Work Text:
Ivar is different when he comes back from England. He had always been angry; so angry you feared him, did your best to try and avoid his notice when he and his brothers joined the rest of the warriors in training. But now, that anger is focusing, sharpening him like a blade upon a whetstone. Channeled into deadly purpose, Ivar’s rage has become something beautiful, pulling at you rather than repelling you. You find yourself drawing near as he speaks of gathering a Great Army to avenge your King, loving the ferocity in his voice, hypnotized by the flash of his eyes. Ivar is becoming a man worthy of his father, worthy of being called Viking, despite his crippled legs.
Ivar has been noticing you too. You give him your best enigmatic smiles when you catch him looking at you, but he never calls you over to speak with him. His eyes cold, calculating, he looks at you like he’s not sure what he wants from you yet. His heavy gaze makes you shudder, but the thrill comes with a pleasant tightening feeling in your breasts and between your legs. You hope he knows that if he wants you, he need only ask.
At the great sacrifice before you and the army set out for Northumbria, you find yourself standing across the aisle from Ivar himself. You feel the sacred energy swirling about the crowd as the ritual begins, a sacrifice greater than any your people have made within your lifetime. A human sacrifice. You are in utter awe of the man who has volunteered be tribute to the gods tonight, a young Earl with every reason to value his life. You see from the way Ivar’s beautiful mouth hangs open watching him that he feels it too.
You’re not sure which is making your head spin more; the sacred reverence of the moment, or your proximity to Ivar and the earnest fascination on his face. You cannot stop yourself from stealing glances at him throughout the ceremony. The look on his face is becoming almost sexual as the Queen holds a shining blade high above the man spreading his chest wide to her.
The crowd is hushed, tense, ready. You are all feeling the excitement and the sacred power of this moment. When Lagertha presses the blade under the young Earl’s ribs, he does not even cry out. The only sound you hear is the ecstatic exhale escaping Ivar’s lips as the sacrifice pulls himself deeper onto the blade. You tear your eyes from the spectacle on the dais above you to look at the Prince’s face. Almost immediately you blush and look away; his blue eyes were drowning in black and it felt like you were intruding on a moment of passion.
Lagertha and the shaman slowly guide the dying man’s body down to the boards of the dais. At every sacrifice, this is the moment when the trance starts to take over, the energy of the death invigorating the living. When it is a goat, or a bull, the crowd usually begins cheering, laughing, dancing.
It is different this time. Everyone is awed by the young Earl Jorgensen, presenting himself to the gods without fear as he did. As the painted shaman trusses the Earl’s body up by the ankles, so that his sacred blood might flow into the ritual bowl, you find yourself and your neighbors swaying. Many begin chanting or praying, solemnly yet fervently, under their breaths.
A drinking vessel is passed to you and you put it to your lips. Honey mead, strong and sweet. You drink deep. The revel is beginning. You lose yourself in the spirit of the gods, praying for good fortune, praying for victory over the English, praying for glory in battle and rich spoils.
Praying for the attentions of the Prince, even as he terrifies you.
The trance leaves each person at a different time. For you, it is a long one. Most of the crowd have staggered to their beds by the time you are aware of yourself again. You look down; you have lost some of your clothes. Only your thin linen shift remains, clinging to your curves as you dance to the remaining drummers. Drying blood flecks your body. You must have made your way to the dais at some point, received the benediction of the gods.
It is not frightening, not to remember what happened. It is always this way with the great sacrifice, and you feel safe, bathed in the torchlight and surrounded by your kinsmen as the gods look on.
But as the spirit leaves you, the appeal of the dance fades. It is probably time to find your bed. You look about one last time, and that is when you realize how close you are to the dais, and who is resting up there.
The shaman is gone. The Queen is gone, the other princes are gone, and only Ivar remains, sitting with his legs stretched out before him beside the great bowl beneath the hanging corpse of the sacrifice. His hawklike eyes fall upon you, the corner of his lip curling up as he catches you staring.
“The blood is sacred,” Ivar says. His shirt is gone, you see that he has painted his skin with the thick red ichor; down his strong chest, over his stomach and down under his unlaced breeches. “Its magic is filling me and the gods are giving me its power. Come up here, y/n.”
There is no question, what he wants you to come up there for. One hand is sliding over his manhood, making room under his pants for something that grows and shifts. His eyes are roaming over your body.
His eyes are lucid; he spoke your name. Ivar is not under the gods’ trance anymore either; the fierce lust in his gaze is all his, and all for you. He reaches his hand out as you step onto the platform, you take it and he guides you down to kneel beside him. He brings your fingers to his lips. “You dance more beautifully than all of the other maidens. I have been watching you. Do you want to dance for me now, upon my cock?” He says it with an arrogant smirk, already confident of the answer.
