Sven the Collector

by Denali Day

He tucked his hands beneath his head. “Our war is with the evil that wanders out from under the mountain. Not with other nations. Be grateful. My people keep you lowlanders safe.”

  “And you think that gives your people the right to take any women they want as wives?”

  He gave a firm nod.

  In truth, it seemed a reasonable arrangement to her, but she’d not admit that to him. Not in a thousand years. She rolled her eyes. “How primitive.”

  He chuckled. “As if crudeness really offends you.”

  Colette’s brow wrinkled. He spoke so casually. So familiarly. As if they’d known each other for years instead of days. It was strangely intimate and, for some reason, it lent her comfort. This man was starting to get to her. Or maybe it was this place toying with her mind.

  Sven tilted his head. “I think you’ll like Bedmeg.”

  He said it like her going there with him was a foregone conclusion. Curiosity outweighed her desire to argue. “Oh? Why’s that?”

  He reached up to run his fingers down a strand of her hair, making her scalp tingle. “Because it’s like you. Fierce as it is beautiful.”

  “Are you trying to woo me, savage?”

  “And if I am?”

  His fingers curled around her hair, and he began drawing her head downward.

  Colette put up no resistance, following the pull of his hand until she could feel the warmth of his breath gliding across her face. Every nerve in her body fired at once until she was practically alight. Her lips parted even as her lids slid over her eyes. His own eyes narrowed with intensity, his aim plainer than the sun.

  At the last moment, Colette stiffened, halting the momentum between them. Her hushed voice came out throaty. “I’d wonder why you bother.”

  He blinked, his expression morphing from surprise, to defeat, to frustration.

  Colette smirked, hiding her own disappointment. After all, he didn’t really want her per se. Hadn’t he said any woman would do? Obviously, passion wasn’t high on his priority list. And who did he think she was anyway? That she should crumble to his will when he’d offered her nothing in return? Not even a piece of his heart.

  A muscle in Sven’s jaw worked, but he released his hold on her hair. “Always a battle. Do you ever surrender?”

  Colette straightened, flipping her long mane over the opposite shoulder. “Never. And I never lose.”

  “Your wet clothes disagree.”

  “Today was a minor skirmish.” She glared down at him. “Make no mistake, barbarian, the war is already lost for you.”

  “Right. I forgot. You’ve got a fancy nobleman waiting for you.”

  Colette’s stomach tightened at the mention of Lord Myron. In the chaos of the past day, she’d completely forgotten about her impending engagement.

  Sven went on, his tone full of mockery. “Let me guess, his father’s probably already asked your father if he can maybe, possibly marry you someday. I can’t imagine how I’ll ever break up that idyllic romance.”

  The truth of his words struck a little too close to home. Without meaning to, Colette found herself comparing the two men—in particular, the manner in which they’d gone about ‘claiming her’.

  In total fairness, Lord Myron had been no more concerned about what Colette wanted than Sven. Myron wanted the idea of her, nothing more. Now she thought of it, she’d recently managed to lose further respect for the little lord. In Sven’s own absurd way, he was right: having one’s father arrange his marriage was more than a little pathetic. And yet, that was the way of Colette’s culture. Could she really judge Sven’s? She frowned, not liking the direction of her thoughts.

  “It doesn’t matter what you say. He’s in love with me.” That’s more than you can say, savage. “We will be together.”

  From his place on the ground, Sven gave her an unimpressed look. “We’ll see.”

  She stifled the overwhelming urge to strike him. “You’d best get some sleep, barbarian. If I have to, I’ll bite your other hand to wake you up.”

  He grunted, turning away on his side. “I need to teach you some better uses for that pretty mouth.”

  By the time she shook Sven awake, the fire had long since burned through its kindling. A bed of warm amber embers let off the only light in the blackened cave. Though Colette’s teeth chattered, Sven’s bare skin glowed with heat. Did the man never chill? Was he even human? Curse him. She pinched him hard on the arm when he took a little too long to rouse.

  “Ow!” he hissed. “Damn it, woman.”

  She grinned, sorry that he couldn’t see her amusement. “G-get up. It’s your turn.”

