Barbarian Prince (8 page)

Sighing his impatience, he snatched the fur off of her, dragged her close, and forcibly uncurled her so that he could fit her against his length. She was shivering, he discovered, her skin cool despite the fur she had been bundled in.

He also made the unpleasant discovery that her feet were like chunks of frozen ice.

Uttering a curse under his breath, he caught her feet and pulled them up. Gritting his teeth, he tucked one foot between his thighs while he worked to warm the other with both hands, using friction and the warmth of his breath. When that foot ceased to feel like ice, he tucked it between his thighs and worked on the other.

She relaxed and began to straighten out as he warmed her feet and when he had managed to thaw both and lay back, she scooted closer and curled around him.

A jolt of stunned surprise went through him.

Which, nevertheless, did not prevent an instantaneous reaction by his body. The blood rushed from his head to his cocks so fast he almost passed out.

He struggled with the urge to roll over and find the spot to plow for several moments and finally managed to cool his ardor with the realization that, as familiar as the female body was that was pressed against him, it did not belong to any of the tribes of Aiper or his sister world and he did not have a clue of whether they were sexually compatible or not.

Beyond the fact that he did not want to chance alienating her by taking something he did not truly need and thereby losing something he did need—desperately.

Those thoughts cooled his ardor enough to allow reason to reassert itself.

She was cold and seeking warmth. He was in no doubt about the reasoning behind her actions, and yet it was the first time in his life a female had actually sought his touch for any reason.

With the exception, that was, of his mother whom he only dimly remembered.

He did recall, though, that he had felt uncomfortable when his mother had tried to embrace him, fearful that his father would consider it weak and hold him in contempt if he allowed it.

And he had avoided her touch as badly as he had wanted to return it tenfold, to hold her so that she could not let him go.

And he still regretted that he had not taken comfort in his mother’s arms when she had been there and willing to coddle him.

After a brief hesitation, he gathered her closer, carefully tucked the heavy fur covers around her to make sure there were no drafts and then settled back once more, staring at the flickering shadows on the ceiling and completely unable to find the sleep he had sought when he had headed to his chamber.

There was a halo of warmth around her and ice beyond it that discouraged Noelle from moving. As she came closer and closer to full awareness, however, it began to be harder and harder to ignore the muscles cramping from her position. Finally, she shifted as much as she could while remaining mostly in the warm zone. The minute she touched the cold area, though, it was like her body sucked the ice in and she curled up tightly again.

She was fully awake by that time, however, and with that alertness memories flooded back.

She’d been asleep when Drak had awakened her by dragging her up from her warm spot near the fire and plopping her down on the bed and she’d been unwilling to fully surface. She’d struggled hard, first to stay asleep, and then to crawl back under as quickly as possible after he’d roused her. Discomfort had brought more awareness of her surroundings than she’d wanted.

And then he’d thoroughly stunned her by warming her freezing feet!

She had to suppose the blocks of ice hadn’t been something he’d wanted in his bed to freeze him to death. She couldn’t think of any other motive for what would have seemed like an act of kindness if it had been anyone else, but she’d still been grateful for it.

And she wasn’t completely convinced it had been entirely for his comfort and had nothing to do with thoughtfulness for her comfort and wellbeing. It didn’t seem likely, given that he was a barbarian, but it wasn’t entirely beyond the realm of possibility.

Truthfully, she’d thought at the time that it was a weird sort of warm up for sex.

She’d expected sex to come next. She’d braced herself for it even though she’d spent hours and hours before she finally passed out from exhaustion mentally preparing herself to ‘endure’ and he hadn’t even tried!

But could she put that down to thoughtfulness? Or had he just not been interested?

That was a disturbing thought!

As uneasy as it made her to think about being used as a sexual slave/receptacle for lust and/or brood female, if he hadn’t brought her/captured her for any of those reasons, exactly what were his intentions?

And were they worse than the ones she’d imagined?

Considering that he had had an erection all night, his balls felt like they were going to explode, and he had not slept more than a few moments at the time all night, Drak felt amazingly light hearted as he headed down the stairs—Tired, but … pleased. As if he had accomplished something of importance.

He supposed it might have been because of that lighter mood that he had made it downstairs and across the great room to his accustomed place near the east hearth before he noticed the condition of his men.

Most of them slept in the great hall—at least during the winter months—and the celebration of the success of their raid had still been in full swing when he had decided he had had entirely enough celebrating and headed to his bed the night before. It was not surprising, therefore, that the majority of them were still out—or asleep—most likely unconscious from the amount of brew they had sucked down the night before.

