The Northlands, May 2437
Finn
I consider myself an easy-going person, but if there’s one thing I don’t like, it’s people disturbing my sleep.
Being a doctor means that I have taken my share of night duty, and that every night I get to have a full night’s sleep is sacred to me. On the night when I first met Athena, I was uncommonly grumpy and I blame it on sleep deprivation.
“Wake up, Finn!” My friend and our country’s ruler, Khan, slammed my door open and turned on the light.
“Is someone hurt?” I asked drowsily, opening one eye only.
“Not yet, but if you don’t get out of that bed and help me clean up the mess that my idiot brother has created, then we might have a war on our hands.”
I held on to my covers when Khan tried jerking them off me. “Don’t, I sleep naked,” I warned him with another yawn. “What did Magni do now?”
“The fucker kidnapped a Momsi,” Khan sputtered and paced my room.
It sounded too crazy to be true so I pulled my warm covers back over my head. Obviously, this was just a nightmare and all I had to do was think happy thoughts and it would all go away.
But Khan didn’t disappear. Instead he went to the bottom of my bed and tore off my covers.
“Heeyyy!!” I complained.
“Didn’t you hear me?” he shouted. “Magni kidnapped a Momsi!”
Finally, I opened both my eyes, sat up, and rubbed my face. “Okay, you can stop now. I might be tired but I know it’s not April the first, and where would Magni even find a Momsi?”
“In the Motherlands,” Khan hissed as if that was fucking obvious. “Get dressed, I need you to protect her.”
Shaking my head and using the heels of my hands to rub my eyes some more, I wondered how the hell Magni had found a way into the mysterious Motherlands.
“All right,” I said. “Give me a second to get dressed.”
Khan was still pacing my room. “How the hell am I supposed to rule this country when my brother is the biggest fucking idiot in the whole world? First he loses his wife, then he loses his fucking mind, and now he’s jeopardizing our century-old peace treaty with the Motherlands.”
A minute later we took the back stairs down to his study, where Magni sat brooding. Except for each one’s tall figure and broad shoulders, the two brothers were opposites in physical appearance. Much like the chess pieces in front of Magni, one brother was dark and the other blond.
“Okay, this is what’s going to happen,” Khan commanded. “Finn is going to protect the Momsi until I can clean up this mess.”
Magni rose to his full height, his fists placed solidly on the table in front of him. “I don’t care what you do, as long as you don’t give back the hostage until I have Laura returned to me.”
The two brothers discussed it intensely while I waited with a pang of sympathy for Magni. He was my closest friend, and I had witnessed his distress when his wife Laura left him last week. But I never imagined he would do something as desperate as this to get her back.
Khan finished their heated discussion. “Let’s go.” But then he stalled at the door, turning to look at me with a stern expression. “Finn, this isn’t a time to be fun and brotherly; you’d better command respect with that woman or she’ll be dominating you like a weak Momsiboy.”
Resenting being compared to one of the feminine men of the Motherlands, I wrinkled my nose and followed Khan out to the entrance area where our friend Alexander Boulder stood with a small woman.
“Athena,” Khan walked up to a small woman. “This is Finn MacCumhail. He’s a good friend of mine and I’ve appointed him to be your personal bodyguard while you’re in my house. Given the circumstances you arrived under, I doubt you would feel safe with my brother.”
“Hello,” I said and stepped closer. My eyes resting on the fascinating tattoo that started between the woman’s eyebrows and moved up her forehead in an intricate design. Her eyes were guarded, her shoulders tensed up, and the she didn’t speak. With her apple cheeks and fair skin, she couldn’t be more than nineteen or twenty, and compared to us men, her small frame made her look like a child. It immediately ignited my natural instincts to protect the weak, and since I imagined that she was terrified, I flashed a comforting smile to signal that she had nothing to fear from me.
