by Betina Krahn
“He is fighting her with kindness.” Godfrey leveled a searching look on their hardened faces, one by one. “It is the truest, surest weapon to use against a woman’s heart. You would do well to learn a thing or two from Jorund.” After a moment’s silence, he trudged from the hall.
“That love nonsense again.” Hakon snorted as he looked around him and found a number of his fellow warriors staring at the door where the priest had disappeared. “Loving women . . . making love. Next thing you know he’ll be demandin’ we all take up that kissing.” He shuddered and a number of others scowled at the prospect.
Hrolf the Elder spoke up. “You ever kiss a woman, Hakon? I did once . . . just to see what it was like. That little wench, Alys, fair to ate me up afterward.” He grinned and shook his head at the memory. “There’s something about it women like. Gets ’em all heated up. Maybe Jorund and them old Franks he learned it from are on to something.”
The men sat in silence after that, sinking into their ale with expressions of bleary contemplation. And a number of them fingered their lips speculatively . . . behind their ale horns.
Halfway across the muddy commons Godfrey paused and crossed himself, rolling his eyes toward the dark blanket of the night sky. “All I can do is plant the seed, Lord. You must make it grow.”
THE HARVESTING WAS completed, but the work of harvest continued at a frantic pace over the next few days. There was threshing, herd-culling, drying fish, and curing meat; gathering, salting, smoking, and shelling to be done. Along with the preparations for winter food went the gathering of winter fuel: the cutting of peat, the felling of moderate-sized trees for wood, and the rendering of tallow for lamps to dispel the coming winter gloom. Added to it all was the work of repair to roofs and shutters, and barns and sheds.
Borger strode back and forth between animal pens and granary, slaughter-yard and smithy, lending an occasional hand, but mostly growing itchy and short-tempered at being so confined. He had already spent a full moon more than he was accustomed to in his village. After three days, he declared it was time to make another harvest, a deer-taking, and decreed a hunt for himself and his warriors.
“What of you, Serricksdotter?” Garth called to Aaren across the jumble of wooden staves and half-worked iron pieces that lay around the smithy. “Will you try your hunt-luck with us?”
Aaren paused, eyeing the small gathering of warriors before the open shed at the side of the forge. They were drawing spear and arrow tips from the smith in preparation for their foray into the wooden hills. Her throat tightened as she watched the lot of them turn eyes upon her . . . some muttering, clearly outraged by even the suggestion that she might accompany them.
“I enjoy a good hunt,” she observed, seeming more casual than she felt. This was the first time she had been included with the warriors! Her heart thumped wildly. “But I had to leave my bow in the mountains and have not yet fashioned another.”
“Well, that is no difficulty. Brun here has a number of prime birch-staves, already carved . . . and I’ll lend you some of the best gut ever strung on a bow.” Garth cast a prodding look at Brun; anything that helped the Valkyr’s daughter secure a fight with Jorund, that look said, improved their chances with her sisters. The smith nodded, red-faced. But a number of the others grumbled at Garth’s back and Aaren paused, torn between the inviting prospect of spending head-clearing days in the forest and the unpleasant idea of having to bear with the surly lot of them for hours on end. Garth watched her with a Borger-like expression in his eyes and smiled.
“Jorund will be coming,” he observed. His steady, conspiratorial gaze said the rest: In the fury of the chase, Jorund’s blood would be high. Aaren lifted her chin and turned a taut look on the burly smith.
“Let us see these staves of yours, Cinder-hand.”
The Sky-Traveler had reappeared in uncloaked splendor that afternoon as they rode through the gold-dappled forest. The leaves were half fallen, which admitted plentiful light, and the air was redolent with the scents of leaf-must, fir, and pine. The familiar autumn feel of the woods would have been a release to Aaren if she hadn’t been mounted on a large and willful fjord mare and hadn’t felt Jorund’s eyes boring into her back.
It had been years since Serrick’s only horse had died, and since then they had traveled afoot . . . which had effectively isolated them from the few farmers and herders they had traded with in earlier days. Her anxiety was translated to her mount, which pranced and shied and generally regarded her with mistrust. It was a small ordeal just making it to the warriors’ base camp in the high valley wedged between the foothills and mountains. And she had the annoying feeling that Jorund had enjoyed every bit of her discomfort.
