“No.” She belted it out, like a blade hurled through the air, her hands in fists before her. At least she had the presence of mind to keep them to herself. “Never. I’d rather have sex with a pack of rabid wolves.”
“The experience would be comparable, I imagine,” Wulf murmured, in the same deceptively easy tone. “Less fun than a wolf pack, maybe, but about as bruising.”
She looked less green, but more pale. “Absolutely not.”
And Tyr thought it was one of the most beautiful things he’d ever seen, that pale face of hers, as if she’d had to fight off a round of real sickness at the very idea of Krajic as her lover. Because anyone could pretend anything, some better than others, but straight physical responses like that were almost impossible to fake. Especially when he was this close to her and could see the faint sheen of a cold sweat on her brow.
Something deep inside of him, taut and tense, eased.
He still wanted to vent his spleen on her for potentially leading Krajic and his band of scumbags to the raiders’ home. Or punish her, anyway, with some serious prejudice, for not telling him that was a very real possibility. His fury at bringing her here, to the only safe place Tyr knew on this earth when she had his mortal enemy on her tail, wasn’t going to ease any time soon. But it pleased him more than he was comfortable acknowledging that she was wasn’t in league with that piece of shit.
It made him significantly less pissed at himself for losing himself in that body of hers.
“And the Internet is a myth,” Wulf continued, his voice as cool and unbothered as if they’d been discussing something far less fraught than a great enemy of the brotherhood and the possibility that this woman had betrayed their location to him, an offense punishable by death. “Everybody says so.”
Tyr shrugged. “Everybody says a lot of shit.”
“Indeed they do,” the king agreed. “But it intrigues me that a man like Krajic would hunt and kill over a silly little myth.”
Helena didn’t exactly shrug. But she didn’t look away, either. “Myths are powerful,” she said quietly. “Or no one would bother telling them.”
Wulf let it draw out, the sadist.
Helena got so agitated that Tyr could feel the armchair rock slightly beneath him, because she was so tense she was shaking, and he kind of enjoyed that. She didn’t know that she’d already stepped out of the worst of the danger when she’d indicated she wasn’t Krajic’s little minion. She didn’t know Wulf was going to let her live.
She should worry.
About what Wulf was going to do about her not entirely believable claim about the Internet, for one thing, myth or no myth. A claim that suggested Krajic was a tech head in his spare time, in between sacking raider settlements and torturing captives for sport.
“Send Riordan to fetch my favorite tech head,” Wulf ordered Tyr. Eventually. When Tyr thought Helena might start gnawing on her own hands to jettison some of her tension. “Gunnar needs to face reality. I have limited patience for rogue members of the clan roaming about the islands doing god knows what ritualistic crap all over my territory. Even if it’s my blood brother.”
“He won’t like it.”
Tyr didn’t know which brother he meant, even as he said it. Riordan, who was the brotherhood’s best tracker and who was going to think this order sucked balls, because it did. Or Gunnar, who had only been seen a handful of times since he’d lost his wife last year and had been more and more out of his mind each time, ranting about dark magic and ritual sins and god only knew what other grief stricken madness. But the order stood and made sense besides. Gunnar knew more things about tech than most of the mainland put together. There was no point interrogating a woman making claims about satellites without him.
Wulf didn’t quite shrug, and his expression was sheer ruthlessness and cold blue eyes. “That’s too damned bad.”
Tyr nodded and stood, then hauled his noticeably quiet captive to her feet. Wulf inclined his head slightly, giving his dismissal. But he was still lounging there in his chair as Tyr steered Helena toward the door, the sort of contemplative look on his face that never boded well for anyone.
Helena stayed quiet as Tyr went about his business. There was Riordan to find, and roust from the warmth of the hot springs and from the plump ass cheeks of sweet Rinni, who giggled when she came—which they had to watch her do three times before Riordan was done with her. A sight that turned Helena so red it looked as if it hurt her.
