by James, Elle
He looked down at her a moment longer, his face serious, and then gently touched her cheek, where her skin still hummed from Sigridr’s blow. Then he took hold of her shoulders, turned her around, and pushed her towards the sleeping platform on the other side of the firepit, where she had spent the last two nights huddled alone.
Idonea took a stumbling step towards her bed. Behind her, Sigridr said something angry. Idonea looked over her shoulder to see Einar pick Sigridr up bodily and toss her roughly onto the bed. When Sigridr tried to rise, he pushed her down and knelt over her, speaking low and sharp. As Idonea crawled onto her bed, Einar took hold of Sigridr’s legs and forced her knees apart. She cried out angrily, and Idonea turned away, dragging her fur across her body. But the next moment, the other woman gave a cry of a very different nature, and despite herself, Idonea looked.
Einar was lying on his belly, holding her knees wide apart, his face between her thighs. Sigridr was arching her back against the furs, groaning in pleasure. Idonea went hot and cold in shock, watching as Einar’s head dipped and Sigridr cried out, her arms outflung, her hands clawing at the furs. Whatever he was doing to her, she liked it. Safe under her own fur and with Einar completely occupied, Idonea felt her own arousal building again.
Sigridr panted and twisted, spreading her knees wide, crying out Einar’s name as he tongued her cleft hungrily. Idonea could hardly bear it. The sounds seemed to go on forever. When Einar began to thrust one of his hands into Sigridr’s sex, Idonea could no longer resist. Under the privacy of her own fur, she dragged up her skirt and worked her hand beneath it, suppressing a gasp as she found her own point of pleasure in the moist, heated folds of her sex. As Sigridr cried out across the room, calling Einar’s name over and over, Idonea closed her eyes and succumbed to another melting crisis that consumed her right to the very ends of her fingers and toes.
Afterwards, she didn’t open her eyes. She could feel Einar’s gaze upon her again. She couldn’t bear to return it. She dragged the fur up over her head and sank away into a dream-fevered sleep, even as the noises from the other bed began all over again.
*
Idonea woke in the grey light of morning to find Sigridr standing over her. She recoiled, breathing in sharply, but the woman did nothing more than crouch down until their faces were level. She was dressed, a cloak wrapped around her shoulders.
What does she want? Livid images from the last night sprang into Idonea’s mind’s eye, and her breath began to flutter in her chest.
Sigridr reached out and brushed Idonea’s bruised cheek. Idonea flinched as her touch woke a faint ache under her skin. Sigridr’s mouth twisted and her brow puckered. She spoke a handful of incomprehensible syllables Idonea understood instinctively.
I’m sorry.
Idonea stared back stonily, not in a mood to forgive.
The woman retracted her hand and stood. She looked resigned.
Idonea watched her leave, and then glanced back to where Einar lay under his own furs. With a jolt in her belly, she saw he was awake. He was leaning on his elbow, the bright blue of his eyes burning through the haze of heat over the slumbering firepit. He grinned. Idonea was filled with inescapable certainty. He knew what she had done to herself last night, whilst she watched him service Sigridr with his tongue.
Unable to bear the suspense of Einar’s gaze, Idonea rose and went outside. Here, in the early morning sun, there were a dozen tasks with which she could easily busy herself. None of them were any different from her chores at home. She gave a bitter laugh. After all those days and nights, huddled in the bottom of the raiders’ boat, cramped and freezing, sick with fear and the movement of the heaving sea—she’d found things were no different on the other side of the world.
At least, she mused, watching the pig snuffling in its pen, it is not Wybert waiting for me inside. She felt a sudden fierce burst of satisfaction at her last memory of him, lying on the floor of the burning wreck of their home, Einar’s axe in his neck and Idonea’s dagger in his belly.
As if in response to her thought, the door clattered open and Einar appeared. He had put on his trews and cast his shirt carelessly over one shoulder. After all she had witnessed last night, the sight of his bare chest made Idonea feel warm. He gave her a crooked smile and strode over to a trough of water, standing against the south wall of the house.
