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pen to her, I have vowed it to him.”
“Ha! He merely feels pity for her, as he would for a wounded animal. See you to the little idiot, then. I care not!”
Zarabeth wanted to yell at Ingunn that her bile was foolishly wasted on Lotti. The child couldn’t hear her, and thus the vicious words could not wound her. But they hurt Zarabeth deeply. She forced herself to turn away. She went to the bathhouse.
“Remove the gown. I wish to examine your back.”
“Leave my gown alone. My back is fine. I have no need for you to strip me again.”
He smiled at the fierceness in her voice. The pain had lessened and she was feeling stronger. She was hardy, Zarabeth was, and he suspected she could hold her own easily with Ingunn, if she weren’t a slave. But she was; he had made her one.
He said with great patience, “Be quiet and remove the gown. I will rip it off you if you don’t obey me, Zarabeth.”
She didn’t want to. It was daylight. The chamber was dim, as usual, but she knew he would look at her, and she couldn’t bear it, she simply couldn’t. He was a man and he had taken her, and, truth be told, he had given her a pleasure she had never expected could exist, but he didn’t love her, he scorned her, and this assumption of his that she would do whatever it was he wanted was beyond what she could endure.
She turned and ran from the chamber. Her back was stiff and sore, but she had no more of his mother’s healing cream, no more need for him to bathe her back.
“Zarabeth! Come back here!”
But she didn’t. She turned to see him, only to run into the solid wall of Horkel’s massive chest. His hands grasped her upper arms.
“ ’Tis enough,” he said, and merely held her as she struggled against his grip.
Magnus looked over her head and met his friend’s eyes. “She might have run all the way to Kaupang. She has little sense and more pride than my father. However, hers isn’t tempered with wisdom.” He held out his hands, and Horkel turned her about and shoved her toward Magnus.
She kept her head down even as she stumbled against him.
Magnus sighed and dragged her back to his chamber. He didn’t care that all his people were looking avidly, wondering what was between him and this slave. He didn’t care what anyone thought.
He flung her onto the box bed. He sat down beside her, and calmly began unlacing the front of her gown. “I am glad you don’t wear the overdress our Viking women wear. The shoulder brooches must be unfastened and the entire thing lifted over the woman’s head. This is easier, faster. Ah, yes, your breasts. They please me, Zarabeth. Their size fits my hands.”
She turned her face away from him, her eyes closed. She hadn’t the strength to fight him. She would endure. The pleasure he had made her feel before was forgotten. Perhaps it hadn’t even existed. Then suddenly he leaned down and gently began to suckle her nipple. Her eyes flew open and she cried out in embarrassment. She couldn’t allow him to continue doing this to her, she couldn’t. She tried to rear up, but he pressed his hand against her shoulder and pushed her back down.
“Hush,” he said, his breath hot on her flesh. “Lie still and let me give you pleasure.”
She shoved at his shoulders, at his head, her body twisting madly. “Nay, Magnus, please, don’t shame me like this. All know that you have brought me here to your chamber, to your bed. Please do not shame me!”
He ignored her and suckled her other breast. He loved the taste of her flesh, her scent. He knew the moment she responded to him. There was an immediate softening of her body, a gentle lurching as she arched her back very slightly, but arch it she did, to press her breast closer and closer.
She moaned softly and he knew she hated the sound of that moan, for it had come from the very depths of her, from someplace inside her that should have stayed hidden and alone and untouched. But he was kneading her belly now with his hand, even as he was tugging and caressing her breast with his mouth. Then his fingers moved lower and she was suddenly holding her breath, expectant, flushed because of the throbbing there, nearly frantic at the ache that was centered there, and it was becoming more intense, more powerful, even as his fingers neared and came nearer still. When his fingertips touched her flesh, she cried out, shuddering with the force of it. He raised his head then and looked down into her face.
“I will bring you pleasure. Should you like that, Zarabeth?” He didn’t expect her to reply. He smiled painfully as he watched his fingers touch her soft flesh again and find a rhythm to please her, and he knew quickly enough that soon she would be helpless against the onslaught of wild feelings that were coursing through her. He realized that Zarabeth didn’t want to lie there passive beneath his searching fingers, she didn’t want him to so completely control her, and so he encouraged her softly as she pressed upward, her hips lifting off the bed, and she felt his other hand beneath her buttocks, helping her, pressing her even harder against his fingers. “I will watch your face when your pleasure overcomes you,” he said, and she would have given anything to keep that pleasure at bay, to fight him now, to swear that there was no such pleasure that she wanted, but she was helpless against it and she knew it, and finally she accepted it, she wanted it, she would die if it didn’t come to her.
“Magnus,” she whispered, pain and excitement blending in her voice. He shook with the force his name on her lips brought him. By Odin, he wanted her, wanted all of her. He didn’t want her to fight him with her spirit, he wanted all that she was and would become in the years ahead.
He felt the tensing in her legs and the shudders that convulsed her entire body. He watched as her eyes widened and glazed with the strength of the passion that was building inside her. He watched as she could no longer hold that pleasure back. He watched her mouth when the cries, raw and deep, erupted from her throat, and he pushed her then, and pushed himself to give her all that he could, to make her realize that she belonged to him and to no other, to make her realize that she was no longer alone, locked inside herself, for he wouldn’t allow it, and she belonged to him.
When it was over, when he was gently kneading her woman’s flesh to soothe her rather than excite her, he said, “I want to look at you now, sweeting. I want to see if you can take me comfortably.” She had no chance to protest, and no great hope of trying to before he pressed her thighs open wide and parted her with his fingers. She was still sore and he saw the redness of her flesh and knew he shouldn’t take her again, not now. She needed another day, and then he would have her, and she would enjoy his entry, she would cry out with her acceptance of him.
He smiled a bit painfully. But it didn’t matter. He had given her pleasure, he had drawn her more inexorably to him, bound her to him, and now she would not be able to so easily deny it.
He leaned down and lightly kissed the soft woman’s flesh. She quivered. “Nay, Zarabeth, I won’t take you now. You must needs have another day to accommodate yourself to me, for I was over enthusiastic my first three times with you. But you will not forget the pleasure I gave you. And when I take you tomorrow, I will give you that same pleasure and you won’t wish to fight me ever again, Zarabeth. Do you understand?”
He saw that her eyes were closed. He saw the tears trickling down her cheeks. He merely leaned down and lightly kissed her mouth, tasting the salt of her tears. “Are those tears of surrender to me, I wonder. I will look later at your back.” He covered her with a blanket and left her.
But he didn’t take her the following day, because her woman’s monthly flow had begun. He knew because he had seen blood on the blanket. He said nothing about it, not wanting to shame her, and he guessed it would, for she was a private woman, unused to sharing with another, particularly with him, a man.
He knew, of course, that she needed cloths, and he saw to it that she had them. But he said nothing. Nor did he touch her in any way. But he watched her to see if she had any pain. If she did have cramping in her belly, she gave no sign of it. If she wondered why he didn’t come near her or drag her to his bed, she gave no hint of it.
