He worked the knot with practiced ease, and the blood-stiffened leather fell away, pooling on the floor around his ankles. Jane’s breath caught in her throat. She had seen his body in statues, in frescoes, but the reality of it was a visceral shock. He was completely naked now, standing in the warm glow of her reading lamp like a bronze god brought to life. Scars, dozens of them, crisscrossed his chest, his abdomen, his powerful thighs—some thin and white, others puckered and angry red. They were a map of a life of violence she could barely comprehend.

Her eyes, against all scholarly and self-preservation instincts, were drawn lower. His cock, which had been semi-aroused moments before, was now fully, magnificently hard. It jutted out from a nest of dark, curling hair, thick and long, the head a deep, angry purple, glistening with a bead of clear fluid at the slit. It was a weapon in its own right, unapologetic and brutally male. He stood there, legs slightly apart, making no move to cover himself, his gaze locked on hers, challenging her to look, to react. He wanted her to see him, to see what he was.

A wave of heat washed through her, so intense it made her dizzy. The academic part of her brain was frantically cataloging details—the musculature, the evidence of a hard life—but the woman in her was simply, terrifyingly, aroused.

“The clothes,” she managed to say, her voice a strained whisper. She held out the sweatpants and t-shirt like a shield.

Marcus glanced down at the soft grey cotton, then back at her, a look of profound disdain on his face. He took them from her, his fingers brushing hers, a spark of contact that shot straight to her groin. He examined the sweatpants, pulling at the elastic waistband as if it were some strange, flimsy trap. With a grunt of contempt, he pulled them on. They were too short, ending mid-calf, and tight across his powerful ass and thighs, but they covered him. He ignored the t-shirt, tossing it onto the chair.

The next few days were a masterclass in surrealism. Jane tried to explain her world, and Marcus treated her explanations with a mixture of childlike wonder and warrior’s contempt. The light switch was the first miracle. He flicked it on and off a dozen times, his eyes wide, before declaring it weak sorcery. “Magia minor,” he grunted, unimpressed that such power could be wielded with the flick of a finger.

The bathroom was a greater challenge. He stared at the toilet as if it were a malevolent porcelain oracle. She explained its function in clumsy Latin, feeling her cheeks burn. He refused to use it at first, clearly preferring the garden until she physically blocked his path, her arms crossed. He eventually conceded, but the sound of the flush sent him lunging for the sword he no longer had.

The shower was the true nexus of fascination and conflict. He was filthy, covered in grime and dried blood, and the bandage on his side needed changing. The concept of a Roman bath was familiar to him, but this—this small, white-tiled box that rained hot water from the ceiling—was deeply suspicious.

“It is clean water,” she insisted, standing in the bathroom doorway while he stood naked inside the stall, eyeing the showerhead. “Aqua munda. Et calida.”

He grunted, unconvinced. “Unde?” From where?

She had no Latin word for a municipal water heater. “Magia,” she said, defeated. Magic.

He scoffed, but the allure of hot water was too strong. Jane reached past him, her arm brushing the cold tile on one side and the searing heat of his skin on the other. Her fingers trembled as she turned the knob. Water hissed out. Marcus flinched back, his hand instinctively going to his side. When the spray turned from cold to hot, steaming in the small space, his eyes widened. He cautiously stuck a hand into the stream, then his whole arm. A low sound of pleasure rumbled in his chest.

Jane started to back away, intending to give him privacy, but his hand shot out and grabbed her wrist. His grip was like iron. “Tu," he commanded, his voice low and gravelly. You. He pulled her closer, until she was standing on the bathmat just outside the spray, the steam clinging to her clothes, her hair. He wanted her to watch.

He turned his back to her and stepped fully under the water, tilting his head back with a guttural sigh as it sluiced through his matted hair and down his scarred back. Jane stood frozen, her heart hammering. The water ran in rivulets down the deep groove of his spine, over the taut, powerful curves of his glutes, and down his corded hamstring muscles. She watched, mesmerized, as he lathered the bar of soap she’d given him and began to wash. He scrubbed his skin with a raw, efficient energy, his movements economical and powerful.