  She felt around in the dark and cursed when she confirmed her dress was still too damp to wear. Beside her, she heard Sven shuffle to a sitting position and rub at his face with a sigh. She just started to slink down to the ground when he scooped an arm beneath her waist and hoisted her into his lap.

  Colette threw her arms to the sides, going completely rigid. “What are you doing?”

  “Regna, you’re colder than a witch’s tit!”

  He was warm as bathwater, and felt every bit as divine. Though roughened with scars, the muscled planes of his chest were just soft enough to make her want to lean into him. She barely resisted.

  “Let me go, savage, or I’ll—”

  “Hush. We both know you’ll never get to sleep while you’re this cold.”

  Colette pursed her lips. “What? Are you going to hold on to me all night?”

  “Yes.”

  Her face slackened, and her body began to ease. Well then, if he was offering. It wasn’t as though this would be the first time she slept in his arms. She probably would get to sleep much quicker. Colette forced herself to relax, barely bringing her head back against his chest. He widened his legs so the sides of her body were walled between their warmth. Even laid over him, her toes didn’t reach his ankles.

  “Are all men built like you where you come from?”

  Sven wrapped his arms around her waist, and Colette reminded herself to breathe evenly. “Not all are so impressive.”

  She scoffed, snuggling into his hold. “Thank the gods. I’m not sure the mountain could stand under the weight of so much ego.”

  He laughed, and Colette had to smile. Once they got comfortable, she closed her eyes. Under her ear, Sven’s heart beat steadily in his chest. With great effort, she concentrated on that rhythmic sound, ignoring the wails and shrieking of the night which had kept her thoroughly terrified earlier. The tension eased out of her body but not from her mind. Just as the night before, she couldn’t sleep. Gods, how she needed to.

  To her utter dismay, heat bloomed in the back of her eyes. Her jaw tightened. This couldn’t be happening. Was she about to cry? Oh no. Please, no. Not here. Not now. Not in front of him. She resisted the urge to rub at her face, to sniffle, to give herself away. Against her considerable will, a warm tear slid past her shut lids and onto Sven’s bare chest.

  Maybe he hadn’t noticed? Silence and stillness made her hope. Then, he brought a hand up to her head and ran it down the length of her red-blonde mane. Damn him.

  “Why do you fear water?”

  Colette’s eyes popped open, though it was too dark to see. Shame-filled memories came flooding to her mind. It wasn’t something she talked about, but then, anything seemed preferable to lying there listening to that bloody forest.

  “I told you—I can’t swim.”

  He was quiet, and Colette could feel him waiting for a true answer. With a discreet swipe at her eyes, she sighed. “I almost drowned when I was a girl.”

  “What happened?”

  “My brothers wanted to go for a swim at the lake near our keep. The oldest, Gareth, said they didn’t want to mind a babe while they were gone. He told my nurse to keep me from following them.”

  As he listened, Sven continued to wind locks of her hair around his finger.

  Colette focused on the soothing sensation as she spoke. “I managed to get away from my nurse
, not that it was any great hardship, mind you. The woman was about a hundred years old and half blind.”

  “I see you’ve grown into your defiant streak.”

  Colette half-smiled, half-grimaced. “I snuck to the lake and made it all the way to the end of the dock before my brothers noticed me. The next thing I knew, they were all shouting and swimming toward me like they were going to thrash me and leave me tied up in my chamber for the rest of the year. So I jumped in.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Four.”

  Sven muttered something foreign under his breath. “What happened next?”

  “I don’t really remember much else, just that the water seemed colder than ice and darker than this cave. I’ve been told Willam got to me first and between the five of them they managed to pump my lungs.”

  “They must have been terrified.”

  “Mostly furious.” Especially Gareth. At sixteen, he’d blamed himself for what happened and the two of them had butted heads constantly over the years as a result. Other than their mother, Gareth seemed the most determined to make Colette behave herself, which, of course, made her all the more stubborn where he was concerned.

  ‘You’re not brave, Colette. You’re foolhardy. For your own sake, you ought to find someone smarter you’re willing to listen to.’

