“Parma swaggered through the chamber until he reached Grunlige. He stared at the warrior’s hands, whole and strong and hard. He stared into Grunlige’s face. He saw the truth and knew himself doomed. He paled and turned to run.
“Suddenly, a sword appeared in Grunlige’s hand, a mighty sword of steel so bright and shiny that all would swear later that it was Odin’s visage all could see in its reflection. Grunlige raised the sword slowly, in both his hands, high over his head. He smiled even as he lowered it, slowly, so very slowly, cleaving Parma’s head into two halves, continuing downward until Parma was cut into two equal parts, each teetering, each searching for the other, for life that could no longer be. The parts fell to the earth. Oddly, no blood spurted from the severed body, no blood at all.
“All looked down, but there was naught but the two halves and they were empty. There was nothing at all inside the halves. The men pulled back in fear and consternation. They begged Grunlige to tell them what had occurred. Grunlige cried, ‘I have smote the demon sent to test me, to strangle me with his fear.’ He turned to his wife and said, ‘He was Parma before he came into this chamber, but then Odin removed him and threw him into a coward’s oblivion. He put the demon of air in his place. It is over now. There is no more.’
“There followed abundant good fortune for Grunlige the Dane and his children and his children’s children. Each generation knew of his valor and his wisdom, and the tale was repeated so often that after many years it passed into legend and then into myth. But it is said that his progeny still live here in Norway—where, no one is certain. But you will believe it is a fact, if, on a stormy night, you listen very carefully, then you will hear the thunder boom out his name and know that Odin All-Father never forgot his warrior who was true to his honor and true to him, the god of all gods.”
Laren stopped. She stood silent, her head down. She didn’t look up when the cheering began nor did she move when the silver coins struck the ground at her feet.
A silver piece hit her toe and she felt nearly giddy with the joy of it. She kept her head down. She didn’t want any of them to see the sheer hope in her expression, and she knew that if anyone saw it and understood it, it would be Merrik.
Not many minutes later Merrik took her with him to his sleeping chamber. He did it in full sight of the Thoragassons and the girl Letta. He left Taby with Cleve, telling him to put him to bed with all the other children when he had tired of listening to the child chatter on and on about Grunlige and how very wise he was. As if he were a real man who really lived, Merrik thought, and then realized that he himself had considered Grunlige to be as real as he was himself. Perhaps he had lived, perhaps Laren had been told of him, perhaps . . .
When he lay beside Laren, unmoving, he said, “You did well.”
She thanked him, then drew a deep breath. “I would ask you something, Merrik.”
“Aye?”
“How much did you pay for Taby at the slave market?”
He stiffened. She believed him stupid, curse her, believed him so stupid that he wouldn’t remember all the silver pieces she’d been given since she’d begun her storytelling. He wondered how many pieces she’d collected now. There had been at least twenty pieces at her feet after she’d finished her tale this evening, twenty pieces of silver and two heavy silver armlets, one from Olaf Thoragasson himself.
“I paid fifty pieces of silver for him.”
He heard her cry of distress, but he did nothing, merely asked, “Why do you care? I would pay even more for Taby. He is worth a great deal to me.”
She said nothing, indeed words, for the moment, were beyond her. She saw her dreams sinking swiftly into the raging current of the North Sea.
Merrik chuckled. “Taby told me again this afternoon that he was a prince. He stuck his chin in the air and all but strutted when he said it.”
Utter silence. That was odd, he thought. Surely she should at least laugh or say something about Taby’s imagination.
“He told me he would allow me to continue taking care of him. Then he ruined his princely image by jumping at me and winding his arms around my neck. I nearly dropped him, for I was sharpening a scythe we will be using soon in the barley field.”
He heard her breathing, sharp and shallow. He said easily, “The meal you prepared was beyond anything our people have ever eaten. I imagine that Thoragasson, when he discovers who added girth to his belly this evening, will want to buy you. Just imagine, Laren, he would gain both a cook and a skald.” He paused a moment, then added, “Your value rises with each passing day.”