When he turned to face her again, his cock was fully erect, slick with water and soap, bobbing with the motion of his body. He was looking at her, his eyes dark and intense through the steam. He wasn’t just washing; he was putting on a show. A display of ownership. He soaped his chest, then moved the bar down his flat, ridged stomach. His hand closed around the base of his thick, hard cock and he began to stroke himself, slowly, deliberately, his gaze never leaving hers.

Jane couldn’t breathe. She should have run, slammed the door, anything. But she was rooted to the spot, her thighs clenching together as a slick heat bloomed between them. She watched his hand move up and down the length of his shaft, watched his balls tighten, watched the muscles in his jaw clench with pleasure. It was the most explicit, dominant act she had ever witnessed, a silent declaration that he would take his pleasure when and where he wanted, and she would bear witness.

He finished abruptly, rinsing himself off before turning off the water. He stepped out of the shower, dripping, magnificent, and utterly unashamed. He took the towel from her nerveless fingers, his eyes holding a triumphant glint. This was his world now, his small empire, and she was its most intriguing and perplexing subject.

The dynamic was set. He was fascinated by the refrigerator—the “arca frigida”—and the television—the “fenestra magica”—but he held the world they represented in contempt. It was a world of soft men and flimsy comforts. He would spend hours watching nature documentaries, his body tensed as he watched lions take down a wildebeest, only to sneer at the commercials featuring men in suits selling cars.

Jane found herself trapped between the roles of zookeeper, historian, and unwilling object of desire. To understand how to send him back—if that was even what she wanted anymore, a terrifying thought—she knew she would have to risk activating the device again. Alone in her study late one night, with the sound of Marcus’s heavy footsteps pacing in the living room below, she stared at the strange, silent astrolabe. She had to try to replicate the energy surge. She had to understand its magic. Ignoring the cold knot of fear in her stomach, she reached out a trembling hand.

Her fingers hovered over the cool, unfamiliar metal of the device. It sat on her desk, inert and silent, looking for all the world like an ornate, oversized astrolabe. But she knew better. She knew what it had done. Downstairs, she could hear Marcus pacing, a caged tiger in her small suburban home. The memory of him in the shower—slick with water, his hand wrapped around his thick, hard cock, his eyes burning into hers—was seared onto her mind. She could still feel the phantom heat, the steam, the raw, possessive power of his gaze. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the dark, glistening head of his shaft, the slow, deliberate strokes of his hand. The memory alone was enough to make her clench her thighs together, a wet heat gathering in her panties.

He was a problem. A dangerous, magnificent, impossible problem. And this device was the cause and, hopefully, the solution.

“Come on,” she whispered, her voice trembling slightly. “What are you?”

She traced the interlocking circles, the strange, non-terrestrial constellations etched into its surface. The first time, there had been a power surge from a nearby lightning strike. She couldn’t summon a storm, but maybe the device didn’t need that much of a jolt. Maybe it just needed… a connection. An intent.

Taking a deep breath, she placed her hands on it, palms flat against the cool metal. She closed her eyes, trying to focus, to push her will into the object. Show me. Show me how you work. She thought of Marcus, of the impossible reality of his presence. She pictured the vortex of light, the feeling of the air tearing apart.

For a moment, nothing happened. The house was quiet save for Marcus’s heavy footfalls below. Disappointment washed over her. It was just a strange piece of metal after all. A fluke.

Then the lights in her study flickered. Once. Twice. They dimmed, casting the room in a weak, yellow gloom before surging back to full brightness. And under her palms, the device began to hum.

It was a low, resonant frequency that vibrated not just through her hands, but through her entire body. It bypassed her ears and went straight to her bones, a deep, invasive thrum that seemed to center itself low in her belly. A gasp escaped her lips. The hum intensified, and the air in the room grew thick, crackling with static electricity that made the fine hairs on her arms stand on end. The sensation was overwhelming, a raw, alien energy pouring into her. It wasn't just power; it was violation. It felt like a thousand invisible fingers probing every inch of her, inside and out.

