The Caged Viking

by Sandra Hill

  Immediately, a technician began hosing down her flames while others peeled back her flameproof wig along with the tight cap that protected her short, spiky blonde hair a la the singer Pink, two Nomex jumpsuits, and gloves. Still others wiped the retardant gel off her face.

  “Hey, Rita. Got a minute?” the producer, Dean Witherow, called out to her. “I have a couple of gentlemen who’d like to meet you.”

  Noticing the two military types in the visitors’ area, probably consultants on the film, she sighed with resignation. Folks were fascinated with her after witnessing some of her stunts, especially men who fantasized about what she could do in bed. Being a proud lady of the SWAMP, as in Stuntwomen’s Association of Motion Pictures, she’d heard it all. One lawyer from Denver once asked, before they’d even gotten to the entree in a fancy L.A. restaurant, if she could do any kinky stunts during sex. Jeesh! And, yes, she could, actually. Not that she’d told him that.

  After a quick shower in the doubles’ trailer and a change of clothes to jeans and an Aerosmith T-shirt, she walked up and let Dean introduce them. “This is Commander Ian MacLean and Lieutenant Jacob Mendozo. They’re Navy SEALs stationed at Coronado.”

  Like many others in this country, she had a proud appreciation for the good job SEALs did in fighting terrorism.

  The one guy—the commander—was in his early forties with a receding hairline that didn’t detract at all from his overall attractiveness. He was too somber for her taste, though.

  Lieutenant Mendozo, on the other hand, was whoo-ee sex personified. From his Hispanic good looks to his mischievous eyes, he was eye candy of the best sort. And she’d bet her skydiving helmet that he knew his way around a bed, too.

  Rita Sawyer, get your mind out of the gutter.

  Maybe I am suffering from sex deprivation, like Darron thinks.

  “Were either of you among those SEALs who got in trouble for riding horseback into Afghanistan a few years back? I saw it on CNN.”

  Both men’s faces reddened.

  “We don’t talk about that,” the commander said.

  Which means yes. “Why so shy? It was really impressive.”

  “The Pentagon didn’t think so,” Lieutenant Mendozo explained with a wink...a wink his superior did not appreciate, if his glare was any indication.

  “Heads rolled,” the commander agreed with a grimace. “With good reason. Necessity might be the mother of invention, but in the case of SEALs, they’d better be private ones.”

  “What he’s trying to say is that a SEAL scalp is a coup for many tangos...uh, terrorists. It’s important that we stay covert. That episode in Afghanistan was a monumental brain fart.”

  “Well, it’s been nice meeting you. Maybe you can—”

  “We have a proposition for you,” Commander MacLean interrupted.

  Gutter, here I come. She laughed. She couldn’t help herself.

  “Not that kind of proposition.”

  “Oh, heck!” she joked.

  “I’m a happily married man. In fact, my wife would whack me with the flat side of her broadsword if I even looked at another female.”

  The lieutenant smiled in a way that indicated he wouldn’t mind that kind of proposition.

  But wait a minute. Did he say broadsword?

  “Can we go somewhere for a cup of coffee?” the commander suggested.

  Or a cool drink to lower my temperature.

  Soon they were seated at a table in the commissary.

  “So, what’s this all about?” she asked, impatient to get home if she was going to make her “date.” Now that her initial testosterone buzz had tamed down to a hum, she accepted that these two were here on business of some sort, not to put the make on her.

  “How would you like to become a female SEAL?”

  She choked on her iced tea and had to dab at her mouth and shirt with the paper napkins the lieutenant handed her with a chuckle. “You mean, like G.I. Jane?” she finally sputtered out.

  “Exactly,” Commander MacLean said. “It’s a grueling training program. Not many women...or men for that matter...can handle the regimen.”

  What a load of hooey! “Why me?”

  “The WEALS program—Women on Earth, Air, Land and Sea—needs more good women who are physically fit to the extreme. With terrorism running rampant today, Uncle Sam needs more elite forces, and our current supply of seasoned SEALs are deploying on eight to ten combat tours. Way too much! So, we’re recruiting special people under a mentoring program. Bottom line, we need a thousand more SEALs over the next few years, and a few hundred more WEALS.”

