‘Put her down.’ The command was so harsh and forceful that even the girl stopped fighting to raise her head and look at him. Her dark eyes widened, and he watched the ivory column of her throat move as she swallowed. She recognised him. The pull he’d felt on the beach was stronger now. Eirik gritted his teeth and demanded control as he stowed his sword in the sheath strapped diagonally across his back.
‘I found her.’ Gunnar’s voice was almost a growl. ‘You have Kadlin.’ Despite his harsh words, he was gentle as he allowed her to slide slowly from his grasp to land on her feet.
‘Leave her to me, Gunnar.’
‘Ah, finally, brother...’ His brother’s gaze was fierce, but clearly amused as if he held the secret to some jest that Eirik had yet to share. But the girl wasn’t fighting now. She watched Eirik with those fathomless eyes.
Gunnar opened his mouth, no doubt to taunt him again, but was interrupted before he could even start.
‘Take her!’ The voice was clear and steady as the manor’s lady entered the pantry.
All eyes turned to her. Eirik was sure he heard a gasp come from the girl.
‘Take her instead, and leave the grain,’ the woman urged.
‘I could take both,’ Eirik countered as he wondered what the woman was about.
‘Aye, but you don’t have time for both.’ Her clever eyes seized his before she turned them on the girl. The gaze was hard and assessing as it travelled her length. ‘She’s unmarried and unmarred from childbirth. She could fetch you a price worth more than a winter’s worth of grain. Take her and go while you still can.’
Eirik didn’t have time to weigh her words. In the next instant, the girl found her legs and surprised them all by running out the back way.
His blood thundered again, pounding through him and demanding he catch her.
Chapter Two
Merewyn ran even though she knew it was futile. Even though every figure she passed was a Northman and the only way out was through the front gates. She ran because she couldn’t stand the idea of allowing them to take her. She ran to outpace the betrayal of those two words so bitterly spoken.
Take her! The words repeated themselves over and over in her head until they were meaningless. A chant. A curse. Words that she would remember for ever. But, most of all, she ran because she knew she would be taken.
She’d heard the stories of the Northmen often repeated in reverent voices by travellers around the fire in the great hall. They made slaves of their enemies and raped the women. She couldn’t bear the thought. And if they didn’t keep her after they finished, there were Eastern cities with whole markets devoted to the trade of humans where they could sell her. Merewyn couldn’t let that happen. She couldn’t live as a slave.
He was coming to get her. In her mind’s eye, she saw the golden giant from the dragon ship following behind her. She knew it would be he who would give chase. Though she hadn’t understood his words, she knew that he’d laid some sort of claim to her. She had felt it on the beach. His eyes had claimed her as surely as his hands would if he caught her.
His footsteps were hard on the ground and getting closer, no matter how fast she ran. His heavy gaze bore into her, touching her with its power. It crawled up her back like fingers clawing at her gown and reached for her neck. As he drew nearer, the visceral potency of his scrutiny made her heart leap into her throat and left her knees weak. When she couldn’t take it another moment, when she was sure he would grab her, she ducked around the safety of the forge. But he was there, already rounding the opposite corner of the massive stone hearth to block her path. There would be no hiding from him.
He stood tall and wide before her, bent slightly at the knees, hands ready to grab her. He was larger than any of the men she knew; she was small and slight next to him. His eyes blazed with his intention to have her and she realised there was nothing left to do but fight him. She would long for death eventually if he took her; it was better to have it meted out to her now. She held no illusions of walking away from the fight. He would smite her out as easily as he would an insect. With that realisation, Merewyn’s heart stopped its frenzied beating and a cold certainty descended over her body, bringing with it a calmness she had never experienced.
Her decision made, Merewyn’s fingers closed around the hilt of the seax she kept in the belt at her waist and pulled it from its leather sheath. The long, thin blade would be useless against the chain mail he wore on his torso, so she’d have to aim low...or go for his throat. Just as she debated, he reached out for her, taking the choice from her by making her slash at his arm. She was rewarded with his low grunt of pain. Merewyn immediately pulled back to try again, but he recovered and lunged for her.
