“She is well suited for her rider. Stoic and brave.”
Brenna smiled at her husband. Such a fine-looking man he was, especially when he grinned in that way, lighting up his blue eyes and showing the good man under the fierce warrior.
“I thought you had already ridden out.” He often rose before her, and he usually got an earlier start to the village. Brenna had been taking up some duties around the castle, helping with the weaving and other domestic needs the new village would have, so she left later in the day.
“I came back for you, wondering about Freya and whether she could be saddled.”
“I should not have let a boy tend her. My horse, my care.” They had been finding work for everyone old enough to do it, and they had put a few of the younger boys in the stable and out of trouble. The day before, she had allowed Jakob to saddle her horse. Before she’d mounted, she had checked the girth and the blanket, and all had seemed well. Freya had not complained at all.
But when Brenna had pulled the saddle and blanket from Freya’s back that night, she’d found an ugly, raw patch, sticky and coated in loose hair, just behind her withers. There had been a fold in the blanket, rubbing her raw all the day.
Now Jakob was hiding from Brenna. She had let him see her warrior face.
“Ride with me, then. My mount can carry us both.”
Vali had been riding the same horse, a huge bay, all the time they’d been in Estland, just as Brenna had, but he had never named his. Their people were much more likely to name their swords than their beasts. Yet Brenna felt an affinity for animals, an empathy. She saw them watching and listening. They were not tools. They were beings. They felt pain and knew joy.
And a horse was more than any other—she and Freya were a team. Brenna had let her down.
“Yes, I will.” She kissed her equine friend on the nose and left the stall. Before she let Vali take her arm and lead her out of the stable, she scooped up sweet grain and let Freya feed from her hand.
“You spoil that beast,” Vali muttered, but with affection.
“No. I respect her.”
When they were out on the grounds, Brenna mounted Vali’s horse, and Vali came up as soon as she kicked her foot free of the stirrup. Once he was settled, he pulled her back until her bottom rested firmly against him and she could feel the contours of his muscular thighs, as well as the resting ridge of his sex.
They had never ridden this way before, but there were no horses to spare, so Brenna’s choices were few. Not that she would have made another choice. To be so close to Vali, to feel his arms around her and the broad shield of his chest behind her, made her feel peaceful and content.
He kept the horse’s gait at a quick walk, and the rocking of their bodies against each other soon had Vali hard and Brenna wet. When he bent his head and kissed the skin just below her ear, she chuckled, though it became a moan as his tongue drew a wet line to her shoulder.
“We neglected to consider this complication.” She turned her head and nuzzled into his beard.
“I considered this. It is why I came back for you as I did.”
“What?”
“Leif offered to send his horse back with me so that you could ride. I declined. I wanted you where I have you now.”
He took the reins in one hand, and with his newly free hand reached under her leather top and linen tunic and pulled at the laces of her breeches.
“Vali, we cannot couple in the saddle.”
“Were you dressed as a woman, we most certainly could. With your gift tied up in breeches, I will have to content myself with your pleasure. And you will be in my debt.”
As he spoke, he opened her breeches and pushed his hand in, over her belly and between her legs. The rough skin of his fingers abraded her most tender flesh in a way she knew well and craved. She sighed and shifted, making way for him.
“So wet,” he breathed, the words dancing over her skin. “Touch yourself, Brenna.”
She had been resting on his shoulder, her eyes closed, giving over to his touch and the way it made her body clench and shudder. At his request—or perhaps it was a command—she opened her eyes and looked up. He was watching his hand in her breeches.
“What?” she asked.
With the hand that still held the reins, he pulled the tie that gathered her linen tunic over her shoulders. She no longer wore a smaller version of a man’s tunic. Vali had hated the way she bound her breasts under it, and he knew that when she wore a hangerock the clothing was cut so that she didn’t need to bind herself. He had spoken to Olga—after the fact, she’d learned he had—and her husband and her friend had conspired to have made for her what she wore now, a soft leather top that was modeled after the hangerock but cut short and split up the middle from the waist down. Under it, she wore a woven linen tunic with loose sleeves that was more like her sleeping shifts than any shirt she’d worn before.
The cut of the leather top rested just at the bottom of her breasts and was secured with lacing up the front and straps over her shoulders. She felt nearly indecent in it. She also felt beautiful. It was the perfect compromise between the comfort and practicality of men’s clothing and the grace of women’s.
Since she had taken to wearing it, other women had made similar designs for themselves. The village was full of women in breeches.
When her tunic was loosened, as Vali had just done, Brenna’s breasts were nearly free.
“Take your breasts in your hands, as you do in our bed.”
He punctuated that command by pushing his fingers into her. She made the odd, weak noise she made whenever he found a new peak of pleasure inside her, and she put her hands over his and pressed him hard to her.
