until I get what I came for.”
She slammed a closed fist against his chest and raised the other to clip his chin.
He caught it midswing.
“You can’t win,” she said, gritting her teeth and trying to pull away her hand. “You may have this ship, for now, but you can’t win against the rest of my fleet.”
His hand squeezed around her fist and shoved it down his body, cupping it against his groin. “You can’t make me angry enough to forget that you’re a woman. I wouldn’t have been angry with you even had your plan succeeded. You did what you thought you must. And you proved yourself clever. I admire that. The fact my men enjoyed the exercise ...” He grinned at the fierce scowl that drew her brows together.
He turned her with his hands and gave her a gentle shove toward the ladder. “Get below,” he said, slapping her bottom, knowing the playful action would infuriate her, but he couldn’t resist getting another rise out of her. “You’re still coming with me.”
Honora sucked in a sharp breath the moment the transporter released her. Air so cold it froze inside her chest kept her gasping.
Dagr reached for the hood of the cloak he’d tossed over her before they’d stepped through the portal and pulled it forward, cutting the chill wind slicing at her cheeks. A finger tucked beneath her chin, raising her face.
He bent close. “Keep the hood pulled around you. We will be inside in a moment.”
She shivered and shoved her hands beneath her armpits as she gazed around at the others. The female Viking gave her a smirk and turned her uncovered head to follow Dagr’s movements as he traipsed up a barely discernible path denting a snowbank toward a door cut into a frozen hillside.
Behind her stretched a vast frozen ocean, wind scurrying hardened snow across the surface, making whispery sounds. In front of her was only this lonely gray doorway cut into a hill of pure white. What sort of world was this? How did humans live here?
Baraq strode up beside her and touched her elbow. “Captain, are you all right?” he asked quietly.
The second man to ask her that question, and she still wasn’t comfortable with the answer. “I’m fine. He didn’t beat me for turning off the gravity. He thought it was a fine joke,” she muttered.
“I meant what passed before.”
She ducked her head, not wanting him to see the color rising on her cheeks. “He did nothing I didn’t want.”
Baraq’s expression didn’t change, but she sensed his disapproval. His breath released in a sharp exhale.
Frakki gave Baraq a rough shove from behind. “Quit talking. Do not fall behind. I would hate to lose you in a snowdrift. You would freeze solid in minutes.” And he appeared to find that possibility amusing because he grinned.
Baraq growled but plodded forward.
Frakki turned his attention to her and raised a brow, then motioned her ahead of him. “I cannot lose you. Orders.”
There were no discernible steps leading up to the door. Only the hollows left by the footsteps of everyone she followed. Her feet sank through the crisp top of the snow, into a softer layer that held her. She struggled to move faster.
Once inside the door, the bitter bite of the wind behind them, Honora pushed back the hood of her cloak and looked around. She’d never been in a mining colony, never stepped foot on such a primitive world. With too much to take in, she missed the first friendly greetings thrown Dagr’s way before she realized the miners knew him well.
When she heard the first “milord,” the title reverberated inside her mind.
“Clan-lord,” he’d called himself. “Lord Dagr,” Cyrus had called him. His true rank, not just the pretention or ambition of a pirate.
Her stomach clenched, and she felt suddenly nauseous and clammy.
He wasn’t a pirate at all. Which meant the bounty hunters she’d sheltered had taken a member of one of the ruling houses of the planet, a violation of Consortium planetary law.
She wondered why he’d taken care not to cause mortal harm to her crew, because she didn’t know a ruling house of any other planet that wouldn’t have demanded blood for such a crime.
Her gaze sought him, and she found him staring back at her, his ice-blue gaze pinning her in place. “You know now why I will not be stopped.”
Honora closed her eyes, wrapping her arms around her middle. Her life was forfeit and that of all her crew unless they found this noble’s brother. The simple fact was that Dagr hadn’t harmed any of them because he needed her ship and some of her crew’s help to operate it. He’d known that at some point she would acknowledge the fact she had no choice but to help him in his impossible quest.
Her fate beyond his plot to find his brother was even more uncertain. She’d aided and abetted an illegal action. She’d committed a felony that carried a sentence of death.
Either way she sliced it, her life as she’d known it was o
ver.
