Lorna
I heard Aksel set the strap aside, then felt the bench shift as he moved around to face me. Through my tears, I saw him crouch down, bringing his steel-gray eyes level with mine.
“The Sons of Odin traditionally claim virgins as their bed thralls,” he said, reaching out to brush a tear from my cheek with surprising gentleness. “Young women who have never known a man’s dominance, never submitted as nature intended.”
My breath hitched. “But I’m married. I’m not?—”
“You’ve never truly submitted to a man the way you were born to,” he interrupted, his thumb tracing along my jawline. “Your body has been penetrated, yes, but your spirit remains unclaimed. In the eyes of our order, that makes you virgin enough for our purposes.”
The words sent a confusing rush through me—terror and fascination warring with mortification and, worst of all, an arousal so intense it made me squirm against the bench. Themovement sent fresh pain through my welted bottom, which only seemed to intensify the heat between my legs.
“I’m going to claim you now,” Aksel said, standing with that same precise movement. His hands went to his belt, and I watched with wide eyes as he began to undress. “First, I’ll fuck your mouth, teach you to serve with those pretty lips. Then yourfisse, that sweet cunt that’s been so criminally neglected.”
Each word made me clench involuntarily, my body responding to his crude promises despite my mind’s protests. When he removed his shirt, revealing a torso marked with scars and strange tattoos that seemed to shift in the torchlight, I couldn’t look away.
“Yourrøvhul,” he continued, pushing his pants down to reveal himself fully, “that tight little bottom-hole, will remain untouched until you’ve earned mytólthere.” He used the Old Norse word for his cock—his tool—with casual authority, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “That’s the ultimate taming, as we consider it. The final act of claiming a bed thrall completely.”
He moved to stand before me, his erection at eye level with my bound position. One hand tangled in my hair, not roughly but with unmistakable control.
“Open,” he commanded.
I pressed my lips together, some last vestige of resistance flaring. The Lorna who’d stood in committee meetings, who’d smiled at state dinners, who’d been a statesman’s companion—couldn’t just open her mouth for a stranger’s pleasure. That woman couldn’t possibly?—
The whistle of leather through air was my only warning. The strap crashed across my already burning bottom with such force that my mouth flew open in a scream. Then, hardly knowing what I was doing, I kept my lips parted and I put out my tongue.
Because I don’t want to be whipped again. Because I can’t bear it.
Aksel’s length pushed past my lips, the taste of him—salt and musk and something indefinably male—flooding my senses.
“That’s better,” he said, his voice carrying that same measured tone even as his hand tightened in my hair. The strap came down again, this time across my thighs, and I sobbed around him, the vibration making him grunt with satisfaction.
The third stroke landed at the junction of bottom and thighs, in that impossibly sensitive spot he’d already marked. The pain was transcendent, beyond anything I’d experienced, and with it came a horrifying realization: I was grateful. Some twisted part of me felt relief that he’d taken the choice away, that I could tell myself I had no option but to serve him with my mouth. The shame of that gratitude burned almost as hot as my welted flesh.
Aksel began to move, using his grip on my hair to guide my head as he thrust between my lips. I gagged at first, unused to the invasion, but he simply held me steady and continued his rhythm. “Relax your throat,” he commanded. “Breathe through your nose. You were made for this, Lorna, whether you know it or not.”
I tried to follow his instructions, desperate to avoid more punishment, and found that it helped. My throat opened for him, accepting his length deeper with each stroke. The collararound my neck grew warm, then hot, and suddenly the world began to shift.
The torchlight flickered and stretched, becoming ribbons of gold that spiraled upward. The longboat beneath me seemed to dissolve, and I was floating, rising, even as I remained bound to the bench with Aksel’s rigid cock in my mouth. The chamber’s stone walls fell away, replaced by something impossible—branches. Massive branches that stretched in every direction, their bark silver like moonlight, their leaves whispering secrets in languages both dead and unborn.
I was in Yggdrasil. The World Tree. Not metaphorically, though not in ordinary reality either, but somehow actually there, my consciousness split between the physical sensation of Aksel using my mouth and this impossible ascent through cosmic branches. It was what I had felt when Aksel had put the tile in my hand, but magnified by a hundred… a thousand.
I could see threads everywhere—golden, silver, black, red—connecting everything to everything else. Takken’s corruption was a spreading rot, black tendrils reaching from node to node, but there was something else. A pattern within the pattern. The Synergy Group wasn’t just one entity but many, their threads weaving together into something ancient and terrible.
“That’s it,” Aksel’s voice came from everywhere and nowhere, reverberating through the branches. “Let the sight take you. This is what thevölurknew—that submission opens the doors between worlds.”
Images flashed through my mind as his thick cock slid deeper into my throat. Flashes of meetings I’d never attended, conversations in languages I didn’t speak but somehow understood. Takken signing documents in rooms I’d never seen,his signature sealing fates he didn’t comprehend. The Synergy Group’s true masters, faces obscured but their intent clear as crystal—to drain the North of its power, both literal and spiritual.
“Try to relax into it.” Aksel’s voice cut through the visions, grounding me even as my consciousness floated through impossible spaces. “Even with the collar, you’ll need extensive training in sexual submission before you can truly understand what you’re seeing. But you’re making remarkable progress already.”
The praise sent an unwelcome warmth through my chest. I hated how his approval made me feel—proud, accomplished, as if I’d done something worthy rather than debased myself at a stranger’s command. Worse, I felt a flutter of something dangerously close to affection for this man who’d stripped me, bound me, and was currently using my mouth for his pleasure. The contradiction made my head spin, or perhaps that was just the lack of oxygen as he held himself deep in my throat.
“Your mouth is already exquisite on thetól,” he said, his fingers gentling in my hair. “You’ve learned quickly how to serve. I’m quite pleased with this hole.”
He withdrew slowly, and I gasped for air, strings of saliva connecting my lips to his length. My jaw ached, my throat felt raw, but beneath the discomfort was that treacherous pulse of pride at his praise. I’d pleased him. MyHerrawas satisfied with me.
I heard his footsteps on the ancient wood as he moved around the bench, positioning himself behind me. The ropes kept me spread and vulnerable, unable to close my legs or shield myselffrom his gaze. His hands settled on my welted bottom, and I whimpered at the contact.
“Such beautiful marks,” he murmured, tracing the raised welts with one finger. “You color magnificently under discipline.”