“I want to see your breasts, wife. I want to see you make them tight with pleasure.”
Vali, being more experienced than she in matters of coupling, had always taken charge of theirs, and Brenna enjoyed that. She liked to relax and let him show her things she’d never known even about her own body. But after they had been able to be together this way again, when he wanted to try right away to get her with child again, she had not been able to be so relaxed.
She couldn’t explain, even to herself, why she was not yet ready to grow another child inside her. It had to do with more things than she understood—the uncertain timing of the ships’ return, the work of the village and all the changes that meant, and something greater and vaguer than either of those. She had carried a child and grown to love him while he was still inside her. She had carried the life and dreams he’d meant for her, and for Vali, for their family and their future.
And then one day, she’d woken and been alone in her body. Her son was gone, his body burned away, as if he’d never existed at all. All she had was the memory of her hopes and dreams for him, and the memory of his tiny body moving in hers.
The thought of another taking his place made her sad and afraid. But she didn’t understand why, so she couldn’t tell Vali. So she’d left him frustrated, with only frail reasons that teetered on shaky ground.
Dissatisfied with and perplexed by her resistance, he’d tried again and again to persuade her otherwise. Then he’d stopped trying to persuade her and had tried to catch her unawares, exploiting her desire for him and hoping she’d lose herself in it. Her fear was too great, however.
She’d grown wary, waiting for the end of his patience, despite his loving attention to her in all other ways. She’d taken his slowness to begin the build of their own house, always offering instead his assistance with other builds, as a sign that his feelings toward her were fading.
And then, two weeks ago, just when she’d thought she could see the end, he’d apologized and told her that he would honor her need and wait.
Since then, he had begun their house. And she had been able again to relax in his touch.
She opened her tunic and let the early summer air and sun warm her body. Then she cupped her hands around her breasts and closed her thumbs and fingers on her nipples.
Vali’s
hand moved, coming out of her and focusing again on the small knot where all sensation seemed to concentrate. She flexed and arched as hot bolts of need pulsed through her. She could feel him, hard as iron against her back.
At her ear, her husband groaned. “I may need to take you after all.”
“How…” If he could think of a way, then she would not stop him. She had recently discovered a taste for coupling out of doors.
He pulled off the path and stopped his horse near a birch tree. Then he swung his leg over and brought her with him, landing on the ground with her in his arms.
Setting her down by the tree, he stared hard into her eyes and grabbed at her open breeches, yanking them down her hips. Then he dropped to his knees before her and buried his face between her legs. She arched backward, grabbing at his braid to keep her balance. His hands dug into her hips to hold her as well.
Nothing in the world felt the way his mouth on her sex felt—his beard, his tongue, even his breath, it all made her quiver and moan.
He spread her legs as far as he could, and then his hands eased up her belly and took hold of her breasts, doing himself what he had earlier, and so briefly, wanted her to do.
Her release came on her quickly, almost unexpectedly, when he bit down around her bud and danced his tongue over it. Caught in the barrage of sensation, she fell back and would have truly fallen except that they were so close to the tree. Her back hit the trunk, and Vali went on, undeterred, until she squealed and yanked on his hair, too sensitive to let him continue.
When he stood, his face glistened in the sunshine, and he grinned broadly, naughtily. Then while she still reeled, he grabbed her shoulder and spun her around to face the tree. He yanked her hips back and was inside her before she could take her next breath. She grunted harshly as his hips slammed against her bottom and he filled her. The sound he made had no human name.
This rough, feral mating—this was what she had been seeing all her life, in longhouses and raiding camps. She’d thought it ugly and crude, and it had made her cold to the very idea of physical love. Yet now, as Vali shoved her again and again into the birch bark, as it tore loose in her grasping hands, as they both grunted like wild boars, Brenna could think of nothing more beautiful. The feel of it—his body and her body, his need and hers, their love together, under a warm sun—was freedom itself.
When her next climax arrived, she nearly bit the tree to hold back the scream that wanted to tear from her throat. Then Vali pulled out with a roar, and Brenna reached back and took him in her hand, stroking him as he completed.
She had not needed to be vigilant; she could trust him now to withdraw and spill his seed outside her.
They both sagged forward to the tree and rested there, sapped of strength and will.
Vali kissed her bare shoulder and drew his fingers along her scar. “I am complete. Here, with you.”
Too overcome to answer with a word, Brenna reached up and laid her hand on his head, holding him close.
They heard the sound of a rider, coming on at a gallop, and both turned and began to settle their clothing.
The rider was Dan, who was one of the team that had been on the coast, watching for the ships. As he pulled up his horse, he glanced at their disheveled attire but said nothing.
“The ships?” Vali asked, tying his breeches.
“Yes. Three. They were perhaps an hour from land when I left, so they have disembarked by now. I left Knut to greet them.”
