Page 9 of Alien Viking's Passion

Some of the Viking warriors were sending curious looks at the girls, and more of them were arriving as the evening wore on and the conversation got louder. Some of the younger men had brought two big drums and were banging on them while chanting deep-toned songs that sounded like stories of battles from long ago.

“Useful doing what?” Chen asked, refilling her cup. “We were all space rats and astronomers and all kinds of things that these guys don’t need and can’t understand anyway. Hey, if they needed someone to drive an electric staple loader or reprogram cash chips, I’d be the most useful chick on the planet.”

“Right,” Chloe said with feeling. “I’m not going to do anyworkhere. These damn Bronze Age jackasses already owe us more than they can ever repay. No way am I going to lift a fuckingfingerto help them with anything.”

“Iron Age,” Celeste corrected her. “The Vikings on Earth lived in the Iron Age, not the Bronze Age. They had iron swords, just like these guys.”

The haughty blonde waved it away. “Whatever. They feel more like Stone Age dudes to me. Or Wood Age. Bullshit Age.” She chuckled at her own crude joke.

Aretha ignored her, never a big fan of people who were born into a life of endless riches. “So, it’s not like we have to be useful forthem. They don’t need us for that. We can be useful for ourselves, doing things the Vikings can’t. Like looking for the Sun, seeing how we can get home without those longships. Like cooking food we like or making clothes we can wear without feeling like we’re cosplaying as Medieval wenches and milkmaids. Is that even the word? ‘Milkmaid’? It’s not, right?”

“That’s what I mean,” Rafaela said. “We should make ourselves useful toourselves. Damn right we don’t owe them anything. Sorry, I’m not expressing myself well. I blame it on this funny-juice.” She squinted down into her mug.

“We should make this stay as comfortable for ourselves as possible, even if it’s only for a short time,” Aretha went on. “And at the same time make some stories that we can tell back on Earth, like you said, Chen.”

Chen hid a burp behind her hand. “It just makes sense. Raise your market value with weird stories, girls! Who’s with me?” She raised her mug, and the others cheered and did the same. Except for Chloe, who was always looking away from the others.

“My story is weird enough as it is,” Josie said and slowly got to her feet. “And now I’ll have to call it a night. Enjoy, girls. See you tomorrow.”

She sashayed towards the longhouse, and two Viking warriors peeled off from the group to follow her at a discreet distance. In the bright doorway of the longhouse there was a looming silhouette of a big, horned man, giving off an impatient air. Earl Bragr wasn’t taking any chances with his wife’s safety, now that vettir had been spotted on the wrong side of the mountains.

With their future queen out of the way, it was as if the Vikings lost their inhibitions and became more boisterous. The drumming increased in speed and intensity, and someone started playing flutes and lyres. There was even a man blowing a long horn that sounded like a foghorn more than music, but it made the Vikings go crazy every time they heard it.

Some of the warriors and shieldmaidens started pairing up to dance in a slow, rocking, and steamily primitive way.

Aretha had kept looking around for a particular warrior with blindingly white tattoos and silver horns, but Prince Craxon was nowhere to be seen. She was strangely disappointed. He’d only been grumpy to her and had offloaded her on someone else the first chance he got, but still she had trouble taking her mind off him. The way he looked at her, his confident swagger that was plainly not an act but a result of simply being a powerful warrior, his face that would take on a tormented look when he thought nobody was seeing it — there was a lot more going on under the surface there than she would have expected from a simple Viking.

She would have loved to talk more to him and maybe get behind that icy shield. Why the hell was he avoiding her?

The males got braver and came over to talk to the Earth girls that most of them either hadn’t seen before or not dared interact with.

Chen jumped down from her chair and dragged a horned warrior with her towards the music, demanding in her imperfect Garda that he teach her how to dance.

“It’s the first real party we’re seeing since we came here,” Rafaela said, raising her voice over the din. “Before, everything has beenso controlled and regal and stiff. But this is what Viking aliens are like when they’re really having a party.”

Aretha got up and walked over to the barrels, holding out her mug to the old warrior doing the tapping. “Any chance for a new drink, Dagnar?”

The Viking grinned as he took her mug and filled it with the golden liquid. “Alien females enjoy their myod, it seems. Perhaps you don’t have it at home?”

“Oh, we have a lot of nice drinks. But nothing quite like this. Thank you.” She accepted the mug, filled to the edge.

“Myod is special,” Dagnar agreed as he took a sip of his own mug, much bigger than Aretha’s. He had decorated his horns with red ribbons. “Especially the one I brew. When you leave, I shall give you a barrel of it, and you can sell it on your own planet.”

She grinned. “Sellthis? You have had too much of your own brew, Dagnar. I will drink it all myself. You would not be ready for the great crowds of Earthlings who would come here and demand to get more if I started tosellit.”

The man laughed, plainly old enough to know himself and be impossible to flatter. “If they’re all like you, Aretha, then I don’t think we will ever get enough of them.”

“Oh, you charmer, you. No wonder they all tell us to be on our guard around you. Three wives by now, right?”

4

- Aretha -

“I’m on my fourth,” Dagnar said conspiratorially and nodded towards a gray-haired shieldmaiden with an easy laugh, talking to someone a few yards away. “She just doesn’t know it yet.”

Aretha laughed and made room for all the Vikings that also needed refills.

She walked slowly to the outer edge of the party area, standing in darkness by a tree and sipping her drink watching the party. Most of the Vikings were dancing now, their slow pulsating moves clearly not chosen at random, but inspired by the pace and throb of passionate lovemaking. There was nothing lewd or crass in their movements, but the overall impression was still overwhelmingly erotic. The warm, flickering firelight added to the impression of a primal mating taking place. Even the air itself had changed, smoky and fragrant, thick with the musky pheromones of a hundred horny Vikings…

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