Savage Want (Wicked Wants, #3)

by Annice Sands

  * * *

  After some time, Torsten had not returned. I couldn’t help but fret and worry that something had happened to him after all we’d been through. Eron was slowly rousing while Magus kept a steady stream of chatter to greet his brother-in-arms. As impelling as the young warrior’s boasts were regarding past battles, I left their company to wander in the direction Torsten had gone.

  The forest had held a sturdy, silent fascination for me, even as far back as I could remember. Stories circulated of mythical creatures inhabiting the darker woods, but we would risk cutting through a copse of trees to shorten our journey every now and then. I never once had opportunity to observe a unicorn or dragon in its daily doings, but if there were indeed berserkin, then perhaps what were passed along to me as old tales weren’t tales at all. Anything was possible.

  The sun spotted me through the sparse branches of trees and spread along my exposed skin. I raised my face to the sky and smiled. This was glorious life. This was freedom and wealth rolled into one. I had nothing but the clothes upon my back and, of course, the dagger, but the path was open for adventure and true love. I’d found that love, I believed, in Torsten. That I’d defended him against my formerly betrothed spoke what I’d tried so hard to deny. I loved a savage. A barbarian held my heart captive.

  I found that beast of a man sunning himself on the river’s bank, a row of shining fish at his side.

  “I thought you had come here to bathe,” I said when he was alerted to my presence long before I got within arm’s reach of him.

  “I thought to make use of my time in the water.” Torsten’s lips twitched, his beard glistening with fresh moisture. “Also, I was famished. Those little nuts and kindling Magus tries to pass off as actual food...not enough to keep me going. I thought of tracking boar, but I was already wet.”

  He laughed and reached out his arms. “Come here, woman.”

  I complied with his request and shivered just a little at the sensation of his big hands closing around mine.

  “What took you this long?” His smile was radiant then faltered as his fingers met the collar, still locked around my neck.

  “Should get this off you.”

  I brushed his hand away from the collar and grinned. “Later. I have found you now.”

  Torsten pulled me forward to the point that I lost my balance. His strong arms caught me and my legs slid up the outside of his thighs as if I belonged there. Our lips brushed, timid at first, but his restrained breath gave away his intentions. My hips wiggled to snuggle me into place atop the hard ridge of his concealed phallus. I tilted my pelvis back and forth, savoring the seemingly-insatiable tingle that burst from within me. The more I moved, the deeper my desire, until a small moan escaped from my throat, a caged bird...a tiny one, let fly free. Past that, I could not deny my body’s will any longer. Our mouths crushed together, molten tongues slashing at each other, breathing one another’s air, tasting life together. A pinpoint of light appeared behind my eyes and every time I let my eyelids droop closed as was natural for me, it brightened. Brighter and brighter, as if I were approaching a radiant star.

  “Lie down on the grass,” Torsten whispered, before he gripped my ass for a cunt-moistening squeeze.

  I did as he bade and the treetops spread into view. Beyond that, the bluest sky I could remember. Torsten’s face filled my vision: the polished-wood hue of his eyes, his pupils quite large and entirely focused on me. Tiny reflections of my face framed in golden waves smiled back at me. I lifted a hand to trail my finger down his noble nose, so perfectly-formed and curled my touch around one flaring nostril to the soft scratchiness of his mustache and regal beard. The tips of his facial whiskers tickled my throat as they dangled. I grinned and gave them a tug to pull his lips to mine.

  Torsten’s hands burrowed beneath my body to hold me almost off the ground in his embrace, it seemed. He broke the kiss and looked off in the distance.

  “Have you yet seen the glory of the river?” Without explanation, he lifted off me and rose to his feet, his face reddened by our play.

  The water rushed and dashed into foam on slick, smooth stones, much as they probably had since the beginning of time. The gods had placed the rocks, it was said, to step across the river without getting the hems of their robes wet.

  Fish swam in dizzying circles inside a partitioned eddy in colors only precious metals could hope to imitate, nature showing off her wealth. I had been so entranced by the sight that I did not notice Torsten standing stark-naked beside me. My mouth fell open in astonishment.

