Claimed by the Barbarian Page 2

  “Your apology is not accepted,” he said. The antagonizing smile waned slowly.

  Leola didn’t dare utter another word. The beast of her temper was all she could control for the moment, and she was almost as afraid of it as she was of the giant before her. Say nothing, she warned herself. Say nothing or you shall be sorry.

  “What was wronged must be made right,” Sedrak growled, when she stood there, silent.

  Another moment passed, as Leola’s thoughts scattered like fowl flushed from the marshes in different directions, chaotic, frightened into nonsense. The warrior seemed to lose patience and was moving, but Leola watched as though from a distance, outside of herself, desperately trying to cling to a single thought.

  Sedrak grabbed his blade and yanked it from the dirt. A single, scattered thought crystallized and rose to the forefront of her mind as the metal glinted above her uncle’s neck, moving through the air. Act. Act, you must do something!

  Falling to her knees she held her hands out clasped together in supplication. “No! Please!” she cried. The ground was cold on her knees, her breath floating before her face. It was the coldest moment of the night.

  The sword, a mighty, thick blade that seemed better suited for crushing victims than slicing them, paused in the air as the great beast held it suspended in mid-swing.

  Leola’s breath clung to her eyelashes, freezing, as she panted in the moments of stillness while the beastly man appeared to consider her. His unblinking eyes stared down at her, and he appeared as a terrible statue, unmoving, still enough that for a moment Leola wondered if he had been turned to stone.

  A sound, something like a chuckle, emanated from the enormous chest. With an almost playful air, he sheathed the weapon, looking at her with a bemused interest that she found almost more terrifying than his violent bellowing.

  Her head started to spin. The cold was creeping through her body now, biting her skin. On her knees, with her hands clasped together, she was no more than an insect before the enormous man, who stared at her with eyebrows raised, a cruel smile on his lips.

  A wave of quiet laughter rolled through the horde behind him. It was not the laughter of humor, but of pitiless cruelty. She hardly heard it, though, because her own thoughts pulsed between her ears: What now? What do I say now?

  For the great warrior towering above her expected… something.

  “What will make it right?” she whispered. The words caught in her throat. She had asked the same of Ryken when he had so disparaged and humiliated her in a drunken rage many moons past… what could she do, to make right the wrongs she herself had not brought about?

  The warrior eyed her with a changed expression. Now he looked wary.

  He looked up at the castle walls, then back at the line of prisoners. “The first of my demands, lady,” this was accompanied by another wave of cruel chuckling diffusing through the horde, “is a promise that this crowd of filthy barbarians won’t cross the Northern hills again.”

  Leola blinked, for a moment confounded. Several beats passed as she came to understand that the ‘filthy barbarians’ Sedrak referred to were Ryken and his men, not the barbaric horde behind him.

  So Datharia had been right. They were Northern raiders.

  The beast Sedrak had ridden stamped and snorted behind him. In an incongruous moment, the warrior turned slightly to put a hand, almost tenderly, on the muzzle of the terrifying animal, and it calmed at his touch.

  “Of… of… of course,” Leola croaked, eyes falling to the ground in submission. “A solemn promise. A vow. You will never see them again.” She stole a glance between the legs of the warrior at Ryken.

  He was still staring at the ground ahead of him. Would he live down this humiliation? Knowing that his people were seeing him bow before an enemy? Would he break the promise she’d just made in a quest for vengeance?

  It mattered not: those were questions for another time. She shivered and kept her eyes fixed on the ground.

  “Those are merely words,” Sedrak said. “And you are barbarians without honor. I prefer a more solid agreement.”

  Leola glanced up at him. “Mmmm… my…” She did not know what to call him, and her mind grasped at the first thing that came to her. Surely he was some kind of ‘lord’? “My lord, I am… unaccustomed to the… nature of… agreements, I am not… but I shall…” She looked at Ryken again. Closed her eyes.

  “Anything,” she said. “Just let him live.”