“And I am your concubine.”
“Aye, that too. I doubt there is much envy there, for you are still too skinny.”
“You allowed all the Thoragassons to see you take me into this sleeping chamber with you. If you are betrothed to Letta, why would you wish to hurt her by doing it?”
“I believe a woman should know that a man will always do as he wishes. If I wed with her, she won’t be surprised when I take other women to my bed.”
“You are like Erik, then.”
“Oh no,” he said, then wished he’d kept his mouth shut. “What is wrong with my brother? Other than his wanting to bed you?”
“He strikes Sarla.”
“Nay,” Merrik said slowly, turning now toward her, for she had his full attention. “Erik is used to having what he wants, but to strike Sarla is absurd. He is a brave man and he is my brother. You are making that up because you dislike him so very much, because you fear him.”
“Look at her face.”
“You are wrong.”
“She said that he hits her whenever she displeases him. He hit her three nights ago when you kept me from him. It was his disappointment, she thought.”
Merrik struggled with her words, with the image her words provoked in his mind. Erik strike gentle Sarla?
Laren sighed. “If she proves barren, I doubt not he will kill her, that or simply send her back to her family. How long does a man give a woman to bear him children? Three years? Perhaps four?”
“No, he would not do that. Cease your tales, Laren, for I will give you no silver pieces for your stories. If you wish to, though, you could tell me who you are and where you come from.”
“Perhaps once I am free of you, Cleve and Taby with me, I will send a messenger back to you, for then I would have nothing more to fear from you.”
That nearly sent him over the edge. “Your damned arrogance and pride! You gall me, woman. You fear me? For what reason? Have I ever hurt you? Damn you, I did not take you when you offered yourself to me, and you were more than willing, were you not? No, I didn’t take you because—”
He seemed to realize that what he intended to say wouldn’t result in the conclusion he sought. He shut his mouth.
She said flatly, “You didn’t take me because you find me ugly.”
“That is not true.”
“The other reason you didn’t take me is because of Taby. You love a child who isn’t even of your blood. He could be the son of a savage from the stinking bogs of Ireland, stolen by Viking marauders just like you and your kind. I will accept that you care for him even though I will never understand the depths of your feelings for him. What did you do, Merrik, promise him you would protect me as well as him? Did you swear to him you wouldn’t ravish me?”
“You should select another word. Ravish doesn’t apply to us.”
She sucked in her breath, fleeting memories of those incredible feelings whirling about the edges of her mind. “Even if I threw myself upon you naked, you would do nothing. You would cast me aside.”
Merrik frowned into the darkness. He said slowly, carefully selecting his words, “You sound as if you want me to take you, make you my concubine.”
Ah, she thought, here was the rub, here was the truth, unmasked, but she wouldn’t admit it to him. She merely laughed, saying, “Perhaps I would want you to take me just one time so that I would know what it is all about. Then it would be enoug
h. Then I could forget about it. But know this, Merrik, I would never want you for anything more than just a brief diversion, an amusement for just a single night that might please me as much as a good story.”
He had saved her life, damn her. He had cared for her, protected her from his brother. He wanted to strangle her. He lurched toward her and came down on top of her. His hands closed about her neck, but didn’t tighten. “You damnable witch,” he said, then found her mouth in the darkness and kissed her hard, not caring if he hurt her. Let it be an amusement for him, and let her cry in pain at such a diversion.
His rage increased when she didn’t move, just lay there, suffering his attack. He felt the softness of her belly, the giving weight of her breasts against his chest.
“Damn you, fight me.”
12
SHE DIDN’T FIGHT him, oh no, fighting him was far from her mind. She lurched up against him, grabbed his face between her hands and brought him down to her. She found his mouth after kissing his chin, his nose, his cheek, and she kissed him hard, her lips parted this time, and he was so surprised, so utterly dumbfounded by her actions, that he froze over her, not opening his mouth, not doing anything at all, save trying to control the heaving breaths that bespoke his lust.
