Vikings from Mars

She wanted to leave the room. With her luck, Skars was about to be tru-mated.

It was only when she saw Reva walk into the room that she could see through the window that she realized they were in an observation room.

Once Reva took a spot in the front of the room, the door opened again, and Skars’ clan started filing inside. Row after row filled until there were twenty rows. Raine had been unaware there were so many on board Thorsen’s ship. Their hair neatly cut at the back, their beards brushed and braided, and every single one of them stood without a shirt on.

After the room was filled to the back, another door opened, and Arne and Bjorn walked inside to stand in the front and to the side. Thorsen then entered the room, commanding everyone’s eyes without uttering a single word.

This Thorsen was different than the one she had met previously. The gravity of his position and power was apparent in every line of his body as he walked to stand next to Reva.

Raine could practically hear the breaths being inhaled when the door opened and a lone woman was escorted in by two clan members whom Raine didn’t recognize. Both men walked behind her to the front of the room and to Reva, and they were also the only ones who wore shirts, other than Thorsen.

“All you have to do is what I told you,” Reva instructed her.

The strawberry-haired woman seemed to be in her early twenties and terrified out of her mind. She glanced at the door, as if all she wanted to do was take off running; it was everything Raine could do not to go running in there and hide her on Skars’ ship.

Twisting her hands, Raine forced herself to remain still and watch.

As the woman went to the end of the front row, all the men dropped to one knee, bowing their heads. Startled at their action, the woman turned to look toward Reva, who gave her an encouraging nod.

Turning back to the kneeling men, the woman hesitantly reached out a lone hand to touch the first man’s chest, where his scar was. Pulling her hand back, she moved to the next man to do the same. When she completed the first row, she stepped back as the row filed out to the back of the room and the next row moved forward.

She was on the third row when she suddenly hurried past one to quickly move on to the next.

“Wait,” the clansman whom she passed shouted. “You went too fast. Touch me again …” When the man tried to take her hand to move it back to his chest, her escorts quickly moved him back before returning to the woman.

Raine had to grit her teeth when the woman finished the fourth row and they filed out. She saw the sheen of tears on the clansmen’s cheeks for not being picked. It was the saddest process she had witnessed in her entire life.

At the end of the last row, the woman’s escorts gestured her toward where Bjorn and Arne stood. Taking their knees, they proudly bowed to her. Raine prayed one of them would be tru-mated, but then disappointment filled her when the woman finished and stepped back.

The looks on Bjorn’s and Arne’s faces tore at her heart. All of the men’s pain was there for her to see.

Her escorts showed the woman out then brought in another one. This one seemed slightly older than the previous woman and more curious than frightened.

Raine forced herself to watch as the whole painstaking process started over. She almost asked to leave so she wouldn’t have to watch.

Before the woman was on the last row, Raine somehow knew the woman wouldn’t be a tru-mate to anyone in their clan.

As soon as Raine thought their clan in her mind, she realized her decision to marry Skars had been made.

Afterward, the woman was escorted out like the other one. The men in the room left to go into the room with the others who weren’t chosen.

Staying where Reva had told her to stay, she watched Thorsen and the men comfort each other.

“I’ll escort you back to your room,” Reva said from the doorway.

Walking toward her, Raine could see pain etched on her face that no makeup could hide.

“How can they bear to go through that?”

“Some can’t. We lost two clansmen last week. I fear we’ll lose more in the coming days. We aren’t finding many survivors now; they are finding better hiding spots, or they have already been taken.”

They silently entered the elevator to return to Skars’ ship.

“If you have a need of anything, just call for what you want, and it will be brought to you. I must go. Trygve and I will travel with the women to King Jurzed’s ship.”