Khan spoke up again. “I’ll let the Motherlands Council know that you’re here and that you’re safe. Hopefully, Laura will be returned to us quickly so you can go home.” His face softened a little. “You might be pleased to hear that we have another woman here from the Motherlands. She’s an archeologist who is helping us excavate an old library. It’s late now, but tomorrow, I’ll let you meet her and hopefully she can testify that we’re not as horrible as you might think right now.”
Athena remained stoic.
“Finn, take Athena to your room and make sure she is safe and comfortable tonight. I’ll see you both tomorrow morning,” Khan instructed.
“This way,” I said and signaled for her to go first up the stairs. She didn’t move.
“You heard Lord Khan, I’m your appointed protector so you have to come with me,” I explained.
The young girl opened her mouth and spoke in a voice much deeper and firmer than I would’ve expected. “You’re mistaken if you think I’m going with you into your room,” she said and crossed her arms as if she had authority.
A discussion about this would have been redundant, and although I would’ve preferred for her to walk up the stairs by herself, I had no problem carrying her to my room.
“Stop wriggling,” I warned her, and when she didn’t I smacked her butt.
“Let me down,” she demanded and I did – once we were inside my room.
“Forget it,” I told her when she tried to get out the door again. “This country isn’t suited for a female to walk around by herself. If I were you I would stay in here where you’re safe.”
“Safe?” The way she spoke the word sounded like an accusation. “Don’t think I haven’t heard about you men of the North and what you do to women. You are brutal savages.”
“Yeah, that’s true, but mostly on Tuesdays and since it’s already past midnight it’s technically Wednesday.”
Her green eyes narrowed into slits. “You think you’re funny, don’t you?”
“Me?” I shrugged. “Mostly I’m just tired; it’s pretty late and I was sleeping when you arrived.” After making sure the door was securely locked, I walked back to the bed and stepped out of my pants. “Do you want to tell me what happened to you?” I asked and left my briefs and t-shirt on so as not to frighten her.
“No, and I refuse to stay in this room with you.”
“Look, you can refuse all you want to but my job is to keep you safe, and right now the biggest danger to you is me waking up grumpier than ever tomorrow because I haven’t slept. If you don’t want to talk about what happened to you, then I suggest we go to bed.” I was already arranging myself in my soft sheets.
Her eyes widened and she took a step back. “I’m not sleeping with you.”
“Of course you are, I’m your protector and the bed is plenty big for two people.”
From the way her eyes were darting around the room to every window and every door, it wasn’t hard to figure out she was trying to find a way to escape.
“Ana,” I said in my softest voice. “Calm down.”
“It’s Athena,” she corrected me distractedly while walking to the window, where she fumbled to open it.
“We’re on the third floor, so unless you have some wings underneath those clothes of yours, I wouldn’t recommend climbing out that way,” I said calmly.
She returned to the door, searching for a way to unlock it. When that didn’t work she started hammering on it, shouting for help.
“Now you’re just being rude,” I grumped. “People are trying to sleep here. Don’t tell me I have to gag you to keep you quiet.”
Her angry glance over her shoulder, accused me of being a primitive beast.
A nerve close to my eye gave a tic from irritation. This woman might be the prettiest I had ever seen. Her long auburn red hair and green eyes made her look like an elf Queen from a fantasy book. But she was snooty as hell and clearly thought she was a lot better than me and my people.
“I wouldn’t say we are all primitive beasts. I mean cannibalism was banned more than a hundred years ago; and some of us have even advanced to using forks and knives,” I joked in a last attempt to calm her down.
“Leave me alone,” she ordered and clamped her arms around her midsection. “I know what you have on your plates. You’re carnivores killing innocent animals. It’s disgusting!”
My patience ran out. “Tell me, are you being obnoxious because you’re scared or are you always like this?”
She ignored me.
“I asked you a fucking question.” My tone was a bit harsher than I’d intended.
“If you must know, I’m known to be balanced and kind, but I doubt that someone like you would have the emotional range to even begin to understand what I’m going through right now.”
