Chapter Nine
Safira popped a blackberry in her mouth. She’d gathered the fruit in the forest, her contribution to the Forgotten Sons. Thorfinn and Erik finished the last of the dried fish and bread.
The food she’d traded for was gone.
But they had beer. Plenty of it.
The Sons guzzled Wandrille Abbey’s beer from drinking horns. Thorvald kicked a small, empty cask and it rolled into a beached ship. Rurik sat beside her, laughing with the others, doing a fine job ignoring her. Since their conversation by the river, he’d given her his back. This, his profile, was an improvement. On the other side of her, flaxen-haired Gunnar carved a notch in a birch shaft. A work-rough hand tested the wood’s smooth grain before he slipped an arrowhead into place.
“More berries?” she asked, offering a handful to Gunnar.
He shook his head and sat forward for better light. White-blond strands skimmed a chiseled jaw. His trousers were cleaner and his vest unscarred. Nicks and scratches marked the Sons’ vests, yet the leather hugging Gunnar’s torso was smooth...save the wolf carved on the front.
She popped two berries in her mouth. “You had one horn of beer. Do you want more?”
A finger pressing the shaft, Gunnar wrapped animal sinew around the base of the arrowhead. On his right thumb, he wore a wide bone ring with a hart etched on it.
“I have watch tonight.”
“That would be a no then.” She paused to watch him work. “I notice this about you and the others. Whoever has watch does not drink much wine or ale.”
“It is our way.” The fire showed a growing scowl as he twined the sinew around and around. “And I don’t like to get drunk. It makes a man foolish.”
“You are rare among men.”
He flashed a heart-stopping grin before focusing again on the arrow. Eyes blue as an aquamarine stone and light blond hair cut at the middle of his neck, he would be the first among the Sons to capture a woman’s attention with his perfect features. Lithe of form with broad shoulders nearly as wide as Rurik’s, Gunnar was the youngest and, if it were possible to believe, the most innocent. Yet, he wore his handsomeness with a casual air as if his appeal was a nuisance.
She’d learned of these men in her three days riding with the Sons. Gunnar was an expert with the bow and arrow. Every night he whittled shafts from slender branches of ash and birch. The iron arrowheads were unique. A sharp head with two thick, needle-like points at the bottom.
She eyed the bag of arrowheads spilling into the grass. “Your arrowheads are different. Most I’ve seen are triangles.”
“You mean these?” He tapped the lower tips of the arrow in hand. “Jormungand’s fangs.”
“The snake of Ragnarok...the one to end the world.”
Cheer brightened his eyes. “You know our stories.”
She picked up an arrowhead and held it to the light. “A few.”
Her father and Savta had taught her: Know thy enemy.
She tested a fang on the arrowhead, drawing a drop of blood. “Ouch!” She dropped the iron and sucked her finger.
“You must have a care.” Rurik’s smooth voice intruded.
A thrill shot through her. This was maddening. Her body hummed from a scrap of his attention. Glossy-eyed with drink, the Viking stared at the finger in her mouth. She pulled it out and pinched the tip, forcing her gaze back to Gunnar.
“Why the two sharp points on that end?”
“Because it does damage going in like this—” Gunnar jabbed his arrow at the fire. Eyes hard slits, he yanked the arrow back. “And damage coming out...if it lodges in the enemy’s flesh.”
“Or the arrow goes through and sticks out the other side.” Rurik humored voice reeled her back to him. The man was not to be denied.
Truthfully, he was her lodestone. Every nerve ending inside her sparked to life...at the smell of his skin, an elbow brushing her arm, his shoulder glancing hers. Even the faint creak of his leather vest was music to her ears.
She was a rapt audience.
He raised his fist to the light and slanted his drinking horn behind his arm brace, the narrow tip visible on one side of his arm, the wider part on the other. “There is pain if the arrow goes through the limb. Pain if it sticks inside. Gunnar is very good at dealing pain to his enemies.”
