“You cannot blame me for lying about that.” Avril’s voice sharpened. “Josette should not have... she did not mean to...” She whispered an oath. “She mistakenly thought she was helping me.”
The breeze caught the flames of the dying cookfire, making them snap and hiss.
“I could bring her here to live with you.”
“Josette?” Avril asked in confusion.
Hauk let his arm drop to the sand, realizing he had just voiced an idea that had been forming in his mind the past two days.
“Your daughter,” he said quietly. “It might be possible for me to bring your daughter here to live with you.”
For an instant Avril seemed incapable of speech. “What?”
He pushed himself up and met her gaze beyond the dancing fire. “Despite your belief that we Norsemen are uncivilized and barbaric, I would not see a child made an orphan.”
She gaped at him, blinking, as if the moon had just fallen through the clouds and landed beside her. “You would go and get Giselle?” she whispered. Her face brightened. “Aye, it is an excellent idea. I will go with you. I will take you there myself—”
“Nay, milady, you will not,” he said with a frown, not taken in for a second by that suggestion. She meant to escape the instant she set foot on her home soil. “You will remain here. I would go alone.”
She lowered her gaze. “But you will not find her without my help. And Gaston and Celine would not simply hand her over to a stranger. Her uncle will never allow you to take her—”
“The uncle who is a duc, who lives in the Artois region?” He had thought the child might be in Brittany or somewhere else.
Somewhere closer.
“Aye, Duc Gaston de Varennes.” Her head came up, her eyes widening. “Hauk, he is not a man to be trifled with. You cannot even think of going there without me. He would kill anyone who tried to take Giselle—”
“The Artois is too far.” Hauk shook his head, not sure what bothered him more: the fact that he had actually considered the idea, or that he felt genuine regret because it would not work. “It is impossible.”
Avril was silent a moment.
Her voice sounded unsteady when she spoke again. “And I would not see my daughter made a captive along with me,” she admitted. “Her life and her freedom mean more to me than my own. It is out of the question.” She closed her eyes, her lashes dark against her pale cheeks. “But you are... kind to be concerned about her well-being.” Slowly she looked up, her eyes searching his face. “You are not uncivilized and barbaric, Hauk. That is not what I think of you. You are... much different from what I thought a Viking warrior would be like. I did not expect kindness of you. Or thoughtfulness or gentleness.”
Hauk could not summon a reply, the warmth in her expression playing havoc with his heartbeat. He did not want to be thoughtful or gentle or kind. Did not want this spirited, emerald-eyed lady to rouse such tenderness within him, make him remember what it was like to feel concern. And protectiveness.
And caring.
Not only for her, but for a child he had never even met.
“I am not so virtuous,” he said roughly, half in denial, half in warning. “I merely want you to accept your new life here.”
Shaking her head, Avril rose. “That I can never do.” She walked around the fire, toward the water, and stood facing the waves.
The silence stretched out for a long moment before she said, “I thought you told me that no one kept boats on Asgard.”
“Aye, that is what I told you.” He watched the wind play through her long hair and swirl her cloak and shift around her slender body.
“So you lied to me,” she said with soft accusation, looking over her shoulder at him. “And if it is possible for you to leave—”
“I am the only one who leaves,” he said firmly, “and I leave only rarely.” He had ventured out more often in his youth, but it had become too painful to glimpse the outside world—with all its variety and excitement and constant change—only to be forced to return here. To remain here.
Where even the perfect weather varied little from day to day, season to season, year to year.
Avril turned to face him. “Then what did you mean when you said ‘the Artois is too far’?”
“No one can leave the island for more than six days at a time. It is—” Impossible. “—the law.”
She arched one brow in surprise. “If that is so, then Antwerp must be no more than six days from here. Nay...” A hint of satisfaction came into her voice as she looked out over the ocean. “Three.”
Hauk cursed, annoyed that he had just heedlessly revealed information she might use to try to escape.
