by Sara King
“When my brother gets here,” Victory said, “The first thing I’m going to have him do is take me to a decent meal.”
Crack. He looked down at her, irritation in his blue eyes. “How do you know it’s not decent? You haven’t even tried it.” Then he frowned. “And I thought the first thing you were gonna do is have him execute me on the spot.”
“Lobster. Filet mignon. Wine. Maybe a little shrimp scampi or lasagna.” She smiled at him. “I’m going to eat it all in front of you, make you watch every bite. Then I’m going to have him cut off your head.”
Dragomir rolled his eyes and cracked the last filthy egg into the pan. Then he took a primitive wooden spoon and stirred it all together, until the yolk and white were blended. “And,” Dragomir said, reaching for the bag of salt, “since we don’t have any cheese…” She watched, horrified, as he dumped nearly a palmful of salt into the eggs.
Then he proceeded to pluck three large potatoes from the pot he had boiled the night before and nipped them into the skillet. Victory felt her gorge rise. “That wasn’t refrigerated.”
“Nope,” he said. Then, as she watched, he built a fire inside the stove using sticks of wood and kindling, then stirred the pan as it started to heat.
“This is taking forever,” Victory said, finally getting impatient. “Why don’t you use a gas stove?”
Without looking up from the eggs, Dragomir said, “Do you see any gas lines running to my home, Princess?”
She narrowed her eyes. “They sell canned gas. I know. It’s one of our imports.”
“Purchasing and transporting a gas stove costs more than I make in a year. Every bottle of gas costs the same price as five goats.” He tapped contaminated egg off his spoon and looked at her. “So which would you rather have? Fast-cooked potatoes or slow-cooked meat?”
“Slow-cooked is right.” She wrinkled her nose at how long it was taking for the stove to heat. “Is that ever going to be done?”
He squatted, opened the stove, blew on the coals, and threw more wood on the fire. “You know,” he said, closing the iron door again, “I’ve been thinking about it, and I think I’m going to do your heart last.” He stood, his blue eyes watching her with a calculating look.
“Uh,” Victory said. “What?”
He poked a big finger between her breasts. “Your heart rama. That’s going to be last. If I open it up now, I’m just going to be leaving you with all sorts of other worries and hang-ups that have built up in the womb and liver ramas, and when you fall madly in love with me, I want it to stick.”
Victory jerked away from his touch, horrified and how close his hand had come to her now all-too-sensitive nipples. Then her jaw fell open. “You’re doing it again?”
“Yep,” Dragomir said. “After breakfast.” He started stirring the skillet again. “Hungry?”
She backed to the end of her chain. “You can’t.”
“Why not?” Dragomir asked. “Your brother asked me to heal you.”
Victory thought of the way that she had been doing everything she could to avoid thinking about the way his big body moved like a cat, the way his blue eyes danced at her complaints, the way his big hands worked the goat’s udders… “Uh,” she said, reddening at the warmth that was building at the thought, “I feel completely healed, thank you.”
The Emp gave her a flat look.
“I am,” she cried. Then, at the warmth between her thighs building under his scrutiny, she squeaked, “Too healed.”
“We’re opening another rama. The womb this time. It will help you with your creativity. You like to paint? Sew?”
“Uh,” Victory said. “Do I have any say in this?”
“Nope.” He went back to stirring his meal.
“Listen, you cad,” Victory growled. “I’m a princess. I don’t need to sew.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You want something more than that shift?” He gestured to her linen robe.
“Of course I do,” Victory muttered.
“I have goat wool. I know a lady in town who has a spinner and a loom. I can arrange for you to use it.”
Victory stared at him so long he had a chance to finish breakfast and serve it up on two wooden plates, carry one of them to Lion, feed her, and then sit back with his own meal with a sigh.
“You have got to be utterly out of your mind!” she finally cried.
Dragomir looked up at her over a mouthful of his contaminated egg-and-potato mash. “Winter is coming,” he said.
