Ansgar knew it was a bad idea to contemplate seducing an untrustworthy Danu witch. Look what had happened to his brother. Completely ensnared and besotted. But he no longer cared about all the reasons why he should keep his distance. He now knew the feel of her fire and pale skin under his hands. Now he wanted, no needed to feel that fire as she bathed him willingly in it. And as much as he hated the orders he was under, to protect the little witch at any cost. At least if he had her until she was no longer such a distraction there would be some satisfaction to keeping the enemy safe.
Who knew, once he had her in his bed, maybe he could convince her to tell him all the Danu secrets he could sense she was hiding from him. Yes, she would be his to protect in all ways. At least until he was through with her. Then, unlike his brother, he would send her back to the forest of her people, no worse for wear for the loss of her innocence and ignorance of men. Hell, considering that she had admitted there were no Danu males unrelated to her, she might even thank him for the chance at learning what that beautiful cool body of hers was for.
Chapter Five
Elena re-braided her freshly cleaned hair in a much simpler braid than she had worn previous while she sat on her bed, clean and dressed in a soft tunic and leggings she had found in Katrine's old closet. She was busying herself with the task in order to ignore the prowling beast in the room with her. Ansgar the Bloody had been acting downright suspicious since they had left the bathing chamber, her in a long clean drying clothe, and him in leather pants his men had supplied from his own clothes. He had not donned the rest of the armor that went with it, and the massive size of that bare chest and even his strong big feet were distracting if she did not put all her effort into ignoring his presence.
He was not ignoring her, she knew. Ever since she had walked into the closet and dressed before coming back out into the room, he had been prowling. Like a great beast of the Green who had scented prey just out of its reach in the trees. It made her both wary of what he was planning to do next, and uncharacteristically jumpy. Something she was doing her best to hide from the predator that continued to watch her. It would not do to show fear, it would only make him pounce all the faster. And as he had proved in the bathing chamber, in a physical fight without access to her magic or the Green, she was outmatched.
Thinking of that battle of the bath she could not stop the shiver of heat that trailed over her skin and had her shivering, and not with the cold. The sight of him in all his naked animal glory had been enough to stimulate places she had been ignoring for years. The man was massive and perfectly formed everywhere. But the feel of hard man, warm firm hands, and slick wet body rubbing along hers as they wrestled for her clothes had been…too much. She should have been afraid when he reacted so aggressively, handling her as he had, but even as he carried her and stripped her, his touch had remained just shy of painful, as if he knew his strength down to the last inch and had complete control over all of it, and her at the same time. She should have felt threatened. Instead she was incensed with his games, and overheated from his touch, but fear had been nowhere in her extreme reactions. Even now as the big beast prowled her bedroom, planning she knew not what she still felt no fear. Anticipation and heat, perhaps a smidgen of nerves, but not fear. Why did she not fear him? He was Ansgar the Bloody and enemy to her people and he had shown just how at his mercy she was, and still. No fear. It was, she decided, peculiar of her nature, and probably bordered on stupidity, but there it was. She may not completely trust the man with her secrets, and she probably never would. But even though it had been his knife in her shoulder just that day, she felt no physical threat, at least of bodily harm at his hands. What else he could do with those hands, that worried her, mostly because she shivered with heat whenever she thought on it.
Elena blew out a breath and decided then and there that it would be better for all concerned if she did not think on it, ever. She stepped into the room with her chin up and her eyes serene. And nearly walked straight into a broad hard naked chest. Even up-tilted her nose barely grazed his collarbone. Jumping back in pure instinct had her slamming back against the wall, so extreme was her reaction. So much for serene, she thought.
And as she knew he would he saw her weakness and pounced like the predator he was. Caging her against the wall before she had a chance to move to a defensible position. He leaned down and ran his nose across her neck and up into her hair, the only part of him actually touching her, and still she felt pinned by the heat coming off that large warrior body, but more, it was the heat of avarice lighting those cold blue eyes that kept her in her place and had her breathing escalating.
“You smell good,” he rumbled out in nearly a normal tone of voice. The breath of his words hitting her sensitive ear so close made it difficult for her to respond in kind.
She was forced to clear her throat before she could form words that did not give away her body’s reaction. “So do you, but I would like it if you stepped out of my space anyway.”
“Your space?” One dark brow rose as his eyes met hers. “Should I force you to prove that statement?”
“Prove it? And how would I do that?”
“In the South we only claim what we can hold by might of arms.” He smiled a wicked marauding smile at her and flexed his big arms. “If you can force me out of your space, then I will concede your right to it. If not…” his words trailed off suggestively as his smile grew cocky.
She narrowed her eyes at him, his attitude sparking off her and bringing her own temper and pride to the fore. “Forcing you physically from my space will prove what exactly?” she asked and then went on with her own challenge before he could answer. “Because I can guarantee no matter how long you stand there posturing and crowing, with your big arms flexed and your arrogant smile, you will claim nothing but what I choose to give.” She leaned a little closer, her head cocked so that she could look up into those heated eyes. “And I will never choose you barbarian, no matter how you bluster and bark about the place.”
