Chapter 9
The morning of a new day dawns, and we are all lucky to be alive. I wake sandwiched between two mortal enemies. Ha. Sandwiched. It wasn’t that long ago that’s all I was trying to make, and now here I am, on a planet far from home, facing almost certain death.
Drako’s big hand squeezes my hip before he rolls away from me, letting the chill of the morning air find me.
“Up,” he says, patting my ass.
“Why?” I whine.
“Because there is breakfast to be made.”
“Best you make it, then.”
His palm comes down across my ass in a hard swat, and I yelp, which wakes Thor. He hears my utterance of pain in his sleep and his reaction is to grab me and pull me close as his eyes fly open.
“What’s wrong?”
“Drako’s brutalizing me.”
“I am telling her to do some work.”
“Oh,” Thor yawns. “Good luck with that.”
“I’m not really a making breakfast kind of girl,” I say. “Especially when the only breakfast I could make would be pretend.”
“Go and check your snare,” Drako says.
“No point, all it did was catch a big…”
He reaches out and gently, but firmly wraps his hand around the back of my neck. “I can whip you until you cry, if you like,” he says in a soft growl. “I set the snare up again before I went to bed. Go and check it.”
I do as I am told, but not because he told me to, I tell myself. I’m going to check the snare because I am also hungry and I also want to see if we have anything to eat.
Drako reset the snare closer to the ground.
I find three birds in it, and dispatch them so quickly they do not know their end was upon them.
The abundance of the round flecked feathered creatures makes me a little curious, so I decide to poke around in the foliage a bit.
I don’t think these birds were the kind to nest in trees.
They have the general demeanor of ground nesting creatures.
Sure enough, I find a ‘nest’ that is comprised of three twigs and a leaf not far away.
It has four round eggs in it, each about three-quarters the size of a chicken’s egg.
It’s more bounty than I really thought I would be able to find.
Four eggs is not really enough for three of us though, and the birds are small. I could probably find a little more.
Five minutes later, I realize that I am lost. It happens all at once. One moment I know where I am, the next, I have no idea. The forest looks the same in all directions. Trees and bushes surround me. I know that here is not a place where one can technically be lost, but it doesn’t feel good.
“Hey!” I call out. “I don’t know where I am!”
There’s silence. I notice the birds have stopped singing. I don’t blame them. I am carrying three dead birds right now. If I saw a giant carrying three dead people around, I probably wouldn’t sing much either.
“Guys?”
I stop to listen again. I still can’t hear anything, but I know Drako can move without making any noise whatsoever, so I hope he’s close. I can’t have gotten too far away surely. I start to worry that I am in real trouble.
“Hello?” I say again, but this time I am not as loud. The forest is so dense, and without the distraction of hunting for food, I find myself aware that the circle of life includes me in this world.
“Hey?” I squeak.
A hand comes through the undergrowth and grabs me firmly. I let out a sigh of relief, because no matter how creepy that is, at least it’s not a pair of jaws full of razor-sharp teeth. Instead, it’s Drako.
“The snare is a mile away,” he says. “And you are dangerously near a ravine.”
I turn to face his tall, displeased self.
Having to always crane my neck to explain myself is going to lead to some postural issues, I think.
He is devastatingly handsome, his eyes burning down into mine, his cheeks hollowing as he visibly contains himself.
I bet he wants to beat me. And worse. A ruthless jarl does not soften overnight.
“I found some eggs,” I say. “And I wanted some more so we could have a bigger, better breakfast. I was foraging.”
“Were you told to forage?”
“I was told to check the snare, and I did. And then I did more, because I’m a self-starter and a go-getter. I’m internally motivated. I have an intrinsic locus of control.” The latter statements are things I’ve heard my sister’s husband say. They do not elicit a positive reaction from Drako.
“When I tell you to do something, you do that thing, and only that thing. I do not want you thinking. I want you acting on those thoughts even less, do you understand?”
“Yeah. You want me dumb and full of your cum,” I say.
“Precisely,” he grins. “You get it.”
I’ve managed to defuse his irritation, and that is a good thing. I have to learn how to work Drako. I need to survive him as much as I need to survive this world.
“I was really just trying to get something nice for us to eat,” I say. “I’m sorry.”
The words feel like acid on my tongue, because I’m not sorry, but I lower my eyes as I say them and I make a big show of submissive contrition. Drako is an egotist. He’s also used to people rolling over and showing him their belly. He expects me to fold, so I do.