Then there was explaining to his brother that yes, Wulf was serious and yes, he expected Riordan to track Gunnar’s crazy ass all over the far islands and haul his carcass back to the Lodge whether Gunnar wanted to come or not. And no, none of this was any kind of prank and he’d better get his own ass in gear, because it went without saying that Wulf wanted that particular miracle performed in a hurry.
“This sucks,” Riordan growled at Tyr as they made their way up from the hot springs, as Tyr had known he would. Pretty much word for word. “Am I a babysitter or a warrior? This is the brotherhood of bullshit.”
“I’ll tell Wulf you said so. You know how cool he is with disrespect.”
Riordan glared at him. “That would be the one thing that makes this worse. Thanks, asshole.”
Tyr waited in the big, open lobby of the Lodge, lounging on one of the benches with his still silent captive at his side. She glanced at him more than once, but she didn’t ask what they were doing, so he didn’t tell her. He crossed his arms over his chest and kept his expression blank and fierce, and he waited.
Helena, meanwhile, couldn’t seem to keep herself from staring this way and that, and Tyr found himself a little too interested not only in what she made of things, but in whatever plan she was cooking up behind that too carefully blank expression. The Lodge was the center of clan life. And tonight was the start of a celebration that would go on for the next few days, as clan members in the far villages spread out over the their fiercely held territory in these eastern islands heard that the raiders had returned with spoils and game. And the king, intact. They would come to claim their share and join in the revelry, because a strong raid by the brotherhood meant a better winter for everyone.
The clan members were already gathering, streaming into the lobby as the endless summer sun inched down toward the sea in the distance. They came laden with food and drink. Children ran and shouted and sang outside on the Lodge’s green, herded in groups by the nursery teachers who took turns taking care of them on nights like this, so those parents who wished to could enjoy the more adult side of things inside. Some came into the hall dressed in their finest clothes with precious metals draped all over them, others came in no clothes at all. Women wore greens in their hair, and men affixed old coins and bones to their beards to show their wealth and the clan’s prosperity. It was a bright, festival atmosphere, and beside him, Helena seemed to soak it in. Too much, maybe. He watched her study each clan member who walked past her, as if she was trying to slot them into one of her mainland boxes—or as if she was plotting, more like.
And he couldn’t deny how he liked it every time a clan member saw him and paused, murmuring a respectful war chief as they lowered their eyes to him. Just in case Helena had forgotten who she was dealing with.
The camp girls trickled in as the sun disappeared, coming down from servicing the brothers in the upstairs wings to add their usual sparkle to the gathering. Most of them had bound up their breasts in brightly colored scarves, because everyone liked unwrapping something that pretty. They wore earrings that jingled and belly rings that shone as they moved on bare feet through the crowd. Some wore snug little shorts that hugged their asses and showed them off, others wore sheer, flowing skirts that offered teasing glimpses of their plucked-smooth pussies. They were gorgeous. They were always gorgeous. And during celebrations like this one they belonged to anybody they felt like sharing themselves with, not just the brothers.
This was the first time in as long as Tyr could remember that he hadn’t wante
d any of them. Not even in passing. Not when he had Helena instead, and no matter the betrayal he still felt that she’d lied straight to his face.
Tyr explained all of this in an undertone. Except that last part, because only a fool gave away his power like that. He and Helena watched Sydney, with her straight black hair like a cape around her and her dark copper skin gleaming in a way that suggested she’d rubbed herself with a little bit of oil, have a very suggestive interchange with a shopkeeper and his wife. Each took a turn tracing the shape of her ass cheeks where they pouted out from beneath her little shorts.
“After the feast,” Sydney promised breathily, wriggling between them. “I can’t wait.”
“I know you’re interested in this,” Tyr murmured to Helena. “Being such a dedicated student of the clan and its noncompliant ways.”
Helena cleared her throat. “That couple—are they…? That camp girl looked like maybe that was about her own happiness, not his. Is he even a brother?”