His eyes lost whatever teasing light they had held, and his smile disappeared. “Never say never little witch. And tossing such a challenge at my feet will get you nothing but spanked for your impertinence.”
She clucked her tongue and shook her head at him. “Spanked? I had heard that the people of the North will sometimes mistake their women for children, and treat them such, but I had not heard the Southern warriors were so inclined.” She gave him pitying eyes. “Does it make you feel powerful to spank a full-grown woman or is that the only way you can win an argument.”
“Keep pushing little witch,” he growled. “And we will find out together.”
She smirked at him, liking that he was the one off kilter for the moment. “And if I do force you from my space, thereby claiming it for my own, what do I get?”
His brow rose again in surprise and then his eyes narrowed. “You think you can?”
“It depends,” she answered flippantly. Then deepened her voice to absurdly dramatic. “What do I get if I prove that by might I claim this space?”
Teasing him might not have been her best idea, Elena thought when he suddenly went cold before her eyes, as if in preparation for battle. “What is it you want little witch?”
“The bed,” she said with no further teasing. “If I can force you from my space, I get the bed. Alone.” She added. “In case you had any thoughts on the matter.”
His smile now, was a new one. Openly challenging and carnal. It had her blinking, and if she was not already against the wall it would have had her backing away from that look in his eyes. He was still talking. “Very well, if you can force me from your space, you get the bed. But if you can’t,” he shrugged before going on. “Then you acknowledge that this,” he motioned to the space she occupied, which seemed to Elena to suggest herself in the mix. Arrogant bastard. “Is mine for as long as I claim it.”
She had a feeling he was talking about something of far more importance than she was but, as she was not going
to lose, it mattered not at all.
She smiled at him. “Done.”
With a thought the double doors to the garden whooshed open and thick vines whipped across the space and wrapped around Prince Ansgar the Bloody, heir to the Morten throne, and pulled him out into the suddenly tumultuous Green of the formerly peaceful kitchen garden.
His warriors at both doors attempted to come to his aid and they joined him in the vines, so that when Elena walked softly out into the cool of the night dark garden. She smiled at three thrashing Green masses that had once been warriors of the South.
With a thought and a wave of her hand all three were dropped to the ground at her feet. All three were up in an instant, two pulling swords and backing away from her. One, bare chested and furious stalked toward her.
She tisked at him shaking her finger in warning.
“Witch,” he growled, but when the garden shuddered as if in warning around them, he stopped a breath away and snarled. “You play dangerous games when you will not always be so close to the Green you command.”
“And you forget who and what I am at your own peril barbarian.” She raised her chin and met his eyes with a serenity that had his jaw locking down. “I am not a fragile Northern miss to swoon at the sight of your big sword, nor will I be intimidated by your high station. In the future when I say I wish to bathe alone, or anything else of a personal nature, you will respect that. You are not my Prince. My space is my own. And if you need me to prove that I can hold what is mine by might and will, so be it. But do not come whining to me when you are the one forcing me to remind you of what you do not seem to forget at any other time. I am a Danu witch. The wilds are mine to command, all of the wilds.” She turned back to the bedroom ignoring the furious warrior at her back. A further statement he could not miss. “And it was not I who started this game, Ansgar the Bloody. I just finished it.”
***
Ansgar watched the doors closed firmly between him and the Danu witch that openly challenged him, vines whispering one final time before all in the garden was silent.
He could honestly say he had never been so thoroughly put in his place before by man or woman. The only reason he did not follow her and force her to back down from the challenge she had flung at him was the knowledge that he could too easily find himself back out in the garden, strung up in magic vines if he tried. For a warrior used to defeating all comers it was enough of a worry to give him pause. It seemed his seduction of the little witch would not be without its dangers.
“What just happened?” One of his oldest friends and first lieutenant of his warriors asked into the sudden and weighted silence. Beck was nearly as tall as he was and had seen as many battles. He would trust him and Lor beside him with his life. So, he spoke truth with them, always.
“I pushed our little Danu guest and she let me know in no uncertain terms that she could push back.”
“The ruckus in the bath house?” Lor asked, humor lightening the deep bass of his voice.
“Or the fact that you have been circling her like a stallion in heat since?” Beck injected dryly.
Ansgar turned to glare at them both. They ignored him.
“If you were going to try and tumble the witch maybe you should have tried it at the bath house, inside the stone walls and far from the garden where she glows like pure magic?” Beck suggested his words devoid of the humor Ansgar knew he was feeling, at his princes’ expense.
“Or,” Lor said loudly, “Maybe you could leave the beautiful, scary as all hell, ambassador of the Danu out of your seductions all together and find your usual pretty, but brainless woman instead.”
“You might live longer,” Beck agreed.
“And with all your necessary parts intact,” Lor added helpfully.
“Perhaps,” Ansgar said. Turning to look back at the closed bedroom door. But everyone in that garden knew he was not going to do that. A warrior of the South was not likely to walk away from a beautiful woman who could best him in a fight. Claim her and marry her, possibly, but walk away? Not likely, and every one of them knew it.
