For his part, he had always found that necessity distasteful. It was a necessary evil—and something the women of K’naiper expected. They would make damned sure the male was worthy of reproducing before they would allow his seed near their own by fighting with the last ounce of their strength to prevent the mating.

But he had known how his mother felt about it and he had imagined each time he took a woman that that woman had felt as his mother had—that he was a necessary evil in order for her to produce strong offspring that she could take joy in.

The mothers of his sons had hated him.

His mother had taken joy in him, had looked upon his every achievement with pride. She had smiled at him with love. She had even, once upon a time in his dimmest memories, soothed his hurts with a gentle touch, comforted him with arms that held him and made him feel safe.

All he had been able to see—or to think about—when he had taken women to assuage his manly needs and breed heirs for him was that they hated him and every moment of it. They endured only for the sake of capturing his seed.

That was a good part of the reason he only had three sons. He did not always take part in the chase. He always led the raids but, as often as not, he focused on overseeing the collection of needed supplies rather than claiming a woman. And when he claimed a woman he did not always give her his seed. It might not be as satisfying to withdraw before he had spilled his seed, but it ensured he was not overrun with heirs.

And he only had three sons to hate him for taking them from their mother to teach them what was expected of them as his offspring.

And yet Noelle claimed that she had chosen to be with the men of her tribe.

Did that mean that Noelle would accept staying—supposing he wanted her to? Did it mean there was some possibility of convincing her to shift her allegiance to him?

Or did it mean there was no chance at all of anything of the sort? Did it mean she had given her allegiance to some male in her own village and would fight him at every turn?

The fortress bore a striking resemblance to what Noelle recalled of the design of the ancient castles on Earth. But then again they had been built by people with virtually the same physical characteristics—just mammothly scaled—and the purpose was undoubtedly much the same, as well. All things considered, it shouldn’t have been a great surprise that it was so similar in design.

Despite the frigid temperatures, they were greeted by a startling number of men once they’d been allowed inside the gates. It became abundantly clear almost at once that the man who’d identified himself as Drak, Prince of Alvarone clearly hadn’t been exaggerating his importance but rather downplaying it.

Uneasiness slithered through her as memories flashed through her mind of behaving as if she was his equal or even superior! She was lucky she’d lived this long!

Not that she’d ever had the chance to rub elbows with anyone of political significance or wealth and privilege, but she knew the psychology of those kinds of people. There were always exceptions to every rule, but, in a general way, they tended to be megalomaniacs—relishing power purely for the sake of subjugating all the people around them. They were narcissistic and inclined to become violent and vindictive toward anyone who didn’t give them ‘their just due’.

She considered that thoughtfully as the Prince dismounted and then reached up to help her down.

So maybe, despite his position of importance, this man wasn’t extreme in those personality traits?

Surely he would’ve behaved hostilely toward her if he had been?

He had seemed to get angry when she’d responded sarcastically, but then most anyone took exception to sarcasm. That certainly wasn’t proof that he was a … tyrant. And the men who’d come out to meet them seemed to be genuinely pleased to see their leader had returned in one piece.

She didn’t get a lot of chance to observe. She never actually touched the frozen ground. Drak tossed her across his shoulder like a sack of grain and jogged inside with her. She managed to push the fur back far enough to get a little peek as they entered the main area of the fortress. Here again, she saw strong echoes of what she recalled of medieval Earth. The main door seemed to open into a short hallway and that opened into an enormous room that seemed to be a general gathering area—and actually a general living area. There were tables pushed against the wall and benches and rolls of what looked like bedding materials. There two enormous open fire places and a fire in both—and spits being turned in both that had huge chunks of blackened meat on them.

The smells were enough to knock her socks off!

The first impression that the place was really warm was banished very quickly. The walls blocked the gales of wind whipping through the courtyard outside, but there were still breezes finding their way in that were strong enough to ruffle clothing and hair when it puffed in.

That made her wonder just how horrific the smells would be if not for the excess ventilation the place boasted.

The smell of urine was in the air—and dung. She hoped that was from the animals roaming the great hall—the four legged ones rather than the two legged ones. She supposed the beasts were used to hunt other beasts. They were hideously ugly things to her mind, almost like a cross between a cat and a dog and unflattering to both.

There was a wet/unwashed beast smell emanating from all of the furs brought in from outside as they began to thaw—and probably clinging to everyone from the animals they’d ridden for that matter.

The smell of burning wood and roasting beast were the only things she smelled that weren’t offensive. Those permeated the area and were almost enough to overwhelm the stench of the place with something far more pleasant—but not quite.

Noelle’s stomach growled in spite of the eye-burning fumes of stink—because she hadn’t eaten anything since she’d been captured and not much for days before that. Her stomach might be roiling over the unpleasant odors, but it had still picked out the smell of cooking food!

“Han!” her captor bellowed, loud enough she jerked all over in reaction. “Bring me food! And get some people and clean this stinking mess up down here! It smells worse than the stables!”

Amen brother Ben!

Not that she’d actually been in the stables, but she couldn’t imagine them smelling worse!

Chapter Six

Noelle was able to clear her mind of everything but impending doom by the time they were halfway between the great hall and the Prince’s suite. Even the distraction of a growling stomach wasn’t enough to focus her mind away from the ‘forced seduction’ she knew was looming before her. Not that she expected a lot of seduction or she had any intention of fighting and making him force her!

She didn’t have a great deal of personal experience with men bent on ‘seduction’, but she knew from sex class that it could be a very tricky proposition even with a man one knew reasonably well who was constricted by the same laws, customs, and moral values. If none of those things were true, all expectation of matching her behavior to the psychology she needed for survival went out the window.

Nothing she’d learned about dealing with human men of Earth was likely to do her a hell of a lot of good here.

Because they were savages beyond all the other things that didn’t match.

Which, unfortunately, brought her mind to other things that might create a real situation if they didn’t match!

Because however unreasonable it might seem that they might not be physically compatible in the right places when everything else seemed to match up, nature could be truly contrary!

What if the males carried the young? Would he have a socket instead of a plug? More importantly, how pissed off and nasty would he get if they discovered there was a physical incompatibility problem?