“Someone like me?” The tic in the nerve by my eye was growing stronger as I picked up a glass of water from my side table.
Athena’s eyes fell to the water and my first inclination was to ask if she was thirsty, but the primitive savage she had deemed me wouldn’t do that, so I didn’t.
“Honestly, I don’t care where you sleep as long as you don’t disturb me and the rest of the house.” Puffing my pillows and making myself comfortable on the bed, I added, “You can grab one of my t-shirts in the closet to sleep in.”
Her answer came promptly, “No thank you.”
Provoked, I looked at Athena as she stood in the middle of the room, like she was afraid of touching anything that might have Nmen bacteria on it.
“Oh, so you’re too good to wear one of my t-shirts?”
She kept her eyes on the headboard of my bed and muttered low: “I would rather sleep naked than wear your clothes.”
About a thousand answers popped into my mind, but I wasn’t in the mood to crack a joke.
For five long minutes, I waited with my eyes closed. My breathing was calm, and the room was almost dark – and yet, I couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t that I was afraid Athena could leave the room, since the locking mechanism required a code. It was the thought of what I would’ve done if I had been in her situation. I had already counted all the heavy objects in the room that she could hit me on the head with while I slept. I was also aware of the rope in my bag that I used for rock climbing. What if she found it and tied me up, or even worse, strangled me?
Momsies were soft and peace-loving as far as I knew, but wouldn’t being taken a hostage trigger most people to do what it took to survive? What if Athena truly believed that I was a primitive savage?
Maybe I should have told her that I was a doctor and that my life revolved around easing people’s pain. Why hadn’t I?
Thinking it over, I concluded that it was her resentment and dismissal of me that had provoked me to behave this rudely.
“Will you just find a place to sleep already?” I snapped and the sound of her footsteps stopped.
Until it began again.
“Look, I don’t know what the fuck you think you’re doing but you’ve been in every corner of this room and there isn’t much to see in the darkness,” I barked at her. “Either you find a place to sleep or seriously, I will tie you down and gag you.”
Athena made a displeased sound when her tongue clicked against her palate, but it didn’t stop her from moving to the window again.
“Okay, that’s it, lady. I warned you!” Turning on the light, I jumped out of bed and stalked toward my sports bag, then pulled out the ropes.
“What are you doing?” Her voice was high-pitched and she moved back, her eyes wide and frightened.
“Get on the bed,” I ordered.
“No!” she cried and when I had her cornered she tried to get around me. As if that was ever going to happen.
With Athena wriggling in my arms, I hissed against her ear: “You obviously don’t have the emotional range to understand what it means to a man to get his night’s sleep.”
“We can talk about this,” she cried.
“Nahh, I tried and you refused to talk to me, now we’re doing it my way.” Without much difficulty, I carried her to the bed, annoyed that she wouldn’t stop screaming. If I didn’t get her to shut up, I would have someone storm my room and then I would never get to sleep.
Covering her mouth, I threatened her. “Be quiet or I will knock you out.”
That only made her muffled screams behind my hand even louder. In frustration, I used my free hand to pull off my t-shirt and gagged her with it.
Athena’s eyes were shooting daggers at me and all the judgment and loathing pouring from her made me mad as hell. It was because of women like her that we Nmen lived in isolation from the rest of the world.
After the Toxic War four hundred years ago, women had outnumbered men and my forefathers had been left with two options only: retreat to the north or be ruled by women. We modern Nmen were still paying the price and lived our lives deprived of the luxury of seeing other parts of the world, or enjoying the softness of a female.
“Since you said you would rather sleep naked than in one of my t-shirts, let me help you.” Despite Athena’s wriggling her body in resistance, I got her shirt off and tossed it to the floor. That left her with a white camisole with laces and my inner voice was telling me to leave it on, but then she wriggled her hand out of my hold and scratched me with her nails.