Idonea stayed where she was by the pigpen. He was not watching her now, apparently satisfied in the knowledge that, this time, she was watching him. He scooped up handfuls of water from the trough and rubbed them over his face, and then did the same for the back of his neck and his armpits. Idonea watched breathlessly as the fine, gold hair on his chest turned darker and clung to his skin. A familiar ache was building between her thighs. She wanted to touch the wet tendrils of hair on his chest, to brush the drops of water from his skin and—
She looked away abruptly. Her gaze fell upon her own hands. They were so filthy. She rubbed at a smudge of soot on the back of one hand. It did no good. Grime lurked under her nails and in the creases of her skin. The sleeves of her dress were filthy and ragged. She looked back at where he stood, clean and damp, leaning against the wall. Watching her again.
“Idzunn!” he summoned her, beckoning. Reluctantly, she went. He took a cup hanging from a peg on the wall above the trough and gestured for her to put out her hands. Hesitantly, she held them up. He poured cold water over them, and she rubbed them together, watching the dirt drip away.
He gestured for her to stay where she was, and disappeared back inside the house. A minute later he returned, carrying a short stack of folded garments. He set them on a bench beside the trough and motioned for her to undress.
Idonea went red.
He folded his arms and gave her a meaningful stare.
He cannot mean…
She glanced around uncomfortably, as though she did not understand what he wanted her to do. But he made impatient motions with his hand, and she had to relent. Slowly, she dragged her ruined dress over her head and threw it aside. She stood in her shift, shivering in the cool air, waiting for him to show her what next. But he wasn’t satisfied. His next gesture made it clear she should remove her shift, as well.
Yesterday, she would have been terrified. She was still frightened. But last night something had changed. Half in terror and half in trembling excitement, she pulled off her shift and sent it after her dress.
Einar smiled.
Then he dipped the scoop into the trough and poured a torrent of icy water over her head.
Idonea shrieked.
Behind the curtain of sodden red hair plastered over her face, Idonea heard him start to laugh. Furious, she shoved aside her hair and glared, wrapping her arms around herself as her skin turned to gooseflesh. Still laughing, he made a helpless gesture. Half-apology, half-plea for her to see the humor. Shaking his head, and making those soothing-shushing noises, he scooped up more water, this time pouring it more thoughtfully over her right shoulder.
The slow trickle was still so cold it made her bones ache, but it was bearable. She rubbed at her skin briskly, then bent her head and pointed at her scalp, gasping as he drenched her there. After that first piece of mischief, he was most considerate. He poured where she pointed, and made no move to do anything else. Still, she couldn’t help noticing, as he scooped and poured, and she scrubbed and clenched her teeth against the cold, the growing bulge at his crotch.
When she was done, he handed her his shirt and indicated she should dry herself.
“Are you sure?” she asked, even though he could not understand her. He gestured for her to go ahead. When she was dry, he gave her the clothes he’d brought out. They were much like the clothing Sigridr had worn, although made for someone shorter and stouter than Idonea.
When she was dressed, Einar stood looking at her for some moments, a different smile on his face. He crossed his arms over his still-bare chest and nodded.
Idonea ducked her head, partly out of a sudden fit of shyness
, and partly because she couldn’t look at him anymore. He was unbearably attractive, with his damp, tousled hair and powerful shoulders. She didn’t know what to want.
*
Sigridr did not come again that night. Einar made her sit and eat with him, but when he turned towards his bed, Idonea could not bring herself to join him, even though the thought made her pulse race. She turned away to her own bed. She didn’t want to see the disappointment on his face. She didn’t look his way as she rolled herself in her own fur. So when she peeked from under her lids to see what he was doing, she was surprised. He’d piled up his furs so he could lean back on them and watch her across the firepit. He was also stark naked with the most enormous erection. Idonea’s eyes grew wide. Her whole body flushed with heat.
