His strokes were long, slow, stretching her lips as she rolled her tongue along his shaft, lapping in drugging waves as he thrust.
Gods, how she loved the feel and smell of him. Satin heat, thick, choking girth, stuffing her completely. His musky, steamy scent was more powerful than any aphrodisiac.
Fingers digging into his ass, she rose higher, centering herself, opening her jaws and her throat, inviting him to come deeper and deeper despite the ache building in her jaw.
His breath hissed between his teeth; his hips moved with more purpose. His thrusts not so measured and lazy now. Urgency tightened his abdomen and thighs.
Moaning, she ran her hands over him, feeling the flex of his muscle, reveling in the powerful thrust and pull while her pussy grew wet, her inner muscles clenching in sympathetic need. She suctioned hard, trying to coax his seed into her mouth.
Hands cupped her cheeks. “Elskling, enough!”
She shook her head, dragging her mouth on his cock, and sucked harder around him.
“Enough,” he said, softer this time, but dug his thumbs into the corners of her jaw to halt her.
Reluctantly, Fatin backed off him, chest heaving. She wiped the back of her hand across her mouth before lifting her gaze.
His fingers combed back the hair sticking to her sweaty face. “’Tis magic.”
Feeling dazed and deprived, she said, “What? The wand?”
“Your mouth.”
Fatin stared, eyes filling. “I would have gifted you with so much more.”
“I find myself greedy for your kiss.”
She smiled then, feeling powerful, womanly, in a way she never had before. “Eirik?”
“Yes, sweet Fatin.”
The way he said it, sweet warmth in his low purr, raised gooseflesh on her breasts and arms. “I need you inside me. Now.” And she did. She trembled with need.
Eirik knelt, twining his hands in the chains.
She straddled him, leaning on the bunched muscles of his broad shoulders, gliding her sweat-slick breasts against his face, sighing as he rooted at one, then the other, sucking and biting, until she was gliding down again.
Then, poised on the tip of his cock, she faced him as she had now on two memorable occasions. In his darkened eyes, she could tell he was thinking about those times as well. “I can’t be sorry,” she said, her voice ragged with emotion. “Not about any of it.”
He rubbed his cheek against hers. “Nor I,” he whispered in her ear. “I’m glad it was you.”
Her breath caught on a soft sob. “Tomorrow . . .”
He gave a sharp shake of his head. “We’ll have more than this. We must.” Then his lips captured hers in a wild kiss.
And she surrendered, sinking her fingers into his warm hair, her body slid against his, lifting, then circling to find him, then gliding down to swallow his thickness in her creamy depths.
His sigh entered her mouth, and tears pricked her eyes that she could give him this pleasure. Sex before Eirik had been a means to survive, but was now a joy. Because of him.
Her thighs trembled, her body convulsed, but she forced herself to continue to glide up and down, churning on his cock, squeezing around him to increase the friction, quickening at the catch of his breath.
At the end, his head fell back. Raw, broken groans tumbled out of his mouth.
She watched, stunned by the beauty of the moment, then peppered his jaw and cheeks with kisses as she rocked gently, extending his pleasure.
Sweat coating their skin, they hung together, her hands caressing his shoulders and back, his body shuddering against hers.
“I’ve never known such joy, Eirik. I want you to know that.”
“Stop.” He kissed her mouth. “It’s not the end.”
“Tomorrow . . .”
His hands clamped on either side of her face. His forehead touched hers. “Tomorrow comes. As does the next day and the next. Thor’s blessing rests with my clan, my people. His heart is mine. Tomorrow . . .” He closed his eyes, briefly. When they opened again, blue ice cut through her torment. “Tomorrow, Helios will know that a Viking’s heart is pure and savage.”
She clutched at his wrists, anguish twisting her mouth. “I’m afraid.”
“And I can’t make you believe. You will have to see.”
Footsteps scraped outside the cell door. She glanced over her shoulder, uncaring that she was naked and still impaled on Eirik’s cock.