Her clothing arranged, Brenna had stepped to Vali’s side. Now, Dan gave her a dark, surprising look and then turned back to Vali. “Vali—they show only Jarl Åke’s colors. Snorri is not with them.”
Brenna’s heart sank. Snorri’s men had comprised half of the raiders who had stayed behind and now made up more than half of those who survived. He would not have let Åke sail without him if there were still peace between them, and he would not leave his men to Åke’s whim if there were no peace.
If Åke had come alone, then there were only two possible scenarios: either Snorri was on his way, too, and they would face war on the shores of Estland again, this time friend against friend—or Snorri was dead, and Åke had claimed his lands and title.
In that case, Brenna, who knew Åke well, feared for all her friends who were not sworn to her jarl.
Which included her husband.
And might well soon include herself.
She looked up and found Vali’s eyes on hers, as she so often did. In their blue depths, she could see that he had made all the same connections and conjectures that she had. He nodded, once, and then turned back to Dan. His clansman.
“Ride to the village and tell Leif and the others. Brenna and I will return to the castle and begin preparations. We’ll need to ride to the coast well before nightfall.”
From his horse, Dan pulled a face—that dark look that Brenna understood now. He was already seeing enemies where he had seen friends that morning.
Vali reached up and grabbed his arm. “Whatever happened across the sea, it did not happen here. We are all friends. This long, hard winter, we were made family. That has not yet changed. Do not behave as if it has.”
The two men stared at each other, and then Dan nodded and rode off, toward the village.
When they were just the two of them again, Brenna reached out and grabbed her husband’s hand. “Vali…” she began, but then knew not how to finish.
He pulled her close. “I know, my love. We will weather this storm as we have all the others. Together.”
~oOo~
By the time the party from the castle arrived at the coast, the landing party had set up its camp. As the riders dismounted and dropped their horses’ reins—Brenna had borrowed Orm’s mount, as he had stayed behind to ready the castle in case of trouble—Åke walked out to meet them, with Calder and the next oldest of the jarl’s sons, Eivind, just behind him.
As he approached, Brenna looked past him and noted something curious: the new arrivals were all men, and heavily armed. That in itself was not curious; raiders were always prepared to fight. Before the peace with Prince Toomas, they had been holding their plans of attack for when they would be reinforced by the ships’ return.
But Brenna noted that there were no women, no children. No crates of supplies beyond the typical for a raid. A party meaning to found a settlement would have brought settlers.
Åke had not.
She could put no further thought to it, however, because he was standing before them.
Despite the days he’d just spent on the sea, Åke was dressed well, as if for a thing, with thick golden chains on his chest and a heavy black bearskin over his shoulders. He was making a show of his power and wealth—his claim.
Smiling broadly, kindly, he opened his arms wide as the riders dismounted, and he went straight for Leif.
“Leif Olavsson! It is good to see you. I have missed you as I might have missed a son of my own blood.”
Leif accepted the embrace warmly and then gave a respectful, humble nod. “Jarl Åke. The winter was long. We are glad to have you safely here.”
With sharp pats of Leif’s shoulders, the jarl turned to Brenna, while Calder and Eivind greeted Leif, their friend.
“And Brenna God’s-Eye. My own great shieldmaiden. The ships carried home to us more stories of your exploits for the sagas. And you look very well. Odin’s presence has been strong with you this winter, I see.” Åke put his hand on her face, drawing his thumb down to widen her right eye. She sensed Vali’s tension at the too-intimate touch, but Brenna knew the jarl would do nothing more.
Even Åke did not like to look long at her eye. Brenna had forgotten, during these months away, how it hurt to be thought different and not quite human. As she met Åke’s wavering gaze with her steady one, she felt a shaking in her chest.
No, she did not wish to return to the land on which she’d been born, where she was the God’s-Eye. Home was here, where she was simply Brenna.
When he waited, bringing hi
s eyes back to hers, Brenna realized that he expected her to speak. So she bent her head in a show of honor. “Jarl Åke.”
She said no more, and he stepped back. Then he turned to Vali, and her husband took a deep breath, making himself as tall and broad as he could. He was head and more taller than the jarl.
“Vali Storm-Wolf. You are famed as well, and I am glad to see that your story continues.”
“Thank you, Jarl Åke, it does. I would know how fares my jarl, Snorri.”
Brenna watched Åke’s eyes and saw them narrow in a way she knew was dangerous. But he shaped his features into a sympathetic frown and laid his hand on Vali’s arm. “Snorri is drinking with the gods in Valhalla. I am sorry, friend.”
Vali remained stiff and straight and did not acknowledge Åke. He was a warrior, not a diplomat. Neither was Brenna. Though Vali was good with words, he struggled to manage his emotions. Leif was the one who always spoke smoothly among them.
God's Eye (The Northwomen Sagas #1) Page 21