Page 3

CHAPTER 3

M ary

I turned to face Sven, hoping against hope that I would see some flicker of mercy in his eyes. When I met his gaze, though, I found only stern determination. His jaw was set, his steel-blue eyes hard and unyielding. He bore only a passing resemblance to the charming professor who had captivated me with his lectures. I saw a warrior, a conqueror, a man accustomed to being obeyed without question.

“I won’t tell you again, Mary,” he said, his voice a low growl. “Strip. Now.”

My hands shook as I reached for the buttons of the cute blue blouse I had worn with the vague thought of seducing him. My cheeks filled with heat at the very thought of my foolishness. My fingers fumbled, clumsy with fear and adrenaline. The fabric slid from my shoulders, pooling at my feet. I shivered in the subterranean air.

Around me, I could hear the other girls speaking in rapid French. Their voices were hushed, urgent, filled with fear and confusion.

“Does anyone know who these men are?” one asked, her voice trembling.

“Why have they taken us? What do they want?” another chimed in.

“I was just walking home from the library,” a third girl whimpered. “How did they find me?”

I strained to follow their conversation, but my French comprehension, while good enough for academic discussions, struggled to keep up with their rapid, emotional speech. I caught fragments, pieces of their terror and confusion that mirrored my own.

As I reached behind my back to unhook my bra, I heard one girl ask, “Are they going to kill us?”

The question sent a chill down my spine. I hadn’t even considered that possibility. My mind had been so focused on the immediate humiliation of stripping, on the confusing mix of fear and arousal, that I hadn’t thought about what might come after.

It’s just some twisted game , I told myself, swallowing hard. Plus, they’ve gone through so much trouble to bring us here… why would they harm us?

My bra fell away, and I instinctively crossed my arms over my chest. I could feel Sven’s eyes on me, appraising, hungry. I wanted to cover myself, to hide from his gaze, but his face—and the lingering pain in my backside—made clear that concealment wasn’t an option.

With trembling hands, I pushed down my skirt and panties in one motion, stepping out of them quickly. I stood there, utterly naked, feeling more exposed and vulnerable than I ever had in my life. The air felt thick around me, heavy with the scent of fear and an ancient, dark aroma I associated with the dungeons of medieval castles—the sensory indication of an unseen, underground world.

I heard gasps and whispers from the other girls. I realized they were looking at me, at my red hair—the hair that marked me as different, as exotic to them. I felt my face flush hot with shame, the blush spreading down my neck to my chest.

“Look at me, Mary,” Sven commanded.

Slowly, reluctantly, I looked up at him, my cheeks burning as his eyes roamed over my naked body. His gaze seemed hungry, possessive, making me feel like a piece of meat on display. Beneath the shame and fear, though, to my dismay, I felt again that forbidden thrill; something about being naked in front of him brought a stirring below my belly that I would much rather not have felt.

One of the other girls whispered something, too soft and too fast for me to understand.

“Silence!” Sven suddenly barked in French, his voice echoing off the stone walls. “Unless you want to feel the bite of the whip, you will keep your mouths shut.”

The girl who had whispered fell quiet immediately, her terrified words cut off. In the tense silence that followed, I could hear the rapid breathing of the girls around me, smell the acrid fear radiating from their trembling bodies.

Sven gestured, and several men entered the corral—one for each of the other girls. My eyes widened as I recognized one of them as a staff member at the university. What kind of… of… organization… conspiracy… was this?

Sven’s rough hands reached out and grabbed my wrists, pulling them in front of me. Coarse rope bit into my skin as he bound my arms tightly. Another of the men attached a long rope to the bindings, connecting me to the other girls. We were being strung together like animals.

The petite brunette was at the front of the line. I found myself at the very end. The girl just in front of me was taller than the rest of us, athletic, with short dark hair and defiant eyes. I admired her bravery even as I trembled.

“ C’est Camille ,” she whispered to me, turning her head over her shoulder. “ Et tu? ”

“Mary,” I whispered back, trying to take some courage from her example.

“ T’es Américaine? ” she asked, her eyes wide.

Then she cried out, I heard a sharp crack, and I saw something fast and thin and made of leather strike Camille right on her bottom. I cried out too, in surprise and fear and, worst of all, arousal at my jumbled impressions of the lash—the sight and the sound of it… the vivid red mark that now bloomed on the other girl’s pert little bottom.

“Silence!” Sven repeated.

Camille’s eyes had become bright with tears, but I thought I could still see resistance there, and I tried again to embrace that idea despite everything.

These horrible men clearly want us alive. That gives us some small bit of leverage, doesn’t it?

To my dismay, part of me refused to see Sven as horrible , and I felt disgusted with myself for it. On the other hand, I had no problem labeling the other five ‘warriors’ as assholes.

The assholes began to lead us out of the corral, tugging on the rope to keep us moving. We stumbled along, our bare feet slapping against the cold stone floor. The underground chamber opened up into winding tunnels lit by flickering torches. The dancing shadows made everything seem surreal, dreamlike.

As we walked, I tried to take in my surroundings, to look for any chance of escape. But the tunnels all looked the same—roughhewn limestone walls, damp with moisture, leading ever deeper underground. I quickly lost all sense of direction.

Finally, the tunnel opened up into a vast cavern. My breath caught in my throat as I took in the sight before me. In the center of the space sat an enormous wooden longship, its dragon-headed prow looming ominously in the torchlight. The silence felt oppressive, broken only by our ragged breathing and the soft padding of our feet.