Once in camp, her irritation mounted, for the warriors grew rowdy as they shed the constraints of village life: jesting coarsely, contending, shouting, and wrestling with each other. As they selected sleeping spots and cut pine boughs for bedding, they turned their crude banter on her.
“You’ll be cold over there all by yourself, Serricksdotter.”
“If you get too cold, you can come to my furs, Serricksdotter. I’ll warm you up!”
“Better watch for animals that stalk by night, Serricksdotter.”
Jorund watched her face redden as she ignored their taunts and made her solitary pallet apart from the fire. He sensed that their words made her uneasy and was filled with an unexpected and somewhat irrational urge to protect her. If there was any female in the world who needed no protection, it was Aaren Serricksdotter.
“Perhaps it is you who should beware, Hakon Freeholder,” he called out. “Have you forgotten? She-wolves can be dangerous. And this one might decide to do a bit of night-stalking herself.” He raised his healing hand in evidence and the others laughed. She paused in stowing her sleeping fleece and glared at him. He grinned back and made a show of dragging his bedding between her pallet and the others’ sleeping places. “And if she decides she’s hungry . . . I want to be her first victim.”
Borger and his men howled with laughter and Aaren flushed crimson . . . snatched up her bow and quiver, and headed for the deep forest.
She was the last of the hunters to return to the camp that night. She ate quickly of the roasted meat and parched grain, then wrapped herself tightly in her blanket and sank onto her pallet of boughs. Borger and his men began to exchange stories of the afternoon’s sightings and of the glories of past hunts, and she lay listening, feeling acutely alone. When their voices lowered, she turned to see what was happening around the fire . . . and immediately encountered Jorund’s light-eyed stare.
He was lying on his pallet across the way from hers, his big frame casually sprawled. Heat radiated from him, as visible as breath-mist in the cold air. In her mind she heard Marta’s words: “slow-burning brazier.” She shivered and squeezed her eyes shut, listening to the sounds of the men seeking their pallets . . . and to the erratic thudding of her own heart.
The next day she went off on her own again and didn’t return until dusk. The noise from the camp could be heard leagues away, as she approached. When she entered the clearing, she found the men ale-warmed and boisterous. A few of them had taken bucks, one or two foxes, and one had a dramatic tale to tell of an encounter with a bear. But by far the prize of the day was a massive boar, taken single-handedly by Jorund. She joined them, seating herself on a log to eat, and the talk slowly quieted. The jarl turned to her.
“And what did you take today, Serricksdotter?” he demanded.
“Besides a long walk!” Hakon Freeholder crowed, causing the others to laugh. Aaren looked casually around her and stuffed another bite of fresh-roasted boar in her mouth, chewing thoughtfully. In the silence, all eyes turned on her.
“A buck,” she said simply.
“Well, where is this great stag, Serricksdotter?” Freeholder taunted, rising up from his seat and craning his neck to look for her kill. “I see no carcass.”
“It was too large for me to carry. I had to leave it in
a tree. I will need help fetching it in the morning.”
There were snickers and mutters of derision until Borger raised his hand for silence and cocked his head toward the upstrung carcass of the massive boar Jorund had taken. “Bigger than yon boar, Serricksdotter?” She glanced up at Jorund’s prize, then at Jorund himself.
“Bigger,” she said matter-of-factly.
Jorund narrowed his eyes at her.
“This I must see for myself,” he declared, annoyed by her subtle challenge . . . when he had been feeling protective toward her. “I will go with her to this great ‘kill’ tomorrow morning. And if it is still there . . . and if it is bigger than my boar . . . then I will carry it all the way back to camp on my own two shoulders.”
“I’ll come, too! This I have to see!” Garth declared. A number of others joined him, insisting on going as well.
Thus, the next morning there were at least eight witnesses to Jorund’s unpleasant shock when he looked up between the branches of the great oak tree to behold a massive stag wedged securely. Those same warriors laughed at his glower when Garth climbed up in the tree and measured the heavily racked stag’s length with a marked strip of leather . . . and called down the fateful finding. Those same warriors threw back their heads and let loose great wolf howls . . . which made Jorund’s face red as madder dye . . . and made Aaren laugh for the first time in a fortnight.
