Sam looked down at the floor. His arms felt numb from the hours he had been sitting here. His arms were stretched out, chains ran from his wrists to the walls to his left and right. The house he was in was still better than the cave in which they had held the prisoners and thus him before. It was at least sheltered from the wind, the floor was covered with furs and a few candles stood in the room and allowed him to see at least part of his surroundings.
Perhaps he should have listened to the others who had labeled the expedition to the northern climes as suicide. The route they had planned was actually deemed safe, but didn't seem to be. Perhaps they had also gone off the trail due to the heavy snowstorm, he didn't know. In any case, the next morning they were taken by surprise by some men and women armed with axes and bows and arrows and taken to their little village. It wasn't exactly as if he had been able to see much of his surroundings, as whenever he hesitated he had felt the point of a small dagger in his ribs. A silent threat to behave. In the end, they were locked in a cave, with a steel grate in front of it, so that there was not a single possibility to escape.
It had been around noon when two men dragged him out of the cave and took him to the hut. A sturdy looking house, with several rooms. It probably belonged to the leader of the group, but he had not even seen him until now. The two men had dragged him up the stairs, forced him into a kneeling position and then fixed his arms with the chains.
In the meantime, he had been sitting like this for hours. While he had invested far too much energy in freeing his arms at the beginning, he now barely managed to move his fingers. Clad only in a linen shirt and trousers, it was still quite cold, and the sparse candles were of little help.
He remembered hearing voices in the main room downstairs a while ago, though he hadn't understood a word. The language of the northern tribes was foreign to him. The words sounded rough partly like the growling of animals. For quite a while, however, it was silent again. From outside he heard only the rush of rain and the distant rumble of thunder.
His eyes closed for a moment until he heard footsteps on the stairs. His heart automatically began to beat faster and when the footsteps stopped at his door, his eyes fixed only on the wooden door.
Even with his heart beating up to his throat, he tried to sit up as best he could. His stiff shoulders and arms protested under his efforts, but he didn't rest until he was sitting at least halfway up. His chin was thrust forward and determination in his gaze.
The door opened, but instead of one of those cold-looking Northmen, a slimmer silhouette entered the room. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a wolf curl up in front of the door before it closed and he was alone with a woman. Her hair was wild and braided into several pigtails, her face painted with the warriors' symbols, and she wore several skins and leathers wrapped around her body. She eyed him out of black-rimmed eyes and freed herself from her long cloak before walking towards him, a dagger in her hand.
Sam waited for her to ask him something, but she still just stared at him. He tried to keep up his facade, but when she raised the dagger, he swallowed hard. If she wanted to kill him, why had they brought him here? Why to the tribal leader's rooms? She raised the dagger. "Wait!" he shouted. The woman paused and eyed him. Did she understand him? "I...I want to talk to your...chief," he brought out. The corners of the woman's mouth twitched imperceptibly. She placed the tip of the dagger over his heart and drew a slow line across his chest and neck to his chin. "Stand in front of you." she returned, pushing his chin up a little so he could look her in the eye. She wasn't joking, and despite the heavy accent, he understood her relatively well.
"You?" it blurted out of him without thinking. The woman's ice-blue eyes narrowed and she took the dagger from his chin and straightened up. "What's so surprising about that?" she asked as she disappeared from his sight at a slow pace and walked behind him. As she did so, she ducked under the chains stretched across the room so smoothly that it reminded him of a predator. Sam remained silent. He didn't know how to respond. The woman put her hand on his back and with one quick movement of her hand she had cut through the thin fabric of his shirt. "Answer!" she demanded as her warm hand traveled over the hypothermic skin on his back. He shuddered. It was probably better not to lie to her. "Women...in the South...don't fight," he explained slowly. She didn't ask further. Not being able to see what she was doing behind him made him nervous. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up and he got goosebumps as her hand moved further up, over his neck and into his hair. The feeling would have been almost pleasant had his head not reminded him that the woman behind him was an armed savage. Her hand wandered through his thick hair for a moment. Her fingernails left their marks on his scalp and he closed his eyes briefly before his head was pulled back with a firm jerk. The sudden pain and unnatural position of his entire upper body only made the pain of sitting for hours more extreme.
