Sandra Hill - [Vikings I 04] (24 page)

Tykir fought a grin. “Can you swim?”

“Of course I can swim. Otherwise, my brothers would have drowned me on more than one occasion as a child. They put the same worth on me as kittens and other small animals, subject to their cruelties.”

Damn! I am going to have to wring the necks of those two Saxons one of these days. Mayhap when I return her to Graycote, I will teach Egbert and Hebert a few lessons, Viking-style.

“Don’t you be looking at me with pity, you lout. Any man who owns paradise and punishes himself for some lackwit reason by staying away a good part of the year is the one to be pitied. All for the sake of a-Viking or a-wandering or a-trading or—”

“—a-raping and a-plundering?” he suggested, not even bothering to deny her assertion that he was a fool to stay away from a home he loved. She saw too much. Or mayhap he allowed her to see too much. Now that was a dangerous possibility.

“At least you have not neglected your home. I will give you that,” she declared, sniffing haughtily. “The estate is run efficiently, inside and out, even in your absence.”

When had he asked for her approval? The bold wench! “And how would you know about the workings of Dragonstead? Its fields are covered with snow. Its stores are locked up in outbuildings. Its animals are snug in their winter stalls.”

They’d begun to walk side by side back toward the keep. Somehow his hand had linked with hers as they ambled along. Or had her fingers laced with his? Either way, she acted as if it was the most natural thing in the
world. And, blessed Lord, it was. He could not remember any time in his life when he’d gotten joy from such a simple thing as holding a maid’s hand…and she was well past the stage of being a maid.

Mayhap she did have witchly powers.

Mayhap he was besotted.

Mayhap he did not give a bloody damn, either way.

“I spoke with some of the villagers whilst I was walking,” she said in answer to his question as to how she knew of Dragonstead’s good care. “They have high praise for you. And Girta thinks you walk on water.”

He shrugged. “And that brings us to the reason for my clomping through the snow after you. A lady should not be out walking alone, unprotected. There are wolves about.”

“Wolves?” She shuddered, then waved his concern aside with her free hand.

He was holding on to her other hand like a lifeline. Even realizing that sad reality, he did not let go. It felt too good, and he had been feeling so bad lately. Hell, not lately, he corrected. Forever.

“But not to fear,” she babbled on, “I have brought my protection with me. Beast.”

They both turned as one to see the dog rolling playfully, side over side, in the fluffy snow.

“Some knight in armor your Lord Beast would prove!” he scoffed.

As if sensing that he was the subject of their discussion, Beast stood and shook his fur, then came loping toward them, tail wagging and tongue lolling. Without preamble, Beast stood on his hind legs, forelegs propped on her shoulder, and gave Alinor several sloppy dog kisses. Before he knew what the beast was about, the animal did the
same to him, except that Tykir could swear he added more slobber.

Alinor laughed gaily.

He said, “Yeech,” but he was oddly touched by the dog’s demonstration. Beast dropped to all four legs and gave them each a long, considering look, waiting like a good dog to be told what to do next.

“Wouldn’t it be nice if people could love us unconditionally as a dog does?”

He raised a brow at her.

“A dog does not say I will love you if you are beautiful. Or if you do what I want you to. Or if you have wealth. Or if you produce babes. Or—”

“—if you are good-mannered. Or more quiet. Or less troublesome. Or a strong fighter. Or a diligent student. Or generous with gifts. Or especially lusty in lovemaking.” He waggled his eyebrows at her with that last remark.

She clicked her tongue in a familiar tutting sound he was coming to love. Nay, he was not coming to love anything about her. ’Twas just a sound he was coming to
associate
with her. There. He felt better having made that correction in his mind.

“Tykir?” she said softly.

He braced himself. The wench had a habit of boring her way into his personal life with her intrusive questions, and they most always started with a soft-spoken, “Tykir?”

“Why have you never settled here with wife and children?”

Intrusive did not begin to describe the depth of her probe this time. It speared the heart of him. He was about to say that it was none of her affair. Instead, some demon in his head said, “Why don’t you tell me…since you seem to have an opinion on every blessed thing in the world?”

“Mayhap you never found the woman with whom you wanted to share Dragonstead,” she said faintly. The expression that passed over her face could only be described as glorious.

Why should she look glorious?

He did not want to know.

Yea, I do. Why?

Females always think it is a woman who will make a man’s life complete. A fierce fight, strong ale and a warm bed…that is all a man really needs…and mayhap an occasional wench, but for rutting only.

Could she possibly think she is that woman?

“Where do you get these fey ideas?” he snapped, dropping her hand from his clasp as if it were suddenly leprous.

“Testy today, are you? Perchance you should have stayed abed another day. I know,” she pronounced brightly, “you need another bowl of my chicken soup.”

He put a forearm to his forehead in mock horror. Well, not really mock. He
would
be truly horrified if he had to slurp another drop of that soup.

“By the by, why has a lock been put on the chicken coop? Can you open it for me?”

He started to laugh then and began to walk toward the outer bailey.

“Answer me,” she demanded to his back.

He didn’t stop walking away, just kept on laughing.

“I’ll show him,” he thought he heard her mutter, just before something hit him on the back of the head with a wet splat.

He turned with disbelief. The wench was dancing from foot to foot, taunting him with a fat lump of snow in each extended hand. She had dared to strike him with a snowball?

He took two steps toward her, exiting the castle grounds again.

She backed up two steps. “Now, Tykir, I was just doing you a favor.”

“A favor?” he hooted. “What kind of feminine illogic is that?”

