Golden Surrender

by Heather Graham

  She jerked away from his touch. “Please! At least now let me be!”

  Olaf froze stiffly, then rolled off the bed. He stood and stared at her, his powerful hands gripped into fists at his side. Anger and confusion seized him again, and he inwardly railed at the torment that assailed him.

  Then he pulled a pair of trousers from his trunk, threw on a tunic, stumbled into his leather boots, and exited the chamber, slamming the heavy wooden door behind him.

  Olaf glanced at the full moon as he wandered beneath it, but he gave it little thought. He had come out to the night to cleanse his mind, not encumber it.

  He still didn’t know exactly what it was that gnawed at his insides and tore him apart, that left him in fever. He had had her, and that was what he had wanted all along, and yet he wasn’t appeased. He wanted her again with a new hunger, and he knew that the hunger could be sweetly quenched, but that it would flame again, a fire burning brighter every time.

  Fever, aye, she was like a fever to him. A woman with the provocatively passionate sensuality of a sun-goddess, and she despised him.

  Once he had meant to leave her free, to offer peace. Now he could no longer leave her free, but perhaps he could still offer peace.

  Grenilde. The name tore across his mind, and he thought of his love with deep and festering pain. But when he closed his eyes, those that he saw were emerald, flashing with brilliance and proud defiance, narrowing, misting.

  “Wife,” he murmured aloud, “you will learn yet that I am your master. And you will cease your dreams of a different life and lord, of the death of all that is Viking. For I am a Viking, wife, but I am also the Ireland that you will know from here on. Aye, emerald wife, you will break to me. You cannot deny yourself. By your choice or mine, you will come to me, and I will take what is mine. But I will reach out my hand in kindness first, and see if it cannot be taken gently. You will not cry again when you have been filled with the full joy of being a woman in my arms.” He shook himself, grinding his teeth together.

  Then he did notice the moon, and he frowned. It was a strange moon. Black dancers seemed to play upon it. Shadows of the gods.… A rumbling in Valhalla.

  A sound seemed to stir the breeze, and he thought of the Valkyries, always seeking out those who were to die, serving them their drink in the great hall of Valhalla. He didn’t even know if he believed in the gods, in Odin with his wisdom; Thor, the mighty warrior; Frey and Freyda, brother and sister, usually playful and benevolent, deities of fertility.…

  Olaf scowled fiercely at the moon, at whatever the shadow dancers meant. Then he returned to the home which was his pride and slept by the hearth alone in the kitchen.

  Across the vast green and purple fields and hills and cliffs, Aed Finnlaith woke in the night. He frowned, wondering just what it was that had awakened him. He glanced at his wife, but she slept sweetly, her lips half curled in her dreams.

  Nothing in particular, he decided, had awakened him. But he could not lay his head back and sleep, and so he rose, clothing himself in a short woolen tunic, and walked from his chamber out to his silent hall.

  The fire had burned low at the hearth; and it offered warmth but little light. What illumination there was came from the moon. He passed the dozing sentries and went out into the night, barely noticing the sharp chill of the wind.

  He glanced up at the moon, and it seemed as if a shadow passed the gleaming circle, cloaking it in a strange darkness.

  A shiver rippled through him, a feeling of something evil born in the night. He tried to shake the spell that seemed to have slipped into his old bones. And then his thoughts turned to his youngest daughter, which seemed to happen so easily to him since his return. Remembrances of her haunted Tara. He could swear at times he heard her soft, rippling laughter like a melody on the breeze and he could close his eyes and see her, her eyes sparkling, her black mane of whisper-soft hair flying behind her as she ran to him.

  Perhaps we shall ride back to Dubhlain, her mother and I, he thought. His wife had been horrified that he’d at long last given Erin in marriage to a Viking. But Maeve couldn’t possibly imagine Olaf. No one could unless they had seen the towering golden king, felt the power that touched even the air around him.

  Yes, he would bring Maeve to see her “baby,” and he would pray that the child of his heart would welcome him. He would wait another two weeks, give her a little time to adjust to her new life, and then the High King of Tara would make his first royal visit to the royal Norse household.

