Any lingering danger would come from their own people, it seemed. Now that the weather was warm and the snow and ice had been replaced by green buds and a rushing river, they had begun to watch for the ships, sending a team of two to the coast every day. It was early yet, but Brenna and Leif both expected their jarl to be impatient, and Vali knew his jarl would not seek a delay, either.
Leif had grown somber; he expected there to be trouble when Brenna and Vali’s marriage was known.
The trouble would come, Vali knew, if Åke resisted Brenna’s intention to settle in Estland. She had decided that, should he do so, she would forswear her fealty to him. As a freewoman, she had that right, but she would lose all that she had earned while sworn to him. Everything she had was at home, across the sea, and she considered it lost to her already. They intended to start anew here.
Åke would take the loss of her poorly, and he was a ruthless jarl, capable of extreme cruelty. Vali worried for her, and for them. If she had still been with child, or had babe in arms, when the ships arrived, Åke’s claim would have been weakened past argument, angry though he might have been.
Knowing this, and simply wanting to make a family with his love, Vali had wanted to get Brenna with child as soon as they were able again to try.
But Brenna would not allow him to sow his seed in her. His desire and her resistance was a constant source of tension between them, a low thrum under all of their interactions. They coupled nearly every day—their need of each other remained great, and their love was deep and true—and Vali had, for the most part, stopped pressing the issue. But he still felt frustrated, and she felt his frustration.
So it was in these moments, quiet, while she slept, that Vali could bask in nothing but their love.
He wanted children with her. He wanted her to carry his child. To have her with child now might protect her in a way he could not: without violence. She refused to see it, refused to acknowledge her full worth to her jarl, refused to believe Åke capable of things she knew full well he was. Instead, she argued that the time was not right, that there was too much work to be done to rebuild the village and to build a new life for them.
The truth, the real, deep truth, he knew, was that she was afraid. She mourned their son and was afraid to try again. He wasn’t sure even Brenna herself understood that, or if she did, that she would ever acknowledge it.
He brushed a finger down the length of the jagged scar over her shoulder, a wound that told that she had once been struck with a blow meant to remove her head. She was agile and quick, however, and Vali could visualize the way she had moved to save herself, taking instead a brutal but nonlethal slice. In battle, she was much like he was: single-minded and fiercely brave, without fear and with pure, consuming focus—a way of leaving one’s body to do its work while one’s mind saw above the fray.
In daily life, though, his shieldmaiden knew fear and doubt.
He loved her all the more for it.
He wanted to put another child inside her. Watching her grow with their son, seeing the mother in her rise up alongside the warrior, had stirred something vibrant in his soul. Losing Thorvaldr had been a pain greater than any he’d ever known, was pain still, but it had not quieted his soul. He wanted a family, children, a home. And he wanted every protection between Brenna and Jarl Åke that he could devise.
He swept her hair from her neck and shoulder and moved close, so that their bodies touched from ankle to head. Pushing his arm under hers and over her firm belly, he slid his hand between her legs while he brushed his beard over her neck and then kissed her, sucking lightly at her skin.
She sighed and stirred.
“Don’t wake,” he murmured at her ear. “Let me fill your dreams as I fill your body.”
While his fingers played through her folds, feeling her body go wet for him, he pushed his knee between her legs and lifted, making way for him to enter her. He did, his passage easy into her ready sheath, and he groaned, overcome with the delight of it. No matter how many times he took her, this moment was always the same: a marveling at their union, at the perfection of her body around his, at his good fortune in finding and claiming a love like this.
“Vali…” The word came as a vague breath; sleep kept her in its hold.
“Shhh.” He kissed her shoulder. “Sleep. Feel this as a dream.”
As he spoke, he thrust slowly, and she sighed out a deep breath and settled quietly in his arms.
In his heart, he knew that what he planned, what he hoped, was unfair. She wasn’t ready. He knew she wasn’t. She had not wavered in her resistance. But she was wrong and he was not, and he was her husband. Unfair he might be, but not wrong.
The thought that he might put a child in her now piqued his need, and he felt himself swell and throb as he quickened his pace. His fingers sought and found the bud of her best pleasure, and his other arm folded over her chest so that he could take hold of a full, perfect breast. He held her tight and groaned into her neck with each thrust, need for her taking over any plan he might have had.
She was waking fully, writhing in his arms, panting, beginning to moan, too. As she joined the action, he sped up, driving into her with force, holding her body as tightly to his as he could.
As his finish approached and he pressed his forehead to the back of her shoulder, grimacing through the tense fire knotting in his belly, Brenna stiffened.
“Vali…Vali, wait.”
He ignored her, driving even harder.
