Savage Want (Wicked Wants, #3) (3 page)

“Favor something you see?”

I blushed and looked away at the opposite wall. “All I see is a murderer and a thief.”

He laughed, his mouth half-full of food. “I’ve been called worse.”

A warrior with thick furs draped over one shoulder came into the room. My captor looked up at him in expectancy. I frowned. Was he the leader? Fantasies of avenging my people’s deaths enraged my thoughts. But the more I struggled and resisted, the more likely I would remain a bare-assed decorum to his quarters. I made resolve to reconcile, to try a fresh start with him. Perhaps he would let me go?

“Wulf,” the man said, then followed it with a sentence in their language.

“Magus, use English. Sit down. Take a horn with me. You can see my new skin cover.” Their gazes darted to me, and the man called Wulf sported a wicked smirk.

My skin crawled. Magus seemed uninterested. Perhaps he had his own decorative captive in his tent.

“We’ve ten more for you to look at.” Magus sat at Wulf’s table and drank quickly. Wulf turned his attention back to me.

Wulf’s expression went flat. “Offer the others to the men. A reward for victory.”

“I will.” Magus rose from his seat, but Wulf caught him by the wrist.

“See if a dress can be found for the woman. And put out word that anyone who even comes near her will meet my blade.”

Magus replied in their language, bowing his head once.

“Go then.”

The Wulf turned his attention to me after Magus had left the tent. I shivered, goosebumps fluttering over my flesh. His gaze strolled over every inch of me then back to meet my eyes.

“Are you thirsty?” His voice was a low rumble of thunder.

I nodded and tensed, wishing I could melt through the ground, away from that look he gave me. It wasn’t necessarily evil, but intense, like the rays of the sun on the hottest summer’s day.

He returned to his table and poured me a drink from his pitcher into a horn.

“Sit up,” he commanded as he knelt beside me.

The horn looked small in his hands, but felt heavy in mine. I faltered and he caught my shoulders in his grip just in time. With his help, I took a few hasty sips. The liquid was cool, sweet and bitter at the same time, a drink fit for his standing in his...clan? Army? Who was this Wulf?

“Tell me your name.” His eyes were stunning, light brown and beautiful to behold.

My lips parted, but I couldn’t answer. He could easily kill me with that great sword that stood nearby. “Please, sir...”

The Wulf laughed softly. “A lady then. That says please. Thank you. How pleasant of you.”

My face flushed with heat. “A slave to you savages. Does it matter what my name is? Surely you’ll just give me another.”

My thoughts turned to Cecil and his family. The house was burning, all the houses were burning. My father...

Anger gripped my heart and I turned my face away from the Wulf. “I’d rather have died with the rest.”

This seemed to puzzle him and though I steeled for a strike, he did not rebuke my response.

“Hmm. You speak most of the truth. Thank the gods for the beauty that saved you.”

I snorted. “Like the other ten awaiting your approval, then?”

“Ho, the lady has fire.” He chuckled and stood to tower over me. “I am Wulf.”

“Wolf sounds about right. Hunting in packs, looking for something to kill and destroy.”

“My father named me Torsten.”

“And where is your father now? Did you kill him as well?”

Torsten grinned. “All the lady sees is all she does not have.”

I shook my head, tears brimming in my eyes. Why worry at all with this talk? I would be as doomed as the rest. “All the lady has is nothing.”

“The lady was spared.”

I scowled and glared at him. “The lady had a family! I was to be married this day! You came in and destroyed everything! Everything I knew and loved!”

I did not know which day it was any more. Tears came unbidden and my shoulders hitched in sobs I couldn’t control. Cecil, even though I did not truly love him, was dead. My prospects of becoming a fine lady were gone. And my father, whom I loved more than anything in the world had possibly perished along with the rest of the town. I did not know if my father was with the Penbrokes at the time of attack.

“Elena,” I said quietly. “My name is Elena.”

Torsten unfastened and slid his cloak from his shoulders and cast it over me to cover me. His bared arms were powerful, toned, one colored with ink. A wolf’s head, done in the style of the art that decorated more than a few of his warriors’ shields. Its tongue was red and resembled a flame peeking between sharp teeth.

