Bodin caught her, holding her tight to his chest. His cheek rested on the top of her head as she clutched at his shirt, squeezing her small arms tight around his torso. He whispered, “I’m sorry, sweet one.” Bodin raised his head and looked at Erek. “Have the old woman take you to the others. Camp the men on the beach.”
When Erek had taken the woman far enough away, Bodin pulled Chessa back, wiping the hair from her wet cheeks. “Chessa…sweet one, look at me.” He cupped her chin, tilting her face to meet his gaze. He searched the depths of her green eyes. “The old woman is wrong. You are not to blame.”
Her chin quivered. “Of course I am. You heard her.” She inhaled a ragged breath. “My father is dead, my people all but gone. I failed! And—and I did go to your bed—willingly.” Her lips trembled. “And she knows, Bodin, she can see it in my face!” Chessa tried to pull away.
“Stop it!” She refused to look at him any longer, and he gave her a gentle shake. “Listen to me. Coming to my bed was a bargain between you and I. It had nothing to do with your people or what happened to them. You are not to blame, Chessa. Do you hear me? You did nothing wrong!”
Numb, she stood motionless, not believing his words. She’d wanted in his bed. The passage home had just given her a reason. How could he think she was not to blame?
Bodin led her to the door of the nearest cottage. “Stay here.” He stepped inside the run-down hut, using the side of his boot to clear a path through the debris as he shook the remaining timber supports, testing them. Stepping back outside, he took Chessa’s hand. “Come here, sweet one.”
With little resistance, he tugged her inside out of the wind and sat, pulling her down onto his lap. Bodin tucked wily strands of hair behind her ears, dropping his voice to a low rumble. “You did nothing wrong.”
“But—”
He pressed his finger to her lips long enough to silence her protest before he traced the delicate outline of her jaw and continued down the column of her neck. “If you believe nothing else in your lifetime, believe this: Your parents did not die because of anything you did. You were a child, Chessa, you never should have been expected to carry the responsibility of your people’s fate.”
The wind picked up, carrying a light rain and promising more to come. Chessa shivered but not so much from the chill.
“Do you wish to stay on the ship tonight…or here?”
Taken aback by the question, she took a deep breath. “What do you mean?”
Bodin pressed his lips tight together for a brief moment. “I know it is not the homecoming you wanted, Chessa, but you are home. The terms of our bargain have been met. You are free—forever this time. Your fate is your own.”
His words sifted through the quagmire of her emotions. “Oh.” A fresh wave of anguish churned in her belly. He would leave now. He wanted to leave now. She slipped off his lap, kneeling in a pile of musty thatch that had fallen from the roof some time ago.
Chessa raised her gaze to meet his and tried to steel her insides to the hurt clawing at her. She swallowed. “Here is fine.”
Bodin got to his feet. “I’ll get your things from the boat.”
“But there isn’t—” She looked over her shoulder. Bodin had left. Her head dropped forward. Chessa fought back the tears burning her eyes. Somehow she had to find a way to help her people. This was her fate, her place since birth.
Perhaps not all her people thought as the old woman did.
She looked up at the darkening sky. The storm sent a shiver down her spine. Would Bodin hurry to sail tonight? She had no possessions…. Had that been his way of saying good-bye?
Chessa scrambled to her feet and rounded the door frame. But Bodin was already descending the trail with his men. Her heart wrenched in her chest, and she held the cloak tight around her as she stepped out of the scant shelter of the cottage. She couldn’t let him leave. Not this way. “Bodin! Wait!” The wind blew rain in her face, forcing her to shield her eyes to keep going.
“Well, now, it seems you are no longer under the protection of any man,” a deep voice stated.
Chessa whipped around. The wind blew against her back, fluttering the ends of her cloak about her legs. She took a deep breath and then swallowed.
Erek.
12
E rek’s eyes glowed with ill intent as his gaze roamed down to Chessa’s feet and then back up, holding steady at her breasts.