  He spun around to return to his bed, then felt a prickle at his nape. He turned back to the moon. He didn’t like the look of that shadowed moon. It seemed to be a portent of something dark and deadly. Hunching his shoulders against the damp night wind, he walked back to his residence. There seemed to be a keening in the wind, a trembling in the earth. You’re an old man, Aed, he thought sadly, with an old man’s foolish fancies.

  Back in his bed, he slipped his arms around his sleeping wife’s body and held her tight against the beating of his heart.

  In the deep green darkness of the forest, Mergwin too stared up at the moon. But his eyes were hard and assessing, and he shivered not. He lifted his head, feeling the breeze. He stretched his arms out and called to the earth. He waited, feeling his answers from the heaven. Shadowland. Traitor’s moon.

  A bolt of lightning jagged across the darkness and disappeared, and the shadow slipped more surely around the moon.

  Mergwin spun, his robe and hair and beard all fluttering wildly in the wind. He entered his little cottage and added logs to the fire in the hearth, stoking up a greater heat. He set his cauldron above the fire and into it he began tossing his Druid offerings. His eyes began to burn with the flame, and he chanted, ancient words, the words of the earth. He could not avert disaster. He could only hope to diminish its force.

  The Danes were already riding across the land. He could feel them now; the earth trembled. Friggid the Bowlegs sought revenge. Yet that was not the evil he feared. Destiny had long ago decreed that the Wolf must meet the Vulture and, therefore, meet they must. Somewhere in time, one must arise the victor. But had that time come?

  Mergwin shook his head. Something else bothered him. Something foolish … a mistake that would be a quirk of fate and yet disastrous. And foolish old man! he railed at himself. You haven’t the wits to know what, to touch it, to gainsay it.

  He sighed and left his hearth. He stepped out into the night again and stared at the moon. Shortly he would ride with his king and with the Wolf. He would have to watch the Wolf carefully, and perhaps discern that danger which he couldn’t quite grasp.

  CHAPTER

  15

  The wind was high and rising quickly. On the bluff overlooking the vast expanse of the Irish Sea, Erin stood like a statue, still except for the sweep of her long mantle and raven hair caught in the gusting havoc of the wind.

  The sea was gray, churning, boiling. Great waves crashed deafeningly upon the boulder-strewn shore. The water struck, rebounded, and leaped high in the air. Sometimes the wind would catch the droplets of the salt spray and Erin would feel the dampness on her cheeks.

  The sky too was gray, ominous and rumbling, warning of a great storm to come. The earth seemed to be cloaked in purple gray with patches of heather bending low to the wind.

  But there, at last, Erin finally felt at peace. This tempest, just like fields of rolling green, was part of the land that was hers, inherently Irish.

  She had awakened feeling still and sore … and as if she had been torn apart. Then, remembering Olaf’s parting words, she had begun to cry, feeling hopelessly betrayed and used. But her anger returned, and she had cried again.

  Yet beneath her conflicting emotions, she felt a sense of loss. As if she had been given a chance to grasp a glittering gem and been so amazed by its brilliance that she hadn’t given herself a chance to examine it properly.

  Admit it, she told herself mockingly, perhaps he was right. You have loathed him, yes,
but through all your loathing, you have remained fascinated. Perhaps as far back as Clonntairth when he appeared majestically and sternly like a magnificent golden god and then turned to smile at Grenilde. Ever since that day, in a small distant part of your heart, you have wondered about the strength in those arms, the heat in his chest.

  And maybe he knew, just as she knew, that the fires created had only begun to burn. She could rail against him for his disdainful indifference, but his taking of her body last night had been the taking of her soul. She would never be quite the same again.

  But as the waves lashed and the sky stormed, she was not sure what she felt for him. He was a Viking, yes, and the Vikings were brutal men, in a brutal age, but Olaf raised himself above men and the times and lived by a strange code of honor. He could be cruel, but she had to admit she had given him reason to be. He might have beaten her; any other man with a wife so hostile would have surely done so. And as to rape … they both knew how ridiculous such a term was between them.

