by Lizzy Bequin
If she were going to resist these ukkur, she would only have one chance to do so.
In the space between two heartbeats, Ika made up her mind.
She drew a deep breath and let out the loudest, shrillest scream she could manage.
It was a huge risk. She did not know exactly where they were. She could only hope that it was somewhere in the proximity of Rolf’s den. If her protector heard that scream, he would instantly recognize Ika’s voice. She didn’t use any words. To do so would be to give away her gambit. Even more important, she didn’t use Rolf’s name. That might lead to retaliation against her beloved protector, and Ika didn’t want that.
So she just screamed. One clear, shrill note.
The sound was quickly cut short by Gunnar’s hand clapping over her mouth.
“Hush, rot you.”
Without thinking, Ika bit down hard on the meat of the palm covering her mouth. Gunnar bellowed in pain and let her go.
In the moment of confusion, Ika twisted her arm free from Slaine’s grasp and bolted for the cave entrance.
“Hold it!”
Muk was standing there, legs wide, arms outstretched, ready to catch her if she went left or right.
So Ika went down instead.
Dropping briefly to all fours, she scrambled between the huge ukkur’s outspread legs and through the cave entrance into the forest beyond.
The cold air of the outer world hit her like a wall, but she didn’t slow down.
Ika ran and screamed at the top of her lungs.
But her escape was short-lived.
She heard grunting behind, felt hot breath at her neck, and then she was shoved to the ground face first into the snow, which melted at the touch of her hot, naked skin. Whichever one of them had caught her, he pinned her down like a wall of flesh.
More grunts at her ear. No words.
It was Slaine.
And his stick was still hard as stone down below. Ika could feel it, stiff and hot, pressing against her backside.
She screamed again, and Slaine clamped his hand over her mouth.
She bit, but it was like biting a chunk of wood.
Slaine didn’t pull back. Didn’t even flinch. Only the slightest hiss of pain told that he felt her teeth at all.
Ika went on screaming, but her cries were muffled now.
“Good job again, Slaine,” came Thusar’s voice from above and behind. “Get that thing up and get it back inside.”
Ika gave up biting and struggling. Fighting was clearly useless against this, the most brutish of the four ukkur.
She was carried back toward the darkness of the cave.
Once inside, Slaine removed his hand from her mouth, but an instant later, a thick piece of cloth was forced there, gagging her and stifling her attempts to scream more.
“Give it here,” Thusar commanded then.
Slaine obediently handed Ika over to his boss, and Ika found herself staring into that scarred face that was now only inches away from hers. His blue eyes had taken on a glacial coldness that sent a chill down her back.
She had thought the ukkur had been bluffing earlier when he said he would hurt her.
Now Ika realized she was mistaken.
Thusar sat down on a boulder near the blazing fire in the center of the cave. He dragged Ika face down on his lap with her naked backside bent and exposed over the muscles of thighs. Gods, he was every bit as hard as the stone he was sitting on. He was a piece of the cave itself broken free and come to life.
But what was he going to do to her?
What torture did this monster have in mind?
Ika twisted on his lap and looked back over her shoulder to see Thusar’s huge hand upraised and lit by the flickering orange glow of the fire. An even bigger shadow of that hand jumped and shuddered on the stone wall behind.
Thusar’s hand came down with so much speed that it made a whooshing sound in the air, and Ika gave a muffled cry through the gag in her mouth.
CHAPTER 11
Smack!
That massive hand came down hard on Ika’s bare bottom, sending a shockwave through her entire body that seemed to loosen her joints and rattle her teeth. She gave a muffled cry through her gag, more from surprise and shame than from actual pain, though there was plenty of that too.
Her backside burned. A stinging, scalding imprint in the shape of Thusar’s heavy hand.
“Stop!” Ika tried to shout. “Stop it right now!” But all that came through her gag were muted, meaningless sounds.
