Selena woke up the next morning in a bed that wasn't hers.

Opening her eyes, she was caught by the confusion that follows emerging from dreams. It lasted for about a second and then she remembered. The realization that her life would never be the same again hit, and hit hard.

Artificial sunlight was shining in her eyes, but even the soft morning light didn't take away from the fact that she was, in fact, in Ragnar's bed.

Naked.

She sat up with a jolt, pulling the covers over her body, looking – no doubt – like a deer in headlights.

The bed was empty except for her, but there were steps in the hallway outside and the harbinger walked in, stopping at the door when he saw the look on her face.

For a second, it seemed to Selena that there was a small smile on Ragnar's lips, but then it was gone.

Okay, then. So my humiliation amuses you? Bastard.

More important questions came first, though.

"What is going on here?" Selena asked angrily, trying to bury herself under the pillows and the soft silken sheets, all embroidered with silver of course. "Why am I naked? Did you do this? What is wrong with you –"

"I did not," Ragnar said.

Wait, what?

"Huh?" Selena asked. "Then how...?"

Now the harbinger was definitely trying not to smirk at her. Ragnar leaned against the door frame, not taking his eyes off her for a second.

"I suspect it was the wine," he said calmly. "You drank it while we had dinner. I should have warned you that Terrans take a while to get used to the potency, but it didn't occur to me before it was too late. I'm not used to drinking with females."

"And then what?" Selena asked, fearing the answer.

"You got sleepy," Ragnar replied. "You got up and came here. Then you undressed yourself."

Selena bit her lip.

It didn't sound like a lie, especially because she did like to sleep naked. The occasion wouldn't be the first where she followed that nightly routine without really thinking about it. In med school she'd spent long nights studying, only to discover she'd gotten out of her clothes and tucked herself in the next morning.

Selena also happened to be certain she wouldn't do it on Ragnar's ship, but the wine was the missing link.

She couldn't remember having more than three cups, but it was probably more than enough for her, given that she'd never tried the alien drink before.

"So you saw me naked," her mouth said before the rest of Selena caught up.

"Yes," Ragnar said in that maddeningly calm voice of his.

It was driving her insane. The deep, sultry tone of the harbinger's deep voice was doing things to her that Selena wasn't keen to admit. The silken sheets pressed against her naked body were smooth and soft and a little cool.

Her body was hot in contrast as Selena stared at her fated, dressed in casual black clothes for now. The garments hid nothing from her, though. The powerful, strong body simply couldn't be obscured by something as simple as clothes.

The most irritating aspect of the whole mess was that there was a very, very guilty party of Selena that wanted Ragnar to come to her. The light gray eyes were holding her gaze like he had some sort of a power over her that Selena didn't know about.

It scared her a little.

"Did – did you touch me?" Selena asked, her mind snapping back to the night before.

Ragnar frowned.

"No," he growled. "I want you wide awake when I claim you."

When you do what!?

Selena forced herself to calm down. Of course that was what the harbinger wanted. It was what she was for. They'd already talked about babies and the last she checked, some sort of a sexual activity was needed to make them. She didn't think a barbarian race had developed some system of test-tube babies. They did it the old-fashioned way.

Once again, her body didn't mind the idea nearly as much as Selena would have expected.

"You didn't even touch me when you came to bed?" she asked suspiciously.

Ragnar shook his head.

"I didn't come to bed," he answered. "I spent the night training and overseeing preparations for landing on Luminos."

"That's... kind of you," Selena said carefully, not knowing the reason for such mercy.

It became obvious very quickly.

"This will not happen again," Ragnar said. "As my fated, you will share my bed the way a fated couple is supposed to. I gave you a chance to rest up and gather yourself the first night, but today I will join you."

Selena didn't even want to know what that meant for her. She didn't think Nayanors were the type to start off cuddling and take things slow.

Ragnar pointed to a door in the wall Selena hadn't even noticed. She blinked when the artificial sunlight got in her eyes, wondering if the harbinger had done that too, to make her feel more at home.

"You can take a bath if you wish," Ragnar said. "I will have breakfast brought to you."

"And you?" Selena asked, deeply bothered by the fact she'd exposed herself to him.

Not that it would matter, considering how intent Ragnar was to have her start taking her wifely duties seriously.

The harbinger's eyes narrowed.

"I will wait for you," he said sharply, a warning note in his voice. "You don't need to rush, but don't think you can avoid me. There are things I must tell you before we reach Luminos."

With that, the harbinger turned on his heel and marched away. Selena jumped up from the bed, grabbed her clothes and dashed to the bathroom, dragging the sheets along.