The guard from the corridor banged against the bars. His leering gaze raked her, then landed on Eirik. “Time’s up. Prime bit like that wasted on the likes of you.” He shook his head and strode down the corridor.
Fatin rested her cheek against Eirik’s shoulder, wanting to hold on to the moment.
A kiss grazed her temple. “Perhaps you shouldn’t be there.”
She leaned back. “And miss your triumph?”
His smile was broad, but something softer, something deeper, rested in his blue eyes. “When we escape, I want you with me.”
She shook her head, fighting tears again. “You say that, and you’re wearing chains.”
“I won’t be stopped.”
She kissed him hard. “I’ll hold you to that promise.”
“Go now,” he whispered, the sound raw and thick.
She pushed upward. His cock slid from inside her. Already she missed the connection.
Stepping away, she picked up her skirt and tied it with a knot at her hip, then pushed back her hair.
“I hate that he’ll see your breasts.”
She glanced down at the tight, hard tips. “It’s not anything he hasn’t seen a hundred times. Women coming from the gladiators, semen streaking down their thighs.”
“Use the cloth. Don’t give him any more to stare at.”
She washed silently, shyly. Keeping her back turned as she brushed the cloth between her legs. “I wish I didn’t have such a spotted past.”
“I don’t hold it against you. I’m not exactly pure either.”
“But for a man it’s different.”
“When we marry, for our family’s future, we make different choices. But when we take a woman to bear our hearts, we can’t think. We can only trust in the gods, and the tests they place in front of us. The heavier the burden, the more dangerous the path—the greater will be our reward.”
She dropped the cloth into her basket. “I want to believe that.”
“You will . . .”
“Tomorrow,” she said, her lips curving. She covered the basket and set it on her hip. Then she stepped toward him and kissed his forehead and his eyes as they slid shut, then his mouth. “Take this with you, Viking. Into the ring. I love you.”
His eyes opened. His gaze bored into hers.
She gave him a one-sided smile. “Yeah, it’s possible. Even for a whore and a bounty hunter. I have a heart. And it’s yours.”
Nineteen
Birget sat in a seat high up the stadium, her butt resting on the edge as she leaned forward, tense beyond a simple adrenaline rush.
Not because she was dressed as a woman in a long, flowing robe, and garnering glances from those seated around her, but because her betrothed, the man she’d come to rescue, was on today’s program, and there wasn’t a thing she could do to change that.
She’d have her first glimpse of the man she’d been promised to, and perhaps her last.
Although she knew he was a powerful, virile warrior, someone who’d bested her own most highly regarded fighters, something in the dread in Adem’s face when he’d brought her the program and told her about the event scheduled for that day told her that this was no ordinary battle.
Already they’d waited through the lesser events, battles between popular gladiators. Bloody, maiming fights that had worked the crowd into a frenzy. And even though she was accustomed to battle, had slid on her own feet and belly in blood and entrails a time or two, the sight of the blood seeping into the sandy arena floor made her stomach lurch.
The dark
stains, the aftermath of the last fight between two evenly matched men, repulsed her for the abject waste of life.
These gladiators fought for purses. To entertain. Not to defend their homes or their livelihoods.
What manner of people were these Helios that they did not understand a battle should be a last resort? Something to be avoided, if possible. Something you entered with reverence for your gods and your ancestors.
Baraq and Adem sat on either side of her, their glances scanning the crowd and the guards standing just inside the panels ringing the arena floor. They freed her to worry and stare into large, dark openings to the sides of the arena floor through which the fighters would march.
Some of the openings were barred, and behind one barred gate figures crowded, hands wrapped around iron. Some were blond. She leaned closer, squinting to see into the shadows. Were those the rest of the Vikings? If so, why had they been brought here?
A hand slid over her thigh to cup her knee. Baraq leaned close. “Don’t you have faith in your future husband? He’s a Viking. I thought you believed all Vikings were superior to Helio fighters.”
