The Fortress of Time

by Stone, Mariah

  Fuldarr screamed, his sword and shield dropped, and his hands clenched the blade. But life left him, and he fell sideways, blood staining the pebbles.

  Behind him stood Vigdis. She panted and stared at Fuldarr’s body, as if she could not quite believe what she had just done, her eyes wide. Her face grimaced in a mask of hatred, and she spat on him. Then she locked eyes with Sigurd and fell to her knees, tears streaming.

  Donna ran towards him. He scooped her into his arms, his heartbeat loud in his eardrums. Her face wet with tears, she pressed her cheek to his gore-smudged face.

  “Thank God, you’re alive,” she kept whispering in his ear.

  The realization of victory finally hit him. His lungs still gulped for air, but he pumped his fist and roared. Fuldarr’s warriors were already clambering back onto the ships. But the battle on the fortress continued, as people did not know what had happened on the beach.

  “I killed your jarl,” Sigurd roared like a warhorn. “You have no jarl!”

  “Stop the fight!” Vigdis cried. “Stop!”

  Sigurd glanced at her in surprise. She was the jarl now, as the widow, and she could have commanded her warriors to continue the battle. But Sigurd doubted she had much power over them. He doubted they’d risk their lives for her.

  As Vigdis met his gaze, fear like he’d never seen before distorted her face. She stood up, no doubt to run towards one of the ships, and Sigurd launched himself at her, locking his arm around her neck. Donna shrieked.

  “Not this time, Vigdis,” he whispered in her ear. “Gods know, all of this is because of you, and you need to be punished for your betrayal.”

  She sobbed, “Please, Sigurd, I tried to help—”

  He shook her and put his bloody hand on her mouth, “Shut up. Donna, give me my scramasax.”

  She nodded, her face torn between worry and relief. Once she did, he put the blade at Vigdis’s neck so that her warriors would not decide to fight for her.

  They didn’t.

  Fuldarr’s army began to retreat. The beach filled with the rustle of the pebbles under their shoes. Men threw somber glances at Sigurd and kept climbing into the ships. “I guess they do not want to fight for the jarl who uses betrayal like a morning wash,” he whispered in Vigdis’s ear, and she closed her eyes, sobbing.

  The dead and the wounded lay on the ground, and there were bodies along the waterline where Sigurd and his six warriors had cut their way towards Fuldarr, his battle brothers among them. Piles of corpses lay at the bottom of the fortress wall. The coppery scent of blood filled the air.

  Sigurd felt Donna’s hand on his forearm, and a wave of warmth and comfort went through him at her touch. He planted a kiss on her forehead, the presence of her, alive and well, replenishing his body with life—like a magic potion.

  He’d won.

  No one spoke a word, only the wounded moaned in pain. And as the last of the enemy’s men left the beach, the breeze from the fjord brought whispers of the waves splashing against the longships, and Sigurd wondered if he heard the wings of Valkyries who came to gather the best warriors for Valhöll.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Sigurd stirred in bed. He felt Donna’s gaze as if she stroked him with fur. He opened one eye. “Enough. I can feel your eyes on me.”

  Gods, she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, even right after waking up, even with puffy eyes and messy hair. But a shadow deep in her eyes stirred the dark worm of worry in his gut. The only thing that could shadow their happiness now, after the enemy was defeated, and after the fortress stood.

  There was nothing more that would stop her from going home.

  Not yet, gods, not yet.

  He only knew one way to make her forget. He pulled her onto his chest, and the brush of her bare breasts against his skin sent scorching heat through his groin. His mouth took hers, craving her as a thirsty man craves water during a drought. He engulfed her, his hands digging into her smooth flesh, desperate.

  She did not protest. She responded with the same desperation, devouring his mouth as if for the last time. Something wet stroked his cheek, and he tasted salt on his tongue.

  Sigurd spun her around and pinned her in the furs beneath him. She was crying.

  “Did I hurt you?”

  She shook her head and kissed him, pulling him to her.