Honora and her crew stood in the center of a large, heated cavern where pallets of containerized ore were stored, ready for shipment. All around her, bare-chested giants driving heavy machinery stacked boxes in floor-to-ceiling rows, took inventory with handheld devices, and sealed the lids of the containers designed to stabilize the ore without allowing it to deplete its stored energy. Similar containers, although smaller, were stored in her own ship. One large box, like the ones being moved now to a manual dolly, would power a fleet of ships for a year.
Baraq sidled up next to her. “Did you know?”
“Did I know what?” she asked dully.
“That the bounty hunters took a prince?” he hissed.
Affronted, she snarled, “Of course not. I don’t even know whether they’re aware that they did. All I knew was the Consortium wanted Vikings.” She gave him a sideways glare. “And don’t you dare say I told you so.”
“You knew it wasn’t an honorable cause. You should have filed a request of refusal for the mission.”
Honora stiffened and looked away, sorry she’d ever told him what she’d seen inside the cargo bay. “I’ve never refused an order.”
“And look what it got you.” He slipped a hand around her arm and forced her around to look at him. “Have you considered that’s why they gave you this task? Because you wouldn’t question it?”
She wrestled her arm free. “You overstep yourself, Baraq.”
“Yeah, I’m your goon, your security chief.” He leaned his head close. “And I fuck you occasionally, but you never really hear or see me, do you?”
Heat swept her cheeks. She cast her gaze toward Dagr, who once again was staring back from too far away to know what precisely was being said, thank the stars. A frown darkened his expression as he glanced from her to Baraq.
Taking heed of Dagr’s silent warning, Baraq dropped his hand away. “He seems an honorable man,” he said quietly, “but it doesn’t mean that every one of us isn’t expendable. And I wouldn’t blame him.”
“I wouldn’t either,” she murmured.
“You!” Dagr gestured to Baraq. “The hand truck is yours. When the portal opens, you will pull it through and take it into the hold.”
The hand truck he gestured toward held two large containers of ore. Dagr’s steady gaze dared Baraq to say he couldn’t manage the feat.
“Why so much?” Honora asked while Baraq fisted his hands and strode toward the wheeled sled.
Dagr didn’t acknowledge her with a glance or word. A large redheaded Viking had motioned to him, then strode to Dagr and grasped his forearm, leaning in to whisper in his ear.
Dagr’s brows pressed together in a furious scowl, and he nodded. He eyed the locator clip attached to his fur vest. “We still have thirty minutes before Cyrus retrieves us.” He stomped away.
Honora gave Baraq a quick glance before following, curious about what had annoyed Dagr now.
He left the cavern and strode through a long ice-block corridor that opened into a barracks of sorts, one dug out of ice and lined with skins. Gods, they are a primitive bunch.
A group of Vikings, all dressed in thick, deep-space gear but wearing animal-fur hats atop their long hair, was gathered around a bleacher of stairs that led down toward a large fire pit. At the bottom step sat the female warrior, her arms crossed over her chest and her expression as angry and deadly as any Dagr had ever leveled at Honora.
“Why isn’t she strapped inside a snow-eater and on her way back to Skuldelev?” Dagr asked the men circled around the female.
“She disabled it,” the older, redheaded man said, making a face. “She had to have done it when she said she needed to use the privy. I watched for her, I swear, but never saw her come around the front of the vehicle.”
Dagr ground his teeth. “Get another.”
The redhead blushed. “All three engines have been tampered with, milord.”
Dagr’s fists bunched at his sides. “Woman!” he bit out, staring at the smirk growing on the female warrior’s face. “It doesn’t matter how many times you sabotage the vehicles. You are not returning to the ship. I would have you safe and out of trouble.”
She pushed off the bench and faced Dagr, hands braced on her hips. “But you won’t be here to keep watch over me. Do you really think any of these men can keep me imprisoned?”
Dagr glared down his nose. “I could have you tossed into the dungeon.”
The woman snorted, her lip curled higher. “You don’t think I couldn’t find a way out, couldn’t prey on one of your men, lull him into thinking I am harmless and then escaping?”
“To what object?” Dagr asked, raking a hand through his hair and seeming at the end of his patience.
“You have something here worth stealing. Worth warring over. If you do not take me with you, I will tell my father about your machine.”
Dagr’s teeth ground again and a pulse ticked beside one eye.
Honora watched wide-eyed as the woman stood toe-to-toe with the Viking king and didn’t flinch once.
Baraq blew a silent whistle beside her.
At the sound, Honora turned to find his gaze glued to the warrior-woman.
“Princess, we haven’t time for this,” Dagr growled.
