“Burn that city to the ground.”
“No,” I say. “My family live there.”
“Then you are best to stay with me, are you not?”
“So we have no choice.”
“Precisely,” he smiles. “I knew you’d get it, because the pair of you are just the smartest little pair of Frayer Vikings I’ve ever encountered. Now, I need to deal with some ship matters, and I am sure the two of you want to gossip about how fun it is to be all caught up and looked after by a big bad Vikar jarl.”
Drako leaves us to adapt to captivity. Thor just holds me for a long time. He doesn’t say anything. I think I fall asleep for a bit. I have been exhausted for a long time, not only in the last physical ordeal I was made to endure, but in the days in which we tried to survive. Now that’s all over. We have been captured. There’s nowhere to run anymore.
One of the most melancholy phenomena I ever observed in wild animals was the way prey would sometimes just give up when they could no longer evade a predator. It was beautiful and it was awful, the way they would turn their necks to get it over with faster.
I feel like that now. Like I have turned my neck and Drako has sunk his teeth deep into me and my essence has flowed away from me, and into him.
I stir when I feel Thor move beneath me. I think we both napped.
“Let’s look at the bathroom,” he says. “If there’s a shower…”
I slide off his lap, not exactly invigorated. That would be too strong of a word. But I have more energy than absolutely no energy. And I make my way to the room, fling open the door, and see a unit that looks a whole lot like a shower to me.
When I turn a dial and hot water starts flowing out of the showerhead, I could practically cry.
“Do you know how much I craved one of these when we were in that mud pit?” I ask Thor as I remove whatever scraps of ripped clothing are still on me, and step into the water. A full body shiver runs down me as my aching muscles and tired bones are embraced by a simple luxury.
He comes close and helps me wash. We find lotions and oils and soaps and we make liberal use of all of them. First I am cleaned carefully and gently, and then I wrap myself in a towel and I watch Thor wash.
Drako calls him Golden Boy. I think he is closer to a golden god. He has the most incredible physique of anybody I have ever seen. He is built broad-shouldered and narrow-hipped, and his torso is absolutely trammeled with the musculature of survival. His legs are long, his thighs are powerful, and his golden hair is a lot like mine, and at a time like this, that makes a difference.
He flashes a smile at me from the water’s embrace. “Are you okay?”
“Never better,” I say. “And I actually mean that. I feel like I’ve been saved by the shower.”
“I know what you mean,” he says. “This has been an ordeal. For you, more than for me. I am sorry I could not prevent that absolute travesty. You deserved more dignity than that.”
Drako isn’t one for allowing dignity. “That’s not really a Vikar thing,” I say.
“No,” Thor agrees. “It isn’t. Are you…” he pauses. “Okay is too bland a word, and I know you are not. But are you…”
“I am going to be okay,” I tell him. “It’s not the first time I’ve been made a spectacle of, remember?”
“Oh?”
“Yes. When you turned me over to the captain, remember?”
“That was not the same thing,” Thor snorts. “He paddled you. Drako just ravaged you in front of his entire crew.”
“I know. Same same.”
He narrows his eyes at me. “Are you serious?”
“No,” I grin. I know I am supposed to be traumatized, and I am, probably. But I am also warm, dry, and physically not likely to be eaten by an animal for the first time in ages. We’re safe, and we know it.
Thor gets out of the shower and I watch him dry himself off. I am going to make a habit of showering with him, I think. The sight is enough to restore faith in all sorts of things.
“I’m sorry,” I tell Thor. “I feel like I got you into this. And now you’re captive too. And I’m not the only one who had sex in front of everyone.”
“It’s different,” he says. “Fucking versus being fucked.”