He thrust himself to his feet and stalked over to her. “Avril, do not think what you are thinking. You cannot escape Asgard.”
She lifted her chin and stared up at him, defiance in her eyes. “So you have said.”
“By Hel, woman, do not act like a reckless little fool.” He took her arm, his fingers digging into the soft fabric of her cloak. “If you are drowned or crushed against the rocks, your child will be an orphan!”
“Do you care so much?” Her eyes were suddenly bright with tears. “Do I matter to you so much?”
Her tears burned him. Her question froze him.
“I am trying to make you listen to logic,” he insisted hoarsely. “Logic and reason.”
She struggled to wrench free of his grasp. “Reason does not matter to me. Your laws do not matter to me! You do not...”
She seemed unable to finish that sentence, looked startled and dismayed that she could not. Her voice dissolved in a thready whisper. “Y-you do not...”
The pain in her eyes made his heart strike a hard blow against his ribs. His hand came up to brush her tears away, as if his will were no longer in command of his movements.
And then all logic and reason vanished.
She leaned toward him, even as she uttered a wordless sound of denial. His hands tangled in her hair. And all at once their mouths came together in a deep kiss, a heated joining that held no restraint, no gentleness, only hunger and longing.
The first taste of her set Hauk ablaze with need. Need that should have stopped him. Should have made him release her.
But her lips were impossibly sweet beneath his, as full and lush as he had imagined from the moment he met her. As he had dreamed. He slid one arm around her back. Her hands closed on his bare shoulders, but she did not try to push him away.
Instead she melted into his embrace, the low sound in her throat filled with need that matched his. She held onto him as if the world had shifted beneath her feet.
He crushed her closer, sensations flooding through him, all of his senses flaring to life. She smelled of woodsmoke from the fire and the lingering scent of some spicy perfume. Tasted of feminine sweetness and a salty trace of the sea from the meal they had shared. Her cloak had fallen open and he could feel every inch of her body, so lithe and soft against his. Her breasts flattened against the muscles of his chest. Her nipples hardened to pearls beneath the thin fabric of her shift, the fragile garment all that separated his bare skin from hers.
A groan wrenched from deep in his chest. But even as he angled his head, urging her lips to part, his mind struggled for sanity. For control. He should not... he had not intended to...
Her lips parted, letting him inside her—and he was lost.
He thrust his tongue against hers, plundering the satin of her mouth. She returned his passion in full measure, moaning, her tongue meeting every stroke, her hold on him so fierce that her nails marked his skin. Her response sent a blade of heat lancing through him. Her sensual fire was just as unpredictable and bold as everything else about her—and he had never experienced anything so intoxicating in all the years of his life.
The restless sounds she made, the feel of her in his arms, the silky taste of her sent him plummeting into a sultry abyss. He wanted more. Now. Her breath, her body, her nearness. Her. Avril.
&nb
sp; His wife.
Slowly he sank to his knees in the sand, drawing her down with him, his fingers seeking and finding the clasp that held her cloak in place. He unfastened it. The garment slid from her shoulders, landed softly on the sand behind her. She shivered in his arms but did not stop kissing him.
He shifted his hold on her, cupped one breast, his palm kneading, his fingers possessive. She lifted her mouth from his with a sharp gasp of uncertainty.
“Avril.” He trailed kisses along her jaw, down the pale column of her neck. “I want you,” he said roughly. “I want you. And you want me.” His voice had become a deep, husky entreaty. “Let me show you how it could be between us.” He nuzzled the sensitive hollow of her throat... lower. “Let me show you.”
He wrapped one arm around her, urging her to lean back as his other hand cupped her breast, lifting the delicate softness to his mouth. He kissed her through the thin fabric that scarcely veiled her curves—a light touch of his lips across the taut peak, a teasing flick of his thumb that made her breath catch. Then he parted his lips and drew her all the way in, sudden and deep, and all hesitation in her voice vanished in a groan of pleasure.
