She whipped her head around and hissed at him. “Hush! It’s not your men!”
The last thing she saw before she lunged for the door, slamming it shut, was the perplexed furrow between the Viking’s brows.
Brandr bellowed out a curse. Unfortunately, he startled the little girl, who now looked as if she might burst into tears.
“Shh, Kimmie. I’m sorry,” he soothed. “It’s all right.”
But he wasn’t so sure. He wished the woman hadn’t slammed the door between them. If it wasn’t his men out there, who was it? Thieves? Murderers? Though he realized it was completely contrary to reason at the moment—Avril was his enemy, after all—his instinct to protect women rose to the surface, overriding everything else. Whoever was out there evidently posed a threat to her. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have pushed Kimbery into the cottage.
He had to do something about it.
Kimbery’s chin was trembling, and the wooden sword drooped in her grasp. “But Mama…”
“Hush, Kimmie,” he coaxed. “It’s all right. Shh.”
“I have to help Mama fight,” she decided, starting for the door.
“Nay!” She flinched at his sharp voice. “Nay, sweetheart,” he said more softly. “Your mama wants you to stay here, to stay quiet. That’s why she closed the door.”
Yet even as he said the words, he had to wonder at the woman’s judgment. Why hadn’t she rushed inside as well and barred the door? What made her think she could handle the threat? The fool woman was going to get herself killed.
Hell, he thought as he strained against the leather collar, he couldn’t stand the thought of a woman facing danger alone while he sat helpless. If only he could get loose, he could chase the intruders off.
He glanced at the little girl. Maybe he could get loose.
“Kimmie,” he said, “if you help me, I can help your mama.”
She looked skeptically at him.
“I need you to unbuckle my collar. Do you think you can do that? Do you think you can—“
“Mama said I’m not supposed to go near you.”
Brandr bit back an oath. “But she needs my help. I’m big and strong, and I can fight—“
“I’m strong,” she said. “Mama said so.”
He growled in frustration, frightening the little girl again. She backed toward the door once more.
His eyes widened. “Nay, nay, nay, nay, nay.” He had to keep her inside. The last thing he needed was to have both women out of his sight. “Kimmie, nay, Kimmie,” he said urgently as her small hand touched the latch. “Come away from the door. Please. I’ll…” He searched his memory. What would have convinced his own daughter to stay? “I’ll tell you another story.”
She hesitated.
“Aye, come sit by the fire, and I’ll tell you a story about…about Muspell, the land of the Fire Giants.”
She pursed her lips.
“And Niflheim, where the Frost Giants live,” he added.
She lifted her brows.
“And Audhumia, the giant cow.”
“Giant cow?”
“Aye. The giant cow who licked the gods to life.”
She let go of the latch and walked to the hearth, and he heaved a sigh of relief. He might not be able to rescue Avril, but at least he could keep her daughter safe.
Kimbery sat cross-legged with her sword across her lap, and he began a story he’d told often to his children—the story of the world’s creation. Meanwhile, he strained to hear what was happening outside, to no avail. The little girl, fascinated by the tale, edged closer and closer to him. Eventually, despite her mother’s stern orders, she ended up half-draped across his lap.
Chapter 7
Avril thought she must be mad, covering for the Northman. Her neighbor said he’d found pieces of a Viking ship. He’d come to warn her to be watchful, assuring her in manly tones that he was on the hunt for the vermin who belonged to it, hefting up his spade as proof.
She should have turned the Viking over to him then and there. It certainly would have made her life easier. Brandr would have been out of her house, away from her daughter, off of her shoulders.
But she couldn’t bear the thought of him being beaten to death with a spade, which was doubtless what her neighbor intended.
So she told the man an outright lie, saying she’d seen no sign of Northmen, but she’d be sure to alert him if she did. Thanking him for his concern, she smiled stiffly until he was out of sight.
“Brilliant,” she muttered to herself. “Now I’m harboring an outlaw.”
