Besieged (2 page)

One week later

By the time Peggy and Benjamin left the
outskirts of Barrow in order to dogsled into a remote village, over a week had
passed since their last excursion. More than enough time for the memories of
the fright she’d been given out on the tundra to wane in significance, if not
die out altogether.

Not one oddity had occurred over the course
of the past week. No bizarre feelings of being watched, no worries of being
stolen by what had to be mythical men. No nothing.

Peggy had come to believe that Benjamin’s
family had invented the legend of the stone dwellers as a way to keep Aunt
Chari’s memory alive. If they believed she’d been kidnapped, when in fact she’d
probably been attacked by a hungry wolf or polar bear, then they could believe
she was still alive, still able to—hopefully—find a way back to the village one
day. Without the legend of the stone dwellers, they had nothing. Just a
missing, beloved woman who was no doubt long dead. Sad really.

This hypothesis was the only one that made
sense to Peggy for she found it a bit odd that no other anthropologist had ever
recorded any Inupiaq legends about the stone dwellers. Nor had she heard any
other indigenous person speak of such, with the small exception of Benjamin and
Sara.

Peggy smiled up at Benjamin as she took his
extended hand and allowed him to help pull her up onto the coach of the sled.
“Brrr,” she grinned. “Looks like another freezing cold journey.”

Benjamin’s eyes softened. “You should stay
behind. I’m used to this but you—”

“Need to get used to this too,” she
interrupted. She smiled warmly, but firmly. “Besides, I enjoy our conversations
when we ride over the tundra together.” They were trekking back to Chakuru
today in order to trade precious whale blubber for homespun parkas. She settled
into the cab of the settee-like contraption, nestling into the polar bear furs
Benjamin’s mother had packed for her. “You never did finish telling me that
story about your reindeer herder of a great-grandmother.” Her eyes squinted a
tad. “What was her name?”

“Sinrock Mary.” He grinned, a boyish dimple
denting one cheek. “She caused quite a stir in her day. Women didn’t own
property back then, of course. But granny not only held onto her herd, she did
it better than any man.”

Peggy chuckled at that. “Sounds like my
kind of woman.” She smiled fully at Benjamin, causing him to blush and look
away. It wasn’t until that moment that she realized the teenager had developed
a small crush on her, a fact that made her oddly proud. To a sixteen-year-old
boy, after all, her twenty-nine years must sound rather old, she mused. “So
tell me all about Sinrock Mary.”

Over the course of the next five hours
Benjamin told her all about his great-grandmother, as well as countless other
familial stories. The Inupiaq, she knew, relished a good tale in the same way a
chef relishes good food. Indigenous people told their stories with exquisite
care, thereby preserving their verbal lore from the taint of time and from the
tarnish of contact with outsiders.

They arrived in the small hunter-gatherer
village of Chakuru during the sixth hour, none the worse for their ware. The
dogs were tired by the time they arrived and Peggy’s backside hurt from
prolonged sitting, but other than that everything was as it should be.

Peggy smiled at the indigenous children who
rushed up to excitedly greet the sled, breathing deeply of the brisk wind while
she ruffled the hair of one slight boy. She loved visiting this village for
when she looked around it felt like she’d taken a step back in time. And in
many ways she had. This village was so remote that it wasn’t even on the
official Alaskan map.

Benjamin politely inclined his head toward
the elder female who’d been speaking to him, then turned to Peggy. “She says
her son and his new wife are off visiting family in Nome so she’s taken the
liberty of fixing up their hut for you.” The old woman said something else in a
tongue Peggy was not well versed in. Benjamin nodded, then translated. “She
hopes you will find the privacy enjoyable and the warmth of the home
agreeable.”

Peggy smiled, ignoring the nagging voice
that told her to keep close to the others and forsake her privacy as she
usually did on these trips. Not wanting to offend the old woman, she ignored
the voice and nodded. “Thank you,” she said, modestly inclining her head. “Your
hospitality is very generous.”