She swung blindly, only to have him grab her wrist and twist her arm behind her back. He yanked the knife from her before his other hand grabbed her free wrist and held it pressed to the stone hearth at her back. It happened too fast. Before she knew it, she was staring up into his face, so close that it left her breathless.
Death didn’t seem to be an immediate option. The relentless pound of her heartbeat returned to send the blood whooshing through her ears. It rushed through her so fast and hard, it urged her body to action, but she was stuck, forced to await his judgement. As his gaze raked her, she couldn’t shake the feeling that he was somehow appraising her worth, perhaps wondering how much she might fetch him in the slave market, or if he should just kill her now.
But then she met his eyes, and she realised it was neither of those. The look of fiery possession was unmistakable, and it seared her where it touched. It licked across her face and down her neck, a living flame, burning her up as though she was fuel for the fire. She’d never seen someone look so focused, so resolute. He meant to keep her for himself. He meant to own her...to violate her. She closed her eyes tight against the knowledge.
He didn’t move.
Inches separated his broad chest from hers, but he made no attempt to touch her further. His breath brushed her cheek, calm and steady—not erratic like hers—and she observed it smelled of winter, cool and mild. It was foreign and uninvited, but not repugnant. The hands that held her were firm, but not hard. Nothing was happening as she’d imagined it might.
Confused by his inaction, she chanced opening her eyes to see the sun had finally found an opening in the clouds and was glinting along the knit mesh on his shoulder. Her gaze followed along the corded muscle of his neck, noting absurdly that it was clean shaven. Weren’t the Norse barbarians supposed to be unkempt?
She followed the bearded curve of his strong chin to the hard, straight line of his mouth and upwards over the bizarrely graceful curve of his cheekbones. The man could have been a Viking god. The small lump at the bridge of his nose was his only flaw. She took a deep breath and found the courage to meet his eyes. The blue was vivid in its intensity. It made her stomach twist in fear, but at the same time she realised there was no rage in those eyes. She couldn’t quite identify the emotion that burned there.
He wasn’t a god, she had to remind herself. The small creases around his eyes had been put there from years of squinting into the sun, or maybe it was possible someone had made him laugh enough to create those lines. Merewyn took another long, deep breath and felt his warm breath fill her lungs. It shifted something within her. Faster than her heart went from one beat to the next, she was no longer overwhelmed by her fear. He was real. No longer just the monster sent to tear her world apart. Maybe he would listen.
‘You don’t have to take me. You can leave me here. I haven’t been trained in any skill, so I won’t be of any use to you.’ The words tumbled out before she could get a grasp on them to make them into something compelling. She tried to keep her voice steady as she reasoned with him, but it still trembled near the end. And when his gaze left her face to flick downwards over her body, she knew without a doubt the skill for which he was ass
essing her. Another pang of terror shot through her, but she forced herself to stay calm and focused her gaze straight ahead. It landed on his hair where she studied the contrast of a single sun-bleached strand against the dark wheat of the rest of it, still damp from the morning’s mist.
‘You would choose to stay with your family when they would give you away?’
He looked to the bruise she knew had formed along her cheekbone. His voice was low, not mocking as she might have imagined it, and the words were his first spoken solely for her ears. The rough texture of it awakened something inside her, and she had no idea what it was. Only that its sound seeped in through her skin and warmed her in the pit of her stomach, claiming some part that hadn’t been given, leaving her startled and disturbed.
She closed her eyes to force it out, but that only made Blythe’s words sound louder in her head. Take her! They hadn’t been forgotten in her fight with the Northman. They still echoed in her mind. What would it mean to stay with her family? Could she stay, knowing that she was expendable to them? Today’s blow wasn’t the first from Blythe. It wouldn’t be the last. But how could she go...willingly? How could she leave Alfred and everything she had ever known and loved? She wouldn’t. She couldn’t submit to being owned by him. Couldn’t resign herself to a fate where she was nothing. Whatever it meant to stay, it would be preferable to the uncertainty of belonging to him.
