by AJ Adams
He didn’t. He was doing something entirely new. He was kissing my thighs, his tongue running down the soft skin, licking and lapping. It was divinely ticklish, fanning the heat that ran through me into flames. He kissed my belly again, and then his mouth was over my clit, sucking and licking at the hard nub.
I melted. My legs spread wide, then hooked over his shoulders. My hands were in his hair, running through the soft silk. His tongue flicked over my hot wet centre, creating bolts of shimmering pleasure that shot through me. I was arching, moans ripping from my throat.
His hands were sliding underneath me, cupping my arse. His tongue was sliding over me, sensuous, sinuous, driving me closer to the edge. My heels were drumming against his back, my keening filling the room. “Please don’t stop! Please don’t stop!”
His fingers were sliding inside me, fucking me gently as his mouth pulsed over my clit. I arched and rippled, on the verge of peaking.
He stopped.
“Nononono! Pleeeeeease!”
The cerulean eyes were gazing into mine. “Afterwards you do what I want?”
“Yes!” I would have let me whip me. Anything to go back and throw myself into that sea of bliss. “Please!”
He settled back down, his hands on my breasts, pinching my nipples. “Sweet Ylva.”
He tongued and sucked, his flickering touch sending me screaming back to the cusp of rapture. His nails grazing my tender skin, then tightening in sharpness, pushed me over the edge. I was bucking and arching, riding wave after wave of clenching, shimmering pleasure.
He slid hands underneath me again, flipping me over. “On your knees, Wynne.” He was between my legs, his cock leaning against my hot dripping centre. “Say you’re mine.”
“Yours!” I was leaning up, waiting for him, wanting him. “Yours, Rune!”
He launched into me, driving deep inside me with one fierce thrust. His hands fixed on my waist, holding me. I was wailing, my legs pushed wide apart by his hard body as that big, thick cock was powering into me.
I was screaming, pulsing with shimmering pleasure again. His scent was dancing around me, the deep musk soaking into my skin, his sweat dripping onto my back, rolling down my skin, pooling and tickling as it ran off me.
I spread my legs, arching up so he could fuck me harder. He was groaning, slamming into me as he rode me. His balls were slapping against me, drenched in my juices. The world fell away, leaving just the two of us.
I was soaring free, clenching around his powering cock, wailing as he rammed into me.
“Mine!” His voice was ragged, his breath harsh. “Ylva!”
His voice released me. I was shattering, squealing and pulsing as he exploded inside me. His lips were on my neck, his sweating body hard and heavy on mine as he came with shivering gasps. We bucked and rocked in sensuous rhythm, his hands sliding over mine, gripping tighter than shackles as we shuddered in pulsing waves. We shimmered to a stop, his breath in my ears, his heart beating so loudly that it thundered against my skin.
“Wynne.” He was kissing me. “Ylva.”
I kissed the snakes. “I’m mine.”
He nipped the back of my neck. “There’s a reason nobody bid for you, you know.”
“Have you considered that it’s not me, but you?” I rubbed my face against his arm. “They know how twisted you are. They’re put off by your perversions.”
He was chuckling, his cock pulsing inside me as he laughed. “Wynne, you’ve a nasty mouth.”
He was pulling out of me, and for a moment I remembered seeing Lizbeth throw up. But Rune was stroking my hair. “Wash, wine and supper?”
I was so grateful that I sat up and cuddled into him. He looked taken aback, and then his arms wound around me.
“For a Beast, you’re all right,” I whispered.
“Keep that thought, because later on you’ve got a promise to keep.”
Right, like he’d forget. Still, wine and supper would come first.
We sat by the fire, me scoffing down stew while the rain lashed down outside. It was freezing cold out there, and I blessed myself for being inside. The log cabin was warm, not just better than the barn but also superior to my uncle’s house.
“Did you build this?” I asked Rune.
“Yes. Well, we all did.”
Group effort. It would be. The Beasts did everything together.
“Why are there so few of you? And what happened to the women?”