She closed her cloak over her heart. Rurik laughed heartily and the flaxen-haired warrior finished wrapping his arrow with a prideful tilt of his chin.
“That’s why Gunnar has a pretty face.” Thorvald drained his horn. “Shooting arrows keeps him far from the fight.”
“I’ve saved your overgrown ass. More times than I can count.” Gunnar cut the sinew and smoothed pitch over it.
“Does that mean a reward is required, according to your second law?” she asked. “A life saved receives equal reward.”
Thorvald belched into his balled fist. “Battle doesn’t count. We always watch each other’s back in battle.”
“The second law is about sacrifice. Blood shed to save another.” Bjorn hitched up his knee, his voice mildly slurred.
The men launched a debate about what was the best weapon in a fight. They all wore the same bone-handled knives with a curved tip, small axes tied to their thighs, and they carried battle-worn shields painted with red and black swirls. From there, the men differed. Rurik favored his sword named Fenrir, Gunnar his arrows, and Bjorn his hulking hammer named Peace-maker. Thorfinn and Thorvald both wielded long-handled, bearded war axes that always gleamed as if freshly sharpened. Those beastly weapons were named Geri and Freki after Odin’s wolves. Erik wore two swords across his back. Curiously, his weapons had no name, but his care for them was meticulous. Hunched over the steel, he scraped blade and whetstone, his dark eyes shiny from too much beer.
“Then there’s Erik with two swords.” Thorvald dipped his horn in the second cask. “Show off.”
“Leif wore two swords.” This from Gunnar, wrapping another arrow.
Leif. The seventh Son. His name cast a pall on the men. Staring at the fire, Rurik set his horn to mouth yet he didn’t take a drop.
“Look what that got him. A ride to Valhalla.” Thorvald rose, mumbling about a trip to the bushes.
Bjorn flung his beer in the grass behind him. Thorfinn set aside his drink, his lids half over his eyes. Valhalla was glory to Vikings, yet she was surrounded by long faces. Bjorn pushed off the ground, and tucking his hudfat under one arm, announced he would sleep by the river. Beside her, Rurik’s profile could be etched in stone. He exuded strength, the solid foundation on which these men began. Peering at him, she would almost think him unaffected. But no. The harsh line of his mouth was different curved downward, his only show of emotion.
“Who is this Leif?” she asked.
Rurik drank from his horn, and the men answered solemnly one after another.
“The seventh Forgotten Son. The finest warrior, skilled at fighting with two swords at once like Erik...” From Gunnar.
“A man of quick-wit and a loyal friend.” From Thorfinn.
“Our skald,” Bjorn said, tarrying outside the campfire’s glow. “You would have liked him. He was a charmer of women.”
That drew limp smiles from the men.
“A fine carver of wood,” Erik added, his voice a churlish growl.
All eyes went to Rurik staring at moths dancing around the campfire.
His fingertips pinched white on the horn. “He was my younger brother. Ambushed in Byzantium, his dead body tossed in a river.” A long draught of beer and “It happened at winter’s end.”
The dip of Rurik’s Adam’s apple betrayed his steady voice. She hugged her legs close to her body. His agony was hers. It radiated off him like a fire burst, singeing her. She set a hand in the grass beside him. It was the closest she dared to get. From the men, Thorvald was the first to break the leaden silence.
“We lost Leif and most of our coin that day. He’d gone to collect payment from a vizier we’d guarded for a year.”
Gunnar set down his arrow with care. “He had no one to watch his back.”
She checked Rurik’s stony profile. Was it possible to breathe in his heartache? Because her chest hurt and her eyes stung watching him. This was Rurik in deep pain. Tense as drawn cord. Dangerous if he snapped. He was not a wolf to howl and rage. The cool warrior absorbed the grief. The same way he’d absorbed blows for his men when they were boys in Birka.
His mouth twisted. Faintly cruel, as if he sneered at his gods... Do your worst.
An image haunted her. Rurik as a little boy walking through ice and snow with rags on his feet.