  But what made him what he was? she wondered. He didn’t love her, and yet even in her inexperience, she knew no man could have been more tender, more gentle, more determined that she cross the threshold of intimacy with as little pain as possible. But then he had been angry. Yet when he had heard her tears, he had attempted to comfort her. It was when she had stiffly repelled him that he had become again as cold and icily distant as his Nordic homeland.

  She smiled a little ruefully. She had heard tales of captives falling in love with their captors, but she had always ridiculed them. Such women had to be pride-less fools. Such tales had been only the most absurd of fantasies to her. But how could she ridicule Moira? She had seen not only the love Moira had borne her Viking lord but the love that red-headed giant had returned.

  Erin was no captive, no prize of war. She was the queen of Dubhlain; wife of the Wolf of Norway, legally wed to a man who had little use for her, and she was falling swiftly beneath his powerfully compelling spell despite all that she had promised herself, all that she had vowed. She could never let him know, because he would use her feelings against her as he did everything else, and the contempt he bore her would only grow with his amusement.

  But how could she fight him? There was no battle in which they could engage that she could win. Perhaps she did need to speak with Bede and take a few lessons in fortitude, but Bede was leaving that day.

  She didn’t hear him approach, nor did she know that he had watched her with his sharp hawk’s eyes as he neared her, seeing nothing of the dilemma that tore about her heart. He saw only the tall, straight stillness, the whip of her ebony hair in the wind, the royal fall of her mantle. Her head was high as always, her eyes blank upon the surf.

  He thought of her with complete softness for the first time, as he thought of her father. Surely Aed had not lied when he had offered him such a prize as this child of his; so beautiful, so vast in spirit, so regal in pride. One with the land, bending, but ever fighting the wind.…

  A streak of lightning tore across the sky, and a roaring thunder-clap seemed to shake the heavens.

  He rode until he stood just behind her.

  “They say that on days such as these Odin rides his horse Sleipner across the skies. Sleipnir has eight legs, and when he races, he splits the sky asunder with his speed.”

  Erin turned to stare at him, surprised at the gentle tone of his voice. She had wondered at first that no one had stopped her from leaving the city walls, and she had assumed he would be annoyed that she had done so. He had little reason to trust her.

  His countenance was impossible to read, yet she knew he bore her no anger. His eyes were their ususal stunning blue, and still it seemed that a cloud covered them, making them as mysterious as ever. His mouth, beneath the red-gold beard, was not thin and compressed, nor did it twist in a smile.

  He is a stranger, she thought, for all that we have fought, for all that we have shared, he is a stranger. He is a stranger even to his own men because all that he really is is not apparent; he is layers deep, and sometimes we are given insights beneath that overwhelming physical façade, but no matter how long I live with him, I will never know him, because he guards himself and lets no one penetrate his heart.

  He dismounted from his horse and approached her, stretching out his hand as he stared into her eyes. Erin felt once more as if an actual power compelled her. She probed for answers within his eyes, unaware that her own were momentarily naked. Slowly she placed her hand in his.

  “Come home with me, Princess of Tara,” he said softly, gently. “For I seek the solace of my wife.”

  It was not an apology, nor a declaration of emotion. Yet it was tenderly stated, and she could not deny him.

  “I was not running away,” she heard herself saying. “I only wished to come to the sea.”

  He nodded briefly, leading her past the bluff where her horse grazed. “I fear that we will not outrace the storm.”

  He hoisted her onto her mount and turned to retrieve his own. Erin waited until he had swung upon the stallion and ridden the few feet toward her.

  She allowed herself a wistful smile. “Perhaps Odin was also in the need of a ride by the sea.”

  He smiled in return. “Perhaps,” he said softly.

  Another streak of lightning lit up the sky; with the thunder that followed it, the rain began.

