“I lie to no one,” I say, blinking away the thought that perhaps she can read my mind. Perhaps she is a High Priestess and not a Queen.
Now her eyelids flutter and she looks at me. “Another lie,” she says with a small smile. She was pretty in the sun but is stunning in the shadows. I shift on the wooden bench, unsure how long I can control myself from burning every bridge and making her mine here and now. I cannot do it, of course. I cannot turn my men into traitors for my own needs. Many of my raiders have families (indeed, many have more than one family . . .), and Nordwin would slaughter their wives and children and feed their bodies to the fish.
I stay quiet. She is smart, and she knows that out here at sea I am King. She knows that when we weigh anchor I lose my power and so does she. Perhaps she has heard of Nordwin, perhaps not.
“I said but a few words to you,” I say finally. “None were lies.”
“You did not lie with words,” she says. Her brown eyes darken, her red lips tighten, her eyelashes catch the candlelight. “Just like you said a queen reveals herself through character and not a crown, so does a lie reveal itself through feelings and not words.”
I frown and jut my jaw out. I am no fool, but this woman’s words make my head hurt. What has she seen in my actions? What have I revealed to her wise brown eyes? I settle myself down and place my palms once more flat on the table. She glances at my fingers and then back into my eyes. The candle in the dull steel plate flickers from an unfelt breeze.
“So you feel I have lied?” I say with a raised eyebrow.
“I feel something,” she says softly. She leans forward and blows out the candle, sending a tendril of black smoke towards me. The candles from the other tables cast her face in dark gold shadow, and a chill goes up my spine as I wonder where she leads me.
I search her eyes for an answer, but she gives me none. I have met every sort of woman in my travels, and many a seductress has tried her hand at bending my will. If she has heard stories of Nordwin she would know that if I touch her I will be executed for tainting the King’s tribute, for elevating myself to Nordwin’s status. It would be a symbolic act against the King, and I would be killed along with every last one of my men. Perhaps their families too. Is that where she leads me? Is it a cold, calculated game? Or does she speak truthfully when she says I feel something? Does she feel what I feel?
“Perhaps it is sea-sickness you feel,” I say with a grin, slapping the table with both hands and making the mug of warm ale jump. Wendra does not jump, though.
“It is some kind of sickness,” she says, keeping her gaze steady as she curls a strand of hair around her ear. My cock moves and my heart pounds and the heat of danger tightens my back. She plays me for a walking erection, a beast with balls where other men have brains. I should turn and walk out of here, lock her below decks until we pull into port, toss her at Nordwin’s jeweled boots and set sail on the next raid just like I have always done.
“Salted fishmeat cures many a sickness,” I say, glancing at the dried herring laid out on paper at one end of the table. “And so does brown ale. If that does not work, try resting. The sun will set soon and we will reach the North shores by dawn.” I swallow as my throat tightens. “And if the sickness still bothers you, King Nordwin has men who might cure what I cannot.”
“I have not heard of King Nordwin,” she says, a hint of color darkening her cheeks. “Is he a good king?”
My eyes dart toward the closed door and then back into her eyes. Does she lie? Does she lay a trap for me? Does she hope I will speak against my King in front of my men?
“All Kings are good,” I say flatly. “But if you hope to be his Queen, I fear that may not be in the stars for you.”
Now the color drains from her face, and I know not what to make of her. I decide to make nothing of her, and without more words I stand and stride to the door. I stop before opening it and stare at the knotted wood. I burn to ask her what lie I revealed through action, but when I turn my head and see her eyes I know the answer and it is so clear I cannot be in her presence lest I break.
You will not be touched by me, I’d promised her.
That was the lie.
It was a lie because I already touched her.
Not in the flesh but in the spirit.
Because she knows the truth I will not admit: That I spared her tribe because of her. She knows it and it means something to her. It touched her, and that means something to me.
And so I cannot see her again. Her fate is up to King Nordwin now. She can play her game with the “good” King. I have shown my weakness and now I will not step into the arena with her. I will not put my men’s lives and families on the line to satisfy my pride or my loins or my heart or my soul. After all, I cannot be defeated if I do not step into battle.