As she watched him, he reached down and took himself in his fist, jerking himself slowly at first, then faster and harder. Excitement boiled in Idonea’s belly, making her bold.
She sat up. Her heart drumming, she pushed off her fur and shrugged her way out of her dress. Einar slowed again. Hardly daring to believe herself, she sat on the edge of her bed and lifted her shift high, clutching it to her chest so he could see her body, naked from her breasts down.
His fist began to move faster.
Idonea eased apart her knees, and then reached down with her free hand between her legs. She was already wet, her thighs slick, her sex swollen. As she slid her fingers between her ready folds, she could hear Einar’s breath coming in gruff pants.
She began to rub.
She was almost too aroused. Her fingers kept sliding aside in the hot, wet mess of her sex, and she had to pinch at her nubbin to get any traction. The sensation made her gasp. Einar groaned. He was using his other hand to knead his balls. Idonea imagined him using his mouth on her, the way he had on Sigridr, and a yearning rose up that made her whimper out loud. She wanted him…
Einar came first. He closed his eyes and tipped back his head, drawing up his knees and digging his feet into the furs, his legs tense. Idonea watched as he thrust up into his hand, creamy spurts of his seed splattering across his belly. The sight of his legs, spread apart, exposing him completely to her gaze, pushed her over her own edge. She cried out, grinding down on the hand thrust between her legs. The fingers of her other hand found one of her nipples and she pinched hard and shattered. Warmth flooded between her legs and sensation rippled through her body.
As it ebbed away, she opened her eyes. She looked at Einar lying there, his chest heaving. The smile on his face showed his satisfaction. Not wanting to take her gaze off him, Idonea let her shift fall and lay down, tucking her feet beneath the thick fur beside her. She stared across the fire to where he smiled back at her, feeling quite satisfied herself.
*
The next day was different. As usual, Idonea felt him watching her from the moment she awoke. But today, she did not feel preyed upon. She also found herself doing plenty of watching of her own. The sight of Einar bare-chested, chopping wood, for example, was enough to make her stop and lean against the sun-warmed side of the house until he split the last log, kicked it aside, and put the axe over his shoulder. He grinned, shifted the axe horizontal, and hooked his hands over both ends, then walked off whistling, leaving her to admire the view of the muscles playing across his back.
Later, Einar showed her a small stream flowing down the hill behind the farmhouse, sheltered by wind-twisted trees. Idonea found a stand of hazel trees and began to gather nuts into her skirt. Einar hunkered down by the buckets of fresh water they’d collected and waited for her, watching. As she picked, she summoned the courage to ask the question plaguing her since that night.
She turned back to him, nervously clutching the hoard of nuts in her skirt.
“Sigridr…?” she asked eventually.
He raised his eyebrows and appeared to be considering what her question might relate to.
“Sigridr?” she asked again, feeling helpless without the right words.
Understanding dawned on his face. He picked up a twig and drew a simple outline of a house in the sparse dirt. He pointed to himself, and then the farmhouse. Then he drew an arc beside the house, and on the other side of it, another house. He pointed to the arc, then up the hill, then the second house, and said “Sigridr.”
He drew a stick figure beside the house and tapped it. “Sigridr,” he said, looking up at her to make sure she understood. Idonea nodded. He drew another figure beside Sigridr. Then three smaller figures. Idonea frowned. A husband? And children?
She looked at Einar, trying to understand why, in this fierce world, a woman with a husband and children would risk spending a night with the neighbor, handsome though he surely was. Her confusion must have shown on her face, because he tapped the second adult figure then, with a finger, obliterated its legs. He paused, then, almost as an afterthought, erased half of one of its arms. Then he looked up at her again, hooking his fingers into claws and drawing his lips back in a snarl. He growled.
Idonea’s eyes widened. Einar nodded, his face serious. Then suddenly, he grinned, his eyes alight with mischief. He drew the figure’s legs on again.
“Danr!” Then he wiped them away again. “Halfdan!”
