by Gina Conkle
“I do.” Safira nestled against him, a soft sigh passing her lips.
The tender sound ripped his stony warrior’s heart wide open. He was raw. Exposed. Though Safira had no clue. She drank in Rouen’s distractions from her perch. Merchants shuttering their stands. Banners flying over colorful tents coming down. A roar of voices and music pouring from the feast hall ahead as throngs of villagers herded inside. Jarl Will Longsword’s Midsumarblot feast promised a flavorful bounty for all.
Safira shifted in the saddle, her face turned to meet his. “I think Ellisif spied on me.”
He stared at the distant road, turmoil and want battling inside him. Safira would surely see it in his eyes.
“She probably did. Strangers make everyone nervous. Last winter the Breton queen attacked Rouen.”
“Not strangers. Foreigners like me. If I were tall and blonde, none would bat an eye.”
He shrugged. “They will be more accepting of you.”
“Because I am with you, no?” Her brows scrunched prettily. “But, why would Ellisif be wary of me? I am hardly a threat.”
“Anyone can be a spy. The less obvious, the better. Word is the Breton queen sent her best. None were caught but the damage they wrought was great. Since then, everyone is wary.” He steered his horse around a rock in the road. “Ademar makes it his business to know who passes through and why.”
“What happened?”
“Breton fighters burned Viking and Christian homes last winter.” He stopped his horse and pointed to an empty field where a few charred posts rose from the ground. “That land is where those homes once stood. Five families died.”
“Oh.”
Torches cast a warm glow on the road. The land beyond would be too dark to see much.
“That’s not all,” he said, nudging the horse onward. “Ademar took most of the jarl’s men and chased the Bretons into the forest south of the abbey. Others stayed to put out the fires. Everyone concentrated on this part of Rouen while someone set fire to the jarl’s root cellars.”
“A diversion. They were after his food supply.”
He smiled, proud of her insight. “They also burned down the jarl’s weaving shed full of cloth meant for trade at this summer fair.”
“That sounds like a strike at Longsword, not Rouen. Not with all these homes that could’ve been attacked.”
“It’s possible. A few families saw their root cellars burned to the ground. Many left Rouen after that.”
Safira’s gaze swept over Rouen from the riverside harbor to humble homes near the north road. “It is one thing to fight on a battlefield, but another to try to starve a people.”
“Now you understand why Ademar and Ellisif make it their business to know who comes and goes in Rouen. It will be that way until Queen Annick is defeated.” He kissed her hairline. “Nor have I been forthcoming about who you are. I think they sense there is more to you.”
“Than simply being your companion.” She smiled like a flirtatious cat. “Which you say because you wish to protect me.”
“Until my oath is given, there are a number of ambitious warriors who will see you as an opportunity. I did.”
Safira traced the hobnail circle on his vest. “You see? We should have told everyone I am your wife. No one would harry me if I were Rurik of Birka’s wife.”
The cracks in his heart deepened. Rurik of Birka’s wife. It was why he was here. To plant his seed and seek his future. He stopped his horse at the cross roads before the jarl’s hall and relished the feel of Safira. Small-boned yet well-fleshed with mouth-watering curves, she fit. They fit.
A din of conversation and music poured from open doors. Housekarls stood guard at the entrance, but others stood vigil in shadows. At last count, seven men lay flat on Rouen’s roofs. Most wouldn’t notice them. Rurik did. Will Longsword would take no chance of an attack with his people ripe for the plucking in one hall. Well-placed flaming arrows, doors and shutters barred, and the people of Rouen would see their last days. With Safira safely in his lap, the urge to ride away and keep her was strong. Years he’d fought for adventure and coin. Yet, he began to see why humble, familied men fought to the death. Safira was a woman he’d protect to his last breath.
Sliding off the saddle, she was oblivious to the quake inside him. She fixed her skirts with an eye to the revelry as if it were a thing to be conquered.
“Thank you for saving me tonight.”