Her nipples hardened into tight, aching points against the fabric of her shirt. A slick, hot wetness flooded her panties, a purely physical reaction to the intrusive energy that was thrumming between her legs, making her clit throb with a painful, unwanted pleasure. Her breath came in ragged pants as the device’s vibration seemed to find a rhythm, a deep, grinding pulse that mimicked the thrust of a cock. She felt her hips want to move, to rock against the invisible force that was stimulating her so intensely.

The study door burst open. Marcus stood there, framed in the doorway, his body tensed for battle. He was wearing only the too-tight sweatpants, his bare chest a canvas of scars in the flickering light. His eyes, wide with alarm, took in the scene: the humming, glowing device, the distorted air, and her. He saw her flushed face, her parted lips, the way her body trembled. His gaze dropped to her crotch, where the damp fabric of her jeans clung to her, and a dark, possessive fury entered his eyes. He thought the magic was taking her, claiming her.

“Jane!” he roared, taking a step into the room.

But before he could reach her, the energy focus shifted. The humming in the study lessened, but a new sound erupted from downstairs. It was a deafening shriek of tearing metal and splintering wood, followed by a concussive boom that shook the entire house. The focal point of the temporal rift wasn't in the study this time. It was in the kitchen.

A brilliant, chaotic flash of blue-white light pulsed from the hallway, so bright it was blinding even from a room away. It was followed by a guttural, terrifying roar. It was a sound of pure rage and bloodlust, a battle cry that spoke of frozen seas and longships, of axe and shield and slaughter. It was a sound that had not been heard on this continent in a thousand years.

Jane stumbled back from the desk, her body still trembling with the aftershocks of the device’s energy, her cunt still slick and throbbing. Marcus, his possessive rage instantly shifting to warrior’s focus, spun toward the sound. He crouched low, a predator scenting a rival challenger on his territory. They stared at each other for a split second, their private war forgotten in the face of a new, violent intrusion. Then they both turned their heads towards the kitchen, towards the impossible, savage sound echoing through their fragile, modern world.

They moved together, a strange and mismatched pair, down the short hallway toward the kitchen. Jane’s legs were unsteady, her panties soaked and sticking uncomfortably to her skin, her body still humming with a phantom, violating pleasure. Marcus moved ahead of her, a low growl rumbling in his chest. He was a creature of violence, and he was moving toward a sound he understood far better than any humming device or magical window.

The kitchen was a disaster zone. The back door, a heavy oak panel with a reinforced deadbolt, had been blown inward, torn from its hinges as if hit by a battering ram. The frame was splintered, the drywall around it cracked and crumbling. Her cheerful yellow linoleum floor was scuffed and gouged, and her sturdy pine kitchen table was split clean in two, the pieces lying amid a wreckage of shattered ceramic mugs and scattered silverware.

And in the center of it all, stood the cause.

He was immense. Taller than Marcus by a head, broader in the shoulder, a true giant of a man built of raw, brutal power. Long, thick braids of dirty blonde hair, interwoven with leather strips and small metal rings, hung past his shoulders. A wild, untrimmed beard, caked with something dark and sticky, covered the lower half of his face. He wore a tunic of coarse, dark wool over leather breeches, both stained with grime, sweat, and a shocking amount of fresh, crimson blood. A heavy fur cloak was slung over one shoulder, and thick leather bracers protected his forearms.

But it was the axe that drew Jane’s eye and stopped the air in her lungs. It wasn’t a decorative piece. It was a Dane axe, a bearded blade on a long haft, its edge honed to a wicked sharpness. The steel was dark and stained, and chunks of gore—flesh and hair—clung to the beard of the blade. He held it with a casual familiarity that was more terrifying than any aggressive posture. His knuckles were skinned and bloody. The air was thick with his smell: woodsmoke, cold sea salt, sweat, leather, and the hot, coppery stench of spilled blood.

