Текст книги "Barbarian Prince"

Автор книги: Kaitlyn O'Connor

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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 15 страниц)

Chapter Five

The landing was far more horrific than the take off! Even without the porthole, she knew the moment they hit the atmosphere. The ship was buffeted by scary winds as soon as it dropped low enough and this was no gentler near the ground!

She thought they’d crashed when they landed with a scream of metal against metal and rock and a jolt hard enough to make her bite her tongue.

The barbarian Prince’s swift entrance seemed to support her worst fears and Noelle immediately threw off her safety harness with shaking hands and charged toward the door on rubbery legs.

He caught her and held her. “You cannot escape now!” he growled.

Noelle gaped at him. “We could if you’d move your ass!” she snapped. “It hasn’t exploded yet!”

It was his turn to gape at her in disbelief. He looked torn between outrage and amusement.

Thankfully, the amusement seemed to win out.

“We have not crashed, you impudent little guztier! We have landed on my world!”

Noelle wasn’t certain she believed him. There seemed to be an awful lot of screaming, cursing, and scrambling on the part of the other passengers to get out of the death trap—get off the ship.

“Ok! Fine! You win! Can we discuss this a hundred yards or so from the ship?”

He shook his head, but he released her. Noelle took the opportunity to follow the last of the other passengers as fast as she could. She would’ve outstripped them except that they were blocking her path and wouldn’t let her get around them!

And the moment she reached the exit a gale force blast of frigid air slammed into her.

Of course even getting to the door had felt like crawling through a wind tunnel, but she’d had a lot of very large people in front of her to break the force of the wind. With everyone else now galloping down the gangplank toward a herd of …. Monsters milling about in a pen … she had an unrestricted view and the wind had no impediments to scouring the skin off her face, neck, and arms.

A heavy fur was tossed over her, momentarily blocking her view, and she nearly slipped and rolled down the gangplank. Fortunately, the same thoughtful person who’d dropped the blinding blanket over her, grabbed her as she pitched forward. This time, instead of tossing her across one shoulder, the barbarian Prince rolled her up in the fur and tucked her under one arm as if he was carrying a roll of carpet.

She had mixed feelings about the situation. The fur instantly blocked the bulk of the icy wind tearing at her, protecting her both from the cold and the sense of being sandblasted. It smelled a lot like the animal it had come off of, however.

Not that she knew what sort of animal had given its all to keep her temporarily warm! But it certainly had a gamey smell to it that tainted the air and made it hard to get plain fresh air.

And being wrapped in it—or possibly because of the arm cinched around her middle—she had to struggle to breathe.

The first she knew that she was going to get up close and personal with the giant monster-beasts was when she was lifted up and then plunked down on something that was warm beneath her ass—and moving. Fortunately, since the fur she was wrapped in produced a straight-jacket effect, the Prince never completely released her as he joined her on the back of the beast.

She relaxed fractionally when she felt the bracket his arms and chest formed around her, losing her fear that she was going to hit the hard ground any moment. The skin began to loosen almost immediately when she’d settled and Noelle wiggled until she could free her arms and hands and push the piece over her head and face far enough back to get a look at her surroundings.

Most of the females appeared to be rolled in a similar hide—and hogtied and strapped across the rumps of the beasts!

Noelle’s shock at that discovery gave way to a sense of gratitude.

Unable to stand much total freedom from the fur, she coiled it tightly around herself again and covered her head and face, leaving only a sliver of an opening to view her surroundings. Through that small crack, she turned to look at the Prince. “Why … uh?”

Amusement, she thought, glittered in his eyes, narrowed against the gusting wind. He shrugged. “They fought.”

Well, that was stupid! She didn’t voice the thought, though, particularly when she didn’t honestly know if it was a stupid move or not. It did seem to her that they would have been better off to make a pretense of cooperation to lull their captors into letting their guard down, but one never knew how such a thing would turn out.

With modern era crime on Earth, it usually turned out that the longer one was able to stay alive the better chance one had of staying that way—it increased the chances of escape or rescue—but it didn’t always end well. At least as often as not, it seemed to her, if a fierce effort to escape the captor immediately was unsuccessful and the perpetrator managed to carry their victims off to a quiet place, murder, not release came after the perp had satisfied whatever desires had prompted him to commit the crime in the first place.