He echoed the sound as he suckled her, the fullness so ripe and luscious in his mouth. His pulse thundered through his veins. The hard length of his arousal pressed against the restriction of his leggings. By all the gods, how he needed to be inside her.
He shifted his attention to her other breast, this time scarcely circling the nipple with his tongue, trailing his fingertips down the graceful curve of her spine at the same time. Her back arched, her fingers digging into his shoulders. “Hauk—”
“Do you wish me to stop?” His breathing was ragged. “Say it. Tell me that you wish me to stop.” He began sliding the fragile garment from her shoulders, peeling the damp fabric away from her breasts, exposing her to the night wind, to his kisses.
She was perfection in the darkness, her naked skin dusted with cool silver and hot gold by moon and fire. He shaped her breasts in his hands, stroked her nipples with his fingers, teased with tongue and teeth until a string of oaths tumbled from her lips.
“I... I...”
“Wish me to stop,” he supplied, since she seemed unable to recall the words.
Her eyes were shut tight, her breathing harsh, her skin sheened with sweat. And the only word she said was his name, fierce and urgent. “Hauk.”
He drew her into his arms again and their mouths met in hungering kisses, both of them shaking, the fever between them almost unbearable. He pressed his lips to her ear. “There are many exquisitely sensitive places on a woman’s body,” he whispered, “and a wise husband takes the time to find them all. One...” He nipped a spot just below her jaw. “By...” He nuzzled the curve of her shoulder, easing her down toward the sand. “One.”
He lowered her onto her back, stretched out above her—and flinched when her thigh pressed against the rigid evidence of his desire for her.
She froze in his embrace, her eyes opening wide. She blinked as if suddenly awakened from a dream. “Nay! I—”
“Avril,” he groaned, closing his eyes.
She fought against his hold. “Nay! Let me go!”
Her frantic words cut through him, cold as steel—and though her gaze was still dark with passion, her lips swollen from the shared ardor of their kisses, he did not argue with her. He let her go.
She stumbled to her feet, snatching up her cloak and gathering it around her, backing away from him. “I cannot...” She could not seem to breathe, shook her head wildly. “I cannot stay here!”
The words came out as a choked sob.
Then she turned from him and ran.
Hauk lurched to his feet, almost chased after her, stopped himself. The ocean breeze quickly cooled the sweat from his body and cleared the fog from his senses. By Loki’s dark daughter, what had he been doing? How had one kiss—one kiss—led to so much more so quickly?
Nei, he did not want an answer to that question.
He had merely been satisfying a physical need that had become painfully sharp. Showing her the pleasures they might share together. She was his wife.
Ja, she was his wife—and it was time for both of them to accept that fact.
He kicked sand over the cookfire to douse it, snatched up his weapons and pack and set off to follow her. There was no need to complicate this difficult situation with any sort of emotional... entanglement. But it was his responsibility to persuade his bride to stay willingly, to please her and see to her happiness.
And there was no need for them to keep denying their mutual desire.
Avril’s passionate response to him tonight erased any doubts: She did want him. Just as intensely as he wanted her. He had not been wrong about that.
But he had gone too far, too quickly.
As he strode down the beach after her retreating silhouette, he muttered an oath, not relishing the impossible task he faced. With Thorolf missing, he had to watch over his reckless bride more closely, stay with her every moment. But he also needed to allow her time to adjust to her new life, to this place, to him.
He needed to go slowly. Resist temptation.
He would simply have to be strong.
Ja, he thought derisively, unable to take his gaze from her slender shadow ahead of him. As strong as a man parched with thirst trying not to sip from the brimming, sweet, beautiful cup so close within his reach.
~ ~ ~
Thorolf stood in the shadows a safe distance from Valbrand’s vaningshus , waiting. Patient. Running his thumb along the smooth glass surface of the slender flask in his hand, he reminded himself that he had worked and planned for this a great many years. Another few hours would not matter.