And so I tear my eyes away from her and grip the door handle so hard I almost rip the iron nails from the wood. I storm past my drunken men with fire in my eyes and darkness in my heart, and when I get to my chambers I am silently grateful that the other women are not on this ship. Who knows what I would do with this need that burns in me like the thunderbolts of Odin himself.
3
THE NEXT DAY
KING NORDWIN’S COURT
WENDRA
“A tribute fit for Odin himself,” Wolruff declares after a stiff bow and a long, labored breath. I glance at the back of his head and then past him towards King Nordwin.
The King is short and wiry, with wisps of blond hair and pale blue eyes. A long nose that twists left, thin lips fixed somewhere between a sneer and a smile. He does not look like a good King. I did not expect him to be a good King.
Wolruff turns on his boot heel and walks past me without looking into my eyes. But as he passes I see his chest tighten and his throat move, and I feel that thing behind my breast, feel that intuition that made me think I could sway this Viking, negotiate with him, vanquish him with words and feelings and the swell of my breasts and the wetness of my lips and the warmth between my legs.
The memory of yesterday disgusts me, and I tighten my buttocks and press my thighs together as Wolruff’s scent cuts through the perfumed air of Nordwin’s court. I feel like a common whore today even though yesterday I believed my own words, believed that I felt something for my captor, that perhaps I could turn him into my savior, that maybe I indeed had a sickness for which Wolruff was the cure.
My lips tighten into a smile as I remember the last man I thought was a savior. I was a fool, and he suffered for my error. And now here I am, presented as tribute to a thin-lipped, crooked-nosed King who does not appear convinced that I am a gift worthy of Odin.
“Do you believe I plan to eat her, Wolruff?” says Nordwin, slumping in his gold-backed throne and crossing one leg over the other knee. He wears knee-high stockings of purple silk and light brown leather sandals laced up past his spindly calves.
A murmur rises from the nobles at the front and the warriors at the back. I hear Wolruff stop a few paces beyond me.
“I do not understand,” he says. “Of course I do not expect you to eat her.”
“Then why did you fatten her up thus?” retorts the King, his dangling foot moving wildly as that sneer tightens into a smirk and the murmur rises to a roar.
My cheeks flush with anger and I hear Wolruff take three steps toward me and the King. I keep my eyes averted so the King will not see my rage. Already I sense the man seeks attention and approval, which means that any challenge or insult will be punished swift and harsh.
Wolruff stays silent but I hear his chain-mail armor stretch as he flexes his chest and broadens his shoulders. Again I get the sense that my intuition yesterday was not wrong, that perhaps if I had persisted I might have turned him to my side. Of course, it is too late now. Perhaps it was already too late yesterday. Perhaps my fate was written the day I overruled my intuition and married the man who now sle
eps with the mermaids at the bottom of the sea.
“Maybe next time you will bring me a mermaid like I asked, Wolruff,” says the King, looking around at his nobles. They touch their belts and laugh from their bellies. “Or wait—perhaps this creature has a tail beneath her skirts! Let us see. Come, Wolruff. Reveal the mermaid to us!”
I stiffen and turn my head halfway, my breath catching as I feel Wolruff tense up. He lets out a low growl that comes through as vibration and not sound. I hear his jawbone click and his knuckles crack. A spark of hope flickers in me, but it is quickly snuffed out by reason and common sense. If Wolruff could not be moved yesterday when there might have been a chance, he will not be moved today when there is no chance. This Viking has brains to go with that bulk, and he is too smart to sacrifice himself and perhaps his men for the pull of the heart. And anyway, what do I know about how the heart pulls?
“She is not a mermaid,” Wolruff says coldly. “If the King is displeased with his tribute, there are many others we have taken captive. Perhaps I can—”
“Yes, I heard you captured many others,” Nordwin snaps. “Old men wrinkled like prunes and gnarled like trees. Children who scream for breastmilk and the warmth of the bosom. Warriors who should be rotting on the battlefield instead of resting on my longships.”
