Chapter 9: The Hunt Begins
The cold became everything. It lived in the stones beneath them, in the air that seeped through the ruined door, in the slow seep of blood and shock. Alexandra floated in a numb haze, aware only of the twin furnaces of pain between her legs and in her mouth. Time was measured in Ragnar’s ragged breaths beside her.
Dawn leaked into the lodge, a greasy, grey light that showed the horror in detail. The corpse of Stig already stiff in the corner. The dark, gleaming pool where Ragnar’s leg bent the wrong way. The smeared blood on the furs beneath her.
She heard a groan, a sound of pure strain. Ragnar was pushing himself up onto his elbows, his face a mask of sweat and gritted teeth. He looked at his leg, his expression dispassionate, as if assessing a damaged tool. Then his eyes found hers.
“Can you stand?” His voice was ground glass.
She didn’t know. She uncurled slowly, every muscle protesting. The movement sent a fresh wave of soreness radiating from her core. She pushed herself up to sit, the world tilting. She nodded, a faint, brittle motion.
“Good.” He scanned the room. “The splintered door bar. Bring me the largest piece. And my axe.”
She moved like an old woman. The walk to the door was five steps. It felt like a mile. She picked up a broken length of timber, solid oak, about the length of her arm. She dragged his axe over, its weight immense. He took both without comment.
What followed was a lesson in stark, brutal will. He used the seax, which had fallen from Hakon’s belt, to cut strips from his own tunic and from the bottom of her dress. He positioned the timber along the outside of his shattered right leg, from hip to ankle. His hands shook, but his motions were precise. He looped a leather strip around his thigh, above the break, and tied it to the axe haft. He used his teeth to pull the knot tight. A low, animal sound vibrated in his chest. He repeated the process below the knee, and again at the ankle. Each tightening forced the broken bone into some semblance of alignment. He vomited once, a thin, bitter stream, and kept tying.
When he was done, he was pale as milk, breathing in short, controlled bursts. The splint was crude, but it was solid. He gestured to the axe. “My crutch.”
She helped him stand. He leaned his weight on the axe, the head buried in the dirt floor for stability. He tested the weight. Agony flashed across his face, but his stance held. He was a broken tower, but he was standing.
“We cannot stay,” he stated. “They will come back with more men. Or wolves will scent the blood.”
“Where?” The word was thick through her swollen, cut lip.
“Away from here. Deeper.”
They left the lodge as the sun fully breached the horizon, staining the mist blood-red. The forest closed around them, a cathedral of grim, silent sentinels. Ragnar moved with a terrible, hobbling rhythm: plant the axe, drag the splinted leg, shift his weight, grunt. The sound was obscenely loud in the stillness. Alexandra walked beside him, her own gait stiff and wide, feeling the raw, torn flesh chafe with every step. They were a pair of crippled ghosts, bleeding into the moss.
They found the stream by sound alone—a low, chattering gossip of water over stone. It was a slender vein of clear water cutting through a bed of shale. Ragnar sank down at its edge, his back against a smooth boulder, his leg stretched out. He closed his eyes for a moment, mastering the pain.
“Come here,” he said, his voice low.
She stood, uncertain. He pointed to the water. “Clean yourself. The blood will draw flies. Worse.”
She knelt at the water’s edge. The cold was a shock on her hands. She cupped some and brought it to her face, dabbing at her crusted lip. The water in her palm turned pink. She drank, the cold clearing some of the cotton from her head. She hesitated, then gathered the torn skirt of her dress, looking at the rusty stains on her inner thighs.
His shadow fell over her. He had dragged himself closer. “Let me.”
Before she could protest, his hand was on her knee, pushing her legs apart. She flinched, a violent, instinctive recoil. His grip tightened. “Be still.”
He dipped a strip of cloth torn from his sleeve into the stream. He wrung it out. His touch, when it came, was clinical, but not rough. He washed the dried blood from her thighs, the cloth moving in slow, thorough strokes. The water was icy, but his hands were warm. He cleaned her with the detached focus of a man grooming a horse. Yet his breath hitched slightly as he worked lower, as the cloth brushed the swollen, bruised folds between her legs.
Her own body clenched, a memory of violation so fresh it was a physical presence. A small sound escaped her—a whimper.
His ice-blue eyes flicked up to hers. Something in them had changed. The cold fury was still there, but it had been joined by a darker, more possessive heat. The clinical touch shifted. He tossed the cloth aside.