She supposed, though, that her current circumstances couldn’t be compared too closely to that sort of situation, and not merely because she wasn’t dealing with humans—because she didn’t think they were that different from humans when all was said and done. These people were aliens and that meant an unknown mindset, culture, and belief system, but she thought there would very likely be certain constants, that they could be counted on to feel, and exhibit, many of the same traits/emotions believed to be purely human.

Because they had discovered that the traits were purely animal—not human—and that many so called ‘lower’ animals on Earth also exhibited greed, desire, generosity, etc.

Given that, she didn’t think it was too much of a stretch to expect similar behavior, regardless of the vast differences between them.

However, this primitive society didn’t seem to have laws prohibiting this kind of behavior, and that was the main motivation for criminals to kill—the possibility of getting caught and punished. By killing their victims, they had this twisted type of logic that made it seem they were less likely to get caught and convicted—no witness, no conviction. And sometimes they were right. More often, they were dead wrong and ended up paying a life for a life.

The important thing to her health, though, was that these people weren’t concerned about retaliation and therefore had no motive to dispose of their captives.

That being the case, she thought it might not be pleasant to be a captive of these people and probably wouldn’t be, but she didn’t think they would try to kill her and short of that, she was determined to endure until she could find a way out!

Of course, she couldn’t rule out the possibility of sacrifice, but it seemed a long way to go to get sacrifices!

Which still didn’t rule it out, but given what she knew of the situation, it seemed more likely that the men had captured women for the usual purpose.

Well, one of them. They didn’t seem like the type to particularly care whether they had a woman around to keep house!

“You like that these barbarian neetars have taken you?”

Noelle felt the Prince stiffen at the comment or she wouldn’t have realized the observation was directed at her. Slowly, she twisted her head until she could see the speaker who, unlike the majority of the women, was settled before the warrior on the beast next to theirs as the Prince was holding her.

The expression on the female’s face was contemptuous so it didn’t take a lot of brain power to grasp that, whatever a neetar was, likening the barbarians to it was intended as an insult. What she couldn’t decide was why the bitch had decided to insult her! She didn’t recognize the female so she was reasonably certain she hadn’t done or said anything directly to make an enemy out of her.

She debated, briefly, whether to simply ignore her provocative statement or not—maybe pretend she didn’t understand their damned language like they’d been pretending! But it was just too provoking to ignore considering what she’d endured at the hands of the alien females. “I can’t say I’m thrilled. On the other hand, I didn’t appreciate being taken prisoner by the barbarians in your village either.”

Actually, although the long term situation was yet to be revealed, she rather thought she had been treated better by this group of barbarians.

And there was no doubt in her mind that she liked the way he looked at her far better than she’d liked the way that she-male from the village had. She couldn’t have said why she felt that way—or wouldn’t acknowledge it, at any rate. But she knew that it wasn’t just because she wasn’t sure of whether the other was male or female!

She rather thought it might be because the Prince was a damn fine specimen of male pulchritude, but she didn’t want to examine that any further. She thought it was sufficient to acknowledge that she preferred to be admired by males that she could and did admire. Lust in the eyes of a person that did not appeal was just plain scary!

The woman gaped at her. “You are as stupid as these barbarian neetars! We freed you!”

It was Noelle’s turn to gape, to feel a rush of outrage. “Freed? You call locking me and my friend in a cage freeing us?”

The female flicked a look at the man holding her, seemed to debate with herself and then continued. “You are brainwashed,” she muttered. “We were only holding you and the other until you had time to realize you were not with the males of your free will. It seems they have made you believe that you must stay, that you belong to them, but you do not need to on K’naiper. You have free will. You need not belong to any male!”

Noelle blinked at the female, digesting the statements slowly—trying to free her mind of her own personal prejudices so that she could see what the alien woman believed she was seeing. It wasn’t entirely impossible to do, but she had her own preconceived notions to deal with. “You don’t know us! And you couldn’t be more wrong about the situation! Not only were we there because we wanted to be there, we were there because we worked damned hard to be chosen to come! I guess you were judging us by your own circumstances—a common mistake, believe me! But our circumstances are nothing at all like yours!”

Drak terminated the conversation by urging the beast to move faster and they left the other female and her captor behind—left everyone else behind.

Noelle was relieved. If they hadn’t had their captors as an audience, she would gladly have pursued the conversation to discover what she could about the people while she had the opportunity. But she hadn’t been comfortable discussing the ‘barbarians’ as if they were deaf when she already knew they spoke the same language!