A chill shuddered through her. She glanced over her shoulder, but there was no one to call for help. Her tongue skated nervously across her lower lip. She had to buy some time. “Bodin is—”
“Not coming back,” Erek asserted. “This little bargain between the two of you is over. He’s done with you.” He snatched her wrist, yanking her soft body against his. “Now it’s my turn.”
Chessa struggled to get free as he pulled her back inside the crumbling cottage and out of view. His fingers pressed between the small bones of her wrist, sending a shooting pain up the length of her arm.
Chessa cried out and dropped to her knees.
Erek chuckled. “You are anxious to get started, aren’t you? But that’s not what I had in mind. Yet.” He released his hold.
Chessa rushed to get to her feet, but that was all she could do. Erek’s arms blocked either side of her. She swallowed. He didn’t intend to let her leave. She balled her hands into fists, gripping the sides of her cloak tightly.
Erek’s head bent forward as he whispered, “How about striking a little bargain with me?”
Chessa turned her face away in refusal.
“No matter. I’ll just be the next of many more to come.”
Her heart pounded fiercely in her chest; so loud were the beats she could hardly hear the wind. But Bodin’s quiet words came to her—you are free—forever this time—and gave her courage. She shoved the unsuspecting young man back. “Leave my land.”
Erek laughed, shock and surprise dissipating almost instantly. “Your land? This is no more your land than mine. You’re a slave, nothing more, a kept whore, no matter what you were led to believe.”
He moved closer again, but this time Chessa scrambled over the knee-high pile of debris in the corner to stand beside a gaping hole in the cottage wall. “This is my land and my home. And I will help my people through whatever tragedy has happened. But you are not welcome here.”
“They do not want you here, these pitiful excuses you call your people. You are a traitor to them.”
“They will think differently when they know the truth—”
“They know the truth.” The words were growled through clenched teeth. “You have betrayed them in the bed of their enemy. They will not care for what purpose.”
His words cut deep. And resounded with truth. A sickening chill ran down her spine to twist in her stomach and clog her throat. The old woman had somehow seen into the depths of her heart at a mere glance. So, likely, would the others. And no amount of reason or logic would justify her willingness in Bodin’s bed. Not even as the only means of returning to her family. Tears rimmed her eyes, blurring her vision.
Erek stepped within reach. “You serve but one purpose.” He snatched her arm and yanked.
Off balance, Chessa gasped, stumbling forward, trapped in his painful grip. Her foot broke through a piece of brittle wood on the top of the pile, and she went to her knees. Sharp pains seared along her legs as debris gouged into her shins. Another forceful jerk on her arm, and she was dragged back to her feet.
“Turn me loose!” Her arms soon ached from the effort of trying to push Erek away. Some dark thought moved from his eyes to settle in his mind as a plan of action. Chessa braced for more pain.
Distant voices wafted along the wind, and Erek paused, glancing up to see a small group of armed Gael men heading toward the cottage, led by the old woman, who had another stick. Erek grabbed Chessa’s wrists and turned her so she was visible to them through the hole in the wall. “Do not think of crossing me again,” he warned, grabbing hold of her chin. “
Or what little is left of your people will be no more. This time their fate really is up to you.”
She sucked in a breath to protest, but the words she tried to form were cut off as his mouth slammed into hers in a violent, one-sided kiss. Then, just as quickly, he turned her loose with a slight shove, sending her backward into the heap of cottage wreckage.
By the time she managed to sit up, Erek had disappeared through the open door. “Good riddance,” she whispered, wiping his spit from her mouth. She began assessing the new gashes on her arms and the still-bleeding ones on her leg. She needed to get the wounds clean.
Chessa eased back onto her feet, picking her way out of the rubble with care. Closing her eyes for a moment, she strained to remember. Which way was the river?
“Seize her!” a male voice shouted.
Before Chessa could react, two men rushed forward and grabbed her by the arms. “Wait! Please, listen. You don’t understand.”
