by Betina Krahn
JORUND CLIMBED QUICKLY up the steep slope at the side of the cliff, using the exertion to spend the anger in his body. Each jabbing foothold, each fierce grasp of a rock or root vented a small part of the frustration coursing in his blood. He gritted his teeth and snarled wordless curses as he stumbled on loose rocks and felt dried branches clutching at his arms and shoulders. When he stumbled onto the top of the cliff overlooking the meadow, he set his hands at his waist and threw his head back as if to inhale some of the blue from the sky.
Then he closed his eyes and saw her face as it had been: soft with longing and hard with contempt. She roused and angered and entranced and tempted him as no other woman in his life had been able to do. Each time he confronted her, he felt himself losing ground to his own volatile impulses. It frightened him . . . this raw, animal spirit prowling his insides . . . watchful, waiting for his control to slip . . . straining to unleash his strongest and most destructive urges.
He shuddered and drew breath after cold breath, until he felt the fever in his blood subside. Then he opened his eyes and raised his head, searching the great mountaintops around him for perspective. There was more than just pleasure or control, or even a clash of beliefs involved here; he had to be patient and slow to anger. He dipped his gaze just then and caught a movement in the meadow below. His senses came alert, focusing on a blur of white with a dark ribbon whipping around it. Suddenly there were shoulders and arms and a braid . . . legs working. Aaren! But the very moment he recognized her, she was swallowed up by the trees.
He exploded to life, racing for the steep slope. “I must have left the damned door open!” He slid and stumbled down the rocky mountainside, whipping scratchy limbs aside and jumping over boulders. He swore quietly, berating himself for not keeping her tied or hobbled a while longer.
The moment his feet hit level ground, he bolted for the trees where she had disappeared. Several yards into the woods, he jerked to a halt, realizing that he couldn’t go plowing through the forest like a bull elk in rut. She would hear him coming and there were a thousand places to hide in these craggy woods. He would have to go slower, using his knowledge of the surrounding forest to outwit her. Striking off in the direction he’d seen her go, he searched the downed twigs and leaf-litter for signs of her footprints.
“Wait till I catch up with you, She-wolf,” he muttered. “By Godfrey’s Heaven, I’ll show you who has fangs and who doesn’t!”
He tracked and listened, finding little evidence of her passage and growing doubtful of his strategy, until he came to a ridge overlooking the main pass into the high valley. He paused, shading his eyes, and searched the trees and the narrow, rocky passage below. And as he expelled a hard breath and turned to move along, he spotted a flash of white and quickly flattened against a tree, searching the darkened trunks and branches below for another glimpse, then finding her.
She moved silently and skillfully, alert to every sound around her, sure of every footfall. She was no stranger to the mountains, he knew, but her effortless, forest-wise movement still surprised him. She was strong and graceful, magnificent—very like the she-wolf he had declared her to be. He began to follow her, moving with all the stealth he possessed in order to close the distance between them before she detected his presence.
In and out of the trees he stalked her, pausing when she paused, listening when she listened. And as he gained ground, he began to think of how he would surprise and subdue her. Without rope it was going to be hard . . .
Aaren strode beneath a canopy of towering evergreens and tall, white-barked trees that were hoarding their golden leaves. One hand was on the small knife at her waist, beneath her tunic, and the other steadied her passage through the undergrowth. She knew that Jorund would have found her gone by now and was probably tracking her. But her greatest concern was finding the proper course back to the village. Once she found that narrow mountain pass they had traversed the morning before, she hoped she would only have to locate a stream and follow it down out of the mountains.
A noise from the distance caught her ear and she slowed, searching the tangle of dried fir limbs and dormant branches around her. There was a small clearing not far ahead, where a huge old fir had recently fallen. The great old trunk lay among the shadows cast by its encroaching neighbors and the undergrowth had not yet filled in the newly opened forest floor. She approached with her senses piqued and her step wary. Leaves rustled and small twigs snapped, then all was silent for a moment. She paused at the edge of the clearing, clinging to the cover of morning shadows. And she saw it.