‘I would stay with my family rather than go with a Dane.’ This time, she made sure her voice was strong.
He was silent as he looked her over, his gaze touching every feature of her face, lingering on the bruise. Merewyn shifted so her hair partially covered it, hating that he could see it. His eyes settled on hers again. She would have sworn he saw deep inside her to that place he had awakened. It didn’t seem fair that he could see so much of her when his face was stoic and closed.
‘If you stay, you will be given away again. To a Dane, to a Saxon. You won’t know until it’s happened.’ He sounded so certain. She hated him for that above all other things.
The words created a fissure in the, until now, pristine tapestry of her mind. Madness lazed in that tiny abyss. She resisted the pull in that direction and tried to shut out his words, to convince herself that he was lying, but there was a profound and underlying truth to them that she couldn’t deny. If someone had told her yesterday that Blythe would utter those hated words, she wouldn’t have believed it. But they had been said. Was it a stretch of the imagination to think she might offer her again?
Nay! Alfred wouldn’t allow it.
But Alfred wasn’t here, came the answer in her mind. She jerked her wrists to try to break free and when that didn’t work she kicked him in his booted shin. It was a fruitless attempt, but she struck out at him as much to deny his words as to get away from him.
His grip tightened and he twisted her around so that her crossed wrists were held tight against her belly and his arms held her within their prison. His chest pressed solidly against her back, holding her front pinned to the forge. The rough stones pressed into her cheek. It was useless to struggle; he completely engulfed her with his size.
‘Deny what you will, but you know I speak the truth.’ The words were harsh against her ear, rustling the hair at her temple. ‘I won’t harm you. That’s something you can’t trust from your family.’
Merewyn bit her lip to stifle the sob that begged to come out. He wasn’t right, damn him! He wasn’t. One last futile push back against him caused him to squeeze her tight and made his hips push her forward so she was flush against the stones, held immobile by his body. Her mind rushed to find a way out of it, to figure out some way to make him leave so her life could go back to the way it was before her walk on the beach that morning. But it wouldn’t be the same, even if he left her. Those horrible words would always be there, eating her alive.
Blythe hated her. It would happen again. Merewyn knew that he would take her with or without her cooperation. If she could somehow buy some time, maybe she could figure out a way to get away from him before anything horrible happened. But even as she contemplated the possibility, she recognised that there was a strange sense of security in the prison of his arms. He was so stoic and candid that she couldn’t help but believe his promise of safety.
‘Do you vow it? Can you promise I won’t be harmed?’ Even if he was a barbarian, she wanted to hear him say it.
* * *
Eirik could feel her heart fluttering beneath her ribs like the wings of a small bird locked in a cage. It beat beneath the wrist he held over her chest, and he would have sworn he felt it through the chain mail that covered his own. She was so small and fragile pressed against him. He could feel the delicacy of her bones beneath her flesh, and the softness of her body evoked indescribable visions of comfort and a need to protect her.
He’d known the rush of fear and anticipation when facing down an enemy. He’d known the triumph of vanquishing that enemy. But he’d never known anything like what he was feeling now. The triumph was there. It rushed through him, a roaring in his ears. But the fear was there, too. It wasn’t anything like the fear of a battleaxe splitting open his skull. It wasn’t like the fear of ordering a command that would result in the death of the men he led. It was the unknown fear of what she would do to him and why he wanted to have her. He wanted her in ways he couldn’t even begin to comprehend, ways that went beyond the physical comfort she could offer him.
