Chapter Eight
Halvor surveyed the rouged buttocks over his lap. He couldn’t deny they were lacking in meaty flesh, but still, they were perfectly round and they had been of the most delicate white he’d ever borne witness too.
But not anymore. Now they were as red as crab apples. Each time he’d delivered a swat another depth of color had arrived. And now… now she glowed a stunning scarlet.
And he had to say she was taking it well. But then again, from the moment he’d decided to grab her, take her as his captive, he’d known she was different. She had fight in her, a will to live, and a stubborn streak that would be hard to break.
He brought the sole of his leather shoe down once more on her offered buttock, layering the shoe-shaped redness his swat would create over the previous ones. Anticipating the jolt of her body, as he continued to deliver the discipline, he tightened his hold. He was nearly done. Each quivering buttock was almost on an equal number of slaps and of a matching delightful shade…
He paused for a moment and explored his handiwork, enjoying the heat that radiated onto his palm. Her skin had appeared virginal, now it was his, burning with his mark.
She moaned, kicked her legs a little, and clasped his calf. Her small hand was nothing more than a kitten’s paw. But her slight frame, her tiny hands and feet, delicate features, just added fuel to the protective streak in him.
How can I protect her if she won’t obey me?
He had to set down rules if he was to keep her safe. This first spanking would start growing her trust and dare he say it… respect.
He gripped the shoe, slapped it down again. This was the last one, and he didn’t hold back, gave her a good hard whack.
“Ouch! Please, no more. I beg you, Master.”
Part of him was sorry it had ended, but equally he was glad it had.
Will her pain ever become mine? Will she ever truly become a part of my soul and my destiny?
He shook his head to rid his mind of such a ridiculous thought. She was a slave. The lowest of the low. A thrall. He needed to remember his place as master, and not allow her to affect him… much.
He tossed his shoe to one side, gripped her waist, and pulled her upward so she was half sitting on his lap, her tender ass not in contact with anything.
Her face was flushed, her cheeks wet, and her eyes were misty. She was breathing hard.
He stared at her chest rising and falling. Her pert breasts were pushing at her clothing then retreating over and over. A sudden urge struck him to see her chest, to explore her shape, witness the color of her flesh… her nipples.
Reaching for the base of her dress, which was rucked around her waist, he tugged it upward.
“No!” She tried to fight him, but her efforts were of little hindrance to him.
Quickly he had her dress off and discarded on the floor. He’d have to organize new garments for her; what she had was in a sorry state.
“What are you doing?” She clasped her hands over her small breasts, hiding them from his view.
Her breaths had sped up further, adding to his pleasure at having a near naked woman on his lap. She was flushed, a little damp with sweat, and despite her naivety he could sense the spark in her, the passion that lurked beneath the surface.
“You are mine,” he said, gripping her wrists, “and as such I wish to inspect my property.”
“You have tormented me enough already.” She frowned and tensed her shoulders. “Leave me be.”
“I will… soon.” He pulled her arms away from her body, exposing the gentle globes of her slight breasts.
Her nipples were the palest pink and barely bigger than a tunic button.
“Ah, that pleases me.”
“You’re a brute. I don’t want you looking at me.” She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth.
“I needed to look,” he said.
“Why?”
“To see if you had been with child.”
“What? How would you know by looking?”
“If you’d carried a bairn,” he said, “these pretty nipples of yours would be large and dark. As it is I can see that you have never given birth in your twenty-one summers.”
She clamped her lips together.
Halvor could resist no more. He leaned forward and flicked his tongue over her left nipple.
She gasped and jerked.
He repeated the action, enjoying the pliant peak against his tongue and spreading saliva around it. He then pulled back a little and blew gently, knowing the action would cool her skin and peak her nipple.
With satisfaction he watched as the flesh of her areola contracted and her nipple became a tight twist.
He glanced at her face. Her lips were slightly parted. She’d stilled, eyes closed, as if absorbing the sensations he was creating.
Smiling, he repeated his action on the other breast, using wetness and air to stimulate that nipple.
She released a jagged breath as he took each nipple between his thumb and forefinger, tugged, elongated, and rolled.
“Master,” she gasped.
“Keep your eyes closed,” he instructed. He was enjoying her responsiveness. For a woman who had no care for him, her body was reacting quite beautifully.
He released her nipples and cupped the heavier underside of her breasts. A little more weight on her and they’d be the perfect handful.
She moaned as he gently massaged her, then flicked over her taut nipples.
“Your breasts are enjoying me,” he said.
“Leave me alone.” She was panting, her back arched as if pressing into his touch. “Now.”