Just at dusk, as the light was turning golden and the forest was settling into stillness, Aaren left the camp for the nearby stream, to wash. She did not see Jorund take note of her departure, or see him set out after her. She caught sight of him only after she had cleaned herself and turned back toward camp. The pace of her heart picked up. He was walking ahead of her, to her right, thus was the first to enter the trees nearest the stream. She found herself searching the trees for sight of him as she walked. She froze, midstep, hearing the low, blood-chilling growl of a wolf.
Jorund’s cry pierced her senses an instant later and she bolted through the woods, her heart pounding in her throat and battle-fire erupting in her blood. Jorund—a wolf had Jorund!
She jolted into a break in the trees and spotted him on the ground, tussling wildly with a great, twisting ball of gray-and-brown fur. She reached for her knife and found only an empty loop at her waist—she had left her blade back where they had been carving up meat for drying, in camp! She faltered for one heartbeat and panic welled in her chest—Jorund! Then, in the grip of a feral, protective instinct, she charged the heaving beast, seized the fur and flesh on the back of its neck, and planted her legs to haul up and back with all her might. The animal yelped in surprise and let go of Jorund to turn on her, but she managed to brace and thrust the wolf away before it could sink its fangs in her.
Curling and tensing, she set her body to deflect the animal’s charge. But the wolf scrambled to a halt in the dry leaves, crouched, and laid its ears back, showing its teeth. She moved back slowly, scanning the ground for a branch or rock to use as a weapon, and stumbled on a root—smacking straight into a massive tree. She sucked in breath and braced for the animal’s impact.
“Don’t move, Serricksdotter.” It was Jorund’s voice. Aaren pulled her eyes from the beast just long enough to see him rising and brushing himself off. The sound registered in her ears, but the sight of him was incomprehensible to her. He’d almost been eaten by a wolf and she was in imminent danger of it—he couldn’t possibly be smiling.
“Easy, old girl . . . this is a friend.” It took her a moment to realize—he wasn’t talking to her, he was talking to the wolf! “Easy, Rika.” The animal’s growling eased only slightly. “Stand still, Serricksdotter. The way you charged in to do battle . . . she thinks you’re an enemy.” There was a trace of amusement in his voice as he crossed his arms over his chest and watched the beast sniff at Aaren and prowl closer.
“I’m an enemy?” she rasped out. “The way I charged in?” She looked from man to beast and back, her eyes widening. “I was s-saving your miserable hide, Borgerson—that beast was about to tear your throat out!”
Her mind’s eyes was suddenly filled with the vivid, terrifying images of Jorund, lying bent and savaged and bloodied—images she hadn’t had time even to conjure, but which had propelled her mad race to rescue him. Her knees went weak. He might have been mauled and killed . . . or maimed. Her stomach turned over at the thought of it. As she shoved that disturbing inner vision aside, she focused on an equally disturbing outer one: Jorund, standing with his hands on his hips, laughing. Cold confusion drenched her from head to toe.
“I know this wolf, Serricksdotter. She would never tear anybody’s throat out. Her lunge surprised me a moment ago, but we were merely having a bit of a wrestle in greeting.” What he absorbed from the anxiety in her face, and the concern her words betrayed, brought a glint of insight to his eyes. “And you thought you were rescuing me from a wild beast?”
The teasing tone of his voice aroused something unexpectedly vulnerable in her. How dare the wretch make sport of her when she’d been defending him . . . and was almost physically sick at the thought of what could have happened to him?
“I expected you would need some help defending yourself,” she declared, her throat tight. Then the sense of his words struck her. “You know this wolf?”
“Of course. I raised her from a pup. She runs in the mountains during the summer, and comes down into the village to winter with me every year. Her name is Rika.”
