by Joanne Rock
Tremors still rocked her and Gwen buried her face in his shoulder. She could remain here forever, wrapped in his arms and discovering new facets of this fulfillment.
But Wulf’s body was not replete with the same pleasure. If anything, his staff had grown all the more impressive in the time it had taken him to ready her. He nudged her swollen sex and teased yet another wave of shivery response from her. While she clung to him, he forged his way inside her.
The raw perfection of the union made her body weep with need even as her spirit mourned the way she’d been treated by another man as a new bride. She had deserved this and gotten so much less. So much worse.
“Thank you,” she whispered, her mouth pressed to Wulf’s ear as she held on to him. “Thank you.”
They were the only words that came to mind, her thoughts so overcome by feeling that it was difficult to hold an idea in her head. Gwen gasped as he responded by withdrawing a short way from her body and then returned in a charge of slick heat. He found a rhythm in this way, retreating and returning, drawing out the pleasure for him and her at the same time. Who knew a woman could feel such a wealth of bliss?
She wrapped her legs tight about his hips and held him to her. She knew what would come next, since this part was one of the few marital rites of passage she’d traveled. Still, even this part held surprises since his charge and retreat renewed her breathless want of him. When the tension wound within her yet again, she began to move, her hips meeting his with each stroke. As she arched up beneath him, she felt his body tense and tighten, his shoulders stiffening under her grip.
He shouted with his release, his fist gripping the blanket beneath her head and his muscles flexing all around her. In that moment, she found her own peak, her body clenching his tighter as the sensation seized her over and over.
Long, silent minutes passed and Gwen wondered if Wulf had had experiences like this before. He knew that she’d never felt anything like it, but she had no idea if their night had been as amazing for him, or if this had been another idle pastime for a man well versed in the language of pleasure.
She hoped for some reassurance on that score, her heart as tender as the rest of her sensitized body. But Wulf remained quiet beside her, his hand rubbing soothingly along her back and over her hair.
As much as she wished to simply focus on the discovery of joys she never imagined, she couldn’t help but think about how those joys came with inevitable expectations and hopes.
Before she’d met Wulf, she’d been content with her status as a widow, never knowing what she missed. While she did not long for a husband, a future groom could hardly disappoint when she had such a low standard as Gerald to measure him against.
Now, she resented her time spent in the dark, oblivious to all that lacked in her marriage. And how would a future husband stack up to the level of bliss that Wulf had shown her?
As his breathing settled into the steady rhythm of sleep, Gwendolyn’s heart ached with new hurts and she wondered if she would have been better off not knowing what had been missing in her life. As much as she had enjoyed herself this night, a future without such delights sounded bleak indeed.
WULF CAME AWAKE INSTANTLY.
He did not know what had roused him, but he stood with his blade in hand near the door of the dilapidated cabin. Gwendolyn still lay on the pallet they’d shared the past few hours, her dark hair spilling in every direction over the blanket below her. Even now, he wanted to tuck her close and pillow her head with his arm while she slept. But if he was sweating across the forehead and holding his sword in the middle of the night, he must have heard something to put him on guard.
Someone must be near the church ruins yet again.
Thankfully, Gwendolyn must not have heard any noise.
He vowed to depart this place with her at sunrise. They had not been as isolated here as he’d hoped and he would not risk endangering her. He hated even leaving her side to seek out the source of the sound that had woken him. What if someone dared to approach the lodging with her inside while Wulf was not there to protect her?
The possibility made him even more tense.
Silently, he opened the front door and slipped out into the night. Dawn still lurked an hour or two out of reach. All traces of the fire he’d made earlier had been hidden. No embers smoldered. No hint of smoke remained. The few coals inside the cottage must have burned out, as well, the night air clean with the scent of new spring greens.
“Wulf.”
The voice called to him from a scant stone’s throw away. It did not belong to Erik.
“Show yourself.” Wulf tightened his grip on the hilt of his blade. but did not raise the weapon. Any advantage he might gain would be negated if the polished steel reflected in the moonlight and gave away his position.
Who would seek him here? Gwendolyn’s men? Or had his crew sent someone besides Erik to speak with him?
“Nay, you cursed bastard.” The low voice took on a decidedly ugly note. “I will not be tricked into facing a bloodthirsty, murdering wretch.”
The accent was clearer now. Whoever spoke was a Dane, and a bitter one at that. Erik must have been seen returning—one of Harold’s men had retraced his path. Wulf eased away from the tree where he’d stood and crept silently along the forest floor in the direction of the speaker. Wulf could not be surrounded by any great number of warriors if this man did not wish to confront him.
“Who wants to know my whereabouts?” He took satisfaction from a scurrying noise nearby.
Clearly, the man was serious about not wanting to face him.
“Harold.” The words sounded farther away. The sneaking coward retreated to the east. “He demands your blood for Hedra’s life.”
Anger stirred along with regret.
“I have paid the wergild many times over for her.” He sent home half his earnings from raiding, financing Harold’s kingdom and then some thanks to his prowess with a sword and his fearsome reputation. “Is his sister’s life worth so much that he will sacrifice his own to my blade?”