She didn’t try to strike up a conversation with her captor despite the fact that she seemed to recall something in the manual about hostage situations suggesting that it could be very important to establish oneself as an individual and not allow the captor to distance themselves. She didn’t think yelling at him would promote peace or help her case. And the gallop of the beast jarred every bone in her body and rattled her voice box until she could barely force sounds, other than grunts, out of it. The wind was a horror, as well, snatching her words away as if they were bits of debris and tossing them into the sky. She was surprised the warrior woman had heard her well enough to understand.

But then again, maybe she hadn’t? Maybe her mind had filled in ‘blanks’ she hadn’t actually heard, and vice versa?

She was pretty sure she hadn’t misunderstood the woman, but that wasn’t an absolute. She’d reacted to the tone and the woman’s expression, she was certain. It was possible that she and the woman had simply screamed at one another and imagined there was more to the conversation that there had been.

Unwilling to allow her mind to wander to frightening possibilities of what she was about to have to face, she focused on observing.

There was more to see than a layman might have thought. Granted, the blustery wind made it pretty difficult to see a lot, but she could see New Earth in the sky. Low on the horizon now and swathed in the snow and ice churned up by the wind, it was still visible and recognizable. She’d gotten a similar view when they were approaching their new home and she recognized it.

Actually, she’d seen this world, as well, since they’d been approaching the closest alignment of their separate cycles.

Snow drifts had piled high enough to blanket most everything, but here and there she saw rocks exposed and when she looked around she saw they were following a trail along a mountain.

She was sorry she’d checked that out! She didn’t really like the idea of hanging off the side of a mountain on top of an unpredictable animal that might or might not be surefooted!

She turned her attention to the animal in question.

Actually, it seemed surprisingly tame. Maybe subdued by the frigid temperatures?

It seemed unlikely the added weight of carrying her would overwhelm such a burly creature.

It had fur. If she wasn’t mistaken, the same fur on the skin she was wearing!

So this beast must be a primary sustainer? Beast of burden, food, clothing?

She was sorry Monica wasn’t there to analyze everything and give her feedback—for about two seconds. Then she realized that was an awful thing to wish upon her friend!

Then she began to worry about her own situation again and to worry and wonder if Monica had managed to make it back to the colony.

It was a useless exercise and just plain scary besides.

It might have taken a supreme effort to tear her mind away, however, except that they were hailed from somewhere above them and that brought her attention instantly back to her surroundings.

She discovered that they were nearing a gate of some kind. It looked like a gate that had simply been set in an opening between two towering stones—part of the mountain pass they were on. Then she realized that there was a wooden bridge in front of it and that the stones were too regular to be natural.

They were nearing a constructed structure of some kind.

It looked a lot like the ancient stone Earth fortresses that had been built during the dark ages.

Her belly instantly knotted with fear.

Apparently, her tension immediately communicated itself to her captor. His arm tightened around her. “My intent is not to cause harm,” he said in a low, rumbling voice.

It was almost reassuring, but there was a voice in the back of her mind screaming, ‘Don’t believe him! He captured you, didn’t he?’

Drak was thoughtful after he had heard the conversation between his captive, Noelle, and the village woman. Primarily, he was struggling to envision the sort of world she had come from. He kept picturing scenes from his childhood when his mother had been alive, but she had never been completely resigned to staying on Aiper with his father, let alone glad to. She certainly had not wanted to be chosen by his father!

His father had taken a sort of perverse satisfaction in that fact and spoken often and fondly of how hard she had fought him. She had been a warrior and had damned near skewered him. It had taken considerable skill on his part to subdue her even enough to bestow the mating kiss needed to claim her.

For his part, he had always found that necessity distasteful. It was a necessary evil—and something the women of K’naiper expected. They would make damned sure the male was worthy of reproducing before they would allow his seed near their own by fighting with the last ounce of their strength to prevent the mating.

But he had known how his mother felt about it and he had imagined each time he took a woman that that woman had felt as his mother had—that he was a necessary evil in order for her to produce strong offspring that she could take joy in.

The mothers of his sons had hated him.

His mother had taken joy in him, had looked upon his every achievement with pride. She had smiled at him with love. She had even, once upon a time in his dimmest memories, soothed his hurts with a gentle touch, comforted him with arms that held him and made him feel safe.