He stood panting, his massive chest heaving, his blue eyes wild and disoriented. He looked around the strange, brightly lit room—at the gleaming metal of the sink, the smooth white face of the refrigerator—with a furious confusion. He was a man ripped from the height of a berserker rage, from the chaos of a coastal raid, and dropped into a sterile, suburban kitchen.

He let out another roar, this one less of a battle cry and more of a frustrated, defiant challenge to the unfamiliar space. He spoke in a guttural tongue she recognized instantly from her studies—Old Norse.

“Hver er á seiðrinn? Sýndu þik, á meðan ek ríf þessa höll í sundr!” Who is this sorcerer? Show yourself, before I tear this hall apart!

He punctuated the threat by swinging the axe, embedding it effortlessly into the door of her refrigerator. The metal screamed and buckled. Freon hissed into the air.

Jane felt a whimper escape her throat. This was not Marcus. Marcus was a professional killer, disciplined, contained in his own way. This man was a force of nature, a storm of violence given human form. The last vestiges of the device’s arousal curdled in her stomach, replaced by a cold, primal terror that threatened to buckle her knees.

Marcus moved past her, stepping fully into the kitchen’s entrance. He didn’t look at the destruction. His entire being was focused on the intruder. He saw the size, the weapon, the bloodlust. He saw a barbarian, a Germanus from the cold forests, a savage foe. A flicker of something that looked like grim pleasure crossed his face. Here, at last, was a fight he understood.

The Viking’s head snapped toward the movement. His wild blue eyes locked onto Marcus. He saw the Roman’s scarred, muscular physique, the coiled tension in his stance, the undisguised killing intent in his dark gaze. He saw another warrior. An enemy. A snarl twisted his lips, revealing teeth stained yellow and brown. He wrenched his axe from the ruined refrigerator with a screech of tortured metal, hefting it easily, balancing its weight in his hands.

“Svo, tröllið sendir þjón sinn,” the Viking grunted, his voice a low rumble. So, the troll sends its champion.

He took a heavy step forward, the floorboards groaning under his weight. Marcus didn’t back down. He lowered himself into a wrestler’s crouch, his hands open, his body a tightly wound spring of muscle and sinew, ready to explode forward. The air in the small house grew thick, charged not with temporal energy, but with the ancient, suffocating promise of bloodshed. They were two apex predators from different millennia, squared off over a shattered kitchen table, ready to tear each other apart.

The Viking let out a guttural bellow and charged. It wasn't a feint or a tactical advance; it was a human avalanche, an explosion of pure, murderous intent. The Dane axe swung in a devastating horizontal arc, a blur of stained steel aimed to cleave Marcus in two at the waist. The air whistled.

Marcus moved with the fluid grace of the arena. He didn't retreat; he dropped, his body sinking so low his knuckles brushed the linoleum. The axe blade passed inches over his head with a sound like tearing silk, connecting with the wall oven Jane had saved for months to buy. The impact was catastrophic. The glass door shattered into a thousand glittering cubes, and the axe blade bit deep into the metal housing with a godawful shriek of protest.

For a heartbeat, the axe was stuck. It was all the opening Marcus needed. He exploded upward from his crouch like a panther, closing the distance. He ignored the axe, his entire focus on the man. He slammed his shoulder into the Viking’s midsection, a battering ram of solid muscle. The air rushed from Bjorn’s lungs in a grunt of pained surprise. The sheer momentum of the gladiator’s charge drove the Viking back a step, then two, his fur-lined boots skidding on the slick floor.

Bjorn was a mountain, but Marcus was a force of leverage and brutal efficiency. He wrapped his arms around the Viking’s thick waist, locking his hands together, and heaved. This was his world: the clinch, the grapple, the test of strength and will at close quarters. He drove his head under Bjorn’s chin, forcing the bigger man’s head back, trying to break his posture.

The Viking roared in fury, a sound that vibrated through Marcus’s skull. He abandoned the stuck axe and brought his colossal hands down on Marcus’s back, clubbing him with fists the size of small mallets. The blows landed with sickening, meaty thuds that would have broken a lesser man’s ribs. Marcus grunted, his grip tightening, his teeth bared in a grimace of pain and determination. He could feel the raw, untamed power in the Viking’s body, a stark contrast to the trained strength of the men he’d fought in the ludus.

