by Connie Mason
Nipples perked, gooseflesh rippling, she settled on the trunk. Muscles shivered under her smooth skin.
Brandr dipped a leather bucket into the waves and set it down by her feet. “Mayhap that’ll be easier than leaning over the side.”
It’d be easier on him. He was trying control himself after the horrific things she’d been through in the night. It wasn’t every day a woman who was so used to being in control was abducted and powerless. But when she presented herself to him like that, glistening and vulnerable, it was all he could do not to grasp her hips and rut her blind.
After the night she’s had, the last thing she needs is a hard swive.
Her gaze darted sharply to him, pinning him with a direct stare. Then she reached down and dipped a square of clean cloth that was left over from his bandage and began rubbing her skin with it, starting with an upraised arm. Water trickled down in rivulets, past her armpit and down her side.
When Katla swirled the cloth around each breast, he stifled a groan. He longed to lick the droplets of water from her pert nipples.
She washed her belly and down her legs to her curled toes. Then she spread her knees, parted her intimate folds and squeezed the cloth so water ran down her inner thighs.
He gritted his teeth so hard, he half expected one to crack.
Every fiber of his being longed to take her, to mount her like a ram mounts a ewe, to drive into her with abandon, his balls slapping against her thighs.
“Has it ever occurred to you, husband,” she said with a feline smile, “that sometimes a good, hard swive is exactly what a woman needs?”
She stood up and gave him her back. Then she bent over and splayed her hands on the deck.
A growl escaped his throat, because no coherent words would form in his mind. He was on her in a heartbeat, grasping her hips and sliding his full length home.
His whole world went suddenly warm and deliciously wet. Her tight inner walls snugged around him. She was more than ready. She wanted this with the same ferocity he did.
There was no finesse. No lover’s skill on display. He gave himself up to the animal joy of rutting.
Rough. Fast. Deep.
They fell into rhythm with the steady rocking of the coracle, one with the cadence of the waves.
Then just when he thought it couldn’t be better, he heard Katla urging him on in panting tones.
“Harder.”
Odin on Yggdrasil, I love you, woman.
***
He loves me.
More intimate than his cock penetrating deep inside her, Brandr’s words curled around her mind. The sound reverberated to her core. His voice caressed her soul.
It must be inn matki munr.
The link was potent but one-sided. He still couldn’t seem to hear her. She’d tried to send him any number of intimate messages, but he gave no sign he received them.
Surely that couldn’t be right.
But Katla had no more time to puzzle over the mystery. Her senses were so crowded by Brandr’s fierce strokes, she couldn’t think. She could only feel.
She didn’t need gentleness. She needed him hard and demanding. It was a reminder she was still alive and her body was still hers, and only her husband had a right to it.
He exercised his rights with such mastery, filling her, pushing so deep, she’d never feel empty again. She strained back against him to engulf him even more deeply.
Then he reached around and cupped her mound, stroking her aching place while he took and took and took.
She unraveled under him, her legs going rubbery. He lowered her to her knees on the curved hull, never breaking their connection, while her insides rioted around his hard shaft. When she stopped convulsing, he pushed into her once more, a long, slow thrust. She felt him pulse inside her, his seed spurting hot and deep.
Her breath came in short gasps. When he finished, she seemed to melt, go boneless. He rose and gathered her in his arms. Then he carried her to the waiting hudfat and tucked her in.
“If you were any sweeter, I’d die of wanting you,” he whispered before he kissed her cheek. Then he opened his trunk and pulled out a fresh pair of trousers and tunic.
“Aren’t you going to sleep too?”
He cast a glance at the sun creeping higher in the sky. “No, if we sail now, we’ll reach Jondal by tonight, and after last night, I’d rather take my ease in my own bed. A man sleeps better behind a stout door, knowing his friends are nearby.”
Katla started to rise from the makeshift pallet. “Then I’ll stay up too.”
“No, rest you now,” Brandr said as he adjusted a bit of one of the cloaks to serve as shade for the sleeping baby. “I don’t know much about bairns, but I do know when they sleep, you should too.”
Katla lay back down, closing her eyes and listening to Brandr slip the mooring line and haul up the anchor stone. She was aware of the moment of quickening when the coracle’s sail billowed with wind and the craft lifted in the water, surging on the waves.
Her senses were pricked to hear his voice in her mind again, but the deep timbre never came. Obviously she couldn’t hear him think whenever she wished. And just as obviously, he wasn’t sending his thoughts to her consciously.
Why could she hear him only sometimes? And more importantly, why did he never hear her?
***
Brandr ran a hand over his face, trying to wipe off the tiredness. He glanced at Katla’s still form, wishing he could lie down beside her and follow her into the land of walking shadows.
But it was more important to get her and the babe she’d somehow acquired to safety.
Of course, if his brother, Arn, had lost control of his chieftains, Jondal would be in turmoil. His service in the Imperial Palace had taught him that infighting between rival factions could be fiercer than single combat with a total stranger.
The jarlhof in Jondal would offer no safe haven if the Iron Crown didn’t rest steadily on his brother’s brow.