“You said just several days past that you never had any playmates as a child…no one to have snowball fights with.”

His eyes grew wide at that. Then he chuckled. “You wish to
play
with me?” He took two more long steps closer.

She dropped her snowballs and ducked behind a wide tree. Peering around, she replied, “Nay. ’Twas just a joke…because you were ignoring me.”

“So, now you want my attentions?” He skirted around the tree and smiled.

“Not
those
kinds of attentions, you lout.” She skipped to the other side.

He stalked her, feinting one way, then the other.

She turned tail and ran for the open gates of the castle ramparts.

He meant to grab her by the waist from behind but his foot slipped in the snow and he ended up tackling her to the ground, falling on top of her.

“I can’t breathe, you big oaf,” she said in a suffocated whisper.

He lifted himself slightly, allowing her to turn onto her back, then immediately pressed his body over hers, holding her fast to the ground. He took both her wrists in one hand and held her arms above her head. “Now you have my attention,” he said, also in a suffocated whisper.

And she did have his attention.

Her hood had come off in the struggle and her bright
red hair lay in cascades over the white snow, like silken flames. Her face was wind-flushed under her creamy, freckled skin. Her lips parted and she breathed heavily from their exertions. She stared at him through clear green eyes, framed with blondish-red lashes and brows.

She was the same near-homely woman he’d first seen on the Northumbrian moors tending her sheep. And she was different. Now she was beautiful to him. How could that be?

“So, the Saxon wench wants to play with a Viking, hmm?” he teased, taking a handful of downy snow in his free hand and rubbing it into her face.

She struggled and sputtered, to no avail. “You have me at a disadvantage, Viking…being as big as a war horse. Release me.”

“Nay, not till you pay forfeit for your misdeed.”

“Hah! And what might that be?” she said, sweeping her tongue over her top and bottom lips to remove the lingering flakes.

He felt that sweep over every nerve ending in his body, and one in particular.

“You have already refused my coin. And I am not going to gift you my prize ram, even though your land is well suited to raising sheep.”

He laughed. “Never once did it occur to me to ask for a bloody lump of mutton as forfeit.”

“What then?” she asked, still struggling against his hold.

He had not intended to say, “A kiss.” The words just slipped out.

“A kiss?” she repeated. “That’s all?”

All?
That was everything, as he soon discovered.

She moaned before he even touched her. Oh, if women only knew the power of a moan, released at just the right
moment, men would be slaves to their every whim. He was a man partial to a woman’s moan.

First, he settled his warm lips over her icy ones, still cool from the snow bath. Gently, he pressed, testing for a perfect fit. It was.

“Do you like that kind of kiss?” he murmured against her mouth.

“I don’t know,” she murmured back, her breath sweet and her lips no longer cold. “I have naught to compare it with.”

“Bold wench!” he chided, nipping at her bottom lip with his teeth. Now that he had her lips parted, he kissed her more forcefully, shaping from side to side, giving and demanding, pressing and sucking. When he pulled back this time, her lips were moist and her green eyes glazed over. “And that kiss?”

“’Twas satisfactory, I suppose.”

“Satisfactory? That is what one says about a batch of manchet bread. Or a business transaction.”

“Well, I was hoping for another kiss, like that other.”

“What other?”

“The one back at Hedeby.”

Ah, now he understood. As he recalled, there were tongues involved. He smiled. “So, you remember my kisses from that night in the bed furs, do you?” he asked, twining a strand of her rose-scented hair around a forefinger, studying the change of colors as it was held this way and that in the sunlight, everything from pale blond to bright orange.

“Don’t you remember those kisses?” she asked, tilting her head slightly to the side.

“Som man roper i skogen f
r en svar,”
he said with a laugh.

“What does that mean?”

“As you shout in the forest, so will the echo sound.”

“Well, that’s as clear as moat mud.”

“It means, ask a stupid question and you get a stupid answer.”

“Oh.”

“Are we done jabbering?”

“I hope so.”

Lord, the woman had no sense at all, tempting a man with such wanton insinuations. This time he burrowed his fingers into her hair, holding her face in place. He kissed her voraciously then, letting loose with all the pent-up longings of the past few sennights…or mayhap the past few years…or, God above, mayhap a lifetime.

He tongued her open mouth.

She gave him her tongue in return.

He whispered wicked words when he came up for air. And she whispered equally wicked things back—things she could not possibly comprehend from her own experience.

“Do you think I’m scandalous?” she asked, ducking her head shyly.

He put a finger under her chin, forcing her to look at him. When she did, he grinned and answered her, in a hopeful voice, “Not yet.”

Neither one of them spoke after that as they came at each other with equally matched appetites. Who would have known she could be so eager? Who would have known he wanted her so much? On and on the kiss went, till he heard above him the ominous words, “Hear, one and all, this is the saga of Tykir the Great.”

Tykir raised his head to see at least two dozen men arranged in a wide circle watching them with amusement, whilst Alinor hid her face in her hands and Bolthor recited the verse words:

The man kept watching her.

It was most disconcerting. Every time Alinor entered the great hall that evening, helping Girta and the other women serve dinner, she couldn’t help but notice Tykir leaning back lazily in his chair at the head table, picking at his meal (and it wasn’t even chicken), sipping at his cup of mead and watching her.

His smoldering, golden eyes followed her every move. And, sweet Mary, they
were
smoldering! Like a dangerous mountain cat, he was, waiting for the right moment to pounce on its prey. There was no doubt which body in this room he had marked as quarry.