We were led up a ramp and onto the deck of the ship. As the first girl’s foot touched the wooden planks, Sven began to speak. His voice took on a rhythmic, chanting quality that reminded me of the ancient Norse poetry he had taught us about.

“You stand now upon sacred ground,” he intoned in French, as he stood by the tiller at the stern of the longship, on a raised platform that the helmsman must have used at sea. “From this moment forward, you belong to the Sons of Odin. You are bed thralls, as countless women have been before you throughout the ages.”

My mind reeled, struggling to process his words. Bed thralls? Sons of Odin? This couldn’t be real, could it?

As Sven spoke, his words seemed to reverberate through my very bones. The ancient ship creaked beneath our feet, as if awakening from a long slumber. The flickering torchlight cast eerie shadows across the carved wooden planks, making the intricate knot work designs seem to writhe and dance.

“From this moment,” Sven continued, his voice taking on an almost hypnotic cadence, “you will serve the Sons of Odin with your bodies. You will learn the old ways, the true ways of womanhood that your modern world has forgotten.”

My heart pounded in my chest, a mix of fear and helpless, forbidden excitement surging through my veins. Bed thralls. The term conjured images of Viking warriors claiming trembling maidens, of rough hands on soft flesh. I felt my cheeks burn with shame at the way my body responded to the thoughts.

“Should you bear children during your time of service,” Sven went on, as the other men led us between the rowing benches until as the last in line I stood next to the stern-most bench, the one nearest to Sven; I couldn’t tear my gaze away from him as his eyes swept over our naked forms, “know that they will be well cared for, by you and by us. The Sons of Odin value the fruit of strong bloodlines.”

Children? The idea sent a jolt of panic through me. I was only eighteen, still a virgin. The thought of becoming pregnant, of bearing a child for these strange, dangerous men, seemed terrifying. And yet, some basic, biological part of me thrilled at the idea of being claimed so thoroughly, of my body being used for its most basic purpose.

Suddenly, Sven stepped down from the platform. His hand closed around my upper arm. With a swift, powerful motion, he pulled me away from the line of girls. I stumbled, my bound hands making it difficult to keep my balance on the gently rocking ship. He pulled me toward the nearest rowing bench.

As we moved, I saw the other men doing the same with their chosen thralls. The petite brunette who had been at the front of our line was being roughly manhandled by a burly man with a thick red beard. Camille, the brave girl who had been in front of me, was being led by the university staff member I had recognized earlier. Her eyes met mine for a brief moment, filled with a mixture of fear and determination.

We reached the rowing bench, and Sven’s grip on my arm tightened. He spoke then, but not in French or English. The words that poured from his lips were harsh and guttural, full of hard consonants and rolling Rs. It was the language I had heard him use on the phone, the one that had sounded so beautiful and mysterious then. Now, it filled me with a sense of otherness, of being completely out of my depth.

The other men responded in kind, their voices creating a cacophony of foreign sounds that echoed off the cavern walls. I didn’t understand the words, but the tone was clear—this was a command, an order to be followed without question.

With a rough shove, Sven pushed me down onto the rowing bench. I felt the rough wood beneath me as his huge hands forced me onto my belly, my bound hands stretched out in front of me.

He gripped my shoulders, positioning me with an authority that made me shudder. I could feel the heat radiating from his massive body as he loomed over me, his presence overwhelming my senses.

“Spread your legs,” he commanded gruffly in English. When I hesitated, frozen with fear and shame, he growled, “Now, Mary. Don’t make me force you.”

Trembling, I complied, letting my knees fall to either side of the narrow bench. The position left me terribly revealed, my pussy and even my anus on full display. I felt the cool air on my private lips, making me acutely aware of how wet I had become, even as terrified as I was. My face burned with humiliation.

Sven’s hands moved to my wrists, guiding them even further forward. I felt the brush of metal against my skin—an iron ring, I realized, set into the end of the bench. With swift, practiced motions, he began to bind me to it using leather thongs. The material was supple, but strong, and I knew instinctively that there would be no escape from these bonds.

As he worked, I became aware of the sounds around me. The cavern echoed with whimpers, sobs, and occasionally a sharp cry of fear or pain. I turned my head, catching glimpses of the other girls being similarly restrained. The petite brunette was weeping openly, her body shaking with each sob as the red-bearded man roughly positioned her. Camille, in contrast, was eerily silent, her jaw clenched tight as she glared defiantly at her captor.

A particularly loud wail drew my attention. One of the other girls—a willowy blonde—was struggling against her bonds, crying out in rapid French. Her captor responded with a sharp slap to her bottom that echoed through the chamber. The girl’s cries turned to hiccupping sobs.

I felt a perverse sense of pride that I hadn’t cried out like that, even as tears streamed silently down my face. But then Sven’s hands were on my hips, lifting them slightly, and I couldn’t hold back a whimper of my own.

“That’s it,” he murmured, his voice a low rumble that sent shivers down my spine. “Arch your back. Offer yourself up to your master.”

My body responded to his command before my mind could process it. I found myself bending my limbs, tilting my hips up and back. The position thrust my bottom further up into the air, my pussy even more exposed and vulnerable. I could feel my labia parting slightly, knew that Sven could see everything.

“Good girl,” he praised, and, despite everything, I felt a mortifying rush of pleasure at his words.