The oldest of the men spoke. “Words will do you no service, girl. We saw you with him.” He spat on the ground at her feet, “Kissing him.”
“With who? Kissing who?” The words stuck thick in her throat. They’d seen Erek kiss her. She squeezed her eyes shut. They’d never believe her now.
“That ’a right, girl. We saw ye evil deeds firsthand.” The man turned to the rest of the group, nodding approvingly toward the old woman, who stood there wearing a pleased, justified expression on her face. “Morna were right about the girl.” He turned a scathing, loathsome gaze to Chessa. “The offspring of our great king prefers the bed of savages who plunder and murder us at every turn of the wind.”
“Please, you must listen.” Chessa twisted, trying to pull free of the men who held her. “You’re wrong about what you saw. It is not as it looks.”
The old woman scoffed and raised her chin. “She must pay for her crimes.”
A chorus of agreement and nodding heads erupted, joined by shouts. “Bring her!”
Chessa stumbled along the rutted trail, trapped in the clutches of two unkempt men. She glanced back toward the cliff, but Bodin still had not returned. Her heart sank. Erek had spoken the truth. Perhaps Bodin had no intention of returning to the cottage as he’d said he would. Chessa inhaled a shaky breath. She should not have expected him to share the twisted knot of emotion in her heart. After all, he’d kept his part of the bargain. She had no right to want more than that.
Yet, somehow…she did.
Sheltered against a cliff wall, a collection of small stone huts came into view. Smoke from several open-pit fires hung rancid and gray in the damp air. Chessa winced as the stench of decay and rot and mud hit her with full force. Her home was nothing like she remembered. Dozens of blank, empty eyes stared at her as she was hauled through the center of activity. Could this harrowed, ragged klatch of souls really be all that was left of her people?
“Ge’ down there.”
Chessa landed in a deep pit not much wider than the span of her outstretched arms. Her feet sank ankle deep in thick mud. The men disappeared from her view. “Wait—”
A flat slab of rock scraped against three half-buried boulders overhead, darkening the opening of the hole, closing off all but a small ringed space around the edges.
“Wait!” Chessa reached toward the fracture of remaining light and grabbed a clump of grass clinging to one side of the wall in hopes of gaining her captors’ attention, but the soil was slick, too saturated with rain, and the roots gave way easily in her hand. “Please—” Her voice broke.
There would be no climbing out.
“Please listen to me.” The hopeless, whispered plea hardly reached her own ears. Why wouldn’t they at least listen to her? They were her people—people she’d given away most of her life to protect.
Tears spilled over her lashes and down her chilled cheeks. She looked up at the small cracks of damp, gray light. This was not how her father had punished wrongdoers. What had happened to make her people behave this way? Chessa sank to her knees, leaning her shoulder against the sticky, muddy wall for support. She closed her eyes and shivered, the cold beginning to seep through to her bones.
These men—people who shared the same blood that ran through her veins—made serving under the Vikings look almost easy. But that all seemed a lifetime ago now. How could mere days stretch in the mind to feel like years? She sighed. Well, if she was trapped down here, she wouldn’t have to witness Bodin’s ship sailing from the bay. And her heart with it. Chessa shivered. Small graces, she told herself, be thankful for small graces.
“I say we punish her now!” a male voice shouted.
She watched as a pair of dirty hands gripped one side of the stone slab briefly. A scuffle erupted.
“No! We’ll wait for Dairmid to return.”
“Wait! The bastards are sitting in the bay! How long do ye think they’ll wait this time ’afore they take the last of the women and boys, the last of what little we have? If we wait, they’ll be nothing of us left! I say we make an example of her; then maybe they’ll leave us be!”
“We’ll wait for Dairmid. The others will find him by nightfall.”
“No!”
A resounding thud blocked the light on one side of the pit. The slab slid back, rock grinding against rock until it tilted into the mud, balanced on only two of the boulders.
An angry man stood on the lip of the hole leering down at her with hatred in his eyes. He knelt and grabbed for her.