  “How did you—-what are you doing?”

  Of course, I knew what he was doing, teasing me, driving me mad with a savage want that I knew only he could ever fulfill. My past lifetime seemed a past-life now and the drudgery of ladyship washed away as easily as my clothes fell from my body—with Torsten’s assistance, to be sure.

  Our laughter danced on the back of the river’s dragon roar, loud and all-consuming as it was. Our tongues danced with inner fire as my breasts pressed against the warm expanse of his chest, just below his granite nipples, and his cock jutted into my hip. His kisses split into a grin and I was flung into the wet depths of the mighty river.

  The chill needled my skin immediately and, instinctively, I gasped.

  I feared I might drown, for the wrath of the river was severe and the weight of the collar unbalanced me. I spun in circles, sunlight turning this way or that, until I was unsure of whether my feet were where my head ought to be and then he had me again. Torsten, apparently a strong swimmer, his mead-laced mouth stealing the last of my breath from me only to have us emerge in the fishes’ eddy pool.

  I slapped his wet skin. “You brute! Would you try to kill me?”

  His answer was a good-natured chuckle and the stroke of his thick fingers through my newly-soaked hair. I shivered and cut my gaze to the side even as his eyes commanded my full attention. I couldn’t let him think he’d won else the chase was already over. I was the deer, he the wolf and there was nowhere left to hide.

  He must have been mad to have been swimming in the cold river. My entire body shook in a desperate attempt to gain warmth, but Torsten was heating me up quite nicely. Thoughts of our nights before flooded my mind and I was left with an undeniable want. Need. I needed that wicked man around me. Inside me.

  I maneuvered a crafty hand between us and squeezed his cock. His eyes widened in surprise. My response was a giggle and a slow, equally naughty stroke. I wanted to push the foreskin back to expose the rounded end of him, go to my knees and kiss it with my entire mouth. Lash my tongue around it. Lick it. Suck gently and with increasing intensity. And when his moment of climax arrived, drink of his pearly mixture, so like the sea from which the gods created all humankind. My gaze dropped and he tipped my chin back up with doubled fingers.

  “I want you,” he growled loud enough to hear even over the river’s constant commentary.

  “I want you too,” I replied, in a voice that sounded very much not me.

  It was a woman’s voice, no doubts about it, but chimed the same tone the women of the night used to lure in a new client. Daughters of darkness pulled men into the lair between their legs and I was learning that all women possessed the same magic.

  Torsten’s fingers parted the soft cleft between my thighs and pressed in a small circle: easy, fast, hard, light...until I squirmed into him, bearing down with my weight to punish my cunt using only his hand. I wanted him inside me. I needed to be filled, only the words I intended to say came out almost animalistic, a mew of horniness in a frequency I had never emitted before. Fuck me, I wanted to say. Fill me, my mind screamed. Use me as you will, my heart pleaded.

  Torsten lifted me partway out of the water to sit me on one of the gods’ stepping stones. The warmth of the rock spread through my buttocks, equaled only by the heat of his flicking tongue as he partook of my taste.

  The river’s voice drowned out my smallest moans, until I was gripping his head tight to crush
his mouth against my aching cunt. Torsten lapped between my folds of delicate skin, only to thrust his tongue like a spear deep inside. I gasped, wanting to roll to the side, but his powerful hands pinned me to the rock—a willing victim. I slid back to my elbows, my fingers reluctantly untangling from his dark hair and watched him eat at my cunt. His nose rooted against my clit and my insides compressed, a delicious, slow strike of lightning blazing up my body. I rubbed my breasts without inhibition. His motions uncoiled something deep within my womb and my hips jerked once, then again and again as I climaxed. My breath was cut short and the thing he had uncurled within me was pleasurable pain, an urge to get away and a need to have it prolonged. I moaned like an animal and tugged on my own nipple and tried to tear his scalp away with sudden, incredible strength. He laved his tongue against me like the sea ebbing the shoreline and I called out. My thighs trembled so and he grabbed them to hold as he eased his administrations.