She pushed open the cottage door, cursing herself for a fool, and froze when she saw the scene before her.
She couldn’t draw breath. Mother of God, she was a fool! While she’d been lying to protect him, the crafty Viking had enticed her daughter onto his lap. Kimbery was sprawled across his thighs like a lovesick pup. Was this the thanks she got for saving Brandr’s worthless hide?
“Mama!” Kimbery cried, jumping up and running to her, hugging her about the thighs. “Da’s telling me…I mean, Brandr’s telling me a story about a giant cow and Frost Giants and the dwarves who hold up the sky!”
“Is that so?” Avril bit out with a shaky smile for her daughter. She clasped Kimbery close in relief, grateful he’d let her go, unharmed, but uncertain why. After all, with Kimbery in his grasp, he could have had her at his mercy and easily bargained for his freedom.
Brandr didn’t seem to notice her confusion. He gave her a fierce frown, scanning her from head to toe. “Are you all right?”
She blinked, even more baffled. “Aye. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Who was outside?” The furrow in his brow deepened, and his fists clenched, as if he meant to use them.
“My neighbor. He came to tell me…” Suddenly the truth struck her. “Were you..?” She narrowed incredulous eyes at him. “You were. You were afraid for me.”
He scowled in irritation, but he couldn’t deny it, and something about that pleased her.
“You know,” she said in amazement, “if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were trying to protect me.”
He scoffed. But after a moment he looked at her quizzically, lowering his shoulders and relaxing his hands. “Wait. Your neighbor?” The corner of his lip lifted in a knowing grin. “And you didn’t tell him about your Viking prize?”
She stiffened.
He chuckled. “You know, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were trying to protect me.”
It was useless to deny it.
He shook his head. “What a pair we are.”
What a pair indeed, Avril thought. By all rights, they should despise each other. The war between their people had been going on for more than fifty years. He was a bloodthirsty Viking, and she was the Pict who’d leashed him. She’d made the cottage that he’d come to conquer into his prison. And if they’d met on a field of battle, she would have readily drawn her sword and stabbed him through the heart.
But when she looked at his twinkling blue eyes, his enticing grin, his…formidable body, she found it hard to summon up a good loathing.
“Mama, did you smack his arse?”
Avril started. “Who, the neighbor?” She shook her head. “He wasn’t here to fight. He…came to see how Caimbeul was doing.”
“Oh.”
She and Brandr exchanged glances, and he gave her a subtle nod of thanks, something she wasn’t sure she deserved. She was making a mistake, not turning him in. The longer he was here, the more difficult it would become to get rid of him. Hell, her own daughter was already clambering onto the Viking’s lap as if he were her beloved grandfather.
Kimbery hopped up and down on her toes. “Mama, I want a giant cow!”
Avril eyed the Northman in accusation. What nonsense had he put in Kimbery’s head now?
Brandr reasoned with the little girl. “But how would you milk her? It would take all day. And your hands are too small.”
“You could do it,” Kimbery suggested. “
You have big hands.”
Avril bit her lip. He did have big hands…and big feet…and big shoulders…
He chuckled. “I’m not a milkmaid,” he told Kimmie. “I’m a warrior.”
His words suddenly touched a raw nerve in Avril. She wasn’t a milkmaid either. She was supposed to be the lady of a castle. But sometimes the world turned on people, and they had to do what was necessary to go on living.
“You know, not all of us get to choose our fate,” and she said with frost in her voice. “If you’re going to stay here, you’d better get used to tending animals and fishing and mending fences. It’s not an easy thing, surviving in…”
She broke off at his narrowed gaze, realizing what she’d just said—if you’re going to stay here.
What was she thinking? He wasn’t an animal she could tame and tether. He was a wild and dangerous beast who’d surely turn on her the moment he was free.
Still, he could have hurt Kimbery, but he’d chosen not to. Instead he’d told the little girl some fanciful tale about giant cows to keep her quiet and safe from whatever peril lurked outside.
