For a moment, she remembered how Alasdair’s eyes had burned into her own. The steel edge to his voice when he’d warned the Vikings against hurting her.
How could he have vanished so quickly?
She pressed a hand to her stomach, feeling ill. She yearned for him, needing him so badly that her heart ached. The loss of him struck her like a physical blow.
Drawing on all the strength of her name, she glanced back at Lady Sarina, straightening her shoulders when the woman’s dark eyes narrowed to slits. The silver arm-ring dangled from her fingers, waiting.
A cold smile curved her lips and she held out the bangle, wriggling it at Marjory.
It was the wriggling that unleashed Marjory’s own Berserker blood. Fury rose inside her and heat raced through her veins. She felt its power, the terrible strength surging, deadly and ancient.
Lady Sarina jiggled the arm-ring again.
“No-o-o!” Marjory stomped down on the older woman’s foot, twisting free when her captor yelped. Taking advantage, she kicked the woman in the shins and then leapt back, bloodying one young woman’s nose with a swift, hard-fisted punch when she tried to grab her.
“Come near me at your peril.” She kept her fists raised, glaring at the gaping women. Beyond them, the spearmen eyed her, some with amusement, most with cold, impassive faces. None of them moved, as if they knew she had nowhere to run. She did straighten to her full height, summoned her haughtiest tone. “I’ll not be part of such madness.”
“The gods have chosen you.” One of the women started forward, her steps slow and measured. “Your fear dishonors them.”
“I’m angry, not afraid.” Marjory wheeled, ramming her elbow into another woman’s ribs when she tried to sneak up on her from behind.
Another lunged at her, earning a cracked lip from Marjory’s other elbow. A wicked backswing she’d learned while hiding in Nought’s bailey shadows as a child and watching Kendrew and their cousins train to fight.
Setting her hands on her hips, she tossed back her hair and glared round. “I’ll be leaving here now.” She spoke as levelly as she could, hoping only she heard the pounding of her heart. She abhorred fighting. But she loved living more. “Your lord can make his death journey without me.
“One step and I’ll bite off the nose of anyone foolish enough to stop me.” She’d do no such thing. But the threat appeared to stay her enemies. She let her eyes flash, knowing she looked like a Valkyrie. “I might try an ear as well, be warned.”
“You will save your spirit to amuse Lord Rorik in Niflheim.” A deep voice spoke behind her, one of the spearmen.
His words chilled her, proving they meant to send her into the Viking realm of death. A cold and misty place full of darkness, where those who died of age or illness were sent to languish, away from the warriors’ mead halls of Valhalla.
“My spirit is not your concern.” Marjory spun about to face a huge man with a plaited yellow beard.
He just looked at her, not seeming to hear.
Then he grabbed her by the arms, hauling her off the ground and returning her to the hard-faced matron. “She needs your herbs and charms to quiet her.”
He set her on her feet before the woman, and then frowned when she dusted down her skirts. “The gods chose unwisely.”
“Leave her to me.” The woman spoke to the spearman, but locked her gaze on Marjory, her face unsmiling. “The fires have turned the minds of others, when they know they’ll soon bathe in them.”
Stepping closer, she grasped Marjory by the jaw. “Flames of glory will speed you past the pain. Drink this” – she pressed a cold metal cup against Marjory’s lips – “and you’ll be whisked straight to Niflheim with the master. Open your mouth and accept-”
A great cheer cut off her wheedling.
Marjory pressed her lips tightly together, refusing the foul-smelling brew. She also narrowed her gaze, as much to stop the smoke from burning her eyes as to show her tormentor that she wasn’t afraid.
Regrettably, she was.
A sick feeling spread inside her. All around her, the smoke thickened as the fires raged, terrifying now with hot bursts of flame and burning ash. Yet the cold was equally biting. Bone-deep and more arctic than any chill she’d ever known, it made Nought’s worst winter feel like a spring morning.
Her fingers and toes were numb. She could no longer feel the tops of her ears. And they hurt from the roars of a crowd as the thunder of spears clashing against shields worsened, the sound now deafening.