Her skin flushed hot and cold. She saw the Viking’s past, the child huddled in clothes that barely kept him warm. Fierce boyish eyes would have rejected pity. Only the strong survived. It had become his creed.
But, Rurik’s thin, youthful arm would’ve wrapped around Leif to keep him warm.
No wonder Rurik stole softness when he could. Gentleness was gold.
His head turned and storm-blue eyes speared her with, Now you know.
She felt... Numb. Inadequate. Far beneath Rurik’s breadth and depth.
Loss flickered on his face. She could almost believe the emotion didn’t exist in him, except she’d seen it. He let her see it. Pain that deep could only come from an equal measure of love, love he’d poured out for his brother. Rurik had wrapped his feet in rags so Leif could wear leather scraps sewn together for shoes—one child going without for another.
Hurt bloomed in her chest. Rurik wants me to see him.
Warrior. Viking. Friend. Brother.
What else did he hide behind the harsh mask he wore each day?
He dropped his empty drinking horn into the grass. Did the other men have a similar story? They called themselves the Forgotten Sons for a reason. Why had she not looked deeper? It was easy to lump them into one idea—blood-thirsty Vikings.
But, each man had a past.
Survival had made her desperate, and now, she was safe...with Vikings. Because of their protection and companionship, she breathed easy. She could see again beyond the stumbling need to survive.
“Come.” Rurik’s smooth voice broke her thoughts.
She took the hand he offered, and the brooding Viking led her into the dark woods. Grass grew longer here, brushing her hem. Squat mushrooms poked out of crevices. Ancient trees rose to neck-wrenching heights. Bats flew overhead, and a wolf howled in the dark. A crafty-eyed fox peered at her behind fern fronds as Rurik brought her to a beached vessel set deep in the forest. Inside the ship, his hudfat was spread across the deck.
“Why do we sleep away from the others?”
No torch lit their evening conversation, a first since she’d cast her lot with Rurik.
“Because I want you.” He pulled the leather thong from his hair, his stare pinning her. “And your three days are done.”
She licked her lips. “The food I traded for.”
“The last of it is gone. I honored my side of the bargain. Now you must honor yours.”
Oh, how her heart raced. Galloped. Stampeded.
“I think you do this to bury the pain of your loss.”
The back of his hand skimmed her cheek featherlight. “I think you’re talking too much.”
Rurik smelled of his soap and leather and deep green forests. He was freedom and sensuality...everything west of the Epte River. Everything forbidden to her.
His jaw was clean of whiskers, as if he’d prepared to caress her face with his. Primitive strength emanated from him. Rurik of Birka was unlike any man she’d met. Brusque. Decisive. A quiet leader of men. Sparing with his soul, yet he’d given her glimpses of his better nature. His private craving for softness...it almost melted him when he was alone with her. It nearly melted her too.
All this time she’d believed power was his. It wasn’t. Power was hers.
Large, calloused hands rubbed her shoulders, the rolling caresses as much a comfort as a fright. Scant moonlight skimmed his features, but there was no mistaking the hunger in his eyes.
She was the prey he would devour.
The forest wolf howled again, closer this time. She checked distant trees.
“Don’t be afraid,” Rurik said. “He’s looking for a mate, not a meal.”
Wolves. Four-legged and two-legged, they would sate their needs.
“Rurik.” Her voice was a raspy whisper. “Do not do this.”
“Do what?” Careful fingers pulled the tie at the base of her throat. Her cloak dropped to the ground.
“This,” she hissed.
He spun her around. She grabbed the ship’s rail with both hands. The campfire was an orange ball of light in the distance, the smoke twisting higher, carrying the Sons’ laughter. Rurik grabbed the rail, trapping her from behind. His mouth was hot on her neck, seeding her skin with sweet kisses. The tip of his tongue traced her ear. It was achingly...delicate.
Her skin beaded.
Her heart thumped. The pounding in her chest was...
Desire.
Fear.
Shock at being taken by a lusty pagan warrior and wanting him to do it.