It was utterly crazy. She was on an alien spaceship and she also happened to be the fated of a cruel, humorless man who only seemed to be amused by her misery. And yet Selena was worried about modesty.

Well, not modesty as such. She would have been fine with Ragnar catching a glimpse of her if she didn't think it would immediately set his mind on a track of claiming her.

Selena shook her head, looking around in the bathroom.

She was incredibly grateful that it wasn't some contraption that required an engineer's degree to work. In fact, Selena quite liked the set-up.

There was a large bath built into the floor, with a panel that was had buttons marked with instructions in the common tongue of the galaxy.

"Okay," Selena told herself. "Something good, at least."

She picked a program to fill the bath quickly and slipped in when the warm water had reached the seats.

A quiet sigh of joy slipped over her lips and Selena felt a smile spreading on her face. The water was nicer than she could have imagined. There was a softness to it, a fresh scent like she was in a spring somewhere outdoors. None of the coldness, though.

She sank deeper into the water, allowing herself a moment of peace before she had to face her fated again.

Thinking of Ragnar wasn't helping. Selena cursed all womankind for suffering through the endless curse of gorgeous, irritable men. It had been what had drawn her to Jake, no doubt, but he'd been nothing compared to Ragnar on either account.

The warlord's image appeared before her eyes again and again like it was painted on her irises. Selena whimpered when flashes of desire kept running through her, feeding the lust that was already pretty prevailing.

She could have sworn the room hadn't been so hot before. Feeling her pussy growing wet when she couldn't shake the harbinger from her mind, Selena groaned.

"I should have taken a cold shower instead," she murmured, checking the control panel again.

Searching for the key to get some more cold water, Selena almost screamed when one of the buttons made an entire wall of the bathroom slide away. Through the glass that had been behind it, she could see a training room equipped with machinery and heavy-looking equipment that reminded her of a Terran gym.

Ragnar was standing in the middle of the room, wrapping something that looked like a bandage around his arm, only it was glowing slightly. When he turned, Selena could see that there were cords coming out of it, connecting to the device in Ragnar's chest.

She looked on with interest, having never seen a diadon before. The diamond-shaped device was the cause for the long lives of Nayanors, healing and reviving them.

It was one of the few things the Union knew about them. The effect of the diadon had become obvious when they kept seeing the same men show up time and time again, looking like they hadn't aged a day. It practically made Nayanors immortal.

The sapphire mineral shining in the middle of it looked like a pulsing heart.

It would have been a wondrous sight, if Selena hadn't been so busy staring at something else.

The harbinger's shirt was gone. When he turned to face her, not appearing to see or hear her, Selena's mouth dropped open. She'd known a Nayanor warlord would be ripped, but that had not prepared her for the panty-dropping sight that now greeted her.

Ragnar was flawless to the point where Selena had to consider whether she was still dreaming. His chiseled, hard-as-rock body was tanned and smooth. Perfect, well-toned muscles moved under his skin as the harbinger finished setting up the device that Selena believed to be some kind of a monitor. He rolled his shoulders, making Selena squirm involuntarily.

He's not that hot! Pull yourself together, she chided herself.

But he was.

For a moment, his gorgeous eyes looked in her direction, but didn't seem to see her. Selena stared, unable to look away. If she'd been standing, it would have made her knees go weak, but luckily she was not.

Then Ragnar looked away with an almost bored expression on his face. He got down on the ground and started doing push-ups, still seemingly completely oblivious to being observed.

Selena bit her lip.

He had to see her, didn't he? Watching the stone-hard muscles at play as the harbinger worked out, Selena had a hard time believing he wasn't doing it for her. It had all the characteristics of a play for her benefit.

She thought about calling out to him, but all of a sudden, she didn't want to rouse his attention.

The desire that had been bugging her was now a raging inferno of lust that refused to go away. Selena moaned when she slipped her hand between her legs, rubbing her fingers against her sex. Even the smallest touch sent thrills through her body that she wouldn't have believed.

She couldn't take her eyes off Ragnar.

The harbinger kept going, not showing any signs of tiring. When he got bored, he lifted one hand off the ground and picked up the pace as if it had gotten in the way.

Selena brushed her fingers against her clit, running circles around her delicate flesh, her other hand coming up to grope her breasts. She was beginning to breathe heavily, already more aroused than she could have thought. It was like Ragnar was a drug for her that she had gotten hooked to so fast and so hard.

She slipped two fingers into her pussy, scissoring them. She rested her legs against the other seat, propping herself up for better leverage.