  No, he had not hurt her.

  She was leaving him today.

  He knew it like he knew his name. He felt it like he could feel her body under him.

  No!

  He needed to make her change her mind. The silk of her skin under his hands sent a tremor of desire through him. He stroked the fullness of her ripe breasts, as if they were treasure. She moaned and arched her back, and he continued down the softness of her belly, and then lower to the triangle of curls. His fingers brushed her there, and he followed them with soft, wet kisses. She arched her head back, moans of pleasure escaping her throat.

  Yes, he’d make her forget all about New York.

  At least for now.

  His fingers stroked between the lips of her sex, sliding into the sleek warmth. Finding the sweetest spot, he circled lightly with his finger, pressing just enough to make Donna’s nails dig into his shoulders and a whimper escape her lips.

  He leaned down, his mouth melding with her sex, his tongue lashing the sweetest spot of her. Her taste, her smell, made his head spin and his erection stiffen even more. Filled him with the urge to plunge deep into her and make her tighten around him.

  To feel that she was his.

  He wanted to bring her the most pleasure she’d ever had, something that would bind her to him, and win the battle against time. His soul ached at the thought of losing her, and he continued his game until she begged, “Please Sigurd, oh please…I need you inside of me.”

  Her words tasted like honey, but he wanted to see how far he could take her. “Not yet,” he murmured, and she groaned.

  He worshiped her until she moaned just like every time right before she came, and he withdrew. Donna moaned in frustration. He stretched alongside her, his skin singing against hers, his hands caressing her breasts, his mouth teasing her ear.

  “Sigurd, please,” she turned to him, rubbing herself against him.

  “Not yet.”

  His hands searched for the places that would make her shake with bliss. Her fingers glided against his skin down his stomach to his erection, and he sucked in his breath when they brushed against his length. He was not far from exploding, and it took all his willpower not to spread her thighs and sink into her warmth.

  Instead, he returned to his previous position and resumed torturing her with his tongue. And, once again, when he felt her sex tighten and heard those moans, he withdrew.

  After a few moments, he lay on his back and pulled her up on top of him. He loved seeing her ride him. Donna breathed heavily and wiggled against him. “Please, Sigurd.”

  That was it.

  He lifted her up and drove into her. It felt like coming back home after a long and successful raid. She moaned and began moving on him, and he sank into the ocean of pleasure with every thrust, filling every small part of himself, every hair on his body, every drop of his blood with Donna.

  He moved her up and down with his arms, thrusting into her. She was coming—her moans, louder than ever before, resonated deep in his chest. Her insides began to quiver, milking him, and he held on as long as he could, but finally, he fell over the edge with her.

  He came long and hard, giving her every last drop of him and more. She cried and moaned and called his name, and her ecstasy seemed to come in waves for a while.

  When he was empty, she fell on top of him and lay panting. They stayed like that for a while, enveloped in each other, breathing in unison, their hearts beating as one.

  But then, something broke. He sensed Donna’s fear, and she tensed. She slid off of him, a frown on her face, and Sigurd’s gut filled with ice.

  He did not want to dance around t
he thing. He had to know. “You are leaving me, aren’t you?”

  Tears welled in Donna’s eyes. “Yes.”

  “No.” The ice spread in his stomach and filled his blood vessels. “Why in Loki’s name now?”

  “I fulfilled my purpose. There is nothing more for me here. No reason to stay.”

  The ice reached Sigurd’s heart. “Nothing?”

  The vein in her neck throbbed faster. “Is there?”

  “If I asked you to stay”— he swallowed— “would you?”

  “I can’t, Sigurd.”

  “Am I not enough a reason?”

  He clasped her hand in his, and warmth spread through his skin. Her eyes filled with tears once more.

  “Damn it, Sigurd! I knew already last night I needed to leave as soon as possible. I wanted to spend one last night with you, but if I don’t leave today— If I don’t leave now,” she said, her voice tapering off to a whisper, “I will never be able to leave you. With every second I spend with you, it’s getting harder and harder for me to go.”