“You saved yourself. I could tell by the angle of your head you were not cowed by him.” He dismounted. “Ademar would not have hurt you, but I will make sure he does not bother you again.”
“The angle of my head?”
“Your chin tilts a certain way when you are angry or when you refuse to back down.” The reins gathered in one hand, he caressed her silken jaw with the other, tipping it just so. “Like this.”
Roars of laughter spilled from the hall, yet this crux on the road was peaceful and their voices quiet.
“I must watch myself with you, Viking.”
Glass beads twinkled against Safira’s neck, a trick of the torchlight. Her breasts rose and fell with determined breaths, the apricot flesh barely contained in scarlet linen. The pink tip of her tongue wet her lips. Twice.
“Does something bother you?”
Brows pinching, she let her gaze dart. Nervousness in Safira. Unusual.
“I have something important I must say to you.”
The pad of his thumb stroked her cheek. “What is the price for this valuable information?”
Light danced in her eyes. They shared a private smile at his echo of their bargain struck in a bed of furs. Mere words had changed their lives. He’d swear the goddesses wanted to change his life again with Safira. She was the true treasure he’d found. If he checked the Seine, he wouldn’t be surprised if Frigga, goddess of clouds and destiny, swirled her mist across the water’s surface.
“We like each other and there is a little lust, no?” Safira’s accented voice was breathy and light.
Every sense flared to life. His skin tingled. He’d ridden hard to get to Rouen, took the jarl’s disappointing news in stride, and faced his angry men with honesty. None had taken his choices well. Erik had raged, and Thorvald had yelled it was a betrayal, yet his men grudgingly set their hands on his arm, vowing they would stay with him. Even the knowledge he would face Vlad in a gritty battle couldn’t steal the mystery of what went on with Safira.
All paled before the gentle seed taking root with her.
He was a beast of war, a man who made as many bad decisions as good, yet everything in his bones told him being with Safira was right. She was his to keep.
“There is liking, and there is lust.” The pitch of his voice was grained and thick.
Desire darkened Safira’s eyes and flushed the tops of her breasts. She inched closer as if to share a secret, the distracting tendril dangling forward.
“For as long as I am with you, I want to be with you. I wish to know your secrets and...to lay with you.”
He grinned. “We already lay together.”
The craving that throbbed in her throbbed in him. He hungered for Safira, but he needed his ebon-haired maid to speak aloud her desire for him. Words were magic. Intimacy with a woman was a new, fragile thread working into his life weave, the bind powerful enough to steal his breath and render him weak yet strong. The Norns must be cackling with glee at the lowborn son of Birka letting a highborn daughter of Paris tether his heart.
“I want your kisses, and your naked skin rubbing mine. I want to know what happens when your fingers are inside me—” her throat bumped with a fragile swallow “—to feel your flesh move with mine.”
His chest swelled and his cock stirred. Those last words of hers were said firmly. Very definite, his Paris maid.
“What about your maidenhood and your fourth prince?”
he asked quietly.
“What about your gold?” Her chin tipped and saffron silk glinted on her cleavage. “Taking my maidenhood means you would not get nearly so much.”
They were both giving to get. This was fresh ground they trod, a new bargain with tension framing them both. He played with her tempting lock, running his fingers the length of its silkiness, but guilt was icy on his skin. The day had demanded honesty with his men. He would give no less to Safira.
“What if I don’t give you back? What if I keep you forever?”
She laughed and patted his chest. “Now you are speaking like a man who has lost his mind. To turn down a reward? Even a lesser reward?”
His legs locked. She didn’t believe him.
Safira walked graceful steps backward. Beams of light streamed from the hall, casting his Paris maid in gold. Her hair was an onyx crown, and her smile an invitation as both her hands smoothed scarlet linen over lush hips.
The sight trapped his tongue.
“Tend to your horse, Viking, and come feast with me at your jarl’s table.” Her amber eyes were fire itself. Full of life. Seductive. “Then...tonight, you and I will be together.”
Safira spun around and strolled boldly into the feast hall. Saffron silk peeked below her red hem, shimmering against her calves like a whisper...