They became a whirlwind of destruction. Staggering sideways, they crashed into the island countertop. A bowl of fruit exploded, sending apples and oranges rolling across the floor. The butcher block splintered under their combined weight. Bjorn, using his height advantage, got a hand free and grabbed a fistful of Marcus’s dark hair, yanking his head back violently. With his other hand, he drove a thumb toward Marcus’s eye.

Marcus twisted his head away just in time, the thumb gouging a bloody furrow along his cheekbone. He snarled, a feral sound, and bit down hard on the thick muscle of the Viking’s shoulder. Bjorn howled, a high, pained shriek this time, and his grip loosened. Marcus used the moment to wrench himself free, shoving the Viking away with all his might.

Bjorn stumbled back, clutching his bleeding shoulder, his blue eyes blazing with a hatred so pure it was elemental. Marcus stood panting, blood trickling from his cheek, a wild grin spreading across his face. He was bleeding, he was fighting, he was alive.

This brief separation was all the Viking needed. With a roar, he lunged back toward the ruined oven and tore his axe free with a wrenching screech of metal. He turned, the weapon now back in his hand, and the grim pleasure on Marcus’s face vanished, replaced by coiled readiness.

Jane watched, paralyzed, from the doorway. Her kitchen, her sanctuary of quiet morning coffees and solitary dinners, was being systematically demolished by two men who belonged in history books. The air was thick with the scent of their sweat, of blood, and the ozone-like tang of spilled Freon. This couldn't happen. She couldn't let them kill each other on her floor.

Her eyes darted around, searching for something, anything. And then she saw it. Mounted on the wall next to the pantry, just as the fire code required. The red cylinder. The fire extinguisher.

Bjorn raised the axe high, preparing for a final, overhead chop that would split Marcus’s skull like a melon. Marcus braced himself, snatching a shard of the broken pine table from the floor, a pitiful dagger against the Viking’s weapon.

Time slowed. Jane moved. She didn’t think; she reacted. She scrambled to the wall, her hands fumbling with the bracket. The heavy cylinder came free. She remembered the instructions from a workplace safety seminar years ago. Pull. Aim. Squeeze. Her fingers, slick with nervous sweat, found the metal pin. She yanked it free.

As Bjorn’s axe began its descent, Jane screamed, a raw, incoherent sound of fury and fear. She aimed the nozzle at their faces and squeezed the handle with all her strength.

A thick, blinding cloud of white chemical powder erupted from the extinguisher, engulfing both men in an instant. It wasn't fire or a weapon they understood. It was a sudden, choking blizzard, a cold, acrid magic that stole the air and stung their eyes.

Bjorn’s killing blow faltered, the axe falling harmlessly to the floor with a loud clatter. He choked, stumbling back, clawing at his face, great, gasping coughs wracking his massive frame. Marcus, equally blinded and suffocating, dropped his makeshift weapon and staggered away, rubbing furiously at his burning eyes, spitting a foul white paste from his mouth.

The fight was over. The primal rage was snuffed out by a blast of modern safety equipment. Jane stood between them, her knuckles white on the extinguisher's handle, her chest heaving. The two warriors, one Roman, one Norse, were reduced to coughing, spluttering figures covered head-to-toe in a fine white dust, looking utterly bewildered. They stared at her, then at each other, the murderous intent in their eyes replaced by a stunned, wary confusion. In the center of her ruined kitchen, surrounded by the wreckage of their battle, Jane held the only power that mattered.

The white powder settled like a foul, chemical snow over everything. It coated the splintered wood of the table, the shattered glass of the oven, and the two deadliest men Jane had ever seen. The silence that followed the chaos was profound, broken only by a trio of ragged, wheezing coughs.

