Ragnar

by Joanna Bell

  A woman? What woman? What woman would be coming to me now, as I lay frozen on the beach with my men tending me?

  I tried to lift my head, to speak, to ask what woman – which woman? – who? "Wh–" I said, because my lips still would not form around the rest of the word. "Wh–, whhh–"

  One of them men discerned what I tried to say. "The woman," he told me, as his hands squeezed and pummeled my right arm, drawing the blood back into it. "The foreign woman – Fiske and the men found her outside camp – we met a scout on our way back, telling us Brynjulf rides north with this woman, to bring her to you."

  I collapsed back against the earth, thinking it the cruelest trick of all – if I still lay dying alone in the marshlands – to make everything seem so real. Because it did seem so real.

  Was it true? Was she found? Was she coming back to me? I tried to sit up again, but it was still no use. My men continued to work on me, lifting my limbs now, shaking them, and then putting them back down. No more mention was made of her – of Emma – and I was too numb and too afraid of hearing the answer to ask again.

  And then, in the distance – hooves. My men heard it, too, because they looked up. They kept looking, as I lay almost helpless on the ground and my poor, tired heart began to beat itself awake again.

  "Is it –?" I asked, my words slurring into each other like a man who has taken too much sweet mead. "Is – is it –?"

  "Aye, Jarl," someone spoke. "It's Brynjulf, and he has the woman with him."

  A jolt ran through my body and I managed to sit up, staring blindly into the distance because my eyes were still blurry. But yes, there was someone on a horse – I could see enough to see that. And as it got closer I saw something else – another person, held in front of the rider, smaller than him. Something flew out in the wind, and my heart almost leapt out of my chest – it was hair. Her dark hair, that she had laid across my chest as she slept, and that I had gently run my fingers through, marveling at its softness.

  "They found her!" A triumphant voice came from the man working on my lower legs. "Here she is, Jarl! They got her!"

  I managed to pull myself to my feet as Brynjulf approached, but it was difficult to stand and two of my warriors had to hold me. When the horse came close enough I saw, finally, that it was her and a great surge of emotion barreled through me. I moved to go towards them but stumbled and fell to one knee before forcing myself up again.

  "Emma," I croaked. "Emma. Bring her – bring her –"

  "Bring her here!" Someone instructed Brynjulf. "Bring her to the Jarl"

  And so she was lifted off the horse and I saw that her hands were bound in front of her and her cheeks burned bright pink from the cold.

  When she was set on the sand in front of me our eyes met and I saw that she was afraid. She should have been afraid. A war raged in my heart, making it difficult to breath, between the half of me that wanted to pull her into my arms and never let go, and the half that wanted her to feel what she'd done. I reached out with one hand, the strength returning to me just slightly, and she flinched away, seeing the way I bared my teeth. Brynjulf pushed her forward again and she managed to utter a single word before my hand closed around her throat:

  "No!"

  I tightened my grip on her slender neck but I was not strong enough yet to cause any real discomfort. Even bound by the wrists, helpless and cold, she managed to mock me.

  "Shall I do it?" Brynjulf asked, gripping the hilt of his sword as he saw the fire in my eyes.

  I shook my head quickly, not looking away from Emma even as her eyes went dark with fear and welled with tears that froze on her cheeks.

  Gods but she was beautiful. I tried again to tighten my hand and then, when she felt the strength of my grip, her eyes widened in shock, as if she couldn't believe I was doing it.

  "Voss!" I snarled. "Vuh, vuh –" I paused and breathed deeply, no longer able to tell how much of my shaking was rage and how much cold. "Voss! What have you done, girl! What have you –"

  Emma tried to speak but my hand was too tight on her throat so I let go and curled it into her hair, jerking her head back roughly until she cried with fear. I wanted that. I wanted her fear. And still it wasn't enough, it didn't make up for what she had done.

  "Ragnar!" She gasped, as more tears leaked from her eyes. "Ragnar –"

  "What is it? I shouted, although my voice still croaked with chill. "You speak to me even now, do you? You speak to me as if you – as if – as if you had any right to do such a thing! What kind of evil lurks in your breast, girl, to dare to do such a thing?!"

  But she spoke again, as if she longed for death. And when I heard what she said, she confirmed it.

  "Is this your love, Jarl?" Her hands struggled and worked against the ropes that bound them and still she did not look away. "Ragnar? Is it? Go on and kill me, then. But when I'm dead, don't tell yourself it was love!"

  Brynjulf and my men stood ready to move, watching intently, waiting for me to give them the order to cut her throat. But she couldn't die yet, because she didn't understand. She still didn't understand.

  I managed to lift myself to my feet and lean back, roaring incoherently at the sky before turning right back to her.

  "You do not speak of love to me, girl! It's not me who left in the night, is it? It's not me who took another's heart and cast it away like so many dry crusts after a feast! It's not me who –"

  "But it's you has your hand around my throat, isn't it?" She squeaked, as Brynjulf jerked her back again. "It's you who intends to kill the one you love, isn't it? Right here on the beach, as your men watch? I came back to you, Ragnar. Look at me here, now, in front of you – I CAME BACK! And now you rage at me as you hold your fucking hand around my throat?! Fuck you, Ragnar! Fuck you! Kill me, then! See if that fills your heart with the things I filled it with!"