Thusar raised his hand and brought it down again. The sharp sound of skin connecting with skin echoed through the chamber. Ika’s skin felt seared where he had struck her.
Ika struggled on the ukkur’s lap. She squirmed and writhed, but the giant fist kept her hands clasped at the small of her back. She could not get free. The only thing that her wriggling achieved was to rub her sensitive places against Thusar’s hard, hot muscles.
With intense shame, Ika realized that her nipples were as stiff as beads again, and her slit was leaking more of that embarrassing wetness.
“Stop struggling,” Thusar growled. “You will endure your punishment.”
“It doesn’t understand you,” the one called Gunnar said as he set about bandaging his bitten hand.
“Perhaps it doesn’t understand my words. But it will understand the strength of my hand.”
And right on cue, that brutal hand came down again, three times in quick succession.
Smack! Smack! Smack!
Each hard blow stung Ika’s skin and set the mounds of her rump to jiggling. The force of each hard impact sent vibrations deep into her core, causing shameful sensations of arousal like what she had experienced under Gunnar’s invasive touching.
It didn’t make sense. Thusar was beating her, punishing her. Yet here she was, on the verge of climaxing yet again.
What Gunnar had achieved with his fingers, Thusar was about to achieve through brute force and violence.
Ika couldn’t let that happen.
She couldn’t endure another one of those strange fits of pleasure. Not here on this horrible ukkur’s lap while he tortured her naked bottom with his big hand.
Ika whimpered through her gag.
Thusar’s body seemed to react to that helpless sound. His hard, hot rod of flesh raised, pressing against Ika’s belly.
“Fuck,” Thusar growled. “This thing’s got some nice meat on it. Let’s get it good and tenderized.”
Another hard smack. And another.
Meat?
Tenderized?
Once again, Ika recalled what Rolf had told her about these ukkur. “They will eat you alive,” he had warned her. At the time, Ika had silently scoffed. But now it sounded like that threat was a reality.
If she could not get away, she at least needed to let these ukkur know that she was a sentient creature like them.
Ika jerked one wrist free from Thusar’s grasp and yanked the gag from her mouth.
“Stop it!”
Her voice reverberated through the hollow space of the cave.
“So,” Thusar growled. “It can speak after all. Well, this is for deceiving us…”
Another open-handed blow struck Ika’s ass, the hardest thus far, and she cried out in pain and shame and rage.
“Stop it! Stop hitting me!”
Thusar grunted cruelly.
“So demanding. Didn’t old Rolf teach you any manners?”
Ika gasped in surprise. She twisted around and stared up at the ukkur’s scarred face
“What did you say about Rolf?”
Smack!
“Ow! Stop it! I said stop it!”
“If it is clemency you want, you must ask for it politely, little thing.”
Smack!
Ika whimpered. Her ass burned with the imprint of Thusar’s hand. Tears spilled down her blushing cheeks.
“Please,” she begged.
Smack!
“Louder!”
�
�Please!” Ika sobbed. “Please stop it! Please let me go!”
She winced in expectation of another blow to her fiery buns, but it never came.
“Very well,” Thusar said. “I think you’ve had enough. What do you think, Gunnar?”
The bearded ukkur had finished bandaging his hand with strips of white cloth. He turned the hand over, inspecting his work. He snorted.
“I’d give that thing a few swats myself, but my hand needs a chance to heal.” He spat into the fire. “Whatever. Yeah. That’s enough punishment for now, I’d say.”
For now?
With shocking ease, Thusar lifted Ika off his lap and stood her on her feet beside the fire. She had not been manhandled that way before, or at least not in a long time. Rolf had used to pick her up and play with her when she was young, but when her body had started to change, he had gradually stopped doing that.
“Listen to me,” Thusar growled. “If you scream again, we’ll gag you tighter. If you try to run, I’ll give your backside another thrashing that you won’t soon forget. Understand?”
Ika nodded silently and mopped her tears with her hair.
