“And will you appease mine?”
She had gotten his agreement to her terms, but she didn’t relax until she heard that. Appease his curiosity? Just what the doctor ordered. Finally, something that she could offer him in return, to assuage the guilt she was feeling for coercing his cooperation.
“Certainly,” she said, and even gave him a tentative smile. “What would you like to know?”
“In what time do you live?”
“This is the twentieth century.”
He snorted, looking around. “’Tis not much different from the last century I was summoned to.”
Since that was just what she had hoped he would think when she had found this meadow, she made no comment to that and asked instead, “What year was that?”
“Seventeen and twenty-three ’twas named, and I like these new times not—unless…Have you a war for me to test my skill in?”
Now why wasn’t she surprised that that was one of his first questions? She shook her head mentally. Vikings, always eager for a fight. She was going to have to keep that in mind at all times.
“I’m afraid modern wars are not what you would be used to, Thorn,” she was forced to tell him. “The weaponry you may have encountered in the seventeen hundreds, pistols and explosives, are much more sophisticated now.” She could see that he wasn’t quite following her, probably because he didn’t understand the words sophisticated and explosives, so she added, “Swords are no longer used. No one likes to get that close to the enemy in a war these days, and besides, this country happens to be at peace.”
The word peace apparently didn’t please him. His disappointment was obvious. “And what country is this, that you have brought me to?”
“England.”
At that he grinned. “The English, they are never long at peace.”
History supported that statement, so she was compelled to point out, “Since a third world war would likely wipe out the human race, countries are a bit more diplomatic nowadays, England included.”
“There was a world war? And I missed it?”
She rolled her eyes over this new disappointment he was displaying. “You wouldn’t have liked the last one, or the one before it. Forget it, Thorn, you aren’t going to find a handy war around here.”
And to make sure she got his mind off battles, she added, “It’s been more than a couple of centuries since you were last summoned, and a world of differences has taken place since then. At no time in history has change ever been so dramatic as in this century. Some changes you’ll like, most you probably won’t. For instance, what you were thinking of doing to me is illegal without my permission.”
“Illegal?”
“Against the law.”
He grinned now. “I make my own law, lady, with my sword arm to back it up.”
She shook her head at him. “Sorry, but you can’t do things like that here.”
His expression said he’d do things however he pleased. She decided they could go round and round with that subject and get nowhere. She didn’t want him arrested, she merely wanted some answers from him. And besides, she never should have introduced that subject again.
But he changed the subject himself. “I have already seen some of these differences you mention. That painting of William, ’tis amazing how lifelike it was.”
Hearing that, she could no longer doubt that his first appearance had been in her classroom in the States. Not that she was still doubting his existence. He was real enough. But the questions of why and how still boggled her mind.
Her own questions would have to wait, however, because it had already occurred to her that if she got him interested in this time period, then he wouldn’t mind sticking around long enough to share his knowledge of the past.
So she said, “That wasn’t a painting, but a blowup of a photograph,” and when he just stared at her blankly, she added, “Come, I’ll show you.”
She moved back to the blanket and knelt down in front of her purse to search through it. She didn’t notice that he had come to hunker down right next to her until she lifted out what she’d been looking for, her wallet, and turned to find him—mere inches away from her.
He wasn’t watching what she was doing, he was staring at her face, and for a long moment, she got caught by his eyes, and couldn’t manage to break the contact. The heat she’d felt earlier was back again, and so was the churning in her belly. She imagined lifting her hand to his cheek, then wrapping it around his neck to draw his lips to hers. Her breath suspended. She could almost taste him…
Roseleen snapped her eyes shut. Dear God, she had to be crazy to want to keep him around when he had such control over her body—no, she corrected herself, she had to be crazy not to put into action what she’d just imagined. She groaned inwardly at such contradictory thoughts. If only she’d been raised differently, if only he were a normal man, unable to disappear and appear at the whim of a sword.
When she looked at him again, he was grinning at her. He knew. He knew exactly what he’d done to her, and he was the very image of a man confident that he’d be getting what he wanted in the near future.
“You had something to show me, lady?”
Did she? Yes, the pictures in her wallet. Think of that, think of astounding him, think of keeping him so bedazzled with modern wonders that he would have no time to work his sensual magic on her.
She opened her wallet, then the snapshot section of it, and practically shoved the first picture under his nose, then flipped another over, then another. “These are photographs of people I know, my parents; my brother, David; Gail, who’s my best friend; Bar—damn, I can’t believe I still have that one in there.” She slid out the snapshot of Barry, which she’d forgotten until now, and began ripping it into little pieces. “Shows you how often I look at my own snapshots,” she added in a grumble.
“Why would you do that?”
She leaned over to shove what was now no more than rubbish in her hand, to the bottom of the picnic basket, before she answered him. “Tear up a picture? Because I can’t stand the man in it.”
“But ’twas costly, was it not?”