As I asked, I spotted a bacon flake. For a moment I wondered if this would be a story about meat, but then I remembered how they’d buried Karl, and the dead Citizens, too.
Rune was thinking. Something about my question was dangerous or secret. He sat there, sipping his warm wine, and I wondered how anyone could ever have thought the Beasts were savages. This man could outmanoeuvre the nine cities—no contest.
“Have you heard about Thule?” Rune asked eventually. “You call it the ice lands.”
“A bit. It’s at the top of the world, right?”
“It was our home,” Rune said quietly.
I just stared at him. “Was?”
“It’s a cold place, with winter snow falling taller than a cart.” No wonder he was never cold. “Our old people remember when the warm months lasted more than half the year but in my lifetime, they dwindled. Five years ago, the summers vanished.”
“No summer? Like ice all year round? How did you survive?”
“There was much sacrifice.”
Meat. Now I got it. I pushed away the bowl, suddenly feeling sick. The Beasts had been so hungry that they’d resorted to cannibalism.
Rune picked up the bowl and spooned up the last bit. “Don’t waste,” he admonished me.
I couldn’t take it in. To live in such harsh conditions seemed impossible. “What did you do?”
“We scattered.” Rune finished the stew. “Our first ships went to the west. We have cousins there.”
“There’s land to the west?” I’d never heard of anyone coming over the western seas.
“Yes, but the trip is difficult and dangerous, even for us.”
“Why didn’t you go, too?”
“There’s a narrow passage, open only in summer.”
“It froze?”
“Yes. With every cycle the ice thickened. It was also killing the trees.”
It was incredible. Horrifying. I didn’t know what to say.
“We built the ships we could, and used the lots to appoint places. The rest of us walked south where some of the trees still survived.” His eyes were sombre. “There weren’t enough for a proper ship, so we built rafts, came here and began building another ship.”
They’d walked across the frozen wastes. It was a miracle in itself. Then they’d crossed an open ocean on rafts. I was stunned, just at the thought. “The ship you built. Is that the one the Citizens burned?”
“Yes.”
All the breath rushed out of my lungs. Now I understood their rage. After all the sacrifice, it seemed obscene. “Rune, why did you go to Brighthelme? Why not go west to your people?”
“We did! We went last year, and again a few months ago.” His eyes were staring straight into mine. “The ice had spread to the narrow sea. It’s permanent, ten carts tall on the surface, and even thicker under the water. We can’t break through. We’re trapped here.”
I wanted to ask how many had started on that march south, but Rune’s closed face killed my curiosity. He’d lost too much to talk about it.
I thought of the Beasts. There were just over fifty of them. “This is it? You are all that’s left?”
Rune shrugged. “There are others.”
“Right, so you said. Out west.” He wasn’t fooling me. The tribes out west might as well be on another planet. Rune was alone.
He was quiet, serious. “We were lost, but now we have something.”
“What?”
His eyes were gazing straight into mine. “You.”
Chapter Eleven
I was s
itting in front of him, looking at his cock that was standing straight up. “No grabbing, okay?”
“Okay.”
“No sudden pushing.”
“Agreed.”
“If I say stop, we stop.”
He was putting his hands on my shoulders. “Wynne, just relax and do it.”
Right. Easy for him to say. I braced my arms on his iron thighs, dipped my head and licked. His fingers were on my shoulders, stroking in tight little sweeps as I licked his shaft. His breath was shallow and quick. Rune was definitely enjoying himself.
Like before, I laved his cock, sucking at the tip, rubbing his balls. I’d promised to do this, and he’d made some promises, too. So I was taking my time, and because I wasn’t worried he’d do something weird or nasty, my mind was drifting.
Having told me about his people, I felt I understood him better. The Beasts had been willing to trade but having their ship burned, they took what they wanted. They’d taken the muskets, knowing they were valuable, and had decided to keep them, because it meant they could hunt.
They’d taken us out of habit, for revenge and wergelt, but Rune had persuaded his people that they needed to hang on to us. Like he’d said, they were trapped, away from their tribe. Rune knew that without little Beasts, this colony was doomed.
