My.

Fucking.

God!

“What? ” I cried and she shook my forearm.

“Circe, quiet! Listen,” she hissed. “This is important.”

I was trembling and I was listening. Hard. So hard my ears hurt.

Narinda carried on. “They will hunt us and they will claim us.”

Her fingers gripped my forearm and she pressed closer. “They will claim us like any husband claims his wife on their wedding night.”

Oh shit. Oh God. Oh shit. OhGodohshitohGod.

She kept at it. “They will bring us back to the village, naked and claimed.”

OhshitohGodohshit.

“And then the wedding rite will be held before the Dax.”

I didn’t want to know. I really didn’t

But I asked, “What’s that?”

“Settle, my lovely,” she said softly, hearing and reading my tone even over the loud beat of the drums. “It is whatever the warrior wants it to be. Mostly, they just present the Dax with their bride.

Then there is dancing, drinking, eating and revelry.”

“Do we…” I swallowed, “do we get to put clothes on for this, uh… revelry?”

She nodded. “After presentation to their king, we will be clothed in clothing our warrior provides us.”

That was good.

But I wasn’t going to get to that part.

Not me. No way. I was going to run. I was going to hide. I was going to fight. I was going to do whatever I could do to get away, find out what in the fuck I was doing in this crazy, freaking place and get my ass home.

“I see you are frightened,” Narinda called my attention to her and my eyes snapped to hers.

“Well… yeah, ” I bit out.

“Do not, Circe, listen to me now, do not do anything foolish,” she said quickly, her eyes again scanning the crowd, the lit space getting closer, I could see the urgency on her face.

“And foolish would be?”

“Do not fight the claiming. Don’t. It is their tradition. They don’t see anything wrong with it and look at the Korwahk women. Circe, look at them. They can’t wait.”

I looked at the Korwahk women. It was true. It was insane but it was true.

They obviously couldn’t wait.

Then Narinda went on to advise, “Take your warrior and endure the claiming and hope, hope, my lovely, with all your heart, that you get a warrior who is soft under all that hardness.”

I was trembling head-to-toe and I wanted to bolt. I wanted to run.

But it was too late.

We were entering the avenue of the warriors.

I knew this because the onlookers had disappeared. The only thing left were two lines on either side of us, shoulder to shoulder, of men wearing nothing but hide pants, their glistening, brown-skinned bodies painted. Some had painted white streaks in addition to black, not many, a few. More had red. About the same amount had a deep blue. Some had a combination of all of these colors. But there were some only painted in black even though those painted solely in black was nowhere near the majority.

And it was scary. They were scary. This was because they were huge. Not big, not tall, huge. They were all lean and muscled, not a little bit, a lot. Some had scars. Some had seriously nasty scars. All of them had black hair, all of it long and pulled back from their painted faces. All of them were wearing what looked like a long looped chain that was wound around their waists. All had massive swords in scabbards at slants on their backs and all had two knives in sheathes at either side of their waists.

They looked like warriors and they looked like savages.

The place was lit with tons of torches and some big fires. The drums were still beating, louder now, the sound pummeling my skin.

I walked in front of the warriors and I became glad the Korwahk women wanted these men. I was glad because they also knew I

would draw attention because I was blonde and they wanted that attention. Warrior eyes came to me but the minute they did, a Korwahk woman moved to get in front of me, catch their eyes. They leaned in to show their faces, leaned back to show their bodies, pressed their arms together to push out their breasts.

Thank God.

“Circe, close to me, duck your head without looking like you’re doing it. We approach the Dax,” Narinda warned under her breath but over the drums and I moved even closer to her and tried to duck my head without looking like I was ducking my head.

And come to the Dax we did. The drums were so loud they were all I could hear. Each beat felt like it was hammered against my body. And the Korwahk women around us became frenzied. They flooded the area to our left side and did everything to put themselves on display.

I leaned forward and peered through the undulating bodies trying to see but all I caught were scraps. Nevertheless, those scraps were not good.

A vast, wide dais, some ten steps up. On it what looked like a huge throne made almost entirely out of colossal, black, curling horns that shot up and rounded in an array at the back, the same for the armrests and seat. The feet, though, looked like elephant feet.

Um… not nice.

Behind the dais there was what looked like a stream of fire that danced the length, illuminating it. To either side of the throne, massive fire pits then huge drums that were at least the height of two grown men and the men banging the drums had to run toward it and hurl their mallet with the flying weight of their whole body, drop to their feet, run away and then run back again. They were glistening with sweat for their efforts.

That was all I caught. No man was sitting on the throne. There was no one there.

No one.

Until I saw him.

Standing at one side and up toward the edge of the dais looking down was a giant of a man. A beast of a man. Taller than any of the extremely tall warriors on the sides of the parade, broader, more muscled, more savage.

He was looking down the dais not at the parade but at a man in robes who was gesturing up to him. His strapping arms were crossed on his brawny chest, his chest and face painted in streaks of black, one going clean across his eyes. He wore no other colors.