Barbarian Prince by Kaitlyn O'Connor Page A

him. In general, he could count on their loyalty—their fear if they did not love and respect him as their monarch.
    But it was winter and that was a dangerous time. Everyone was cooped up in close quarters, supplies were limited and dwindling far too rapidly, and the men had very few outlets for their energies. The yearly raid on K’naiper was the highlight of the bitterly cold season and the payoff was the supplies to get them through the remainder of the winter and the women to expend their excess energies and/or frustrations on.
    It was only half a pie, however. The ship would not accommodate more than a portion of his men—not if they were to have room to bring back what they were going after. So while it helped a goodly portion of the men, it unfortunately increased the frustrations of far more and those who had been excluded from the raid were prone to picking fights with the men who had gone in the hope of relieving them of their booty—the woman.
    He was generally exempt from that particular worry—mostly because he was their Prince and few dared challenge him on any issue, let alone something relatively insignificant like a woman. And also because, in general, he simply was not inclined to worry about it. In fact, he had, on many occasions, simply satisfied his most immediate needs and relinquished his woman to another.
    Mayhap that had been a mistake that was about to bite him in the ass?
    Well, he damned well was not going around with blue balls only to have one of his men thoroughly fuck up his plans!
    He scanned the room until he spotted Kulle. Summoning the man with a motion of his hand, he sent him to escort his captive to the great room. She needed to eat, and it seemed as good a time as any to make certain the men knew he had staked his claim to her and they would be taking their lives into their hands if they tried to filch from him.

    Noelle actually felt pretty toasty enveloped in the fur coverlet she woke under but the moment she poked her head out it felt as if she’d stuck her head into a freezer. Like a turtle, she immediately ducked back into her warm little ‘shell’, but she was wide awake now. She would’ve been happy to remain where she was—particularly since her situation meant she had no duties to concern her and, in point of fact, couldn’t do anything at all if she’d wanted to—except the moment full awareness hit her the dull ache in her bladder magnified tenfold and refused to be ignored.
    Dread seized her.
    She’d already ‘experienced’ the facilities the night before. She wasn’t anxious to use them again and she also wasn’t in any great hurry to leave the warmth she had for the freezing temperatures beyond the coverlet.
    Not that the bathroom was actually horrible. It was at least clean—in appearance and smell anyway. But it was certainly not as modern as she was used to and was far less luxurious even than the utilitarian facilities in the colony. Beyond that, if it was supposed to have flowing water it must be seasonal, because the ‘bathing’ part didn’t work. The water that should have been flowing through the pipes seemed to be frozen.
    However, she acknowledged defeat fairly quickly. Hunger was one of those needs that could be ignored and would, in time, cease to torment. A full bladder wasn’t one of those things that would cease to nag if one ignored it, unfortunately.
    Once she’d conceded defeat, she debated whether to try to drag the heavy fur with her and finally discarded the notion with the reflection that it might conserve the heat for her if she left it on the bed. Girding herself, she flipped the coverlet off, scooted to the edge of the bed and hit the floor running with the intention of dashing in, taking care of the problem, and racing back to the warmth.
    So much for well laid plans! The moment her butt hit that slab of ice that she laughingly referred to as a seat, everything in her body clenched against the shock—including her bladder