“I understand,” I’d told Rune, “I really do. But this is the wrong way to go about it.”
And at that point Rune had shut down. “You’re mine,” he repeated. “Just get used to it.”
“But—”
Rune cut me off. “Let’s go back to bed.”
“But Rune!”
“It’s my turn,” he said, and that hawk-like look of focus was back, together with a massive hard-on. “You promised,” he’d reminded me.
I wasn’t going to get anywhere. At least not now. I needed a better argument. In the meantime, it looked like Rune was going to insist on cashing in on my promise.
I had a halfhearted effort at getting out of it. “I’m a cheat, remember?”
Rune just smiled. “Come to bed, Ylva.”
So there I was, working away, and not actually grossed out at all. The clean smell of soap, the warm wine buzzing through me, and the way Rune sighed and moaned, keeping his hands firmly my shoulders, not my head, like he’d promised, had me feeling in control.
I dipped cautiously, taking the thick cock into my mouth. He was huge, but by fingering his shaft and cupping his balls, I controlled how deeply he plunged.
“Wynne!” He was moaning, his hands gripping my shoulders.
I stopped for a moment. “Just let it happen, Rune.” Yes, I was enjoying myself.
And that’s when it hit me. I was enjoying myself. Me, having fun with a Beast. In his bed. It was such a shock that I sucked hard. Rune’s hands were clamped on my shoulders, and then he was writhing, his hips juddering. His cock pulsed, and then he was coming. He shot right in my mouth, and I sucked it down and swallowed before I realised it.
He was pulling me up, arms wrapped around me, crushing me like he’d never let me go. “Ylva!”
It tasted salty-sweet, not unpleasant but strange.
“Wynne,” he was stroking my hair, smiling at me. “You’re beautiful.”
Beautiful. Me. The things men say when they’re happy!
“Lie down,” Rune was settling me next to him, folding me in the feather pillows, his hands running sweetly over my skin. “Tomorrow we can sleep late,” he murmured. “We rest.”
I was seduced by the comfort of the bed after weeks of sleeping rough, but Rune was thinking ahead as always.
“Listen, Wynne,” he warned me. “Don’t try and leave.”
I wasn’t listening. “Okay.” My eyes were closing.
“The forest is dangerous.”
“Uh-huh.” The feathers were heaven.
He was shaking me by the shoulder. “Promise me you won’t run off.”
I opened my eyes and saw he had that hawk-eyed thing going again. I was seconds away from being chained. “I’m going to sleep,” I soothed him.
“And tomorrow you stay right here. I want your promise.”
He would take my word. “Promise I’ll stay tomorrow.”
“Good.” He blew out the candles and lay down again. “Sleep now, Wynne.”
Rune was out cold seconds later, but I lay awake for ages, trying to figure out my escape plan. I would need shoes, supplies and a good head start to make it through the forest and to Haven. Also, I’d have to do it soon, because winter was coming. A Beast could trek through six feet of snow, but I couldn’t. With Rune watching my every move and determined to keep me here, it wouldn’t be easy.
As I drifted, a treacherous little voice whispered that life with Rune wouldn’t be at all bad. Despite the talk of “mine” and the auction, he clearly wasn’t thinking like the Citizens. I was warm, fed, pampered really, and now I understood him better, I could forgive him. He’d been in a rage when he’d taken us, and afterwards he’d been driven by need. Rune had to take care of his people. He’d do anything to keep them safe.
I wanted to clear my name, but maybe life with Rune would be better than going back.
I fell asleep, still puzzling it out.
Chapter Twelve
The next morning the rain stopped, but it was cold, the wind coming in wild gusts, freezing me the second I stepped outside to use the lean-to. Rune was totally immune, going out in his leathers and forgetting his tunic, not bothered at all by the gale.
“It’s not cold,” he told me. “You have to toughen up, Wynne.”