* * * * *

Wearing a thin white shift Benjamin’s
mother had stitched together for her, Peggy rolled onto her back from beneath
the polar bear furs, a wrinkle marring her brow. From within the throes of deep
sleep, she recognized on some surreal plane that something was slowly pulling
her out of the world of dreams and into the world of semi-wakefulness. She had
that feeling again, that bizarre feeling of being watched…

Peggy’s eyes flew open. Her irises
immediately tried to adjust to the pitch-black darkness. She could see very
little, almost nothing in fact, but she could still make out a shadowy shape on
the far side of the hut. She gasped as she sat straight up, her heartbeat
accelerating.
Oh my God
, she thought in a panic,
I never should have
slept in here alone
.

Her chest heaving up and down from the
adrenaline pumping through her system, her heart pounding in her ears, she
threw off the polar bear furs and scrambled to her knees. She squinted at the
shadowy shape on the far side of the one-room hut, trying to discern what the
shape was.

Oh my God. Oh my God! What is it?

Peggy’s hands balled into nervous fists as
she shot up to her feet. Her breathing was heavy, labored, as if she’d just run
a two-mile sprint. Preparing to turn on her heel and dash—anywhere—she gasped
when a pale beam of moonlight hit the hut and the shadowy shape turned into…

A parka.

A harmless, lifeless parka sitting on a log
chair by the hut’s small kitchen table.

Peggy half laughed and half cried. She
closed her eyes for a brief moment and exhaled the breath she’d been holding
in. Relief—she’d never felt so damn relieved in her entire life. “I’m losing
it,” she muttered, her fingers threading through her hair and smoothing it
back. “I’m a step away from being escorted out of Alaska by the men in white
coats.”

Taking a deep breath and shaking her head
at the mistake, Peggy smiled at her own stupidity. “Get a grip, girl. It was
just a…”

Her smile faded as comprehension slowly
dawned. A tremor of terror lanced through her as it occurred to Peggy that the
parka she’d worn today was hanging near the crude fireplace/stove to dry out.
It was not, nor had it ever been, placed on the chair by the kitchen table. She
swallowed roughly, her turquoise eyes widening.

Get out of here! Now!

Her heartbeat racing like mad, Peggy
prepared to run from the hut when a heavily muscled arm snaked firmly around
her belly. She gasped, opening her mouth to scream. A large palm slapped over
her mouth before she could get it out, all but muting the wail of fear that
erupted from her throat from behind the hand.

Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.

Peggy felt a pinch to her neck a threadbare
moment before her body went limp into the awaiting arms of what she assumed was
a human predator. The world spinning, her head lulled onto her shoulders and
her eyes closed. She fell backwards, passing out.

Her last coherent thought before the
blackness overpowered her was that the stone dwellers were real.

And that she’d never live to tell Dr. Kris
Torrence about her breakthrough discovery.

Her brow wrinkled in anxiety, Peggy’s eyes
slowly flickered open and tried to adjust to the dim light of…wherever she was being
held. Her brain had actually awoken a full five minutes ago, but she had yet to
open her eyes. She was afraid to look, afraid to find out if she’d been
dreaming or if she’d really been—

“Please,” the voice of a female softly
cried from behind her. “Please let me go home.” The voice was frightened,
confused. A knot formed in Peggy’s throat. “I won’t tell anybody,” the female
vowed, her tone desperate. “I swear I—”

A muffled sound, followed immediately by
silence, filled the dimly lit chamber. Peggy closed her eyes tightly, somehow
realizing the female had been gagged.

Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.

“Er dama våken?” a man’s voice inquired in
a language Peggy had never heard before. She stilled her breathing, afraid for
him to know she was awake. “Because I’d like to make it back to the village by
this evening,” he muttered in heavily accented English.

“I’ll go check,” another man answered, his
words spoken in the same Old World accent. “The woman was still knocked out
last I looked. But I’ll go check the other breeder again now.”

Breeder?
Peggy’s eyes shot open. Her heartbeat accelerated.
Am I the breeder they are
discussing?
She quickly closed her eyes, hysterically trying to figure out
a way to get away from the men.