  The hairs of his beard whisked over my prickled skin as he trailed a long lick up my belly and rose out of the water to follow that path, back up over each breast, nipping my fingers away from them so he could partake. His teeth bit gently on one pointed nipple, then my other. Breath sawed from me, hot despite the coolness of the breeze rushing over my bare flesh.

  “Lord Wulf,” I whispered with a smile.

  “Lady Elena,” was his rumbled reply.

  Torsten covered my mouth with his and pulled us back into the water up to our necks, turning our bodies so my back was to the rock, curved precisely as if laid there for that purpose.

  His cock slid between my closed legs then he pushed my thighs apart. Nipping my bottom lip with his teeth, he pushed his member into me with a soft grunt.

  The hallowed walls of my channel sighed in relief as his shaft stretched and filled me. I let out a very loud and deep groan into the dark recesses of his sculpted shoulder. His name was a chant as I called out, my lungs tight for want of air, but all I could do was gasp and writhe as he stabbed into me with little strokes, then full-hilt, and back to little jabs again. The build-up was maddening, I only wanted to pull him into me and keep him there, always, the rounded head of his cock crushed against the end of me until my nerves burnt out from the sheer exuberance of orgasm. Climax rolled onto climax as I came in waves that blurred into a veritable sea of sensation without solid being and stars burst in my vision. We cried out in unison as he released inside me, deepest he could get, impaling me with overwhelming emotions to the point that a tear loosed from my eyes.

  The river swirled around us as if we’d turned to stone ourselves as we locked gazes, each thinking our own thoughts, mine of how could a man be such heaven, yet wield such a heavy blade of evil? Perhaps it was only a matter of perspective. He had not threatened me in the slightest, even in his most monstrous moments.

  “The river suits you,” he said and withdrew from me slowly.

  I imagined his seed swirling to mix with the ancient waters, to become part of the world itself.

  We each dressed on the riverbank and I followed him back to the camp, my face burning with what must have been a dazzling post-coital glow. But Eron and Magus were not the only ones anticipating our return.

  A man of considerable height and size rose to meet us, along with the two bodyguards he had flanking either side. Torsten halted a short distance away, his face revealing little emotion but most certainly recognition.

  “Father.” His words were as flat as the expression he wore on his face.

  They lapsed into foreign conversation, but their body language seemed to reflect a slight tension between them. Jarl Kolla gazed down his nose at Torsten, who looked in my direction.

  “Speak English,” he pleaded. “The lady does not know our language and I want her to hear.”

  Jarl Kolla snorted and cut his gaze to me, inspecting me as if I were an item of minor amusement at the market. The skin tightened around his cold blue eyes and he let out a deep sigh.

  “Many stories have reached me of your doings. Men are singing your victory over Helmsgaard. Some say even that you were more beast than man.”

  “Is that so?” Torsten smirked.

  “Better than the supposition that you walk through walls as if they were made of air.” The jarl’s hard expression softened and he let out a hearty chuckle. “They underestimate our clansmen.”

  Torsten crossed his arms over his broad chest. “No thanks due to you or the clansmen.”

  His gaze turned to Magus and Eron. “We need to keep moving.”

  The two men divided their attention from Torsten, to his father, then back again.

  “Does this mean that you’re joining us?” Torsten asked.

  His father looked at him, a small smile dancing at the corners of his mouth for a brief moment before vanishing entirely. The jarl had a fearsome reputation to upkeep, it seemed.

  “Not so much as you joining us. When I sent you away, you were young and headstrong.” He stepped forward to lay a hand on his son’s shoulder. “Now, you’re just older.”

  Torsten and the jarl shared laughter.

  “And this is your charge?” Kolla added, favoring me with a good-natured wink.

  Heat flooded my face and I glanced demurely at my toes. I wasn’t sure how to respond to that.

  But Torsten took my hand in his. “I thought to make her my wife.”

