Wulfgar

by Wulfgar (NCP)(Lit)

  She noticed finally that Wulfgar was watching her. He lifted a hand, held it out to her. His image swam before her eyes as tears flooded them. She blinked, trying to banish them, trying desperately to summon a smile, but it was a ghoulish imitation of a smile at best and fell flat almost at once.

  She wanted to go to him, but she could not seem to command her legs to move until his hand dropped tiredly to the mattress. She forced herself to take a step and then another, moving stiffly, with tremendous effort. When she finally reached the side of the bed, she sank weakly to her knees, grasping his hand in both of her own and bringing it to her cheek. She thought she wouldn’t be able to speak at all, but from no where the angry, accusing words spilled forth. "You have satisfied your honor? Avenged your beloved Freda? Look was has come of this mad scheme of yours!"

  She turned to glare at the priest. "Go away, you! He does not need you! He will be well and strong again!"

  Wulfgar made a coughing sound and her head whipped around. He was frowning, holding his chest with one hand. Her heart seemed to stand still as she watched his struggle. Finally, it subsided and he grinned at her. "I will be well."

  Alinor burst into tears. It was only by an effort that she refrained from throwing herself upon his chest, but she feared she would cause him pain.

  "This is the woman you are to wed?"

  Alinor broke off mid-wail. "What?"

  "You have fornicated with this man and conceived a child?"

  Alinor looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. It hardly seemed the time to start chastising her for her transgressions, and, in any case, even if she had conceived, that was no longer the case.

  "I raped her," Wulfgar growled. "I have confessed as much. Do what you were summoned to do and leave."

  Alinor glanced from the priest to Wulfgar. "He was not brought to perform the last rites?"

  Wulfgar looked at her in surprise. "What made you think that?"

  Grinding her teeth in impotent fury, Alinor leapt to her feet, balling her hands into fists. "You allowed me to believe you were dying!"

  Wulfgar frowned, but looked away guiltily. He might not have intended that she think she had been summoned to his death bed, but he had known from the way she behaved that that was what she believed. She felt like punching something, preferably him. "Do you know what you put me through, you … you pig!"

  "What?"

  Alinor gaped at him, feeling the blood rush into her cheeks. She had been devastated. He had to know that, had to have seen it in her face, but she wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of saying it to him. "I thought I was to be a prisoner here forever!" she snapped.

  His expression closed and she immediately regretted the impulsive words her pride and anger had summoned. They could not be taken back now, however, and she was still too angry to find caution. "I will not wed this man!" she said to the priest. "I want to be returned to my family. They will pay ransom for my return."

  The priest frowned. Alinor didn’t so much as glance in Wulfgar’s direction.

  "It matters not whether you were willing or not. You have fornicated. You carry this man’s child. You can not condemn the innocent to eternal damnation because of your pride."

  Alinor flushed. "I am not with child."

  The priest frowned, turning to Wulfgar. "Is this true?"

  "As far as she knows, perhaps. But the mid-wife examined her and assures me she still carries my child."

  It was one shock too many. Alinor felt her knees buckle. Slowly, she wilted to the floor, covering her face with her hands, trying to fight the blackness that threatened to engulf her.

  Someone helped her to her feet. In a daze, she heard the priest recite the marriage lines. When prodded, she repeated the vows as told. Finally, she was led back to her room and left alone. Still feeling more than a little faint, and ill, she crawled into the bed and lay with her eyes closed, trying to make sense of what had just happened.

  She had wed Wulfgar. It seemed he had decided, after all, that her suggestion of how he might obtain his revenge would be the easiest road to take.

  Chapter Eight

  Alinor had almost an entire week to worry about her wedding night. Naturally, she had no fear of coupling, but she was deeply troubled about the situation that had resulted in her marriage and not at all certain how best to handle it.