“Her breathing is too still,” the first man
said. His tone was bored. As if he was used to dealing with terrified, captured
females all the time. “She’s awake. Wants us to think she’s asleep—”
Perspiration broke out on Peggy’s forehead. They knew she was awake. Oh god
they knew— “but she’s definitely awake.”

The second man chuckled. “She wasn’t easy
to capture, that one. Wolf himself almost seized her out on the tundra last
week, but the Barrow boy managed to get her out before his men could surround
her.

“Wolf?” the first man murmured. “He hunted
her?”

“Ja.”
Yes.
“He was very angry when
he lost her.”

“He wanted her for himself or to sell?”

“I’ve no notion. It’s not my place to
question a jarl’s son. You know that.”

Silence.

“Well then,” the first man murmured. “We
best keep a good eye on her. Just to be safe.”

Peggy swallowed over the lump in her
throat. That was definitely not what she’d been wanting to hear.

“Agreed,” the second man rumbled out. “If
Wolf wants her, we’ll be able to barter her for a high sum.”

The first man grunted. “We must take her
back to our own people first. The men of our village should be able to barter
for her first. If none are willing to pay the price we set, then we will barter
her to the son of the opposing jarl.”

“Agreed.”

Peggy gasped when the animal furs that had
been draped over her body were unceremoniously ripped off. Her skin chilled
immediately, for she was wearing nothing but the thin white shift Benjamin’s
mother had hand-stitched together for her. She instinctively curled into a
ball, both out of fright and to shield her body from the strange men.

“Be still, girl,” one of the men muttered
as he squatted down beside her.

Her breathing grew labored. Blood pounded
in her ears.

The tanned, heavily bearded face of a man
in his late forties or early fifties drifted into her line of vision. Viewing
him upside down on her back, all she could make out was clear blue eyes, a
shaggy mane of black hair, and a full salt and pepper beard. “What do you want
from me?” she breathed out.

He shook his head on a grunt, letting her
know he’d answer no questions so she needn’t ask them. He ignored her after
that, causing her distress to grow more acute. “Hurry up and check her over,
Rolf,” he barked out to a younger blonde man who was squatting down by Peggy’s
feet. “Make sure she’s clean and then let us go.”

Wide-eyed, Peggy’s already surging heart
rate went wild when Rolf placed a tanned hand on either of her thighs and
forced her legs apart.
Oh god—somebody help me!
she silently cried out,
instinctively rearing up to free her legs in order to kick at him.

She kicked Rolf squarely in the chin,
causing him to yelp, then curse under his breath. She tried to roll away, tried
to get up and run, but the black-haired man seized her shoulders from behind,
locking them against the chilled stone ground in a movement that was as jarring
as it was painful.

“Enough!” the older man shouted. “If you do
that again, you will be harnessed!”

Harnessed? Oh god! Who are these people?

Thinking quickly, Peggy stilled her body
and forcibly calmed herself. The last thing she wanted, she told herself in
near hysteria, was to be harnessed. She wasn’t precisely certain what that
would entail, but it didn’t take an Einstein to figure out that it would be
harder to escape if the men put a containment device of some sort on her.

The older man grunted, appeased by Peggy’s
seeming docility. He nodded to the blonde man, telling him without words to
proceed.

Peggy anxiously wetted her lips.

“This won’t take too long,” Rolf muttered
in his Old World accent, his hard expression letting her know the kick to the
chin hadn’t been forgotten. “If you’re still and quiet.”

She trembled when his rough, callused hands
once again parted her thighs. Her breathing grew heavy and sporadic as the thin
shift she wore was raised above her head. The shift was then placed over her
eyes like a blindfold, making it so she couldn’t see who was doing what to her.
She bit her lip from worry, embarrassed when the cold air hit her chest and
made her nipples plump up.