  “But why me?”

  The commander shrugged. “We want the best of the best. Men and women who are patriotic...”

  I do get teary when the national anthem plays.

  “...extreme athletes…”

  You got me on that one.

  “...controlled risk takers…”

  Stunts R Us.

  “...skilled competitors who enjoy challenges and games…”

  Does he see “Sucker” tattooed on my forehead?

  “...people who love to travel.”

  Yeah, like downtown Kabul is my idea of a Club Med vacation.

  “Only one in a hundred applicants make it through Hell Week, you know.”

  And you think I want to put myself through that? “You’ve gotta be kidding.”

  Both men shook their heads.

  “Each WEALS trainee has a mentor to get her through the process,” Commander MacLean added, as if that made everything more palatable.

  “And my mentor would be?”

  The sexy lieutenant gave her a little wave.

  Okay, I’m officially tempted.

  But not enough. She’d read about Hell Week. She’d watched Demi Moore get creamed in G.I. Jane. Who needs that? No. Way. She started to rise from her seat. “I’m flattered that you would consider me, but—”

  “Plus there’s a sizeable sign-up bonus,” Lieutenant Mendozo added.

  Rita plopped back down into her chair. “Tell me more.”

  And she could swear she heard the cute lieutenant murmur, “Hoo-yah!”

  I’m in the mood for...

  Steven of Norstead, proud son of a Viking prince, handsome as a god, far-famed in the bedsport, well-tested in battle, was bored. Actually, more than bored. In truth, he was in a black, nigh unbearable mood and had been for some time.

  “Who ever heard of a depressed Viking?” Oslac, his friend and comrade-in-arms, inquired, followed by a loud belch.

  He belched, too, just to be friendly.

  They were both deep in the alehead following a full day and night of debauchery...or at least multiple partners in his bed furs, if he recalled correctly. Not all at once, praise the gods. Not this time anyway. But that other time! By the runes! Father Christopher had suffered a foaming fit when he caught him in the bathing longhouse with...well, never mind.

  Vikings often practiced both the Christian and Norse religions, but it was no great loss when Father Christopher left them for an extended monastic retreat, leaving behind Father Peter, who was less inclined to foaming fits, leaning more toward foaming ale.

  But that was neither here nor there.

  “I am not depressed, precisely. More like I carry a huge weight on my shoulders. All the time.”

  “Well, ’tis no small feat managing two vast estates. Norstead and Amberstead.” Amberstead was a large, self-sustaining estate that included a castle keep, outbuildings, and farmsteads, but Norstead was four times its size, and it also included a military garrison and armory, more skilled workmen and craftsmen, such as a blacksmith, weavers, cobblers, cattle herders, shepherds, stable hands, and a much larger timber castle. There was no way Steven could handle both estates without help. “And a fine job you do for me at Amberstead.”

  It was difficult running the two estates that were adjacent but separated by rocky, mountainous terrain. If only Oslac would take over the much smaller Amberstead on a permanent basis, bu
t he had property in Norsemandy that would be his on his father’s death. Still, for now, ’twas good to have a friend at one’s back. “Nay, ’tis more than that. I am only twenty and nine, and yet I have lost my zest for life. I can scarce get up in the morn, with naught to look forward to.”

  “And your people are aware of it, too,” Oslac pronounced, squeezing his forearm in warning.

  A serving maid, Asabor, stepped forward to refill their horns from a pottery jug in her hand. He could guess from the flushed expression on her round cheeks what was about to come.

  “Did ye hear ’bout the woman who buried her husband twelve feet under?”

  “Nay, Asabor, I did not.” Spare me, Lord.

  “It was ’cause deep down he was a good person.”

  That was not even funny. “Ha-ha-ha! Very good, Asabor.”

  When she left, he rolled his eyes at Oslac. His people had taken of late to telling lackwit jokes in hopes of garnering a smile from him.