Chessa cringed, but there was no place to go. The hole was not deep enough to keep out of his reach. He pulled on a handful of her hair until she got to her feet. Anger fueled his strength. He grabbed her arm and dragged her out of the pit with one hand. “Time to show them Vikings we won’t cower no more!”
Chessa glanced back at her temporary quarters and saw a man lying on his side next to the slab of stone. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, thinning as it mixed with the rain. She struggled to keep up as her new captor yanked her hard, forcing her to keep pace with him.
“Please, I am the king’s daugh—”
“I knows who ye are.”
“Then surely you know I was given over to the Vikings by my father in service to protect—”
“You didn’t do no protecting of us. You served only yerself and yer whoring ways. If you’d done like you was supposed to, we wouldn’t be living like this.”
The winds rose to battering gusts as they neared the cliff’s edge. She looked out into the tide-filled bay. She might be forced to watch Bodin sail from her life after all. A surge of anguish and tears fueled her fading strength. “You must listen.” She jerked against his iron grip. “I tell you that is not true. I don’t know what happened here, why the village has been destroyed, but it was not because of me!”
The man stopped less than two steps away from the sharp drop of the cliff ledge. “’Course it were cause of you. They never stopped their raiding and killing, cause you didn’t do as you was supposed to do.”
Chessa winced as the man’s grip tightened on her arm. He moved her closer to the edge. “Enough!” she shouted, managing somehow to twist free of his hold. She took a distancing step back. “I don’t know who did this, and right now I don’t know how to help, but I swear”—she pointed to the Viking ship still beached on the sand—“that the men who made the bargain with my father are not the men who did those things.”
“You would say that, wouldn’t you? After all, you bedded with all of them.”
“One! I went of my own choice to the bed of one man. Only one!” Chessa stopped short of adding that she also happened to love that one man. She raised her voice, partly to be heard over the rising wind and partly because she was so angry. “I did it as a means of earning my passage back here, to take my rightful, hard-earned place in my father’s household.” Her words shook as she spoke through clenched teeth. “I did it to return to my people!”
“I don’t believe ye. And neither do they.” He pointed to a small crowd who had followed and crept
closer to watch.
Chessa glanced over her shoulder. Her stomach roiled. The faces of the villagers confirmed the truth of his words. They did not intend to listen to her. Or believe anything she said. “So what…you intend to throw me from the cliff? You think killing me will frighten them away?” On the shore, men were loading Bodin’s ship, readying to leave.
“Aye, that’s right. Getting rid of ye will get rid of them.” He jerked his head in the direction of the bay.
“Not so!” With dagger drawn, Bodin strode through the fast-evaporating crowd. He pulled Chessa clear of the cliff ledge. “If you harm her, my wrath will echo off every stone and hill and blade of grass on this island for years to come.” Using his body as a shield, Bodin blocked any attempt the man might make to rush at Chessa. “She speaks the truth! My father struck the bargain with your king, and my father upheld his end. My men are not the perpetrators of your hardship.”
The man blinked, looking out to sea and then back toward his village and then over the top of the rocky cliff to the sandy shore below. Keeping an eye on the well-armed Viking, he eased farther away from the edge.
Bodin gripped harder the handle of his blood-covered dagger as he watched every last villager retreat, unwilling to challenge him. He turned to Chessa. Covered head to toe in a stench of mud, she stared at the blade of his knife coated in blood. She trembled visibly in the salt-laden mist. He took a step toward her, hand outstretched in invitation. Her eyes widened as she stumbled backward, keeping out of his reach. “Chessa…” His voice held a dangerous warning. “Do not attempt to run from me.”
“Stop.” She took yet another step back. “You do not own me any longer. No man owns me. You can no longer demand actions from me.” Shock and cold began to numb her limbs and tint her lips blue. “You even said so.” She gasped for air and turned her head to the side, staring at the cliff ledge. To watch him walk away would be more than she could take at the moment.
Pleasure of His Bed Page 25