“Not at all. What I was trying to explain to you is that the poster you saw in my classroom the night you first appeared was no more than an enlargement or blowup of a photograph similar to these. No artist painted it. And it certainly wasn’t William the Bastard who posed for it. Photos are taken with a camera, a little boxlike device that’s been around for more than a century now, and I certainly wish I had an instant one here to show you, because it could produce your own image—”
She stopped because he was no longer listening to her. Possibly there had been too many words that he didn’t understand, so what she’d just said made no sense to him. Or possibly something else interested him more, because he was, without permission, rummaging through her purse.
Her perfectly normal reaction was one of indignation, yet she had to clamp down on her lips to contain it. Whatever interested him could only be to her ultimate benefit. She had to keep that in mind too, and keep a lid on her temper.
Getting angry with a man who likely personified male chauvinism would be a pure waste of time. After all, his attitudes toward women would be as medieval as he was, and she knew exactly where women were placed in his day and age—right alongside the cattle and the stock of mead, as no more than property. Actually, women had had even less value than salable goods back then.
So would he care if he offended her? Would he care if she showed her temper? Not even a little. She almost smiled. Dealing with him was going to be a history lesson in itself. She supposed she should be grateful that she knew history so well, knew historical attitudes, so she could adjust her own thinking accordingly. Otherwise, she had no doubt that she’d spend all her time with this Viking being outraged, and that would get her nowhere.
So she held her tongue and waited to see what would gain his interest. Her purse-size perfume spray? Her tiny solar-powered calculator? Maybe the li
ttle packet of tissues she’d picked up at the airport?
What came up in his hand was her lipstick, and he examined the white metal tube thoroughly, from every angle. Of course, that would interest him, since metal was related to weapons. He even flicked it with the nail of his forefinger to assure himself it was metal. And then the top separated slightly, enough for him to notice, and his eyes widened as he pulled it off the rest of the way.
He was fascinated all right, and she found out why immediately as he stared into the empty well of the top and tried to get his large finger inside it. He couldn’t manage that, of course.
“So thin, this metal, and perfect in its roundness and texture,” he said in an excited voice. “Your blacksmiths are ingenious, lady!”
She couldn’t help smiling at that. If a little thing like a lipstick could amaze him, he was going to go into shock when he saw his first television, or—God help him, an airplane would blow his mind.
“You’d have a hard time finding a blacksmith these days, Thorn. They kind of lost their importance when the horse did—never mind, you’ll find out about that on the way back to the cottage.”
And she was suddenly looking forward to getting him into her car. Would it frighten him, or simply awe him? Or would he relate to it instead as transportation to get him into a battle more quickly? She was going to start laughing if she didn’t stop imagining how he was going to react next, and get the image out of her mind of him wildly waving a sword out of an open window as he raced past tanks and mobile rocket launchers.
“As for metal,” she continued, “it can be made into just about any shape or size now, just like plastic and fiberglass and—anyway, factories produce the parts, other factories put them together, and the results are the conveniences of the modern age, which we who live here pretty much take for granted. You’ll be seeing many of these modern wonders for yourself. Just don’t ask me to explain how things work. Technology is not my field of expertise.”
To that he merely snorted, and she had to allow that she might not be making much sense to him again. He was back to examining what he was holding, and only now did he notice what was inside the base tube.
Roseleen grinned and suggested, pointing, “Hold this part, and turn the bottom.”
He did, and his eyes flared as the colored stick shot out of the tube, then disappeared back into it again when he turned the base in the opposite direction. In and out it went for nearly a full minute as he played with it just as a child would with a new discovery.
But finally he got around to asking, “What is this used for?”
At least this was an explanation she could handle, and on a simple level that he could easily grasp. “To give color to the lips, women’s lips that is.”
“Why?”
Her smile was self-directed. “I’ve often wondered that myself. It’s just one of the many cosmetics women use to enhance their looks.”
He glanced at her lips then, and stared at them for so long that the heat started generating in her belly again. She couldn’t believe how easily he could turn her on, but that’s just what his eyes were doing to her.
She was about to turn away in the interest of sheer self-preservation when his gaze returned to the mauve lipstick, and he remarked, “You have not used this.”
Somehow, she got her voice to respond, breathless as it was, “No, I rarely do.”
He handed it to her. “Show me.”
It was a command. He actually expected to be obeyed without an argument. She didn’t care at the moment. She’d do anything to get her mind off how tempted she was to throw herself at him.
Briskly and efficiently, she smoothed the lipstick over her lips, rubbed them together, then, because she’d done it without a mirror for guidance, automatically ran a finger down the center of her top lip to erase any color that might have strayed from the lip line.
When she glanced back at him, she was met with the pointed question, “What does it taste like?” and she knew in what direction his own thoughts had just gone—if they hadn’t been there already.
“You’re not finding out,” she replied, her voice sharp with warning.