  She opened her eyes. The way Sedrak looked at her made the skin on her neck crawl.

  “Anything?” he growled. The cruel smile formed beneath his beard again.

  Her chest felt as though a hole had been clawed through it, and the cold wind was now ripping her apart. “Any… anything,” she repeated. She gathered her wits as she spoke, suddenly finding her voice. “We have coin, and, and… and meat. And mead. Furs, grain… the… artisans have many… lovely things…”

  She was babbling. She had offered too much, she knew Ryken would cuff her for this terrible negotiation if it were under any other circumstances. But if it saved his life, what did it matter?

  The warrior was staring at her with an expression she could not read.

  “I’ll have it sent out as soon as I return to the—”

  “I don’t need food and coin I have aplenty,” the warrior interrupted.

  His eyes were still on her, roaming along her hunched frame.

  For a blissful moment, she did not recognize what was in his eyes, and she believed that he was about to innumerate the other things he might wish to take.

  But a cold fear poured over her when, suddenly, she recognized the glint in the warrior’s eyes. In them burned a hunger she’d seen in other men, when they watched her surreptitiously, after she came of age.

  She shuddered.

  “I have other needs,” the warrior said, bending over her, crouching with his forearm resting on his knees. He tipped her chin up with a thick finger.

  Leola had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from fainting. Her imagination was already spinning, thinking of what other needs he had in mind. It was forbidden to speak of such things before marriage, Datharia had explained. And there was no one but Datharia to whisper the secrets of marriage to her, as the milkmaids and court attendants had.

  But she was not a fool. She could guess at what those forbidden things might be, what part of her body, what part of a man’s might be involved in such a thing.

  She would never be able to live with herself if this brute took Ryken’s life. There was only one way forward and it chilled her to her core. Somehow she found the courage to look up into the warrior’s eyes. “What is it that you seek for my uncle’s life?” she asked softly, already certain of the answer.

  “You’re a pretty thing,” Sedrak said. He caressed her cheek with a rough and weathered hand. “You would pay any price for your uncle’s freedom?” he asked. He kept her looking up at him.

  “I… I would do so, yes,” she said quietly.

  “You would give your life for his?”

  She gasped. Her mouth fell open. Surely he couldn’t mean…

  He leaned forward so his face was just two hands from hers. His eyes narrowed. “I don’t mean to kill you, Leola Grace. I am not a barbarian, as your uncle seems to think.”

  She exhaled and her knees went weak. But if he did not mean to kill her, there remained little else he intended to do with her, other than the unthinkable. As the thought struck her, what color remained left her cheeks, leaving her face pale as a ghost. The bottom fell out of her stomach. What was being asked of her was… unthinkable. She knew that this barbarian was not asking for her hand in marriage, after all.

  She would be an unmarried woman, sinful and unsuitable for any proper life. In effect, it was her life for her uncle’s, for she would never lead the same life again.

  In the same instant she thought of the alternative, and knew there wasn’t really any choice to make.

  Sedrak grew i
mpatient with her silence. “I mean,” he huffed, “do you give yourself to me freely? In exchange I shall let your uncle live.”

  Her eyes fell to the ground. The decision had already been made, her fate was sealed. Now all that was required of her was to say the words that would end her life as she knew it. She struggled to breathe, let alone to form her assent.

  She steeled herself and parted her lips. “Yes,” she whispered. The single word left her mouth and it felt as if it carried with it her soul. She was suddenly empty, adrift, like a boat torn loose from its anchor in a storm.

  Sedrak took a step back, appraising her as if he did not believe her assent. A cruel-looking smile was on his lips. He wore much the same expression as though she had challenged him to a bare-fisted fight.

  “Stand, then, Leola Grace,” he commanded, almost laughing. “Let us see how serious you are about this.”

  With fear swelling in her belly again, Leola dragged herself to her feet and did her best to stand straight and proud in front of him.

  “Strip,” he ordered.

  Her mouth fell open. “What?” she whispered.