The cloak was made of soft furs stitched together and very warm. The chill had crept in from the wall and I could not help but feel a note of gratitude for his gentle gesture.

“Elena.” His tongue uttered my name for the first time. “We do what we must. We have lost land, many people. Much family.” His voice dropped to nearly a whisper at his last words. “Blood is shed for honor. But you...you are something that I cannot resist. Something that touches me. Your face. Even your glare pulls at me. Green. Your green eyes, like sea. The sea that pulls at me forever.”

He stopped himself with a shake of his head. “Perhaps I should have taken of the other ten. Ten other women cannot compare with you. Your husband would be a fortunate man.”

“A husband that never was, thanks to your ‘honor,’” I spat.

“I doubt he deserved you.”

Torsten left the tent without another word, and I lay there under a cloak that smelled like wilderness and stars, wondering.

I awoke some time later, not realizing that I’d fallen asleep so easily. No one was with me. But a chair had been moved from Torsten’s table to my side. On that chair, lay a dress, white, soft, with flowing sleeves and a belt of silver and furs. A small fire crackled merrily in a crudely-designed hearth, giving meager warmth.

I moved to rise, and realized the rope was gone. A smile crossed my face to realize that he’d drugged me. I sniffed my skin. I was clean. My hair was combed. I laughed out loud, a bitter sound. Best to seize the opportunity and try to get away. I kept my gaze pinned on the flaps of the tent while I discarded the shift and put on the dress so curiously provided for me. The wool and skins proved to be warm. I could not be sure how far from Kiess I was now, but if I could take one of their few horses, I could be far away from here by dawn.

A quick search of the tent turned up nothing that I could use as a weapon. I turned my attention to the flaps and lay on my belly to peek outside. The floor of the tent was covered in more skins, making for a somewhat cushioned and cozy warmth, despite the sparse furnishings. My eyes adjusted to the darkness outside. We were in the center of a small camp. The Northmen lay about here and there, some quite deep in the cups, it appeared. No sign of Wulf. Perhaps he had decided to partake of the other ten women after all. Satisfied that I could slip out of the tent unnoticed, I made my escape.

My breath showed in the contrasting cold air. A grumbling giant walked close by, and I flattened myself against the side of another dwelling. A man’s gentle laugh could be heard inside, followed by an unmistakable feminine moan. I wrinkled my nose. They were coupling. Perhaps the ten women were being passed around? I stalked around tents and avoided the golden light of the central fire. Snoring, some light, some that sounded closer to thunder, accompanied me on my quest. My heart pounded in my ears, giving a rhythm to the sounds of the Northmen, both in play and in slumber. Help the other women, or just run? I chose the latter. I could send help for them once I’d reached safety.

Their camp was neater than I expected from men of their ilk, but everywhere were symbols of war and death. Animal skulls rattled with laced bones atop stakes driven into the ground. I made my way to the outlying shelters and once past those, broke into a run. I was willing to wager all on the fact that I would make it to the forest edge before I was spotted.

A spine-tingling
howl
pierced the air just as I reached the relative safety of the tree line, but I felt far from secure. Branches snapped icily, and my skin was cooling rapidly, even under the dress and skins that I now wore. I was not suited for this harsh winter exposure. The nights had been cold back in Kiess, but with the walls surrounding us, along with warm stones placed in the bed, we made do. I had blankets sewn by my mother, along with one from my father’s mother that I suddenly missed immensely. I wanted to be in my home, not Cecil’s house, but my father’s house, where he would tell stories of grand cathedrals and their doors, how my mother’s smile would squeeze his heart just so, and where I was safe.

Another crackle of twigs. Something was out in the woods with me. Most likely small game, a plump fowl rustling its powdery-white wings as it roused in sleep. But the howl had been no bird. A wolf was nearby, possibly more dangerous than Torsten, and I faltered on my southward path. A crunch of snow behind me. I turned to look. Nothing. Padded footsteps to the fore. No, the side. Behind me again.

