by Roxie Noir
Captured by Vikings Copyright © 2015 Roxie Noir
All rights reserved.
This book is intended for audiences 18 and over only.
The cover model is just a model, not someone who endorses or even knows about this book.
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Captured by Vikings
Roxie Noir
EXCERPT
“You’ve been asking lots of questions lately,” Thorvald went on. Alva couldn’t tell what he was doing — he was half teasing, half serious, and she had no idea what to make of it. She swallowed and forced herself to meet his gaze.
“Wanting to know why we’re not married,” Erik said. His hand was creeping up her leg, still on the outside of her skirts, and she was beginning to have trouble focusing. All she could think about was watching the two of them, the night before, and how it had made her feel so strange.
“I think you’ve figured that one out,” Thorvald said, still smiling. “Didn’t you, last night?”
Alva gasped, then held her breath. She could feel herself turning bright red, but she was afraid to say anything. What if they were baiting her, waiting to kill her if she said the wrong thing?
Erik leaned forward suddenly, pushing his face into her neck, his lips grazing the sensitive skin there. Alva closed her eyes and a shiver went down her spine.
“There’s room for another,” he said. His warm breath tickled her, and her lips parted just a little. She felt the pulse between her legs even harder.
Finally, for once, she knew exactly what she wanted, even though it frightened her.
Erik’s warm lips closed on her flesh, and he trailed tiny kisses and bites from her jaw to her collarbone, making Alva sigh with pleasure.
“I ought to be jealous,” Thorvald said, across the table, still watching intently.
Alva’s eyes flew open in alarm, but Thorvald only laughed.
“I said, ‘ought to be,’” he said, standing from the bench where he sat. “But why be jealous when I could join in?”
With that he walked to stand behind Erik. He took the other man’s jaw in one hand and tilted his face up, kissing him hard on the lips, Alva still sitting on his lap. She took the chance to catch her breath and try to make any sense of what was happening, but then Thorvald’s hand was on her leg, lifting her skirts away from her, diving underneath them and touching her skin.
“Oh,” she said, very quietly. She was shocked at the gentle touch of his rough fingers, but was even more shocked at the strong, immediate reaction her body had.
The pulse deep down between her legs became furious, and Alva was desperate for his hand to move higher and higher, to touch her there, between her legs...
Without realizing it she’d shifted, leaning against the table, using her back to lift herself up a little bit off of Erik’s lap, offering herself to Thorvald’s hands moving underneath her skirt. Though his hand was on her, he’d leaned his head down into Erik’s neck, where he was now biting and sucking on the other man’s skin where his beard ended.
Erik grunted, his eyes half-closed in pleasure, as Alva blushed and struggled and gasped. She wanted Thorvald’s hand higher — she wanted it on her, in, her, but she was still afraid to take it and move it herself, so she tried to coax it higher somehow, by sliding downward, hoping that it wound wind up where she wanted it.
Suddenly, Erik’s hands were on her hips, and he lifted her so she was straddling him, facing away, her skirts lifted above her knees. She reeled a little, thinking that she might fall off, but strong hands held her where she needed to be.
With one big, rough finger, Thorvald stroked the very edges of her lips, now that her legs were spread wide.
Alva gasped, and behind her, Erik chuckled into the back of her neck. The two sensations at once were almost more than Alva could bear.
Captured by Vikings
“More ale, girl,” he said. His empty stein made a loud thud on the table as he slammed it down and then belched loudly.
Alva didn’t turn around immediately, occupied as she was with lighting the candles in the wall sconces. In a few minutes the sun would be down, and it would be too dark to see.
“Did you hear me?” he bellowed.
She still said nothing, but walked to the table and took Lord Duncan’s mug. As she leaned over the table, just slightly, Lord Angus, sitting to Duncan’s right, cupped her ass in one hand.
Alva did nothing. What could she do? She was fairly certain that the repulsive, cruel Lord Duncan wanted her maidenhead for himself, a fate that she could feel growing closer by the day.
“Aye, that’s ripe,” said Lord Angus. He gave her an extra squeeze, his hand traveling lower, the layers of Alva’s skirts the only thing separating his thick, dirty fingers from her flesh.
The long table full of men, most at least fifteen years older than her, laughed and leered at Alva. She grit her teeth together, but did her best to ignore it. After all, these men — her Lord’s friends and underlords, a disgusting collection — had been talking about her like this ever since she’d come to serve Lord Duncan as a girl of seven with nowhere else to go.
It had gotten worse the past few years, of course. Alva had been a late bloomer, physically speaking, but now she was a young woman, and all the men who constantly vied for Duncan’s attention had noticed.
She took three empty mugs back into the kitchen and began refilling them, one by one, from the cask full of ale. As she did, she listened idly to the conversation still going on in the great room.
“Did you hear that Aberdale was sacked,” someone said. It was a newer voice, one that Alva couldn’t place immediately.
“Bunch of milk-drinking cunts,” said another voice, this one from Lord Colum, another of Duncan’s closest advisors.