“Is that what you really want?” He took her right nipple into his mouth and sucked.
She groaned and squirmed on his lap. His cock was semi-hard and he enjoyed the brush of her thigh over it through his clothing.
He clamped his thumb and finger around her left nipple and stretched it.
Her sharp intake of breath told him when to stop. Quickly he switched his attentions, pulling that stretched nipple into the warmth of his mouth.
I could stay here all day, feasting on her.
“Please, no more… Master.” She pushed at his head and pulled back.
There was something in her tone that touched a chord within him. It was time to stop. This was their first day together and he had promised not to force himself on her. If he kept going, if his cock became any more insistent, he might have to act on his urges.
He released her and she swayed as if about to keel over.
“Duna,” he said, clasping her face in his hands and steadying her. “Look at me.”
“Why… should I?”
“Because, my slave, you have weathered your first punishment and inspection well, and I believe you have learned an important lesson.”
She opened her eyes. “I will obey you, Master.”
“Good.” He pushed her hair from her face, the lank strands catching in his fingers. “I’m pleased.” He smiled, a little, enjoying studying the tilt of her nose, her perfect rosebud lips, and the deep chestnut color of her eyes.
“I will obey you, Master,” she repeated. She drew her eyebrows together, and a tiny muscle tugged the right-hand corner of her lip. “But I will always hate you.”
His jaw clenched. His palm itched to tip her over again, spank her until tiny red dots blemished her skin. How dare she? He’d vowed to care for her, protect her, yet she hated him.
He stood, allowing her to almost fall.
But she didn’t; she clutched the table and regained balance.
“You have no gratitude,” he said.
“Gratitude?” She was hunched over, as though she ached. “You’d have earned my gratitude if you’d left me with my father, if your devil friends hadn’t killed my neighbors and people I care about. If you hadn’t rowed your snake-headed longboat onto our shores, then I would be grateful… Master.”
“I cannot entertain you,” he said, striding to the barrel of ale he kept in the corner of the room.
“I don’t wish you to.” She stooped and reached for her dress. “I wish you to take me home.”
“That’s not going to happen.” He filled a cask with ale and drank deep. It was warm and malty, not the freshest but it wasn’t sour. “And do not forget to address me as Master, otherwise you will feel a switch on your rear, and I will not be as forgiving as I was this time.”
She opened her mouth then closed it again.
Perhaps she was wising up to her situation.
He dragged in a deep breath and looked around his longhouse. For many months he’d ached to be here. Fill his lungs with fresh air, and his belly with fresh food. He enjoyed the rewards of his travels—the coins in his pocket and the treasures he could barter for—but here, in the home he’d helped his father build when he had been less than a score of summers old, was where he could truly relax. Let his breath out, his guard down, and sleep without a dagger in his hand.
Except now he couldn’t.
The Celt heathen standing before him had disrupted all of that. She was a whirlwind of energy spinning around his home and his brain. His body… that was also a swirl of emotions, a bunch of reactions to her alluring femaleness that he was struggling to ignore.
She must feel something too, when we touch.
He slammed his cask down and stepped up to her.
“What… what are you doing?”
“This.” He stooped, slid his hand beneath her dress, and yanked it up so it bunched around his forearm. He had to show her he could play her body like a musical instrument. He was more than a skilled warrior and a competent farmer; he was a man who was able to please and satisfy a woman.
“No more!” She tried to step away. “My bottom hurts so much.”
“I’m not spanking you, wench,” he said, clamping his other hand at the base of her back and pulling her close. “I’m showing you that I understand you.”
Her undergarments were still halfway down her thighs so finding the patch of hair that grew at the juncture of her legs was easy. With the pad of his first two fingers he sought out her pleasure point, just into her curls, and rubbed.
“What are you doing… oh!” She gripped his tunic, her knees and spine seeming to weaken. Her eyes widened and she stared up at him, her cheeks flushing further.
“You cannot deny the needs in you,” he said, his voice hoarse as he upped the pressure on her nub. “Even if you hate me, your body reacts to mine.”
“It means nothing.”
He sped up his actions, working her in a way he knew would make her mindless with want. “So you do not deny the effect my fingers are having on you?”
“I do not know… what effect… it is?” There was confusion in her eyes, but still they flashed with desire.
“The effect is pleasure.” He’d spoken with his lips close to hers.
“It is… traitorous… my body.”
“Your body cannot lie.” He held her closer, inhaling the scent of her arousal. A sense of satisfaction gripped him. Duna hated him with her mind but her sweet body couldn’t resist him.
She moaned and clung tighter.
He guessed she was getting near to the moment when the pressure he was building would release.