He jerked away from her, his heart beating so fast he wondered if he would survive it. He remained on top of her, but he was balancing himself on his elbows above her to keep distance between him and that wonderful mouth of hers. “Why did you do that, damn you? You were lying there as if you were dead, or suffering me until I would get done with you. And then you attacked me.”
“I would do it again if you would only come back down to me. It isn’t fair. You can force me since you are the stronger, but I cannot force you to do what it is I want.”
Then she smiled up at him, hit the sides of both her hands hard against the crooks of his elbows and he fell flat on top of her, driving the breath from her. She grabbed his ears and held him there, kissing his throat, his shoulders. Merrik laughed, he couldn’t help himself. He reared up again, still laughing.
“You forgot that I am very smart,” she said.
“I won’t forget that in the future. Now, answer me. Why did you do that?”
She didn’t say anything, just stared up at him in the dim light. He wanted to demand that she answer him, but that look of hers and the words she’d spoken flowed over him like balm, soothing and so soft and deep, and at the same time incredibly exciting. And her laughter, by all the gods, her laughter was wonderful. And she’d even knocked him down on her, she wanted to kiss him so very much, and he said, surprising himself even as the words came out of his mouth, “You won’t have to fell me again. I will allow you to do as you please with me.”
“Come back to me.” She knew exactly what she was asking. She’d thought about it for a very long time, truth be told, probably since he’d cared for her on board his longboat, at least thought about him as a man and not an enemy who would hurt her. No, she’d thought of him as a man, so very different from her, a man who was kind to her, whose hands were gentle, a man who would give her immense pleasure.
Her future had changed irrevocably that long-ago night when she and Taby had been taken, and the future that would come had no meaning to her yet, for it was shrouded in uncertainty, and in fear. She had become a realist and no longer believed like a credulous fool that there could exist a future that would be sweet and good. She had become a Christian because her uncle had demanded it of her, demanded it of all of them, but she never called on the Christian God to save her, to show her which path to take, which decision to make.
She knew she owed it to Taby to try to get back home, to learn who had betrayed them, to restore to him what he’d lost and to herself what she’d lost as well. But that was the future, and she was here, and she wasn’t at all certain that she even wanted to regain what she herself had lost, for there was Merrik now, and she wanted him.
She wanted something for herself now, and if Merrik was only willing she could have it. For just this one night she could have him. “Aye,” she said again, her voice harsh with her growing excitement, “come back to me, Merrik.”
He did, dipping his head down. Her hands again closed about his face, and her fingertips traced his brows, his nose, his jaw. He felt her warm breath fan upward as her breathing hitched. She wanted him. She truly wanted him. He felt at that moment as if Grunlige the Dane were naught but a gnat of a man in comparison to him.
“Come to me,” she said again, and this time when he touched her, he opened his mouth just a bit and let her learn the feel and texture of him. When his tongue touched hers, she quivered, but then again, so did he, so he couldn’t be certain who quivered first or the most, nor did he care. “Open your lips wider,” he said and felt the heat of her when she did.
“Laren.” He said her name, nothing else, just her name, and she responded to him fully and with no fear at all. She was eager for him and she was a virgin.
That stopped him, and he reared back just a bit. “ Listen to me a moment before I forget who I am and what I am and what you are.” Her eyes looked soft as his mother’s butter in the dim light. She looked eager for him and ever so willing. She wanted him and she’d told him she wanted him. He forced himself to look away from her then forced himself to say the hardest thing he’d ever had to do. “Do you want to be my whore?”
He’d purposely chosen the crudest word he could, to shock her, to make her draw back from him, to make her think, by all the gods, surely she couldn’t want this, surely. She had such pride, such arrogance, surely she wouldn’t want to give herself to a man who wasn’t her husband. She was probably some merchant’s daughter from the Rhineland or cobbler’s daughter from a village along the Seine in France, or perhaps even a local overlord’s daughter from the dull, hot plains of Cordoba, Spain, but she deserved more than he could give her, deserved more than to be a vessel for his lust.
