My brow twitched.
“Arse-pain?” I repeated.
“Aye, this raid was a pain in the arse.”
With a firm nod, my brother bent sideways, reached behind Auld Garran, and hauled out the female, who had been huddled behind the helmsman.
My second brow joined my first. “Is all that…necessary?”
The wee warrior was trussed up like…well, like a wildcat. Heavy rope bound not just her ankles, but her knees and her wrists, and wrapped around her middle several times, trapping her elbows—and her wet braid—at her side. Her blue eyes spit fire above a thick gag and she began to thrash in Maardok’s hold, the noises coming from behind the gag telling me that she was cursing us all.
“Aye,” my brother said blandly as he thrust her at me. “She tried to escape no fewer than four times, and when we tied her up, she tried tochewher way through the rudder ties.”
I stood there, my booted feet planted wide for balance, and held the wee wildcat at arm’s length. She was soaked, which told me she’d made it overboard during at least one escape attempt, but the rage in her expression told me she was far from defeated.
And mayhap ‘twas the worry from the day, or the relief that ‘twas over…but I smiled. Gods below, Ilikedthis little human. Were I in her situation, I would have fought as well, and glared at my captors if they tied me like this.
Aye, Ilikedher.
And I was keeping her.
That knowledge, and the knowledge that my clan would survive, had me throwing back my head and laughing as the sun finished sinking and the full moon rose.
Rowena
I almost pissed myself.
He waslaughing?
Here I was, terrified, and he waslaughing?
When the huge one had all but thrown me up on the deck of their longboat, I thought I was going to be raped and killed right away. Imagine my surprise when he merelytied my hands and gave me a wink, pushing me down on one of the benches.
I’d watched his men loading the village’s wealth, watched him giving directions, and waited for my chance to escape. When it came, I took it. And I took the next one too, palming a blade that time. The giant merely laughed as he took it from me and tied me tighter.
These beasts thought my attemptsamusing?
I squirmed against the Stormseeker’s grip, glaring up at him, praying I wasn’t drooling around the gag. If I was going to die today, I hoped ‘twasn’t going to be covered in drool.
The farther we got from land, the more afraid I became. I told myself I wasn’t afraid of dying…but dying poorly? Dying beneath a beast like this one, as he plowed into me? God, if his cock was as big as the rest of him, it alone could kill me. Thank God he wasn’t as big as his brother.
Still, the thought of being raped to death had me squeezing my thighs together, had my heart double-timing, had tears gathering in the corners of my eyes.
And mayhap the beast noticed, because abruptly the laughter stopped. His lips still curved up on one side, but the Stormseeker shook his head, threw his left arm around me, and pushed me down to the bench where he’d been sitting. As his giant lieutenant moved off to speak with the helmsman, my captor pulled my knife from his boot.
When he drew it toward my face, I couldn’t swallow my whimper of fear. He hesitated, something flashing in those black eyes so close to mine…then he finished the movement. The blade slid between the gag and my skin, and before I could shiver, he’d sliced the thick material, allowing me to spit it out and take my first deep breath in ages.
‘Twas full of the scent of orc.
The scent ofhim.
I recoiled, shifting on the bench so I wasn’t so close to him. His injured shoulder faced me, and when he bent to slide my father’s blade back into his boot, I saw with some satisfaction that the wound still leaked blood.
If I died here today, I would die knowing I’d avenged myself.
The longboat cut smoothly through the waves, away from safety, away from home. I knew there were more isles to the west, but as the full moon rose over the mainland, I doubted we were visiting them.
Speculatively, I glanced over the side of the boat. Trussed as I was, if I went overboard, I’d have no hope of survival. The loss of the gag would enable me to quickly inhale the salt water that would kill me, condemning me to a watery grave.