“Follow me back,” he says. “Stay close behind.”
I do as I am told, because I know it’s for the best. I want to see Thor again.
He has not behaved as I expected him to at almost any turn, but I still sense he is a safer proposition for me than Drako.
Thor came after me to rescue me, and in doing so saved my life.
If I had been with Drako’s people when the monsters came, I would have been eaten with them.
“Found her,” he says when we get back to camp. “She was trying to call down a predator.”
“I was not. I got food.”
“We literally cannot leave you unattended for a moment,” Thor says, looking stressed. I wonder what he thought was happening while we were in the woods. There’s a jealous note to his tone.
“I am not sure you are supposed to leave me unattended. I got some eggs.”
Thor prepares breakfast. Drako watches the perimeter. I try to work out what I am going to do now that these two have decided to engage in the world’s most awkward alliance.
Breakfast is bits of bird fried up in eggs, along with some greens that Drako says are good for us. The act of sitting down with others and consuming some hot, freshly made food is good for the soul.
“Thank you for finding the eggs,” Thor says. “They were a nice touch.”
“Don’t thank her for that. She went and got herself lost to find them.”
“I’ll speak to her as I please,” Thor says. “We’re all lost.”
“I am not lost. And you will not be if you follow my lead.”
“I am not interested in being led. Not by someone who was our prisoner a few hours ago. You are no jarl to me, Drako.”
Oh, yes, Thor has woken up some kind of salty. I like it. I can feel the tension between them, and though I suppose it might get us all killed, it’s nice to not be the center of their attention for once.
Unfortunately, that state of affairs last approximately 0.2 seconds longer.
“You’re in a mood,” Drako observes. “Are you close to your cycle?”
Thor mutters something under his breath that I know would amount to fighting words if Drako heard them. Interesting, watching a massive, muscled warrior turn passive–aggressive because he hasn’t had his morning coffee, and won’t for a very long time.
“Suck his cock,” Drako says, turning to me, gesturing toward Thor.
“What?”
“Get down on your knees, open his pants, and wrap your mouth around his cock,” he says, breaking it down into steps as if my reason for objecting is just a general lack of understanding.
“You don’t have to do that,” Thor says to me.
“You don’t have to do it to him, but if you don’t do it with him, I’ll have you on your knees for me,” Drako says. “What will it be, Golden Boy? Do you want your cock sucked, or do you want to watch your girl service me?”
Thor narrows his eyes at Drako. “I’ll ask to fuck her mouth if I want to. She doesn’t have to give you everything you want every time you want it, either. She’s a free woman.”
“She’s not,” Drako says. “She never will be either. She’s got the temperament of someone who needs to be handled.”
Thor’s eyes narrow. “You might be right,” he says. “But women are their own people. They’re not toys for us to use.”
Drako laughs. “You think I think she’s a toy? No, Golden Boy. I know what she is. She’s a weapon. An animal. She needs to be trained with, and trained well, or she will turn on you, take off a limb or consume your fucking soul. The Vikar respect women. It is your people who do not.”
“Do explain that shit,” Thor says, immediately offended. He really hates any insinuation he is not the good guy. Drako is already exploiting that. I wonder if Thor knows how easily he is manipulated?
“You think women are weak and need to be protected.”
“Our crew had plenty of women on it. I don’t think they’re weak. I just don’t think they deserve to be treated like animals or objects.”
“You deal with her your way. I’ll deal with her mine. We will see which of us has more success.”
“I’m not sucking your dick,” I tell Drako. “I haven’t had my breakfast yet.”
I go and sit next to Thor, knowing that he will not make me service Drako, and knowing that Drako isn’t going to risk injury just for a little morning delight.
He is a piece of work, that man. He doesn’t think he is doing anything wrong in giving me such intimate commands.
Where he comes from, men get to do that. What a fucking barbarian he is.
Breakfast puts us all in a better mood. There’s not enough really, but Thor portions the eggs and meat out evenly, and refuses to take extra of mine when I offer them to him.
“Now’s not the time to be a gentleman,” I tell him. “You need this more than me.”
“You need your strength too,” he says. “Now eat up.”
“Look at the two of you, playing civilized. I can’t wait to see that evaporate,” Drako says, because he’s a jerk, and jerks like to say incendiary things just to piss people off.