All that arrogance and pride sounded in her voice as she said, “No, I will never be any man’s whore. I want you only for this night. I want you to teach me what I should know. I want to experience these feelings once in my life, ’twill suffice me. Actually, I am not even certain these feelings really exist. Perhaps they do but only to a certain point, just enough so that a woman would do anything for the man who makes her feel this way, and then the feelings stop and the man doesn’t. But it doesn’t matter. I want to know and I want you to be the one to teach me.”
Now she was giving him permission to take her. He who should have told her then that he could have forced her the moment he’d gotten her from Thrasco’s house, that there was naught she could do about anything. She was in his power and she always had been.
Instead, he said, “What if you want to have me again after this instruction I give you?”
She was shaking her head even as she said, “Even if it is possible that I might, I have more important things to consider in my life. No, just for tonight. I want you just this once, just so I may know why I feel this way about you, why you make me breathe more quickly when you’re near, and when you touch me, why I want to fling myself against you and kiss you and stroke you with my fingers and never stop.”
He wanted to strangle her and he wanted to make her take those words back, but not all of them, oh no, by all the gods, not all of them. He thought about kissing her and never stopping, and it didn’t seem such a bad idea. He decided in that instant he would give her such pleasure that she would forget those silly words of hers—after all, what could be more important than he—forget everything but him and how he would always make her feel.
Always.
Oh no, not that. That couldn’t be. He tried to calm himself. He wasn’t forcing her. Truth be told, he was succumbing to her. He almost laughed at himself for his justifications. A randy man would force himself to believe anything in order to get himself inside the woman.
She lurched up again and now she was nibbling at his earlobe, her hands in his hair, tugg
ing, kissing his chin, searching for his mouth, now kissing him, her tongue between his lips, probing, but not too deeply for it was still too new to her and she wasn’t certain what to do. But just the touch of her was too much.
“I love your mouth, Merrik. I’ve never thought of a man’s mouth like this, but with you, all I want to do is kiss you and touch your face.” And then she was kissing him again, her fingertips feathering his cheeks, his chin, smoothing his dark blond brows, kissing him once more after that and yet again until he was drowning in her, the feel of her, the heat of her, the taste of her.
He wanted her more than he’d ever wanted another woman, except perhaps for Gunnvor when he’d been twelve years old and she’d been a magnificent fourteen and she’d let him kiss her and fondle her and caress her and she’d taken his rod in her hands and stroked him until he’d spilled his seed not once but twice, and he would have killed every dragon in the world for her on that day.
But this was different, he was a man now, and Gunnvor was only a boy’s memory.
He was mad, he knew it in that moment, utterly mad, his judgment shattered, his reason flown to the four winds. Then he saw himself in his madness, saw her beyond the softness and yielding she was offering him. He saw the situation, and he saw Taby—all of it in one sharp moment—and he knew he would be beyond mad to take her. He drew a shuddering breath, even as her mouth kissed his, her tongue lightly touched his, making him shudder and heave with the pleasure of it.
But he wanted her, very badly. Just this once, aye, then he’d be free of her and her girl’s idealized lust for him and she would be free of him as well. That was what she had said.
Aye, he’d be free. He wouldn’t have her there in his mind, in his thoughts. His worry for her, his fear for her, would only be as Taby’s sister, nothing else.
His eyes were dark and intense with need and control. He kissed her hard and deep, his tongue going into her mouth with a man’s lust, and no gentleness. He felt her stiffen instantly at the assault, and he gentled immediately, furious with himself. He undressed her quickly, without care of her clothing, and when his clothes were off as well, when he was at last kissing her breasts, feeling them with his hands, holding them in his palms, trying desperately not to lose himself in their feel, their taste, he was forced to close his eyes at the joy she brought him, not just her breasts, but how her hands were on his chest, his arms, around his back, drawing him to her, moaning softly, not at all afraid of him. And kissing him. Even now her lips were nipping his shoulders, then licking where she’d nipped his flesh.
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