  “Strip that… garment… from yourself.”

  Her head began to shake. He could not mean that she strip, there in front of so many men? She took a step back. Her mind was screaming run, but her body would not obey. Sedrak grabbed the hilt of his sword and started pulling it from its scabbard, chuckling.

  “I thought not,” he said cruelly. He tilted his chin and yelled to his men without turning around, in the rough Northern dialect that Leola could not understand. But when one of the guards shoved Ryken, gesturing for him to arise while hollering guttural sounds at him, she understood the intent.

  Her life for his, and she had not been serious enough.

  Leola squeezed her eyes closed, acting on instinct, as though she no longer had a will or a mind of her own. She shrugged off the large fur. It fell to the ground at her feet, leaving her standing in only her nightshirt.

  The scuffle near her uncle stopped after a sharp bark from Sedrak. A wave of low chuckling passed through the men. Even with her eyes closed, Leona could feel the heat of all their gazes. Not just the army of bandits standing behind Sedrak but Ryken’s men and the archers that had gathered on the walls. She had never felt so exposed or so utterly ashamed.

  She inhaled deeply and opened her eyes. It was of no consequence now. She must do what she had to do.

  Sedrak was staring at her, a new expression on his face. Surprise mingled with his amusement. “Off with that,” he grunted, pointing his sword at the shirt.

  A wave of humiliation swept through Leona as she felt her nipples harden, though she could not say whether it was the command or the cold. Sedrak’s gaze burned through her, and an unfamiliar heat coiled and uncoiled in her abdomen.

  From somewhere in the darkness someone shouted, “Seems she likes it!” and a wave of laughter rolled through the men.

  “Silence!” Sedrak roared, holding up a hand.

  The quiet that followed was immediate and deafening. Leona shivered. Sedrak’s power over such a legion of men was terrifying, and yet inside her, the snaking heat flared.

  Still, she couldn’t bring herself to raise her arms and pull the last vestige of her dignity over her head.

  Sedrak eyed her for what felt like an eternity. When he took a step forward she stumbled back. He caught her by the wrist and leaned in so his nose was three finger lengths from hers. “Stand,” he growled.

  She stood stock still.

  It happened in an instant. His hand curled into a fist with a clump of shirt inside it. He yanked. The fabric tore.

  She felt cold air against her skin. Skin that never saw the light of day unless she was with Datharia or by herself. She glanced down to confirm what she felt. Her breasts were bare. On full display for the leering stares of Sedrak’s men. Her womanhood, too, could be seen by all of them.

  She wished the earth would open and swallow her whole.

  Stepping around her, Sedrak pulled what remained of the shirt off her shoulders, exposing her completely.

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw him appraising her. His eyes pausing at the soft curve of her hips, her breasts, then wandering back toward her behind. Through it all her face grew hotter until she thought a fire would start on her cheeks. She could feel tears threatening to brim her eyes, and she wished them away.

  “You will make a handsome prize,” Sedrak said. “I ask you again: you wish to atone for your uncle’s bad behavior?”

  She swallowed again and somehow managed to force herself to nod. “Yes,” she whimpered.

  His voice was low, close to her ear, as if he wished that only she heard what he said next. “Then you must be humiliated, and punished, so that my men may have the satisfaction of seeing your uncle bear witness to the fruits of his foolishness. There is no greater humiliation for a real man than to see his women pay for his misdeeds.”

  Leola stared at Sedrak, cold fear snaking through her body.

  “He does not cry out for you,” Sedrak told her, his voice still low. “And yet you still wish to give of yourself, in exchange for this coward?”

  Leola blinked slowly. As Sedrak spoke to her, his fierce eyes burning into her own, it was as if the entire army had disappeared. She was cold, but she felt that cold as though from far away. The same twisting knife of heat turned over and over in her stomach, and further down.

  What was he telling her? To let Ryken die?

  Her lips trembled. They stared at each other for an eternity, and she jutted her chin defiantly, hoping that she would not be required to speak again. She had already given herself for Ryken. She could not go back upon it.

