by Mariah Stone
CONTENTS
The Marriage of Time
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Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Epilogue
A Glimpse Into The Surf Of Time
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Acknowledgments
About the Author
THE MARRIAGE OF TIME
A Time Travel Romance
Called by a Viking
Book Three
Mariah Stone
To all medical professionals
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Called by a Viking series:
One Night with a Viking (grab for free!)
The Fortress of Time
The Jewel of Time
The Marriage of Time
The Surf of Time
The Tree of Time
PROLOGUE
Somewhere in Rogaland, Norway, October 15, 874 AD
THE SCENT of blood was so thick Hakon tasted iron on his tongue. Swords and axes thumped against wooden shields. Screams rang through the air as metal pierced flesh and bone.
His men were falling. He was losing.
Hakon stabbed the tattooed warrior under the ribs with his scramasax, kicked another one in the stomach, then whirled and drove his battle ax into the chest of the third one.
King Nyr sat on his horse across the clearing where their forces clashed, woods and mountains surrounding them. He watched Hakon with a triumphant sneer.
Rage ignited within Hakon, giving him power. He was the lightning that struck the tree. He was the spear that pierced the elk.
He was Thor’s hammer.
He was vengeance itself.
And King Nyr was his target.
One after another, men fell under Hakon’s ax, but he saw only King Nyr. The men fighting around him were flashes of hair, muscle, and iron.
Finally, Nyr was in front of him. He’d throw the man off his horse and drive his ax through the bastard’s heart. But as he tensed his muscles to lunge forward, his body slowed and stopped. His limbs were weighed down as if he had sunk into a swamp.
He looked around. Men.
They held him, their eyes round, their eyebrows snapped together. Nyr sat high and proud on his horse, eyeing him from above. His bald head, with its dark, shadowed eyes, looked like a skull.
Hakon roared and jerked with all his might. Like Fenrir, the giant wolf bound by unbreakable chains, he fought and bit, teeth gnashing, claws flashing. But he could not get free.
“They say you are unstoppable, Beast,” Nyr said. “I see that it is not true.”
Hakon gritted his teeth. “Thor, give me your hammer to strike this snake.”
“Why so hostile, Hakon? Your father and I were friends.”
“I remember. Friend. I remember your visit sixteen winters ago, the freezing night my mother took me into the woods after a blizzard. I remember the traces of the wolf pack in the snow after they followed her horse away from me. And I remember the remnants of her body after they tore her apart. I have asked myself over and over, why she suddenly decided to take me to her family that night. Why she insisted it was no longer safe at home. Now I know. It was because of you.”
Nyr’s face straightened and paled as he listened. “You know?”
Hakon nodded. “My father told me on his death bed two years ago. You suggested he let the gods test my curse.”
Hakon’s left eye—the one with a birthmark around it—twitched. “She died because of your wicked scheme. You took the dearest person in the world from me. And now it is time to pay. The Beast has come for you.”
Nyr’s throat bobbed under his short white beard. “I am growing weary of your rage, Hakon. I never intended for your mother to die, and I never intended for us to be enemies. Be my ally. I want you by my side.”
A low, animal growl escaped Hakon’s throat. Fury was burning his gut like hot vinegar. Be his ally? Give up? Never. He had lost the battle, but not the war.
Nyr’s chin rose. “First choice, you die. You, your men, and every single person in your village. Your lands become mine—something I have wanted for a long time. But I do not wish your death. I want the Beast on my side. I want you to fight for me like you have fought against me. Second choice, you become my kinsman.”
The urge for revenge made his hands itch and burn as if he had just rubbed his palms in nettle. He growled again, a mixture of laughter and threat. He would never be kin to this monster.
“You were robbed of your mother.” Nyr lifted one shoulder. “Let me give you another woman who would love you. Marry my daughter.”
Hakon froze. “What?”
“I have nine girls and no boys. My daughters’ task is to bring me the sons and alliances I need.”
Hakon could not believe what the worm was suggesting.
“Become my son-in-law.” Nyr tilted his head back slightly. “You will keep your lands and pay me tribute as your king. You will protect me if I need your warriors, and you will back me at the assembly, the Thing. What say you?”
“Have your brat for a wife?” Hakon spat. “What Loki’s plan is this?”
He could not have a wife. Not the least the daughter of his enemy.
“I am not jesting.”
“Do you hate your daughter so much that you will marry her to the Beast?” Hakon heard the thunder in his own voice.
Nyr did not even twitch. “Do you not want a family?”
Hakon had abandoned the hope of having a normal life long ago. “You said that I was cursed. Are you not afraid your daughter will be cursed, as well?”