  “Come!” Olaf bellowed above the sound of the tearing wind and the slashing raindrops. “There is a cave—”

  He nudged the great stallion into action and Erin followed his gallop down the hill from the bluff.

  Despite the whirlwind race of his horse and the tempest of the wind and rain that matched the pounding of his heart, Olaf was feeling a strange and pleasant lightness of heart.

  Erin’s and Olaf’s horses’ hooves clattered upon the stone ground as they entered the cave. Olaf dismounted quickly and went to his wife, reaching his arms up to lift her from the saddle. She accepted his touch but didn’t meet his eyes.

  He walked to the entrance of the cave and stared at the wind-swept deluge beyond and shivered a little with the cold. He looked back at Erin, who stood silently dripping, and shrugged, suddenly feeling a little tongue-tied.

  “This will go on awhile,” he said, wishing she would talk. He walked deeper in the cave and found the pile of wood he kept there along with a few tattered furs. “I’ll build a fire,” he said a bit inanely.

  She finally spoke, softly, hesitantly. “You come here often?”

  He flashed her a surprising smile, the rare one that took his strong angular features and made them appear almost boyish.

  “Not often, but sometimes, I like the bluff where you rode today. I like the feel of the sea and the wind. Sometimes I feel that I have been away from the sea too long and that I must go to it again.”

  Erin stiffened at his words, remembering that he was the invader who had first come out of the black mists in a dragon-prowed longboat. But he was staring at the fire he sparked expertly, nurturing it with kindling, prodding it until he could add dry logs. He glanced up at her again and saw her standing stiffly, her emerald eyes telling him of his mistake.

  He lowered his eyes in reflection for a minute and then stood, approaching her, stopping a half foot away from her and placing his hands on her arms.

  “Erin, I cannot change what I am. Nor what I have done. But you are my wife now, and I wish to give us a decent chance at our marriage. I said once that I would leave you alone; I have discovered that I cannot do that. But I have also tried to honor your requests. Sigurd and Moira are happily married, and you will no longer be bothered by my past associations.”

  Erin stared into his eyes, and though she still saw that he was a stranger, she knew too that he was giving her all he could.

  She smiled and reached out a hand to touch his cheek, feeling the coarse hair of his beard and rejoicing in the touch. To her vast surprise he caught her hand and kissed her palm. He looked into her eyes and vowed softly, “I will always
be gentle, my Irish one.”

  She threw herself against him, savoring the warmth that filled her through the wet fabric of their robes. He held her, then pulled her away to savor her lips.

  She returned his kisses voraciously, loving the darting of his tongue, seeking the depths of the warm cavity of his mouth in return. The scent that was so individually, intoxicatingly him filled her every breath, that scent which was subtle, yet all male, all enveloping. His beard tickled her cheeks as his mouth hungrily sought hers, released it to find her eyes, her brow, her nose.

  “We will catch cold if we stand around in these wet clothes,” he murmured huskily.

  Erin stepped back, swallowing a little, yet determined to appease the hungry fires that had begun to build within her. Today she would take all he had to give her. It might be only desire that brought him to her, but she would have him physically, and she would learn to know each fraction of his steel-framed body, each nuance of muscle, each golden hair.

  “Allow me to assist you, lord husband,” she said in a low voice.

  He felt as if he had suddenly become lost in an emerald sea. He could scarcely believe the truth of his hearing, but it was there. Her voice was soft like a melody. It touched him like a tangible thing, making the nerves of his flesh quiver.

  “I would like that, lady wife,” he returned just as softly. He watched her as she stepped forward and placed trembling hands upon the brooch of his mantle, and then reached low to remove his tunic. She followed the rise of her fingers with her lips, relishing the tickle of his chest hair against her face as she luxuriated in the taste of the damp flesh. She heard him draw in a sharp breath as the tunic came over his head and she pressed her lips back to his chest, taking a male nipple gently between her teeth. Beneath her she felt the pounding of his heart become one with her, and she understood his tenderness of the night before, because each of her own administrations to him sent a wave of pleasure sweeping through her own body.