by Tami Dee
Again he hissed into the delicate shell of her ear. "Put your arms about my neck. If you do anything to attract attention to your plight, I will kill them immediately after I kill you."
Leif fully expected her to scream despite his threat. After all, it was but a handful of hours ago that she had proven exactly how bloodthirsty a wench she was, appearing completely composed as the mockery of their wedding was performed. Nay, he thought in disgust, she would not care about the lives of these youths.
However, in compliance to his instructions, her arms slowly wound around him. He should have been satisfied at how they trembled as she did so.
Oddly, he was not.
Shooting a rakish wink at the gawking youths as they passed by, Leif captured her mouth with his. The silky-smooth fullness of her tear-dampened lips sent a shock wave through his entire body; the salt from her tears tantalized his taste buds.
Lust and rage fused within him. The opposing emotions entwined in a passionate embrace that knocked the breath from his lungs and scattered his senses. Leif crushed his lips against hers and forced her lips open with his tongue, taking her mouth with a savage intensity. The feel of a smooth, round ball impaled in her tongue shocked him, sending darts of pleasure through his sensitized body. She moaned softly into his mouth, then surrendered to the forceful domination of his lips.
Her arms ceased their trembling and her fingers worked themselves through his damp, salt-stiffened hair. Loosing all sense of time and place, he dropped the knife to the sand beside her and slipped his hand under her man-like short tunic. The small fraction of his brain that could still reason wondered when she had changed into men's garments, and why?
Caught up in his exploration of the heated flesh beneath his hand, the garments she wore ceased to matter. His thumb brushed across smooth ball piercing her navel and the taunt muscles of her abdomen rippled in response. Splaying his palm over her ribs, he stopped at the feel of material across her chest.
Unexpectedly, a sharp stab of pain replaced the shudder of pleasure that racked him and the metallic taste of blood filled his mouth. His blood.
She had bit him.
Sea-blue eyes that, moments ago been filled with terror now glared back at him, passion-darkened and accusing.
"You bit me!" he sputtered, outraged at her audacity.
Not taking his eyes off her, he patted the sand for his knife.
"Looking for this?" she asked almost pleasantly while pressing the very sharp tip of his own knife to his throat.
He smiled despite himself, for her resourcefulness and bravery could only be admired. "You better be planning to use that Katla, because if you don't, I will."
She gasped and her eyes widened. "How do you know my name?"
"Why do you pretend, lady? We were wed this very morning. Your father's priest said the words, just before he and I were thrown overboard. Your pendant glowed as brightly as mine at the time. The very fact that you were spared a watery grave clearly tells of your own part in the treachery dealt me and my men.
"I came to your island in good faith. I did not come leading a raiding party with fifty Drakkars in my wake, set to pillage and rape your people and your land. Had I but wanted to, I could easily have slain your father and captured you, condemning you to a lifetime of thralldom. Nay, lady, I did none of those things," Leif continued, biting out his words between clenched teeth. "I came alone. I sailed to your treacherous shores on only one Drakkars, my three brothers at my side and one hundred of my best warriors to witness our marriage. I intended to honor the marriage contract and the alliance of peace you father begged to establish."
He heaved a much-needed breath. "I watched as my brothers and my men were cut down at my side. I was forced to acknowledge the vows even your own priest did not wish to utter. Then after all was said and done, I was tossed into the sea like so much refuse."
The pupils of her eyes were oversized, leaving only a ring of vivid blue visible. She looked at him as if she could not believe her eyes, or, he thought, as an eerie feeling of foreboding slipped through him, as if she were seeing an apparition. The hand welding his knife wavered slightly; she looked strangely vulnerable and confused.
"Do I look like her?" she whispered, sounding somewhat awed.
The question took him by surprise but he did not allow himself to be deterred. He kept his face dispassionate as he watched the pulse beat frantically in the small hollow of her slender throat. Again, the feeling that something was terribly wrong crushed in on him.
"Please, listen to me," she pleaded. "I believe you think I did those terrible things to you, but it wasn't me. I swear would never do that to you, I would never do that to anybody."
He watched her closely, listening to her lies. Leif knew people, he could not have gotten as far as he had if he could not read them accurately. Despite the denials of her kiss-swollen lips, her eyes could not hide the truth of his accusations against her.
"Your lies will get you nowhere, lady," he told her grimly. "You will pay for what you did."
Silence hung between them like a thick fog. Her eyes implored him. Pleaded. Became resigned.
The hand that held his knife moved just a breath and Leif felt the tip of the blade pierce his skin. A drop of his blood spilt on Katla's cheek. He watched, mesmerized, as the single crimson drop slowly rolled down the curve of her tear-dampened cheek, disappearing into her hair.
Leif did not know why he continued to let her think she had overpowered him. He could remove his knife from her small hand and turn it against her in less than a heartbeat. He understood even less why he had allowed her to draw his blood.
But he had, and now he found himself carefully disentangling his limbs from hers and standing.
"You win, lady. This time."
Leif forced himself to remain steady as the earth tilted sharply under his feet, chances were she would not revive him a second time.