It would be a lie to do anything other than nod, and you would never lie in the presence of the gods. You feel warm and tingly and eager. You lift up on your knees, move towards Ivar, but he stops you. “I must anoint you first.” That odd excitement that you saw during the ritual tints his features again. He dips his fingers into the bowl of blood and then spreads it over your forehead, in strange patterns down your cheek. His eyes dance over your face, admiring his work, then he rakes his hand through your hair and pulls you into a deep and searching kiss.
Ivar’s tongue invades your mouth as he pulls you into his lap, fingers scrambling to help you lift your skirt high enough to straddle him. Then he is pulling you close, rubbing your bare sex against the laces of his pants, over the waiting hardness beneath. He breaks the kiss to watch you from under his dark brow, as you writhe against him, as much to excite yourself as him. His eyes are appreciative and proud. “You want me to take you,” he says. Again, it is not a question. His fingers slide down through the slick folds between your legs. “You want me to pierce you right here, just as the blade that pierced Earl Jorgensen and sent him to the gods.” The tip of his finger finds your opening and he thrusts it into you, curling his bottom lip into a grimacing smile at your surprised squeal.
His words remind you that people might be watching, the trance leaving them, but you do not care, such things as this happen all the time after a sacrifice, though not usually on the altar itself. You do not protest as Ivar starts to pull your dress off, other hand still working inside you, cocking his wrist so he stabs into a sensitive spot that has you seeing stars.
Ivar looks up at your naked body rising above him, runs his tongue between his teeth. He dips his hand into the sacrificial bowl one more time, paints the sacred blood over your breasts and belly. Then he spreads it further with his tongue, sucking and teasing at your nipples until you feel yourself clenching all around his buried hand.
“Are you ready for me, y/n?” Ivar asks then, pushing you back far enough to scoop himself out of his pants. Ivar’s cock is pale and slightly curved, reminding you faintly of the sword the Queen used in the sacrifice. The slight shiver at the comparison only adds spice to your arousal. Ivar leans back, appears to be admiring the way his cock stands up straight and ready for you. Then he laces the fingers of both his bloody hands through yours and draws you gently closer, over top of him.
Ivar lays back, guides you until your wet and swollen cunt is just brushing the tip of his weeping head. Then he bids you stop, wraps his hands around your sides and tilts his hips up slowly, slowly, sliding himself into you as smoothly as that sacrificial blade. You remember Ivar’s face, at that moment in the ritual. You look up at him now; his eyes are drowning black again but the expression is different. Because last time he was longing and now he is taking, filling himself with the pleasure the other moment only hinted at.
You wrap your hands around Ivar’s shoulders, giving him a knowing grin, and then pull yourself down over his prick in a deliberate echo of the last brave movement of the dying Earl. Ivar’s eyes roll back and his whole body spasms, mouth wide in pure overcome bliss. You hear a low moan escaping your own lips as well; the sensation of Ivar filling you up so suddenly and completely sends a sharp heat through your entire body.
You close your eyes and begin to rock your hips rhythmically above him, rolling your bodies across every angle that increases your pleasure. Someone is still beating a drum somewhere. You look down at Ivar and dance for him, just as he asked. Now he is staring at you with all the focus and heat you were longing for, but even more incredibly you see that you are draining his front of arrogance and anger away, undoing him completely until he watches in pure awe and appreciation as you work his cock and give him the ride of his life.
You almost feel as if the gods’ trance is returning to you. A bubbling warmth is filling you up from your core, pressing out for release against your nipples and behind your eyes. Ivar is feeling out your rhythm, pressing hard against you at the apex of your every grind.
Surely the gods must favor your union, because you're realizing you’re going to orgasm easily from only this, his cock rubbing against all the right places. You arch your back and moan his name in warning, then give yourself over to the fire that explodes out of your core, destroying all sense of where your body ends and the rest of the world begins.
The next thing you become aware of is rough wooden planks slamming into your back. Ivar has flipped you over so he can thrust himself into you with more abandon now, using the strength in his powerful arms to pull himself over you savagely. That gentle awe you saw in his eyes is gone, replaced with a frantic need. It's so intense you find yourself with both hands pressing on his hip bones, trying in vain to hold him back from you.
You turn your eyes pleadingly up to him. Ivar is staring at something just above your shoulder. You twist your neck to look; it is a large blood stain. You realize Ivar is fucking you on the exact spot where the sacrificial Earl died.
Ivar looks back at you, sees the growing terror in your eyes. Likes it. Your hands scrabble uselessly against him and his onslaught until Ivar squeezes his eyes shut, loses his rhythm in one last growling press of his body against yours. He shudders a few times, spilling his seed inside of you. Then he lays his forehead against the floorboards and relaxes utterly on top of you.
After a few breaths Ivar's hand starts idly stroking your head, twisting in your hair. “When we embark to England tomorrow, make sure you are on my boat,” he whispers in your ear.