His calloused fingers, still damp from the stream, parted her. She gasped. He leaned in, looking at the damage Hakon had left. His jaw tightened. A low growl emanated from his chest.
“He tore you,” Ragnar muttered, more to himself than to her. His thumb brushed over her sensitive, abraded entrance. The touch sent a jolt through her—not pleasure, but a sharp, painful awareness. “I can feel it.”
She tried to close her legs. He held her open. One finger, blunt and probing, slid into her. Just to the first knuckle. She cried out, her back arching. It was too much, too soon, too raw.
He leaned forward and covered her mouth with his.
It wasn’t a kiss. It was a silencing. It was a claim. His tongue pushed past her cut lip, invading her mouth, tasting her own blood. The metallic tang mixed with the wild, essential taste of him. She struggled for a moment, then went rigid. His finger inside her began to move, a slow, insistent penetration alongside the invasion of his tongue. He was mapping the hurt, feeling the swollen tissues, the sticky evidence of Hakon’s violation that the cold water hadn’t washed away.
He broke the kiss, his breath hot on her face. “I will make you forget his touch,” he growled, the words guttural and dark. “I will fuck his memory out of this cunt until all you know is me. Until you drip for me and scream for me and forget any other man was ever here.”
He removed his finger. Before she could process the loss, his hands were on her hips, hauling her upright. He pushed her backwards until her shoulders met the rough bark of a massive pine. The scent of resin flooded her senses.
“Put your arms around my neck,” he commanded.
She did, her movements numb. He hooked his hands under her thighs, his arms trembling with the strain of his own injury, and lifted her. Her back scraped against the bark. He positioned her, then lowered her onto him.
His cock, hard and thick, pressed against her sore entrance. She was tight, swollen, unwilling. He didn’t hesitate. He dropped his weight, forcing her down, impaling her in one brutal, unforgiving thrust.
The cry that tore from her was ripped from her very soul. It was a sound of re-breaking, of a wound freshly torn open. The fullness was agonizing, a burning stretch that consumed her. Her nails dug into the muscles of his shoulders.
He held her there, speared on him, her feet dangling. His face was inches from hers, his eyes blazing. “Feel that,” he snarled. “That is not him. That is me. I am in you. I own this. Every fucking inch.”
He began to move. He could not thrust with his hips, not with the splinted leg. So he used his arms, lifting her almost completely off him, then dropping her down again, using gravity to slam her back onto his rigid length. It was a merciless, piston rhythm. Each descent was a collision, the base of his cock grinding against her tender clit, the stretch a bright, white pain. The bark of the tree shredded the back of her dress and the skin beneath.
“You are mine,” he chanted against her ear, each word a harsh breath. “This wet, ruined cunt is mine. This mouth is mine.” He captured her bleeding lip between his teeth, biting down on the existing wound. Fresh blood welled. “This blood is mine.”
The pain began to blur, to mutate. Her body, traitorous and desperate, began to slick itself, trying to accommodate the brutal invasion. The friction became a wicked, unbearable heat. The scrape of the bark, the bite on her lip, the deep, pounding penetration—it all fused into a single, overwhelming sensation. A broken sob rattled in her chest. Her hips, of their own volition, gave a feeble jerk against him.
He felt it. A grim, triumphant sound rumbled in his throat. “There it is,” he rasped. “There’s the fire. Give it to me. Scream for me.”
His pace intensified. He was breathing in ragged gasps, sweat sheening his skin, his bad leg braced against the tree root. She was nothing but a vessel for his fury and his possession, her body a battlefield being reconquered. The coiling tension in her belly was not pleasure, but a seismic pressure, an inevitable fracture.
“Come on my cock,” he demanded, his voice breaking. “Let me feel you come. Squeeze out his filth. Milk me.”
The command, the raw, filthy words, broke something loose inside her. The pressure snapped. Her body convulsed around his invading length, a violent, clenching series of spasms that had nothing to do with joy and everything to do with primal release. She threw her head back against the tree and a raw, shattered scream poured out of her, echoing briefly in the silent woods.
Her climax triggered his. With a final, deep drive that pressed her relentlessly into the bark, he roared. It was a sound of victory and agony fused. She felt the hot, sudden jet of his seed flooding her, a searing internal claim that mixed with the lingering, violated emptiness Hakon had left. He held her there, pulsing inside her, his body shuddering with the effort and the release.
