* * *
The day did not get any better for Merewyn. She found herself hoping to catch glimpses of him among the guests who continued to arrive. Her task had been to take things back and forth between the fire in the house and the outside kitchen. It gave her ample time to look for him and the blonde woman. Twice she saw him talking with the jarl, but then he disappeared and she didn’t see him or the woman again. She imagined them secreted away somewhere and it only made her mood decline even more.
By dusk, she’d worked herself into an angry frenzy. There was nothing left to do except serve the food, and that was more than she could take. She couldn’t serve these people who thought they were so much above her.
Merewyn waited until the broad woman who seemed to be in charge disappeared into the house, then followed the smell of the salt air. She needed some time to herself to sort through her feelings. The beach called to her here just as it did at home, so she followed the smell until she could hear the water lapping at the shore and feel the land under her feet give way to sand. There were so many people around, it shouldn’t have surprised her to find them on the beach, as well. She headed farther down the shore, away from everyone.
Only when the last fires had faded to flickering lights in the distance and the voices were barely distinguishable above the breaking waves did she stop. She unbraided her hair to set it free and closed her eyes so the gentle breeze could wash across her face. With each deep breath, the tension that was coiled around her chest loosened until she felt as if she was breathing freely for the first time since Eirik had found her. In her mind, she was transported back to the beach near her home with no thoughts of Northmen and slavery. She was Merewyn and she simply existed.
But that only lasted for a few brief moments. All too soon she remembered that when she opened her eyes, she would go back to the manor and everything would be the same. The same tasks, the same drudgery, the same Blythe. The home she wanted wasn’t the home that she remembered. The home she wanted only existed in her head as a possibility. Alfred had promised to see her married and she’d always taken it for granted, perhaps naively, that she would be happy with his choice. Was that a realistic expectation? She was strongly beginning to suspect that no one would live up to her Northman in her mind.
Under any other circumstances, she would want him. He was strong, protective and good. He’d never made her feel real fear of him. Her fears had always either been self-nurtured or given to her by some other external force. Never by Eirik. She would be safe with him. A small part of her wondered if there could be more with him, too.
When he looked at her, there was desire, but she could see the beginnings of something else, too. Real interest, as though he was trying to figure her out. Though she was grossly inexperienced in those things, she hoped the depth of his glances meant more. He could have his choice of pretty girls at his home, but she realised now that he hadn’t seemed to pay attention to any of them. And she loved that. A lot. She loved that his interest was with her.
She opened her eyes and she was firmly back on the foreign shore. A slave. But here there was more. There was Eirik and he wanted her. There could be a lot more if she was brave enough to embrace it.
And you wanted it, too. The memory of his observation made her shiver. Aye, she did want him. She wanted to know this thing that existed between them.
She took a deep breath and realised that the tension hadn’t returned to squeeze the air from her. She was still free. Eirik had given her that. Though he hadn’t said as much, he had promised not to violate her, but she knew that if she pressed he would take her. So the choice was hers to make. Eirik had given her choice, and wasn’t choice part of freedom?
She looked down the shore in the direction that was dark and deserted. She could follow that direction if she chose and never return to him. Death might await, but it was also a sort of freedom. But she realised it wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted him.
She wanted Eirik.
A smile tugged at her lips as she turned to make her way back to him in the village. There was a strange liberation in deciding not to fight. It had been a choice all along, though she hadn’t seen it. She took a deep breath again and realised the tightness had not followed her from the beach. Freedom was following her. She almost laughed as she realised it had been within her power all along.
Kadlin—she had learned the Viking goddess’s name—might still be a problem. If the woman wanted Eirik, too, and it appeared that she might, then that could prove to be a setback. If Eirik really planned to marry the woman, then all would be lost. But she didn’t know for sure if that was the case, and she was finished with being miserable over things she had no control over.
* * *
Maybe if she hadn’t been so preoccupied, so hopeful, she would have seen the man before he grabbed her. But his hand had captured her arm before she could lurch away. He’d been a shadow among many leaning against the wall of a house. The big longhouse was just across the clearing, so close she could’ve called for help if the crowd hadn’t created a drone so loud no one would notice.
‘Let me go!’ She jerked her arm, but he didn’t give.
In the dim light she could see he was older, but his chest was still broad and his eyes were dimmed with drink. He said something to her in the Norse language. Even though she didn’t know his words, she knew what he wanted. He was drunk and looking for sport. Faster than she would have thought possible, the man grabbed the front of her woollen dress and tugged. The pull was so quick and forceful, the brooches that held it in place were jerked right out of her shift.
Merewyn had just found her equilibrium to lash out at him, but he pushed her against a wall so hard that her next breath was knocked out of her chest. He stood before her, one hand wadded in the cloth of her shift at her chest while the other dragged it up over her legs. She looked wildly for someone to help her, but no one noticed her. In an area that had just been too crowded with Danes, not one of them paid any attention. It was probably a common occurrence, a slave being taken against a wall.