I saw red and lifted my hand to strike her, but despite my haze of anger, I couldn’t.
A minute later, Athena lay naked and bound on my bed while I stood shaking by the foot end. In my profession, I’d had the privilege of treating some of the few women who lived here in the Northlands, but none of them had ever removed all of their clothes.
She was beautiful and lush in all the right places. Her hips, wider than her waist, offered that feminine softness that sex-bots tried to imitate but never really could.
Pushing aside my conscience, I stared into her eyes, willing this woman to submit to me – as if my winning this power struggle would somehow rectify centuries of male oppression.
Even in her humiliating and powerless position on my bed, Athena looked at me like I was a bug to be squashed.
It should have been enough to get her naked and tied up, but the one thing I was looking for, she still hadn’t given me. Wearing only my briefs, I trailed my finger along the bed and walked slowly up the side to stand next to her.
Her nostrils were working overtime because of my t-shirt gagging her, and I bent down, whispering close to her face. “Would you like me to remove the gag?”
She gave a nod.
The mattress dipped when I sat down on the edge of the bed, leaning over her and balancing with one hand next to her shoulder. “And are you going to be quiet?”
Again, she nodded.
“Good girl.” Slowly I pulled out the part of my t-shirt that had been stuffed in her mouth.
Athena sucked in a deep breath and coughed a little.
“I’ll bet you regret saying that you would rather sleep naked,” I muttered and let my eyes wander down her naked body.
“Don’t touch me.” It wasn’t a plea but a command.
I thinned my lips “What makes you think that I would be interested in a cold fish like you?” I would’ve thought that sitting next to a naked woman would arouse me, but despite what she thought, I wasn’t a rapist and her disgust with me left me cold.
“You people are monsters, rapists, and murderers,” she postulated. I half expected her to spit at me, but she didn’t.
“Are we?” I said and slid my hand down her arm. “Or are you just trying to rile me up so that I will have sex with you? I have to be honest with you, it’s kind of working,” I lied.
Being tied to all four posts of the bed, there wasn’t much she could do when I lifted my hand and moved a finger from her collarbone down between her breasts, over her belly button, and down along her thigh to her knee.
Athena was holding her breath and finally she pleaded with me: “Please don’t.”
“I’m confused – are you saying please don’t touch me or please don’t stop?”
While I spoke, my right hand grabbed at the duvet and pulled it up to cover her. “I suspect with the way you’ve tried to rile me up for the last half hour, you’re begging me not to stop. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I already told you that I’m tired and just want to sleep.” I rolled away from her with a theatrical yawn and stood up. “Maybe tomorrow when I’ve had a good night’s sleep, I can play your little games and have sex with you.”
Her lips were tightly shut, but once again her eyes were shouting at me that I was a horrible monster, and I got an eerie feeling that she sensed my past sins.
Memories that I’d spent more than a decade suppressing were now attacking my inner movie screen and I wanted to throw up from all the disgusting things buried in my past.
It was her fault! Anyone who knew me would say I was funny, jovial, and friendly, but for some reason, this Momsi brought out a devious side of me.
Like someone had taken over my body, I smirked at her and dug the knife in deeper. “Don’t worry, pet, I’ll make sure the sex is enjoyable. At least for my part.”
Through gritted teeth Athena spoke in a language foreign to me. The fire in her eyes, the hissing, and the sounds of words so alien and yet threatening in their nature gave me goose bumps.
“What did you say?” I demanded but she kept going in that dead language, repeating the same words in a hostile incantation.
As a doctor, I considered myself a man of science, but enough unexplainable things had happened in my life for me to be open-minded.
“What did you say?” I repeated and shook her shoulders with anger. “You’re fucking casting a curse on me, aren’t you?”
With a self-righteous pursing of her lips, she stopped chanting and whispered ominously: “It’s done. I made sure that you’ll never find satisfaction with a woman. Never!”