Arms across his chest, he glared down at her. Why was she not getting up? Her chest heaved; she continued to hold his knife before her in a white-knuckled grip. Her eyes could not hide their relief that he had complied with her demand to free her. Yet she lay still.
Leif crooked a brow. "Were you planning to nap for a bit? Or perhaps you were contemplating fleeing as fast as your strangely shod little feet could carry you? I would strongly advise the latter. Mark my words Katla, when I catch you, and I will catch you, I will kill you."
Her cheeks flushed scarlet, her lips opened several times but no sound came forth. To his amazement, a tear slipped from the corner of her eye as she looked helplessly up at him. Leif cursed under his breath and held out his hand. Warily, knife poised, she accepted his hand and he heaved her to her feet. Her eyes drifted closed and she swayed.
Without thinking, he put his hands to her shoulders and steadied her, then cursed again. Had she bewitched him? He could, he should, snatch his knife from her hand and plunge it into her deceitful breast yet he could not make himself do it.
"Thank you." She muttered in a small voice, keeping her gaze level with his chest.
Leif had had enough. He dropped his hands from her shoulders to her arms and his fingers dug into her soft flesh.
She gasped. The knife jarred from her startled grip and fell to the sand at her feet, landing with a soft thud that echoed between them. Looking up at him, her eyes wide and luminous she whispered, "Are you Leif Nabboddrson?"
He heard her ridiculous question, but could not give her the scathing answer it deserved because there, just over her shoulder, beyond the beach and thin row of underbrush at its edge, he saw a huge village. A village with large, sturdy looking huts. Thousands of them.
Tall, structures with their tips touching the sky. Unfamiliar noises assaulted him, the loudest a long blast of a horn. He slanted his eyes towards the noise and was stunned to see a ship docked at a pier, a monstrous structure rising high and white into the sky.
Just then, from high above his head a different loud noise demanded his
attention. In the sky, which was now splashed with an array of brilliant oranges, reds and pinks of the sunset, a featherless bird flew without flapping its wings; soaring faster than any bird he had ever seen. A thin white cloud followed in its wake.
"It's just a plane," Katla said quietly, and he realized that she meant to soothe him. "It won't hurt you."
Where was he? He looked at Katla in her strange man's tunic, then to the sky where the silver bird was now only a speck on the darkening horizon. The pendant he wore felt heavy and unusually warm. At the signing of the marriage contract, the priest had informed him that this pendant represented the future. As he remembered those solemn words, it occurred to him that perhaps he should be asking not where am I, but when?
Chapter Three
When he told her his name was Leif Nabboddrson, Kat actually felt the blood drain from her face. This cannot be happening!
It was one thing to spend your entire life wondering about an event that would lead you to your destiny, quite another thing entirely to come face to face with it. Not to mention the impossibility that this event would come in the form of a time-traveling Viking.
She pulled her arm out of his loosened grip and turned her back to him, swiping at her hair as the wind once again picked it up and played havoc with it. Her thoughts swirled in her head at a dizzying speed. No! This could not be happening. It was impossible. Yet her grandmother had said "When he comes, you must not let him return without you."
Could Amma actually have been speaking of a man who had lived hundreds of years ago? And if she had somehow predicted Leif's journey through time, then Kat would have the responsibly of -- of what? Of returning with him? To where? To when for heaven's sake?
No. Kat's logical mind could not, would not, accept the possibility of such a thing, despite the bruised and confused Viking standing right behind her. This had to be someone's idea of a joke.
Relief poured through her and the muscles in her shoulders unclenched. This is nothing more than an elaborate, well thought out, bad joke.
Her cheeks heated with the humiliation at having been tricked so easily. Barely conscious of her own intentions she spun to face him, her hands balled into fists. She lunged toward him, only to have him grasp her wrists in an iron grip.
She hissed out an exasperated breath. She was getting sick and tired of him using brute force to control her.
"Who put you up to this? Who told you about Katla and Leif? Who?"
She stomped a foot in frustration at his continued silence.
"I can't believe I almost fell for this. For a split second, okay, maybe two or three seconds, I really thought you had somehow, miraculously, traveled through time. I was so caught up in my Amma's... Oh, never mind! Who hired you? Was it Rosie? She's the only one I confided in about the legend. Does she actually think this is funny? A joke? Good lord, she knows how upset I've been since Amma gave me that key! Where did she find you anyway? The Actors' Guild?"
Without warning, her cheeks heated for an entirely different reason. "And what was that bit with the kiss, of putting your hand up my blouse? Exercising your artistic license? Improvising? Don't even try to tell me Rosie paid you to do that, because I know she wouldn't."
If her hands had been free, she would have emphasized her tirade with a sharp finger to his chest. He deserved nothing less for his part in this unconscionable deception.
She seethed at his continued silence, and was appalled when his lip tugged upward, as if he were mildly amused by her anger.
"Well? Say something you jerk!"
"Enough." The word was softly spoken and laced with authority.
Out of breath and trembling with emotion, Kat didn't bother to hide her contempt as she defiantly met his eyes. She opened her mouth to continue her lecture when his callused finger pressed firmly against her lips, her wrists still captive in his grip.