Now she fought his hold, trying to pull free of him, but strong as she was, he was much stronger. And even through her struggles, he could sense her pleasure, the way she gasped and whimpered.
“Don’t. Please don’t—please,” she gasped. “Vali—not inside me.”
Her growing anxiety finally overwhelmed her pleasure and made it more difficult to ignore her. Yet he clamped his arms and held her.
“Vali, please!”
He couldn’t. His conscience stabbed at him, and he finally, on the verge of release, stopped. For a moment, they were still, he inside her, they both breathing heavily.
Then he gave up and pulled out. He rolled to his back, still hard and throbbing, and stared up at the ceiling.
“Do you want children with me, Brenna?”
He was angry. He shouldn’t have been—disappointed, frustrated, yes. But it was wrong to be angry, he knew that. Brenna didn’t deserve his anger, no matter her reasons for resisting what he wanted.
No, she didn’t. He did. He’d tried to sneak this on her, to foist it upon her, to force something that she didn’t yet want.
While he grappled with self-loathing, Brenna rolled to face him. Then she did the worst thing she could have done in that moment. She apologized.
“I’m sorry. I know you want—I’m sorry.” She reached down and took hold of him. “I’ll bring you to your release this way.”
Disgusted with himself, he grabbed her hand. “No.”
Too harsh he’d been, he knew. Trapped in a whirlpool of terrible feelings, all directed inward, Vali tossed back the furs and got out of bed.
Brenna sat up. “I do want children with you. Very much. I—only—I’m not ready. Please don’t be angry with me.”
That was the closest she’d ever come to saying the truth of it. Vali turned back to her and saw his beloved wife, looking rumpled and sad, and felt even worse about himself. He bent over and swept his fingers down the side of her face.
“It’s not you I’m angry with, my love. I need to sort my thoughts. Forgive me for my brutishness.” He kissed her cheek and picked his breeches up from the floor.
When he was dressed, Brenna was still sitting in bed, quietly watching him.
“I’m going to ride out to the village and get an early start. Will I see you there today?”
She nodded. “Of course.”
With a smile and a tip of his head, he opened the door.
“Vali.”
He turned back to her.
“I lo
ve you.”
“And I you, shieldmaiden. In this life and the next. Never doubt that.”
~oOo~
Later that morning, after a few hours of good, hard labor, Vali felt clearer in his head. His regret for the morning remained, but he knew what he would do. When he saw his wife and they had a quiet moment together, they would talk. He would give her what she needed—what she told him she needed, not what he thought she needed.
And if Jarl Åke threatened her in any way or refused her what she needed, then Vali would kill him. Whatever the consequences.
Brenna had not yet joined the work at the village, and as it neared midday and the air filled with the savory aroma of the coming meal, Vali took on some small worry. Not for her safety—they were as safe as ever they’d been—but for her feeling. Even in his regret, he’d been harsh and distant to her before he’d taken his leave of her, and perhaps avowing his love had not been enough.
A commotion behind him drew him away from his thoughts, and he turned toward the rise where the freshly-hewn wood beams rested, awaiting their use. Four boys, none old enough yet to be called man, struggled to lift a round, rough beam that had the day before been a tree.
They were not rebuilding the village in the image of what it had once been. For one thing, there were more people now, as Ivan’s subjects were joining them and expanding the population—and making it, Vali thought, more of a true town, one that might draw its own commerce rather than be simply a place of dwelling and farming.
For another thing, more of the raiders than only Vali and Brenna had decided to settle here. Orm was staying. Harald had mated with a village girl and was staying, as well as a few of the others. So they were building longhouses in with the Estland huts.
They weren’t raiders at all any longer. They were settlers. Vali was finding that an easier adjustment than he had expected—although he had not yet spent much time in the fields.
He walked over to the boys, all of whom backed away as if they were guilty of some transgression. Vali was big among his people; among the Estlanders he was nearly a giant. Even after all these months, many of the young ones tended to goggle up at him, perhaps expecting him to grab one up for a snack—especially those who had been on Ivan’s lands before.
“What do you get up to here?” he asked in the Estland tongue, glowering down at the boys, enjoying himself a bit at their expense.
One of the boys stepped forward, shaking back a mop of unkempt dark hair. Jakob was his name. “Sten called for us to carry a beam to him.”
The beam was far too large for the boys, all with skinny arms, to carry. Even four could not hope to do more than roll it—and Sten knew it, too. He’d been having his own fun with them, who tended to be in the way more than not.
Vali cocked a brow, not yet finished with his enjoyment. “Then you must do so. Why jape about here while a task is before you?”
“We…we cannot lift it.” That came from another boy, Nigul, smaller and younger than the first. Jakob punched him in the arm, making him yell and rub the spot.
“We can. We will.”