He swallowed hard and took several deep breaths while the woman leaned over him and held his gaze. By the dim light of the candles, it was as if the fire was reflected in her eyes. Her features were illuminated by the light and he was quite sure at that moment that he had rarely seen a more beautiful woman, even if she was more dangerous than some men he had met so far. She leaned down a little further toward him while holding his hair in a firm and unyielding grip. "What were you and your people doing in our territory?" she whispered against his lips.
Sam closed his eyes to concentrate. His thoughts were just evolving in a direction where they had no business being. "Nothing...We...We were just passing through." Again he felt the cold steel of her dagger against his neck. This time, however, it applied a light pressure to his skin. He noticed something warm running down his neck and his heart began to race again, yet he could hardly take his eyes off the woman above him. "Is that the truth?" Sam felt the warmth of her body against his back. The fur she wore touched the his bare skin and once again goosebumps set in. By now, the cold he had felt before had given way to a heat that made it hard for him to even concentrate on what this woman wanted from him.
Not a word passed his lips, instead his heartbeat quickened and his breathing became erratic just as the tip of her dagger went wandering again, moving across his chest and down his stomach. Meanwhile, she continued to cut his shirt, but by now he completely didn't care. The young woman's gaze averted from his eyes and instead continued to travel down his body. Above his waistband she stopped her movements and the cool steel disappeared from his body as well as the warmth in his back. Sam wanted to use the brief moment to collect himself again, but didn't get the chance as the woman was already crouching in front of him moments later, gripping his chin tightly.
"I want an answer." she murmured to him, purposefully pressing her knee between his legs, right against his erection, which he could hardly explain to himself. He pressed his lips together ironically and tried to turn his head away, but she wouldn't let him. She kept forcing him to look at her. There was a shadow over the blue in her eyes that he had never seen before in any woman. The pressure of her knee grew a little stronger. "It...it's the truth," he brought out breathlessly.
She gave him another searching look before releasing his chin but otherwise not moving an inch. "Why don't you just untie me.... We can talk about anything." A breathless moan came from his lips as she suddenly clasped his penis with her hand through his clothes. "I have more of a feeling you want me to untie you for something else," she murmured to him. Her hand kept moving, which didn't exactly help him keep his temper. "No.", he pressed out breathing heavily. No matter how good her touch felt, he didn't want to make her feel like he was a threat once she untied him.
He didn't understand himself why his body reacted to her like this. He had never seen this woman before. When he looked into her eyes again, he could see this unknown wildness in them and again he felt heat racing through his body to the exact spot where her hand still lay, torturing him further.
He gritted his teeth and involuntarily moved his hips to accommodate her movements. Another moan escaped his lips. His previously almost numb arms pulled at the chains that held him in a desperate attempt to get free. However, it didn't help. He couldn't escape her, was at her mercy, and that thought only made that fire burn inside him even more. "What is your name?" she asked. Through the veil of his arousal he almost didn't hear her, but this time he hurried to answer her. "Sam." he moaned. She moved her hand faster, gripping his erection tighter through the fabric of his pants, and leaned closer to him again. "I think you're going to stay here a while, Sam." she whispered against his ear as he shuddered again. He was so close to coming. Sam could already feel his muscles tightening. At least until... her hand suddenly left his body. The woman stood up and turned away from him to place her dagger on one of the small tables, while he looked at her in complete amazement and dissatisfaction.
"What...?" he asked breathlessly. "You're still a prisoner, Sam. If you want something from me . ...", she turned back to him and looked at him with a slight grim smile. "You'll have to earn it."
Sam was speechless. This woman was the devil, he was very sure of that by now. She walked up to him once more and loosened the chains a bit, allowing him to bring his arms down at least a little. But it would hardly be enough to touch himself, as he had to realize. The woman turned to the door after that and seemed to want to leave before he called after her. "Wait!" She looked over her shoulder at him. "What's your name?" She tilted her head briefly. "Rigani." she answered him. Sam looked to her as she opened the door and the wolf in front of it automatically raised his head and came to her side. "I'll see you in the morning, Sam." There was a somber promise in her voice and the way she looked to him made his breath catch, but he couldn't find the words to say anything back before she disappeared.
This woman would surely cause him much bigger problems soon.