He was finally beginning to understand why his brother had done what he had, forsaking everything in his quest for one Danu woman. Even if he had no intention of following the same path. That understanding more than anything his warriors could say was what held him in that garden long after he would have gone back into that bedroom. He had planning to do, and for the first time he realized that he would have to approach seducing a woman as he would take an armed city, where he was possibly outgunned and out manned. He was going to have to be the sneaky bloody bastard he was known as.
Chapter Six
He was sleeping on the floor beside her bed.
Elena was not a fool. She expected retaliation. So, when Ansgar did not immediately follow her raging about duplicitous magic users, or anything else, she spent a tense night in the bed, waiting for it. Eventually she slept, between the war that had nearly started and the wound she had healed, not to mention dealing with her “protector” it did not take long for even her Danu fortitude to slip into a quiet sleep. The Danu can stay awake for days if the need is there but eventually they crash and she did not have the time to return to the wilds for a revival sleep when her body eventually gave out on her, so she allowed sleep to take her, assuring herself that he was not the type of warrior that would strike when his opponent was asleep. She was not sure that was true, but she did know that he was sworn to protect her, so how bad could it be if he did decide to retaliate in some warrior way? And she would likely hear and wake when he returned to the room anyway.
It had been nothing more than a quiet breath of sound that had awakened her, and not when he came into the room, since he was asleep and had clearly been there awhile. How had the blasted warrior managed that? Rolled over as she was with her head hanging over the side of the bed to see him, she had no quick escape when his eyes suddenly opened and captured her staring at him. Those ice blue eyes that could range in emotion from a frozen waste land to tumultuous heat gave away nothing this morning. It was almost worse, because this close to him, and with him not shooting daggers or accusations at her, all she could think was that the warrior called Ansgar the Bloody had beautiful eyes, when he was not skewering a person mentally with them.
She really needed to say something or roll away and stop looking into those amazing eyes. But she did not, and neither did he, they just looked at each other, until gradually a heat returned to his gaze and smoldered at her. Feeling the brush of that heat in places she should not Elena was about to roll away, finally, when there was a sound in the hall that had them both silently springing to their feet. Ansgar did it with a sword in his hands she had not even seen before it was just there. She could not blame him. Whoever was approaching was not Amelia or her child. And it was too early, the sun barely a promise on the horizon. No one should be disrupting their sleep at this hour. Elena reached for the kitchen garden weave in preparation, wondering where the other warrior who should be guarding the hall was. Then she heard the unmistakable sound of a sword being unsheathed and a hard voice challenge the approacher.
“State your business here.” Through the stout door to the hall, Elena could hear the warrior of that voice was not happy.
Even before her brother’s voice rose in answering challenge, she felt him enter the weave with her.
“I am here to check on the wellbeing of my sister.”
Elena felt the tension in her change to exasperation and then turned her head to see that Ansgar was studying her, but he had not put away his sword.
“It’s my brother,” she whispered. Motioning to his sword, and naked chest. The last thing they needed was Quain to see Ansgar in her room like this, and from the look in Ansgar’s eyes, he would welcome the battle himself. She blew out another exasperated breath. “Are you both going to act like hot headed children every time you meet?”
“If you brother had come through the gates of Haven on a mission of peace, he would have b
een detained there while I was informed. He would not be walking through the streets unsecured, without escort, and I would guess armed. How did he manage that? And why is he here when my brother would have assured his wife you were safe in our care and warned against having him come? Katrine is no fool, and this does not further either of our goals.”
Elena shrugged, seeing his point but knowing her brother well enough to know he did not come through the gates, or make his presence known until just this moment. Nor was it likely he conferred with the new queen. Certainly not her Warrior husband on his actions. Having a queen was a new thing for them. Too long had her brother and herself been the ones calling the shots for the too few Danu left. It probably had not even occurred to him that he should ask permission to check on his sister when she was on a diplomatic mission and amongst the enemy.
She also knew that Ansgar was going to demand to know how he had come as far as he had undetected and be incensed and suspicious when he did not get the answers he sought. But like her own abilities, her brothers’ gifts were unique. And knowing the truth of them would not give Ansgar the Bloody any peace of mind. Any way she looked at what was bound to happen, it was going to be bad. Why had her brother come? Why hadn’t she found the time to send the message she had meant to send to stop this very thing from happening? The silence on the other end of the door was pointed. The warrior and her brother knew they were in here aware of them and they were waiting. But her brother would not wait forever. Knowing it was a mistake, Elena motioned to the door. “Shall we ask him?”
Ansgar bared his teeth at her. “By all means.” Not bothering to cover that massive naked chest, he smiled that challenge of a smile and started for the door.
Elena braced herself for the coming histrionics and hoped she could move fast enough and smart enough in the next few minutes to keep everyone alive and a war from breaking out. If there was a worse combination to put in a room than her brother and Ansgar the Bloody she could not think of it. But even if she tried, she knew neither of them would leave, so…hmm.
Return of the Danu Page 4