Chapter 6: Meet the Family

I sneaked through the stronghold, my dignity hanging by a thread, trying to get out without the whole camp seeing me naked.

“BROTHER!”

The courtyard fell silent as the booming shout rang out. In the awkward pause that followed, I felt two dozen eyes turn my direction, not even giving me time to wince or pretend I was some other naked idiot. When the laughter started, I knew exactly which end of Bjorn’s oversized house I’d been on.

“I was hoping you’d be half as much man as your friend Felix. He was bold enough to stand at my father’s side!” The woman’s voice was young, fierce, and angry as all hell.

“Guess I don’t like Bjorn’s front as much as you do,” I called back, praying my bravado covered more than my left hand was managing.

Sigrid’s voice was thick with the northland accent, heavy with scorn, and loud enough to carry across the stronghold with a whisper to spare. “And now he shows himself. Perhaps you are Skullcrusher enough to take our trials after all!”

The barbarians placed bets on my failure, their massive hands slapping me on the back, on the shoulders, on the ass. “Little rabbit’s going to die before first round!” a gray-bearded mountain of a man called out, cackling as I stumbled.

“Hope you run faster than you fight,” a short-haired girl bellowed as she dumped a pitcher of beer on me.

Sigrid laughed loudest of all, grabbing me by the shoulder and holding me fast. “Thought you’d slink away, did you?” she said, her grip as hard as her father’s.

“No,” I lied. “I just need to—”

“Yes!” She cut me off, her grin impossibly wide as she steered me back into the mob. “First, you prove yourself as worthy challenger. After that you can beg Bjorn for another chance to run away!”

I opened my mouth, then shut it. If there was a response to that, it wasn’t the kind I was any good at making. I figured my odds of sneaking away were better if I waited for the excitement to die down. But with each new shout, my chances got worse.

At the edge of the crowd, I caught a flash of black and violet. Felix’s wide-eyed expression almost matched mine as he called out over the mob. “The smart money’s on him hiding for a week,” he said, doubling over in anticipation of my imminent humiliation.

“You mean again,” a woman growled, slapping my bare ass for punctuation.

Felix flipped a silver to the gray-bearded man who was running the bets. “Five on Sam failing,” he called. “Ten if he cries.”

“Felix!” I yelled.

“It’s an investment,” he yelled back.

The crowd’s laughter grew as loud as the skull-braided behemoths in the middle, but Felix’s words burned brighter. The short, blonde bastard had no right calling me out like that, not when I was the one who’d carried the whole Rings fiasco in my smallclothes until I bet it away. With Sigrid and her crew rounding on me, it was starting to feel like a deliberate setup, one they’d all known about while Felix hung back, getting the better end of the bargain.

“Bigger men than you have quit,” Sigrid said, pulling me close enough to get a good look at both her powerful arms and her crooked, mocking smile. “Will you prove yourself before our gods?”

“What exactly do you mean by ‘prove’?” I asked, hoping to stall until the barbarians got bored or I thought of something clever to say.

She leaned down until we were face to too close, the heat of her breath warm on my skin. “We start with wrestling,” she said, her voice more invitation than threat.

“Maybe,” I said, seeing a glimmer of hope. “I’m still recovering from—”

“Mud wrestling!” she interrupted, the invitation turning to challenge, the challenge to taunt, and the taunt to roar as she addressed the entire stronghold. “Is the southlander man enough?”

“Sigrid is being kind,” a barrel-chested giant shouted, loud enough to drown out my pause and anything I might say after. “My third wife started with knives.”

“I am too young for a fourth,” Sigrid called back, the laugh on her lips at odds with the impatient gleam in her eyes.

I stood on tiptoe, hoping to make myself heard. “Do I get points for style?” I yelled.

Sigrid tilted her head, deciding if I was worth chasing. “If you last long enough for me to laugh!” she said.

I didn’t, and she didn’t.

“Well,” I said, before either of us could change our minds. “It sounds like fun.”

As soon as the words left my mouth, I regretted them. With a noise halfway between cheer and battle cry, Sigrid thrust her fist in the air. Her pack followed suit, surrounding me on all sides and taking me with them as they sprinted toward the stronghold’s central pit. I was caught up in the excitement and in a headlock that made me worry about my life even more than my clothes.

Before I knew it, I was plunged to the ground again. I was face to face with Sigrid, her fists on her hips and her challenger’s smile as unyielding as the palisade around us.

She let the crowd grow quiet before calling out. “Our little southlander has something to prove,” she shouted, her eyes on me and my less-than-stellar prospects. “Will he earn our respect, or his place as family pet?”

Felix’s encouraging “We’ll feed you either way!” was the last thing I heard before Sigrid pointed at me with one hand, at the mud pit with the other, and sealed my fate with the certainty of a northlander giving a hard “YES.”