Come, take your future.
Chapter Fourteen
Rurik stepped into the hall, dirt from the Arelaune Forest still on his boots. He’d found truth in his lies. Norns had spun his life with stingy threads, but the goddesses had woven in wealth. He’d been too single-minded to see it. The rich threads were his men scattered among the revelers and Safira at the jarl’s table.
At twilight, he’d entered this longhouse to give an oath for a stretch of land. His future. Desire for land burned in him. He would claim the holding. Fight to the death for it if he had to. But, landed or not, his life’s weave would twine forever with the Forgotten Sons and the ebon-haired maid, a gift from the goddesses.
This was his chance to have it all.
Rurik scraped past two beefy farmers. Men everywhere were dressed in clean tunics, laughing with their wives and children. Pretty thralls threaded the room, pouring mead and Frankish wine for thirsty warriors. Only the finest was served tonight. Three men played goat-bone flutes in one corner while Bjorn stood watch in the other.
The giant of Vellefold nursed a wooden cup with his back against the wall.
“Bjorn. You’re taking watch tonight? Where’s Erik?”
Bjorn tipped his head at Erik guzzling from a horn in the shadows near the jarl’s table. “That would be his fifth since I decided to count. Mead, Frankish wine, ale... Thralls fill his horn and he drinks it.”
Glassy-eyed and wild, Erik’s hair was in disarray and his scowl bearish. He swiped his arm brace across his mouth and held out his drinking horn for an obliging thrall.
“I’ll talk to him.”
“Don’t.” Bjorn’s hand blocked Rurik.
Rurik faced his flinty-eyed second.
Of all the Forgotten Sons, his history ran deepest with Bjorn. The bastard son of Vellefold had been exiled at the age of twelve for outshining the heir. Between a scheming wife and a wish for peace in his longhouse, the Jarl of Vellefold banished the son he’d loved most, sending Bjorn to Birka with only the clothes on his back and a sword. Twelve-year-old Rurik convinced his mother, struggling to feed two sons and a daughter, to take in the rejected boy.
Warriors and rulers alike would comment on Bjorn’s highborn bearing to Rurik’s rough, quiet manner. But, lines of leadership had been drawn, forged in friendship when the homeless son of Vellefold gained a place in Birka.
“All is not forgiven, is it?” Rurik said calmly.
His stomach churned. How he’d given and given and given to these men from boyhood to the present. Always fair. Always looking to their interests first.
“The men will need time. But, Erik—” Bjorn drank from his cup. “What you did hit him the hardest. He sees it as betrayal.”
“And the others?”
“They fare better. To them, this move has some...merit. You could say they’re taking your deception in stride.”
“The deception? Or my taking the land and not sharing?”
“Your question is an insult,” Bjorn growled. “You know they would die for you. Land means nothing to them. The brotherhood does.” He stared into his cup, his voice grating low. “They need time to heal from the wound you dealt.”
Rurik’s chin dipped a fraction. When they were boys in Birka, he was the older brother. That pattern had never changed. The Forgotten Sons trusted him. Always had. He would need to be patient, as would the men. Trust was a thread that once broken could be repaired...but would it be the same?
Across the hall Thorvald recovered with a ginger-haired maid on each thigh. Thorfinn stroked his beard, engaged in thoughtful conversation with a farmer and his son. Gunnar leaned a shoulder against a carved post, a trio of women vying for his attention. By the sullen draw of his mouth, he gave them one-word answers.
“The men won’t admit it, but the loss of Leif still hurts. They’ve not healed.” Bjorn tipped his horn at Erik. “Him most of all.”
Quick of mind and vicious in battle, Erik liked his world well-ordered. Of all the Sons, his childhood was blackest. He was...different. Churlish to most yet seeking odd friendships. Many a night in Byzantium, he spent his time learning at the side of an old silversmith. Carving his ivory pieces and studying metal craftsmanship interested him more than the gluttony of sensual pleasures in a brothel.