Slowly, his arms gave out. He lowered her until her feet touched the ground. Her legs buckled and she slid down the tree trunk, coming to rest at its base, a boneless heap. He followed, collapsing beside her, his splinted leg stuck out awkwardly. They sat in a heap of shared ruin, breathing the same air, coated in the same sweat and blood and pine resin.
The forest was quiet again. The stream chuckled obliviously.
After a long time, he reached out a hand and wiped a smear of blood from her chin with his thumb. His touch, now, was almost gentle. “Can you walk?” he asked again, his voice hollowed out.
She looked at him, at the man who had just used her body as an instrument of both vengeance and affirmation. The pain was a constant. But the terrifying, hollow numbness was gone, burned away by a more immediate, ownership. She gave a single, slow nod.
“Good.” He used the axe to struggle back to his feet. He did not offer to help her up. He expected her to follow. “We follow the stream. It will lead to the high ground.”
She pushed herself up, every muscle screaming. The physical remnants of him leaked from between her thighs, a warm, sticky reminder. She fell into step beside his lurching, determined form.
In the distance, carried on a shifting wind, came a new sound. Faint, but unmistakable. The deep, rhythmic thud of war drums, beating from the direction of his hall.
Ragnar stopped. He listened, his head tilted. A slow, cruel smile touched his bloody lips. “Harald is celebrating his victory,” he murmured. His ice-blue eyes gleamed with a reflected, murderous light. He looked at Alexandra, at her torn dress, her bruised mouth, her resolute eyes. “Let him enjoy the feast. The wolf is coming back to his den.”
He turned and began his torturous walk again, following the water, heading toward the sound. She walked beside him, no longer just a healer, or a captive, or a victim. She was a living testament to a debt about to be paid in blood. And she would be there to see it.
And she would be there to see it.
The stream became their guide and their tormentor. Each slippery stone threatened to turn an ankle. Each step sent fresh jolts of pain through Ragnar’s body, his breathing a harsh, rhythmic sawing in the quiet woods. Alexandra focused on the placement of her own feet, on the dull, sprawling ache in her pelvis. The sticky warmth between her thighs had cooled, but a new, familiar cramp had begun to twist deep in her belly. She ignored it. She had bled with the moon since she was thirteen; this pain was an old companion, though it had never arrived amidst such violence.
They climbed. The land tilted upward, the stream narrowing to a rushing cleft. Ragnar paused, leaning heavily on the axe, his face grey. “Here,” he grunted, nodding toward a shallow cave formed by tumbled slabs of mossy rock. It was little more than a dank crevice, but it offered concealment from the path below. “We rest. Until dark.”
She crawled into the dim space first. The air smelled of wet stone and decay. He followed, moving with agonizing slowness, dragging his splinted leg in behind him. The cave was so small they were forced to lie close, their bodies aligned on the cold, uneven ground. The drumbeats were clearer here, a faint but constant pulse thudding through the stone like a diseased heart.
Exhaustion swallowed them. When Alexandra woke, the light had changed, bleaching to the flat gold of late afternoon. The drums still beat. Her cramps had tightened, a deep, visceral grinding. She shifted and felt a hot, sudden gush between her legs, different from the slick of seed or the sting of torn flesh. It was a fuller, releasing flow. She froze.
“You’re moving,” Ragnar’s voice was rough with sleep. He was awake, watching her, his eyes reflective in the gloom.
“I need to…” she trailed off, shame heating her cheeks. It was a mundane animal function, absurd amidst the terror.
“To what?” He pushed himself up on one elbow. His gaze travelled down her body, seeing the new tension in her posture. “What is it?”
“My moon blood,” she whispered, the old village euphemism feeling foolish on her tongue here, in this tomb of stone with this man. “It has come.”
He was silent for a long moment. Then, with a practicality that stunned her, he said, “You’ll need rags.” He reached for the seax at his belt, cut a long strip from the already tattered hem of his own tunic, and handed it to her. “See to it.”
She turned from him, awkward in the confined space, and managed to fashion a crude pad, sliding it into place beneath her dress. The fabric was coarse against her tender flesh. When she turned back, he was still watching, his expression unreadable. The hot flow continued, a relentless seep. She felt it soaking through the rag already, a persistent, metallic truth.
“Does it pain you?” he asked, his voice low.
“Yes.”
He nodded slowly. Then his hand moved, not to hurt, but to settle on the flat of her belly, over her dress. The heat of his palm seeped through the wool, a counterpoint to the inner ache. “The body claims itself back,” he murmured, almost to himself. “It sheds what is not needed. It prepares.” His fingers spread, applying a gentle, steady pressure that somehow eased the cramping. The intimacy of the gesture, after everything, left her breathless.