Bjorn spat a white gob onto the floor, his blue eyes, red-rimmed and furious, peering at Jane through a mask of dust. He looked less like a fearsome warrior and more like a baker who’d had a catastrophic accident with a bag of flour. Marcus was in a similar state, his dark skin turned a ghostly grey. He wiped a hand across his mouth, smearing the powder into a paste, his expression one of utter disbelief. They had been stopped, not by a superior weapon or a stronger arm, but by… a foul-tasting cloud.

The fire extinguisher felt immensely heavy in Jane’s arms. The adrenaline that had propelled her into action was beginning to ebb, leaving behind a tremor in her hands and a cold, hard knot of fury in her gut. Her kitchen was destroyed. Her life, which was already spiraling into insanity, had just been torn apart by a testosterone-fueled clash of centuries.

“Enough,” she said. Her voice came out as a croak, thick with chemical dust and rage. She cleared her throat and tried again, louder this time, the sound echoing in the ruined room. “ENOUGH!”

Both men flinched, their heads snapping toward her. It was the tone, more than the word. It was the voice of a woman who had been pushed past fear and into pure, undiluted rage.

She took a step forward, the nozzle of the extinguisher still pointed vaguely between them, a scepter of her newfound, desperate authority. “Nihil mori.” She pointed a trembling, powder-dusted finger at Marcus, her Latin sharp and clipped. “Nemo!” No one dies. She then swung her arm to point at the Viking. She didn’t know the Norse for it, so she used the simplest, most universal language she could. She drew her finger across her throat in a clear, unmistakable gesture. “NO.”

Bjorn’s brow furrowed in confusion, but he understood the gesture well enough. He glanced at the axe lying on the floor, then back at this small, shrieking woman who had blinded him with sorcery.

“In this house,” Jane continued, her voice gaining strength, “in hoc domo… in my hall… you do not kill each other.” She jabbed the extinguisher toward the wreckage around them. “You do not try to kill each other. You do not break my things trying to kill each other. This is my place. My territory. Meum!”

Marcus straightened up slowly, his dark eyes narrowed. He was appraising her in a new light. He had seen her as a strange, soft curiosity; a potential source of pleasure and comfort in this bewildering world. He had not seen this. This fury. This… command. In Rome, a woman who acted this way would be beaten or dismissed as hysterical. But this was not Rome, and she held the strange weapon that had humbled them both. He gave a slow, almost imperceptible nod. It was not agreement, not submission, but an acknowledgement of the new terms. He would wait. He would watch.

Bjorn was less subtle. He let out a low growl, a rumble of defiance deep in his chest. “Þú ert norn…” he muttered, wiping at his eyes. You are a witch.

“I don’t care what you think I am,” Jane snapped, taking another step closer, right into his personal space. He towered over her, a reeking giant of sweat and leather, but she didn’t flinch. She looked directly up into his hostile, powder-rimmed eyes. “You are in my house. You will follow my rules. The first rule is: no killing.” She punctuated the last word by jabbing a finger hard into his sternum.

His muscles bunched under her touch. For a terrifying second, she thought he might just grab her, break her. His huge, calloused hand twitched at his side. The air crackled. She could feel the heat rolling off him, the barely contained violence. But he didn’t move. He looked past her, at Marcus, who was watching them both with a predator’s stillness. He looked at the strange, cold weapon in her hands. He looked at the utter, unwavering conviction in her eyes. It was the conviction of a shield-maiden defending her hall, and while he didn’t respect her gender, he understood the spirit. He snorted, a plume of white dust puffing from his nostrils, and took a half-step back. It was the closest he could come to a retreat.

The tension broke, or at least lessened, from a breaking point to a low simmer. Jane felt a wave of dizziness wash over her as the last of the adrenaline fled her body, leaving her weak-kneed and shaking. She had done it. She had faced down a Roman gladiator and a Viking berserker and lived. More than that, she had made them listen.

She lowered the fire extinguisher, the weight of it suddenly immense. She looked at the absolute disaster that was once her kitchen. Her heart sank, but the anger remained, a pilot light of resolve. She was no longer just a historian who’d had a bizarre accident. She was the keeper of these men. Their anchor. Their warden.

“Now,” she said, her voice flat with exhaustion. “You two are going to clean this up.”