Page 11 of Her Viking Master

I felt my cheeks burn with embarrassment, but Amélie spoke up again before I could respond. “The Normans were originally Danish Vikings,” she explained patiently. “They sacked Paris, attacked Chartres. Eventually, in 911, Charles the Simple gave them the land that became Normandy to stop their raids.”

As Amélie spoke, the pieces began to fall into place in my mind. Sven’s lectures on Norse culture, the ancient ship we were bound to, the talk of thralls and Odin… A chill ran down my spine as a terrifying thought occurred to me.

“Do you think…” I began hesitantly, “do you think they’ve been doing this for… for centuries? Kidnapping girls and… and… you know…?”

“Fuckingthem?” Camille said, as if disgusted that I couldn’t say the word, or maybe didn’t know it in French.

“But,” I protested, my mind reeling at the implications, “they couldn’t get away with it, could they? Not for centuries. Someone would notice, would stop them.”

Camille let out a harsh laugh. When she spoke again, her English was even more deliberate, each word dripping with disdain for my apparent naivety.

“Not unless they are very powerful,” she said. “We are all girls from the bourgeoisie, but they set it up to look like we drowned and got swept out to sea. To do that, they have to control the government in this department at least.”

Her words sent a chill through me. I remembered the university staff member I had recognized among our captors. How deep did this conspiracy go? How many people were involved in this… this cult?

“But surely someone would notice,” I argued weakly. “Our families, our friends…”

“Think about it,” Camille snapped, lapsing back into French. To my relief I found I could understand her, now that I had a context for her words. “How many girls disappear every year? How many bodies are never found? It would be easy to fake our deaths, to make it look like a tragic accident.”

As much as I wanted to deny it, I knew she was right. The pieces continued falling into place, forming a picture too terrifying to contemplate. I thought about my own situation—a foreign exchange student, far from home. How long would it take for anyone to realize I was truly missing, not just out of contact?

“But why?” Amélie’s soft voice broke through my spiraling thoughts. “Why go to all this trouble? Why us?”

“Power,” Camille said grimly. “Control. The same reasons men have always sought to dominate women.”

I shuddered, remembering the way Sven had looked at me, the possessive gleam in his eyes as he claimed me as his thrall. There had been something ancient in that gaze, something that spoke of centuries of tradition and ritual.

“And the… the sexual stuff,” I said hesitantly, my face burning. “That’s part of it too, right?”

“Of course,” Camille replied, her tone bitter. “What better way to assert dominance than to control our bodies, our pleasure?”

I squirmed uncomfortably on the bench, acutely aware of the ache between my legs, the sticky evidence of my own unwilling arousal. Shame washed over me as I remembered how my body had responded to Sven’s touch, how I had begged for more even as my mind recoiled in horror.

“But it’s more than that,” Amélie mused. “Did you see the carvings on the walls? The rituals, the chanting… This isn’t just about sex. It’s about… about…”

“Power,” I finished for her, the realization dawning. “They believe they’re tapping into some kind of ancient power.”

“Absolutely,” Amélie agreed. “Masculinepower. Like… like they’re keeping faith with the old ways, the old gods, to ensure their masculinity doesn’t fade, as it has in so many places.”

To my distress, I heard admiration in Amélie’s voice. My brow creased as I tried to decide how I felt about that, given that the same feeling seemed to lurk in me, deep down, in my heart and my body.

“Bah,” Camille said. “You are worse than Mary, Amélie.”

Another girl, the one on the other side of Camille, spoke. Sophie, maybe? Yes, and she belonged to the warrior named Aksel, I remembered.

“Don’t pretend you didn’t come as hard as the rest of us, Camille,” she said with a quiet authority that made my eyes go wide. “All you’ll get for your defiance is a whipping from yourHerra.”

CHAPTER7

Sven

The bathing hall echoed with the playful boasts of my Viking brothers. Pride filled my chest at the mixture of warrior dominance—arrogance, even—and tenderness for their new bed thralls that I heard.

Steam rose from the large saltwater pool as we lowered ourselves into its warm embrace, muscles relaxing after our vigorous claiming of our new bed thralls. The scent of sea salt filled the air, bringing to my mind long voyages across stormy seas.

“By Odin’s beard, did you hear the sounds my little Amélie made?” Henrik boasted, his voice carrying over the gentle lapping of water. “She must have thought I’d split her in two when I first entered her, but by the end, she was begging for more!”

Laughter erupted around the pool, a chorus of deep, masculine voices reveling in our shared conquest. I smiled, remembering the sweet cries of my own Mary as I’d claimed her virgin body. Her red hair had gleamed like fire in the torchlight, her pale skin flushed with an arousal that didn’t come entirely from her fear.

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