Nyr chuckled. “I have so many, nothing will change if a little curse comes to this one.”
Hakon watched Nyr from under his heavy lids. He felt as if he were caught in a trap, looking for a way out.
And he had found one. Nyr had just given Hakon a way to destroy him. Loki must have sat on his shoulder and whispered a scheme. A truly cunning scheme.
All Hakon needed were allies with more men. Marrying Nyr’s daughter would be the best way to make connections while gaining his enemy’s trust. Hakon straightened, his shoulders relaxed. His fury still thundered in his stomach, but it had taken a form.
The form of a spear.
“Marry your daughter, you say?”
“Yes. My daughter, Arinborg. She’s the next one of marrying age.”
Hakon did not care if she was an old woman. It would not be a true marriage anyway. “How do I know
that you will leave us alone?”
Nyr cocked his head. “I give you my word.”
Hakon laughed. “Your word. Your word is like spitting into a fjord. It means nothing.”
Nyr’s eyes darkened. “What do you want as a guarantee?”
Hakon narrowed his eyes. Nyr could use his daughter as a spy. The only way to avoid that was to isolate her from her kinsmen. She needed to be completely under Hakon’s control.
“Let her come alone. No one will accompany her. No one will attend the wedding. If she comes alone, I will take it as the sign of peace. If I hear a twig break near her, she’ll die before her heart can take its next beat.”
Nyr’s jaw moved from side to side. “The way is long. Winter is upon us. Let it be next summer solstice. She will be there, alone.”
Triumph spread in Hakon’s stomach like warmth from a hot stone. “The day of summer solstice. There is a sacred grove with a rune stone up the mountain by my village. I will wait for her there.”
“Let it be so, Beast. Send word when the thing is done.”
Hakon gave a curt nod. Nyr gestured, and the men let go of Hakon. His jaw tightened. Now that he was free, he itched for his ax, for a chance to kill Nyr.
Nyr’s men began retreating into the woods, and the king turned his horse away and rode off.
Hakon’s fists clenched and unclenched, gripping empty air. He had agreed to marry Nyr’s daughter, to become mágr to the man who had caused his mother’s death. Was he mad?
Hakon’s birthmark burned, reminding him of his curse.
He would need to keep his distance from his future wife—she would surely spy on him, even if he did keep her away from her kin. But at least he need not worry about developing feelings for the daughter of his enemy.
His ability to love had died with his mother.
CHAPTER ONE
Boston, June 21, 2019
“DO you think it’s a boy or a girl?” Mia’s friend Carla asked, taking a sip of coffee from a paper cup.
Mia’s fingers were warm where they touched the smooth black-and-white ultrasound picture. On it was a little human. The round form of the head, the perfect curve of the vertebrae, the five little fingers waving at her filled her heart with so much love, it was about to explode.
The smells assaulting her in the Massachusetts General Hospital cafeteria made Mia slightly nauseated. Coffee, for which she could kill; donuts; and a hint of bleach. Doctors and nurses in uniforms sat together having lunch, visitors hunkered down at separate tables—some chatting with friends and family, others staring tiredly into the distance. A couple of yuccas stood in the corners by the floor-to-ceiling windows. The cafeteria buzzed quietly with voices.
“I don’t know.” Mia touched the little hand on the ultrasound with her thumb and smiled. It was a boy. Somehow, she just knew. She didn’t want to share the knowledge with anyone, as though it was an intimate secret between her and the baby.
Carla and Mia sat near the window. At the table behind Carla was an old lady in a salad-green suit. Her hair as white as snow, a cup of tea on the table, she was knitting, the needles in her hands jumping up and down like the lines of a vitals monitor. The lady stole a curious glance at Mia and the ultrasound picture in her hand. Mia’s breath caught in her throat. How strange. Mia flashed a polite smile at the lady.
“A mafia boss’s baby… Still can’t believe it.” Carla shook her head, then leaned closer and dropped her voice to a whisper. “I thought you wanted to break up with him.”
Cold sweat ran down Mia’s spine at the mention of her ex-boyfriend. “I left him.”
“You did? When? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Three days ago. Three of the happiest days of my life.”
Carla’s eyes lay on the ultrasound. “But he doesn’t know about the baby, does he?”
“No. Of course not.”
“What would happen if he found out?”
Mia’s stomach dropped. “He’d never let me go. You didn’t tell your brother you saw me here, did you?” Mia glanced around. “I must be paranoid, but I still keep looking over my shoulder. I can’t really believe Dan agreed it was over.”
