Sometime during the brutality of Loki’s taking of her, she
lost consciousness. It was Inga & Cnut, who found her the next morning.
When the twins awoke early in the morning and Lia had not appeared to nurse
them, Inga had come looking for her. When she did not find either Jor or Lia in
their chamber, she got worried and woke Cnut. Muttering about his brother, he
slapped Blood Puddin’s ass to wake her and dressed while both slaves waited. “You
say they were not in their room?” Cnut turned, eyeing the blonde slave. “No
Jarl, it looked as if it had not been slept in at all.” He shook his head and
without another word walked out of the room. He headed out of the Hall and
toward to the clearing just on the edge of the tree copse he had left the two
in last night, figuring he would start looking the last place he had seen them
before alerting any guards. It was Cnut who saw her first, slumped against
the back of a fallen log. She had been tossed there like a broken toy a child
was disgusted with, when Loki had finished with her. Cnut took a quick survey
of the area but his brother was nowhere to be seen.
He may have looked like her mate, but he hadn’t been Jor,
and she had fought him with everything she had. The result was not pretty, from
what Cnut could see. She was naked with dried blood between her thighs and the
cheeks of her ass. One eye was swollen shut, her lip split wide open and her
throat bore the bruises of strangulation. She also bore bruises up and down the
rest of her body, one arm hung as if useless and her foot appeared turned in
the wrong direction, but she was breathing. Cursing his brother, he picked the
woman up and made his way back to the Hall to treat her wounds. As he knew
would happen, the sight of him carrying the naked broken body of the High
Jarl’s woman had the guards raising alarms across the village looking for the
assailant who must have assaulted Lia. Well maybe they will find my cursed
brother out there. Cnut thought to himself even as he remained silent. The
small party made it to the rooms Cnut used as a clinic. She moaned as he laid
her on the cot up against the wall. Her good eye opened and she tried to focus
as Cnut’s face swam into her blurry vision. “Jor...” the hoarse whisper
escaped her lips more of a question than a statement and Cnut just gave a
slight shake of his head. Their eyes met, and not unlike the look exchanged
when he had left her in the clearing the night before, the two spoke volumes to
each other without a word being exchanged. She sank back and whimpered when
Cnut started poking at her side and feeling along her ribcage. She took a
sharp intake of breath, pain flashing across her features. Cnut once again
began cursing and snapped at Blood Puddin’ to get splints and rolls of bandage.
He knew she would heal, she had an uncanny ability to heal easier and slightly
faster than most, something he had pressed Jor about once, and had gotten “she
was made that way,” as an answer. He had not understood what it meant, and he
had seen his brother inflict some damage on the woman, but never to this
degree. He was reminded of the damage inflicted on his slave by the crew of the
ship those first few weeks she had been captured. That his brother had done
this to Lia meant he had truly snapped, or she had instigated his wrath in a
way, very few survived. He tended the wounds, the broken ankle and arm he set
in splints, he had the slaves hold her while her wrapped her ribs, which he
suspected were cracked if not broken. She was not spitting or coughing blood so
he was fairly there was no damage of a lung puncture. He then gave Inga a salve
to put on the bruises and cuts and motioned Blood Puddin’ to heel him as he
left. “Inga, only watered down mead for her, no food yet. And not a word to
anyone about her, or the High Jarl, not a word! I find out either of you two
bond-maids so much as whisper this ‘gossip’ I will have both your tongues by
sundown. Understood?” “Yes Jarl!” the two slaves parroted each other
immediately both staring at him in fright. “Only yourselves are allowed in here
either.” He frowned then and turned to his slave. “Go get Stigaard, tell him I
need him and no one else. Bring him here. Har-ta!” The red headed slave
scampered off to do her Jarl’s bidding and Cnut then shut the door to the room
standing outside it to wait. Stigaard arrived with ehns a questioning look to
his brother. “Your bond-maid said it was urgent. What is going on? I heard Lia
was attacked? Where is Jor?” Cnut silenced him with a wave. “Guard the door,
only myself or her slave goes in. I am unsure what has happened, brother.” He
then looked his brother in the face and lied. “Jor is out searching, I am sure
we will know more once he returns. I will be back later to check on Lia.” He
then turned and stalked off to find Jor himself.
Lia said nothing while her slave tended to the bruises. Her
mind was trying to piece together the insanity of the previous night, but both
it and her body were in a state of shock. She hurt everywhere. She remembered
fighting Loki, fighting as she had never fought before. But her mind kept
coming back to it was Jor who had raped her so violently, whom she had fought
as if her life depended on it, yet it wasn’t Jor. He had done this to her, but
hadn’t. Her mind was having a difficult time rationalizing what was witnessed,
against a lifetime of conditioning and attitudes about gods and men and truths
that don’t fit into that dogma. She had dreamed of him, long before he
manifested, Jor spoke to him all the time, it was hard to say something doesn’t
exist, when the proof it does, is written in bruises across your skin. She had
seen the battle Loki had to fight to keep in control of Jor, she remembered how
the harder she fought, the harder Jor fought, and the angrier Loki became. She
had inflicted damage too, she thought. She had dried blood caked under her
finger nails and two of the nails were gone down to the nub of her fingertip as
if torn off. But all of this seems to just highlight the fact something had
possessed her mate. Someone. She shuddered then groaned in the pain that swept
over her. It had not been Jor’s blue eyes that bore into her own, but ones that
were black, fathomless, and burned with fire and even now in the back reaches
of her mind threatened to engulf and swallow her. Demanding to take what had
been promised to him. Was he gone? She was almost terrified to find out, yet at
the same time needed to see Jor, her Jor, needed him so badly she started to
cry silently. She was a strong woman, had been through much in her many years.
Things that would have broken lesser willed women, slavery, gang rape, violent
beatings and mutilation, the loss of a child, the death of a life mate, abuse.
Each had put a brick in a wall of strength that fed her and kept her both free
and a woman worthy to stand beside a powerful man. Had it doomed her as well to
be the pawn in a game of deities? She sank back against the furs with a sigh
and drifted off into a restless slumber, with a silent prayer to Hel, to keep
her safe in her dreams.
