The Northmen Series Box Set

by T S Florence

  “I don’t even know how I’d get started,” Rose said, feeling her temples throb as her heart beat rose with anticipation.

  “I will give you the money to start,” Isla said.

  “No. I cannot accept your money,” Rose said defiantly.

  “It will be a loan. All merchants accept loans, it is what they do,” Isla said.

  “A loan that would be paid back in full with interest,” Rose said.

  “Without interest,” Isla said.

  “With 5% interest,” Rose said.

  “If that’s what you want,” Isla sighed.

  “Ragnar will not be happy I am taking gold from someone else,” Rose said.

  “Well you are not happy with Ragnar right now, so I think some independence before you both come to some sort of middle road is what’s needed,” Rose said.

  Isla led Rose and Brenna down to a room beneath the castle floors, having left the guard to watch over her boy.

  “I’ve never been down here,” Rose said, looking around the lit dungeons, with old art work, gilded weaponry, and tapestries hanging on the walls.

  “It would have been off limits to us as children,” Isla said, as she went to a small chest and counted gold coins as she placed them into a small hessian bag.

  “You are a natural merchant, ever since you were a child. This will be easy for you,” Isla handed Rose the bag.

  The three of them had afternoon tea together, with Isla giving Rose what little input she could as to the current prices of wool, and cottages within Newcastle.

  “I will be sending you home with an escort, it’s never safe for a woman to travel with gold, no matter how busy the area,” Isla said.

  “I remember father would wrap each individual coin in cloth when we would travel over long distances, so strangers could not hear the coins clinking together,” Rose replied, as she thought of her childhood.

  “You would have Ragnar with you on any long distance journeys, surely?” Isla’s voice filled with concern.

  “I don’t want Ragnar to know just yet-” Rose said, as a loud banging at the doors caused their heads to shoot to the cause.

  “You just leave, without saying anything, after you tell me what happened this morning,” Ragnar strode towards them, his voice low and menacing. A guard moved to stand in front of him, but Ragnar forced a palm into the man’s chest, sending him onto his backside. Another guard moved to stop Ragnar, before Isla told the men to stand down.

  Ragnar did not stop moving forwards until he was face to face with Rose.

  “Is this how you face your enemies as well?” Rose clipped. She drew in a sharp breath as she felt his warmth radiating from his hot body, his face red with anger.

  “My enemies don’t live very long once they have seen my face this close,” Ragnar said back calmly.

  “Lucky for them,” Rose said, earning a surprised gasp from the other two girls.

  Ragnar grabbed Rose by the arm and began taking her towards the main doors. She looked back at Brenna, and signalled towards the hessian bag full of coins, which Ragnar had paid no attention to.

  “I’ll see you later, and don’t worry, Ragnar, I’ll have my men escort Brenna home,” Isla said in her sing-song voice, as Ragnar kicked the doors open.

  The men in the yard were still training, save Ivar, who was watching them with a slight smirk on his face.

  “You found your woman, I see,” Ivar shouted over the sound of clashing swords and shields.

  “Aye,” is all Ragnar said, as he tied Rose’s horse to his. Without another word, he hauled Rose onto the horse, followed by Brenna. Rose couldn’t help notice how effortlessly he did it, without so much as a grunt as he lifted her, as if she were a bag of wool.

  As they rode through the streets, people’s eyes were on them. They looked at Rose’s arms, which were wrapped around Ragnar with scandalously provocative familiarity.

  “They aint even married,” Rose heard a young boy whisper to his parents.

  “Quiet boy, not in front of the warrior,” The father said.

  Ragnar slowed the horse to a slow walk, and eyed the father with his classic menacing stare, the same look Rose assumed he would give to his enemies, before battle. Rose nudged him in his back.

  “Keep riding, Ragnar, these people are not our enemies,” Rose whispered.

  “Not yet,” Ragnar said, loudly enough for the man to hear, causing his eyes to grow wide.

  Rose kicked her own feet into the horse, causing it to jolt back into a trot.

  When they arrived home, Ragnar hauled Rose from the horse, with the same roughness that he had used when putting her on the horse.

  “You seem to forget that I am not your property, the way you are handling me. In fact, you treated me better when I was,” Rose clipped, as she regained her footing on the ground.

  “Then you’ll be pleased to hear that we are getting married tomorrow morning,” Ragnar said, as he moved inside.

  “We’re what?” Rose gasped.

  “Getting married,” Ragnar repeated himself.

  “No,” Rose said.

  “Yes, and you have no say in the matter,” Ragnar grabbed her by the arm and started walking into the house.

  “A priest will not marry a Christian woman to a heathen,” Rose laughed.

  “I will be baptised by the priest before we marry,” Ragnar said, as he took Rose by her arm.