  There was no doubt in her mind that she had grown deeply attached to Wulfgar. She very much feared that there was little doubt in his mind either, considering her behavior, but she had no desire to be an object of pity or the butt of jokes by displaying her feelings when it was painfully obvious to her that she had no place in Wulfgar’s heart. Moreover, she was uncertain of whether she had a chance to make a place for herself. If she did, she wanted it. She didn’t want to keep him at arm’s length just to protect her pride and lose all chance of gaining what she wanted.

  She could not help being eager for his caresses. She had to acknowledge that there was very little chance of hiding that much—some, mayhap, but not much.

  When Wulfgar had recovered sufficiently to be up and moving about, his uncle arranged a wedding feast for them. To Alinor’s relief, this was confined to those residing in and near the manor. It was uncomfortable enough as it was to go through the motions of celebrating their marriage among people well aware of their situation, but fairly familiar. To be gawked at and whispered about by strangers would have been pure misery.

  Thankfully, they were also spared the bedding ceremony. There could be no doubt that she was virginal no longer, or that Wulfgar had accepted her as she was and vice versa. The wedding guests merely escorted Wulfgar to their room, therefore, and left them.

  The maids had groomed Alinor to look her best for the wedding, washing her hair and combing it until it gleamed with health and life; bathing her in scented water; scrubbing the dry, rough skin from her body and kneading oils into her skin to soften it; and when they prepared her to receive her husband, they had used equal care.

  Despite everything that had passed between them, or perhaps because of it, Alinor’s heart leapt suffocatingly in her chest when Wulfgar entered the room, closing the door behind him. His gaze was immediately drawn to her where she sat propped up in bed on the pillows with her hair flowing around her, wearing her beribboned gown, like some confection that had been offered up to tempt him. A blush crept up her chest and neck to her cheeks under his scrutiny and, following the red tide, his gaze came to rest upon hers at last.

  His expression was impossible to read. As he moved toward the bed and halted beside it, however, she saw that his eyes were dark with the promise of forbidden pleasures. Her nerves went taut, a flush of anticipation running through her that made her skin prickle with heightened awareness. Without taking his gaze from hers, he shrugged the robe he wore from his shoulders, allowing it to drop to the floor at his feet.

  New, reddened scars and much older ones, now white, marred the once smooth flesh of his body, but Alinor was enthralled by his sheer magnificence, for, despite his recent brush with death and the pallor from it, his arms, chest and shoulders were massive with hard, bulging, ropy muscle, each clearly delineated by the skin stretched over it. His torso was a washboard of ridged muscle, his belly flat and hard. His cock, protruding from a nest of dark hair low on his belly caught her attention and held it.

  She had not seen his manroot before. Now she found herself both fascinated and shocked by the look of it. It was an obscene shaft, veined and topped by a knob slightly larger in circumference than the shaft. It was stunning to think that her body would—had accommodated such a thing without causing her great pain, for it looked huge to her—small wonder, for there was no part of him that did not look huge to her.

  She looked up at his face uneasily when he moved toward her.

  Grasping her arms, he urged her to come up upon her knees and lifted her nightgown. Pulling if off over her head and then tossing it aside, he caught her wrists, holding her arms out while he studied her as
she had studied him. A shiver went through her that seemed equal parts excitement and nervousness. Despite her best efforts to quell the thought, it bounded into her mind to taunt her—Was he comparing her to Freda? And worse, did he find her lacking?

  She had the uncomfortable feeling that he must. He’d accused her of being a child yet and she wasn’t certain if he had meant her figure was not womanly enough to suit him or if he meant he considered her behavior childish.

  In truth, though she had eaten well since she had been at the manor of his uncle she was well aware that she was still far too thin from the many weeks that she had traveled so hard and eaten so little.

  Shame filled her and she tried to wrest her hands free to cover herself. He released her, but when she snatched the bed linens up to cover herself he took them from her, tossing them toward the foot of the bed. "Don’t," he murmured huskily as he placed a knee upon the bed and climbed into it so that they were kneeling face to face. "You are beautiful to my eyes."