“Not everybody likes comfort pussy, Helena. Some men like a lot more fire in a fuck.”
Her lips pressed together at that. Tyr realized that unlike pretty much every other person in this lodge right now, he had no idea what went on in this woman’s head. What was wrong with him that he liked that? That it made his cock much too hard?
“That’s what I want,” she said, and then she rubbed her lips together as if they’d gone dry.
“Some fire in your next fuck?” He let out a laugh. “Are you making demands already?”
“No.”
She was vibrating with tension again, and it was like a humming thing took up residence inside him, that sweet little motor that was all Helena. Taking up space that Tyr was more than a little worried wasn’t about sex at all, fire or no fire.
But he refused to think about that now. His cock had other things to do, damn it.
“No?” he asked quietly.
Across the lobby, Riordan appeared from the door that led to his rooms in the north wing, and paused. The brother was dressed for a long trek, and looked equal parts pissed off and resigned. He caught Tyr’s eye and jerked his chin. Tyr nodded. Then Riordan scowled, jerked open the great door, and stalked off into the pale northern summer light that signified the gathering night.
Helena frowned at him as the heavy door swung shut behind him. “You had to watch him go?”
“I gave Riordan an order he hated. The least I can do is acknowledge him as he follows it.” The lanterns gleamed, the electricity turned down low. It made Helena look even more beautiful to him, those solemn gray eyes and that perfect mouth in all the golden, flickering light around them. How could Tyr care what she looked like when he knew she was a liar? And yet, he did. He couldn’t seem to stop. “But that’s brotherhood business and you’re stalling. Weren’t you were telling me what you want?”
“Oh.” She swallowed. She met his gaze with a certain resolve that made his cock ache, and Tyr forgot about his brothers. His duty. That asshole Krajic whose continuing existence made Tyr a weakling. The whole ruined world besides. “I want to be a camp girl. Camp ass, comfort pussy, whatever. I want to serve. Didn’t you tell me there was an audition?”
11
Tyr threw back his head and laughed, loud enough that it drew speculative glances from more than a few of his fellow clan members as they streamed into the great hall through the huge glass doors. Loud enough that it almost—almost—made her wish she could take it back.
Helena told herself she should have expected that kind of response from him, but that didn’t really do much to ease the fluttery sensation inside of her at that sound—and the sight of him, transported like that. He was too damned beautiful, lethal and yes¸ terrifying—but impossible to look away from. And clearly, he awed his entire raider clan simply by sitting there on a bench in public. It didn’t matter how big or strong the man, how obviously competent and self-possessed the woman, they all stopped and showed Tyr deference of one sort or another. It made Helena’s tongue feel thick and unwieldy in her mouth, as if it too feared the things she might say.
He made her feel small in the way she’d thought only the stars could.
But the clan’s reaction to Tyr—and worse, hers—wasn’t the only reaction she’d noticed as they’d sat here, in full view of what appeared to be the entire raider city. She’d watched the general reaction to the camp girls, too. Helena had lived in a lot of different places on the mainland, from the well-protected kingdoms in the western highlands to the Atlanta coast where Tyr had found her. And in the smaller places, everyone tended to follow whatever rules the local leader set for appropriate behavior, because that was got whole communities through the darkness each year. But in those bigger kingdoms, there had always been women who good people whispered were noncompliant. Women who, it was suggested, did nasty things outside the bonds of their winter marriages during the long winters.
Summers were different. In the summer, everyone got drunk on all that light and warmth and especially in the north, did all kinds of things that might get them into trouble during the dark seasons. But even then, Helena could remember the whispers, the muttering, the arched brows and the gossip. The way certain women made ripples wherever they went, no matter if they were doing something as innocuous as fetching water from a well. As she’d grown older, and her winter marriages had progressed from those silly teen fumblings to more realistic interpretations of compliance, Helena had never really understood what someone could do to cause that kind of reaction in the settlements. Sex was such a mild, boring, occasionally unpleasant chore, like gathering eggs from the chickens or gutting fish. Hardly worth discussing at all, she’d always thought, much less whispering about.