He supposed he also should not have been surprised to see that both the men and the great hall bore very distinct signs of battle, but he certainly was not pleased about it. The black eyes, bruises, and missing teeth could have been the results of fights among the men over some dispute or other, but he was pretty sure he could only put the claw marks and missing hair down to heavy-handed romance, particularly since he overheard a number of comments along the way between the men regarding their conquests.

What spoiled his good mood instantly, however, was a comment he caught regarding the ‘pigmy’ he had captured. More specifically, it was the suggestion that he did not bear any of the ‘love marks’ of having had success ‘wooing’ his woman.

He did not know who had made the comment, so instead of confronting them directly, he merely informed them that he had not had to fight for his lady’s favors.

“
Yeah, right!” Kirk the red commented. “It don’t count as a surrender if they just scream an’ pass out! And I don’t think I would want to be stirrin’ my sticks in a cold one.”

It was the insult to Noelle that sent him from amused tolerance to rage in ten seconds flat.

Well, and the fact that the bastard had all but called him a liar. He was not about to put up with that even if it
was
an outright lie. Halting abruptly, he swung around on his heel, slinging out his right arm and balled fist in the same motion, caught Kirk square on the side of the head, and knocked him clean off his feet. “You even think about stirrin’ your sticks in
my
woman again and I will beat you to a pulp!” he snarled. He lifted his gaze from the man on the floor and swept the room with the same message and then, when he saw Kirk had no intention of getting on his feet and countering, he resumed his progress.

He was still seething when he reached his seat and sprawled in it. He had exercised restraint with the woman because he had a far more important agenda that assuaging physical needs that were ignored far more often than they were assuaged anyway! He had not anticipated the threat that had reared its ugly head, but he knew better than to ignore that and hope for the best.

His men respected him. In general, he could count on their loyalty—their fear if they did not love and respect him as their monarch.

But it was winter and that was a dangerous time. Everyone was cooped up in close quarters, supplies were limited and dwindling far too rapidly, and the men had very few outlets for their energies. The yearly raid on K’naiper was the highlight of the bitterly cold season and the payoff was the supplies to get them through the remainder of the winter and the women to expend their excess energies and/or frustrations on.

It was only half a pie, however. The ship would not accommodate more than a portion of his men—not if they were to have room to bring back what they were going after. So while it helped a goodly portion of the men, it unfortunately increased the frustrations of far more and those who had been excluded from the raid were prone to picking fights with the men who had gone in the hope of relieving them of their booty—the woman.

He was generally exempt from that particular worry—mostly because he was their Prince and few dared challenge him on any issue, let alone something relatively insignificant like a woman. And also because, in general, he simply was not inclined to worry about it. In fact, he had, on many occasions, simply satisfied his most immediate needs and relinquished his woman to another.

Mayhap that had been a mistake that was about to bite him in the ass?

Well, he damned well was not going around with blue balls only to have one of his men thoroughly fuck up his plans!

He scanned the room until he spotted Kulle. Summoning the man with a motion of his hand, he sent him to escort his captive to the great room. She needed to eat, and it seemed as good a time as any to make certain the men knew he had staked his claim to her and they would be taking their lives into their hands if they tried to filch from him.

Noelle actually felt pretty toasty enveloped in the fur coverlet she woke under but the moment she poked her head out it felt as if she’d stuck her head into a freezer. Like a turtle, she immediately ducked back into her warm little ‘shell’, but she was wide awake now. She would’ve been happy to remain where she was—particularly since her situation meant she had no duties to concern her and, in point of fact, couldn’t do anything at all if she’d wanted to—except the moment full awareness hit her the dull ache in her bladder magnified tenfold and refused to be ignored.

Dread seized her.

She’d already ‘experienced’ the facilities the night before. She wasn’t anxious to use them again and she also wasn’t in any great hurry to leave the warmth she had for the freezing temperatures beyond the coverlet.

Not that the bathroom was actually horrible. It was at least clean—in appearance and smell anyway. But it was certainly not as modern as she was used to and was far less luxurious even than the utilitarian facilities in the colony. Beyond that, if it was supposed to have flowing water it must be seasonal, because the ‘bathing’ part didn’t work. The water that should have been flowing through the pipes seemed to be frozen.

However, she acknowledged defeat fairly quickly. Hunger was one of those needs that could be ignored and would, in time, cease to torment. A full bladder wasn’t one of those things that would cease to nag if one ignored it, unfortunately.

Once she’d conceded defeat, she debated whether to try to drag the heavy fur with her and finally discarded the notion with the reflection that it might conserve the heat for her if she left it on the bed. Girding herself, she flipped the coverlet off, scooted to the edge of the bed and hit the floor running with the intention of dashing in, taking care of the problem, and racing back to the warmth.