Wolruff clears his throat. “My longships,” he says.
The King blinks and sticks his neck forward like a vulture. “What?”
“The longships,” says Wolruff, this time a bit louder. “They are mine, King Nordwin. I pay tribute to my King like all Raiders, but the ships are mine and the men are mine.”
Gasps rise like a chorus, and I frown at the red-and-gold carpet as I reconsider my belief about Wolruff’s intelligence. I steal a sideways glance at him, still frowning. And immediately I look away to hide a smile.
Because I know what just went through his mind.
I know that he said more than what the court heard.
The ships are mine and the men are mine, he’d declared to his King. But his eyes whispered what his lips did not:
And so is she, said his eyes. She too is mine.
4
WOLRUFF
She too is mine, says my heart as it threatens to explode in my chest. I clench my fists and grind my teeth, wishing I could go back to yesterday and play my hand differently. I overruled my instinct and walked out of the food hall like a coward flees the battlefield. But the coward soon finds that his fortress walls offer no safety. How can they, when the battle is fought in your heart, lost and won in your soul?
And I am in danger of losing not just the battle but my life right now, it occurs to me as silence still as death falls over the court. Nordwin has executed men for less, and even though I spoke a truth that all Vikings know and accept, it sounded like a challenge, like I was questioning the King, perhaps even insulting him.
My gaze stays front and steady, but I am already scanning the court in case things call for action. My Vikings line the back of the royal hall, and I hear their boots on the smooth stone floor as they shift on their feet. Out on the seas they would stand behind me to the last man, to their last breath. Out here many of them would still stand with me without regard for consequence, and I wince inside at the pain from my poor judgment. The judgment of a fool. The judgment of a man who missed his chance yesterday and now tries to reach for a prize which is beyond his grasp.
“I am a mermaid,” comes her voice through the clouds in my mind. I frown and cock my head when I see Wendra smiling wide and bright at the King, her back straight, curvy rump sticking up and out, breasts high like mountain peaks. “But I have no tail. Mermaids lose their tails when they are captured, you see. Set me free and my tail will grow back. And if you do set me free, I am bound by the Code of the Mermaids to grant you three wishes, Great King.” She broadens the smile and bends her knee in playful respect, and when I see King Nordwin raise an eyebrow and then slowly lean back and touch his lip and smile, I hold my tongue and stand still as a rock as Wendra wields her ax, swings her sword, spins her web.
“Three wishes . . .” Nordwin says, tapping his lip and swinging his stocking’d foot. He glances at me and then back at her. I exhale when I realize Wendra just made him forget about my insult. She may have just saved my life. Does that not bind me to her? Does it not put me in debt to her? Am I not pledged by honor to serve her with my life until the debt is repaid?
I push the thought away as my reason whispers that Nordwin might have punished me but not with death. It is a dangerous thought, and I cannot trust myself to give it life. Perhaps I yearn for an excuse to do something that goes against all reason. Perhaps I ache to follow that feeling and take her as mine, do what my intuition urged when I first saw her walk out of the flames like a goddess reborn.
“All right, Magical Mermaid,” says the King with a grin. “My first wish is to never die. To live forever. Like a god.”
“It will be so,” says Wendra with a wave of her hand and a flutter of her lashes. The nobles and warriors alike laugh and clap, and King Nordwin grins and looks around in glee.
“My second wish . . .” he says, narrowing his eyes at her, “is to sit upon the Throne of England.”
Wendra blinks and swallows before composing herself and smiling. “One day you will sit upon the Throne of England,” she says with a hand-wave that is less convincing. The gleam in Nordwin’s blue eyes shines dull in a way I do not like. “And your third wish, Great King?”
