I stared at the female…my female. She was small, her blonde hair in plaits matted with soot and blood. She looked back at me, her wide blue eyes showing confusion but not fear. I’d told her she was mine, and she was. I watched the fighter in her emerge. I knew I had to claim her as my wife.

I didn’t want her to be afraid of me, of us. Something in me tightened as I looked at her, my heart beating a wild tempo, my body humming. From the first moment I’d seen her kneeling on the ground, her fear written on her face, her strength so monumental and surrounding her like a second skin, something in me had awoken.

We’d been tracking the raiders for days, always one step behind. But we’d gone through the night, hunting them like the animals they were, and finally found them…destroyed them. We’d been after the Vikings for longer than I wanted to admit. They were brutal bastards, that clan, going from village to village, claiming what didn’t belong to them. When we’d first come up against the savages back in our village, they’d slaughtered many of our people. We might have seemed like them on the outside, brutal and unforgiving, but we were not cold-blooded killers. We did not get pleasure from hearing the screams of victims.

“What do you plan on doing with her?” Thorsen asked, his voice gruff, the displeasure evident. He spoke in our native tongue, a dialect not familiar in these parts. I knew the female couldn’t understand us, and I wanted her to. I didn’t want her thinking we kept secrets.

The truth was, despite our mission to end the violence from the Viking clan, I’d wanted a female as my own. I’d wanted to have a wife, a woman to carry my strong daughters and powerful sons. And when I first saw this little warrior, a princess in her own right, a shield maiden waiting to be brought to the light, I knew she was mine.

“He wants her as his,” Viggo said, the third Viking warrior in my group. He kept his head lowered, but his focus was trained ahead.

I looked at the female. I didn’t even know her name, but I didn’t need to in order to know she was mine in every conceivable way.

* * *

I didn’t know where they were taking me, but they hadn’t hurt me, and in fact one of them—the Viking I’d first seen—seemed to be extra gentle with me.

I tripped over a fallen log, but before I fell forward, strong arms gripped me around the waist, righting me. I turned my head and stared up at the Viking.

He placed a hand on his chest and said, “Gunnar.” I stood there for a second, his hands still around me, his big body warm, pressed against mine. He tapped his chest with his hand. “I’m Gunnar.”

I nodded. The feeling of his big, hard body right up against mine, his strength surrounding me, made me feel all female.

“Ingrid,” I said, my voice soft, my breath increasing. I watched his eyes become heavy-lidded as he looked down at my mouth. I thought he might have kissed me then, and for some inexplicable and insane reason, I didn’t think I would have stopped him. But he stood there for long seconds, not moving, his breathing heavy. He straightened, made sure I was righted, then moved away. “Where are we going?” I managed to say, the only words that could have made an appearance at this moment.

“Our ship,” one of the other men said. “We need to keep moving.”

I started walking ahead of Gunnar, with one man in front of me and the other behind my Viking.

My Viking?

I needed to get these thoughts out of my head. I needed to focus on what I was going to do. Staying with Gunnar seemed like the best way for me to stay alive, but I also didn’t know if leaving would reunite me with my village.

Do I want to go back there?

Truth was I had loved my village, loved my community, but I’d wanted to leave, to explore. I’d wanted to find my place, to make a name for myself. I had no clue if that would ever have happened, but I wanted to find out. At nineteen I was old for not having a husband or children. I wanted those things, but I didn’t want to be expected to do certain things, to be someone I was not.

We walked again, for hours it seemed. My feet hurt, and when my belly growled, I felt a nudge. Gunnar was by my side, his expression so intense, focused right on me. “Eat and drink.” He handed me the animal horn that he’d had hanging from his belt, and I drank deeply from it. He then handed me a piece of dried, salted pork. I had no doubt he would have picked me up and carried me if I’d complained. He was certainly watching me hard enough to notice any little ache I might show on my face.

And then I saw the water…saw their frightening, massive ship, saw the Vikings spread out across the beast, about to take us away.

We made our way through the clearing, the other two Vikings leading the way. Gunnar grabbed my hand and pulled me to a stop.

“You are not a captive. You’re free to go.”

I was a little stunned, because I’d assumed he wouldn’t just let me walk away. True, he hadn’t hurt me, had even been caring to me, but seeing as they’d made me go with them…I didn’t know what my future held.

He pointed to the left. “The villages that way have been destroyed by the raiders.” He pointed to the right. “You might have luck that way, although word probably got out and everyone left, if they were smart.”

Yes, I assumed everyone had fled. We all might be small villages, but we knew how to survive.

“Or…”

I glanced at him again, my heart in my throat, these unexplainable feelings slamming into me.

“You’re welcome to come with us, to come with me.”

I swallowed past the lump in my throat, looked both left, then right, but knew what I’d find out there.

Nothing for me.

If I went with Gunnar, I’d find adventure, experience. If I went with him, I could try and see what living was really like.

Seconds moved by, minutes, and I glanced down, knowing what I wanted but still so confused. I was afraid of experiencing life but so thirsty for it. I lifted my head, looking into his blue eyes, and knew that maybe this was fate. Maybe this was the gods giving me a chance to finally know what life really was.

“I’d like to go with you.”