Aaren watched the big, tawny-eyed beast approach, sniffing, eyeing her warily. Her heart was beating so loudly in her ears she could scarcely hear him say in a firm, soothing voice: “Rika, behave. This is a friend.” The animal paused, glanced at Jorund, and gave her tail a wag. But when Aaren moved, she snapped to attention and growled from low in her throat, causing Aaren to freeze against the tree again.
“She is not convinced you’re friendly,” Jorund said with a twitch at the corner of his mouth. “She-wolves can be so stubborn.” He laughed at the sparks that struck in her eyes. “I suppose I’ll just have to show her you’re not dangerous.” As he moved slowly across the clearing toward her, Aaren felt the air being crowded from her lungs. “And you’ll have to help me, Long-legs. No fighting . . . and no biting.”
Soon he stood before her, gazing down at her. The fear and confusion she felt were all driven from her mind as he filled her senses . . .
“See, Rika?” he said without taking his eyes from Aaren. “She won’t hurt me . . . or you. She’s a female . . . like you. And a huntress . . . like you. But she can be gentle, too. Come, girl. See for yourself.” As the wolf lowered its head and ambled closer, he patted the side of his thigh to encourage her. Aaren stiffened as the wolf nudged between them, brushing both of their legs. The wolf’s head bumped against her as it nuzzled Jorund’s hand.
“Now, you pet her, too, Long-legs. And she will take your scent and think of you as a friend.”
Aaren wasn’t sure she wanted to be thought of as a wolf’s friend, but there was something compelling about his voice, and she reached out to give Rika a tentative stroke, then another. She froze as she felt the beast’s wet nose against her hand. She glanced down in amazement to find the wolf alternately sniffing and licking her.
“Go on, Serricksdotter . . . pet her,” he coaxed, backing up a step to give them room.
Aaren bent slightly and extended first one, then both hands, giving the wolf’s head a pat, which gradually enlarged to become a thorough ear-scratching rub. When she straightened, Rika leaned into her knees and trampled her feet, insisting the treatment continue. Aaren could have sworn there was a grin on the beast’s maw. It was strangely pleasurable, running her fingers through the animal’s thick, warm fur. Jorund’s chuckle made her look up.
“You have a soft touch, Long-legs.” His eyes were lit with that warm teasing she knew was more dangerous to her than any wolf. He bent and picked up a piece of dried branch and waggled it over Rika’s nose. “Here, girl—make yourself useful and fet
ch this back to me.” He sent it sailing off across the break and into the trees. Rika bounded after it and Jorund turned to Aaren with his mouth curled in that boyish, irresistible way of his.
“Rika is not my first wolf. I have another byname in the village, you know,” he said, his voice low and caressing as he closed the distance between them. “Wolf-tamer.” He made no move to touch her with his hands . . . there was no need to, with his words gliding over her like warm honey. His blue eyes tugged at hers until she surrendered them to him, holding her breath. “And do you know how I tame a wolf, Serricksdotter?” She could make no sound; her throat was caught in the hard grip of desire.
“First I hobble it . . . gently, so it won’t hurt itself.” He flexed and pressed the lower part of his body into hers, pinning her to the tree. The impact of his hardening flesh against her poured heat into her loins and sent it spilling down the insides of her thighs.
“Then I feed it well, from my own hand, until it is full and sleek.” He ran a finger around her lips, setting them afire. Her stomach yawned with sudden hunger and her knees buckled.
“Then I pet it. Firmly. Gently. And often.” That beguiling hand slid from her mouth and along her shoulder, massaging with slow, sure movements. It moved up the side of her neck to caress her cheek. It was all she could do to keep from curling around that hand, from arching her suddenly heavy and sensitive breasts into him.
“And if it gets out of hand . . . I give it a good smack.” His hand dropped to give the side of her buttock a playful bounce. The jolt made her gasp—both from surprise and from the sensual reaction it set off in her. A smoldering ember of desire exploded in her core, blowing its burning fragments along her nerves, setting them afire.
Neither of them had noticed Rika’s return, or the way her ears stood on end, or the way she stalked closer, every sinew taut with anxiety as she watched them. Aaren arched and surged against Jorund, meeting his mouth with hers, and the wolf barked and lunged at them, pouncing on Jorund’s shoulder and knocking them both sideways.