Everyone else laughed uproariously.
A shudder went down Alva’s spine as she filled the second mug full of beer. As bad as she knew serving in Lord Duncan’s house was — and how much she dreaded the night, soon now, she knew, when he ordered her to his bed — it was still better than the vikings. They were rough, unwashed barbarians who sailed along the coast, ransacking towns, stealing children and raping women as they saw fit.
However bad her life was now, she was alive, fed, and sheltered. Better than dead, and better than being the only person left alive in the burnt-out shell of a village — she had already experienced that once, and it was more than enough.
“They took Finhorn as well,” the first voice said. “Finhorn had quite a wall.”
There was a moment of silence around the table. Then, another loud belch, followed by raucous laughter.
“Finhorn fell because Cormac’s daughters can barely lift a sword,” said Duncan. “They all run and hide behind their mother’s skirts.”
Alva thought she heard a note of desperation in his loud, obnoxious voice. Finhorn was only a day’s ride away, and no matter what Duncan might say to his friends while he was drunk, everyone knew that Lord Cormac had seven big, strapping sons.
Had, past tense. News from Finhorn was that all seven had been mown down, defending their home. They’d also heard that his mother had been found dead in the wreckage, and that their two sisters had simply disappeared. Probably taken by the vikings.
Alva had never heard of anyone being taken by the vikings and coming back.
Someone pounded on the table.
“Where’s my ale?” Duncan roared.
Alva allowed herself a modicum of relief. Over the years she’d become acutely attuned to the levels of his drunkenness, and she she that after this mug, he’
d be drunk enough to fall asleep the moment he got into bed — certainly too drunk for his manhood to work.
Clutching the three mugs, Alva carried them back into the large room where the men sat around the table, a roaring fire behind them. She set them on the table, ignoring as always the way all the men leered at her.
“Where’d you get this one?” one of the men roared at Lord Duncan. “Got green eyes and a pretty bosom, can’t be one of our local girls.”
The men at the table laughed, even though Alva knew that they all liked the local girls well enough.
“Some of my men found her alone in the rubble when Padraig and I were having out their differences,” Duncan said. “Only person to survive when I attacked some of his lands. Nearly cut her down myself, but she was pretty even as a child.”
Alva tried not to listen. She remembered that day all too well: the terror, the screams of her parents after they had hidden her in their cellar, the only place in her tiny village that hadn’t burned to the ground.
“Maybe if she whelps, they’ll come out green eyed, too,” the man said, half-thoughtful and half drunk.
Whelp, thought Alva, in a rage. I’m not a dog, you piece of shit.
She didn’t say it out loud. Instead, she took away the dirty dishes from the table, her arms loaded high with the wooden and pewter trenchers before retreating back into the kitchen.
Still, she heard Duncan guffaw, an ugly sound that she knew all too well.
“Not for a couple of years,” Duncan said. “She’s ripe, but a baby will spoil all that.”
There was a murmur of assent around the table.
Just as well, Alva thought. I’d murder any children I had by you.
She dumped her armful of dishes into the basin and rolled up her sleeves, preparing to scrub down Lord Duncan’s dinner dishes. She thought every day about poisoning his food, but she was afraid that it wouldn’t take. Then he’d still be alive, probably figure it out, and torture her until she died.
It wasn’t how Alva wanted to go.
As she dipped the first trencher into the basin full of water, she heard the loud, hollow sound of the big doors to the hall slam open. Alva frowned — who the hell was just getting in now, after dark, like this?
Then, suddenly, all the raucous noise from the hall went quiet. Alva’s back straightened, and suddenly, she found herself straining her ears to hear what was going on.
Her heart sank. It couldn’t be anything good — not if everyone had gone quiet. She dried her hands on her skirts and walked quietly to the kitchen door, hoping to stay unnoticed.
Someone was still standing in the massive doorway, and Alva thought she recognized him as one of the guards on the grounds. He was breathing hard, gasping for breath, his sword drawn and in one hand. Past him, outside, it was raining lightly, and the cold, wet air was blowing in behind him.
No one seemed to notice — they all stared at him, goggle-eyed and wide-mouthed.
“They’re here,” he said, between deep gasps. “The others are fighting them off—“
Then the young man’s face froze, just for an instant, and he pitched forward, hitting the stone floor face-first.
In his back was a single arrow. For a split second, no one in the big room moved, and Alva felt rooted to the spot.
This can’t be happening again, she thought. I can’t live through another ransacking, even if this one is by different people.
Then all the men came unfrozen with a roar. Swords scraped out of their scabbards, benches fell over backward as men sprang up, tankards got knocked over and beer sloshed everywhere, but no one cared.
“Those mongrels will never take me!” Lord Duncan roared, pulling his out broadsword out and holding it high above his head.
It was the first time Alva had ever appreciated him.
A huge roar went through the hall, and for a moment, standing in the kitchen door, Alva felt her heart swell. Surely, these men would defend their home and their families, fight off the vikings outside, and she wouldn’t live through another sacking.