So much for well laid plans! The moment her butt hit that slab of ice that she laughingly referred to as a seat, everything in her body clenched against the shock—including her bladder muscles. It took an effort to let go and then there was no stopping the damned flow, even when she heard the outer door open. Her eyes widened when she heard heavy footsteps. Realizing fairly quickly that she couldn’t stop, she tried desperately to finish quicker.

Fortunately, either out of politeness or squeamishness (yeah, right!) whoever it was (and she assumed it was the Prince) stopped before they reached the open door to the facilities. She managed to finish her business—not that she had a lot of choice once she’d let it fly!—and then dashed from the room and leapt for the bed, diving under the cover.

Shock ripped through her when she shoved the fur back from her face far enough to peer around the room for the other occupant. There was a man she’d never set eyes on before just straightening from the hearth where he’d evidently stirred the embers and added a couple of sticks of wood to get the fire going again.

He met her gaping, shock slackened look with a flicker of amusement, inclining his head slightly. “The Prince sent me to fetch you.”

Chaos instantly erupted in Noelle’s mind, questions colliding with questions for a chance to escape her. She didn’t ask any of them, however. Caution, she told herself. Male dominated society! They were savages and aggressive. Anything that seemed impertinent might spawn violence.

She lifted the chain and showed it to him. “I hope you brought the key because I’m damned well going to fight you if you think I’m leaving what’s attached to this!” she muttered in English.

An unreadable look flickered in his eyes at her tone, despite the fact that she’d done her best to keep it carefully neutral, but he slipped his hand into the pocket of his trousers as he advanced toward her. When he withdrew it, she saw he held something that looked as if it might fit in the hole on the side of the manacle. He gave the piece of metal a twist once he’d inserted it into the hole, the locking mechanism clicked, and the metal anklet opened.

A mechanical key, Noelle mentally noted, curious to study the object. Naturally enough she didn’t get the chance. He shoved it back into his pocket as soon as he’d released her and stepped back, gesturing for her to proceed him.

Noelle was reluctant—for dozens of reasons—mostly because she had no idea where the man might be planning to take her or what was supposed to happen when she arrived.

“
The Prince awaits in the great hall. He is not a patient man.”

The comment was enough to galvanize Noelle, and yet she was still reluctant to leave the warmth of the fur coverlet. She climbed off the bed still clutching it and struggled to wrap the heavy thing around her.

Briefly, they had a tug of war. The man was determined to pry it from her grip, however, and although he wasn’t nearly as big a man as the Prince and he seemed a good bit older, she was no match for him. He took the fur away from her and tossed it onto the bed.

She gaped at him for a moment, struggling with resentment, and finally merely curled her arms tightly to her chest and clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering.

He moved to the door, opened it, and once again gestured for her to proceed him.

More than a little bewildered and frightened, Noelle stepped outside and looked around. The man followed her, turned her in the direction she’d come the night before and gave her a slight push.

The smells of the great hall vied with the sounds as she approached the broad stone stairway she’d climbed the night before.

She hesitated when she reached the top of the stairs. Gazing out over the huge ‘great room’ below, she felt her belly take a freefall at the height and then clench at the sheer mass of muscle bound (savage) male bodies in the room below.

She didn’t think she would’ve been more unnerved if she’d been standing at the door of a cage full of man eating animals.

Her escort manacled one hand around her upper arm and urged her to take the stairs. Halfway down, she realized the volume of noise had lowered considerably. She thought at first it was imagination, but when she glanced over the stone balustrade, she discovered that a goodly portion of the occupants of the room had stopped what they were doing to stare at her.

Or maybe the man escorting her, she wondered a little hopefully?

Wasn’t that more likely than her paranoia that their attention was on her?

After all, they’d captured quite a few women—and she saw those women were in the hall with the men.

But of course, she wasn’t like the others.

Because she wasn’t one of them.

She didn’t think it was a good idea to look them in the eye defiantly—even if she hadn’t been too intimidated to feel defiant. She was afraid it might be construed as a challenge, much like looking a wild beast in the eyes!

But she also didn’t think it would be in her best interests to allow them to see just how frightened she was and how unnerved by the sheer size of this race of giants let alone the number of them gathered. So although she didn’t look them directly in the eyes, she also didn’t cower as she was escorted across the great room.

She was so focused on trying to hide her fear that they’d made some progress across the room before she began to notice that most of the men bore signs of violence—cuts and bruises—few of which were bandaged. And a few were missing teeth.

Of course, she supposed that might not be a recent circumstance, but the cuts and bruises certainly were and they looked too fresh to be from the battle with the Amazon women.

Clearly, there’d been a drunken brawl in the hall the night before because it wasn’t just the men that looked the worse for wear. There was debris littering the floor from broken pottery and scattered food and there were broken benches and tables, as well.

The men seemed to be in surprisingly good spirits for all that—it was the grins, after all, that displayed the missing teeth.