"No more. I am going to loose your wrists. I can assure you Katla, if you attempt to strike me again, I will bind your wrists with the very straps you loosed from mine." He shot a pointed look to the straps at their feet and, despite herself, her eyes followed his gaze.
"Do you understand me?"
A tremor of fear skirted though her at the cutting edge of his tone. Nevertheless, stubborn to the bone, she pressed her lips together in a thin, mutinous line, refusing to promise this pay-by-the hour actor anything.
"I'm not letting you go until I have your word," he threatened, bending until his forehead rested against hers. The scent of salt water and damp leather followed him and Kat found the aroma oddly comforting, but she couldn't allow that to distract her from her anger.
Eye to eye, she gave him a hostile glare, then blinked against the cross-eyed-ness that accompanied the action. He could hold her till doomsday for all she cared; the joke stopped here and now. Wait until she got her hands on Rosie.
Kat wasn't prepared for him to toss back his head and laugh and her eyes widened. It was a deep, rich sound that, for some reason, made her flush.
"You're a stubborn little one, aren't you?" he sighed, then adjusted his grip on her wrists, without, to Kat's chagrin, lessening its integrity.
"I don't know of this Rosie you speak of. But, I assure you, lady, that I have not been paid by anyone to say I am Leif Nabboddrson. I am Leif, son of Nabboddr," he paused and she saw confusion in his eyes. "I have always thought of myself as an enlightened man. I am a ruler, and an explorer. A man of science and fact and now it seems I am to be tested as to how enlightened I truly am. The sights and sounds surrounding me speak of future times. A future into which it seems I have been propelled."
Katla trembled. When he comes, you must not let him return without you.
"Do you believe me, Katla?" The question held a challenge.
Despite her best effort, her voice came out a breathless whisper. "I -- I don't know."
Cautiously, he released her wrists. The flesh his hands had held captive suddenly felt cold, empty. Her arms dropped to her sides like lead. Did she believe him? If her Amma's words were not still swimming in her head, she would say no. Absolutely not. A person traveling from the past to the future was impossible. Wasn't it?
She studied his face as he stood before her, patiently awaiting her answer. Underneath the thick golden beard were dozens of cuts and bruises and, she realized with a warm flutter low in her belly, he was breathtakingly handsome despite his injuries.
This was the man she had seen in the train window. Not an image but a flesh and blood man whose demanding kisses had melted her bones and made her forget that he was kissing her at knife point. I told Rosie I wasn't sleeping.
Somehow, now, with her lips and every other part of her anatomy still tingling from that stolen kiss, she wished Rosie had been right.
When he comes, you must not let him return without you. Her grandmother's words returned to torment her, pushing thoughts of his searing kisses aside and bringing her abruptly back to the problem at hand.
Here she stood, face to face with her destiny, and she didn't know what she was supposed to do about it.
She turned away from him to watch the ocean. "If what you say is true, then why do you suppose you were sent here? Now?"
To me? she added silently.
For the last week she had been haunted by her Amma's instructions. And now, in this one day alone, she had saved a life, been kissed at knife point, accused of being a murderess wife, threatened with an agonizing death and was now faced with the realization that the man that had subjected her to all this had been sent from the past, not just any random past, but a past that directly corresponded with her own ancestor's. Her namesake's betrayed husband.
Wow.
Leif stepped behind her and pulled her close; her silken hair billowed about them, dancing in the breeze. The apple scent of her was tantalizing, distracting.
"I know this is difficult to grasp, but I am speaking truth," he said in a low voice. "This morn I was on my longship. We were ambushed. My men, my younger brother
s, were all killed. I married a woman whose face and form are identical to your own, at the point of a sword, the deck under my feet crimson with the blood of the slain. Before the priest could complete the joining of our pendants, a warrior had the priest and me thrown overboard."
Careful not to startle her, he turned the shaking girl to face him.
A lengthy silence passed before she spoke. "Pendant?"
He pulled the disk from his neck and held it out. As it had that morning, the pendant started to glow.
"This was a wedding gift from Katla's father who is -- was -- a respected jarl who ruled over Iceland. He and his clan had become prosperous under his rule and were at peace. It was a peace he wished to continue forever. This pendant is one of two halves. My half of the pendant represents the future, which may explain why I was propelled to your time, and Katla's half represented the past. At our joining in marriage, the pendants were to be fused together and peace between our lands would be sealed in an unbreakable bond."
He tightened his grip on her delicate shoulders, willing her to understand and accept his words. "The pendants' joining never took place, Katla. My pendant is here with me, now, while Katla's is likely long lost in the dark shadows of time. I do not know what, if any, repercussions might occur because the arrangement was not completed."
She grew pale and he saw she believed him. Of course this was difficult for her to accept. And for him, as well. His mind still reeled with the realization that he had traveled through time.
However, there was no denying the evidence surrounding him, the sights and sounds that were so foreign to him.
And then there was her, in her strange garments with her even stranger words. Oh aye, something momentous had happened to him as he spiraled within the sea.
Leif wracked his brain. There had to be a reason he was here. Now. Standing in front of a woman who could only be a descendant of his wife, the mirror image of her, and who carried her name.