It was weird, for sure, but everything was fine up to the point where Selena closed her eyes in pleasure, biting at her lip gently.

Her imagination took over so fast and so mercilessly.

In Selena's mind's eye, Ragnar was right before her now, leaning down to kiss her, passionate and dominating. She could imagine drops of water beading on the harbinger's skin, almost feel the weight of his body pressing down on her.

A moan escaped Selena's mouth, drawn-out and desperate. She worked her fingers deeper into her pussy, wondering what it would feel like to have the harbinger fuck her so hard she couldn't breathe.

With every breath she took, the lust took over more and more. Selena gripped the edge of the bath, fingering herself as hard and fast as she wanted Ragnar to fuck her. She had no idea where the ache had come from and honestly couldn't bring herself to care at that point. It was clear she needed to get a grip and stop acting like a schoolgirl with a crush, but right then –

Selena opened her eyes.

Ragnar was standing again, as unfazed by the workout as he'd been before. The band on his arm was gone and a roughly humanoid boxing bag had risen from the floor.

The harbinger's perfect body was glistening with sweat as he kept landing punches on the dummy, which kept trying to dodge. The mechanical enemy was no match for Ragnar, though, as he moved so fast Selena had a hard time seeing him.

She did see him, though. Every last inch of his sculpted chest, the rough lines of his face, the untamed fire burning in his stormy eyes. The bulging muscles of his biceps, thick as stumps of trees. The rock-hard fists that seemed to pulverize the poor dummy.

"Fuck..." Selena murmured, scissoring her fingers in her pussy. "Holy fuck –"

She couldn't have stopped herself if she tried at that point. Her body was trembling, contorting as she twisted on her seat. Her toes were curling around the edge of the other seat and loud, hopeless cries were filling the room. Selena had slipped past the point of reason so quickly she'd hardly noticed it.

Her fated didn't deserve her forgiveness and he definitely didn't deserve her desire for what he'd done, but that was an argument for another day.

Right then, at that moment in time, Selena would have given everything to have the harbinger step through the glass and take her in the bath. She moaned loudly as she imagined his big, strong hands around her as he drove his cock into her. Selena tried to mimic the motions, but her own hand wasn't nearly as good as she imagined Ragnar would be.

"Fuck me," she begged the vision, closing her eyes again in pleasure. "Gods this is so wrong, but I want it too damn much. Take me, take me, yes, gods yes!"

Her body arched off the seat, the water splashing loudly now that the bath had filled up. Selena gripped the edge of the bath in an effort not to slip, but it was no help. Nothing could contain or control the lust that ran through her. She couldn't remember being that turned on in her life, or her orgasm coming so fast it felt like being run over by a train.

Selena's eyes snapped open and she had to bite her tongue hard enough to draw blood when she saw that Ragnar had stopped.

The harbinger was looking right at her even though Selena was certain he couldn't see her.

The gaze of those magnificent, bottomless, mesmerizing eyes knocked her over the edge so violently she couldn't muffle the second scream.

"Ragnar!" she gasped, her fingers thrusting in and out of her so fast she was afraid of breaking her wrist.

Her entire body shuddered when she cummed, screaming, not caring who heard her. Selena almost hit her head as she twitched. Her climax was so intense it sent a shock through her, disabling every other function for a long moment. She was nothing but pleasure, lost in the waves of the orgasm, cumming as she stared at the harbinger.

Then Ragnar returned to his exercise and Selena let out a breath of relief. She slunk deeper into the water, hoping that it would wash away her shame.

"Great," Selena told herself with a smile that wouldn't leave her lips. "This was an amazing show of integrity and good judgment. But at least it's over. No harm done. Everything's fine."

She wondered if she kept repeating that to herself for long enough, would she actually believe herself?

Selena finished washing and got out of the bath. She dressed quickly, resisting the urge to cover from the glass wall. The short tunic she'd chosen was a good fit, but the tight black pants certainly were not. They were so skintight it was impossible to get them on after a bath. Finally Selena gave up, resolved to come back after breakfast.

It's not like he hasn't seen me naked, she thought bitterly.

She hoped she could sneak into the living room without being seen or heard. Pulling the hem of the tunic down to cover herself, Selena had taken one step out of the bedroom when a deep voice stopped her.

The harbinger was already waiting for her, sitting behind the low table. Still topless. Still gorgeous.

Still a bastard.

The harbinger took a sip from his cup, his merciless burning eyes observing her over the rim with a look that made Selena's heart skip a beat. There was an undeniably victorious smirk at the corner of his lips.

"Did you think of me?" Ragnar asked.