Carla laughed nervously. “I can’t believe I introduced you two in the first place! To think, if it wasn’t for him, you’d be a pediatrician now. We’d work here together.”
Mia shuddered, and the sleeve of her long summer dress shifted enough to reveal the yellowing bruise on her forearm. She blushed and moved to cover it, but Carla noticed. Her eyes darted away, as if she had just seen something too private. Mia’s cheeks burned.
“That’s all right.” Mia pursed her lips. “I’ll never let a man treat me like that again. Tomorrow I’m starting a new life. No men. Just me and the baby. Away from Boston.”
Carla frowned. “Are you leaving?”
“I got a job far from here, in the middle of nowhere. I can’t finish my residency program yet, but someday I will. My new life starts tomorrow morning when I get on the plane.”
Carla’s eyebrows rose. “And you are telling me now?”
“I couldn’t risk it.”
As the words left her mouth, a shadow fell over the table, a tall figure silhouetted against the sun. His scent reached Mia’s nostrils: elegant masculine cologne and the faintest acrid whiff of gun oil. Painful shivers ran across her whole body, and she moved her hand to hide the ultrasound under the table, but his heavy palm smacked the picture to the tabletop. His dry, warm skin burned her icy cold hand.
“Couldn’t risk what?” His voice purred next to her ear, his breath stinging her cheek.
He released her hand and pulled on the ultrasound, but she clenched it so tight her fingernails whitened. He jerked it from her hand, cutting her finger. Blood smeared the edge of the image.
Mia jumped up, kicking her chair back, and all eyes shot to her. Her pulse beat in her temples, her chest hurt, and her legs turned to jelly. Outside, Dan’s bodyguards, Romeo and Carl, stood waiting. Her stomach dropped.
Dan’s eyes were intense as he took in every detail of the ultrasound. He was a handsome man, with short dark hair and large dark eyes with long and thick lashes. He had high cheekbones, and his square jaw was clean shaven. He wore one of his tailored charcoal Italian suits with a white shirt and no tie. He looked like a CEO or a law firm partner—the illusion that Mia had fallen for three years earlier, when they’d first met. She should have suspected something, silly her. No CEO or lawyer had the mountain of pure muscle Dan had acquired from daily combat training. The mistake had cost her everything.
He met her gaze, and a chill washed over her. “I can’t believe. That you hid this. From me.” His voice was like the distant roar of a truck.
Mia began shaking. “How did you find me?”
“Little bird told me you went to an ob-gyn, and I wanted to make sure you were all right.” He glanced at Carla.
Shock hit Mia like a train. “How could you, Carla?”
Carla looked away. “I’m so sorry, Mia! I had no idea you two split up! And I didn’t tell him.”
“You told Gabe?”
Carla nodded. Gabe was Carla’s brother who worked for Dan.
Nausea rose in Mia’s stomach again. She shouldn’t think about it. Not now. She needed to deal with Dan. She took a cleansing breath, like every time she had dealt with his crazy temper. More collected, she met his dark gaze.
“We are over, remember?”
He laughed, then his face turned into an emotionless mask. “Not after this. You are carrying my child. Do you think I’m going to let it grow up in a broken home?”
“There is no home for him with you—”
“Him?” An emotion touched his eyes. “A boy?”
She cursed herself. Dan had always dreamed of having a son. “I’m not sure.”
“But you think it’s a boy.”
“I don’t know, Dan! What does it matter?”
“You’re right. It doesn’t. A boy or a girl, I won’t let my child
grow up with separated parents. This changes everything. You come back to me, we get married, and we work on our relationship. We’ll go to a shrink.”
Mia’s lips trembled. “But you don’t love me, Dan.”
His eyes turned black. “You are wrong. I never stopped loving you, bella.”
The words every woman craved to hear turned Mia’s blood into ice. She shook her head. “We’re over. No amount of counseling can fix us. Too much has happened. The women, your temper…”
She only needed to get him to let her go home. Hell, just let her go, period. She’d disappear.
“You’re right, but you are making me a better man. I’m more in control since you have been in my life than ever before. I’ll work on my temper, and there will be no more women. I’ll make you see the man you once loved.”
That was impossible. She had loved him until she’d learned the truth about his occupation—something he hadn’t revealed until they’d moved in together. She raised her chin. “How will you make me feel anything for you? Will you beat me again?”
His nostrils flared, and the vein on his temple twitched. “Don’t. If you want me to work on my temper, I’ll work on my temper. I won’t touch a hair on your head. Not like that.” Then he added in a low voice, “I hated when I did that to you.”