“Half… dan,” said Idonea slowly. The meaning dawned on her and a laugh escaped her lips. Einar shot her a pleased look and glanced down at the tableau he’d drawn in the dirt. His face grew rueful again. He muttered something and scratched at his beard.
She followed Einar as he carried the water back down to the farmhouse, thinking about Sigridr, with her three children and a husband mauled by… some animal.
There was no doubt. Sigridr was a woman in her prime. She was beautiful and—the image of Sigridr on the boat rose in Idonea’s memory—as strong and fierce as any of the men in her village. Why should she not spend a night with a handsome man when she’s of a mind?
Idonea gazed critically at Einar, walking ahead of her on the narrow path. Vikings take what they want.
Idonea went inside the farmhouse to find something to put the hazelnuts in. She took a basket down from a peg above her bed then halted in surprise.
There, lying in the centre of her bed, was her dagger. Beside it lay a new leather sheath attached to a braided belt.
Quickly, she dumped the nuts into the basket. Hardly daring to believe it, she picked up the dagger, feeling its familiar weight in her hand. She let out a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding.
Last time she’d held this, she had buried it deep in Wybert’s belly. After Einar nearly hacked off his head.
But the axe-blow hadn’t been enough. He’d still been alive.
In all her fear, in the chaos of the raid, with the huge, blood-spattered Viking standing over her, knowing she was about to die, one last, sharp desire had risen in Idonea’s breast.
She had plunged the dagger home and had the satisfaction of seeing the light die in her cursed husband’s eyes.
Now, here it was.
Einar must have retrieved it. Cleaned it. Left it here…for her.
Why?
Einar spoke from the doorway. She turned. He was leaning there, one hand scratching at the back of his head. His eyes told her he wanted her to be pleased.
“Thank you,” she said.
He came inside. Idonea’s heart began to beat faster as he came close. He gave her a crooked smile and picked up the belt. Idonea stood still as he wound the belt around her waist and tied it in place. He grinned down at her. Then his face grew serious. He reached out a hand and tapped her chest.
He uttered a string of words Idonea had no hope of being able to comprehend. But his blue eyes spoke volumes, and somehow, Idonea understood him.
You have a Viking’s heart. You killed that man, even though you were about to die, not because it might have saved you, but because you wanted to take his life.
He gestured to himself, still speaking. Then he reached out and took her hand and pressed it against his chest. His heart was beating almost as
fast as hers.
Another Viking heart, she realized. There for the taking.
Suddenly, a gleam of humor appeared in his eyes. He covered his belly with his free hand and assumed an expression of mock fear. Idonea had to smile.
With her own free hand, she reached up and tangled her fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck. She pulled his face down to hers and kissed his mouth. He kissed her back, hungrily.
She would join him in his bed tonight.
Vikings take what they want.
Sweet Silk
Megan Mitcham
The Persian Empire, the North African coast, 820 AD
Kroan leapt from the knörr’s sturdy wooden deck, over the rail, and onto the bustling dock.
Forget the walls of black water that had attacked his ship in rolling waves. Forget the fury of the sky with its suffocating rain and blinding bolts of lightning. Forget the sea creatures with their blade-sharp teeth that had stalked them in the calm of day. This act, tying to port under a clear blue sky on the serene jade gulf, rankled his peace the most.
He’d traded his warship for a merchant one long ago. Yet, the need to anchor off shore in a defensive position weighted his shoulders far more than the battle axe he still carried. His fingers caressed the thick leather strap across his chest, securing the weapon. The move steadied his misgivings—at least, the ones about docking. He turned to his crew. The men stood straight as the mast, their gazes intent, and jaws waggling for the spoils of land.
“One day men. Two bands. The first of you, go—have your fun, but do not stir trouble. I don’t particularly feel like having to tell your families your peckers got the best of you. Buy your supplies, and then swap. Same goes for the rest of you. Is that clear?”
A chorus of baritone aye’s carried above the commotion caused by the loading and unloading of all manner of cargo from the ships near them.