He gave her another few swift strokes, then stepped away.
She staggered to the right, gripping the table again as her dress fell into place. She was breathing fast.
So was he. His cock was straining against his pants. He lifted his hand to his nose and breathed in her musky smell.
Her mouth fell open as she watched his action. “You… you’re an animal.”
Temptation was a deep, gnawing ache in his groin. He should flip her over the table and fuck the insolence out of her. But he wouldn’t be that kind of master. He’d sworn it to himself.
“As I said, I can’t entertain you. I’m going out.” He pushed down his shoulders and smoothed his hand over his tunic, removing the rucks her small fists had created when she’d gripped him.
“Where… Master?” Her eyes widened and she pushed her hair from her flushed face.
“I cannot sleep, not with… with your insolence filling my home. Morrow I will strike it from you, but until then, I’m going to retrieve my animals.”
“In the dark?” She took a pace toward him. “But Halvor… Master… what about the wolves, the boar?”
“Are of no concern to me and Ivan.” He reached for a long sheathed dagger and attached it to his belt.
She swallowed and clasped her hands at her waist. “And I?”
“Will wait here. You will be safe within the walls of the longhouse. But venture out and I cannot guarantee any such safety.” He grabbed his shoe and pulled it on. He then reached for a furred cape and swung it over his shoulders. “Wait here or accept certain death. The beasts here are brave; you have little meat on you, but enough to fill their bellies.” He paused. “They will seek you out and hunt you down.”
She gulped and he heard the swallow. For some reason it made his cock fill more.
Even so he continued. “There was nothing on your quiet island that would ever have hunted you, am I right? There, you and your fellow villagers were the hunters. Here you must understand, you are the hunted, Duna.”
She turned, clearly not happy with the shift in the food chain.
“So, with that said.” He took a step toward the door. “Lock this behind me. Do not go outside.”
“But when will you return?” She took three paces toward him.
“Morrow, with my livestock.” For a moment he hesitated. The scent of her was still in his nose and on his fingers. An image of him with her, naked, finding pleasure, hearing her pleasure, filled his mind. But then he blinked, and once again remembered the way she’d said she’d always hate him.
I have to get out of here.
It wasn’t often Halvor doubted himself, but perhaps he should have maintained his quiet equilibrium of living alone.
No. I want her as my slave.
He paced to the door, pulled it open, then slammed it shut behind him.
Dragging in great lungsful of clean mountain air, he waited, until he heard the bar sliding into place. Then, knowing she’d secured herself, he strode toward the barn.
Riding in the dark was neither his nor Ivan’s favorite thing to do, but the situation called for it.
* * *
Duna stared at the wooden door. She’d slipped the bar into its keeper, and it did look solid, strong like the man who’d built it. But still… she was alone in a strange home, in a strange land and her body was betraying her and acting in ways she didn’t understand.
“I promise to protect you,” she muttered, resting back on it and surveying the room. “That lasted a long time… Master.” She huffed.
The fire burned bright. The bed was clean and soft. There was also a tub of warm, hardly dirty, water before a blazing fire. If she fancied it, she could make do with an evening supper of ale.
An owl hooting caught her attention. She rushed to the makeshift window and dropped it down, hiding the night; a night filled with snarling jaws, fierce instincts, and cunning stealth.
The sacks of grain to her right were in darkness, and she knew a feast was occurring for the local mice. But they didn’t bother her, she’d lived with mice for years, only then she’d always had a cat.
She closed her eyes for a moment, thinking of Flame, her ginger tom who always worked hard at keeping their home rodent free. She missed him; it was a small miss, in comparison to her father, Esca, her neighbors and friends, but still she was sad without her furry friend.
Thud, thud. Thud, thud.
The unmistakable pound of hooves echoed around the house. Halvor was good for his word, he’d left her.
Again she stared at the door. Should she make a run for it after all? Were there enough provisions to fill a bag, see her good until she reached the port?
She rushed from one corner to the next, surveying the provisions. They were scant, nothing fresh. But still there were oats, and a few walnuts that she could take.
But how cold was it?
Spring had spread fingers over the land, which in the daylight hours could be a caress to the neck and shoulders, but that didn’t mean night time would be the same.
Once again she went to the window and opened it a fraction. Trying not to imagine gnashing jaws, she let the night air caress her face.
It wasn’t freezing… but it wasn’t warm either.
She shut the window frame up tight.
The temperate air of the longhouse was pleasing. As was the thought of soaking her smarting buttocks in a tub and taking a cask of ale by the fire.
She managed to bring a smile to her face, despite her situation. Yes. She would do just that. Strip away her clothes, soak her aching bones and hot skin, and let ale cloud her thoughts.