He shouted the last to the woods as his quarry ran off to the hills. Toward the settlement where his men quartered alongside his enemies.
Harold could not win against him. Harold’s kingdom would be without a ruler and, as the sole survivor of the two highest ranking royal houses, Wulf would have no choice but to return home. It was a fate he wanted no part of. As a younger son, he’d been raised to fight and raid, and it was what he did best. Curse Harold’s pride for demanding this course of action.
Curse his own pride for besting Harold at the raid on Alchere’s keep.
It had been ill-advised to drag Gwendolyn into the middle of an old feud. But he had not realized at the time how quickly she would become important to him.
Turning toward the cabin, he was surprised to see Gwendolyn in his path. Face drained of color, she stared at him with the same fearful expression he’d spied on the countenances of hapless Saxon villagers when his longship pulled onto their shores.
“You took a woman’s life?” Her voice was low, but he heard the slight tremor nevertheless.
Guilt warred with indignation.
“I have taken more lives than I care to recount.” He realized that his grip still throttled his sword hilt and he forced his hand to relax. “Our people have been at war many times.”
“That was no Saxon man.” Her voice gained strength. Steadiness. “I recognize enough of your strange tongue to know he did not speak of a Saxon woman.”
Wulf moved closer to her, remembering the night they had shared. Would she ever look upon him with the same warmth in her gaze as she had then?
With any other woman, it might not have mattered. But this was Gwendolyn, the woman the Norns had put in his path when he had not expected it. Her opinion mattered.
“He spoke of my brother’s widow,” Wulf explained, tension threading tight along his chest to speak of it after so many moons of trying to forget. “There are some who would say I am
responsible for her death.”
“What do you say?” Her face remained pale as moonlight as the first streaks of dawn painted the sky.
It was a question without accusation. She did not make an assumption the way so many others had. But then, no woman wanted to think she had lain with a man who might hurt a female.
Ruthlessly, he faced the consequences of his choice to forsake Hedra.
“She lies in her grave because of me.” He shouldered past her, unwilling to see the hopefulness fade from her dark eyes. “Come. We are no longer safe here.”
She made no reply. But dutifully, her footsteps followed along behind his. He had brought Gwendolyn here seeking pleasure, a reprieve from a year lived by the sword. But he’d known all along it could not last. He could not even claim all three days with her that he’d once envisioned.
No matter how much he wanted to relive the soul-stirring fulfillment he’d known alone with her, Wulf knew the time had come to secure his captive someplace more populated to keep her safe.
8
She lies in her grave because of me.
Gwendolyn turned the phrase over in her mind as she trudged up a sandy rise behind Wulf later that day. Besides convincing him her injured knee no longer bothered her, they’d spoken little since their conversation in the woods.
She had been curious that morning when she heard him leave the cottage. His still sense of listening when he awoke had alerted her that he went outside to chase some danger. Gwendolyn had followed him, thinking she might be of some assistance.
When she’d heard him speak to someone, at first she’d been convinced he must be keeping her closer to civilization than she had previously realized. She’d never expected to hear him accused of murder. Never wanted her first taste of passion to be tainted by the knowledge she’d given herself to a Norseman as bloodthirsty as the ones Saxon mothers warned their children about.
Now, her feet damp with forest dew and creek water, she slogged upward as her heart sank lower. She’d felt too much for the Dane, her heart soaring along with the pleasure he’d given her.
How could her judgment be so flawed that she would find freedom in a barbarian’s arms? Perhaps she’d merely responded to the notion of an adventure, and Wulf hadn’t been as noble a man as she’d briefly believed.
Memories of his blood oath returned, challenging this new view that he posed a threat. Shaking off those thoughts for the moment, she blinked at their surroundings in an attempt to orient herself.
“This is not the way we came through the forest two days ago,” she pointed out, unwilling to follow him blindly when he had hurt another woman who depended on him for safety.
Had he sworn an oath to her, as well?
“My men sailed on to a settlement nearby. We must meet them.”
He carried a pack on his back that consisted mostly of blankets and his store of mead. He carried her veil, as well, the valuable garment compacted neatly with his things beside her rings and her father’s journal. The roll that Wulf carried seemed surprisingly manageable thanks to the width of those broad shoulders. She’d never seen a warrior so fit.
A tide of remembrances from their night together swamped her. His body had taught hers such wickedly delicious things. Today, her muscles ached pleasantly, her body humming with the knowledge of sensual joys even as her brain shouted cautions and upbraidings.
“Why must we meet them?” she asked, knowing men were not talkative creatures, but finding this man in particular to be short on explanation. “Where are you taking me after we find them?”
Assuming they ever found them. Did these seafarers know how to navigate the lands when their stars did not fill the sky? The sun rose high over the woods just beginning to bloom with new spring growth, and it occurred to her she would not even know which direction to take to return home.
Her skirt caught on the branch of a sprawling bush and she yanked it free impatiently. When she did, she nearly ran into him. He had stopped walking and now faced her. His hands reached to brace her shoulders, steadying her.