Why? Did he hope to persuade her to let him go? She couldn’t do that. She might not deliver him directly into the hands of a neighbor armed with a spade, but neither would she turn a known marauder loose on her unsuspecting countrymen.
Kimbery waved her wooden blade through the air. “My mama’s a warrior,” she said. “And I’m going to be a warrior, too. When I grow up, we’re going to take back Rivenloch.”
“Kimmie!” Avril’s cheeks warmed. She didn’t need a stranger knowing all about her sordid past. “He’s not interested in—“
“What’s Rivenloch?” he asked.
“It’s Mama’s castle. I’m going to learn how to sword fight, and then we’ll get an army to take the castle back from my evil uncles who—“
“Kimmie, enough! Go take your nap.”
Kimbery scampered merrily off into the bedchamber. But the damage was already done. Brandr was staring at her with undisguised interest now. “Evil uncles?”
Though he’d entertained the remote possibility, it hadn’t seriously occurred to Brandr that the woman and her daughter were anything but commoners, outcasts on this lonely shore due to an unfortunate encounter with berserkers.
He perused her thoroughly now, imagining her in the rich garb of a noblewoman. It wasn’t difficult.
“It’s only a tale,” she muttered, “an invention like your giant cows and…and snow ogres.”
“Frost Giants,” he corrected. She wasn’t a very good liar. “And the story of Audhumia is true.”
She crossed her arms and smirked at him. “Really? Dwarves?”
He frowned. “How do you think the sky stays up?”
She shook her head as she propped her sword in the corner.
Though she tried to make light of it, Brandr couldn’t let go of the feeling that there was more than a morsel of truth to her story.
Avril had had ample opportunity to kill him, even the chance to turn him over to someone else to kill. And yet she hadn’t. She’d had mercy on him—feeding him, sheltering him, tending to his broken arm—when anyone else would have let him suffer. Though he was her enemy, she’d treated him with respect, wisdom, fairness, and honor. She seemed to have been raised as he had—with the qualities necessary to inspire followers and command warriors. It wasn’t hard to imagine she was that woman who’d fought for the jeweled sword, that her four brothers were Kimbery’s evil uncles, and that they’d taken advantage of her misfortune to seize her inheritance from her.
He and Avril must both be cursed by the gods then. He’d lost his family, his men, and his ship. She’d lost her innocence, her birthright, and her land. They were kindred souls. Against his better judgment, he found he wanted to know more about this intrepid woman.
“So in that…story…you told your daughter,” he asked as she stirred the banked embers on the hearth to life with a stick, “where is this Rivenloch?”
She shrugged. “It’s an imaginary place.”
“Your daughter doesn’t seem to think so.”
She arched a slim brow at him. “My daughter thinks she’s a selkie, her sheep talks to her, and you’re her father.”
She had a point. “But you are teaching her to fight with a sword.”
“Aye, so she can protect herself from…” She gave him a fleeting glance, and he was sure she intended to say “Vikings.” Instead she substituted, “Attackers.”
He nodded. “Where did you learn to fight?”
“All Pictish women know how to fight,” she said proudly. “Don’t Viking women know how to fight?”
“There’s no need. They have Viking men to protect them.”
“Indeed?” She gave him a cursory perusal, as if she were sizing up a horse. “And who protects them from the Viking men?”
He scowled when he realized she was serious.
Avril had felt the Northman’s iron grip on her wrist. She’d seen his bulging muscles. He had the shoulders of an ox and was at least a head taller than anyone she knew. What was to keep a man like him from taking what he wanted from a woman?
“The law protects them,” he replied at last, as if it were obvious.
“The law,” she scoffed. “You mean the law that men make and enforce?”
“Men and women.”
She lifted a skeptical brow.
He frowned. “Is it not so here? Do you not have an althing?”
“Althing?”
“A meeting of all the villagers.” She waited for him to continue. “A meeting where the rules are made.” At her silence, he added, “By everyone.”
