Page 23 of Her Viking Guardian

“Very well,” he said, turning his own attention from the diverting scene in the bath, after a moment, and meeting my eyes. “The Guard has decided to trust your accounts of your vǫlur’s pseudo-paranormal senses. I haven’t seen the evidence myself, so I can’t make my own mind up one way or the other yet.”

“But?” I prompted, relieved that this part of our negotiation at least seemed to have gone smoothly.

“But I see no reason to keep you from initiating her, as long as it happens here, and I can observe.”

I nodded.

“Ideally,” I said, slowly so as not to seem too aggressive, “I’d be able to put her on a bride saddle…”

“We’ll build you one,” Bruno said. “The Guard should have a few of them anyway, so that we can test their efficacy. But I suggest you use Guard methods at first.”

I nodded again, more rapidly and decisively. “Yes,” I said, “it will be interesting to see if she goes to Yggdrasil that way. Though I’ll decline, politely, the offer of a saddle built by the Guard. If I do break this girl the Norse way, it must be in a Norse sanctuary.”

A smile crept onto Bruno’s face. “We’re doing fundamental research here, Magnusson, aren’t we? Our brethren will honor us for the way we break this girl in. As a doctoral candidate, surely she’ll appreciate the irony.”

I forced a laugh, realizing as I did that I felt a growing bond with Ilsa Matthews that seemed out of proportion to the situation. I certainly couldn’t remember when I had looked forward to initiating a beautiful virgin this much; something about the look on her face as she contemplated her approaching submission… a mixture of humiliation, fascination, and unmistakable arousal…

It called to me, and I couldn’t wait to discover why.

“Absolutely,” I said.

* * *

Ilsa

I didn’t think I’d ever stop blushing as Giovanna sternly instructed me in how to wash myself.

“You must get that little cunt very clean, columba, and the hair very soft for your baring. Be thorough with that cloth. Now, inside the sheath itself with your fingers.”

She made me repeat the internal cleansing of my vagina while my face burned so hot that the steam from the jade-colored water felt cool against my cheeks by comparison. The herbs in the bath had made the skin of my inner thighs and the soft folds of my sex feel faintly electric, as though the preparation of my body had begun at the molecular level, long before anything else could reach me there. I looked up at her with raised eyebrows, sure I must be finished.

My mistress spoke again, her words much more dismaying, “No, Ilsa. You’re not done. Put your finger inside your anus and clean yourself properly there.”

Biting my lip, I obeyed, pressing my middle finger into that most private place. I scrubbed, my forehead creasing, while Giovanna watched with her arms folded inside the wide sleeves of her red robe and her expression carrying the impersonal patience of someone who had seen this particular mortification many times and found observing the process faintly enjoyable.

“Good,” she said, when at last she seemed satisfied. “Again.”

I did it again, hoping the little whine I heard from my throat would be lost in the echoing dripping of the bath water.

“That’s sufficient,” Giovanna said at last, and held out her hand for the cloth.

I gave it to her. I climbed the carved stone steps out of the bath with as much dignity as I could manage. That didn’t amount to much. The leather cuffs, collar, and belt clung to every surface they covered, making me hyperconscious that I was naked everywhere else, and that the welts on my bottom had gone from a sharp sting to a deeper, settled ache of which I seemed to become more aware with every movement.

She wrapped a red towel around me, of the same deep shade as her robe. It was very thick and very soft, and Giovanna used it with the same intensity she had brought to everything else, her eyes moving to my face regularly, obviously knowing the distress she would find there but wanting to assess its exact degree.

She pressed the cloth against my hair, working down my shoulders and arms, crouching to dry my legs from the ankle upward. When she straightened and moved the towel between my thighs, I held very still and stared at the far wall and tried to think about the mineral composition of volcanic stone.

“Think, columba,” she said, moving the towel with the obvious purpose of making me think in a very specific way. I let out a whimper as I remembered her telling me in the bath to meditate on the hair she would soon take away.

I didn’t want to look at her, but it seemed I couldn’t help myself. As she rubbed more firmly, and I whimpered again, I met her eyes. The little smile on my mistress’s face, to my dismay, made me bend my knees and try to press against the towel.

“There,” she said, and took the towel away.

I closed my eyes and swallowed hard to keep from sobbing.

The air of the preparation chamber settled against my damp skin. I stood before her in my leathers, bare everywhere the leather didn’t cover, and waited.

Giovanna moved past me. I turned to watch her, because not watching felt more dangerous than watching, and I saw for the first time the far end of the chamber, which the angle of the bath steps had kept from my view until now.