The contact had the unnerving effect of making her knees sway all the more.
“I must secure you at my encampment while I settle a score with an old enemy.” Perhaps he felt the lightning charge between them, for he set her apart from him with all haste, turned on his heel, and continued his relentless pace.
Gwendolyn fell behind all over again in the time it took her brain to catch up with his words. He wanted to dump her on his followers and leave her there alone with them? It stirred a sense of dark betrayal in her breast to know he would cast her aside so easily.
She hurried forward, scarcely daring to believe the arrogance of this man.
“You would set me aside after amusing yourself with me for less than a sennight?”
The noon sun shone fully upon them as they broke through the tree line and spied the sea.
“Would you rather suffer the fate of the last woman in my care?” He swung around to face her, but this time she was prepared.
The sensual pull was gone, burned away by anger and a hurt that she had allowed herself to care about him. She resented that she could already recognize the scent of him when he walked near.
“Do your vows mean so little to you, then?” She could see him so clearly in her mind’s eye, taking a blade to his own skin.
And by God, he had treated her tenderly when she had been fearful of coupling. Where was that man now, in the bright light of day?
He studied her for so long, his gaze scanning every inch of her face, that she wondered if he’d forgotten her question. Then he shook his head.
“All the world fears the Danes.” He stated it as indisputable fact, his place in the world as assured as the man himself. “Why not you?”
“You told me not to. Now I would know the truth. Will you forswear yourself with that vow you made to me?” Her heart beat rapidly, a hint of fear rising as she wondered at the fate of the woman in her grave. “Should I fear you, Wulf Geirsson?”
She would rather know the truth outright. She could always take her chances and run from him. A village must lurk closer than she’d realized for him to meet his men nearby. If she slipped away during the night, might she find a Saxon willing to help?
The stony set of his jaw did not ease her mind. He glared at her with his otherworldly blue eyes until she shifted on her feet.
“Nay.” The one word was as harsh as any he’d ever spoken, yet for some reason, she believed it.
The yearning of a wishful heart, perhaps? He’d shown her more tenderness than she’d thought possible between man and woman.
Whatever the reason for her hopefulness, she would hold on to that belief until she understood this dark incident in his past. He had treated her more fairly than her own husband, a fact which bartered him kindness from her now.
As she watched him stare out to sea, searching for his supporters, she thought about ways to uncover the truth. Lifting her chin into the wind, Gwendolyn sought the coastline for some sign of the Danes, unwilling to relinquish her adventure just yet.
WULF KEPT HIS GAZE TRAINED on the sea to stave off the cursed weakness he sensed in himself where Gwendolyn was concerned. He had treated her fairly and kept her safe. He’d worshipped her body as decadently as if she were his queen, revealing the answers to sensual mysteries that had eluded her until the previous night.
So he had no reason to regret his treatment of her now. He would install her safely with his followers and not think of the Wessex widow again. To do otherwise would merely distract him when he needed to give his full attention to the inevitable battle with Harold. Wulf’s destiny would wait for him no longer, and a Saxon noblewoman could play no role in his future. He’d given his heart away once, and the consequences had been more painful than any blow from an enemy blade. He would not get close enough to a woman to repeat the experience and he feared he already cared too much for this one.
He looked back from the view of the sea, needing
to lay his eyes on her again before he gave her up. In profile, her face revealed the hints of her father’s foreign heritage. The straight nose and dark eyes reminded him of Arab traders he’d met, while her pale complexion and finely chiseled mouth must be the more delicate contributions from her mother.
Looking upon Gwendolyn, Wulf wondered what it would have been like to care for a woman who was unafraid to face obstacles and danger. Would Gwendolyn have risked all for him, if given time? The question was pointless and only served to torment him with what he’d never had. And now, thanks to Harold’s relentless demands, never could.
Then, without warning, Wulf sensed a change in the air. It was not necessarily a sound or even the scent of danger. It was more like a cold sensation along his skin, a change in pressure that preceded dark clouds.
Someone approached with stealth.
“Hide,” he told Gwendolyn, dropping his bags at her feet while he reached for his blade. “Do not come out unless I call for you.”
“Do you hear something?” She hesitated, following his gaze toward the northwest trees where they’d just been.
“Hurry,” he shouted, pointing out a place among the tree roots against a cliff’s edge. “There.”
Did Harold’s men come for him already? Had the spy already returned to the settlement in time to orchestrate a war party?
The sound of horses’ hooves built into a steady drum-roll. Trouble descended like a summer storm as riders appeared on the horizon bearing a standard Wulf did not recognize.
There were ten. Fifteen. More. They were Saxons, all of them. Their dark looks and smaller size marked them as such.
Too late, it occurred to him that if they cut him down now, Gwendolyn would be left unprotected. No warrior’s death was a noble one if he left his woman defenseless.
“By the saints. They come for me,” Gwendolyn called to him from her place among the tree roots. “The banner belongs to my dead husband’s kin.”