“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 intomine, 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.