  I didn't even have my hand around her neck anymore and still she choked on her words, her eyes flashing and a small vein standing out on her forehead. She was angry. As angry as I was, if that was even possible.

  "Leave us," I growled at my men. "LEAVE US! NOW! GO!"

  Brynjulf tossed his dagger onto the ground in front of Emma, eying me pointedly as he did so, and then they left, heading further up the beach and into the trees.

  I leaned in close, breathing in Emma's scent, almost breaking. "Why have you done this?" I whispered. "Why, Emma?"

  "I didn't leave," she replied, panting with emotion. "I did – but then I came back to you. Here I am. I came back for you, Ragnar! Do you think I would be back here in this place if it wasn't for you? And now I see you eying that knife on the ground like you can't wait to drive it into me."

  As my limbs warmed and began to work again, it seemed my thoughts followed. Emma cowered on her knees in front of me, her eyes speaking of betrayal just as my own heart did. I looked at Brynjulf's dagger for a second and then picked it up to toss it out of reach. And then I bowed my head low in shame.

  "You say you came back?" I asked. "Are you certain my men did not take you against your will? Speak the truth, girl, because I mean to question them on the matter."

  "I came back," she replied angrily. "I came back for you. Yes, your men took me, but I was on my way to the camp anyway, there was no need for –"

  "No need?!" I exclaimed, my voice rising again. "No need? Gods, Emma, you don't know what you do. You don't know how you hold – even now in your bound hands – more power than a thousand blades, a thousand arrows. You don't understand that I fear no man, no warrior, no foe – before you, I feared nothing and no one. And now you've uncovered a new territory in my heart, and shown me what it is to fear. Not death, but worse."

  "What could be worse than death? You're going to kill me now, because my death will be less than what you've suffered? Is that it? If my death is nothing to you then I ask again, stop saying you love me. If you must punish me – and what for? for returning to you? – then get it over with. But don't say you love me."

  She wept again a
nd I could no longer hold back. I took her cold face in my hands and kissed them away, still torn between wanting to shake her until her eyes rolled back in her head and wanting to clutch her to me. And then, just as I was contemplating that duality of my feelings for her, the anger was gone. She was back. She came back for me. I pulled away and looked into her eyes.

  "Is it true? You came back for me?"

  "It's true," she replied plainly. "Do you still intend to kill me for it?"

  "Emma," I breathed, suddenly filled with remorse where the anger had slipped away. I untied her wrists and pulled her hands free and then I went to pull her to me. She pushed me away. I tried again and again she held me off.

  "So you're not going to kill me, then?" She asked, her eyes burning with defiance. "Answer me, Ragnar! Or perhaps I'll hold a dagger to your throat and we'll see how –"

  The answer was no. I was not going to kill Emma. I was not going to try to kill her. I was not going to hurt her – not just there, on the beach, but anytime, ever. It was done, I was hers. And she was mine. And there was nothing either of us could do about it.

  Instead of responding I bent to kiss her. And she opened her lips to me in spite of herself, darting her little tongue into my mouth and softening under my touch for a moment. A moment later I felt her stiffen again and push me away.

  "No," she said. "No!"

  But even as she spoke she reached for me, pushing her freezing hands up under my under-dressings and furs and over my chest. And all of the pain and rage and confusion of the last two days came to a point between us, an uncontrollable avalanche of desire that we were both helpless in the face of. She pulled me down to her again, opening her mouth for me once more, laying back on the cold beach.

  "You're slow," she panted, noticing my hands fumbling with the ties on my leathers. "Why are you so slow Rag–"

  But I kissed her again before she could finish, and pushed the linens up over her thighs, too desperate to worry about the cold. She gasped when my hands found their way to her breasts, shocked by the chill of them, but still she pushed up to me, still she gave herself to me in the only way I wanted.

  I groaned when she opened her legs and I sank into her impossibly warm, slippery depths, and again when her sighs began to ring in my ears.

  It didn't take long. She rocked her hips up to me faster and faster, her breaths starting to come quick and fast, her back arching up off the cold, wet sand.

  And then she grabbed frantically at my furs, burying her face into them and screaming for me, writhing against me like a wild thing. The first little pulses around me were as quick and light as butterfly wings. But when the pleasure took her fully they became more powerful, deeper, teasing and pulling and begging the essence out of me until I pinned her down and let the dam break, filling her with every drop. It seemed almost as if it would go on forever, the sweet agony of the peak continuing as I emptied myself inside her, each throb more intense, more blissful than the last. And then, finally, she had everything. She had all of me. Not just the parts that slickened her thighs, either, but everything. My heart, my soul, all of my hopes and dreams for my life.

  We had to dress quickly, before the frostbite came to our tenderest parts – and mine still not fully recovered from the time in the marsh!

  "Tell me you're not a spirit," I whispered, pulling her face close to mine before I called my men back. "Emma, tell me you're here, tell me I'm not in the next world already."