  ‘I’ll let you know if I ever see one, brother.’

  Despite her flippant dismissal, there was always a part of her that knew he was right. The fact that she was here, trapped in the same forest she’d ridden headlong into, was a testament. Even so, Colette knew marrying her off to Lord Myron wasn’t the answer to anyone’s problems. She’d crush that man like the little insect he was.

  Beneath her, Colette felt the muscles in Sven’s chest flex as he switched his “petting” arm. She remembered how tightly those arms had held her in the water, not giving her an inch. Apparently, not all men were so easily vanquished.

  “I’m sorry for today,” Sven muttered. “I didn’t know.”

  “And if you had?”

  “I would have been…kinder.”

  Yesterday, she would have scoffed at that. Now? Listening to the soft timbre of his voice and lying snugly in his embrace, Colette believed him. Something pleasant unfolded in her chest. Peace. She cleared her throat and curled deeper against his warmth.

  “Well, I still would have broken your nose.”

  7

  Colette squinted through the shadows ahead. It was close to midday, and yet the forest was barely brighter than a moonlit night. A cool mist weaved through the trees, amplifying the scent of decay that hung heavy in the air. Beside her, Sven hurried forward and used his axe to clear away the thicket blocking their path. The steel edge tore through scraggly branches, making them quiver and shake like gnat’s wings.

  Colette’s gaze drifted upward toward the bare tree limbs that hung above. She blinked. Had the boughs just moved? Reached toward Sven’s shoulders? She rubbed at her eyes then looked again. Everything was in its proper place. For now. Wary, her gaze continued to dart back and forth.

  The sudden rumbling of her stomach drew Sven’s gaze. “You’ve an appetite as bad as mine, woman.”

  She put a hand over her belly. “There’s hardly any game in this godsforsaken wood. I’m about to go digging in the dirt for worms. Or perhaps some nuts.”

  “Don’t touch anything that grows here.” Sven’s eyes flickered to the trees above him, and Colette wondered if he’d been seeing bizarre things, too. “I don’t trust it.”

  Colette said nothing. Of course, she didn’t trust it either, but she was also half-starved. They’d walked for hours without spotting so much as a track or scratch. Apparently, animals completely avoided this section of the forest. That explained the deathly quiet. Indeed, the sound of the nearby stream was all that broke up the eerie silence.

  Eager for a distraction, she let her thoughts drift to the night before. Had she actually slept neatly tucked in a barbarian’s lap? Heat warmed her cheeks at the cozy memory. As they walked, Colette’s eyes bored into Sven’s broad back. Had he enjoyed it as much as she? She could almost make herself ask him.

  “So…” She hesitated. “Any chance we’ll reach the forest’s edge before nightfall?”

  Sven continued to cut the path. “If we’re lucky, we might get there the day after tomorrow.”

  “Oh.”

  Why was she not muttering a curse or kicking at the dirt? Instead, she found herself staunching the impulse to skip. Sven’s news hadn’t upset her. In fact, were it not for hunger and for these damned trees, Colette could almost look forward to more time here. Or rather, more time with Sven. Had she gone completely insane? She inhaled a waft of blighted fog and decided it was a genuine possibility. She scrubbed a palm over her face.

  Give yourself a break, Colette. It’s not as if you’ve some grand destiny waiting for you back home.

  They stepped into a narrow clearing, and, for a brief moment, Colette could feel the warmth of the sun caressing her flesh. A felled tree lay just ahead, fractured bits of its rotted stump splintered toward the sky. Sven stepped over the high log, barely avoiding the slick grey moss that covered the bark. Colette took his offered hand and hopped over the giant obstacle, landing with a thud on the spongy ground. Sven walked on as Colette switched her bow from one shoulder to the other. Just as she was about to follow, something caught her notice.

  Maiden’s claim. A long patch of the brown, porous mushrooms grew along the crevice between the ground and the fallen tree. Though it was typically dried and ground into powder for its scarlet dye, Colette knew the bitter fungi could also be eaten. She’d had it many times herself. Too bad they had no means to boil it. Still, food was food. She reached out to harvest a handful.