When she could finally draw in a breath, she shrieked and kicked out at him, but her foot contacted with hard muscle, and a shard of pain wrapped itself around her ankle. She barely noticed as she tried again. This time she was rewarded with his grunt of pain, but the unmovable pressure of his fist on her chest didn’t let up at all. She screamed. He dropped the skirt, and her eyes stayed glued to that hand as it raised to strike her. She knew that if his meaty fist hit her, she wouldn’t wake up until it was too late.
But then he was gone. The tug where his fingers had been wrapped in the front of her underdress happened first. The weight was there one second and then it was gone and he was falling. She almost thought he had passed out from too much drink, but she could feel the heavy presence of another there and knew that someone had intervened.
Eirik.
Merewyn might have fallen to the ground in relief if her body wasn’t frozen in place against the wall. All she could do was watch as he pummelled the offender. A few men walked by, but none took much interest in what was happening. Merewyn couldn’t look away. Her eyes were wide as Eirik pulled back his fist and struck blow after blow. If the other man struck even one, she hadn’t seen it. He wasn’t even moving.
‘Lord Eirik.’ It was all she could manage, but when the man didn’t even get up and Eirik kicked him hard in the gut, she got worried. ‘Eirik! Stop!’
That got his attention. He stopped and turned the intensity of his gaze on her. He was all tousled hair, bloody knuckles and blazing eyes. Violence incarnate. And she had his full attention. The old Merewyn might have trembled from fear, but the Merewyn she was afraid to become—the one he had created—trembled from something else.
Something darker than fear.
Chapter Fourteen
He approached her slowly, as if wary of the power held barel
y leashed within him. If she was honest, that power held her in thrall. Merewyn had never seen him lose control like that before. He was always so in control, so self-possessed. It was one of the reasons she had begun to feel so protected with him. It was such a part of who he was that to see him without it now was like looking at a completely different person. Eirik, but untamed and fierce.
His eyes were vivid blue in their intensity as they stared at her through the night. His golden hair wild about his face. Her heart pounded a wild beat in her chest as he came closer. Her hands pressed hard against the wall behind her hips. In the periphery of her vision, she was aware that the beaten man struggled to his feet and limped away, but then he was forgotten.
The air between them was charged with a tension she didn’t recognise, but it excited her. Her breasts tightened and somehow became fuller, while lower, that utterly feminine part of her began to throb and ache. Somewhere deep down, Merewyn knew it shouldn’t excite her, that her body’s reaction was wrong, but there was no room for right or wrong just then. There was only Eirik.
Inches remained between them when he stopped. His gaze locked hers in its trance and the ferocity gripped tight something equally as tumultuous within her and pulled it out into the open. He broke the stare when he looked down to her breast. The weight of his gaze settled there, scorching her bare skin with its touch. Merewyn realised then that her shift had been torn away, leaving one breast completely exposed. She had been too focused on Eirik and the fight to even notice the cold that prickled her flesh. Even now, she couldn’t move.
The sound of his breathing filled the air, but then she caught the movement of his hand coming towards her breast and she held her breath. That was when she realised the sound had been her own erratic breathing. His was shallow and quiet, like a predator stalking prey. Her eyes widened as his hand moved towards her. She knew he was going to touch her and she wanted it, had to stop her back from arching to reach him.
Her eyes widened when his flesh touched hers. The back of his finger brushed across her taut nipple and, though the touch was slight, a shard of pleasure shot through her. And just like that, the fissure she thought was mending widened irreparably. The back of each finger brushed across her nipple, and she bemoaned the loss when he drew back. But he wasn’t finished.
Eirik pinched the pink flesh lightly between his thumb and forefinger and rolled the tender nub before letting go with a tug. Merewyn was unprepared for the dart of pleasure that shot to her core and gasped aloud, drawing his attention to her face. He repeated the movement, watching her response, knowing that it gave her pleasure. Her face flamed, but she couldn’t tell him to stop or even stop herself from arching into his touch.
Her eyelids fell closed, and she was suspended there against the wall as he played her. The throbbing between her thighs beating in time with his touch. Her breathing was erratic, filling the air between them. At that moment, she was his, would have done anything he commanded. When his arm came around her hips to lift her up against him, she was surprised, but didn’t open her eyes and didn’t struggle against him. She simply savoured the feel of her breast crushed against the warmth of his rough palm as he gently squeezed the plump flesh.
Her arms went of their own accord around his broad shoulders to hold him close when he buried his face in her neck. She jumped and cried out in surprise when his teeth scraped the tender flesh. He didn’t bite hard enough to break the skin, but even if he had she didn’t know if she would care. It sent a surge of excitement throughout her, so she held him tight, her entire body throbbing with her need to get closer to him.
‘You are mine.’ The words were spoken roughly against her ear so she felt every one against the tender shell.