Especially if it meant adding sweet vengeance to sweet freedom.
After his humiliation at the althing, he wanted the former almost as much as the latter. The vokter had thwarted him for the last time.
And this time he would pay.
At last, the woman returned, garbed in a hooded cloak—but Valbrand was only a few steps behind her.
Thorolf bared his teeth in a frustrated snarl. How like Valbrand to ruin his plans. Again! Just when Thorolf learned that the vokter had unexpectedly left his new bride alone, he unexpectedly returned to her.
As if he were purposely foiling Thorolf’s plans.
But that could not be. He could not know. No one knew.
Thorolf paced restlessly across the grass, gripping the flask. By Kvasir’s blood, if he had to waste one more day on this accursed rock, he would go mad. He was not a sheep, like the others, so satisfied with their placid, peaceful, dull little lives. He was meant for more.
An entire world of new places and pleasures awaited him beyond the boundaries of Asgard. And he meant to enjoy them all. The elders and the vokter and their laws could burn in Hel for all he cared. He had lived too long under their rule.
But he would not have to endure much longer. Freedom was tantalizingly close now.
He literally held it in his hand.
The thought cooled Thorolf’s ire as he turned to stare at Hauk’s cozy clifftop home.
Valbrand was always saying he wanted change. And his wish was about to be granted.
All Thorolf needed was one of the utlending women. That was why he had taken part in the Claiming voyage in the first place.
He was not about to test his potion himself. Not after failing in the past. He was reasonably certain that he held in his hand the answer that the men of Asgard had sought for centuries. The elixir would bring him wealth and acclaim throughout the world, make him a king. A god.
Yet there was still a chance, however small, that it might prove to be a deadly poison.
He meant to find out—with the help of Valbrand’s pretty bride.
The thought made Thorolf smile. All he had to do was keep his temper in check, and he would succeed. Patience was the key.
Patience.
He could wait one more day. Turning, he w
alked down the grassy hill. He would move his boat and conceal it better, now while he still had the cover of darkness.
Then he would return here. The vokter could not watch over his bride every second. She would be alone at some point.
And Thorolf would be here, lying in wait.
His smile widened. On the morrow, Hauk Valbrand would lose his new wife.
Chapter 11
The sun felt glorious after yesterday’s rain. Josette could not help but sigh as she relaxed against a tree, warmed by the shimmering rays, a basket of fresh-picked berries in her lap. A pair of horses grazed a few yards away, and Keldan lay stretched out on the grass beside her, eyes closed, one hand behind his head. He still had traces of dark juice on his face and chest.
Their morning ride had ended with the two of them picking their breakfast fresh from the fields—and their berry hunt had ended in a laughing berry battle.
Smiling, Josette popped one of the sweet fruits in her mouth, its taste as refreshing as the breathtaking view from this hilltop. From here, she could see the entire island spread out in an endless, colorful expanse: fields dotted with bright wildflowers, the western forest a rumpled blanket of leafy green; lavender mountains rising in the distance; streams glinting here and there, streaks of silver amid the darker, lush shades of the meadows.
A gentle breeze warmed her face, rustling the branches overhead. It was so pleasant here. So peaceful.
So difficult to keep her mind on the task she had been assigned. She was supposed to be gathering information about the island’s location. Avril would be expecting her report tonight, at the celebration in town.
But thus far, Josette had no useful contribution to make to the captives’ escape plan.
Feeling guilty, she ate another berry and looked down at Keldan.
Yesterday’s drenching rain had kept the two of them inside his vaningshus—so it was not actually her fault that she had been unable to carry out her assignment. After all, they could hardly understand each other.
Although that had not kept them from enjoying a most agreeable day. They had played draughts, and chess, and a game he said was called hneftafl, which involved colored stones and a decorated board. After a leisurely supper, he had worked at his carving and she had fallen asleep listening to the rain and the sound of his deep voice humming a Norse tune.
His Captive Bride Page 14
