by James, Elle
His nose pressed her thigh and rubbed sideways, sending strings of fire up her belly. Breath froze in her chest as his tongue slipped to the moist fur, parting it, stroking between her folds. A quiet moan formed in her throat, escaping in tiny broken sounds as he buried his face more deeply between her legs.
He used his chin, nose, and mouth, spreading and penetrating until her hips jumped with each hard thrust of his tongue. She gasped, struggling to stand. There had been men, of course, besides her husband, but never a man to do this so well. Her fluids oozed in heated pulses.
He nestled deep to snare the tender pearl of her sex. The contact pinioned her, bathing her instantly in a film of sweat. With the knot of nerves caught between his teeth, he tormented it with his tongue and mouth until she groaned and shuddered. Unbearable pressure throbbed to the tips of her fingers and toes, driving her mad with need.
He dried his face on her thighs before grinning upward. “Battle drawn.”
She gasped, shaking with the urgency screaming through her. She clasped her hand over the coal between her legs, stroking where he had left her wanting.
Abruptly, he turned and bit her inner thigh, sending shocks through her belly.
“Ahh!” Her body reacted to the bite as if his cock penetrated her. Abandoned to her release, she shuddered against her hand as her bud pulsed. Her eyes closed briefly, her head thrown back.
“You’ll want more,” he observed drily.
Struggling to gather her wits, she stepped back and glanced to his groin where his cock strained erect.
“As will you,” she snapped back.
He grinned more broadly.
Her options were limited. She could not release his bonds. He could easily hurt her, even with bare hands, and then perhaps make some threat at the door which could force his release. And though her private activities were known to a handpicked few, any wider knowledge would compromise everything in her careful world.
“Come to the bed.”
“The women fall as easily as the men,” he laughed, sneering between the loose, damp strands of his hair as he struggled to stand.
“Yet, it is you in bonds,” she retorted, shoving him as he shuffled forward. “Sit.”
With his back to the bed’s corner post, she brought a leather tie around one wrist and fastened it to the post, then untied the rope so that one arm came free. She accepted the risk. He could still do much harm, even with only one arm loose, and if left alone, he would instantly release the rest of his bonds and try to fight his way out.
He flexed his shoulders, massaging himself with his freed hand.
She thought of how it must be for him, one moment a warrior and the next enslaved and facing certain death. This captivity surely tore at him, and he would pursue any option for escape as keenly as he fought on the field.
The thought stilled her momentarily, as she accepted that nothing of what he did with her would carry any meaning or caring. She hadn’t realized until that moment how much she wished to be cared for in that way, to have a connection between sex and her heart. All these years, since the age of fifteen when her father gave her to her husband, she had cared for these lands, holdings, and even the old man himself. But in his eyes, she was another possession. And even in the early days, when he could still more or less function as a man, his pleasuring concerned only himself and ended quickly.
She had loved no man.
It shamed her to be in this position, to feel no allegiance in her heart, to have no man who loved her, wanted her, made her tremble at his touch. She tossed her head and bit down the swell in her throat. “Lay back,” she said hoarsely.
With an even greater smirk, this Dane with his splendid body spread himself upon the bed, his pants still captured around his ankles. He raked her naked form with his leer before bringing his challenging stare to meet her gaze. His heavy cock jerked slightly, teasing her with what he had to offer, what she had to have.
She straddled him, lowering herself over his chest, and slid her wet folds along his rigid length. Her breasts draped his chest, her hair fell over his shoulders, and her hands explored his powerful arms, the wide spread of his shoulders, the tangled blond hair gleaming in the candlelight. His scent filled her nose with musk and the smell of leather. She nibbled along his neck, savoring his salty taste.
War treasure in its richest form, he was hers to enjoy. For long delirious moments, she teased his throbbing manhood between her legs, reveling in the sensation.
Finally unable to wait another instant, she shifted her hips and caught his swollen tip at her eager entry. Bit by bit, she lowered herself until she bottomed at his root. His thickness spread her open. Moving at first in short desperate strokes, she soon succumbed as her hunger seized her, and she had no choice but to ply more boldly.
His hand came to her thigh, then captured her breast and firmly pinched her nipple, but she barely recognized his act so caught she had become in her frenzy. Wildly, moaning, she rode him.
Deep she drove, to the mouth of her empty womb, to the pit of her stomach where parts of herself opened for the first time and unleashed a ravening storm. Her body vibrated with longing, from the soles of her feet to the roots of her hair. She burned, crying out in each lunge as his cockhead surged in her belly.
His big hand spread over her thigh so that his thumb pressed the same coal he had tormented with his mouth. He circled it, pressing and pushing until flames ignited over her skin and erupted from the point of his massive prick. Her body convulsed around him, milking and writhing.
His groans came no less urgently than her own, his hips shuddering upward in his release. Long slow thrusts shoved up from his loins, prolonging the molten collapse of her body around their joined flesh. His hand captured her hair and brought her down to his mouth, his lips caressing hers, and his tongue searching her own.
