Page 5 of Mastered By the Viking King

“Oh… this is bad,” he heard someone say.

“She’ll not sit for a month.”

Good.

Gripping Helga’s hair, he set to spanking her lower on her ass, so he caught her cunny lips too.

Her high-pitched yelps were satisfying, but nowhere near enough.

Suddenly Njal had had enough. He stopped, released her, and pushed her away.

He banged his chest. “I demand to have a queen who is truthful, obedient, and loyal from the first moment I set eyes upon her. And I will have that!” He was breathing fast, his palm stinging. “Halfdan, you will set up a new line of women for me to choose from. Spread the word far and wide and this time do not fail me.”

With his blood pulsing in his ears and his broken heart aching, Njal stormed to his bedchamber, his broad shoulders barging into anyone and anything that got in his way.

The ex-queen had broken a part of him. Njal didn’t like that. He wasn’t used to it. He was a man who commanded respect from warriors and women alike.

But the gods had dished him up a feast of pain and humiliation, and sit before it he must even if he didn’t like the flavors.

Even if he never got rid of the taste.

Chapter 1

“What? No. I refuse. You cannot do this to me! For the love of the gods, no, no, no!” Tove searched her mother’s thin face for signs that she might change her mind. “How could you have put my name forward to become nothing more than a glorified sex slave? Why would you? Why?”

“I’m sorry, Tove.” Ingrid scraped the skin off a turnip with a bone-handled knife. “But times are hard. We have little food, and the grain has been contaminated with mold. And without your father to hunt elk for us, I need to know you will be somewhere warm and fed this winter.”

“I’d rather freeze and starve than be wed tohim! To lie with him! Who knows what perversions the gods have given him.”

“Do not talk foolish.” She paused. “And anyway, you might not be wed to the king.” She sliced the turnip in half. It was small; their stomachs would rumble all night. “If he doesn’t choose you, you’ll return and winter here with me.” Her mouth downturned as she looked at the meager pile of food supplies on the wooden shelf.

“Surely, I can find another husband, Mama? A man more… suitable.”

“You’ve had two years since your father died to find a husband, Tove. You have failed in finding even an unsuitable husband.”

Tove gave into the urge to stamp her foot, her worn leather boot huffing dust into the cold air. “Is it my fault you chose to raise me, your only daughter, in a place where time stands still? Where there is naught but the odd wanderer. How can I find a husband? It is a full day’s walk over a mountain to the nearest town, and when the snows come, the pass is impossible for many moons.”

Ingrid clenched her teeth. “I agree, we should have thought about that.” She dropped the diced turnip into a pot of boiling water over the fire. “But it is too late for regrets. The great spinners beneath the earth have weaved your fate, and now it must be accepted.”

“Accepted?” Tove stomped to the log basket, stooped and gripped a chunk of wood. Emotions were swirling. Disbelief. Anger. Frustration. She threw the log onto the dwindling flames, sending a rush of sparks flurrying upward.

The light danced upon her mother’s features, accentuating the shadows beneath her tired eyes. She was still a beautiful woman, but her hard life had taken its toll. “Aye, Tove, accepted. Accept your fate. Freya, in her goddess wisdom of the complex nature of love, sex, and marriage, has set you on this journey. You will be in the lineup before the king. He will cast his eye and judgment over you.”

“No, Mama,youhave made my fate, not Freya or the spinners. By sending word to Halsgrof that I am to be one of the victims,youchose my path.”

Her mother scoffed and folded her arms, her long fingers tapping on the wool of her tunic. “Hardly a victim. Whoever King Njal chooses to be his will be treated in the manner any queen should be treated. Lavish feasts, maids, a warm home, the protection of his skilled warriors should there be a raid.” She pointed at the fire. “You won’t even have to lift your own logs. You’ll have a servant to do that for you. One click”—she snapped her fingers—“and it will be done. Anything you want will be done.”

“What if I don’t want that?”

“Only an unwise woman wouldn’t want to be warm, comfortable, and fattened.”

“And the dark hours of winter, when I have to spread my legs and take his cock? Then how comfortable will I be?” She wrapped her arms around herself in a tight hug, frightened just at the thought of giving her body to a man.

“You will do your duty, and give him lots of sex and sons.”

Tove shuddered, a long, cold tapping sensation down her spine. She’d never seen King Njal. Her trips to his busy port of Halsgrof had always been brief, and he hadn’t been in town. He was fond of exploring west. But she’d heard of his strength and size; indeed, his name meant ‘giant.’ He ruled his people with a firm hand, the man bold and courageous. An adventurer who had won many battles and served the gods well.

“Why does he not have a wife?” Tove asked.

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