  First of all, to say that the people of Norstead and Amberstead were “his” people struck an odd chord with him. He still thought of his home as Norsemandy, where he grew up. When he and Thorfinn had come to Hordaland, it was Finn as the older brother who had ruled. He did not want nor need that role. Alas and alack! He was stuck being a jarl in a country that was not even his own.

  Second, it was beyond distasteful that the common folks were not only remarking on his moods but attempting to do something about them.

  “I do not seek pity from anyone, Oslac.”

  “’Tis not pity, my friend. Everyone shares in your grief. They speak in general of a gloom that pervades this valley.”

  “Oh,” he exclaimed, “now I know what you refer to. It is those damn witches, Kraka and Grima, who continue to spread their prophecies of a great light coming to brighten all the world.”

  “Not all the world. Just Norstead.” Oslac’s lips twitched with amusement.

  “Have you e’er met these two sisters, Oslac? Living in some mountain hut as they do, they are enough to scare the beads off a priest with their wild white hair and incessant cackling. I swear, they are older than time. I know they were here when my grandsire ruled Norstead, and that was some fifty years ago.”

  “Mayhap you need to wed. Mayhap that will be the light they speak of. Get yourself a wife and start breeding sons. King Olaf still claims you were betrothed at birth to his third daughter, Isrid.”

  He shot a glower at Oslac.

  “What? She is not so bad.”

  “Oh, she is comely enough, but she talks constantly. About nothing. Blather, blather, blather. I would have to put a plug in her mouth afore tupping.”

  Oslac suggested something about the plug, which Steven should have expected. He had stepped into that one like a boyling unused to male jests.

  “Whether Isrid or someone else, you must wed at some point. Heirs are needed for Norstead and Amberstead.”

  He shrugged. “Isrid or some other, it matters not to me at the present. Time enough later.”

  “It’s your brother then,” Oslac guessed.

  He nodded. “Yea, ever since Thorfinn disappeared two years past—”

  “Disappeared?” Oslac scoffed.

  “Ever since Finn died, then.” He cast a scowl at Oslac for the reminder. “We were in Baghdad. One moment he was laughing and telling me to meet him at the ship, warning me not to purchase any harem houris, whilst he conducted a final meeting with the horse breeder. The next moment, he failed to appear, and all we found was a pool of blood and his short sword lying beside the road. Mayhap he is still—”

  Oslac put up a halting hand. “Nay, Steven. You searched for sennights. Two years have passed. He would have let you know.”

  “But there was no body,” he insisted.

  “The miscreants who took his life no doubt dumped his body elsewhere. Accept that he is gone and move on with your life. I know how close you were, but he is in Asgard now, my friend.”

  Steven sighed and drew another long slurp of ale from his carved horn cup.

  “I must say, though, that Finn was always the serious one, especially after his wife left him, taking their infant son. And you were the lighthearted one, always up for a good time.”

  “Are you saying I have lost my sense of humor?” he inquired, not at all offended, though Viking men did prize their ability to laugh at themselves and all of life’s foibles.

  “Hah! You have lost more than that. Remember the time you and I fought off a black bear with our bare hands? Remember the time you tripped Balki the Bold when he was being particularly arrogant, and he fell into Mathilde Wart-Nose’s big bosoms? Remember the time you brought that ivory phallus back from the Arab lands and talked Maerta into inserting it whilst we watched? Remember the time we drank so much mead we decided we could jump off the roof of the keep into a hay wagon? Remember the time you tupped six women in a row and could still rise to the occasion?”

  He just sighed deeply again.

  “Mayhap you should go a-Viking.”

  “I did that last month. Brought two shiploads of plunder back from the Saxon lands.”

  “Boar hunting.”

  “Boring.”

  “Amber harvesting.”

  “I have too much amber already. That reminds me. We must needs send several chests to Birka for trading afore the winter freeze over the fjords.”

  “Visit King Olaf’s royal court.”

  “I will be going there for the Yule season. A man can stand only so much of Olaf’s bad breath.”