  Alinor blushed, searching his face to see if the words had only been spoken to spare her feelings, but there was nothing there to tell her of anything beyond his needs. Grasping her shoulders, he leaned down, rubbing his cheek along hers, breathing in her scent as he caressed her gently, as if he saw and understood her nervousness and was determined to move slowly and allow her time to relax. His heated breath brushed her ear, raising a cascade of goose bumps that rushed down her neck and along her arm. She shivered, lifting her arms and pressing her palms against his chest as he moved lower, nuzzling her neck, placing light kisses there that made her breasts and belly tighten with need. Her nipples stood erect, pouting, demanding attention.

  His gentle caresses seem to seep through her pores like strong wine and ran through her blood, intoxicating, demolishing her reserves as it sent a flash of heat and tension to the core of her womanhood. She slipped her palms up his chest to his shoulders, digging her fingers into his taut flesh and when he lifted his head, she pressed her lips to his, glided them across his hard mouth in a light caress, then, with the tip of her tongue, traced the seam where his lips met.

  He sucked in a sharp breath. Sliding his arms around her, he caught her hips and pulled her onto his lap as he sat back on his heels, spreading her thighs so that she was astride him, a knee on either side of his hips. Her buttocks slipped along his hair roughened thighs, sending enticing ripples of sensation through her. Grasping her hips, he pulled her snugly against him, his cock slipping between the petals of her femininity teasingly, nudging the tiny, sensitive bud that was the center of her delight as he slid the hard, distended flesh of his cock back and forth along her moist cleft. A shudder of gratification ran through her, bathing her core in a hot tide of moisture and flooding her passage to ease the way of his possession, sending a dizzying lethargy throughout her body. A small, unconscious sound of pleasure vibrated from her throat and she slipped her hands from his shoulders, locking her arms around his neck to hold herself closer to him as she plucked at his lips with her own, teasing him with the tip of her tongue until at last he opened his mouth over hers, plunging his tongue into the moist, sensitive inner recesses of her mouth.

  The hot tide rose, and she began to move restlessly against him, luxuriating in the tingles of delight that raced along her flesh, burrowing deeply inside of her and building the exquisite tension with each brush of her bare flesh against his.

  Her movements seemed to break his restraint. His kiss became more heated, his breath harsh as he caught her hips, guiding her as she rocked her moist cleft along his hardened cock, stroking him. Lifting her slightly, he positioned his cock so that the head nudged her cleft, seeking the entrance to her passage. Eagerly, her heart pounding with anticipation, Alinor moved to align her body with his, breaking their kiss on a gasp as she felt his cock head enter her. Lifting her head, she stared deeply into his eyes as she bore down upon him, felt his shaft sinking slowly inside of her, felt the muscles of her belly adjusting to his girth, until she was impaled to the hilt.

  For several thundering heartbeats they gazed at each other once they were fully joined, holding themselves still as they relished the thrilling sensations rushing through them. Wulfgar slid one hand up her back to cup her head, threading is fingers through her hair and pulled her close, nibbling a trail of kisses down her throat and finally opening his mouth over one distended nipple. Her heart clenched almost painfully as his mouth closed around the sensitive peak, pleasure like fire rolling through her and the muscles of her passage responded of their own accord by clenching around him. He groaned as if in agony, catching her hips in both hands once more and lifting so that his cock moved through her in a downward stroke, and then pushing down on her hips and thrusting at the same time so that he sank deeply inside her once more.

  Catching the rhythm, she began to move as he’d shown her, rotating her hips as she discovered a place inside of her that quaked with intense pleasure each time he stroked it, moving faster, then slower, until she found the angle and rhythm that brought her the most pleasure, that sent her racing along the path of repletion. And though she felt the building tension, felt herself rising rapidly toward her goal, felt her pleasure mounting higher, faster, more intensely, the magnitude of it caught her so unaware, so blindingly with its intensity that she cried out, groaning as if she were dying.