The wolf was poised across the clearing, staring at her, ears up, eyes wide . . . as if she had surprised it. Long years of living in the wild high country whispered caution . . . but more recent experience had diluted her natural distrust. Her encounter with Rika in the bee meadow sprang to mind. The muzzle was tan, the mask dark gray . . . in just the right proportions. It was possible that the beast had followed her and Jorund into the forest, but there was only one way to be sure. She took a deep breath and called quietly.
“Rika?” She moved out of the tree’s shadow. “Is that you, girl?”
The animal reacted immediately to Aaren’s voice, springing up and racing toward Aaren at full speed. When it reached the great log, it gathered and leaped . . . with a vicious snarl.
Jorund was a mere thirty paces away, behind and to Aaren’s right, when he saw her stop and search the far side of the small break in the trees. He stopped, as well, and his eyes lighted on the wolf at the same moment hers did. But a half-instant later, he saw another movement off to his right: low, skulking motions. He realized there was a second wolf just as he heard Aaren calling to the other animal, thinking it was Rika. Without even time for the conscious thought to form, he knew it could not be Rika, since it traveled with a pack. The danger seized him: where there were two wolves, there were likely to be more!
Alarm shot through his body like a lightning bolt and he snapped his head in her direction just as the wolf launched itself over the tree trunk—straight at Aaren’s throat. Jorund exploded through the underbrush, running into the ragged clearing just as the wolf reached her.
She cried out as the beast knocked her to the ground. The impact stunned and knocked the wind from her, and the beast scrambled to press the attack, its ears back and its fangs bared. She raised her arms and rolled as it lunged for her face and throat, slashing with its huge jaws. Suddenly a new force burst in from the side, knocking the wolf from her.
Jorund had hurled himself at the wolf bodily, using his broad shoulders and powerful arms to ram it broadside and dislodge it from Aaren. But the next instant, he found himself on the ground with the animal lunging at him, biting and snarling. He grappled with the beast at his throat and succeeded in thrusting the gaping jaws away—just long enough to grope for his knife. He rolled and thrashed, working to get his arm and blade up from his side—and finally ripped into the wolf’s belly. He shoved the huge carcass aside, pulling himself from beneath it and pushing up onto his arms.
Staggering to his feet, he turned to Aaren, who was only now regaining her wits. She had struck her head on a rock when she fell and now she sat up, shaking her head and blinking to recover her vision. A low, blood-chilling snarl from the far side of the clearing caused them both to freeze.
Jorund whirled and found himself facing not one wolf but two. He barely had time to brace before the first wolf reached him with its claws raking, its teeth bared and flashing.
The clearing erupted in a storm of twisting, writhing sinew and slashing teeth. Jorund fought desperately to keep his feet, knowing that to go down before two wolves would mean certain death. His powerful thighs contracted and released in explosive jolts, while his arms lashed and his massive chest strained and heaved. He managed to wound and throw off the first wolf just as the second moved in to attack his legs from behind. He wheeled and bent and nearly buckled under its clawing charge.
The wolf sprang up at him and they wrestled, lo
cked in a deadly combat, slashing at each other—one with teeth, one with steel. Again and again Jorund’s arms broke free to drive his blade into the wolf’s pain-maddened form. When his blade finally pierced the wolf’s ribs and found its heart, the beast made a last convulsive lash with its jaws, then fell with a sickening thud. Jorund staggered, panting, air-starved, but before he could draw breath, the animal he had wounded earlier charged him again.