His big hand palmed her hip. Caressing. Massaging. Driving away stiffness from a day in the saddle. Her open mouth sought his, but Rurik denied the kiss. She whimpered, and he laughed low against her neck.
A carnal thrill shot to her navel. Heat spread lower between her legs, dripping like melted wax.
Rurik nibbled her ear lobe. “You want this.”
The whispered words were true.
Eyes fluttering shut, she shivered. His hot mouth was on her neck. Teasing her. Opening her. Weakening her resolve.
“Remember, you touched me our first night together,” he said between nuzzling the back of her ear.
“At the Cailly River.”
Breath skipped in and out of her lungs. His lips tickled her with each breathed word. Who knew an ear could be so sensitive? The hard plane of his body was solid against her back. Rurik’s fingers dug into her hip, sliding lower to the slanted crease where her bottom met her thigh.
The campfire’s flames shot high. Embers sprayed like pieces of gold on black. Three nights, the Viking didn’t touch her.
Was he trying to bury his sadness by seducing her?
Or was this simple lust?
Rurik let go of the rail and covered her breast. Gulping air, she arched into his hand. The warmth. The comfort. Pleasure spangled a delicious trail from her nipple to her navel. Hardness nudged her backside. Rurik plundered her defenses one kiss at a time.
How could a brute who lived by a code of violence have such persuasive hands?
She had to touch him.
She reached back and grappled for him, artless and desperate.
Rurik grabbed her flailing hand and growled against her neck. “Keep. Your hands. Right here.”
It was torture, holding the wooden edge, a captive to his touch. A woman fully dressed yet naked to him. She squirmed. Her breaths were ragged. She was...so...so...desperate.
This was receiving with no giving in return. The Viking knew what he was doing. He fed her hunger for him. Wetness slicked the skin between her legs. Rurik cupped her breast, strumming her nipple. Playing with it. Teasing her.
Her nails dug into the rail. Head tipped back, she cried out, “Plll-eeasssse, Rurik.”
“‘Please, Rurik’ what?” His whisper was sin itself.
She had no answer. His laugh was gruff.
“You think I do this for your pleasure?” Dark notes threaded his voice. “I don’t. I do this for mine.”
Even the Viking’s gentleness had a feral edge.
Her body was properly covered, but his hands were everywhere. Tantalizing. Pleasing. Tender touches in places. Rough in others. The icy Northman worked her body like a fine-tuned instrument, plucking here, strumming there, plying honeyed cries from her.
He spun her around. His mouth sealing off her moans.
Sensual fire shocked her. A gentle angle, a hitch of her breath, and his fingers dug into her bottom. His erection rubbed her belly. The shock of it didn’t matter. She was too far gone tasting him. Kissing his smooth jaw, the corner of his mouth. Lips parting, she deepened the kiss. Her fingernails grazed his nape. She needed to touch him and feel the grain of his skin. Her breasts pillowed against his chest. Wool scraped swollen nipples...it hurt and it felt good.
This was the two of them together. The battle of ideas and beliefs. Of conversation and humor. Give and take. Life.
Her. With a Viking.
Rurik palmed her hips, soothing, calming. Lust and want braided with gentleness. His hardness pressed her. Her legs opened wider. She pushed up on her toes and Rurik bent his knees to meet her. Their bodies fit well together. He slid his fingertips into her back cleft, tucking the wool into the split. Her skirt inched higher and cool air touched her legs. His tongue plunged her mouth. In and out. Slow. Sensual. Rurik groaned. What they did with their mouths matched the rhythmic thrust of their hips.
Her thighs shook. The yielding. She was about to give him...everything.
If she did, she’d be left with nothing.
“I... I can’t,” she said against his mouth.
“You cannot what?”
“I...you...we cannot—” her chin hit her chest “—I cannot lay with you.”
Three of his fingers swept lower, dipping until—sweet heaven—they invaded her most private flesh from behind. Her legs buckled. She gripped his shoulders, her knees falling open like a wanton woman.
Need slicked skin between her legs.