Chapter 29
“Time to wake, princess,” Brandr called. “Unless you want to greet the folk of Jondal naked as a new-hatched chick.”
Katla pried open her eyes. She’d roused every couple hours as they traveled through the day, to feed and change the baby. She’d moved the child close so she could remain in the hudfat while she tended her. Fortunately, Linnea was an undemanding babe who didn’t fret and let the coracle’s motion lull her into deep sleep once her needs were met.
Brandr had ripped up an old tunic to use for the babe’s fresh swaddling, and he’d strung the skin filled with goat’s milk over the gunwale so the cold water of the fjord kept it from going sour. Each time little Linnea dropped off, Brandr ordered Katla back to sleep as well.
For once, she didn’t feel the need to argue with him.
As tired as Katla was after her interrupted sleep, she knew Brandr was even more exhausted. Dark smudges showed under his eyes, but excitement sparked in them despite his fatigue.
“You’re nearly home,” Katla said as she dressed inside the capacious sleeping sack.
“We’re nearly home,” he corrected.
The coracle sliced smoothly through the untroubled water. The mountains rose steeply on all sides, and the setting sun threw half the narrow fjord into deep shadow and gilded the other with its dying light. A male tern swooped past the boat and scolded them as they glided by a small rocky beach.
“There’s the female,” Katla said, pointing toward the slight movement that drew her eye. The drab bird blended into its surroundings as it hunkered on the shallow indentation that probably held a couple eggs. “She’s on the nest.”
“My uncle used to say terns mate for life,” Brandr said. “He watched the same pair nest near his longhouse for nearly twenty years.”
Mate for life. She
and Brandr were pledged to do the same. Divorce was not unheard of. The grounds for severing a marriage were laid out in the Law, but as warmly as she felt toward him now, she couldn’t imagine denouncing him at the door to her longhouse before witnesses.
And after the way they joined their bodies together earlier, denouncing him beside their bed seemed an even more remote possibility. He’d loved her body just as she needed him to, now rough, now gentle.
Love. She felt it. Why was she so hesitant to say it? Something inside her resisted letting him know she was beginning to need him more than her next breath.
“The tide and wind are with us,” Brandr said once she emerged from the hudfat fully dressed. “Just around the next point, you’ll see my brother’s jarlhof on the right.”
The pine forest was so thick, and it raced down almost to the water’s edge. Katla wondered how she’d see anything. Especially since they were quickly losing the light. An endless expanse of trees rushed up to where the mountains poked out their craggy bald heads. The rocky tips were still sun kissed, but the shadow of evening crept steadily upward. A third of the way up the slope, just where the shadow stopped, a high, steep roof of thatch rose above the treetops.
She stole a glance at Brandr, and her heart swelled at the look of fierce joy on his face. Five years was a long time to be so far from all the things he obviously loved.
Time enough for those things to change.
“When I was trapped in that sethus, the men talked of someone coming to this fjord. Someone named Bloodaxe,” she said. “Do you know whom they meant?”
Brandr shook his head, some of the pleasure of his homecoming draining from his features. “No, but I know they meant no good. There’s someone in Jondal who might know who this Bloodaxe is.”
“If she’s still alive.”
Katla heard his thought but kept quiet about it as they approached the wharf, so Brandr could concentrate. Besides, until she untangled the mystery of why she seemed able to hear his thoughts while hers were mute to him, she didn’t want to broach the subject.
He muscled the coracle to the wharf, where several drakkars rode at anchor. Their long-necked prows were topped with carved dragon heads, fearsome images designed to frighten the land spirits into allowing the sailors to make landfall without any interference from their shadowy realm.
Brandr frowned at the ships. “Looks like Arn already has company.”
“Not friendly company?” Katla picked up little Linnea and held her close, reveling in the moist, sweet breath of the sleeping babe. So innocent. So trusting. The world was filled with danger for one so helpless and weak. Katla tightened her grip till the child squirmed fitfully.
“I don’t know yet if they’re friend or foe,” he admitted as he climbed out of the boat and made it fast. “I recognize a few of the ships. They belong to chieftains who’re supposed to be loyal to my brother.”
“Supposed to be? You don’t sound very sure.”
“Time has a way of changing things. Jondal is strategically placed in the center of Hardanger Fjord. It’s two-days’ sail to the mouth or the headwaters. Its very location is a temptation to those who seek to expand their influence. But we hope for the best,” he said, strapping on his shoulder baldric before he handed Katla and the child onto the wharf beside him. “Plan for the worst. Stay behind me.”
Ordinarily, Katla followed no one, but she felt no inclination to argue as she and the babe trailed him into the woods. The smell of moss and rot and green growing things tickled her nostrils. They hadn’t gone a dozen paces into the deep shadow when they heard a low voice order them to halt.
Brandr froze, hands upraised to show he meant no ill. “Harald, is that you? You’re getting close sighted as an old woman.”
His friend stepped from behind a thick-trunked pine, with an arrow knocked on the string. The red-haired giant grinned sheepishly. “Sorry, Brandr. I didn’t recognize you with your hair and beard cropped so short. See you managed to lose the iron collar.”