The clearing filled a third time with blood and sound and fury . . . spattering red, the thuds of fist smacking flesh, and the rasps of lungs struggling for air. Aaren scrambled to her feet, staring in horror. Still half dazed, she groped for her small knife and found it gone. Casting frantically about for something—anything—to help, she seized a rock and lurched toward the battle, taking aim . . . and slamming the rock into the wolf’s head—just as Jorund plunged his knife deep into its belly, striking something vital. The animal jerked and made a gurgling yelp, and Jorund thrust it away, where it fell to the ground in a heap.
Jorund weaved and fought to keep his feet. His bloodied fists were still clenched and his arms still vibrated with unvented rage. He turned dazedly about, raking the silent trees with his gaze, making pained, growling sounds that seemed to come from deep within his chest. Aaren called his name, but when she tried to take hold of his arm, he knocked her away with a sidelong slash of his fist. She stumbled back and landed with a jarring thud on her rear, and he wheeled on her with a look that set her blood contracting in her veins and caused gooseflesh to rise across her shoulders.
His features were pared lean and bronzed with violence. His nostrils were flared, his facial muscles tight, and his generous lips drawn into a snarl that bared his teeth. But it was his eyes that truly jolted her. They were pale—blue-white with rage, their usually dark, luminous centers mere pinpoints. He stared at her unseeingly, tensed and trembling . . . still hard in the grip of battle-fury. Once past the first shock of seeing him so changed, she made it to her knees and called his name again and again.
“Jorund, it’s over. You’ve killed them all. . . . It’s finished. Jorund, look at me. It’s Aaren. . . . Jorund, look at me!”
She crept closer as she talked, wary of the knife still clenched in his other fist. Slowly, his eyes began to darken and to focus meaningfully on her. His coiled stance eased and his braced arms and fists lowered. “Thank the gods!” she breathed, edging closer, allowing him to adjust to her presence a little at a time. When she was near enough, she reached for his hands and when he did not resist, she inspected them for wounds.
“There is so much blood—I cannot tell how badly you are hurt,” she said, staring up into his face. His expression was more normal now, but she still had the eerie feeling that she was looking into the eyes of a stranger. “Can you walk? Can you make it back to the shieling?” He dropped his gaze to his own bleeding hands and nodded. She pulled the spare tunic she was wearing up and over her head and took a steadying breath as she reached for his knife. He allowed her to pry it from his fingers, and in short order she had cut and torn strips from the tunic and wrapped his hands. When she took hold of his arm, he gave her a strange look.
“I saw you,” he muttered, his expression dark, glazed. “Then I saw wolves . . . pack wolves . . . not Rika . . .”
“And there may be still others who will run to the smell of blood. Come, Jorund—we must leave here.”
She urged him along as quickly as she dared, and was relieved when twice he corrected their course. Each time she looked at him, she saw a bit more of the Jorund she knew and her anxiety eased. When they reached the shieling, she led him straight to the bathing hut and bade him sit on the wide wooden bench while she stripped his blood-spattered jerkin and tunic from him, then bathed and examined his hands.
“Small gashes and a number of scratches—they bleed much, but are not deep,” she pronounced with genuine relief. “There is nothing that will not heal quickly.” Then she investigated the sources of the blood on his chest and face. More scratches, nothing worse. “Your victory-luck, Jorund Borgerson, is truly a gift from the gods.”
As she washed and tended his wounds, she discovered a number of garish white marks on the sun-bronzed skin of his back and shoulders. They were like Father Serrick’s body marks . . . battle-scars. Her fingers drifted wonderingly over them, tracing the lingering paths of the blades that had cut him. Then she feathered a touch along the fiery new tracks in his skin, wounds he had taken in defense of her. And she felt as if everything in her middle were melting and sliding toward her knees.
He had come after her and had seen the wolves stalking her. And when he saw she was in danger, he had taken their full fury upon himself.
He had just killed three full-grown wolves with his bare hands. It was an act of courage that left her speechless. Jorund Borgerson had proved beyond all doubt that he was no coward. And from the old blade-marks on his body, it was clear that he had seen battle and been wounded more than once. He was no woman-heart! The certainty sang through her veins.
