Gap-tooth grumbled at that, a mix of foul curses. He took her into what they called the big house. It was nothing like her home in the village. This building looked just like the council lodge, where the whole village gathered for meetings, weddings, and other celebrations. This one had a loft area and a hearth.
Gap-tooth dumped her on the bricks. It hurt. Before she could recover, he rolled her to her back and had his hands on her breasts. He squeezed handfuls of her flesh, fingers digging in, watching her face and feeling for her nipples. She tried to squirm away, but there was no place to go.
"All soft and fresh. No tears for me? You think you are a fighter then?" he said.
At that, Corrin found her tears, scrunching up her face. He would be the kind that wanted to cause her pain, to punish her for not wanting him the moment she saw him, for not thinking him man enough. "Please. Please. I'll do whatever you say." She let the words tumble out.
At this he smiled, stained teeth showing, gap on display, pleased with her. Pinching her nipple hard, he tugged and rolled it as if to see if it was real flesh. She couldn't help her cry of pain. "Oh, I see you, girl. Frightened bitch. You will do what I want, all right. I'll have you, when he's done with you.
I'll have my bit of you."
"Don't hurt me. I'll do whatever you say," she whimpered, squeezing her eyes tight for tears as a cold rage she didn't know she could produce boiled up from some hidden place and turned her face red.
Nanny said compliance would get it over fast and reassured her that drunkards didn't last long. If she and the other girls were left for later, there was a good chance celebrating and drink would be involved. Corrin would fight. She couldn't do it.
She didn't have it in her to just lay there and be violated.
"Can you untie me? It hurts so bad. I have to… I have to go, to pee. Please. I'll be good. Don't hurt me." She tried to look weak, afraid, and helpless, not like a person planning to bash his head in against the bricks and escape at the first opportunity.
He laughed. "Piss where you are. The boss will untie you and get a surprise." He groped her some more, squishing and squeezing, before leaving her.
Corrin laid back, curled up in a ball, hiding her face as best she could. She knew this village. If she could get a boat and get away tonight, she'd get to Rivrtonn in plenty of time to warn them what was coming. They couldn't fight, but they could flee.
She just needed some blasted luck for once.
CHAPTER TWO
RAIDERS
The golden head of the Child had disappeared from the sky, but Corrin was still tied hand and foot. Her body hurt. Her mind hurt. The hours ate away at her counterfeit fearful, helpless expression replacing it with fury. She'd worked her hands and her legs raw. It felt like the knots were only tighter. When she inched away from the hearth, a man at the table grinned at her.
Using a foot to her hip, he rolled her back.
They'd untied the other girl, young Dianna, who had come from the North just that spring with instructions to find a husband. She got caught in their net when she went outside for wood for the morning fire. Jenn, the cook, had probably been milking the goat. The three of them easily overwhelmed and taken from their homes. Corrin could see them both, along with women who already lived in the village, serving the mercenaries.
The outlander men were having a high old time. Their boss entered like a king. He had on a worn old military jacket full of pins and ribbons from a war fought in space that took place in her father's youth. He looked too young for it, even though there were creases at the corners of his bloodshot eyes when he bent down to examine her.
Pinching Corrin's chin between his fingers until her lips puckered, he forced a kiss on her that brought the stinging bile from her empty stomach burning up her throat.
"I'll have this mouth on me tonight. Those tits and that ass." He shook her head, forcing a nod. "You'll do what I want and more, won't you, village girl? Fresh and sweet. I bet you're a virgin, saving yourself for your husband like the other two, aren't you? Never seen so much virgin cunt. If we'd known the joys of the 'humble life', we would have come sooner."
A man at the table started laughing. "I hope there are more in the other towns. At this rate, you will take all the cherries for yourself, Boss!"
The boss picked up a random cup from the nearest table. "To the Peace River Villages and all the virgin cunt you can dream of!" he toasted.
All the men cheered, celebrating coming to the river towns, where all the villages were easy, stupid pickings. No watch. No alarms. None of them had any defenses to speak of and were only able to fight back with farming tools. The raiders planned to just walk into Corrin's hometown and demand a tithe of women and more of the wonderful drink they'd found in farmer Nolan's shed: grain alcohol. They'd make slaves of the conquered instead of killing them, their leader decided magnanimously.
Farmer Nolan had been experimenting with a homemade brew this last year, and while everyone in her village said the stuff he produced tasted terrible, all agreed on its relaxing properties. It didn't just relax these men. They'd gone loose and loony with it. They boasted of their prowess while barely being able to lift their tankards to their lips. Women who got too close to them were squeezed, petted, and pulled into laps, but the alcohol had made everyone too drunk to hold on to them, too happy to care when the poor girls squirmed away.
It would be a perfect time for escape.
She had tried to get Dianna's attention, to tell the girl of the plan. Corrin could get away, get a boat, bring help. But Dianna was terrified. Only eighteen years old, sent to work at her cousin's home, she didn't have a brave bone in her body. With a pink, tear-stained face, she'd been told to serve food and drink and that's what she did. Dodging hands and faces as she went down the three aisles of tables. Jenn was a bit more composed, but she was also busy. She looked at Corrin motioning to her and then got called away for something. The other women in the hall wore expressions of bruised defeat after being at the mercy of these raiders for a month. Corrin felt an anger tinged guilt. Her village had known. No one bothered to send a boat to investigate, to help, to do anything. Their humble life of peace forbade aggression, and the council couldn't decide if help looked like aggression or not. So they argued. Did nothing.
With the way things were progressing, Corrin was going to be tied up all night, forgotten on the hearth until morning.
And then a horn sounded. A long, blaring alarm, followed by a thinner high-pitched mechanical sounding blast only shorter.
Cut off. Silenced.