Katla stepped from behind Brandr on the narrow path.
“I think you already know my wife,” he said to his friend.
“The thrall collar wasn’t enough. You had to go and find a new slave ring,” Harald muttered. “A child too? Didn’t think you’d been gone long enough for that.”
“We need to find a wet nurse for her as soon as possible,” Katla interrupted before Brandr could say the child wasn’t theirs. Whether he was willing to claim the babe or not, Linnea was hers, and that was all there was to it. “Do you know if there’s a nursing mother at the jarlhof?”
Harald shrugged his massive shoulders. “Ask once you get there. Well, you’re here at least, Brandr. That’s as good as we can expect.”
“What’s happened? I can’t remember a time a guard was posted on the wharf.” Brandr asked as he fell into step with his friend. Katla and the babe brought up the rear, her ears pricked to their conversation.
“Arn’s failing. We’ve tried to prop him up, but the chieftains are set to challenge him. We thought we could hold his jarlship a while longer, provided none of the others joined in. So we watch the harbor in case someone decides to take a stab at the Iron Crown.” Harald clapped him on the back. “But you’re here now. Let’s drain a horn together to celebrate your homecoming.”
“It’s still a good idea to watch the harbor,” Katla said, thinking of the enigmatic Bloodaxe Tryggr and his cohorts were expecting.
“She’s right,” Brandr said. “Stay here, and when I get to the jarlhof, I’ll send someone to relieve you.”
Harald scowled at Katla, clearly blaming her for interrupting his reunion with his friend and the drinking that by rights ought to ensue. “What else am I watching for besides disloyal chieftains?”
“I don’t know yet,” Brandr said. “But I mean to find out.”
***
Long before they reached the great hall, the folk of Jondal discovered the second son of Ulf had returned. People lit torches and poured from their homes and shops to welcome Brandr back. Obviously his friends had neglected to mention his unfortunate stint as a thrall on Tysnes Island, because every face was etched with welcome.
And more than a little relief.
When the mighty quarreled, the folk who did the farming and smithing and building and wedding and birthing were the ones who lost the most. By the time Brandr and Katla reached the tall, carved doors of the jarlhof, the villagers had stirred up the atmosphere of a fair. Brandr and his bride collected nearly the entire population in their wake.
The massive doors swung open, and Hilde, his brother’s wife, was there to greet them.
“Brother,” the tall woman said as she nodded gravely to him. “We bid you welcome. You and yours.”
She’d always been spindly, but now she was gaunt. Instead of honey-blond hair escaping her starched headdress, Brandr was surprised to see Hilde’s hair was white. Her eyes were like a hunted doe’s, wild and terrified, but so tired of running, the arrow that found her heart would be a blessing.
Like any good Norse matron, she gave her first attention to their immediate needs. Hilde gave orders for their accommodations to be aired, and a wet nurse for the baby was sent for immediately. Katla refused to give the babe up, asking that she be able to meet the nurse first, which seemed a reasonable request to Brandr.
“Very well,” Hilde said. “Walk with me.”
The people from the village called out final well-wishes, and the big double doors swung shut behind them.
“How is Arn?” Brandr asked, placing a hand at the small of Katla’s back to keep her beside him. May as well let folk know right from the start she was his.
Hilde looked at him sharply, a quick appraising glance. “You know about his sickness.”
“Tales travel on the wind.” Brandr shrugged. “I have ears.
Does he suffer?”
Hilde bit her lip. Her mute response was answer enough.
“He can no longer wield a sword?”
Hilde shook her head.
“You have no son,” he surmised.
“Arne gave me five daughters before the sickness struck him,” Hilde said, her long-fingered hands clasped tightly over her own belly as if wishing could place a man-child there. “But never a son, and so the chieftains gather.” Her pale eyes narrowed. “Now I suppose you will rally them to your side.”
“My allegiance is to the man who wears the Iron Crown and sits on the jarl’s judgment seat,” Brandr said. “As long as he breathes, that man is my brother.”
The tension went out of her shoulders, and he read relief in her.
“Leprosy is grounds for divorce,” he said softly.
“I am not just your brother’s wife,” she said with the sting of a whip in her tone. “I am the wife of the jarl. It is my duty to care for the people of Jondal.” Some of the fight went out of her, and her tone softened. “And for their jarl.”
Hilde’s devotion reminded him of Katla and her determination to provide for the people of her farmstead. When he left for Byzantium, Hilde had been more interested in what baubles the traders might bring for her than in how her people fared. Now she was simply but elegantly dressed. All hint of ostentation had been ground out of her by Arn’s illness.
Before they reached the great hall, where stentorian voices were raised in angry debate, Brandr stopped his sister-in-law with a touch on her forearm.
“Hilde, you have been a good wife and a good lady to the people of Jondal. I will do all I can to see that your husband remains the jarl. We have come a long, weary way. Will you see to my wife now?”
Katla cleared her throat and tossed him a pointed look.
“And the child as well,” he added and was rewarded by her smile. He would have leaned over and kissed his wife’s cheek, but no one ever demonstrated affection openly in his father’s hall. He suspected Arn would have it the same.