  The pleasure was still jolting through her in waves when he tossed her onto her back on the mattress and began pumping in and out of her in deep, swift strokes until his own climax burst upon him, his hot seed pouring into her in a scalding fountain that bathed the quivering flesh of her womb and passage and sent aftershocks of pleasure and an intense sense of completion through her.

  Trembling with the effort, he pushed himself off of her, collapsing on the other side of the bed.

  The sense of completion vanished as abruptly as his withdrawal. A cooling breath of air wafted over her, sending a shiver of discomfort through her, but that was nothing compared to the sense of abandonment that crept insidiously through her as he lay unmoving beside her, staring pensively at the canopy above the bed.

  A sense of betrayal followed upon the heels of that and Alinor strove to nudge a spark of anger to life … anger directed mostly at herself. What had she expected, after all, fool that she was? That he would profess undying love for her only because he enjoyed easing his body upon her? Just because it was the most wondrous experience in her life, it did not necessarily follow that it was so for him. Very likely his experience was no different with her than with any other woman he had lain with.

  She had overheard men talk of coupling with women. The vessel they used to sheath their sword was unimportant so long as they found their ease—and they always did.

  She would not cry over it, though she longed to release her pain and anger in tears. It would do nothing but irritate Wulfgar if she wept each time they coupled as if she were wounded and he would soon be looking for a woman who left him in peace afterward.

  Sitting up, she pulled the covers up over herself and turned on her side away from him. She would’ve liked to have found her gown, as well, but cringed at the thought of drawing his attention to her nakedness.

  He had said she was beautiful. How stupid of her to take it to heart. It could have been nothing more than the sweet words men were prone to use to ease their passage. She knew she wasn’t beautiful, even in the first blush of health—and she was less than that now. What an absurd piece of self-deception that had allowed her to believe he truly meant it!

  With an effort, she pushed the thoughts aside as she heard the deep, even breaths that told her he slept and composed her own mind to seek rest. She had gotten herself into a miserable mess, so caught up in her own infatuation that it had not occurred to her that having that which one wants most only allows one to suffer daily, and endlessly, over the realization that one does not really have it at all.

  Chapter Nine

  Within the week, Wulfgar, Alinor and a small escort set off to the
nearest port to take ship for France. Men joined them along the way, seasoned soldiers that Alinor finally decided must be the remains of the army Lord Wulfgar had once commanded in the days before his lands were taken.

  Alinor found she did not feel at all well throughout much of the trip, though Wulfgar did not set the killing pace that he had when they were eluding Jean-Pierre’s troops. Bouts of nausea plagued her. At first she feared she had contracted some strange malady, but she did not worsen and finally she realized that the old crone who had examined her and reported to Wulfgar had been right. She was with child.

  She knew she should be elated. Women were supposed to be thrilled at the prospect of bearing there husband’s child. Somehow, though, she could not seem to feel anything at all beyond a sense of disbelief and finally she simply put it from her mind altogether, unable to focus on anything beyond her physical misery.

  The crossing was no better, nor any worse that she could tell, than her previous crossing, beyond the fact that she was far more than vaguely nauseated. They had barely left port when she emptied the contents of her stomach over the side of the rail and she clung there throughout the crossing, continuing to gag long after she had ceased to have anything at all in her stomach.

  She was so weak by the time they arrived that she was barely even aware of being carried through the crashing surf. When Wulfgar settled her on the sand beyond the reach of the waves, she wilted gratefully onto the damp sand, her eyes closed as she tried to fight off the dizzying sensation of movement that continued to plague her.

  She yearned, desperately, for the comfort of her own bed—her own room. Until she had set foot once more on French soil, she had not realized how terribly she had missed all that she’d left behind—or perhaps she had and had simply refused to acknowledge it because she had known it was pointless even to think of it. Now, however, it filled her mind with a fever of impatience and she struggled up as she heard the men unloading the fear crazed horses.