Just hours ago, she would have fought against those words, would have hated them and everything they implied. But not now. Maybe it was that she wanted to belong to him, wanted those words to be true. But even more than that, she wanted to say those words back to him. She finally understood that she wanted him to be hers in a way she had never imagined, never planned on in all the days of wanting to get away from him.
‘Do you hear?’ Eirik pulled back just enough to look into her eyes. He held her up high enough so that they were level with his own.
She met his eyes, but then let her gaze travel down to his mouth. That full bottom lip held her attention for far longer than it should have as she imagined his mouth on her again and wondered if his teeth had left a mark. ‘Aye,’ she whispered.
‘Say it.’
‘I’m yours.’ With those words, her defences crumbled. The abuse by Blythe, the fight to get away, her surrender, the assault by the unknown Northman—it was all too much. It began as a lump in her throat, becoming first one tear and then another. Her body shook with the effort to keep the emotion inside, but it kept coming, and when both of his arms went around her to pull her close against his chest, she lost control. The tide of emotion rolled over her until she was gripping him tightly and sobbing into his neck. Somehow his familiar scent soothed her and made the tears come all the harder.
She was hardly aware when he gathered her into his arms and began walking back to the longhouse. He took her through the back door, away from the festivities, and disappeared through a doorway she hadn’t seen earlier. He walked right to the bed. Merewyn sat up when he placed her upon it and realised bed might not be the right description. It was a wide bench covered with furs and opened only on one side. A wood encasement closed both ends, separating it from the line of connected benches, while the far side was against the wall. It must have been where he’d slept the previous night.
Before she could say anything, he pulled the torn apron dress from her legs and threw it behind him. Then he was climbing in with her, blocking her senses from the rest of the chamber. There was only him and no time to consider what he meant because he gathered her into his arms and she stopped thinking. Nothing mattered except his large body solid against hers and the warm feeling that spread throughout her body.
She was safe. Nothing could harm her with him holding her so close. The tears still came, but she fell asleep listening to the steady beat of his heart under her ear.
* * *
The next morning Merewyn awoke to the horrible realisation of what had transpired the night before. She had said the words she never thought to say to him. She had acknowledged, nay, she had agreed that she was his and wanted it to be true. But even worse than that, she had cried in front of him. Both were things she had never thought to do and she wondered if she had betrayed herself—again—by giving into those weaknesses.
It was so unlike her to cry at all. Even when Blythe had been particularly harsh with her, Merewyn had learned to hold the feelings inside. By not acknowledging them, it somehow made everything better, or at least seem better. How had she broken down so completely with him? It shamed her to remember how she had clung to him and taken strength from his embrace.
Then she remembered what had preceded the embrace. He’d touched her. A vision of his tanned fingers plucking her nipple taut made her groan and sit up. She looked down to see that the fabric of her shift was tucked neatly between her breasts, but her hand came up to cover the tear anyway. Her heart pounded fiercely under her palm.
Where was he? Merewyn started to get out of bed, but her gaze collided with his and she froze. He was sitting across the small chamber, staring at her as though he’d been there for a while waiting for her to wake up. His legs were braced wide with elbows on his knees while his hands were folded beneath his chin. He’d changed into a dark blue tunic, similar to the one he’d worn on her first night in this new world. The fabric was rich, but the decorative gemstone was absent. His clothes proclaimed him a prince of this world; his manner proclaimed him king.
Gone was his gentleness that had ended the evening. In its place was the ferocity she had seen earlier, but it was tempered with the return of h
is customary control. She couldn’t help but notice the dark scabs that graced a few of his knuckles. Merewyn trembled on the inside, but her embarrassment at succumbing to tears before him gave her the courage to raise her chin, determined that he wouldn’t see her weak again.
‘I told you to stay above in the loft once night fell. You disobeyed me.’
Merewyn bit the inside of her lip to keep it from trembling. There was nothing she could say to that that wouldn’t sound petty and childish. She had disobeyed him, but she’d never promised to obey. Never considered herself his. Until last night.
I’m yours. What had possessed her to say those words? Even in the light of a new day, there was an undeniable flawlessness to the simplicity of those words. They rang with truth. She had chosen him on the beach.
‘I can’t protect you if I don’t know where you are,’ he continued when she didn’t offer a defence.
Her gaze shifted to the fur in her lap. Of course, he was right. The rustle of clothing indicated he had risen, but her body was aware of his movement in other ways. She knew that he came closer because every part of her came alive with a tingle. She despised it, but at the same time she revelled in it. There were two people inside her with no hope of coexistence.
He sat down on the bed, drawing her attention to his broad thigh resting so near her own. ‘I’ve spoken to Kadlin.’
At the woman’s name, Merewyn’s gaze jerked back to his. Kadlin had accepted his suit. She had lost before she’d ever really tried to win. Her immediate thought was that he would give her away now. Her lips parted to beg him not to, but as soon as she realised that was what she would say, she shut them tight again.
‘She’s agreed to take you in.’
Those were not the words she expected. She’d expected that he would marry Kadlin and give her to another master, not to give her to Kadlin. ‘Why?’
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