“My brother is coming,” Victory snapped. “And when he does—”
Dragomir rolled his eyes and went back to his meal.
Victory watched him eat for several minutes before she realized that she was hungry. “I want some of that,” she finally said.
Dragomir kept eating.
“Hey,” she said, walking up and smacking him on a big shoulder. “Let me try it.”
He looked up at her and she saw him deliberate.
“I’m really hungry,” she admitted.
Growling, he offered her the plate.
Victory gingerly picked up a bite, tasted it. She took a few more forkfuls, forcing herself to swallow them. “It’s really bland,” she said, grimacing. She took another bite.
“Then give it back!” he roared, stretching out an arm to take the plate from her.
Victory twisted out of reach and kept eating. “You get hungry enough, you’ll eat just about anything.” She finished the food, then handed him the plate. “That was passable, considering your resources.”
Dragomir sat on his chair and fumed. “That was my breakfast.”
She gestured at the unrefrigerated pot on the stove. “Have some potatoes. There were a couple of those left.”
He leaned forward, elbows on knees, dropping his face into his big hands. For several minutes, he said nothing, just stared at the floor. Then, with a growl, he got up, grabbed a bundle of twine from the wall, and started walking out the door, Victory in tow.
“Where are you going?” Victory asked, reluctantly following along behind him. Reluctantly because if she didn’t stay within chain’s-length, she was going to be dragged.
“Getting myself some breakfast,” Dragomir growled. He strode out to the yard where the goats were clumped together around a bush that had had the misfortune of growing through the fence, and tied the twine around the neck of the goat he had been milking that morning.
Victory’s eyes widened. “You’re going to kill it?” she gasped, feeling sick.
Dragomir gave her an irritated scowl. The goat on a lead, he went to the small shack beside the house and whistled.
A moment later, a huge black beast came charging up to the yard from the direction of the fields, ebony mane and tail flowing out behind it. Victory frowned. “Is that a horse?”
Dragomir petted the animal, greeting it with soothing words. Then he took a set of leather straps off the wall inside the hut and began harnessing the beast.
Victory grimaced. “How primitive.”
If he heard her, he ignored her. He set a saddle onto the horse’s back and cinched it down. Then he tied the goat’s lead to the saddle horn.
“Come here,” Dragomir growled, turning to Victory.
Eying the animal warily, Victory backed to the end of her chain. “Why?”
Dragomir grabbed the leash and reeled her in. Then, amidst her flailing and complaints, lifted her off her feet and dropped her onto the horse’s back in front of the saddle, alone and unattended.
Victory froze, feeling the great beast move underneath her. “Oh my gods,” she said. Inside, Lion had started shouting, the thumps of her body hitting the chain ringing throughout the hovel.
“Better tell her you’re all right,” Dragomir said, glancing at the open door. “She’s going to hurt herself again.” Then, to her horror, he swung up into the saddle behind her.
Ducking low in terror on the horse’s back, her hands gripping the animal’s mane, Victory somehow found her voice long enoug
h to shout, “Calm down, Lion. He’s only assaulting me with a horse.”
Unable to understand her, Dragomir clucked at the animal and, holding the leather straps, started leading it and the goat toward the fence.
“I’m sorry I ate your breakfast!” Victory cried, as she felt its mass jolt beneath her. “Please!”
“Stop thrashing or you’re going to spook Thunder,” Dragomir said. He reached around her and patted the horse’s neck. To the horse, he cooed, “’Cause he’s an ornery old cuss, isn’t he?” The horse whickered back.
Grinning, Dragomir patted its side, then looked down at Victory. His grin faded. Straightening, he wrapped an arm around her and kicked the horse forward.
“Where are we going?” She tried to keep the whine out of her voice, but being held this close, it felt like every nerve in her back was afire where he was touching her. And the big arm around her waist wasn’t helping matters. That, and this close, he smelled…
…masculine. It wasn’t a smell that Victory was used to, and it made her shudder with yearning before she got her instincts under control. What did he do to me? she thought again, horrified.