  “Then stay!”

  The words hung there like a sail on a mast.

  “I can’t, Sigurd. My clients… My mother… Our firm… I won’t be able to live with myself if those four women and their children land on the streets because I did not come back.”

  Sigurd’s mouth pressed into a thin line. “Change your mind. That night on the fjord… What we shared then happens only once in a lifetime.”

  She squeezed his hand gently. “It does. You changed me.”

  “As did you change me.”

  Sigurd’s chest burned. He was tired of hiding behind the facade of not feeling, of not caring.

  If baring his soul couldn’t convince her, then nothing would. “You are a treasure for my jarldom. Be my wife, Donna. Be my equal in everything, as I know this is what you desire. You can manage the women, and learn archery, and go on raids with me. What say you?”

  Donna listened with an open mouth. She leaned towards him, a broad smile on her face. For a moment, he thought she would say yes, and hope bloomed in his chest.

  But Donna brushed the happiness off like water and looked around herself with a concerned expression. “I can’t. Where are my clothes? The ones I came here in?”

  Panic spread in his blood like liquid iron. He was losing her. “Don’t go.”

  She closed her eyes shut. “Please.”

  The desire to grab her and lock her under his body in bed and not allow her a step away from him burned in his muscles, and he clenched his fists to keep from throwing himself on her.

  “Fine, I’ll find them on my own.”

  One by one, she began opening the chests and rummaging in them. Finally, she found her things and dressed without looking at him. He watched her every move, the play of her muscles under her skin, the swell of her breasts, the curves of her gorgeous backside, her beautiful, thin waist. He wanted to burn the memory of her forever into his soul.

  Seeing her dressed in the same strange clothes as when he had first met her made his chest ache. Sigurd put his pants on and took his ax. He gestured her to the door. In the great hall, servants were cleaning after yesterday’s victory feast, and they looked up in surprise as Donna walked past them in her own clothes. Her eyes still glistening with tears as she looked around, probably hoping to see Asa.

  Outside, people tended to animals, the blacksmith pounded on metal, and the fishermen smoked fish. But the atmosphere was darkened by the preparations for the funeral. People carried firewood and personal belongings of the deceased to the funeral pyre. Floki and many other great warriors had fallen yesterday defending their jarl and their loved ones, and Sigurd prayed to Odin that he would let them all enter Valhöll and that they would wait for him there.

  Sigurd’s hand clasped Donna’s. “I want to touch you every last moment that we have.”

  Donna squeezed his hand, and Sigurd absorbed the tingling that he always felt when she was close.

  When they arrived at the arch, the rocks looked as hard and as unforgiving as before, and there were no traces of any patchwork that glued the fallen rock back to the arch. The palisade smelled of fresh wood and pine tar and looked solid.

  Finally, she turned to face him. Tears welled in her eyes. He brought her to him and took her mouth hungrily, desperately. But Donna stopped him.

  “I must go. We saved your people, now I need to save mine. You of all people know what duty means.”

  He rested his forehead against hers. How was it possible that she knew him better than anyone? “I do,” he said, breathing out.

  She moved to step aside, but his arms kept her in place. Sigurd squeezed her so hard, her bones must have cracked and kissed her with such strength that he almost bit her.

  Then he released her and took a step back, and the ground shifted under his feet as if she had just kicked out a supporting beam and he had been left forever off-balance, like a crooked house.

  She wiped her tears.

  “Goodbye, Sigurd,” she whispered. “Treat the women well.”

  She turned away to walk to the arch, but Sigurd’s hand grasped her and whirled her to face him. He removed his Thor’s hammer pendant from his neck and gave it to her. Maybe he was giving away his luck, but he would feel better knowing she had some piece of him with her. He hoped it would protect her.

  “You are taking my heart with you, Goddess.” His warm breath kissed her cheek. “Treat it well, too.”