Honora raised her brows at her address. Another noble. Fuck.
“’Tis the truth, we don’t,” the princess said.
The two Viking nobles stood nose to nose, their backs unbowing and their faces rigid with determination. Honora felt a twinge of jealousy for the other woman’s courage and for the fact Dagr seemed impressed as well.
His scowl cleared. His gaze swept the woman from head to foot before he grunted in disgust. “You’ll return to the ship.”
The warrior-woman smiled.
Dagr shook his head, his jaw tightening again. His furious gaze left the blonde, and then landed on Honora. “You will come with me, now.”
Honora jerked at the intent in his voice, then gave Baraq a quick, worried glance.
“Careful,” he whispered.
She followed Dagr as he stomped through the sleeping quarters of the barracks, noting the sparse, primitive conditions. Stone floors, ice-block walls and ceilings, animal skins lining the walls, except for the occasional square cut to allow natural light to beam through the ice walls.
Dagr stopped abruptly beside a small, curtained sleeping room and pushed her inside. He flipped the curtain closed, then turned slowly toward her, his dark brows lowered into a fierce, frightening scowl. “Strip.”
Honora’s eyes widened. “It’s damp and cold in here.”
Dagr kicked the cover from the fire pit at the center of the room and warm light blazed from the bottom. He took a step closer. “Now.”
She backed away, but there wasn’t anywhere to go except backward to the narrow shelf-bed.
He opened his belt and shoved down his trousers, freeing his cock, which was already hard and thick.
“Anyone walking by will know what we do,” she whispered, staring at his erection.
“They already know. Are you worried your guardian will know?”
Footsteps passed the curtain, drawing her gaze. “Are you talking about Baraq—” She closed her mouth. Just the mention of her security chief caused Dagr’s jaw to flex. “We haven’t time for this,” she said, trying another tack.
“We have just enough time for me. Whether you find your pleasure depends on how much longer you argue.”
She should have been furious, should have cringed against the thought of fucking in such a crude place with men walking past them just feet away.
Instead, the sensual heat that hadn’t cooled since he’d taken her earlier flared brighter. The fierce intensity of his glare was really all it took. Nothing about Dagr was soft or easy. Nothing done in halves. He fucked the same way he fought—with every fiber of his will and body.
She removed her jacket and opened her trousers, then unzipped the skin-suit and pushed it down until the clothing pooled over
the tops of her boots.
“That’s good enough,” he said. “Bend over the bed.”
She knelt, breathing hard, her upper body bared but unable to spread her legs very far apart. Cool air hit her pussy and she gasped.
Behind her, fingers found her opening, dipped inside, then retreated. His hot cock prodded her and pushed inward, crowding through her raw, inner tissues and causing her to hiss between her teeth.
Dagr’s fingers bit into her hips, but he held still. “I shouldn’t care that I cause you pain,” he said, his voice so tense it shook.
“Do you care?” she gasped, rolling her face into a clean but scratchy blanket. Even though he’d hurt her, her pussy released a flood of arousal, seeping around his cock to ease his way.
He didn’t answer, but a few moments later, he began moving slowly in and out, his cock gliding in silky, moist heat. His hands continued to hold her hips in a merciless grip.
Her breaths deepened; her sex melted all around his cock. She didn’t want to give him any response at all, but she was too aware of who held her, too excited because everything she’d learned about the man only increased her interest.
Already her body recognized his rule and surrendered, moistening her channel in honeyed welcome, rippling inside to caress his length and pull him deeper.
“How does it feel,” he said, his voice hoarse, “to know I fuck you in the place where your whore fucked my brother?”
She froze, dread cramping her belly. “What?”
“Your Outlander whore waited for him here,” he said, slamming deep. “She waited until he was naked and deep in her thrall. Then you transported them to your ship.” He slammed again, grunting with the effort and so deep he touched her cervix.
Honora hissed again, fisting the covers. “I never saw the prisoners arrive. My crew didn’t operate the transporter. Uh!” She sank her face into the bedding, biting her tongue because each stroke increased the friction building in her core. “My orders were to allow them secrecy,” she said breathlessly. “I didn’t know how the retrievals were accomplished.”
Dagr’s hands readjusted, cupping her ass and squeezing harder; then he hammered her again and again. “It was accomplished like this ... engaged in sex ... my brother too stupid with desire to care whether the sex-thrall acted oddly.”
Ravished by a Viking Page 10