Then she realized he hadn’t answered her and a feeling of foreboding began to seep into her consciousness. “Dragomir?” she asked, nervous. Then, when he didn’t answer, she scowled and said, “Slave?”
He tilted his head to peer down at her, his blue eyes thoughtful. “I thought Imperium Royals were a genetic mutation similar to an Emp or a Psi, but with brainpower.”
Victory frowned up at him. “We have photographic memories, among other things. My brain is like yours, except better.”
He grunted. “For a super-genius, you’re making some very interesting miscalculations.”
Victory twisted on the back of the horse to face him. “Like what?”
Still watching the road, Dragomir said, “Oh, I don’t know… That I currently have you trapped on a horse, chained to my waist.”
Victory scoffed. “We both know how long that’s going to last, once my brother gets here. I haven’t decided if I’m going to sell you off to a fetish pleasure-house or keep you for my own amusement.”
He smiled pleasantly. “Or that I’m about three times bigger than you, haven’t had breakfast, and am fighting an overpowering urge to make you walk.”
Victory’s mouth fell open. She glanced down at the rocky ground, then at the skinny brown goat that was fighting in vain against its lead, then back up at him. “Uh.”
“But please go on,” Dragomir insisted. “You were saying something about a fetish pleasure-house?”
“Uh,” Victory said. “You know, that tree is really green. I never noticed it before. Is that imported?”
He glanced in the direction of the foliage. “That’s an alder.”
“Father has to import most of his hardwoods,” Victory babbled. “The only ones that Mercy has reliably been able to grow has been oak and maple, and they really only grow on a thin band on either side of the equator—this village is way too far north. There’s so much rock and so little dirt on this planet that we really haven’t been able to establish any serious tree-farms.”
He peered down at her for a long moment. Victory grabbed extra fistfuls of the horse’s mane, just in case he tried to fling her off.
“A photographic memory, huh?” he asked finally. “How many potatoes were left in the pot?”
“Seven,” Victory said immediately. Then she frowned. “Well, six and a half. You’d cut one up for breakfast.”
She heard him suck in a breath behind her. “That’s it, isn’t it?”
“What?” Victory asked nervously.
“Why you keep being overwhelmed by the visions.” He looked down at her, his blue eyes kind. “You’re living them over again, aren’t you?”
“Part of the Imperial Curse,” she muttered.
He nodded in commiseration. “Does the other part consist of being a pampered pain in my ass?”
She glared up at him. “Definitely the fetish house.”
“You know, you’re right.” In an easy motion, Dragomir lifted her up and dropped her onto the ground beside the goat. “Stretch your legs a bit.” He never slowed the horse.
“Wait!” Victory cried, running to catch up. “I was only joking about the fetish house! I’m sure we can find you some nice noble family willing to take you on as a personal servant.”
Dragomir stopped the horse and looked down at her, blinking. “You are serious, aren’t you?”
Victory frowned at his stunned expression. “What, you would rather live in your hovel? Raising goats?” She snorted. “Personal servants get all sorts of benefits, especially if they are smart—” she hesitated, looking up at him. “Well, you’d get a few benefits. But what I’m saying is you’d have a clean bed to sleep in, nice clothes, a roof over your head that didn’t involve grass stuffed between slate… No more of this plain-potatoes-for-breakfast nonsense, either. They’d give you pepper, at the very least.”
Dragomir turned and stared ahead at the road for a moment. Then he seemed to shake himself and kicked the beast forward again.
“Wait!” Victory cried. “I’d try to find you a merchant’s household. They always have a good spice selection. I spent a night at a trader’s house on a journey, once, and they fed us an eighteen-course meal using thirty different spices. And that’s the kind of food they ate every day.”
“What kind of trader?” Dragomir asked.
Victory reddened. “Uh.”
He glanced down at her. “Slaves?”
“My feet hurt,” Victory said. “I think they’re infected.”