I was being circled, by either one wolf or a small pack of them, I couldn’t be sure. A tiny squeak of terror escaped me as I quickened my pace, but still the sounds of pursuit could be heard. The wolves would attack, tear me apart and leave my gutted corpse to freeze solid in this strange land. Tears threatened again, but I wiped them away and broke into a run. The padded steps surrounding me followed.

My breath was raw in my chest. My fingers were nearly numb from the cold. I rounded one bent silver-bark tree and was hooked around the neck by an outstretched arm. I screamed and the arm tightened.

“Quiet, woman.”

I knew the voice. Torsten. I clung to his arm and struggled to get away at the same time.

“Late for a walk, hm?” He laughed heartily and released me.

I immediately backed away from him, my hands outstretched. “Leave me alone!”

“Many vicious beasts live in these woods.” His eyes reflected his smile. This seemed to be an enjoyable game for him.

“Many vicious beasts live in your camp,
Wulf.
” It was all the same to me. Die at the hands of the Northmen, or die in the jaws of an animal.

“Come on.” He waved me on and turned to walk back towards the barely perceptible light of his camp.

I frowned. He was leaving the choice up to me? My mouth dropped open.

Torsten stepped steadily away, leaving me to the sounds of the night. My heart thundered in my ears. He was right. The woods were dangerous, too dangerous. And hadn’t Torsten done all he could to keep me comfortable, despite the undeniable fact that I was still his prisoner?

My mind was torn. Face the night creatures alone, or return to camp with him to better plot my escape? Would he beat me for trying to leave?

I made a pained squeal and ambled after him, head down, feet heavy suddenly with snow. I didn’t want to be left alone. I would have to find another way.

We returned to camp amidst gales of laughter.
A foolish woman was I
, the barbarians’ faces seemed to tell me. The nearest city could be days away, as far as I knew. I’d almost certainly die from exposure before I could reach any hope of help.

But I did have hope, once we’d returned to his tent and he sat in front of the fire, not saying a single word. Nor did he beat me. His general demeanor seemed that of disappointment and possibly, hurt? Nonsense. I’d seen what his kind were capable of. It was difficult to believe that one of them could be conquered simply by the want for a woman.

But it did seem that he reserved feelings for me. His men had stormed my city and torn it apart and the man whom apparently was their leader was in
love
with me. I could work this to my advantage, should I play my hand well.

I could let him cater to me, tempt him with my beauty, and when he was at his weakest moment, plunge a dagger into his damned black heart. I’d never killed anyone, but to take his life would be right. He and all his men deserved the same fate as had befallen my people. I would extinguish the Wulf and leave his tent in the night as his men slept in their drunken stupor or laid with their stolen women turned to whores. Then I would find my father.

––––––––

T
he Wulf had other plans for me. Following the days of taking over what had once been a familiar place to me, they moved on to the next village. After that, the warriors gave an animated recount of how they’d brought the larger city of Aasherd, to its groveling knees. The Northmen moved fast as they drove a trench through the land and filled it with, what was much of, innocent blood.

When the day was done, the men would set up a circle of tents, with Wulf’s being in the center, and patrol in ever widening circles to keep wary watch on those who were sleeping or merry with drink. And drink they did. Each conquered sign of civilization was razed to the ground—but not before the entire supply of wine and ale was greedily looted.

The other ten women were from previous town raids, frightened, pretty things that dared not to talk to me, only gave timid glances in my direction as I enjoyed the most freedom of any captive in the camp. These women were daughters, wives, possibly mothers of lost children and they were treated like dogs. One frail thing, dark haired and wild-eyed tried to escape just as I had, and suffered for her efforts. Her captor bound her hands and kept her within arm’s reach. I took that his name was Ogar, and I asked Torsten about the young woman.

“What of it?” Torsten asked in response. “Are you not comfortable?”

“I cannot bear to see her suffer so.” I pulled away from what I’m sure he intended to be a reassuring embrace.

“She is Ogar’s. As you are mine.”

I scowled. “You do not own me. He does not own her.”

Torsten let out a deep sigh and sat with his feet planted apart, his big hands upon his knees. “Your concern for her is understandable.”

“Are you not the leader of these men?”

He nodded once. “Ja, but all treasure goes to the Jarl.”

I glared at him. “Am I treasure?”