“They do you tribute.” The matron clamped her fingers around Marjory’s chin, forcing the cup between her lips. “Drink and find courage”
“Pah!” Marjory refused to swallow.
The woman hissed something, but her words were lost in the din.
Marjory pulled away from her, when the woman again tried to tip the drink into her mouth.
She’d had enough.
Her patience was grinding to an end.
She took a deep breath, her fists clenched. She wasn’t called Lady Norn for nothing. When the good men of Nought believed she wouldn’t hear, they swore she was as formidable as a Norse frost giant. Others praised her wit, boasting that she wielded her tongue as deftly as Mackintosh men swung their axes.
She took those observations as compliments, priding herself on standing tall, always.
Mackintosh women were bold.
Daring ran in their veins, letting them fear nothing.
Even so, she didn’t believe her courage needed testing by flames.
Death by fire didn’t appeal to her.
Yet the women crowded round her, bustling her past the twin rows of fierce-eyed spearmen until the Viking longboat loomed before her, its proud length pulled up on the strand. A dragonship, it was huge, terrible, and every bit as awe-inspiring beached as riding the waves. Festively dressed scaffolding rose along the ship’s sides, hiding the great pyres set beneath and within its hull.
Marjory’s breath caught, her pulse racing. The women pushed and pulled at her, driving her onward, closer to the waiting ship. She knew it would burn.
Other, smaller craft already stood in flames. Their presence signaled the status of Rorik the Generous, whose mortal remains rested in honor upon a high bed of furs inside the dragonship.
Like the lesser ships, the warship would soon blaze, carrying the noble in style to the Otherworld. Beyond the spearmen, other men held fiery torches, ready to ignite the bonfires that would guide their lord’s departing soul from the mortal realm.
On Marjory’s approach, the men began tossing their brands into the dragonship, the crowd cheering when the huge sailcloth burst into flame. The serpent-headed prow glowed red, orange-black sheets of fire swiftly engulfing its proud curving neck.
“No-o-o!” Marjory twisted and turned, fighting the hands that held her so tightly.
The infernos’ roar filled her ears and smoke stung her eyes. Her throat closed, the ash-filled air choking her. Terrible heat leapt at her, tongues of fire to scorch her flesh and char her soul. Wind whipped the flames closer, sending them higher until even her hair caught fire. Sparks whirled around her, lighting on her skin, burning and marring her, hinting at what was yet to come.
She bit down hard on her lower lip, refusing to scream.
Dignity was all that remained to her.
Behind her, the clashing of spears on shields went on, a dreadful beat that echoed through her like the death knell it was. Then the women poking and prodding her toward the burning ship stopped for a moment, once again urging her to sip from the cold, metal cup.
“The flames won’t bite as hard if you drink.” The matron pinched Marjory’s chin, prying her mouth open. “One sip-”
“Never!” Marjory reared back, snatching the cup and dashing its contents into her tormenter’s face.
“Gah!” The woman jumped, swiping at her eyes as the younger women lunged at Marjory, arms outstretched, fingers curled into talons.
It was then that the cl
anging worsened and the wind swung round, blowing spray from the surf into Marjory’s face. She lifted a hand, wiping her eyes and finding her cheeks damp with icy droplets.
Rain.
A storm that no longer buffeted the cliffs, but drummed on Nought’s tower walls, also the rhythmic banging of a shutter blown open by the wind. Sitting up at once, she recognized the sound, relief sluicing her.
Not spear-shafts on shields but her bedchamber’s loose shutter. Just as the cold film of moisture on her cheeks was only windblown rain and not sea spray from a distant, foreign strand. She felt the brush of her bed curtains, tossing in the gusts coming through the window.
Everything was as it should be.
Even her tiny dog, Hercules, still slept at her feet, snoring softly. Across the room, all that remained of her earlier fire was a trace of soot and ash, a thin haze of peat smoke lingering in the air.
Nought was quiet as always in the small hours, the stronghold at rest.
Marjory took a deep, steadying breath.