She was drowning. Wave after wave of desire sucked her under. Rurik’s arm banded her waist, holding her up. Dangerous fingers parted private folds and circled her opening with no more than the barrier of her skirt between his finger and her.
“You are wet here.” One finger tapped her entrance.
Her forehead rested against his chest. She was trembling. Her hips circled over his tempting finger, feeding the fevered pitch inside her. Rurik raised his hand to her lips and dabbed slickness on the corner of her mouth.
“Do you know what your wetness tells me?” His breath billowed against her neck. “Your body is ripe for me.”
She gulped cool forest air. If Rurik touched her cleft again, she’d gather her skirts waist high and tell him to take her.
Lungs pumping, she lifted her face to his. Sun-blond hair fell around wide shoulders. The length of it was glorious, reminding her of a tawny-maned lion a merchant once tried to convince her father to buy. She had to pet him. Stroking Rurik’s hair was a surprise. The thickness. Like silk, and so much of it. Nostrils flaring wide, he let her explore, and in the doing, her fingers grazed iron hobnails and carved-leather fangs.
The wolf on his vest.
Her two-legged wolf didn’t force himself on her. He plied her with sensual skill and she’d almost given herself to him. She couldn’t deny lust burned between them, but she had the rest of her life to consider—and his future too.
“If I lay with you, I lose my maidenhood.” Her hand flattened on the leather wolf. Beneath it Rurik’s heart beat fast. “And if I lose that, I am not worth nearly as much.”
“I would take you as you are. Sharp tongue and all.”
His crooked grin was sweet. How good to have a man want her just as she was, even if it was for carnal satisfaction. Rurik wanted her.
Raggedly dressed. No apparent wealth. Just her.
But her Viking protector didn’t know all the facts.
“You would care about this much gold.” She licked her lips and willed the storm inside her to calm.
Rurik’s hands fell away from her body. “What are you talking about?”
She already missed his touch.
“I’m talking about an abundance of gold, more than you can fathom.”
“You speak of the reward for your return.”
Her laugh was dry. “You say that as if it is a meager coin purse.”
“You are no thrall.”
She sighed. “You have said as much all along, no?”
“Now you’re going to tell me the truth.” His voice dripped with doubt.
Her body cooling, she picked up her cloak from the ground. It bought her precious extra seconds to settle the riot inside her.
“I will, because I trust you.”
Rurik took a half step back, his scowl wary. Her trust was supposed to be a gift, yet he was the Viking leader all over again, the man she sought safe passage with in Sothram’s outpost. She wrapped herself in the rough wool. Truth wasn’t making this better. It was ripping apart the ease that had been built between them.
“Considering what you and your men lost in Byzantium, you could use the wealth I am talking about.”
His brows were slashes over hard eyes. “A year’s worth of wages.”
“I am talking about much more than a year’s worth of wages. Do you understand, Viking?” Her hands rose in futile appeal. “I want you to ransom me...to, to have a great reward such as you cannot imagine.”
“Who are you?”
“I am the second daughter of the House of Alzaud. My father is spice merchant to seven kings.” She hugged herself. “Believe me when I say, my life is not my own.”
“What do you mean?”
Of course, he wouldn’t understand. The Viking lived freely, going wherever he willed.
“There have been long negotiations about marriage to the fourth prince of Burgundy.”
Wealth was a gold shackle she’d worn from the first glimmer of womanhood. She’d become a bargain piece. For family power and the good of Paris, especially because of their Viking neighbors. King Rudolph of Paris had only one son. He counted on his kingdom’s high-placed families to make advantageous alliances.
“You are promised to another man.”
“Not yet.” She rested against the boat. “But such an alliance would be very good for my family.”
“I still want you.” His voice was fierce.
Sharp laughter bubbled up. “For my sex. Yes. But, that would change if you knew how much gold my mother will give for the safe return of a virgin. Royal houses can be very particular about their bloodlines. I must be untainted when I go to the marriage bed.” She paused before adding bitterly, “I will be examined.”