They lay silent, her head on his shoulder, their bodies still mixed. Tears burned from her eyes, and she couldn’t stop the sobs that rolled in her chest: sadness for what her life could have been if she had been free to marry a man more suited, grief for the loss she would know when this man was gone. He cared nothing for her, yet had been caring in their joining, more than she expected or deserved.
“Valkyrie,” he muttered. “Perhaps I have died and only now know it.”
She moved to lie beside him, consoling herself within the sweep of his arm even if he meant no embrace. “I have used you in real life, I assure you,” she whispered.
They rested together. Yes, she agreed with her silent argument, she should tie him. She should make this the end of it, pull on her clothing, and leave him to his fate.
But she did not. Instead, she listened to his breathing settle into sleep and let herself imagine life with him, a dream of happiness that could never be hers. And she herself slept, finally, against his chest.
A soft rapping at the door and Magnus’s jerk awake startled her, until she was reminded of her circumstance. All candles but one had guttered.
“My lady,” a familiar voice urged.
Aether. She threw on her dress and went to the door. As she had arranged, a meal, a bucket of fresh coals, another ewer of ale and one of water were brought into the room. Fresh candles were lit.
The Dane sat in the bed watching as Aether, his gaze carefully lowered, departed.
The tray held roast fowl, smoked fish, slices of ham, and more bread in addition to cabbage, carrots, and turnips stewed with onions and herbs. She carried the tray to the bed and set it beside his free hand, and then sat across from him. They drank ale, feasted, and conversed on issues of no consequence: whether the food pleased him and how it compared with his native fare, the nature of Valkyries, the time of day, whether the winter would again be fierce. He smiled often, each time dazzling her—a gleam of fat on his lips, creases that dented his cheeks, the sparkle of pleasure in his eyes.
“How can you smile when you are captured?” she inquired, carrying the near-empty tray from the bed. She retu
rned with a fresh cloth moistened for their hands and faces.
“The Fates decide my future,” he said, shrugging. “I am not dead yet, so they still favor me.”
Her troubled glance saw that his words did not fully describe what he thought or felt, but she left him the dignity of his private fears.
“And you, free and of high rank—are you not also captured? Why are you hidden with me here?” He studied her with a half-smile.
His words caught her, forcing the truth of her situation to the front of her mind. “I don’t wish to think of my life, Magnus. It tears at me. I have risked much to have you, to take some few hours of pleasure.”
“Yet, you are the lady of this estate, are you not?”
“I am.”
“No husband?”
“I have one, but he is old and infirm.”
“And local men pose much risk.” He nodded to himself. “Captured, surely. But not about to die.”
“Don’t say that. I wish you not to die.”
He threw back his head, laughing. “So you would keep me here to service you? For how long would you carry in food, wash me, keep me from sunlight and fresh air?”
His words cut at her like daggers. “I think of only this moment,” she protested.
“Can you even see me as a man, with my pants captured at my ankles? I can’t mount you as you deserve.”
His certain anguish speared her heart. No matter how brave a front he put up, he only marked time to the end of his days. Never to see his homeland, his brothers in arms. What if he had a woman? This wasn’t what she wanted, this despair growing in her after only a few hours.
“Do you have…a woman you love?”
“No.”
“If you were free to go, where would you go? What would be your future?”
“I fight. It’s what I know how to do. I am a sword warrior. I stand in the shield wall and glory in spilling blood.”
“Can you not go home?”
He shrugged. “Home is wherever I sleep. But for our native country, little is there. The place is overrun with too many of our kind, and the land is rocky, nothing like the green meadows here where sheep grow fat.”
“Do you fight here to gain our land?”
“Your land, yes, your treasure, your food. All we need to live, we must take.” His voice softened. “It is our way.”
“What is the way of your women?”
“Do you wish to be my woman?”
Elspeth turned away, caught on the point of his words. “Yes, for now,” she managed in a weak voice. “But I have duties here. Many depend on me for their livelihood, not the least being my husband. The entire village, the household, the thanes—all of them center around Hystead as if we were the sun. And I am the force that makes it shine.”
His hand brushed her hair. “Take off your dress, force of sun. Valkyrie.”
Her heart leapt at his touch. Did he treat her tenderly out of some plan to gain freedom? She couldn’t think of that but simply did as he asked. When he turned to her, his mouth fastened on her mouth with what seemed to be passion, and she wanted only to feel his skin under her palms.
His mouth grazed her shoulders, and his heated breath swept over her breasts. His kiss left her weakened.
“Unbind me, so that I may fully take you,” he rasped.
“You could harm me.”
“What would I gain? Your goodwill is all that stands between me and the torture of inglorious death.”
“You could use me to force your way out.”
“And then? Ride off with you and be hunted like an animal by an army of your men?” He snorted his disgust. “I have no escape. Like you,” he added quietly.
Her choice seemed unthinkable, but as she tugged at the ropes around his ankles and pulled free his other wrist, it seemed to Elspeth the only thing she could do. He spoke truth.
And in that moment, her life shifted. So little of what she did each day mattered. A sudden vision of her future formed in her mind, herself in old age, unable to bear children and beyond any bloom of youthful beauty. She would be alone, even more alone than now, when at least the pleasure of flesh still swept her breath away.