  “Get back!” Large hands snatched her by the hips and swung her away.

  Colette gasped as a puff of vapor shot from the mushrooms into the air before them. They both threw their heads back, coughing and gagging on the acid stench. Lungs on fire, her eyes burned, water welling up and blurring her sight. Through a wavy haze, she could see Sven bent over, trying to wipe the sticky fluid from his face. He’d taken the brunt of the spray.

  Squeezing the tears from her eyes, Colette straightened, fully intending to help Sven. Instead, her head continued its upward trajectory until she was falling completely backwards. She collapsed upon the damp ground with a huff. Colette stared at the spinning, gray canopy above and saw her arms shoot out in front of her, as though looking for something to grab onto. Her fingers closed around empty air. She tried to bring her head up but all she managed was to roll onto her side. The world continued turning even as she locked upon Sven’s prone figure.

  He was staring at his axe which lay on the ground between them. His reddened gaze drifted over and wavered upon her face. Shame pinched a knot in her stomach. This was probably the part where she should humbly apologize for ignoring his very reasonable instructions.

  Her lips parted. “Mistakes were made.”

  A slow smile spread across his bearded face.

  Colette blinked at him and felt herself smiling back.

  “You’re going to be the death of me, woman.” His voice was thick with glee and a round of giggles burst from his throat.

  Colette joined in even as his giggles mounted into hysterical laughter. In the back of her mind, she registered that he was being too loud. “Sven, shh!”

  He flashed white teeth and extended an open hand in her direction.

  Colette’s head tipped back. He looked tempting. Unreasonably so. She rolled onto her stomach and crawled over, barely avoiding the axe.

  Sven pushed himself to his side and watched her with avid fascination, his pupils taking up most of his eyes. His words slurred past his lips. “Glanshi, there’s a sight for the gods. You on your hands and knees, crawling my way.”

  Colette grinned, swaying. Walking her hands up his chest, she shoved him onto his back and wavered over him until her nose hung just
over his. “You’ve got a lot of nerve talking to me like that, barbarian.” She giggled. “Why, if my brothers were here, you’d be short a hand or two.”

  “Ah, but you like it, don’t you?” He was practically shouting in her face.

  Colette clapped a hand over his chin and slid it up to cover his mouth. “I may. I admit nothing.”

  Sven fumbled for her wrist, unable to get ahold of the hand she covered his mouth with. Giving up, he batted her arm away. Whatever had drugged them, it was hitting Sven hard.

  His voice quieted. “Don’t be boring. Tell us the truth. You stripped me down that first day, didn’t you? Filled those sultry eyes?”

  “What if I did?”

  His expression blazed with smug satisfaction. He began chattering in his language as though she should understand him.

  “Speak trade-tongue, Sven.”

  His head lolled to the side, and his eyes seemed to lose track of her. Colette caught his face between her hands and pulled it back toward her own. His gaze went in and out of focus before he switched back to her language.

  “Mmm, I’d say it’s only right I take my turn. You know, in the interest of justice.”

  Colette gasped, her mouth hanging open. She shoved her face in his, accidentally headbutting them both. Neither of them even flinched. “Have you no shame?”

  He grinned wickedly. “None whatsoever.”

  She sat back on her haunches, keeping a hand on his chest for balance. “Not a chance, savage. Get up. We need to move.”

  He didn’t budge, and Colette wondered if he even could. He stared up at her. “You’re right. What was I thinking? I don’t want to scare you.”

  “Scare me?”

  “You’re so young, after all.”

  Colette glared, her fists tightening on his furs. “I’ll wager I’m older than you.”

  If only by a few months.

  “And then there’s your fiancé to think of. He’d be furious.”

  “He doesn’t own me!”

  “But you’re so very in love with him.”

  “The hells I am.”

  If they’d had any greater priorities, Colette couldn’t recall them. Only one thing mattered at the moment and that was shutting her barbarian up. She dragged a leg over Sven’s body, her hands gripping his coat to keep from sliding off his waist. Though it’d slowed down, the forest continued to turn around her, and she swayed as her fingers fumbled with the buttons of her riding coat.