Viking Captive

Chapter 1

Iam running for my life, my feet clad in boots covered in mud and much worse things.

My pants are threatening to slide down over my ass in what amounts to the worst clothing betrayal I can imagine in this moment.

Pieces of wreckage act as obstacles I have to leap over like a goat.

I give silent thanks to my previous misadventures for making me agile, because tripping right now would not only make me like the heroine of every single bad horror movie I have ever watched, it would be deeply embarrassing.

“Get around her on the left!”

“Cut her off!”

“Can’t you just lunge and grab her?”

“You fucking lunge and grab her!”

I hear a heavy sound behind me as someone lunges and fails to grab me. There’s no time to laugh, though a slight ‘ha ha’ escapes my lips between gasps for breath.

“She’ll tire soon enough. Keep her moving.”

That voice isn’t panicked, or consumed with the lust of the hunt. That voice is deep, calm, and completely in control. That’s the voice that scares me, more than any of the others that surround me in a cacophony of male prey drive.

This isn’t fair. If there were any goodness or chivalry in them at all, they should be my rescuers. They should be helping me. But there is no kindness in this wicked clan of men. The Vikar do not value mercy. I do not think they have a word for it.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see someone moving faster than I can, legs pumping at a speed that puts mine to shame. He has a longer stride, and I am already tired from trying to survive after getting through something that should have already killed me.

He keeps pace with me, this man with dark hair and scintillating blue eyes that catch the sky and reflect it back at me.

I keep running, but my legs are tiring, my lungs are fatiguing, and I start to realize why the heroine falls down in horror movies.

It’s because that is what happens when your body runs out of steam.

You don’t lift your feet as high as you should and they catch on a tree root, a bit of uneven ground, or in my case, a rock.

It sends me tumbling head first onto the ground. I do a complete revolution, head over heels, before coming to a dizzy halt.

I am captive.

By the gods, I am going to be taken.

A rough, bloodied hand takes hold of my throat. I am dragged up from the ground, barely able to breathe. Both of my hands scramble at the one that has me by the neck, but they are ineffective.

Those shining blue eyes rimmed with dark lashes and filled with malefic intent gleam down at me.

“You gave us a good chase, but it’s over now,” he says. “So stop running, and stop fighting, unless you want to be hobbled and chained. You’re going to be roped one way or another, but we can keep that for the bedroom if you decide to be a good girl.”

I never thought I would encounter a real life Vikar warrior.

These men are not like the ones I am accustomed to at home.

Our men are heroic, stoic, and brave. They build and they protect.

These creatures are entirely different beasts.

They are raiders and warriors, brutal creatures with no conception of a conscience.

This man who has me is my moral and mortal enemy.

His underlings and subordinates surround us like slavering dogs hoping to be thrown a piece of the catch. Even if I were to somehow wriggle out of his grasp, I would immediately be set upon by vicious men.

I have been struggling to survive for days now.

I am weak. I am hungry. Not for lack of food, I found plenty of that in the wreckage, but just because running really works up an appetite.

Being hunted mercilessly takes its toll on a woman, but I still have fire in me.

I kick out at my captor, a tall man with his raven hair in a braid, and a dark beard clipped relatively close to his chin.

He is handsome in the way cruel men are handsome, with sharp, hunter-type features.

He stares down at me with icy eyes and my body reacts as though I am under a predator’s gaze. I want to tell him I never liked blue eyes on a man. There’s too much cold in them. There’s nothing resembling goodness in his. Just triumph. He thinks he’s caught his prey.

I keep both my hands on his one big paw and try to pry his fingers away. It doesn’t work at first, because he’s strong. He tightens his grip, and for a second I can’t breathe. I grab at him again, but this time I grab his little finger and yank as hard as I can. That works.

He makes a shrill sound and he drops me.

Fuck, yes.

I scramble away as fast as I can, but dozens of hands are reaching for me.

They catch me again, and they hold me fast. Not by the neck this time though.

This time they grab me by the arms and they put steel cuffs on to keep my hands behind my back.

One man holds one arm. Another holds the other.

I’ve no means of escape as the warrior who grabbed me first approaches me again.

“You’ve got a fighting spirit,” he says. “But I’ll break you of that. You’ll soon learn to submit.”

“You’ll need to set your finger first,” I say.

He laughs. I wasn’t making a joke, but he’s probably covering for pain. Sprains and breaks hurt like a bitch. I hope I broke it.

“You belong to us now, girl. Best you understand your place. Doesn’t matter who you were before now. Matters who you are here, now.”

‘Here’ is a crappy outpost on a wild world. I am dragged to the Vikar camp, a place clearly set up hastily and out of temporary structures. I wonder why they’re here, what they think this place has to offer them.

Unlike these beasts, I come from a beautiful place.

I have seen vistas of nature and shining cities that bring tears to my eyes.

This settlement is rough. There is no care for or interest in aesthetics.

The dwellings are made from black corrugated metal alloys, lit red with electric cables that power the Vikar tech.

The edges of the shelters, walls, even tables are sharp.

Nobody’s bothered to fix the edges. That would take care and show compassion for their fellow men.

They don’t want to do that. I guess it explains the patches on their leather attire, though.