With a growl, he pulled her to him, crushing her in his arms. His mouth slanted over hers in a fearsome kiss, ravishing with his tongue and nipping with his teeth until her lips felt stung. His hands surrounded her, firm on her breasts and coaxing her nipples to points, lifting her hips and positioning her on the bed so that he loomed over her, his golden hair hanging toward her as his hard cock nudged between her legs.
Her mind ceased, her body softened, and she gave herself fully to his taking. He ravaged over her like a wild animal. Feral noises issued from their throats as he pounded and seethed, as she rose to meet him.
“Look at me, woman.”
Her gaze flew upward, and she encountered his icy blue stare. His face creased with the intensity of his effort, beaded in sweat, shadowed in his veil of yellow-white hair.
“This is to remember,” he said gruffly.
He brought his knees under her thighs and lifted her hips to shove his prick to a spot she had not known. Her body curled around him, contracting, arching, cut to the core with a torch of fire that spread from her belly and blazed over her in long fiery bursts. His eyes commanded her to watch him, see him remove her last defense, fulfill her secret wish, make her his own. His eyes spoke of his own need, his wish for life even if only in the future of the seed he planted.
He took her again and again in the hours of that long night, waking from fitful sleep to turn again in each other’s arms until she was swollen and sore, and he shook with exhaustion. Everything he had, he gave. She wept off and on, delirious, consumed. The room and Magnus in it were all that mattered.
And yet, some part of her remained separate to question, worry, wonder. Grieve.
She could see faint daylight in the crack around the door when the next knock came. She drew on the dress and brought Aether inside.
He set the tray on the table. “The lord has asked, my lady,” he muttered in a low voice. “What shall I say?”
“That I am indisposed and wish to see no one.”
“Very well.”
“Who is about?”
“No one yet, at least not on these grounds.”
“Excellent.” She motioned, and he followed her outside the door. “I have much to ask and little time, so listen carefully.”
When she had finished her instructions, she returned to the room and shed the dress. She and Magnus ate with languor, amused at small things that passed between them in word play and gestures. Hours passed again in the bed, hours when he brought her to unknown heights of pleasure, and she wept in its joy. How unjust, that this was the man who fit her so perfectly, this man of another country, the enemy at the gate. How absurd, that she wanted him more than she wanted any of her wealth or comfort, that she cared more for him after only one night than she cared for her duties or even the dearest of her companions. They slept in fits, wrapped in each other’s arms, until the door’s rim had darkened with night and again, the knock came at the door.
“Aether, what is your word?” she asked anxiously through the open door.
“It is prepared, lady, as you asked. They are feasting in the great hall.”
“Take care, dear friend.” She clasped his hand and pulled him close for a quick embrace. “Remember, no word until you must.”
She turned. “Magnus, draw on your pants. We go out.”
He stood, his face suddenly pale. “You tire of me so soon? I thought I would have at least another day to live.”
“You will have another day,” she said with a sudden wide smile, “but not here.”
Night sounds swelled as she threw the door wide. Her nerves strung tight as harp strings, Elspeth lifted her hot face to the cool fall air and breathed deeply. She had made her decision, and she wouldn’t turn away from it. Tall dark horses, two of their best, stood fully packed with provisions, weapo
ns, and all else they needed for the journey.
“We ride to the east, to Dane-held lands,” she said quietly. “If you will take me.”
His expression formed sharp angles in the moonlight, incredulous and wary at the same time, as he assessed the situation and adjusted to this new turn of Fate. His pale gaze shifted around them then riveted on her face with a quizzical look.
Her pulse hammered in her throat. Did he not want her?
“I will.” He laughed, a gentle rolling sound that caused her heart to clench. “No longer captured, Valkyrie of the sun?”
She hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath. It released in a rush. “Only by you, warrior Dane.”
He stepped close and touched her face. “What is your name, Valkyrie?”
“Elspeth.”
He helped her mount, and then threw himself onto the restless stallion.
“Lead the way, Elspeth, woman of Magnus,” he said, bowing his head slightly as he swept his hand toward the rutted lane.
Thrilling, she kicked the mare forward.
Ásgeirr and the Tree of Life
Mina Murray
The southwest coast of Ireland, 821 AD
It happens so fast…the turning of his fortunes, the treachery of his Viking brothers. Ásgeirr cannot say for certain what wakes him—whether it is the urgent whispers, or the creak of the boards—but what does it matter? The result is the same. The fumbling for his weapon in the gray half-light before dawn, hands clumsy with cold. Torvík, standing over him with a spear, about to strike. The thrust to the heart Ásgeirr manages to deflect. The thrust to his side that he doesn’t. The fight that follows, with Ásgeirr outnumbered.
“You’ll be dead as soon as you hit the water,” Torvík sneers, before pushing him from the longboat.
And Ásgeirr believes it, in those moments of freefall, which seem an eternity but are no more than the blink of an eye.
This is no way for a Viking to die.
His woolen cloak, his tunic, his boots, weigh him down. His sword, too, though he would rather drown than part with it. He takes off his belt, uses it to lash the sword to his wrist. He clings to his shield as the langskip pulls away.