To admit it was lowering. She was valued for a hidden barrier of flesh.
Boots shifting in the tall grass, Rurik’s gaze ranged over her. “That’s why you were willing to take me in your mouth the first night.”
“And why I guarded my hem.”
“You were willing to do anything to escape Sothram’s outpost.”
“Almost anything.”
Rurik’s mouth tightened.
It was telling that the wolf of Birka kept his arms at his sides. She missed his touch, but she couldn’t fault a low-born warrior lusting for a better place in life. Ample gold for her safe return, her maidenhood intact, would do that for him.
“You must choose. Great wealth or a night of sex,” she said dryly. “For all my fair appeal, Viking, I know what draws men to me. It is the shine of my father’s gold.”
Rurik paced the terrain in front of her. “How did a high-born daughter of Paris become a thrall?”
She tried to smile at the new thread of doubt from her Viking protector. He was in danger of not believing her. The absurdity of it...
Speak the truth and few believed a person. Speak lies and people flocked to hear more.
“I suspect a rival spice merchant in Lombardy is responsible.” She bent low to pull a fragment of cloth from her shoe. Standing up, she held out soiled wool with a distinct red, yellow, and black pattern. “I tore this from my captor’s clothes. I recognize the weave.”
He took the scrap and examined it in the flat of his hand.
“My marriage would seal trade rights throughout Burgundy and create a connection with Venice, perhaps Rome and Naples. A plum prize for any merchant.”
“It means nothing to me.”
“It means everything.” She snatched the cloth. “Do you understand?”
“Your father would not pay to get you back?”
“Of course, he would. My father loves me. But you must see what goes here, no? Returning a spice merchant’s daughter, you will be rewarded.” Looking to the heavens, she exhaled long. “But ride into Paris, rescuer of the virgin to be wed to the royal House of Burgundy, think of the wealth you can demand!”
Rurik braced a hand on the rail and peered into her eyes. “Why didn’t you beg Sothram for help? He would take your gold.”
“Because a Lombardy man sold me to Hilda. She made sure I wore these rags before Sothram saw me.” Her voice quieted. “After I was stolen, my attackers split up. One of them took me, tied and gagged, in a cart. Their plan was to kill me and bury me in the woods north of Paris, but I convinced the man he could make a fair amount of coin selling me.”
“You appealed to his greed and traded your grandmother’s ring.”
“It worked. He took me to that flea-bitten place. The Lombardy warrior told Hilda I was a thief condemned to be killed but he’d taken pity on me. He told her I would say anything to go free.” For all her boldness, her voice was small.
Calculation lit Rurik’s eyes, a man assembling a picture of her in his mind. If she were a mosaic, several pieces had fallen into place.
“And you spun your seeress lie to keep Sothram’s men from touching you.”
“I didn’t know who I could trust.”
“Until me.”
She nodded, slumping against the boat. “Sothram began to suspect I wasn’t a seeress. I had to act quickly.”
Weapons came in different forms. Her mind was a worthy tool. She’d kept herself alive by wit and will, but standing before Rurik, a powerful lesson showed itself in scant moonlight. The bond of one person with another. No scale could measure it.
Despite the ease and attraction between them, Rurik was a Viking.
“Think how much you will gain by returning me to Paris untouched.” She raised the dirty cloth between them. “Especially with proof of who took me.”
“What if I don’t care about the gold?” he growled.
“I wouldn’t believe you. I saw greed in your eyes and in your men’s eyes the night I talked of the red peppercorns.” She folded the square in half. “I am no different than the ermine...a thing to be traded. Nothing more, nothing less.”
The corners of Rurik’s eyes softened, the perfect moment to seal a trade. She’d learned it from Savta, wise in the ways of people... Be ready to appeal to a man’s deepest want.
And his fear of not getting it.
“You, who have had nothing, could give me back and buy whatever your heart desires.” She set a hand on the leather-carved wolf, her voice a whisper. “What will it be, Viking? My gold? Or my sex?”