  She smiled a little smile up at me. "I'm not a spirit, Ragnar. You're not in the next world."

  27

  Epilogue: Emma

  I rode south on horseback with Ragnar, safe against his chest as the winter sun came out from behind the clouds and brought, for the first time that year, the first whispers of the spring on her rays.

  We were happy, the Viking and I. It wasn't the screaming, fist-pumping happiness of your football team winning, it wasn't showy, it didn't need to be spoken of. But it was there, radiating between and out of us, the pure, quiet joy of being with the person you would rather be with above all others. Jarl Ragnar's men rode behind us by a short distance, letting their Jarl lead the way south in the sunshine, with his woman in his arms.

  Just before we arrived back at the camp Ragnar spotted his horse loose in the woods and dismounted to bring the beast back with us.

  "Why is he out here?" I asked, knowing the Vikings were usually very careful with their animals.

  "I let him go," Ragnar told me. "Back in the marsh, when I could go no further with him, I let him go."

  "You meant to walk across the marshes?" I asked, confused. "But –"

  The Jarl smiled and took my hand in his, as I was still on horseback and he was now on foot leading two horses, to kiss my palm. "I wasn't thinking straight, girl. I was crazed. The men found me half-dead, half-frozen in the middle of the marshlands. Don't leave me again, or I'll probably travel south and try to cross one of the great deserts without water or a head-covering to keep the sun from burning me up."

  His men were close to us, then – within earshot – so I held my questions back, not wanting to force Ragnar to speak of personal matters in front of them.

  Later that night, when our bellies were full of stewed venison, bread, cheese and dark ale and our bodies were sated after taking our fill of each other, we lay on the furs in the roundhouse, watching the flames dance in the fire-pit.

  "Don't leave me again," Ragnar said once more, pulling me back against him and kissing my bare shoulder. "I've seen how I am now, without you. I don't wish it ever again. Promise me, girl. Promise me you'll not leave."

  I leaned back into him and thought of my family. It was too soon for things to have settled for them, and I knew poor Katie had quite a task ahead of her in convincing our parents that I was fine. I also knew she would be successful, because even if they didn't believe her words they would come to see from her lack of worry that she did, in fact, know I was safe. But I could not promise Ragnar what he asked of me. Not exactly.

  "I cannot make that promise," I told him. "But I can make a slightly different one."

  He smiled ruefully. "Ah, I should have guessed it. You haven't come back to make life easy for me, have you?"

  "I can promise I won't leave again without your permission," I said. "I can promise it won't be a surprise – I won't do that to you again."

  "And what if I don't give my permission, foreigner?"

  "Then maybe I'll take you with me."

  I meant to keep the promise I had just made. Ragnar's pain at even my brief absence was too evident, too strong to deny. I loved him, and I wasn't going to hurt him like that again. Even if it meant taking him with me to the future? Maybe so. That bridge could be crossed if and when we ever got to it.

  "I would like to meet your parents," he said. "I would like to thank them for bringing you into the world, for bringing you up so full of fire and wit."

  "Maybe you will," I mused quietly. "And my sister, too. She'd like you, I think. Maybe a little too much. We might have to bring her one of the warriors, to keep her distracted."

  We fell again into the warm, comfortable quiet of being together – until I remembered the question I'd intended to ask as we arrived back at camp.

  "Ragnar?" I asked, checking if he was still awake.

  "Mmm? What is it, girl?"

  "Were you exaggerating earlier, when you said the men found you 'half-dead' in the marsh?"

  I rolled over so I could look into his blue eyes and he answered me plainly:

  "No. Why do you ask me about this? Do you think it strange?"

  "But what if the men hadn't come back for you?" I continued. "Are you saying –"

  "I'm saying I would be in the next world now, girl. I was too taken up with the loss of you to pay attention to anything else – even survival."

  "And what did you mean when you said there are worse fates than death? What is a worse fate than death?"

  Ragnar rolled me over onto my back and let his eyes r
oam over my naked body before gazing, once again, up at me. "Loss, girl. That's what I meant. It felt that way in the marsh, as I lay imagining that I heard your voice whispering in my ear – I felt that I would happily die if it meant staying with the sound of your sweet sighs, that I would not mourn a life spent without you." He pushed his big, rough fingers between my own, entwining our hands together. "And now, lying here with you, I see what my mother drove at when she spoke of necessity."

  "Of necessity?" I asked, stretching out beside my Jarl, luxuriating in our perfect closeness.

  "Necessity, yes. My mother said that's how I would know when I loved. When I found the girl who was necessary to me, as necessary as bread, as breath and slumber. This is what you are to me, now. It feels we are not so much even separate people right now, here – doesn't it?"

  "It does," I whispered, very quietly, as sleep stole over me and I nestled a little closer in Ragnar's arms, smiling without even realizing it.

  END

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  Also by Joanna Bell

  BOOK 3: 'Ivar' Pre-Order is live!

  The story continues as the Viking conquest of medieval Britain is upon us in this, Book 3 in the series. Ivar leads the largest host of invaders from the north, intent on striking deep into the heart of the Mercian countryside.