Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80439 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80439 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
“This is a comfortable room,” he says. “It’ll stay comfortable as long as the two of you behave. We are going to continue voyaging for the foreseeable. So I suggest you get comfortable. You are going to be seeing a lot of these walls.”
Neither Thor nor I say anything. I don’t think I can speak. I think the parts of my mind I use for interaction have been completely disengaged. I curl up into Thor’s arms and I close my eyes.
“You plan to keep us alive then,” Thor says. “Me, I mean. I know you intend to keep her, of course.”
“Yes. You’ll live,” Drako says. “I’ll keep the both of you under my protection.”
I feel Thor flex beneath me as he takes offense to that offer. “I don’t need your protection. I need my freedom.”
“Wrong. Our babies are going to come from this woman’s womb. I cannot live in your world, so you two will have to live in mine. Consider yourselves properly captured. Don’t worry, Golden Boy. Things catch on fire for us too; you’ll be able to ply your trade freely.”
“Live on this ship?”
“On this ship. Off it. On other worlds. In other places. We travel, we explore. We discover new things…”
“And blow them up,” I interject sleepily.
Drako smirks at me. “I would have thought you’d stay quiet for a while yet after all you’ve been through lately. Are you in need of more attention?”
I fall silent.
“I can make the two of you happy,” Drako says. “I know the introduction to our ship was rough, but frankly nothing else would have broken you to it. You are mine, and my men know it. You have a place among my people. You will be respected.”
“That’ll be new,” I mutter.
“I can fuck you again, if you like,” he says, but I think he’s teasing.
“I want you to be my family,” Drako continues. “The both of you. That is why I saved you on that mountain, and that is why I hunted for the pair of you, and that is why I didn’t simply shoot you, Thor, when I had the chance.”
“Why?”
Thor asks a damn good question.
“You’re good with her. You give her something I cannot. And I give her something you can’t. Together, we almost make one half-decent husband for her. I can trust that you will be a good father. And you can trust that I will bring the weight of the Vikar to bear on any threats.”
Thor looks at me, and then at Drako.
“I understand that if we were to leave, you would hunt us down. I know that if we were to make it back to Weltheim, you would…”
“Burn that city to the ground.”
“No,” I say. “My family live there.”
“Then you are best to stay with me, are you not?”
“So we have no choice.”
“Precisely,” he smiles. “I knew you’d get it, because the pair of you are just the smartest little pair of Frayer Vikings I’ve ever encountered. Now, I need to deal with some ship matters, and I am sure the two of you want to gossip about how fun it is to be all caught up and looked after by a big bad Vikar jarl.”
Drako leaves us to adapt to captivity. Thor just holds me for a long time. He doesn’t say anything. I think I fall asleep for a bit. I have been exhausted for a long time, not only in the last physical ordeal I was made to endure, but in the days in which we tried to survive. Now that’s all over. We have been captured. There’s nowhere to run anymore.
One of the most melancholy phenomena I ever observed in wild animals was the way prey would sometimes just give up when they could no longer evade a predator. It was beautiful and it was awful, the way they would turn their necks to get it over with faster.
I feel like that now. Like I have turned my neck and Drako has sunk his teeth deep into me and my essence has flowed away from me, and into him.
I stir when I feel Thor move beneath me. I think we both napped.
“Let’s look at the bathroom,” he says. “If there’s a shower…”
I slide off his lap, not exactly invigorated. That would be too strong of a word. But I have more energy than absolutely no energy. And I make my way to the room, fling open the door, and see a unit that looks a whole lot like a shower to me.
When I turn a dial and hot water starts flowing out of the showerhead, I could practically cry.
“Do you know how much I craved one of these when we were in that mud pit?” I ask Thor as I remove whatever scraps of ripped clothing are still on me, and step into the water. A full body shiver runs down me as my aching muscles and tired bones are embraced by a simple luxury.