  “What? Why? You love your gods,” Rose said.

  “I prefer you as my property,” Ragnar smiled at Rose, as he roughly pushed her into their room, with the hushed whispers of maids coming from the halls.

  “That’s right, Rose, by this time tomorrow, you will be my wife,” He said, as he picked her back up and threw her onto the bed.

  “Ragnar,” Rose gasped, yet the treatment did not leave her disappointed. A warm feeling in her stomach began to form, and a throbbing between her legs.

  “I shouldn’t have freed you,” Ragnar growled, as he tore at her dress.

  “I knew it,” Rose spat, kicking her foot up at Ragnar’s chest.

  But Ragnar was a warrior, and Rose realised her futile it was to try argue against Ragnar with physicality when he shifted his body to the side and caught her foot in his hand. He slowly ran his hand up her leg, before stopping at her dress. He moved his other hand as quick as lightning and tore the dress in two, ripping it from between her legs up to her chest.

  “You would continue without my consent,” Rose said, despite her body begging for her to stay quiet and let him continue.

  “Tell me to stop if you do not consent,” Ragnar said.

  Rose looked at him, and saw danger in his eyes. There was no kind Ragnar. No sixteen year old boy looking at her for advice on how to barter in the local markets. No nineteen year old Ragnar begging for her forgiveness in the windswept fields just days before he deserted her for the next four years. This was Ragnar the Destroyer. Ragnar, Earl of Fyrkat. There was an animalistic hunger in his eyes that made her realise she was the prey. And she liked it.

  “Say stop,” he said.

  She stayed silent, relishing the excitement that caused her temples to throb with anticipation.

  He tore his pants off, revealing his throbbing member, the head pointing up at her, as if it were also angry. It bobbed up and down, matching his own anticipation. He went down and used his tongue, tasting her, making noises that caused her to blush. Rose moaned, her body reacting in involuntary convulsions. Before she could open her eyes again, she felt his tongue withdraw, and something much larger take its place, and at the same time his hot breath caressed her neck.

  He pushed his body flat against hers, and thrusted his hips in a rhythmic motion, causing an almost immediate build to the same euphoric sensation that he made her feel just days earlier.

  “Ragnar,” She gasped, as he thrusted so hard that the bed scraped against the tiled.

  He did not answer except to groan in a mix of exertion and pleasure. Suddenly, he released a loud gr
oan, and Rose felt him throbbing inside of her, causing her to go over the edge, and allow her body to convulse in pleasure.

  Once he finished, he stood and walked into the bathroom, leaving her to lie there in a sweaty mess, his essence dripping out of her.

  43

  Ragnar

  Ragnar was furious with himself for allowing his attraction to Rose get the better of him, just the night before he intended to marry her. When he threw her onto the bed and heard the gasps she made, he lost all sense and control. He had expected her to tell him to stop with the way he had been treating her, but instead, the opposite had happened. She enjoyed it. And that was what confused him.

  He knew that her submissiveness would have dissipated by the time he dragged her into the Christian chapel down the road and forced her to marry him. But it was what he had to do. He had slept in another room as he felt it inappropriate to sleep in the same room as her before he dragged her to the chapel, despite having made love to her like it was the last thing he would ever do.

  As he turned into the hallway, he saw two of his maids with their ears at the door of the bedroom. “What are you doing?” Ragnar growled.

  The pair shrieked in surprise, before one of them gained the composure to answer him “We were unsure if you were home, we wanted to change your sheets, lord,” the braver of the two girls said.

  “I’m no English lord, and since when do you useless girls change my sheets?” He growled.

  “We thought we would start since you have a girl with you,” she said.

  “Go prepare some food damn you,” he said, eyeing them both.

  “Yes Ragnar,” they said in unison.

  Ragnar kicked the door open, annoyed at the attempted deceit by his own workers. Something would need to be done with them, he thought. Rose was already awake, standing at the end of the bed, looking at him curiously.

  “Are you ready,” Ragnar’s voice was harsher than he intended.

  “Ready for what,” Rose said, more than asked.

  “Marriage,” Ragnar said.

  “Not with you,” Rose said.

  “Too bad,” Ragnar said.

  “No,” Rose said.

  “Why?” Ragnar asked.

  “I want my mother there,” Rose said.

  “Then we will go get her,” Ragnar said, stubbornly.

  “Are you thick?” Rose clipped.

  Ragnar was still not used to anyone having the balls to speak to him in such a way, and his hand twitched at the insult.

  “Are you going to beat me for questioning your limited intelligence?” Rose laughed.

  “Watch it,” Ragnar said.