He’d been shocked and furious when he discovered her face marred by the bruise. His first thought was that Gunnar had put it there when he’d retrieved her in the cellar, but it was already a purple stain marring the ivory of her skin. Too dark to have been placed there moments ago. And although Gunnar was fierce in battle, he’d never known his brother to physically harm a woman. The lady at the manor had done it. There was no doubt in his mind. There was no denying the fierce need he felt to protect her from her own family.
Eirik’s hands reflexively gripped the fabric of her gown as they sought the heat emanating from beneath, before he pushed away from her. He fought for the control that had been struggling to slip from his grasp the moment his gaze had found her on the beach. The need to touch her, to possess her, to make her know that she belonged to him, was strong. But it was enough now that she was his. There would be time later. Now he needed to focus on getting the men back on the boats before more Saxons arrived. They sailed for home today. Once there, he would decide the future of his pretty slave.
‘You won’t be harmed in my care. From this day forward, you are mine.’
Chapter Three
Merewyn tried to make her mind cooperate and think of some way out of her captivity. It wouldn’t accept what had happened, even though she sat in the back of the boat, her gown sodden with seawater and her hands bound before her. There was nothing she could do short of throwing herself over the side. Froth formed as the oars churned the blue-grey water, each stroke taking her farther into the unknown, but a watery grave held no appeal. So she gave up looking at the water and sat with her knees drawn up to her chest and her face buried against her bound and shaking hands. Anything to stop herself from looking at him.
She hated her growing fascination with the man who had taken her, and had been stunned when she realised she’d done nothing but watch him from the time he put her in the boat. He was the clear leader of these men; even the men in the other boats seemed to obey him. He stalked gracefully up and down the centre aisle between them as they rowed, shouting commands, heedless of the treacherous sway of the boat as it rode the waves. Power clung to him like the crimson cloak that flapped in the breeze with his every turn. Even with her eyes closed tight, she saw him. She could still feel the press of his chest at her back.
The crew gave a shout and she opened her eyes to the dark red sail rising above them. The sail flapped in the breeze until it was fully extended and caught the wind, causing the ship to lurch a
s if an invisible string had been picked up and was pulling them along. They were out on the open sea now; the land had long faded to a tiny blight on the horizon. The old string, the one that connected her to home, had been broken.
Merewyn turned and took one last look towards the land, but it was impossible to make out. She was lost. For the first time in her life she was set adrift on her own, moving away from everything she had known and the people who cared for her. Blythe had refused to look at her when the Northman had brought her back inside. The others had followed her lead and turned their eyes away, but in sadness and shame more than disdain. It was as if she had already been cut from their lives.
She hadn’t even been able to say goodbye to Sempa, her old nursemaid, who had been out in the forest. If only Alfred hadn’t been called away. He would have protected her. But she couldn’t stop herself from wondering if he would be angry with his wife or if he would agree with her actions. Yesterday she would have thought he’d feel sorrow, but now that her world had been turned on its head, she didn’t know what to think. He had seen the bruises left from Blythe’s blows before and done nothing.
For the thousandth time she wondered what could have made the woman so quick to give her away. Had the loss of grain really meant starvation? Nay, it would be more than the grain. A sick thought, one that she had tried to banish, bloomed inside her and began to twist its bitter roots through her heart. Alythe was approaching the age of betrothal. Getting rid of Merewyn would eliminate competition, would make it that much easier to ensure she had the pick of bridegrooms and a sizeable dowry. Just before he’d left, Alfred had promised to see Merewyn married in the New Year. Had Blythe been so desperate to secure her daughter’s future? Had she been such an impediment to that plan?
A bitter laugh threatened to escape, but it brought about tears that she forced herself to blink back. Despite Alfred’s intention, Merewyn didn’t care about finding a match that would see her in the king’s company. She didn’t want that life. She wanted the quiet life of running a manor; she wanted the care of an attentive husband and the time to devote to her family. Blythe would have known that if she hadn’t spent her days thinking up ways to make life miserable for her.
Enslaved by the Viking Page 2