She had me in the pit in a heartbeat, stripped down to almost nothing, mud splattered across her broad chest. She charged like a bull, flattening me to the ground in a breathless instant. For all I knew, the only rules were: be naked, get dirty, try not to die.

And in all that noise, confusion, and ground-rushing impact, I heard a loud and perfect and completely sincere: “YES!”

Felix.

The most uncomfortable thing was that for once, I didn’t want it to end.

“Can’t run now, brother!” a voice jeered, loud enough to make my ears ring.

Felix’s laughter rang out above the crowd, a melodic counterpoint to Sigrid’s taunting grunts as she bore down on me. “Catch her off guard!” he called, not bothering to hide the crack of amusement in his voice.

She feigned surprise and let me get back to my feet. I feigned competence and hoped I’d grow into it, using every ounce of slippery resolve to keep my balance and my erection as I tried squaring off with the northlander. I slipped, fumbled, and tried not to shout when Sigrid crashed into me with the full force of a berserker looking to win a fight or a lover, but not caring which.

She grinned as she pinned me to the ground, her face close to mine, her breath hot and fast, her fingers gripping my wrists while the rest of her held me firmly in place. “I thought you would be less,” she said, sounding impressed or disappointed. I had no idea which.

Before I could answer, she shifted her weight, releasing me long enough to get my hopes up and my hand free. It did me more good than either of us expected, and I grabbed her around the waist as she moved, catching her in the same way she’d caught me.

The barbarians gasped, probably more shocked than I was. “Grew himself some balls!” the biggest of them shouted.

“Hope they’re not just mud!” another giant bellowed.

I wasn’t sure, but they probably were.

Sigrid twisted, and for a moment I thought I’d have her on her back. That moment stretched out longer than I would have guessed. Long enough for the crowd to go quiet. Long enough for Sigrid’s grin to flash uncertain and turn a little too close to something else. Long enough for her to lose her balance, hit the mud, and come up spluttering.

I nearly went hard just seeing it.

When I got a better look at her, I really did.

Sigrid leapt to her feet, wiping her eyes and flicking mud from her auburn hair. For half a heartbeat she glared, not quite sure if she’d been insulted or tickled. For the next heartbeat she laughed, loud and genuine and as powerful as the rest of her. The crowd went wild with her, and in their chaos and shouting, I almost thought I had a chance.

“You like it when I play easy!” Sigrid called, the words half taunt and half promise as she waded toward me with a grin on her lips and determination in her step. She let me scramble up again before diving at me, fast and flawless and stripping away my expectations along with the little chance I’d gotten.

“Careful, Sam!” Felix’s voice was less of a taunt and more of a tease as he saw what was coming. I didn’t, and it was me.

I tripped, skidded, and flailed like a fish on ice, not sure if I was slick or just unlucky. The world turned upside down, inside out, and suddenly muddy enough to stop any further thought. The last thing I saw before she was on me was Sigrid’s wide smile and the spark of something surprising in her eyes.

This time, there was no doubt.

Sigrid used the same move I’d gotten her with, only on purpose. She held me to the ground with a strength I’d never felt and couldn’t escape. She pinned my arms to my side, but not before one hand brushed up against her smooth, taut, surprisingly exposed skin. My cock was hard and trapped in the mud beneath me, and when she straddled me and flexed, she stopped, shifted her hips once, and I knew she’d felt it.

Face down in the muck, her thighs clamped around my waist and her body locked over mine, I wasn’t sure which would explode first: my head, the crowd, or something else entirely.

She was hot, too, hotter than the work explained, like I was wrestling a stove lid through the mud, and face down under her I heard Grimble squeaking in the storeroom all over again: “Without them on her, Sigrid will tear the camp apart!”

As they blindfolded me and put an axe in my hand, I remembered when this day was nothing but a terrifying blur in my imagination. At least in the pit I’d been aware of which direction to scream. Here, they spun me until my whole world was dizzy, dazed, and several sizes too large.

I staggered like a drunk at last call, except the drunk had his clothes on and knew the way to the nearest outhouse. Me? I barely knew which way was up, let alone which way to throw. For all I could tell, the targets were more than the wooden disks Sigrid pointed out. I heard the crowd get rowdy whenever someone took a hit: sometimes on the targets, usually on me, occasionally on some other poor bastard who’d stepped into the path of a wild shot.

The thick, wet rag tied over my eyes didn’t help. When the crowd spun me until my balance came loose and the last of my coordination dropped to the floor, it took everything I had to stay upright.

The handle of the axe felt awkward and heavy in my hands, and I missed the target by more feet than Grimble had height. The only thing I hit was more panic, and the only points I got were the ones other people gave themselves when they managed to dodge.