Within minutes she’d warmed another pot of water and tipped it into the tin bath. Then she set to removing her clothes. As she pulled down her undergarments the material scratched against her buttocks.
She winced as a fresh wave of pain washed over them.
She stacked her old clothes on the table, and was aware of the air circling her body. It seemed to lick over her spanked bottom, creating a tremble, which went up her spine.
Gingerly she rubbed over her tender skin. There was nothing to feel, no welts and no damage to the flesh. It was as smooth as ever, but oh, it did hurt.
She blinked back a tear of shame. Being upended had been humiliating, and the fact she’d been unable to match his strength, fight back, irritated her.
Walking over to the fish, she scowled at it. That had been the cause of her spanking. She tipped the pan over, sending the spoiled food into the flames. She hoped tomorrow Halvor would catch another fish. She’d cook that one properly. They’d both eat. That would please him and it would save her from feeling his shoe.
She slipped into the bath, holding her breath as the water smarted against her buttocks.
Damn him. I’ll be sore for days.
Eventually she lowered to the base, then blew out several long breaths as her tender skin adjusted to its torment. After a few minutes, she began to feel more comfortable. Bathing had been a good idea.
Reaching for a small bar of soap, she lathered her hair, her face, and her breasts. Taking her time, she allowed her mind to drift to thoughts of her new home, here with Halvor.
Home. Would it ever feel like home? Surely home was a place you chose to be.
She ran the soap between her legs and over the tender spot Halvor had touched, rubbed, and created such a strange feeling in. Shame nibbled away at her conscience that a man had placed his fingers there, but more than that was the confusion at her reaction to it. For some reason, like when he’d suckled her breasts, her thoughts had misted; all she could do was concentrate on a strange kind of pressure growing in her cunny. Her breaths were as fast as if she’d ran up a hill, and an urge for more… more of what she wasn’t sure… had come over her.
She tipped the pail over her head, rinsing the suds away. She wished she could ask her mother or her friend about her body’s reaction to Halvor, but of course she couldn’t. Maybe they would have been able to tell her if she was normal, or if she was twisted, sick, disturbed in the mind to have leaned into the caresses of a man who had stolen her away to another land.
It was then she heard it. A long, ear-piercing howl quickly followed by another.
Wolf.
She turned to the door, as if expecting to see a wolf there. Of course there was nothing.
Doubting herself, she leaped from the waters, sending splashes over the floor, and rushed, naked to the window. Had she shut it properly?
Yes. Thank goodness.
She grabbed a blanket and pulled it around herself. Her heart was thudding, she could hear the pulse in her ears.
But more than that she could hear something at the door—sniffing, snorting, and scrabbling. As if a beast was trying to pick up her scent from the small crack beneath it.
A small cry escaped her lips and she pressed her fingers over them. How many beasts were out there? She’d likely been circled by the vicious creatures. Maybe they were clever, maybe they’d dig their way in to get to her. Then she wouldn’t stand a chance. She’d be wolf dinner.
Finding some courage, she paced to the door and double-checked its lock. She then followed the perimeter of the long house, frowning at the ground and making sure there were no places where an animal could start digging. She didn’t find anything that caused her to worry any more than she was.
Still clutching the blanket, she returned to the fire, to warm herself and dry off. A large branch, the end bound with reeds, stood next to it. She hadn’t spotted it before, but was now glad she had. It was a torch. Should the creatures come in, fire would be her best weapon.
Another howl echoed around the room. It came from near the window. Its eerie, menacing pitch sent a shudder through her.
She wished Halvor was with her. He’d know what to do. Plus he had weapons. His sword, his dagger, both of which he’d taken with him.
She spotted his ale, half drunk in its cask and picked it up. Taking a sip, she stared at the flames. How long would the wolves wait? Until morning? Until Halvor returned?
Hoping they’d soon realize they couldn’t get access to the house, she drank the ale. There was nothing she could do. She was trapped. Halvor had no need to tie her up, tether her like an animal, or lock her in. The very land he’d brought her to had become her prison.
Thankfully, after some time, the sounds of the wolves around the longhouse faded. She didn’t believe they’d gone far, but was grateful they’d stopped howling and snorting beneath the door.
Her hair was dry, as was her body, and she’d drunk the ale. Now her eyes were heavy. Sleep was what she needed.
Returning to the bed, she reached for yet another blanket and wrapped herself up. The straw was soft, and she curled into a ball, the sinister howls of the wolves still filling her mind.
But soon she found herself drifting off to sleep; a dark, almost dreamless sleep that felt like a reprieve from the situation she’d found herself in.