“I’m a thin-blooded southern girl, and too delicate for this weather,” I moaned. “It’s a waste to maintain me, Rune. Cut your losses and take me to Haven.”
He ignored that, so it was just as well I wasn’t making a serious pitch. I was still considering my options. But I was curious about something. “Why are you so certain the Citizens won’t hire mercenaries to get us back?”
At that, Rune sighed. “Listen, Wynne. When we raided the arsenal, they fought us, and hard. When we took you, they didn’t.”
I was gobsmacked, staring at him. The implications flooded through me. They’d fought to protect what they held dear, and it wasn’t us.
“They didn’t fight because they thought you’d trade.” It sounded lame as I said it.
“Wynne, a couple of fast horses, and they could have been at King’s Cross same time as us.”
“But they wouldn’t have gathered the wergelt!”
I knew the answer as he said it. “You said it yourself—they could have borrowed it at King’s Cross.”
I sat there, thinking it over. “Mina said they’d come, they did so in the past.”
“Yes, but the cities have been warring for too long. It ruins trade. The Guilds lost a lot of money. The King’s Cross negotiator said they were low on credit. Also, the wars mean there are more women than men.” Rune was looking serious. “Wynne, they love their land and money. Do you think they value their women enough to give any of that up?”
I knew the answer was no. In Caern I thought it was because we were slaves. But in the Vale women were property, too, daughters or wives, and even then they were valued less than livestock.
From mum’s stories her mum and her grandmother had been equal partners with their men. The Patriarch had seduced the men with visions of domination, and that power had come from enslaving us.
In Brighthelme it wasn’t as bad, but the Guilds were the real power, and they were run by men. Not a single woman was a member. It was an option denied even to Mina, the rich, spoilt darling of her powerful family.
It was as if a veil had lifted from my eyes. I’d fretted at my own helplessness, but it never occurred to me that female Citizens were powerless. The realisation horrified me.
“Come on,” Rune said. “Get dressed and we’ll go gather some firewood. You can use it to scope out possibilities of escape.”
He was so confident that he was making jokes. I wasn’t
even angry; I was too taken up by the new thoughts flooding my mind. So I went out with Rune. I got dressed in a pair of his old leathers, super soft and windproof but so big that I slopped around in them, and his old boots were like boats on my feet.
“You can cut everything down to size later, let’s go out.” The blue eyes were serious. “Remember, you gave your word.”
It irked me, that. “Yes, yes, yes! I remember. I won’t go anywhere today.”
I was careful to stipulate a timeframe but actually, there was no way I was taking off. I had too much to think about.
Rune was humming as he pulled on his boots. “Come on, you’ll like the woods.”
And I did. It was fresh, pretty, and gathering wood was easy, especially because Rune helped. That kind of surprised me because I would’ve thought he’d make me do the work. In the seven years with my family, my uncle and cousin hadn’t helped with that chore, ever.
“We collect what we need for ourselves, and we put extra stock in the common shed,” Rune was cheery, educating me on how to be a proper Beast. “The shed is a free-for-all. On days when we’re out hunting or fishing, we don’t need to go out.”
“How do you know everyone does his share?”
“If we don’t work together, we don’t survive.”
The group effort again. Having seen the Beasts on the march, it was oddly attractive. So we gathered little twigs for lighting fires, nice big logs that would burn for hours, and I found I was rather enjoying myself.
After an hour, we came across Tawny and Brant. He was carrying a bundle of firewood, and she was tripping along beside him, looking perfectly cheerful. That took me aback, and when I spotted Siv standing by the stream and showing Lizbeth how to skim stones, I smelled a rat.
The stopping of the pass-overs, and all that running around in the evenings, building fires and cooking together, with Rune going about, soothing, calming and indoctrinating suddenly came into focus. “You’ve told them to be nice to the girls,” I said.
His eyes were innocent. “That’s a bad thing?”
“You just want them to settle down! You’re taking the fight out of them!”
“This way is better than a beating.” I wanted to hit him and he knew it. “I told you, this is the way it is, Wynne. Why fight when you can’t win?”