“This one gets excited,” a voice said. “Hasn’t made it to the target yet!”

“Your last woman went easy!” the shield-maiden howled, shoving the barrel-chested warrior to her side and biting her knuckles as she watched me struggle.

The first toss was a shambles. So was the second. By the time I reached the last, they were using “shambles” to describe things that weren’t half as bad.

When I heard my third axe hit a tent post and felt it ricochet into the opposite direction, I braced myself for a long day of flying blades and never-ending, never-hitting trials. Sigrid stood back with undisguised interest, and if her warriors hadn’t roared at each new misfire, I would have worried that she found my technique lacking.

“Too big!” Felix shouted, wiping tears from his eyes as I took another throw.

The worst part was how the blindfold kept coming loose, always when I didn’t need it. I pretended not to notice, and the rest of the camp pretended right along with me.

Once the rag slid far enough for me to see across the yard. Helga stood by the long-house wall with her arms folded, the same woman I’d watched ride a gnome like a pony. She wasn’t cheering, laughing or drinking. She just watched me the way Ashara watched a lock she hadn’t decided how to open, and she tracked every throw. A prickle crawled between my shoulder blades. I put it down to being naked and paranoid and went back to missing.

I’d misjudged the distance of my last throw, putting more into it than I thought possible. When the laughter fell to a gasp, I braced myself for impact.

I’d pegged a barrel of ale, which then sprayed into the surrounding crowd. Several dozen tanks were filled and several barbarians were drenched.

Sigrid walked over, looked at the barrel, looked at me, and looked at the barrel again. The crowd had gone quiet enough to hear it drip.

“That was the mark,” she said, like the words cost her a tooth. “Bjorn’s ale. Nobody told you.”

“Nobody told me,” I agreed.

“It counts.” She jerked her chin, which from her was a medal. “You passed the axes, southlander.”

Hauled straight from the axe line, strapped to a wooden frame and bellowing with laughter, I wondered if this was how Sigrid planned to conquer me. I hadn’t known the northlanders considered giggling part of the trials, but then again I didn’t know tickling was an advanced torture technique either. The bloodcurdling shrieks made it sound like they were pulling my fingernails out, not finding new spots to send me into humiliating fits.

The women were merciless. Barbarians like the rest but smoother than Sigrid, especially in how they wore me down with their hands and voices. Not even my increasingly dire screams and desperate bucking convinced them to stop. At first, I worried about Sigrid. If this was her idea of conquering, she’d be pretty disappointed by the sight of her prey squealing, wriggling, and nowhere near a worthwhile challenge. After that I thought of Felix, imagining his perfectly structured laugh and his perfectly shaped ass as I bucked against the straps in breathless delight.

“Thought you were worth more!” one of the women shouted, twirling a long, multicolored feather in the air before brandishing it at my feet. The first flick made me gasp, the second made me scream, and by the third I was giggling with full-force surrender.

My biggest mistake was pretending this was my biggest mistake.

“Or does he want more time?” Sigrid’s second in command was merciless, joining the others as they took to my bare skin with taunts, threats, and surprises that kept me on edge, and my cock stood up hard as a spike for the whole yard to see. One feather found it, and every muscle I owned locked against the straps.

Sigrid watched with enough intensity to surprise me. Her eyes went to my cock and stayed there, and the heat I felt whenever they lingered made it twitch against my stomach.

This time, their worst came as I was strapped to a frame, taking long ticklish seconds to remember the words of a northland ballad. This time, Sigrid taught me a poem she said was meant for real warriors. If she’d told me it was about surrendering in unmanly giggles, I’d have believed that, too.

I strained against the leather straps, but I strained even harder to keep from losing it completely. My last attempt at the poem, and possibly life, went from half-hearted threat to gasping giggle to high-pitched cry. “Stop!” I yelled, which translated to “keep doing that” in whatever cruel and sexy language they spoke.

“Wants to breathe or give up?” one of them called, half as wide and twice as unrelenting as her Skullcrusher brothers.

I wanted to give up and so much more, but I wasn’t sure which I’d get.

The tickling stopped, and so did I.

“Not entirely worthless,” Sigrid said. She caught me off guard and almost literally off my feet as she released the bindings. Her eyes lingered longer than her words, suggesting both had more behind them than I guessed.

I wished I was better at deciding what I wanted.

Felix stood by my side, catching his breath but still laughing enough to make sure I knew he’d collected on the crying, if not the failing.

“Not a prisoner this time,” he said, his voice and his hands brushing lightly against me.

Felix whispered, barely loud enough to hear above the yard. “Think the little rabbit’s not running away?”

I tried answering, but Sigrid’s gaze from across the yard said enough.