“What the fuck,” I mutter to myself, reaching up to rub one of my temples, but I’m restrained by the plant-like rope pulling my wrists back.
All alluring women.
All women my men would love to sink their dicks into.
Pure. Clean. Angelic.
But since I know better, the last couldn’t be further from the truth. They are masked with beautiful features but have the hearts and minds of merciless killers.
I’m yanked to my feet as they all stand united in front of me, viewing me like an animal that just ate half their cattle.
It only makes me straighten my spine, ready for whatever plans or actions they may inflict on me.
“Intruder,” the white-haired woman proclaims, taking one step closer. The longer she stares, the more her milky brows furrow.
I continue to stay silent because, well, she never asked me a question.
Another steps to her side, the woman with black hair and even darker eyes. The contrast between the two, the light and the dark, isn’t lost on me.
Neither is their curiosity because our people have had very limited, if any, interactions with each other. We don’t roam this part of the sea much, keeping to the northern lands to take what we want. But my father wanted what was here, hence why I’m standing in front of four women who look bemused, wicked, and hungry.
“He’s part of a colony,” the pink vixen announces with rose-colored eyes and tan skin. She moves, rounding her two fellow friends, and continues toward me. “A warrior.”
“What else?” the white-haired woman asks.
“He came with many men.”
“To kill us all,” snaps the blue featured female, clutching her hands into fists at her side.
“Silence,” White commands, holding up a single hand to seize any further chatter. “What else do you see, Isolde?”
“He has a woman,” she continues, her attention slowly falling down the length of my body, and I stiffen my spine. Then she wrinkles her dainty nose. “Who dresses like a man.”
My eyes narrow. Edda wasn’t unattractive, but she wasn’t like the creatures standing before me either. She was an amazing woman, would make a good mother and wife to any man lucky enough to have her.
Which was what my father wanted Edda to be for me. I just wasn’t fully sold on the idea yet.
“He’s too big,” the blue one drones, and as soon as she speaks the words, a sudden rush of fury sprints through my body.
It sends a wave of exhilaration rippling along after it, and I can’t stop it before my feet are pounding the slated floor, right for the woman in white.
My irises aim in on her petite frame as my right hand goes to my hip to grab my blade, but I’m still tied.
I don’t need it—my head will do just fine.
I’m at least four steps away before the rage is sucked out of me. Calmness replaces my animosity as I stand dazed and breathless from the intensity of it.
What the fuck...
“Stop playing with him, Nesrine,” my target decrees, still staring at me. I glimpse over to the woman highlighted in black, breaking from her companion and strutting toward me with confidence announcing every move of her hips.
“A woman dressed as a man?” she repeats, beginning a slow circle around me. “How does that work exactly?”
“She’s dirty,” the noisy and all-too-knowing woman, Isolde, continues. “Tall but skinny.”
“Skinnier than you?”
She shakes her head, a piece of pink hair falling over one of her eyes. “No, but she’s pretty.”
The soft graze of fingertips brush my lower back, and I fight the urge to flinch and snap at the dark, alluring Siren that’s circling me like prey. Taunting me with the caress of her skin along the fabric of my shirt.
“Pretty, you say?” Nesrine wonders then drops her voice. “I’d like to see what that looks like. I can’t imagine these strong arms grasping on to a woman who isn’t more than dazzling.”
“He doesn’t like it when you talk about her,” Isolde bleats again, brushing her bottom lip with her tongue. A satisfied quirk playing off her mouth.
“I wouldn’t want to talk about her either,” Nesrine digresses. “Such a beautiful man to drop down before a woman who isn’t just as lovely.” She stops in front of me, her dark eyes leveling with my chest as she peers up, shards of silver now glimmering in them like the stars that twinkle in the sky.
Lifting her chin, her lips twist into a smile. “But maybe that’s your problem. You lay with humans.”
I grit my teeth, remaining silent because I won’t be giving answers to any of their feeble-minded questions. Nor will I play into whatever little mind game she’s attempting to act out.
“He isn’t going to answer any of our questions,” Isolde rattles off matter-of-factly.
“What do you do read minds?” I snap, my eyes boring into her.
So much for that.
I can’t help the incapacitated feeling of being surrounded by women who have some sort of mental advantage over me because I can’t fight that. I can’t stop them unless my hands can be wrapped around their throats to get them to cease prying into my brain for their own personal use.
Isolde looks unaffected, giving a slight shrug of her shoulders. “Something like that.”
I glare at her. “Then read this one, you little—”
“I knew he’d be positively delicious,” Nesrine beams, rising and falling on her toes like a small child. “He looks like too much man to be easily intimidated.”
“Let’s just kill him and get it over with,” the snow-colored one suggests.
“We don’t make any decisions without all of us here,” her twin voices. “You know that.”
“And I also know that this is a waste of time,” she hisses. “He’s a Viking, they don’t speak.”
“Relax, Atarah,” Nesrine exhorts, taking her own liberties and touching my forearm. “There are always ways of making a man talk.”
I jerk away. “Don’t touch me.”
“How about shutting him up?” Atarah croons, raking her hand through her colorless hair. “We’ve wasted enough—”
“Not until we’re all here,” repeats the blue woman.
“I heard you, Brylee. Do we need to take a vote now on clamping his mouth shut?”
Nesrine grips my shirt and yanks me forward, my chest knocking into hers. But she doesn’t budge from the impact, standing still as a stone wall.
“We could have a little fun while we wait,” she offers, tone dripping with ideas I’m sure I’m unwilling to participate in.
Looking back down at her, raven hair cups her face twinned by eyes that are bottomless pools of darkness. Her ample breasts are barely covered in an equally dark-colored top that cuts down between the valley of them.
She is every man’s fantasy that would quickly turn into a nightmare. The gorgeous she-devil in disguise that could lure any weak-minded man into bed, which would ultimately result in his death—the last fucking thing you see.
Nesrine bites her lower lip, her irises softening as she looks deeper into mine. “What do you say, Viking? How about I—” Her head suddenly snaps in the direction of the doorway.