All he had been able to see—or to think about—when he had taken women to assuage his manly needs and breed heirs for him was that they hated him and every moment of it. They endured only for the sake of capturing his seed.

That was a good part of the reason he only had three sons. He did not always take part in the chase. He always led the raids but, as often as not, he focused on overseeing the collection of needed supplies rather than claiming a woman. And when he claimed a woman he did not always give her his seed. It might not be as satisfying to withdraw before he had spilled his seed, but it ensured he was not overrun with heirs.

And he only had three sons to hate him for taking them from their mother to teach them what was expected of them as his offspring.

And yet Noelle claimed that she had chosen to be with the men of her tribe.

Did that mean that Noelle would accept staying—supposing he wanted her to? Did it mean there was some possibility of convincing her to shift her allegiance to him?

Or did it mean there was no chance at all of anything of the sort? Did it mean she had given her allegiance to some male in her own village and would fight him at every turn?

The fortress bore a striking resemblance to what Noelle recalled of the design of the ancient castles on Earth. But then again they had been built by people with virtually the same physical characteristics—just mammothly scaled—and the purpose was undoubtedly much the same, as well. All things considered, it shouldn’t have been a great surprise that it was so similar in design.

Despite the frigid temperatures, they were greeted by a startling number of men once they’d been allowed inside the gates. It became abundantly clear almost at once that the man who’d identified himself as Drak, Prince of Alvarone clearly hadn’t been exaggerating his importance but rather downplaying it.

Uneasiness slithered through her as memories flashed through her mind of behaving as if she was his equal or even superior! She was lucky she’d lived this long!

Not that she’d ever had the chance to rub elbows with anyone of political significance or wealth and privilege, but she knew the psychology of those kinds of people. There were always exceptions to every rule, but, in a general way, they tended to be megalomaniacs—relishing power purely for the sake of subjugating all the people around them. They were narcissistic and inclined to become violent and vindictive toward anyone who didn’t give them ‘their just due’.

She considered that thoughtfully as the Prince dismounted and then reached up to help her down.

So maybe, despite his position of importance, this man wasn’t extreme in those personality traits?

Surely he would’ve behaved hostilely toward her if he had been?

He had seemed to get angry when she’d responded sarcastically, but then most anyone took exception to sarcasm. That certainly wasn’t proof that he was a … tyrant. And the men who’d come out to meet them seemed to be genuinely pleased to see their leader had returned in one piece.

She didn’t get a lot of chance to observe. She never actually touched the frozen ground. Drak tossed her across his shoulder like a sack of grain and jogged inside with her. She managed to push the fur back far enough to get a little peek as they entered the main area of the fortress. Here again, she saw strong echoes of what she recalled of medieval Earth. The main door seemed to open into a short hallway and that opened into an enormous room that seemed to be a general gathering area—and actually a general living area. There were tables pushed against the wall and benches and rolls of what looked like bedding materials. There two enormous open fire places and a fire in both—and spits being turned in both that had huge chunks of blackened meat on them.

The smells were enough to knock her socks off!

The first impression that the place was really warm was banished very quickly. The walls blocked the gales of wind whipping through the courtyard outside, but there were still breezes finding their way in that were strong enough to ruffle clothing and hair when it puffed in.

That made her wonder just how horrific the smells would be if not for the excess ventilation the place boasted.

The smell of urine was in the air—and dung. She hoped that was from the animals roaming the great hall—the four legged ones rather than the two legged ones. She supposed the beasts were used to hunt other beasts. They were hideously ugly things to her mind, almost like a cross between a cat and a dog and unflattering to both.

There was a wet/unwashed beast smell emanating from all of the furs brought in from outside as they began to thaw—and probably clinging to everyone from the animals they’d ridden for that matter.

The smell of burning wood and roasting beast were the only things she smelled that weren’t offensive. Those permeated the area and were almost enough to overwhelm the stench of the place with something far more pleasant—but not quite.

Noelle’s stomach growled in spite of the eye-burning fumes of stink—because she hadn’t eaten anything since she’d been captured and not much for days before that. Her stomach might be roiling over the unpleasant odors, but it had still picked out the smell of cooking food!

“Han!” her captor bellowed, loud enough she jerked all over in reaction. “Bring me food! And get some people and clean this stinking mess up down here! It smells worse than the stables!”

Amen brother Ben!

Not that she’d actually been in the stables, but she couldn’t imagine them smelling worse!