  “What we need is a good battle. Why is everyone so bloody peaceable of late?”

  “I know. My broadsword will get rusty from lack of use. Many thanks for reminding me. I will have the armor boy oil it and my brynja on the morrow.” In fact, now that he thought on it, it was time for the yearly cleaning of all the metal armor, putting the pieces in a barrel of sand and vinegar that was rolled around to shake and remove the rust. Later, they could be polished with bran.

  Oslac poured them both more ale. “There are those pirates who are getting more daring of late.”

  “Or desperate.”

  “That, too.”

  “Especially Brodir the Bold. What have he and his outlaw band against you? He targets your ships more than any other.”

  Steven shrugged. “Some grievance he has against my family. I have met him in person only a handful of times, and never in recent years.”

  “You should post extra sentries lest they strike afore winter.”

  Steven nodded. “’Twas a time when they only attacked longships that were poorly armed and usually those farther south. Now they even stalk the inland fjords.”

  “Brodir has set an example for other outlaw Vikings, giving pirating a good name. If a Norseman of noble birth can pirate, why not them, too? Truly, they are becoming a menace as their numbers increase.”

  “Yea, ’tis a waste, too. Brodir was once a fine warrior, and respected even when he went rogue, but then he and his men raped those novices at a Sudeby abbey and put a blood eagle on the mother superior, for sport. Now he is a nithing, using his fighting skills to organize the pirates and train them to attack in fleets.”

  “Ah, look. Here comes Lady Thora, Rolfgar’s widow. Mayhap she can lift your spirits...or leastways your staff.”

  “She already lifted my staff. Three times last night she let me swive her. Or rather, she swived me, to be more accurate.”

  “Are you sure? I swived her three times last night.”

  He and Oslac exchanged looks of incredulity, then burst out laughing.

  “Dost think she would consider joining us in...” Oslac then suggested something so outrageous that Steven, who thought he had tried everything that involved his cock, solitary or otherwise, was shocked.

  But only for a moment.

  Suddenly, Steven’s enthusiasm gurgled back to life. Not his mood. But then, when had a good mood been required for a zesty bout of bedsport? A man’s enthusiasm for sex play wa
s a constant, especially the perverted kind.

  “Oh, Thooor-aaaaa?” Oslac drawled out.

  But in the end, Steven went to his bed alone. Turned out, he was not in the mood, after all.

  Also by Sandra Hill

  Books in Sandra’s Viking Navy SEALs series:

  * * *

  Wet and Wild

  Hot and Heavy

  Rough and Ready

  Down and Dirty

  Viking Unchained

  Viking Heat

  Dark Viking

  The Caged Viking

  About the Author

  Humor (and sizzle) are the trademarks of Sandra Hill novels, all fifty or so of them, whether they be about Cajuns, Vikings, Navy SEALs, Viking vampire angels (vangels), or treasure hunters, or a combination of these. Readers especially love her notorious Tante Lulu, the bayou matchmaker/folk healer, and often write to say they have a family member just like her, or wish they did. In addition, there are thousands of fans who devour her outrageous Viking novels, whether they be historicals or time-travels. Sometimes, the characters jump from one series to another.

  Growing up in a small town in Pennsylvania, Sandra says she was quiet and shy, no funny bone at all, but she was forced to develop a sense of humor as a survival skill later in her all male household: a husband, four sons, and a male German Shepherd the size of a horse. Add to that mix now a male black lab, a male Labradoodle, two male grandsons (a rock musician and an extreme athlete), and a stunning granddaughter, who is both gifted and a gift, and you can see why Sandra wishes all her fans smiles in their reading.

  Glossary

  Althing—an assembly of free people that made laws and settled disputes. It was like a Thing, but larger, involving delegates from various parts of a country, not just a single region. Forerunners of the English judicial system.

  Baldr (also spelled Baldur, or Balder)— Norse god of light, purity and summer sun. Likened to the Christ god, Jesus. Son of Odin and the goddess Frigg.