“All the villagers?” she asked doubtfully.
“Anyone who wishes to attend.”
“Men and women?”
“Of course.”
That gave Avril pause. She gazed wistfully into the fire, wishing it were thus with her people as well. Her father had understood. He’d believed that women were just as capable as men. That was why he’d made her his heir. But most men were like her brothers, who thought that a woman’s place was under a man’s boot.
“In my land,” Brandr added softly, “the warrior woman in your story? She would never have lost her castle.”
Avril bit her lip.
He continued. “Anyone who refused her rule would have been sent into exile.”
Her throat tightened. That was how it should have been. Instead, she’d been sent into exile.
He went on. “And she wouldn’t need an army to take back what was rightfully hers.”
Tears of frustration threatened behind her eyes, but she bit them back. She couldn’t think about that. What was past was past. She couldn’t change what had happened. And there was nothing she could do about it now.
Mortified at the thought of crying in front of a Viking, she sniffed sharply, clapped the soot from her hands, and abruptly stood up. Unfortunately, as she did so, she stepped on the hem of her skirt, which was still partially tucked into her belt. In the blink of an eye, she tripped and stumbled sideways toward the fire.
How Brandr moved so swiftly, she didn’t know. In one instant, she was falling face-first toward the burning coals, and in the next, he’d caught her with his boot and propelled her back toward him.
As she fell, she reflexively put out her hands. She managed to partially catch herself, though she heard him grunt in pain as she fell against his splinted arm. But that wasn’t the worst of it. She landed with her hands on his chest, her face in his belly, and her breast in his palm.
Chapter 8
Brandr hardly felt the throbbing in his broken arm. It was nothing compared to the panicked throbbing of his heart. The woman had almost fallen into the fire. Thank Odin he’d had the reflexes and strength to save her. “Are you all right?”
She lifted her head to look up at him. There was a curious expression on her face, as if she were simultaneously relieved and horrified.
Then he realized what p
art of her was nestled against his palm, and suddenly the throbbing of his arm and his heart diminished in comparison to the burgeoning throbbing in his trousers. It had been a long time since he’d felt the soft fullness of a woman’s breast. His response was unavoidable.
They stared at each other uncertainly, knowing they had to extricate themselves from this awkward predicament somehow, both reluctant to move for fear of making it worse. The moment stretched on, becoming more and more strained, and neither budged.
And then a strange thing happened. Avril closed her eyes and made a small sound in her throat, not quite a sigh of pleasure, not quite a whimper of distress, and her fingers tightened with subtle pressure on his chest. He froze, afraid to breathe.
When she opened her eyes again, it was only halfway, and she lowered her gaze to his mouth. He, too, was drawn to her lips—so sweet, so tempting, like ripe fruit just out of his reach.
He had the mad urge to lean down and steal a kiss, to taste her soft, succulent lips once again, to be reckless and bold and claim her like a marauder.
But the damned leather collar around his neck prevented him.
Hell, it was just as well. After all, it would be a mistake to do something so impulsive and irresponsible. It would destroy her trust and ruin his plans for escape.
He had to resist temptation.
She, however, didn’t even try.
Lust knocked Avril over like an unexpected ocean wave, stealing her breath away, dragging her into deeper currents, drowning her good sense.
In some dim corner of her brain, she knew she should back away. But Brandr’s chest felt deliciously strong and supple beneath her fingers. His breath caressed her brow. His eyes were smoky and inviting. What she really wanted to do was kiss him.
She eased forward the slightest bit, sucking in a quick breath as his hand rasped gently across her breast. She hesitated, then moved against him again, relishing the tantalizing friction as his palm grazed her. The third time, she squeezed her eyes shut in pleasure. And he responded, moving his thumb tenderly across her nipple.
There was no stopping the coursing tide then. With a soft gasp, she surged forward, caught his stubbled face between her hands, and planted her lips across his enticing mouth.
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