His hand slid lower, over the mound of her, and pressed. She inhaled sharply. “It bleeds,” he said, a statement of fact. “Good.” His eyes locked on hers. “Let it bleed. Let it all out. Every trace of him.”
His other hand went to the ties of his trousers. He freed his cock, already half-hard, thick and heavy in the gloom. Her breath hitched. “Ragnar, I…”
“You bleed,” he interrupted, his voice guttural. “I know. I don’t fucking care.” He nudged her legs apart with his knee. The movement made the fresh pad shift, and she felt another hot gush. “This cunt is mine. In seed, in blood, in pain. All of it. Mine.”
He didn’t ask. He positioned himself over her, his weight braced on his arms. The broad head of his cock pressed against her, not at her sore entrance, but lower, against the seam of her body already slick with her own blood. He rubbed himself through the thin barrier of her dress and the rag, smearing the fabric with wetness. She could feel the shocking heat of him, the blunt demand.
“Take it out,” he ordered, his breath hot on her neck.
Her hands trembled as she fumbled beneath her, pulling the soaked rag free. The scent of iron and salt filled the small space. He took it from her fingers and tossed it into the dark corner of the cave.
Then he pushed her dress up to her waist. He looked down, at the dark flush of blood on her inner thighs, at the swollen lips of her sex. His jaw tightened. He spat into his palm, slicked his length, and guided himself back to her.
He entered her slowly. The stretch was brutal, compounded by the raw sensitivity and the deep, aching cramp. She cried out, a short, sharp sound. He swallowed it, his mouth crushing down on hers. He pushed deeper, past resistance, until he was fully sheathed inside her. The sensation was overwhelming—the full, invading pressure of him, the hot trickle of her own blood easing the way, the grinding pain in her womb. It was a violation of a different, more profound kind.
“Fuck,” he groaned against her mouth, his body trembling with the effort of his slow control. “So fucking hot. So tight and bloody.” He began to move, a deep, relentless rhythm. Each withdrawal was slick and messy; each thrust was a hard, claiming reunion. The sound was wet, obscene. He fucked her with a focused intensity, his eyes open, watching her face.
“You feel that?” he rasped, his pace increasing. “That’s you. That’s life. That’s your body screaming it’s alive.” He drove into her, his pelvis grinding against her clit with every stroke, mixing pain with a shocking, unwanted spike of sensation. “Bleed on my cock. Mark it. Let me wear your fucking blood.”
She was sobbing, tears cutting tracks through the dirt on her face. Her body was a confused map of signals—the debilitating cramp, the piercing fullness, the abrasive friction that began to spark something terrible and bright. Her hips stuttered, trying to retreat, but he held her firm, pinning her to the stone.
“Give in,” he snarled. His hand slid between them, his thumb finding her clit, pressing hard circles through the slick mess of blood and sweat. The dual assault was too much. Her body, traitorous and desperate, convulsed. A second climax tore through her, wracking and silent, her mouth open in a soundless scream. Her cunt clenched around him in rhythmic, pulsing spasms.
With a final, ragged roar, he buried himself to the hilt and came. She felt the hot jets of his seed mixing with the blood inside her, a hot, impossible collision. He collapsed atop her, his full weight driving the air from her lungs. They lay like that, joined, breathing in gasps. The drums outside kept beating.
When he rolled off, she bled freely onto the stone beneath her. The flow was unabated, a dark, vital stream against the grey rock. He saw it. He watched for a moment, then ripped another strip from his tunic. He didn’t give it to her. He cleaned himself with it roughly, then wiped between her legs, his touch oddly devoid of its earlier brutality. He tossed the crimson-soaked cloth aside.
“The bleeding will slow your scent,” he said, his voice back to its pragmatic rumble as he retied his trousers. “The hounds will be confused.” He fastened his axe to his belt and began the agonizing process of pulling himself toward the cave mouth. The last of the daylight outlined his ragged form.
He looked back at her, a silhouette against the dying light. “The drums are closer. Can you walk?”
She gathered her dress, feeling the warm trickle down her thigh. She nodded, pushing herself up. Her body felt hollowed out, reborn in blood and salt. “I can walk.”
“Then walk.” He turned and hauled himself out into the twilight, toward the relentless, beating sound. She followed, leaving a dark, glistening smudge on the stone where she had lain.