  Donna spun and ran towards the gate. It took Sigurd all of his inner strength not to stop her, and then not to take a sledgehammer and smash the arch into dust.

  When she reached the gate, she opened it and walked through. Then she turned to him, and he met her eyes for the last time. Eternity connected them, and he thought his heart would explode with love and anguish, a storm-tossed wave against a rock.

  And then she was gone.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Donna’s body ached. She realized she was lying on something cold and hard. She needed to open her eyes, but her eyelids felt like they were stuck together. A fluorescent lamp buzzed somewhere in the distance. The air smelled slightly of bad coffee.

  Donna finally opened her eyes, and her heart sank even though she already knew the truth. She was back in New York. She sat upright on the marble floor of the empty courthouse hall. Muffled voices spoke from behind the wooden doors on the left side of the hall. The glass on the fireproof doors at the end of the hall gleamed from the gray daylight falling through the windows.

  Sigurd…did he even exist? Had she bumped her head when she fell? Had it all been a dream?

  She felt the hard edges of something pressing into the skin of her right palm and opened her hand. A Thor’s hammer pendant, warm from her skin, glinted despite the dim light. Sigurd… A giant wound opened in her chest like a black hole. No, he wasn’t a dream. Her body felt broken, as if a vital organ had been removed and she now had to live incomplete, half-alive.

  Because Sigurd was not in this world.

  Donna went home. She probably hailed a cab, although she did not remember. New York overwhelmed her with its honking and shouting.

  Donna showered, and warm running water felt like a blessing after bathing in the river for a couple of weeks.

  She needed to learn to live without Sigurd now.

  Donna had just turned the faucets off when someone banged on her front door. Mother must have heard the water running—she lived in an apartment on the same floor. Donna felt the bite of guilt, put on a bathrobe, and rushed to open the door.

  Mother, her eyes wide, hugged her tight, as the familiar scent of Chanel No.5 enveloped Donna.

  “I thought I lost you,” Mom whispered into Donna’s wet hair. “Where the hell have you been?”

  Donna closed her eyes, and tears ran down her face. “I traveled back in time.”

  Her mother gave a laugh, pushed her out of the hug and studied her from the length of her straightened arms.

  “Are you all r
ight?”

  “I’m fine, Mom.” Donna let her mom in and they went to the living room.

  “Did you go on a soul-searching trip or something because of Daniel?”

  “Something like that.”

  “This is so not like you. But I understand. After Joseph, I had to gather my life in pieces, too. But why didn’t you call me? How could you just abandon your case? I had to manage the firm on my own. The police finally started to search for you. You were gone nine days!”

  Donna’s eyebrows rose. After all the crazy stuff she had been through, she should have not been surprised that time could run at different speeds. She’d spent two and a half weeks with Sigurd, and yet here only nine days had passed. “I’m sorry, Mom. I’ll call them and explain. How is the case?”

  “I managed to pause things, but you know the clients need us to win.”

  “We will.” Although Donna said that, she did not feel like a warrior-lawyer at all. All she wanted to do was find the Norn and go back to Sigurd. But she could not leave those four single mothers in poverty.

  “When is the next hearing?”

  “In a week.”

  Donna rubbed her face with her palms. All she felt was exhaustion.

  “Seriously, where have you been?” Mom regarded her closely now.

  If Donna told her the truth, repeated what she’d said about time traveling in a serious manner, her mother would take her to a psycho ward. “It’s like you said. I needed some time off. I was in Vermont.”

  “But you could have sent an email. A text… Something.”

  “I met a man, and he turned my world upside down.” Oh, it felt good to tell this to someone. “And I needed to help him with something, but I lost the track of time.”

  “Who is he?”

  “He’s from far away, and I’ll never see him again.”

  Tears sprung from her eyes as a wound the size of a basketball opened up and started to bleed inside her chest. Mom hugged her and soothed her the best she could.

  “Oh, honey, we should stay away from men. I raised you to be independent. This is what they can do to you. Break your heart, destroy your spirit—”