She knew a whole lot better now, thanks to Tyr and the rest of his raider brothers. She had a much more detailed idea of what sort of things might have caused all those whispers in those strictly compliant settlements. The clan’s camp girls were the kind of women who would cause the good, compliant people she’d known all her life to combust where they stood in the deepest outrage—or, at the very least, mutter furiously about them as they passed.
But none of that happened here. The women flitted where they liked, talked to whoever they happened to find themselves with, without any direction or intent—and received a warm, not always sexual reception every time. There were no hard looks or appalled sniffs as they passed. Helena saw Joelle laughing with a group of non-camp-girl women as they all walked through the lobby together and into the great hall beyond, as if they were all friends. She saw Taryn with a fringed scarf wrapped over her chest and a long, flowing skirt, left entirely to her own devices as she marched through the crowd. Ranya was carried in, propped up on the heavy shoulders of a man who looked big enough to be a brother, but didn’t wear his hair in a warrior’s braids.
No one was paying them any particular attention, was the point, and when they did, it seemed positive. No one appeared to be judging them at all. And more important, to Helena’s way of thinking, no one was dragging them before the terrifying raider king and quizzing them about anything. They came and went as they pleased.
She’d had this same revelation on the dock, what seemed like a lifetime ago now. Wulf was a little too focused on her. Tyr was entirely too focused on her. But there was no need to restrict herself to Tyr and his scrutiny, surely—and it didn’t matter that her stomach sank at the thought of making herself so vulnerable to someone else. She could do it. It turned out sex was a lot more intense than she’d ever imagined. But having sex with a few raiders seemed a small price to pay if that meant she got a camp girl’s freedom to wander around beneath everybody’s radar.
There might not be a way off this island. But she didn’t have to accept Tyr’s word on that. She didn’t know why she had before—as if he didn’t have ulterior motives? She needed to find out for herself.
She had to find out for herself. And fast, before she fell into the same trap her sister had and took the respect strangers showed a
man she hardly knew as a good reason to trust him, when she knew better. No matter how she felt or the things in her that yearned for safety and imagined he could provide it, she knew better.
And before Wulf’s favorite tech head returned, to force her into more revelations she knew she shouldn’t make. Because the fact the king hadn’t executed her tonight didn’t mean he wouldn’t later.
So why not tell Tyr she wanted to be a camp girl? She should want that. It was the smart play. It was also her only play.
Tyr settled back on the bench, propping his shoulder against the wall. It made the tattoos on his broad chest all that more mesmerizing.
“Sure,” he said.
“Sure?” Helena couldn’t have heard him right.
“You want to audition to be a camp girl? Go ahead.” His dark gold eyes met hers in unmistakable challenge. “Impress me with your commitment and sweetness, and maybe I’ll inflict you on my brothers. Maybe.”
That was not really the plan Helena had been cooking up. She suspected he knew that, especially when his eyes gleamed as he looked at her. She set her teeth into something she hoped looked like a smile, and tried to look sweet.
Whatever the hell that was.
“I don’t know what that means.”
He laughed again. He reached over and grabbed her fat braid with one big hand, then tugged on it, bringing her spilling into his side. The contact with his bare skin was like plunging into the hot bath again, hot and sensual at once, almost too much to bear. And the faint sting of that tug against her scalp was like a lit fuse, setting off a chain reaction that slid through her and burned. White hot and entirely too distracting.
“It means you need to please me, Helena.” Tyr’s stern mouth crooked in the corner and made her ache. Everywhere, god help her. “That means you don’t ride yourself silly on my cock, thinking of nobody but yourself. You wait. You give. You obey.” By that last word, his voice had dropped to a growl and it vibrated inside of her, making her nipples pinch tight and that slick heat turn her pussy lush and ready. So ready. “You got that?”