And he was the Son meant to go with Leif to collect their wages.
“He blames himself,” Bjorn said.
Rurik rubbed his chest, his voice dropping bitterly. “Leif was impatient. He should’ve waited. We all know that.”
“All but him.”
Across the room Erik wobbled on uneven feet, his shoulder banging a post as he sought a bench against the wall. When Erik was clear-headed, he was the best and smartest among them. When his dark emotions ruled, he was the worst. Rurik’s hand fell to his side, his molars grinding in the back of his mouth.
“I’ll talk to him tomorrow.”
“Because tonight another kind of trouble awaits.” Bjorn’s gaze flicked to Vlad at the jarl’s table. “The old wolf is ready to give challenge.”
Vlad raised his horn in salute to Rurik.
“Now he wants land and a home...what a surprise,” Rurik muttered.
Bjorn stood shoulder to shoulder with him. The other Sons had seen Vlad’s cruelty in Birka. Rurik’s nicked ear. His mother’s limp. A jagged scar at the back of Leif’s skull. Bjorn had arrived in Birka after the Rus Viking had left for good, but he’d heard tales of Vlad’s violent nature.
The years had not been kind to the man he once called Father, but they hadn’t weakened him. A new scar slashed from eyebrow to cheek, the line going to Vlad’s throat, the opposite side of his life vein. He’d shaved both sides of his head, the same as Will Longsword, a blond braid trailing down the center of his head and landing on his back. Legs the size of tree trunks sprawled under the jarl’s table. Sigurd, the red-haired watchdog, still served him. That Viking stood two paces from Vlad, a constant eye on the older man’s back.
Rurik nodded at Vlad while speaking to Bjorn. “Trouble for tomorrow. I have better plans for tonight.”
Safira was the gold thread shining brightest on this strange night. She beckoned him to the empty seat waiting for him at the jarl’s table. He took two steps forward.
“Rurik.”
He eyed Bjorn over his shoulder, finding a grudging smile on his second’s face.
“You deserve what lies ahead.”
Rurik swallowed the knot in his throat. “Thank you. I will find a way to see that all of us get what we deserve. It is
my solemn oath.”
He turned and strode through milling warriors and farmers, making his way to Safira’s side. Tender slabs of pork sat on a platter in front of her with steaming hot lingonberry bread and greens. She buttered a slice of bread and bit into it as he took his seat.
“This is amazing. What are these berries? Their flavor is tangy and sharp.” She licked her lips and took another exuberant bite. Butter globbed on the corner of her mouth.
“Lingonberries. From the northlands.”
Barely in his seat between Safira and the jarl and his mood already improved. She was the balm he needed for what ailed him at the other end of the jarl’s table. Safira took another bite, her brows scrunching as she tasted more flavors in the bread.
“Someone dried them first and brought them here. Drying herbs and berries sharpens flavors.” She sniffed the bread. “Astrid is a skilled cook...she added cardamom. A perfect complement to your north berry.”
Knife in hand, he speared a hunk of meat. Safira’s curiosity about the fare pleased him. So did her zeal for food.
“You are not afraid to enjoy yourself, are you?”
She drank from a wooden cup, red wine painting her lips. “Frankish wine,” she said, waggling her now empty cup. “I had some of Lord Ademar’s cyser too. He poured it for me while I was waiting for you. I think it was his way of smoothing things.”
Smoothing things.
Tension coiled between Rurik’s shoulder blades. From his side vision, he caught Ademar engrossed in conversation with Vlad and the jarl. What was Ademar about, playing father against son? Most knew there was bad blood between the two.
A warm hand caressed his knee under the table. “Whatever it is, let it go. Tonight is a time to celebrate the land. It will be yours.”
Safira. She was a mix of sweet and seductive with her plump cleavage and hair twisting artfully at her nape. He preferred the lone lock falling free and her desirable mouth smiling with butter glossing the corner. Mussed. Imperfect. All his.
His thumb wiped the glob. “What makes you think I am not celebrating?”