Vali laughed. “No, you will not.” He pushed them out of his way and lifted the beam on his own, setting it on his shoulder. All four boys looked up in awe and wonder.
“You’re very strong,” Nigul marveled. Vali looked down at the fair-haired child with clear blue eyes. He resembled Brenna. Vali wondered if his own son might have favored his mother. He closed his eyes until the thought and its ache passed on.
“And you should remember that I am. Go, now, and find real work to do.” The boys scampered off, and Vali carried the beam down to Sten’s building site.
As he set it down, he laughed. “You think we have too many healthy boys in the village? At least one of them would have broken a limb before they gave up their task.”
Sten stepped back from the post hole he was digging. “Usch! Those boys are underfoot. I thought it would take them long to know it was hopeless, and I could get some work done while they tried.”
“Why pester you?”
“We are the foreigners, building our strange big houses, and Orm has already scared them away with his grumping.” Sten lifted his water skin and took a long drink. “We need to make real work for them. Where are their fathers?”
“Jakob’s father was in the village when Ivan attacked, and Andres’ father was lost when we retaliated. I think the other boys belong to our team on the coast.”
“Ah. Well, mothers, then. Someone to put them out of trouble.”
“I will find them work after the meal.” As she spoke, Brenna came up from behind and stood at Vali’s side.
When he lifted his arm, she tucked herself under it and wrapped her arms around his waist. He was encouraged that the tension of their morning had abated, but still they needed to clear that thrum from between them.
“I am glad to see you. I thought you’d be earlier.”
“One of the horses injured himself in his stall. I helped tend to him.”
“Badly hurt?”
“No. He opened his foreleg, but it’s closed now, and he’s not hobbled. But he was anxious, and he kicked Dan in the chest. He’ll be abed for a day or two. Olga is with him.”
Vali nodded at Sten and led his wife away. When they had a private distance from the busy work around them, he cupped his hand around her face. “Forgive me for this morning.”
“Let’s speak not of it.” She turned her head in his hand and kissed his palm. “It is forgotten.”
“No, Brenna. I mean to say this: When you are ready to bear my child inside you again, I will be ready, as well. I will wait and not bring it up again, in any way, until you do.”
Her eyes brimmed, and she gave him something like a smile—but not the bright beam that he had once so arrogantly expected to bring to her every day. “I know I ask too much. I want what you want. I’m not sure why I hesitate.”
“It doesn’t matter. What you ask is not too much. We will wait.”
“Thank you.” She raised up onto her toes, and he leaned down to meet her. Around them, as he kissed his wife, Vali heard the beginnings of the midday meal—the sounds of hammering and sawing ended, and people moved toward the center of the village, where the women had arrayed the food they’d prepared. The sounds of conversation changed from work to leisure.
He pulled back, his hands firmly on her bottom, cupping each firm, perfect mound. “Are you hungry?”
“I am not, but I will sit with you while you take your meal.”
The skause and bread smelled fine, and Vali was indeed hungry. But he had more pressing appetites. “Come to the river with me.”
“What is there?”
“Privacy. And a bank covered in moss and soft grasses, where I might lay you down and have my way.” When a stoniness came into her eyes, he added, “And then spill my seed there on the grass.”
Her expression softened. “The river is where we will find privacy?”
“As much as can be found between here and the castle—and if anyone comes upon us, would that be so terrible? To have our love seen that way?”
“Perhaps they could join us.” With that astounding sentence, Brenna pulled on his hand, leading him toward the river.
He held back and pulled her to face him. “Brenna?”
She laughed and then shook her head. “No. I wanted only to see that look on your face.”
Vali was relieved. The thought of sharing her, with man or woman, tightened his insides uncomfortably. But the thought of being seen excited him. She was generally private, unusually so for their people. He missed the bold days of her pregnancy, when she could barely contain herself, no matter the witness.
And when she wore dresses with skirts he could lift in a rush.
He kissed her hand. “To the river, wench. I mean to make you scream my name so all our friends will hear.”
Freya turned her head and gave Brenna’s hip a push, making her take a step to keep her balance.
&n
bsp; “Hush, love. Be brave.” She rubbed the salve Olga had given her into the sore on the horse’s withers. Freya shifted her feet restlessly, and the skin under Brenna’s fingers twitched. The wound was wide and raw, and Freya would bear no saddle for the next few days. “I should have saddled you myself yesterday. I’m sorry.”
Vali stepped to the stall door and rested his heavy arms across the top. “How is she?”
“It looks worse, now that it’s clean. She must have been in pain yesterday, though she didn’t show it.” Finished with the salve, she stepped forward and rubbed her horse’s nose.
God's Eye (The Northwomen Sagas #1) Page 20