“Ja,” the older man laughed. His hands left
her shoulders and trailed down to her breasts. He palmed both of them, kneading
them and running his thumbs over the stiff nipples. “Jeg vil feire brystvortene
hennes.”

The two men exchanged chuckles, which
worried Peggy. It was bad enough to endure having her body examined without
permission, but when they were speaking of her in another language so she had
no idea what they were saying about her…that was downright frightening.

The older man continued playing with her
breasts and nipples even as Rolf’s fingers began examining her pubic hair. His
fingers sifted carefully through the trimmed, coppery triangle, so she rightly
assumed she was being checked for lice. He spent a lot of time there,
thoroughly examining her soft mons. By the time he finished, Peggy’s breathing
had hitched, both from fright and from her body’s instinctive—and
unavoidable—reaction to having her nipples plucked at.

“She’s clean,” Rolf barked. Peggy let out a
breath of relief, assuming that the fondling was over.

“Is she a virgin?” the older man asked.

“Let me look.”

Peggy’s teeth sank into her lower lip as
the tip of Rolf’s index finger found her hole. He slid into it slowly, then
withdrew. “She’s too dry,” he said absently. His thumb settled on her clit and
applied slow, lazy, circular pressure to it. “I’ll let you know in a minute.”

Her eyes squeezed tightly shut from behind
the blindfold. She could only pray that when Rolf discovered she was most
definitely not a virgin that she’d be let go…

A knot of worry and shame formed in Peggy’s
belly as her body slowly became aroused by the steady fondling. One captor’s
hands were kneading her breasts and plucking at her nipples, while the other
captor’s hands were playing with her pussy. His thumb was working its dark
magic on her clit, rubbing it and toying with it until her thighs began to
softly tremble.

Peggy’s head thrashed back and forth on the
cold, earthen floor. She gritted her teeth, determined not to come.

“Let it go, girl,” the older captor
whispered in a thickly aroused voice. He fastened his knees around her head and
secured it so she couldn’t thrash it around anymore. “Let it go.”

Unable to move, unable to protest, Peggy
could no more stop herself from orgasming than she could stop night from
turning into day. She knew it was inevitable, knew too that she might as well
get it over with.

Her breathing grew labored and her nipples
stabbed upward, hitting the first captor in the palms. Blood rushed to her
lower body, puffing up her cunt for the view of her second captor.

On a growl, Rolf replaced his hand with his
mouth. He drew her clit in between his lips and latched onto it, then suckled
it vigorously until she was gasping.

“Oh god.”
Peggy broke on a groan, moaning as her body instinctively convulsed. The first
captor continued to knead her breasts and run his thumbs over her stiff, aching
nipples, while Rolf sucked on her clit, not stopping until she came a second
time, harder and more violent than before.

When she came down from the climactic high,
mortification stole over her. What had been done to her was embarrassing
enough, but to orgasm for men who had forced it on her was humiliating.

She closed her eyes from behind the
makeshift blindfold, feeling more shamed than she’d thought possible.
Realistically she knew that her body had merely reacted instinctually, that the
orgasm meant nothing beyond a response to a stimulus, yet the feeling of shame
lingered nonetheless.

Rolf reinserted his index finger into her
pussy hole. This time it slid in easily, her moisture providing the necessary
lubrication to probe her. Her nostrils flared from behind the blindfold. She
could hardly wait for the asshole to discover that she wasn’t a virgin so she
would be let go.

“I don’t detect a hymen,” Rolf said. “She
is no virgin.”

Peggy’s eyes opened from behind the
blindfold, blazing with righteous indignation at the bastards.

“Good,” the older captor grunted, shocking
Peggy. “Virgins don’t sell very well on the block.”

She swallowed over the lump in her throat,
righteous indignation quickly turning into acute fear.

“True,” Rolf absently commented as he
removed his index finger from her slit. “Virgin bodies don’t know how to
worship a cock the way experienced pussies do.”

Peggy closed her eyes from behind the
blindfold, willing herself to breathe.
So much for my theory of being let go
,
she thought, as the older captor continued playing with her stiff nipples.