“And if you bite anyone else,” Gunnar interjected. “Then I’ll give you that thrashing.”
Thusar chuckled, and Gunnar did too. They seemed more amused than genuinely angry, but that gave Ika little comfort.
“Sit,” Thusar commanded.
Ika did as she was told, lowering herself to the floor of the cave. But as soon as her rump touched the hard stone, she yelped and popped back up again. Her rear was still on fire from the savage spanking Thusar had just given her.
“Muk,” Thusar called. “Bring a pelt for our guest to sit on.”
In the span of two heartbeats, Muk materialized at Ika’s side, an animal skin of thick soft fur in his hands. The young ukkur smiled charmingly and spread the fur on the floor. Ika sat down. The fur provided just enough cushion to spare her tender behind from extra pain.
From her place by the fire, Ika looked up at Thusar, who was still sitting on his boulder like an old god.
Thusar didn’t speak. He merely stared down at Ika, his icy eyes glinting back the light of the fire.
Silence gathered, and Ika felt a discomfort in the pit of her stomach, like something indigestible there. When the silence became too much to bear, she broke it.
“You mentioned Rolf,” she said quietly. “You know about him.”
“Of course,” Thusar answered. “We visited him yesterday.”
“I meant—“
“Yes, I know what you meant,” Thusar cut her off. “You meant that I know that you belong to him.”
Ika had never thought about it that way before. From her perspective, she didn’t belong to anybody. But now was not the time to play word games. If this ukkur said she belonged to Rolf, so be it. She would rather belong to Rolf, her lifelong protector, than to these four cruel brutes.
“Yes, I belong to Rolf. And he will be very angry if you don’t return me.”
Thusar merely snorted.
“How did you know that it belongs to Rolf?” Gunnar asked.
Thusar tapped his nose.
“Smelled it when we were at Rolf’s place, yesterday. Then smelled it again last night when I went to take a piss.”
Now it was Ika’s turn to scoff.
“You weren’t taking a piss last night. I saw what you were doing. You were pulling on your stick until the white sap came out.”
She had thought that might embarrass Thusar, but he seemed unfazed.
“So you admit that you were spying,” he growled. Gods, the sound of his voice rumbled right to her very core. “You were spying, presumably against Rolf’s will, and then you got yourself caught by the nith.”
Ika shivered at the thought of those monstrous creatures.
“What did the nith want with you?” Thusar asked.
Ika hesitated for a moment, but she decided that honesty was best, at least for now. Perhaps a truthful answer now would buy her a bit of leverage to bluff later.
“They said they were going to take me to the slaughterhouse,” she whispered.
Apparently Thusar hadn’t heard of that place before. His brow furrowed, wrinkling his long scar. He switched his gaze to Gunnar, seeking an explanation from that quarter.
“I know the place she’s speaking of,” Gunnar said. “The slaughterhouse. It’s a massive, dark structure somewhere far to the south of here. The place that stinks of blood and death. Rumor has it the nith prepare their food there.”
“Food?” Thusar scratched his chin. “Is that what this thing is to the nith? Food?”
Another shiver ran down Ika’s spine.
Her lip trembled.
Ika feared that she should not speak out of turn. To do so was to risk yet another thrashing to her throbbing backside. But her anxiety was overwhelming, and she found herself blurting out a question.
“Are you going to eat me?” she half cried.
Thusar’s eyes widened momentarily, and then he threw his head back and roared with laughter. The others joined in too, even Slaine who thus far had not spoken a single word.
Ika was not amused, however.
At last, the laughter died down.
“Fear not, little thing,” Thusar said. “We’re not going to eat you. You’re far too interesting for that.”
Ika put on her best scowl and tried to look menacing. It was difficult, however, under the circumstances. She was naked and violated. Her behind still burned, her hole still echoed with tingles of Gunnar’s investigation, and she had not a stitch of clothing to cover her bare flesh. Shameful.