Birget bit into her nail and peeled off a sliver, then grimaced, realizing just now that she’d bitten all her nails to the quick. She covered his hand and pushed it off her knee. “Somehow, I don’t think that they intend this to be a fair fight.”
Adem grunted to the other side of her. “Your Wolf is listed as the main attraction during the spectacle. His opponent is unnamed, a surprise to please the crowd. That can’t be good.”
Without looking away from the arena floor, she said, “You know a lot about what happens here.”
“I fought here, before my escape.”
“And you’re not worried about being recognized?”
“No one’s looking at the crowd.”
Those in the front rows, lower to the arena floor, stood and began shouting. Feet thudded on stone steps, a thunderous pounding she felt all the way through her body. “What’s happening?”
“I suspect they are bringing him out.”
Guards dressed in odd costumes—knee-length pleated skirts, gold breastplates, and tall fringe-capped helmets—strode from one of the openings. They led a man, his wrists in manacles and stretched to either side of his brawny body. He wore only a short, thin loin skirt, but immense pride cloaked his broad shoulders. He could only be Eirik.
Birget’s breath caught. The backs of her eyes burned with the pride that swelled inside her chest. He was a handsome man, despite the many healing marks on his body. His pale torso was crisscrossed with shiny pink lash marks. But if he felt pain, he didn’t show it. The hard cut of his jaw, the steel blue gaze he aimed around the arena, as though to challenge every man there, made her heart soar.
Her father hadn’t been wrong about him. Daughter, he is cut from the same cloth as his brother.
And, indeed, he was every bit Dagr’s match in height and breadth.
Inside, the knots tightening around her stomach eased a fraction. Eirik would do their people proud. She’d bear witness. And should he die, she had no doubt that Freya herself would swoop down to lift him from the dirt.
“What do you think of him?” Baraq asked.
“He is a Viking,” she said, sitting back and schooling her face into an impassive mask.
Silently, she offered up a prayer to Freya. To treat him gently should she meet him soon. To Thor, the Wolves’ god who’d blessed Dagr’s sword, to watch over another son of Thorshavn, to lend him strength and courage, although she had no doubts the proud man striding toward the raised dais at the front of the stands had pride aplenty for twenty men.
Baraq bent toward her. “Are you sure you want to stay for this?”
She didn’t spare him a glance. “Someone must tell the tale.”
“If you’d rather, I’ll bring you news.”
She shook her head. “You don’t understand. Our heroes are honored by the stories we tell of their exploits. I must be the one to tell his brother.”
Baraq nodded, then eased back in his seat.
Two unarmed fighters approached to remove the chains and manacles. Eirik fisted his hands and flexed his arms, muscles bulging.
The crowd grew silent and all gazes turned to a figure rising from a thronelike seat. “Viking, will you give us the good fight this day?” he asked, his voice booming.
Eirik’s expression remained stoic, but his sharp gaze cut the man with bitter blue heat. Slowly, he turned his back. A direct insult if the gasps around her were any indication that he’d defied custom.
She grinned, liking him more and more.
“Viking!” the man angrily called after him. “We have rules by which you must abide.”
From behind, she saw Eirik lift his arms and fold them over his chest.
“Die, then! And when your body’s ripped to shreds, we’ll not worry about a burial. Your parts will feed Sobki.”
Adem cursed.
“What’s Sobki?”
“A beast.” Adem’s eyes closed. When he glanced her way, his gaze didn’t quite meet hers. “Your warrior won’t live past the hour. Say your prayers now.”
Fatin never made it out of the arena the day before. At the end of the first shaftlike corridor, she’d been met by guards from the Garden who’d locked her in an empty cell to pass the night, sleeping on the stone floor.
The sound of marching feet drew her toward the bars. The guards returned, this time with Aliyah, who wore a wide, feline grin.
Aliyah tsked. “He made more of an impression than I’d thought. How is it I didn’t know you were so aroused by rough play?”