She could still feel the fires heating her skin. And she couldn’t banish the feeling that Lady Sarina and the older woman and all the others had really been there, pushing and pulling her toward the burning longship.
Or that Alasdair had come to save her.
It’d been so real.
Yet…
Shaky, she eased her feet from beneath Hercules and slipped from her bed. Once she’d refastened the clanging shutter, she’d be able to sleep in peace. Forget the night’s strange and unsettling dream. But she’d only taken a few steps across the cold, rush-strewn floor before her foot collided with a small metal cup.
Looking down, she saw that it was on its side. The darkening of the rushes around the cup indicated it’d been knocked over when full, its contents spilling out across the floor.
The only problem was there hadn’t been a small metal cup in her room.
She was sure of that.
And – she blinked – there wasn’t one here now either. For when she bent to snatch the cup into her hand, her fingers closed around one of Hercules’s discarded toys. A crescent of smooth, well-chewed wood boasting two rounded balls on each end, carved for him by Grim, one of her brother’s most trusted warriors and a great animal lover.
Marjory dropped the toy as if it’d bitten her.
She turned in a circle, searching the room, where moonlight poured in through the open shutter, casting a silvered wedge across the floor. She also peered into the gloom of corners and beneath her bed where dark shadows might conceal a plain metal beaker.
She saw nothing.
The cup was gone.
Marjory pushed back her hair, sure her mind was playing tricks on her. And no wonder. Kendrew’s plan to see her wed to a Viking nobleman was wearing on her. She hoped that was the only reason for such a disturbing dream.
She didn’t want to think about what would happen if such a dream was a portent.
She’d been weaned on Norse folklore and custom.
She knew fire burials existed.
Blessedly, she also knew that Kendrew had exhausted his list of potential suitors. At least, she believed Groat’s overlord was the Viking lord to offer for her. She’d paid dearly to avoid such a union, even sacrificing her grandmother’s heirloom sapphire ring.
She was safe.
Taking comfort in that knowledge, she went to the window and closed the shutter, securing its latch with a strip of hide. Then she pressed her hand to the small of her back and stretched, recalling the names of all possible husbands and how she’d successfully thwarted each bid for her hand.
Isobel had helped her.
Together, they’d cleared the path for Marjory’s seduction of Alasdair. He wasn’t exactly cooperating, but she was making headway. That he desired her stood without question. She only needed another opportunity to convince him that he could never have enough of her. That she was everything he could wish for in a lover, a wife.
Soon, he’d come around.
Her fearing dream meant nothing.
Still...
Why did she feel a tingling in the back of her neck? Worse, why did the air in her room still hold a tinge of smoke? Not the earthy-sweet hint of cold peat ash from her bedchamber’s hearth but the sharp, acrid bite of burning wood and something else.
Something she didn’t want to ponder.
She did cross the room and fling back her bed curtains, tying them to a bed post. If anything else came to her this night, in a dream or otherwise, she’d face the intrusion head-on and with her eyes wide open.
She’d be ready.
Chapter 5
“The devil ravening.” Alasdair snarled the curse, certain Marjory’s fresh, heathery scent still wafted beneath his nose. Would that he could grasp her face, let his gaze roam over her, then lean near until he could feel the soft warmth of her skin, breathe her in. Kiss her once more. Need clawed at him, hot and fierce. Resisting her in the wood had cost him all his strength. If she tempted him again, he wouldn’t have a shred of restraint left to summon.
She should be glad the whole of the glen now stretched between them.
He should also be pleased.
Instead, he stood at one of the tall arched windows of his colorfully painted solar and tossed back the uisge beatha he’d poured himself. He needed the fiery Highland spirits, hoped its bite would curb his temper, keep him from smashing his fist into a wall. Here at his own Blackshore Castle, a proud loch-girt stronghold on the southernmost bounds of the Glen of Many Legends, he shouldn’t feel Marjory’s presence so strongly.
Thinking of her so late at night was especially dangerous. But he didn’t trust Kendrew and wasn’t sure the bastard wouldn’t persist with his quest to find her a Norse nobleman as a husband.