  My mouth dropped open, as did Kolla’s. This was considered his proposal? Fitting, given that he was a man used to getting his way by charm or fury. My only concern was the monster that lived within him. Would it come out again, unbidden? And why had his father chased him from the north?

  “And if I were to tell you this is a bad idea?” The jarl muttered something to Torsten in their language again.

  Torsten shook his head. “No. I do not want anyone but Elena.”

  The jarl grumbled and shook his head. “As I said, you are only older. Do you realize that your brother has gone to drink with the gods and you are the next in line to lead the people?”

  “What has happened to Rhion?”

  Torsten’s hand tensed around mine before releasing me from what had been a comfortable grip.

  “Died a death of honor. In battle, just before this past winter. Took his band that long to ride back to me with word. A handful of men pitifully starved and injured out of thousands.”

  “My brother is dead?”

  “This is why you must consider carefully. You are responsible for more things than you’ve ever dealt with before.”

  So, I was in love with a prince of savages who would someday become jarl himself. My head swam with the idea. I knew little of his culture, did not even speak their language and I would be this kingdom’s queen?

  Torsten scoffed. “If you do not accept my choice, then let someone else lead.”

  “No!” The word flew from my lips before I could stop it and I covered my mouth with my hands.

  “I love this woman. Before her, all that mattered was that my cock was warm in some cunt or another.” He took my hand in his. “She has seen the beast and was not afraid.”

  The men’s stares made me uncomfortable. I wanted to back away and sit by the fire while they discussed my future. But I stayed there and faced his father’s disdain at choosing a woman from a land the Northmen had invaded rather than partaking of perhaps any woman his kingdom would have to offer.

  “Enough,” the jarl said. He raised his hand to signal for his guards.

  “Bring back a fresh kill. A large stag. And something to get this collar off the lady.”

  The guards, two burly mountains of men, nodded in assent and strode off to begin the hunt.

  Another guard grunted behind me to follow and, with one last glance at Torsten, who nodded, I acquiesced.

  I was bade to lay upon a rather large flat rock as my liberator smashed at the lock with a sharp stone. After a few blows, the lock gave and my neck was relieved of the terrible weight.

  As commanded, the two other guards returned
shortly with a freshly-killed stag. With a rather jovial tone, they went to work on the animal and concocted a meal befitting a royal outfit stranded out in the woods. Cloth was spread and a cask of wine was opened for us all to partake in, though Kolla cautioned Torsten from drinking out their rations. We ate and were content with full bellies and heads warmed with wine, even as the night air brought the cold upon us.

  Eron struck up and tended a fire, seeing that the majority of Torsten’s new enemies lay dead in the prison bailey, while the men talked of their home. I did not bring my query to their conversation, rather it came about naturally.

  “And what of my exile then, father? Have you forgotten so quickly, or did I impress you that much?” Torsten sat across from his father, each on makeshift seats hewn from fallen trees.

  From my vantage point at Torsten’s side, I could see the striking resemblance Torsten bore to the king. Both men possessed the wide, meaty hands with long fingers capable of palming another man’s skull with no trouble. Both brandished thick forearms, only the jarl’s skin was dotted with many more designs than his son’s. Torsten had a noble mane of dark hair, like smoked wood, whereas Jarl Kolla’s hair was mostly white. It was impossible to discern the king’s true age and I was beginning to realize that the Northmen’s idea of time differed greatly from what I’d come to understand during my lifetime.

  “You were not in control of your powers yet. But I can see that it was me in the wrong and that you were never as terrible as I made you out to be. I had hoped to raise Rhion to glory. I had to protect the people from your temper and the last time you transformed...I was left with no choice but to send you away.” He hung his head and his golden crown caught the fire’s glow.

  “And now?”

  The jarl nodded his head once. “You’ll need to find a way to control yourself. Just as I did. I will show you ways.”

  Torsten dropped his gaze to the fire. I did not touch him but stayed by his side as he seemed to contemplate memories, perhaps.