  Sedrak grunted, and stepped back from her. “So be it. Bend over.”

  There was little that could come from such a command than a whipping. She had seen the servants and soldiers whipped for their misdeeds. And when she did, a similar heat had burned inside of her, but she had pushed it from her mind as quickly as possible, for it was improper.

  That same heat, curiously, burned inside of her now. But it was she who would be whipped. Her own flesh that would feel the burn on the other end of the cracking noise that would not leave her ears for days when she heard it.

  She had no choice, she thought, almost numbly. Whatever her feelings about it, there was no escape from Sedrak, no escape from whatever wicked things he might choose to do with her now. She would be whipped like a servant, there before all of his men, and she had no choice but to comply.

  She bent forward, conscious of the way her breasts hung beneath her chest and of all the eyes on them. She could feel, in the cold, that between her legs a slickness had gathered, an aching tickle wandering somewhere between the bottom of her belly and her pelvis. The more she thought of her humiliation the more persistent it became.

  Her thoughts were devoured, immediately, by the sound of skin upon skin. It pierced the night air, sharp and distinct. Hot pain, in the shape of his hand, nipped her immediately afterward. She inhaled sharply, and stumbled forward a little.

  But the second spank landed before she could steady herself completely, and she gasped as the bright, hot pain stung her from her bottom to her eyes. A third crack pierced the air, then a fourth, and with them came waves of intense heat, spreading out throughout her entire lower body. She cried out when he spanked her again, and balled her hands to fists. She had taken a few steps forward, impelled by Sedrak’s strength.

  Sedrak paused his punishment. He was standing behind her but she could feel his hard stare on her bright red cheeks. “If you give yourself in exchange for mercy for such a coward, you shall endure the harshest punishment. You will learn to obey me, Leola Grace, first lady of these walls and this realm,” he growled. “Tell me that you understand your proper place now.”

  A tightness formed between her legs at the way he said her name. “I understand,” she whispered, her voice shattered by the heat rolling over her skin. She began to ris
e, hoping her punishment had ended.

  He smacked her behind again, barking a sharp “No!” He kept his hand upon her burning flesh, as if he were petting his favorite pet. “You will do what I command, and nothing that I do not,” he growled. “Remain bent over.”

  He spanked her again, and tears dripped from her eyes, but she managed to hold her position and refrain from crying out. He massaged her burning skin again, a pleased grunting sound leaving his throat.

  Her face flushed as hot as her bottom beneath his hand. Never in her life had she known such shame.

  Ryken would have cut off a man’s hand for laying it on her the way Sedrak had. He would have had his tongue removed if anyone had ever spoken to her that way.

  And yet he said nothing to defend her.

  Sedrak’s hand was still massaging her bottom, and she shivered as the cold began to gnaw at her bare limbs. Taunting and rumbles of laughter began to break out among the men.

  Sedrak slipped a finger between her legs, swiping at her most private place. The place he touched made her whole body jerk, almost against her will. Tears flowed freely from her eyes as Sedrak’s rough finger slipped through the wetness between her legs, and he grunted again.

  “Come, Leola Grace!” a voice cried from the throng of soldiers. “Show us your tight cunny!”

  She turned her head sharply, looking up at Sedrak, begging with her eyes for guidance or protection. She was not even sure what that word, ‘cunny,’ meant, but she had a sneaking suspicion it was the forbidden place between her legs.

  Sedrak looked down at her impassively, his hand still hot against her tender skin. The cries from the throng became insistent.

  Sedrak grunted again. “When I take a woman, to humiliate a man, I make her turn around and show my men what I will get from this negotiation,” he said. His voice was low and calm. Leola was panting lightly, cold, tears rolling down her cheeks, spilling into her hair, freezing in the night air. She waited, her stomach dropping, fearing his next command.

  Her bottom was facing away from the crowd now, and her humiliation knew no greater depths. But if he made her turn… she sobbed lightly.