Everything these people are wearing looks scuffed and scarred, much like them.

Aside from the man with the brutal smirk and a four-minute mile, this is a rough crowd.

“Get her processed, then bring her to me,” he orders. “Don’t touch her in any way other than is absolutely necessary. She’s mine, you understand?”

“Yes, Jarl,” the man now controlling me says.

“Good.”

Jarl Drako—I guess that’s his name—strides off into his trash camp, and I am left offended at the standard of building.

“Why don’t you roll the edges of this stuff?”

“You’re a prisoner of Jarl Drako. You’ve got better things to worry about than how we build our towns.”

“This passes as a town for you people? It’s barely a collection of hovels.”

“Spoiled Frayer girl,” he says, referring to the broad name of the people I belong to. The Vikar and the Frayer are technically the same. We’re both human. But that’s where our similarities end.

There are no pavements between the buildings, only paths made by heavy boots. I can’t imagine what this place looks like when it rains. The wreckage of my ship has more aesthetic appeal than most of these deliberately constructed places.

My captor takes me into one of the buildings.

I’d like to say it’s a medical one, because a glaring red LED in the shape of an X is displayed crookedly over it.

The interior contains rusty crates containing what might loosely be described as medical supplies.

Vikar don’t really pursue medicine. From what I’ve heard, they pride themselves on dying of sepsis.

It sounds stupid, but that’s only if you don’t understand what they really value. These are warriors dedicated to death. Everyone else’s and then their own. They cherish killing and they eagerly await their own ends.

I don’t know why I am here. They’re not going to clean my wounds, I know that much. And they’re not going to take pity on me in any sense.

“Sit.”

When I do not immediately comply, they force me down onto a chair. An alcohol swab is swiped over the back of my neck, and a second later I feel a thick needle pushing something into the limited amount of flesh available there.

I cry out at the sharp pain, as a tracking chip is inserted into me, something that marks me as a slave to these men who are on a rampage. They will keep moving after this. They might take me with them, or they might leave me behind, but regardless, they will always know where I am.

“That’s your mark,” he says. “One you’ll never be free of. We’ll track you to the ends of this world and beyond if we need to.”

“Cool,” I tell them. “There’s just one problem.”

“And what’s that?”

“I’m already taken. I’ll never belong to any of you. So you can all go to hell.”

They look at one another, and then they start to laugh. It is a harsh, mocking sound.

“There’s nobody else left for you to belong to, stupid girl,” the crude warrior says. “I don’t know how you survived, but I can tell you now, nobody else did. You’re lost property, and Jarl Drako has claimed you for his own.”

“Is she ready?” Drako steps into the medical shack. I guess he decided to come find me rather than wait for me to be brought to him.

“She’s been chipped, Jarl. But she’s mouthy.”

“Leave us,” he says, waving the men away. They go, and it is just me and Drako, face to face in what passes for a medical center for these people.

“Nice trash town you’ve got here,” I say. “But usually, when you build out of garbage, the idea is to recycle it first.”

He smiles at me, his teeth flashing in a shark-like grin. “You’re already feeling better,” he says. “You recover quickly. Impressive, for a woman of your bloodline. Most of your kind would have chosen to die rather than be inconvenienced with trying to survive after a crash.”

“No, they wouldn’t,” I say. “Women of my bloodline are amazing, and you’d be lucky to lick the shoes of any of them.”

“Feisty too,” he deadpans. “But I am going to teach you some respect. I’m going to teach you a lot of things.”

“Like what?”

“Like take your clothes off. I want to see what I own.”

“You don’t own me,” I argue. I know he expects me to just submit, but fuck him. He doesn’t know me. We just met and…

He flips me face down over the table, yanks my loose pants down, and smacks my ass hard enough to make me squeal.

“That was so satisfying,” he says. “You really needed that.”

“I did not. I…”

Another hard slap lands. I’m half-scared he’s going to beat me awfully, but it’s just the two smacks I am forced to endure before I feel my cheeks parted by his big hands, and something hard and smooth pressing at my anal hole.

“What…”

“Relax and breathe,” he says. “It’s going to make this easier.”

He slides a slim dildo into my anus with what I have to say feels like a practiced touch. He lubes the shaft and works it into my butt in a way that feels almost more clinical than it does sexual. After all, if he wanted to ravage me, he has my pussy exposed too.

“We have a lot of ways of controlling wayward women,” he says. “Being headstrong runs in our bloodlines, so it’s often necessary to show a breeding wench her place. This helps.”

He clicks something, and the dildo starts vibrating intensely inside my butt. It doesn’t feel bad, it just feels… like a lot. I let out little gasps as he keeps me in place over the table quite easily with one hand on my back.

“This is going to make your pussy nice and wet,” he says. “And you’re going to beg me to fuck you.”

I am being pinned in place, my sex exposed, my ass punished, my entire being taken captive by a wicked jarl, and I am not sure what to do with myself.

I was not lying. There was someone who owned me, at least in the traditional sense of claiming me.

According to all the laws of our people, I am being stolen in this moment, forced to perform for another conquering male.

My wishes are irrelevant. My holes belong to him, and he is making very certain I know it.

I worked so hard to avoid this fate. Why do all roads seem to lead to being fucking owned?