Claimed by Her Mates(14)

“I am not trying to deceive you.” The older gentleman’s words startled me from my musings as he gave a casual shrug. “As to knowing your match, you will have no doubt. His body and his soul will call to yours. Do not be afraid. Trust in your match.”

I didn’t seem to have much of a choice. I started at the left side of the line, moved to stand before the first man and gave him a timid smile. I ignored my tingling clit. It had nothing to do with this man, and I wondered if the transport here had somehow put my body off kilter.

Focus. I had to focus on the task at hand. The first man had blond hair, similar age to me, rugged-looking despite the bow strapped to his back and the long black robe covering his body. He smiled at me, his eyes alight with male interest, but I felt nothing unusual. I moved on to the second man. He was slightly shorter, but heavier and more muscular. He had long hair as pale as snow and was wearing the more primitive leather and furs. A sword was slung over his back, reminding me of a Viking invader of old. He did not smile at me. He did not even look me in the eye. He undressed me with his eyes, his gaze focused on the hard nipples clearly visible beneath my soft green gown. I gave him the same cursory glance and still… nothing. I worked my way down the line until there were only a few men to go, worried that none of the men were my match. Was this a trick? Would the regent be disappointed or upset if I didn’t recognize the match?

I stepped before the next man and looked up at him nervously. This was the man who had watched me earlier, who had studied me from across the room as if I already belonged to him. I halted, turning to face him and looked up. Way up. He was taller than the others, broader across the shoulders. He was rugged, wearing the Viking-style clothing and a sword across his back. His chest and arms were massive, his hands looked large enough that one of them could completely wrap around my neck. His thighs were thick as tree trunks and he exuded strength and authority.

But it wasn’t his physique that had my heart skipping a beat, but the look in his dark eyes. They didn’t just look at me, but stared into me, into my soul. My nipples tightened and my pussy clenched at the very sight of him. I gasped at my body’s reaction as wet heat flooded my pussy. His nostrils flared and his jaw clenched. I could even pick up his clean scent, spicy and woodsy. Was he smelling me, too?

I didn’t realize the regent had come to stand beside me until he spoke. “I assume you do not need to look over the remaining two men?” he asked.

I hadn’t taken my eyes off of the man before me. His hair was tousled, as if he’d just climbed out of bed, and just long enough to graze the collar of his dark tunic. The color of it was an unusual shade of brown, almost whiskey-colored. I knew, deep down, that he was the one. He was my match.

I swallowed down my eagerness for this man and replied, “No, I do not. This man is my match.”

“Satisfied, Drogan?” the regent asked.

This warrior, Drogan, lowered his gaze from my eyes to rake over my body. I felt naked despite being covered to my ankles by the long green gown. Did he know I was aroused at the sight of him? Did he know my body ached when I looked at him, that as much as I feared him, I craved the touch of those giant hands on my skin? Whatever was going on with my clit intensified and I shifted uncomfortably on my feet. Waiting. For what I wasn’t sure.

“Yes. Very satisfied.” Drogan’s deep voice invaded my senses like liquid heat overrunning my entire system. I wanted to hear his voice again, to hear him commanding me to kneel and take his cock in my mouth, to listen to him order me to open wider as he pounded into my body, to hear the gravelly whisper of his voice in my ear demanding that I come.

I blinked away the lust clouding my mind, but didn’t even have a chance to recover before my world upended. Drogan tossed me over his shoulder as if I were a sack of grain and carried me out of the room. My hands pressed into his lower back to maintain my balance and all I could see was the tight muscles of his very nice ass as he carried me out of the building, down a dirt path, and toward another much smaller building a good distance away.

All around me the smell of sea water and blooming trees comforted me. The sky was a bit darker blue, the grass a paler green, and the sounds of the birds and other animals calling to one another not any that I recognized, but it was not so different from Earth after all. I saw red flowers, trees hung with dark green moss and long pale limbs that stretched toward the sky.

Here, on Viken, I would be safe from my old fiancé. Here, I would be protected and claimed by this man, Drogan. He was huge and fierce-looking, but I wanted to trust in the match. I wanted to believe Warden Egara and what she told me, that this man had been selected for me, was my one perfect man in the entire universe. I had to hope that I could grow to love him, and he to care for me. Being tossed over his shoulder and carried about in such a caveman way wasn’t the way to show how much he cared, but it definitely made me feel wanted.