“So you would have me eat pepper on my potatoes while serving a man who eats eighteen-course meals on a nightly basis because he’s profiting from the sale of honest men and women just trying to make a living on a planet that rightfully belongs to them.”
“The chicken manure must have worked its way into the blisters.”
He kept the horse plodding down the path in silence.
Muttering, Victory eyed the length of chain, then grabbed it and jogged up beside him. “You really should let me back on the horse,” she warned.
“Why?” Dragomir asked, sounding bored. “Because you’re going to sell me to a marble mine if I don’t?” Then he brought a hand to his face in mock horror. “No wait! Because your brother is coming, and if I don’t do exactly as you tell me, you’re going to have him chain me to your bathtub and use me for a footstool.”
“Last chance,” Victory growled.
“No wait,” Dragomir said, still gesticulating at air, “You’ll hang me naked in the kitchen and feed me gruel, so that I must live out the rest of my days smelling the wonderful aromas of good food without having the pleasure of tasting any of it.” Then he tapped his cheek thoughtfully. “But then again, if you did that, you wouldn’t be able to chain me to your bed so you can use my naked body to fulfill your newfound carnal urges.” He tisked. “That’s gonna be a tough one.” He held up one hand, palm up, weighing. “Would you focus on torment, getting back at me for all the horrible things I’ve done to you…” he held up the second palm, balancing them on either side of himself like some thick and muscular statue of a Justicar. “Or would you delight in my helplessness as you pleasure yourself with my inhumanly sexy body? Hmm.” He raised a single finger with a shout. “Oh wait! I know. You can chain me in the kitchen during the day, and then take me to your bedroom at—”
Gripping the chain as hard as she could, Victory took off at a run in the opposite direction of the horse. When she hit the end, she wrenched, hard.
Dragomir made a startled grunt as he jerked backwards off of the beast. He fell into the mud, hard, and the horse whinnied and danced away from him.
For a long time, Dragomir simply lay in the road, staring at the sky. Victory almost felt a twinge of concern, but then realized his chest was moving. His horse, still dragging the goat, wandered to the edge of the trail and started munching on grass.
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Seconds passed, then minutes, and still he lay there. Still at the end of her chain, Victory peered at him, wondering if she had somehow disconnected his inadequate brain-cells from voluntary motor control. She tiptoed around him at the full extent of the tether, trying to get a better look.
After a moment, Dragomir lifted his hand and dropped it to the chain around his waist. Tightening his fist around it, he pulled.
Victory stumbled forward.
He grabbed it with his other hand. Pull. She cried out and tried to drag him backwards, but she might as well have been dragging a ton of steel. Grab. Pull. Drag. Victory flailed and struggled as he pulled her within range, then screamed in panic as a big hand found her ankle. Then he was pulling her down, dragging him down on top of him. She shrieked and tried to wriggle free, but he held her pinned to him with a big arm around her spine, their faces almost touching.
To her surprise, he looked amused. “You,” Dragomir said, “Are a pain in my ass.”
“Literally, this time,” Victory giggled.
Then he was pulling her head down, dragging her forward for a kiss. Victory’s eyes went wide, but a moment later, all of her resistance drained from her in a rush of heat and excitement, pooling between her legs in a delicious, tantalizing, overpowering wash. She moaned and squirmed on top of him, enjoying the solid feel of his body beneath her, reveling in the way his big hands felt on her sides, her back. She returned the embrace, digging her hands into his hair, devouring his kiss, slipping a hand under his shirt to feel his rippling chest as her passion built to a crescendo—
“Fancy finding you two here,” a deep male voice said, almost identical to Dragomir’s.
Victory gasped and rolled off of him—
—or tried to. Dragomir’s muscular arm held her solidly in place as he cocked his head to peer around her. “What the hell do you want?” he growled up at Thor. He sounded breathless.
Thor tugged the leash he held. “This little vixen, here, made it pretty clear to me last night that she wanted to make sure her, uh…” He hesitated, eyes catching on Victory, “…friend was all right.”