King Nordwin stands and stretches. He looks around at his nobles and then up at the high ceiling of the Great Hall. “My third wish is to be taller,” he says with a wink and a shrug to his audience. But that gleam in his eye worries me, and I open up my fist and flex my fingers in case I need to reach for my dagger. Nordwin holds his hand high above his head. “About this tall,” he says. Then he looks down his crooked nose at Wendra and raises an eyebrow. “I am waiting, Mermaid. I do not feel myself growing. You are not by chance lying, are you? Playing me for a fool? A child in King’s clothing? An idiot in a crown?”
Wendra somehow holds her smile and posture. “No, Great King. But remember what I said: I can only grant the wishes once I am set free.”
Nordwin bites his lip and crosses his arms over his shimmering green tunic. “Ah, yes. The catch in the story. The twist in the tale.” He smiles thinly and glances at the masked men of the Royal Guard who stand by the throne. Very well. You shall be set free, Mermaid. I cannot wait to feel myself grow taller, sit upon the Throne of England, and live happily ever after for eternity.” He whips his head toward the Royal Guard. “Set the Mermaid free,” he says casually. “Free her head from her tail and we shall see if my wishes come true.”
“No!” I roar, stepping forth even though I know I cannot stand against the Royal Guard with just a dagger. Perhaps with my battle-ax I could have fought my way out, but the King does not permit Vikings to carry heavy weapons in his court. The Royal Guard advance, and the first one swings his ax free and twirls it to loosen his arm. “No!” I shout again, pulling out my dagger and holding it up. Then I look at the King and call out with all the authority I can summon. “Allow me to set her free, King Nordwin. I will set her free. She is mine to set free.”
The Royal Guard stop and turn to the King. He rubs his smooth chin and frowns down at me. Then he nods and sighs and waves away his guards and settles back into his throne to watch the show.
I exhale slow as my vision narrows to a tunnel that gets smaller with every moment. I do not see a way out, and I turn to Wendra with a smile so heavy it hurts. My palm is wet against the leather-wrapped handle of my dagger that has slit more throats than there are heads in this hall. But cutting her soft skin is not even a thought in my mind. I step toward her, moving slow as the King and his court watch. I glance past her towards my men and blink slowly at my First Mate. It is an order to hold back, to stand down. This does not concern
them. It is not their fight. It is not their fate.
“Perhaps I should have listened to you yesterday, Queen Wendra,” I whisper as I let my gaze take in her beauty, let my nostrils inhale her sweetness, let my heart open so I can feel what I dared not admit. What does it matter now? In moments both she and I will be dead. I could save myself but it feels empty. I have already lost. I lost the battle yesterday when I walked away from the table, walked away from her, walked away from my fate.
“Listen to me now,” she whispers, raising her head and exposing her beautiful bare neck. “Cut me clean across the front of the neck, deep through the fleshy middle but shallow near the sides where the blood pumps hard and hot. I will bleed for the audience but my heart will yet beat.” She swallows and takes a breath, letting it out slow in a way that makes me shudder. “It will not beat for long, though.” She speaks no more, but her eyes say so much. My heart finishes her sentence, and my eyes speak my answer.
We stare at each other and for a moment the walls melt away and the hall opens up to the sky and it is just the two of us, a Mermaid and a Viking, a man and a woman. But I blink and the moment is lost. The memory remains, though, and I know it is a memory of the future, of what can be real if my hand cuts clean, my blade cuts right, her heart beats strong enough . . . and for long enough.
Her brown eyes cut through me as I grip my dagger. It feels heavier than my battle-ax as I raise it to her throat. It catches the light from the chandelier, blinding me for a moment. I close my eyes and trust my hand, cutting through the air between us and praying to Thor and Odin and Freya and even Loki to guide my blade and grant me one wish.
One wish is all I ask, I say to the gods as the tip of my dagger touches her skin and opens up a thin line that feels like it is being cut in my own flesh, etched in my own heart.
My gut churns as Wendra gasps and sways and falls. I catch her easily around the waist, and in one quick move lift her into my arms. Her head hangs limp to one side, the blood red as a sunset. It trickles down her neck and onto my fingers, and I spin around towards the King to give him his show.
Vanquishing the Viking (Curvy for Keeps Book 7) Page 2