He responded by taking the lipstick from her again and slowly, too slowly, running it down the center of his tongue. All the while, he watched her staring spellbound at his mouth.
Finally, his lips curled, and as her eyes jumped up to his, she heard him say, “’Tis not—distasteful, but I would rather taste you.”
She groaned and in desperation dragged the picnic basket over to him. “Here, eat!” she fairly shouted. “I’m going for a walk.”
Walk, hell, she practically ran in the opposite direction, deeper into the meadow, and his laughter followed her every step of the way.
11
Thorn watched her while she wandered about the meadow. He wanted to see her hair loose and blowing in the breeze. He wanted to see her lips parted for him again, and that sensual heat in her eyes that she could not hide. He wanted to feel her softness beneath him again, and to know that she very much liked being there.
She fascinated him with her desire and her denial of it. None of the other women who had possessed his sword had ever denied themselves the use of his body. They had either wanted him or not, but they’d never said nay when they had.
Gunnhilda would be turning over in her grave if she knew just how much he wanted this woman who was now in possession of his sword. His pleasure was not what the old witch had intended when she had cursed him and bound him forevermore to his own weapon.
Her curse had placed him in the power of women, at the mercy of women, subject to their whims. Gunnhilda had known he would hate that above all else, and in that she had been correct.
He still hated it, yet was there now a compensation for all those years of fury—this woman, with her strange words and her strange name, Professor. He had fought what she made him feel, because he liked it not, her control over him, no more than that of the others. But he was through with fighting it. He’d been able to think of nothing but her since he’d first tasted her. He had no intention of leaving her this time, did she bid him to or not.
She was different from the others, there was no denying that. She did not want the use of his sword arm to kill her enemies. She did not insist that he pleasure her, just the opposite. She did not treat him as her personal slave. But then, she did not know yet that part of the curse compelled him to do her bidding. That it would not let him lie to her or harm her. That she had much more power over him than she realized if she would not release him. Once he was released, however, the power was his to command.
The others had known, and he had despised all of them, for they had made full use of the curse’s power. Even those few who had been timid at first soon gained confidence and became avaricious when they realized what he could do for them.
But most of them had been rich, and spoiled, and corrupt before they’d gained possession of the sword. One had even killed to possess it, knowing its secret. She had herself died when her husband found out she meant to replace him with a younger noble of higher rank. But then, she had made the mistake of not commanding Thorn’s silence when she’d ordered him to kill her husband.
Unfortunately, Thorn would have killed the man. The curse would allow him no other option, since he had been directly commanded to do so. ’Twas not that he minded killing. In fact, he much enjoyed a good fight, whether for a noble cause or simply to test his skill against others. But he despised murder, and fighting a man as old as that woman’s husband had been would have been naught but murder.
He liked to think Odin had intervened that time because it had not come to that. He’d enlightened the man with the truth first, and since the greedy, foolish woman had been there, wanting to witness her husband’s death firsthand, she had died instead, which immediately had ended her power over Thorn, and that, fortunately, had saved the husband. And Blooddrinker’s Curse had not come into the hands of another woman for nearly four hundred of thes
e mortal years after that summoning, not until the last time, in 1723.
He did not care to remember that time. None of the times were worth remembering, except perhaps Blythe’s summoning. The cause she had embroiled him in had been just, and she’d wanted no more from him than his fighting alongside her liege lord in order to protect him. Thorn had been sorry to leave that time and the friends he had made there.
Each summoning thereafter, he had tried to return to that time. Odin had assured him ’twas possible. But the women who controlled him would not oblige him that luxury, since they would have to accompany him. They were too fearful that they would become lost to their own time. And giving him what he wanted had never been their priority.
With this woman, he was hesitant even to broach the subject. She was too quick with her denials of what he wanted, of what even she herself wanted. And she was disbelieving of the curse, and of where he resided when he was not with her, so how could he convince her of the one benefit, as he saw it, that the sword was capable of? And even if he could convince her, why would she grant him that benefit?
’Twas the first time he had ever been doubted. After all, everyone knew of the existence of witches, and a witch’s curse was a fearful thing indeed. All and sundry knew that—at least, everyone in the past knew such simple things. He had to wonder why this woman did not. Did witches no longer exist in this time? Had they finally been destroyed? Or were they merely more secretive these days?
Whether they still existed did not really interest him. He had already tried to have the curse broken by another witch, one reputed to be more powerful than Gunnhilda, and had been told how foolish he was to suppose that another witch would help him, even if she could. ’Twas only the woman who interested him now.
The curse could be broken, however, yet its power kept him from saying so. Gunnhilda herself had taunted him with that knowledge. Only if he were asked could he explain how ’twas possible to give him back control of his own destiny. And none of the women who had ever controlled him had bothered to ask if the curse was breakable. Releasing him from this bondage had been the last thing on their minds. Only using him had interested them.
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