Then why was he so loathe to fight?
She knelt by his feet, trembling as she tore strips of linen from the spare tunic and wrapped his bleeding hands. As she worked, she felt him watching her and looked up to find his face troubled, his eyes dark and turbulent. When the last knot was tied, she let her hands rest gently on his and lifted her face to him.
“There are few men alive who could do what you just did.” Her voice was warm, but her words melted none of the tension in his countenance. “And you have fought . . . have been wounded before. Then why do you let your brothers and the others call you a ‘woman-heart’?”
The instant she said it, she bit her tongue, wishing to take it back. His face reddened and he flung her hands from his with a low throat-sound that was some part growl and some part groan. Shoving to his feet, he towered above her. Then he lurched for the open door and stormed out.
When his senses finally cleared, he found himself in the place where he always sought solace: the clifftop overlooking his meadow and stream. The cold air slowly purged the angry heat from his body, and time and distance from the wolf-battle restored a semblance of control in his mind and emotions. He collapsed in the tall grasses and lay staring up at the wispy mares’ tails fanned across the sky, trying not to think.
He didn’t want to relive the look on her face as she stared at his body and didn’t want to hear again the awed hush in her voice as she spoke of his scars. She had truly believed him a coward, and for some reason that realization was fresh and wounding to him. She had honestly meant every blustering insult she had hurled at him.
Why do you let them call you a “woman-heart”? It echoed in his head and in the deepest hollows of his heart. Why? How could he tell her—she who had never known the horrors of battle, she who spoke so glowingly of honor and battle-glory?
He closed his eyes and tried not to let the old images invade his mind. Desperately, he fastened his mind on other inner sights—an image strong enough to counter those haunting visions. He conjured a memory, a woman.
The bee meadow . . . tawny eyes . . . soft breasts beneath his chest . . . hard thighs against his loins . . . Aaren rose up inside him, lush and sensual, seeping through his beleaguered mind and ravaged senses. The feel of her skin recurred in his fingertips, the sweetness of her mouth materialized on his tongue, and the depth of her erotic response surged through his blood. As he dwelled on those sensations, his anxiety was slowly channeled into the more familiar, more productive tension of desire. Finally, the strain of wanting also faded and he was left with a poignant sense of release.
It was some time before he began to feel the scratchiness of the dried grasses beneath his bare back and the chill of the cold breeze on his naked chest. He sat up and looked at the linen bindings on his hands, then at the angry red scratches on his shoulders. It was not so bad, considering there had been three of them, he thought, pushing to his feet.
He stood for a while gazing off into the blue-s
hrouded mountains beyond his little valley. There was no reason to hurry back to what he was certain would be an empty lodge. If he had thought clearly enough, he would have given her her blade for protection on her journey back to the village. His thoughts focused on the possibility of spending the winter in these high, forbidding reaches . . . of what work it would involve and what solace it would provide . . . He descended the rocky slope to his lodge.
FOURTEEN
JORUND WAS so intent on his dark musings that he did not notice the small plume of smoke curling from the smoke hole in his lodge, or that both horses were grazing in the meadow, or that the door was standing partway open.
When he ducked inside and straightened, he stopped dead, staring at a crackling fire on the hearth. His gaze drifted to his wet tunic, thrown across a makeshift line of rope strung between the rafters, near the blaze. A movement by the storage box in the corner startled him and he jerked around to find Aaren clutching a drinking horn and a full ale skin to her breast. He stared at the things in her hands and worked his way up to her face, which was reddening.
She was still here!
His lungs swelled unexpectedly in his chest, crowding his heart. He glanced back at the fire and his freshly washed tunic . . . and saw that his furs had been moved to the sleeping shelf nearest the hearth. Each was a sign that she intended to stay. Relief poured through his chilled frame like trickles of warm, sweet ale and he turned to her with a searching look.
“You washed my tunic.” It was half statement, half question.