Fatin fought not to hide her naked breasts from the guards, and in particular one gold-toothed one whose nasty smile widened as she recognized him.
Aliyah stepped close to the bars and smiled into her face. “Since you crave the company of Vikings, I say you should join them.”
“Join them?”
“I have them on an outing. A day’s entertainment. They stand in a gate to watch the fight.” She lifted her chin to the gold-toothed guard. “Put her inside with them.”
“Yes, mistress. My pleasure.” He unlocked her cell and stood aside as she stepped into the corridor.
“When they see their precious leader torn to shreds, who do you think they will blame for his death?” Aliyah’s glance trailed down Fatin’s body. “But dressed as you are, will they rape you before they kill you?”
Fatin felt a cold shiver trace down her spine. “Why are you doing this?”
“You played a game with me, Fatin. I thought you were loyal, and yet you stole like a thief. To give him a helmet? And aid his escape? Do you think I did not know? That Otis didn’t come immediately to tell me what had happened? Otis is a fool, but I don’t pressure him about how he attends to his duties.”
“He tried to rape me.”
Aliyah’s brows arched high. “How does one rape a whore?”
The guard grabbed her upper arm and dragged her down another corridor, toward a darkened tunnel where the shouts from the arena above echoed inside.
When they arrived at a stairwell, he shoved her. “Climb. I’ll follow.”
Every step upward she was aware of him behind her, lifting her skirt, stroking her ass, touching her pussy. Making her so uncomfortable, so sick at heart, she fought to keep her breaths even and deny him proof he intimidated her.
At the top of the steps, he unlocked a door. “Inside.” The gate was more of a recess, a room opening onto the arena floor. It was mostly shadowed, except at the opening. The Vikings, all dressed in fur, were pressed against the bars, their bodies rigid, their gazes fixed forward.
“Get on with you.”
At the sound of the guard’s voice, all turned to see her pushed to the floor. She came up on her hands, her gaze falling away from their angry glares.
The guard laughed and slammed closed the door, leaving her alone with the men.
The young one, Kaun, stepped forward. “Our l
eader can no longer command us. His protection is withdrawn.”
Fatin kept her head bent, her body beginning to tremble. “I would watch with you,” she said, her voice hoarse.
Kaun turned away. The others did as well.
She was left to pick herself up from the dirt and approach them. There was no space for her to slip between them. She pressed against Hakon’s side. “Please,” she whispered.
Without turning, Hakon reached behind him and dragged her forward to stand in front of him, forcing her to face the arena and remain bracketed between his arms.
His mouth stirred the hair beside her ear. “Should he die today, you will meet the same fate. By my hands.”
“If he dies today, I won’t fight you. I’ll deserve it.”
Then, with his large body pressed against her back, Fatin stared into the arena, at the man who strode bravely to the center of the hard-packed floor.
Her gaze swept his tall, muscular frame greedily. With his back to them as he faced the game’s emperor, he moved easily, as though the bruising and the lashes were more fully healed than she knew they were.
When he faced away from the dais, she gasped. The Vikings around her chuckled.
“He shouldn’t have done that,” she whispered harshly. “The emperor of the games has the choice of his opponents.”
“Think it matters? He’s a Viking,” Hakon boasted. “There’s not a puny Helio who can stand against any one of us.”
“There are men as large and well trained as all of you among the Helios, but it’s not the men I worry about.”
Then she heard the angry emperor shout. The word “Sobki” struck her like a fist to the belly. She bent, giving a low, wounded moan, her forehead bumping against the iron bar.
Around her, the Vikings grew still. When she glanced up, it was to find Kaun staring. “What do you know?”
“That your Wolf will fight no man.”
Eirik scanned the seats of the arena, wondering if Fatin was there. He hoped she wasn’t. His gaze searched the gates, finding a barred opening, and his heart lifted at the sight of his men. They stood tall, dressed in their fur and breastplates despite the heat.
Enslaved by a Viking Page 23