  Rose stormed towards him, until her face was level with his chest. She looked up at him “Or what, Ragnar? You’re not Ragnar the Destroyer to me, you’re still stupid Ragnar that didn’t know the worth of a broken axe,” Rose said.

  “Prices don’t mean much when I take what I want,” Ragnar said, confused by the arousal he felt at her body touching his.

  “Like me?” Rose clipped.

  “Would you rather me pay?” Ragnar asked.

  Before he could even sense the movement, Rose’s hand cracked across his face, the smack of her palm against his skin echoed down the hallway. “I would rather die than marry you,” Rose said, as tears formed in her eyes.

  She pushed past him, and he knew instantly that he had taken it too far. He had taken the frustration that he felt with himself and thrown it back at the one girl who meant more to him than anything else in the world. It should be the two of them, together, not the two of them against each other.

  Ragnar went to the chapel and told the priest he would not be converting to Christianity.

  “The woman told you no, didn’t she?” The priest said.

  “None of your damned business, priest,” Ragnar growled, as he turned around and walked back out the doors.

  “You cannot speak to a son of God like that, don’t come back here in the hopes I will every marry you to a Christian girl now, heathen,” The priest ran to the door and shouted after Ragnar.

  Ragnar went back to his house where he found Torsten laying in the grass with Rose’s friend, Brenna.

  “Where is she?” Ragnar asked Brenna.

  “I thought she was with you,” Brenna said.

  Torsten stood up immediately, and brushed grass from himself. “She has gone missing?” He asked.

  “More or less,” Ragnar said, looking around. He did a full sweep of his house before deducting that she had left again.

  He went to the front of his Roman house and found that his horse had been taken.

  “Where’s my horse, boy?” Ragnar growled at the stableboy.

  “I saddled it for your lady. She took it,” the boy said, looking up at him innocently.

  “What did I say about never letting another man take my horse?” Ragnar barked.

  “Well she aint a man and I thought she was a special lady to you,” the boy replied.

  “What do you mean, special?” Ragnar asked.

  “Well she sleeps in your bed with you, don’t she?” The boy asked.

  “Where did you hear this?” Ragnar said in a low voice.

  “The walls speak,” the boy replied.

  “Don’t repeat that horse dung that the maids use as an excuse to gossip about their masters. Where did you hear-” Ragnar stopped himself. The boy heard it from the maids, no doubt.

  “Next time, you check with me before you let anyone take my horse. Including Rose, until I say otherwise,” Ragnar said, clipping the boy’s ear.

  “Yes sir,” the boy rubbed his ear.

  Ragnar turned on his heel and started the long walk to Ivar’s castle, but not before he was met by Torsten at the front gate. “Do you need me to come with you?” He asked.

  “Not necessary,” Ragnar said.

  Ragnar noticed more stares than usual as he made his way through Newcastle’s town centre. It was because he wasn’t on his horse, surely. There’s no way it was the news of Rose that caused such sudden interest in his movements.

  “Stop staring,” Ragnar snapped at a staring fruiterer, as he stole an apple from his stand.

  “That’s stealing, you’ll lose a hand for that,” the man said, although without confidence.

  “Who’s going to take my hand?” Ragnar laughed as he kept walking, without looking back. He tried to imagine who would have the stones to confront him, let alone tell him they were to chop off his hand. Not a man in England would.

  The man had no answer.

  By the time he reached the castle, sweat was streaming down his back, his heavy leather-padded armour was trapping the heat.

  “Where’s Rose?” Ragnar walked up to Ivar, who was in the front yard.

  “She’s not here. You’ve lost her again?” Ivar had a confused look on his face.

  “God’s teeth, where in Odin’s name is she,” Ragnar growled as he scanned the stables for his horse.

  “You don’t trust your King’s word?” Ivar asked Ragnar, ribbing him.

  “Not now, Ivar,” Ragnar said, before he turned and walked back out of the compound.

  He took a different way home, where he would be more shielded from the sun. It was on his way home that he saw his horse, the great black beast, sitting unguarded outside of the blacksmith’s shelter. Ragnar felt like a fool for not checking there earlier.

  He was still a distance away when he saw Rose hurriedly untie the horse from where it had been left. He quickened his pace, but still he did not reach her in time. She kicked hard into the horse’s sides, causing it to leap into action, galloping down the near-empty street.

  He let her go, as he saw that she was riding back in the direction of his house.

  Rose

  “Where were you?” Ragnar asked, as he watched Rose pack her belongings into a small chest.

  “Speaking to Isla,” Rose said.

  He gave her a funny look at her answer, but said nothing to her response.

&nbs
p; “Why are you packing?” He asked.

  “I’m moving into the other room,” Rose said.

  “You’re not leaving the house?” Ragnar asked, his expression softened.