“Don’t call me little thing,” she said.
“Very well,” Thusar answered. “Then what shall we call you?”
“Ika.”
At that, the young one, Muk, burst out laughing again.
“I get it!” he choked between laughs. “Ika, because there’s no stem!”
Another blush surged into Ika’s face. She understood Muk’s joke. In their language, which was the nith language passed on to their ukkur slaves, the word ika referred to a ksh berry that was fully ripe and would break away from the stem when picked. Ika had sometimes wondered why this was her name. But she had never thought of what Muk was suggesting. She didn’t have a stem—didn’t have a piss stick like a proper ukkur.
Thusar smirked but did not laugh, and he motioned for Muk to be quiet.
“Did Rolf give you this name?” He asked.
Ika was confused. It had never occurred to her that anyone had given her her name. It was simply her name, the same as the names of places and of things. Who had bestowed all of those names?
But now that she thought about it, it must have been Rolf who named her. Who else would have done it?
She nodded uncertainly.
“And how did Rolf come into possession of you?”
There was that way of thinking again. Belong. Possess. But Ika decided it would be unwise to argue semantics.
“He found me. Eighteen years ago.”
“Found you?”
“Yes. The gods left me in his den as a gift.”
Thusar scratched his chin and a thoughtful growl rolled in his chest at the lowest limit of audibility.
“A gift indeed,” he said at last.
“Are you going to take me back to Rolf?” Ika asked. And then, just to drive her point home, she added. “He will be angry if you don’t.”
Thusar sat back and studied her for a moment.
“I’m certain he will be angry. But no, we will not give you back. Not yet, at least.”
Ika felt that dull ache pulsing behind her eyes. The feeling that always came just before her eyes started leaking. She struggled to hold those bitter tears back. She did not want to give these ukkur the satisfaction of seeing her like that.
“Why not?” she choked past the lump in her throat.
Thusar heaved a deep sigh.
“Rolf has been keeping you hidden. He doesn�
��t want any ukkur else to know about you. And perhaps that is wise. But now that we have you, I intend to uncover your secrets. I intend to find out what you are, little Ika.”
“I’m an ukkur.” The first drop spilled from her eye.
“No. I don’t think you are.”
This ukkur chief was serious. He was going to keep her a prisoner. A captive. He and the other ukkur would no doubt probe and examine her body just as Gunnar had done earlier.
Ika felt panic rising up in her chest.
Her hand went to her throat, her unconscious reflex whenever she found herself feeling nervous or anxious. But this time, her fingers did not find what they were searching for. In all the tumult of the preceding hours, Ika had not realized what was missing.
Her necklace.
It was gone.
A cold chill swept over her body, worse than any of the fear she had experienced in the past night and day. That necklace meant everything to her. She did not know why exactly, but she could not bear to lose it. To lose that small connection to the mystery of who and what she really was.
“My necklace!” she blurted. Her eyes were leaking something fierce now. Tears were streaming down her cheeks in hot stripes. “The nith must have taken it. Please, we have to go back to that vehicle and search for it. Please…”
She didn’t care that she was begging. All that mattered was the necklace.
Thusar’s face tightened as if he’d been stabbed. As if he were in pain at seeing Ika so upset.
He raised his hand, signalling her to be quiet.
His other hand went to the pouch at his hip and drew something out. He let it fall, dangling from his forefinger.
It was the necklace.
He offered it to Ika, and she took it gratefully, unable to speak through the tightness in throat. Ika’s tears kept right on coming, but their flavor had changed from bitter to sweet.
“I found it in the nith wagon,” Thusar said, answering the question that Ika’s throat would not allow her to ask. “It didn’t appear to be a nith design, so I thought it might be somehow connected to you.”
Ika bowed her head and slipped the braided leather cord around her neck. The soothing weight of the ring settled between her breasts, right over her heart. At least that one little piece of her world had been set right again.