Chapter 3: The Rune's Pull
The ropes were a new kind of ache. They dug into the soft flesh of her breasts, chafed her bound wrists raw against her spine. The furs beneath her smelled of dog and old sweat. Lara lay still, listening to the longhouse wake around her. The low murmur of men, the clatter of a wooden bowl, the snap of the central fire. The glow from the carved post painted the inside of her eyelids.
Footsteps, heavy and familiar, stopped beside her. She didn’t need to open her eyes.
Ulf’s calloused hand gripped her jaw, forcing her face up. “You stirred up the whole spring,” he said, his thumb rubbing roughly over her bottom lip. “Made the men restless with your moaning.”
She opened her eyes. His face was a craggy map of beard and suspicion, but his eyes were dark with a hunger that had nothing to do with food. “You wanted me clean,” she said, her voice husky from screaming. “They scrubbed me thoroughly.”
He grunted, a sound of amusement. With a quick jerk of a knife drawn from his belt, he sliced through the ropes binding her chest and arms. The sudden freedom made her gasp as blood rushed back into constricted muscles. He didn’t cut the bonds at her wrists. He simply hauled her up by them, wrenching her shoulders, and shoved her forward onto all fours.
“You’re not clean yet,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “You still smell of their spunk. I’ll have my taste before the day’s work.”
Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic drum of anticipation. The ache between her legs, the raw tenderness of her ass, everything coalesced into a single, sharp point of need. She presented herself, back arched, head down, the submission a deliberate, taunting provocation.
He fumbled with his breeches. She heard the wet, slick sound of him spitting into his palm, slicking his cock. He was already fully hard, a thick, veined weight she knew well.
He didn’t guide himself. He just pressed the blunt head against her entrance, still loose and wet from the morning’s use, and shoved forward.
The air left her lungs in a sharp cry. He was bigger than the others, and he filled the bruised, overused channel with a ruthless efficiency that bordered on cruelty. There was no preamble, no building rhythm. He set a brutal, pounding pace from the first thrust, each one driving her forward on her knees, her bound hands useless for balance.
“That’s it,” he grunted, his hands clamping on her hips, fingers digging into the fresh bruises Einar had left. “Take it. Take your chieftain’s cock.”
The pain was a bright, searing line that blurred into pleasure. Her cunt, though slick, was swollen and sensitive, and each brutal stroke rubbed the inflamed nerves with a punishing friction. She pushed back against him, meeting his force with her own, the smack of their flesh echoing in the quieter hall. A few warriors watched, their expressions bored, as if this was a morning chore like chopping wood.
“Fuck… yes… harder, you bastard,” Lara snarled, the words gritted out between thrusts. She lowered her chest to the furs, raising her ass higher, giving him a deeper angle.
He groaned, his pace growing ragged. One hand left her hip and fisted in her braid, yanking her head back, arching her spine painfully. The control, the sheer physical dominance, sent a violent shudder through her. Her climax approached not as a wave but as a sudden, internal detonation. It ripped through her without permission, a convulsive clamping around his driving cock that made her scream into the fur.
“Greedy cunt,” Ulf gasped, and she felt him pulse inside her. He slammed home one final time, grinding his pelvis against her ravaged flesh as he emptied himself, a hot flood joining the cold, stale residue already inside her. He held there, panting, his weight on her back.
When he pulled out, the sensation was a messy, draining emptiness. He let go of her braid, and she collapsed onto her side, trembling, spent seed leaking onto the fur beneath her.
Ulf tucked himself away. He looked down at her, a piece of used property. “Fetch water for the cooking pots,” he said, and walked away.
The day passed in a haze of dull ache and mundane labor. She hauled buckets from the well, her wrists still bound, the rope burning with every step. Warriors groped her as she passed, squeezing her bruised tits or slapping her sore ass, but no one took her again. She was Ulf’s, and he’d marked her thoroughly. The attention was casual, ownership asserted.
Through it all, the runes on the post glowed. Their pulse seemed to sync with her own heartbeat, a slow, persistent throb that grew stronger as the afternoon light faded. The itch beneath her skin became a burn. The Viking world, its raw simplicity and brutal pleasures, had been satisfying. But the glow promised something new. A different kind of filth, a different edge of history to fuck herself against.
As evening torches were lit and the hall filled again with the smell of stew, Lara made her move. She was ignored, just another piece of furniture moving in the shadows. She crept to the central post, her body screaming with every motion.
She pressed her bare back against the rough, blackened wood. The carvings hummed through her skin. She brought her bound hands up, her fingers struggling to trace the intricate, interlocking knots. They were slick with her sweat, with Ulf’s drying cum.
The moment her fingertips completed the pattern, the world tore.
The longhouse sounds—laughter, clanging, the crackling fire—stretched into a distorted groan. The solid post became insubstantial as smoke. She was falling through a vortex of color and sensation, the smell of pine and iron replaced by a riot of unfamiliar scents: incense, sewage, blooming flowers, rotting fish.
Her body rematerialized with a jolt that knocked the wind from her.
She was on her knees on damp, uneven ground. The air was warm and humid, clinging to her skin. The sounds were a cacophony: a strangled, melodic music from somewhere unseen, the rhythmic clack of wood on wood, distant shouts in a guttural, singsong language.
She blinked, disoriented. She was in a narrow alley, walls of dark wood and white paper towering on either side. Paper lanterns cast a soft, golden glow, painting the scene in deep shadows. The smell was overwhelming—fried food, night soil, and the cloying sweetness of perfume.
And she was not alone.
A man stood frozen three paces away, holding a wooden bucket. He was small, with a shaved crown and a topknot, his simple clothing dark. His eyes, wide with shock, travelled from her face down her naked, bruised, and filthy body. Dried Viking seed streaked her thighs. The fresh evidence of Ulf’s possession leaked from her. Her wrists were still bound with the rough Norse rope.
He dropped the bucket with a clatter. It was this sound that seemed to break the spell. He didn’t shout. Instead, he let out a low, hissed exclamation and took a step backward, his hand going to the short knife at his belt.
Lara smiled. She raised her bound hands, a gesture of vulnerable supplication. The glow of the lanterns caught the piercing blue of her eyes. The itch was gone. In its place was a fresh, racing hunger.
This place was delicate, restrained. She could smell the order in it, the rigid lines. And here she was, a chaos of bruises, sweat, and foreign sperm.
“Well,” she said, her voice a raw scrape in the quiet alley. “This looks interesting.”
The man didn’t understand her words. But he understood her smile. He understood the deliberate way she shifted her knees wider on the damp earth, presenting the ruined, glistening mess between her legs. His gaze locked there, repulsion and fascination warring in his face. His knuckles were white on his knife hilt.
Lara’s smile widened. She’d find the next carving here, in this world of paper and perfume. But first, she needed to learn the local customs. And she knew exactly how to start.
“Go on,” she murmured, nodding toward his knife. “Cut me loose.”