Chapter Five
Brighid
The other girls in the harem chatted eagerly among themselves about the coming battles, as though violence and bloodshed were something to be excited for. Brighid couldn't bring herself to join in the conversation, so she sat off to the side with her arms wrapped around her middle. How many men would die because of her?
The harem matron, who only gave her the name Aunt to call her, came to sit beside her. Aunt was a formidable woman but had offered Brighid comfort when she first arrived. She was comforting to have with her.
“Are you well?” Aunt asked her. Her eyes were the same steely bile as all the Viles–Dragons were.
“As well as can be expected,” Brighid answered truthfully. “With that disgusting man out there…”
“Eirrick won't let him touch you.”
Eirrick. Another reason for her melancholy, albeit for a much different reason. Brighid glanced at the other girls, who pretended not to take an interest in whey they were saying.
“Eirrick…” she started hesitantly. “Is he… and mean, does he…”
“Spit it out, girl.”
Brighid ducked her head. “Does he still take girls from the harem? He hasn't touched me but I know men have needs women do not share.”
Aunt snorted. “That is horse dung. Eirrick is no animal and you are no cold fish waiting to be acted on. I have seen the way you look at him. You desire him, don't you?”
Brighid’s cheeks heated so rapidly it was a wonder she didn't burn.
“Eirrick is to die for,” one of the other girls purred. “His touch is deft and the things he can do with his mouth! He likes it, too. The best lover I ever had.”
Brighid found herself glaring at the girl and tries to stop. She certainly had no right to feel this rising swell of jealousy… did she? She was his prize, the woman he bought. And yet his words came back to her. I am yours. Could it be they were genuine?
She huffed out a breath, trying to push aside the confusing emotions. It didn't matter, not when Jay was out there, hunting her down. Her trying to show a lack of interest didn't stop the other girls, though. They all began to croon about Eirrick and how he compared to the others. According to them, Brighid was very lucky.
And she did think she was too. Eirrick may have been terrifying at first but the more she got to know him, the less confusing her emotions actually were. If she could let go what had been forced down her throat by the College, she might actually be able to surrender everything to him and trust him.
Unlearning a lifetime of propaganda was a difficult thing, though.
One of the girls wandered over to them. “As soonest you were on board he stopped calling for a girl to warm his bed. I was tempted to give your throat a smile with my blade. To have him taken by a weak human? I didn't think you were worthy of him.”
Brighid blanched, resisting the urge to clutch her throat as her gaze dropped to the knife at the girl’s hip.
“Speaking of warming his bed…” Another of the girls frowned. “You need to warm his bed before he goes into battle. He is doing all this for you and—"
Aunt spoke, tone hard. “The girl does have to warm anybody's bed. She did not ask Eirrick to do this. She did not promise him anything. She didn't even want to be here, she was stolen from her home and sold by auction. If it were any of you, would you be warming your captor's beds? No. She decides who and who not to share her body with.”
The girls actually looked contrite and regretful. Brighid wasn't sure how to take that. Surely it was her duty as Erick's wife… so what if she didn't have a choice to be here? He had given her that choice and she chose to stay. And he had done so much for her… Is he really as good as they say?
She brushed the hair from her face and focused intently on Aunt. “He told me he wouldn't touch me until I wanted him to… does he mean it?”
Aunt nodded. “Eirrick is one of my most honorable boys. He would never do anything without your consent. None of my boys will. And yes, Eirrick is arrogant and I’m certain he thought you wouldn't be able to resist his charms for two nights but he will not bed you until you are ready.”
The girl who said she wanted to kill her cocked her head to one side curiously. “Why haven't you allowed him to bed you? It is clear you want him.”
Brighid pressed her thighs together, wondering if they could smell the moisture that pooled there as she imagined Eirrick and her twined and made to be one flesh. “I suppose the thrill of being able to say no. In the College, we were always obedient. Our bodies weren't ours. They belonged to the goddess and our future husbands. I saw girls whipped and made to sleep with their hands tied to the bedposts to keep them from touching themselves intimately. Those who broke their vows were drowned.”
The girl scoffed. “No way is that real. She’s lying. I bet you aren't even a virgin.”
Brighid’s brows furrowed. “I don't expect you to understand. I might have been given a place in the temple and lived in the college with its gold but I wasn't more than a slave. Jyah chose me and he would not have allowed me to say no to him. And nobody would blame him for constraining me to my wifely duties.”
“Rape you, you mean,” Aunt said angrily. “To be forced to engage in sexual activity against your will is rape. I don't care what bullshit they fed you about wifely duties.”
Brighid hadn't ever considered it that way before. She had always been told that rape was a defilement of Atlantica virgins outside of her allowed couplings. She shivered as she thought of all the women who had been punished for something they had no control over. The more she learned about the dragons the more she realized they weren't the barbarians she always feared–her own people were.
“Well, I am free of Jyah anyway. Even if he defeats Eirrick to reclaim me he would never marry a girl who might have had another man. He only wants me back so he can punish me. Drown me in the sea for breaking my vows.”
"But you haven't." Aunt frowned at her. "I knew that the Atlantica Colleges were barbaric but I didn't realize they were that barbaric. He would kill you for something even if you had no choice in the matter?"
Brighid glanced at her and lowered her gaze to the floor. Even though she knew that it was the way she had grown up and there was nothing she could do about it now, she felt ashamed of the past attitudes she used to have that it was well-deserved. Until Jyah came she had thought that there was something that a girl had to do in order to receive that sort of attention. But she had been perfectly obedient to everything she had been taught and she still found herself on the receiving end of his attention.
Aunt put a hand on Brighid's knee. "Listen to me, child. There is no dishonor in partaking in physical pleasure and there is no blame in things beyond your control happening to you. If you were a victim of something, then the blame is fully on the person who did that to you."
"Jyah always looked at me as though I was naked, no matter how many clothes I wore," she blurted. "Eirrick isn't like that. Even when I think I see desire in his eyes… it's like he's looking at me. He wants me, not my body."
"And you want him." Aunt smiled at her.
Brighid chewed her lip. An admission of desire at the College was almost as bad as acting on it. But she wasn't at the college. She was here with these women who had utter control over themselves. They chose who and when they were with and there was no shame in it. And according to their own traditions, she was married to Eirrick. They still had feasts every night, although since Jyah's proclamation of war, the meals had been much more subdued.
She turned her mind back to Eirrick. "I do want him. But I'm also afraid. Not that he would do anything, not after all this time. But he's so big. The wives that came to talk to us always talked about the pain and how we were meant to sacrifice for the pleasure of our husbands and for our duty to give him babies."
The girl who had said she wanted to kill Brighid made a strangled noise in her throat. "Pain! Those priests are idiots, then. There isn't pain when it's done right. And believe me when I say that Eirrick knows how to do it right. He's soft and sweet and treats his women like the greatest treasure… maybe I should slit your throat after all. I want him again."
Brighid glared at her, which earned a laugh. She turned back to her own thoughts as the girls resumed chatting about other things. If she did go to Eirrick, who would she find was telling the truth? She closed her eyes as she imagined his mouth over her body and a tightness built in her. She wanted him. She knew he wanted her.
So why should she hold back any longer?