The possibility set his blood to boiling.
He closed his eyes for a moment, his entire body tightening.
He didn’t care if her prospective husband was a Viking or a Scot. He simply couldn’t bear the thought of her in the arms of another man.
The notion gutted him, caused a sharp, stabbing pain in the region of his heart.
Wishing that weren’t so, and damning her because it was, he almost reached to slosh more uisge beatha into his cup. Unfortunately, his head was already beginning to ache. So he slapped the cup onto the window ledge and took a deep breath of the cold night air.
It was a fine night.
He shouldn’t spend it imagining how many ways he’d enjoy making love to the delectable, entirely too irresistible sister of his greatest enemy. The King might’ve pressed the glen clans into a truce, but he and Kendrew had a festering history of bad blood that went too deep to ever be forgotten. Forgiveness was beyond them both.
The scar on his arm pulled then, as if the old wound – carved by Kendrew’s hand – agreed with his refusal to see Kendrew for anything but what he was: a true Highland scoundrel.
Praise God he only lusted after the bastard’s sister.
If he loved her-
Alasdair pulled a hand down over his face, not about to even consider the possibility.
He did lean against the edge of window to glare out at Loch Moidart. His mind should be filled with clan pride in such moments. Dark mists curled across the water and chill wind whistled past the castle’s ancient walls. It was a good night for sleeping and his men took advantage, most sprawled on pallets in the great hall. Only a few torches yet burned and the air still held a hint of the evening meal, roasted pork and rich onion gravy. Some might catch a waft of old dog and spilled ale. If so, no MacDonald would complain.
Dogs were welcome at Blackshore, aging beasts being particularly honored.
And ale….
MacDonalds were famed for serving up the finest.
They were also known for the worthiness of their leaders. Proud men who didn’t just protect kith and kin, guarding the land through the skill of their sword arms, but who were also good, honest, and fair. Wits served them as well as arms, a tru
th that demanded respect from all who knew them, friend or foe.
A shame his good sense had abandoned him.
There could be no other reason he’d kept himself up so late when every muscle in his body ached from the sword vigil on Drangar Point. Why else would he allow his loose-tongued cousin, Ewan, and Malcolm, his uncle and the most querulous MacDonald of all, to invade the night peace of his solar?
Peace that the other two men seemed determined to shatter.
“I could’ve told you knuckle kissing would sour your mood. No’ that I believe you stopped at kissing Lady Marjory’s hand. I wouldn’t have.” Ewan shifted on Alasdair’s best chair, stretched his long legs to the remnants of the hearth fire. “A pity you didn’t ask me how to handle her. I know much of women.”
“Did you sharpen your sword earlier?” Alasdair didn’t rise to the bait. “I ordered every man to do so. I don’t recall seeing you tend yours.”
“My blade is aye ready.” Ewan grinned, winking broadly.
Across the room, Malcolm snorted. “It’ll come back a stump if you’re for swinging it in the same direction thon laddie’s gazing so furiously.”
“I’m watching the loch and the hills beyond.” Alasdair shot them both an annoyed glance. “The rain’s stopped and the mist is thinning, but it’s still too quiet for my liking.”
“Humph.” Malcolm took a greedy bite of a pork rib. One of a large tray of ribs that he balanced on his knees as he sat on a three-legged stool, shunning the solar’s more comfortable furnishings.
A great-uncle a time or two removed, Malcolm had been a formidable warrior in his youth, not even giving up his sword after a Mackintosh war ax had sliced deep into his hip. The blow also snatched two fingers from his left hand and spoiled his swagger, leaving him with a limp he refused to acknowledge to this day.
A proud man, he sat so straight on his stool only those who knew him would know one of his legs was bent and his back would be crooked if he allowed. No one but Alasdair was aware that the floor of his fine-painted solar boasted a luxurious covering of sheep-and-deerskins because Malcolm’s bad leg was less apt to slip on furred rugs than on the herb-strewn rushes that decked most of Blackshore’s flooring.
Seduction of a Highland Warrior (Highland Warriors Book 4) Page 8
