Page 14 of Taken By the Barbarian King

Thundar chuckles as he watches me eat.

“What?” I say around a mouthful of food. “I’m hungry.”

“No. Nothing.” He takes a short pause, his intense gaze sending shivers down my spine but he seems to remember himself and smiles. “By all means. Satiate yourself. If it’s not enough, I’ll ask for more.” He takes his own leg of phalanx and nibbles on it much more sedately than I do.

I’m not sure what’s gotten into me. I’m hungry, sure, who wouldn’t be after all that sex? But I’m not usually this ravenous, so famished that I’m tearing into the food like a, like a… a barbarian.

I pause, lips wrapped around my third leg of phalanx. Carefully, I take a bite, chew thoroughly, and swallow. Then I take a small sip of the sweet brown liquid that Thundar calls mylk.

“There’s…” Shoot, how do I ask this without sounding accusing? Wait, why do I care if I sound accusing at all? “There isn’t anything in this, is there?”

Thundar cocks an eyebrow. “In what?”

“The food. There aren’t any drugs or anything in it, right?”

Thundar glances down at the tray, then back up at me. “There are spices to enhance the flavor.”

Right. Of course. Spices are normal. I’m just being paranoid. Who says barbarians can’t have a sophisticated palate?

“And of course the aphrodisiacs.”

I stare at him. “The what?”

“The aphrodisiacs,” he says, completely nonchalantly. Like fucking aphrodisiacs are a normal fucking spice to be added to fucking food.

Oh god, I think I’m going to be sick. I drop the leg onto the tray as my stomach lurches.

“They put aphrodisiacs in the food?!” I shout, jumping to my feet.

“Naturally. How else could we drak for such an extended period of time without rest?”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!”

Thundar stands and approaches me, obviously clueless about why I’m upset. “No, I can assure you, I am not kidding.”

“You’ve just been going on and on about equal rights and foregoing traditions, and you think it’s okay to fucking drug me?” I poke my finger at his very muscular, very chiseled chest. “How is that progress? How is that informed consent? Huh? Tell me.”

Thundar looks genuinely stumped. How can he not see the problem with this? For all his flowery words about wanting to improve his planet, he’s just like any other politician, all talk.

“I told you we were in the intimacy interlude,” he says, as if that’s any explanation.

I throw my hands in the air. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Aphrodisiacs are needed to maintain stamina. Are you telling me that humans can drak for half a sun rotation without any supplementary assistance?”

“Of course not!” I shout in his face.

“Then what’s the problem?” He shouts back.

The dog starts barking at the top of its tiny little lungs.

“Because I didn’t know I was being fed ‘supplementary assistance’!” I make air quotes with my fingers and add a snarky note to those last two words.

“Well, now you do!”

“Shut up!” I yell at the dog at the same time Thundar yells, “Be quiet!”

Both panting, we stare at each other, barely an inch apart. My heart hammers in my chest, blood rushing through my veins. Heat spreads through me and my clit throbs, all tender and swollen.

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