Just as she began to feel hope, they swarmed in through the big doors.
They looked like beasts to Alva, wearing fur and leather, faces painted, swords flashing, strange, unearthly cries erupting from them. In moments they’d decimated the first wave of Duncan’s men, and that was enough for Alva.
She darted back into the kitchens in sheer terror. Her hands shook as she grabbed a kitchen knife — the biggest one she could find — and then hid herself in the pantry. All she could think was not again, not again, as she huddled in the dark, the knife out in front of her, as though she stood some chance against a viking warrior with a sword and shield.
I’ll make them kill me, she thought. She could feel tears running down her face, but she didn’t register them.
Her grip around the knife tightened.
Through the thick pantry door she could barely hear anything beyond muffled shouts and roars, gradually getting lower and lower. She prayed that the battle was further from her, but she couldn’t tell. She just sat in the dark, holding the knife, and she felt as though time had stopped.
Maybe they’ve left, she thought after a very long time.
Just then, the door creaked open, revealing two enormous vikings.
“—Ale left in that barrel,” one was saying. His sword was sheathed, and he seemed to be casually speaking over his shoulder to someone else.
Alva saw her only chance and took it, rising and lunging at the man all in one motion, aiming her kitchen knife at his throat, using all of her courage and strength to launch herself through the space between them.
He laughed.
At the last moment, he stepped aside, grabbed her wrist, and twisted. Alva yelped in pain, dropping the knife and crumpling to the floor, landing awkwardly on her side.
Right away, she went for the knife that had also fallen, but the man scooped it up, inspecting the thing.
“A kitchen knife,” he said casually. “You’re brave, at least.”
Still on the floor, Alva kicked out, trying to get behind the man’s knees, at least get him to the ground.
He stepped away easily, flipping the knife in one hand.
“She’s feisty,” said a second voice.
“I’ve heard that about these Scottish women,” the first man said. “I have to say, she’s the first one to live up to that claim.”
Alva struggled up, her feet tangling in her long skirts. Now the first man had her knife and the other man had his hand on his sword. She was breathing hard, and she knew she couldn’t win — not one unarmed girl against two heavily armed viking warriors.
She ran at the man holding the knife, reaching her hands out for it at the same time that she tried to crash into him with her entire weight.
One of us will go down, she thought, but she was wrong again. The viking sidestepped and then grabbed her, bringing her close, her back to him, and holding the knife at her throat.
“Do you keep the knives here sharp?” he asked, sounding almost bored.
Alva struggled slightly, but he twisted her arm up behind her back. Pain shot through her.
“We could find out how sharp,” he suggested, and Alva felt the metal bite into her neck, just the tiniest bit.
She closed her eyes and began praying, trying to ignore the tears she felt running down her face.
“She’s pretty though, isn’t she?” asked the other man. He was casually leaning against a table, arms crossed, simply watching the scene unfold in front of him.
“That she is.”
“And spirited.”
“That too.”
“She could come with us.”
“No.” That was Alva, struggling to speak through the hold the first viking had on her.
“No?” That was the viking leaning against the table.
“I don’t want to come with you,” she growled, her teeth grit together against the pain.
“You’d rather die than come with
us?” the first viking asked, the one who held the knife to her throat. “Are you so attached to Lord Duncan?”
Alva was still breathing hard, trying to get the words out. The pressure on her neck from the knife lessened, and finally, she could speak.
“That’s not it,” she said, her arm still on fire, still twisted up behind her though not as hard as before. “I’ve been taken before, I won’t be taken again.”
“So that’s why a pretty girl was hiding in the pantry,” said the first viking. He let her go and she stumbled out of his arms and against the table, rubbing her neck with one hand. “Was he keeping you for himself?”
Alva looked him in the eyes, not sure what to say or how he knew. She was surprised that they were gentle and brown, a little at odds with his wild blond hair and blood-spattered clothing.
Without saying anything, she nodded.
“Typical,” said the other man.
Upstairs in the big stone house, Alva could hear crashing sounds through the ceiling. Something else was happening, and she wasn’t sure what.
The viking who’d held a knife to her throat stepped forward. Alva flinched away from him, shrinking against the sturdy wooden table as he took her chin in his hand and turned her face toward him. His hand was hard, strong and calloused. She knew that he’d killed many men with it, but somehow, his touch still wasn’t as cruel as Lord Duncan’s.
Alva opened her eyes, slowly, to see two brown pools staring at her.
“This is the deal,” he said, simply. “You can come with us or we can leave you to the others, and I guarantee you won’t like that. But we’ll treat you well enough, and you’ll live. Up to you.”
Until a few moments ago, Alva had been determined to die rather than be taken away by vikings. But now, something had changed. They could have already raped and killed her, fed her body to their dogs, but instead here they were, saying that they’d treat her well.
Alva took a deep breath. She didn’t completely believe that it would be okay with them, but it did sound better than death, at least for now.