Strokes Vol #3 (11 page)

As he watched, she turned sideways, gripped the edge of a table, and flipped over it, planting her feet in the center of a large, brutish man’s belly to topple him. The man went down with a roar then kicked out his feet, pulling himself to stand in a single, astonishingly graceful motion.

His bride glanced up the big man’s frame then planted both fists on her hips in a fearless stance. “I tipped a bull once. He thrashed a bit, but didn’t get back to his feet nearly as quickly as you.”

Her words were brusque but admiring, and her expression gave away her cheeky lack of contrition.

The red-headed brute glanced down at her, nostrils flaring, his cheeks so flushed Torvald feared he’d pop a vein—and then suddenly, he tossed back his head and laughed.

The sound was large and loud inside the small, ale-saturated room. He clamped his arm around the woman’s shoulders and turned her toward the bar. “Mead for the lady,” he roared.

The brawl ended in an instant. Laughter and loud claps to shoulders filled the room.

Lothar sidled up beside Torvald, a cloth pressed to his nose as he stared through bruised and swelling eyes. “Will you break something else if I say she’s not exactly the woman Hagar promised?”

Torvald blew out a breath and nodded. “It can’t be the same woman. A sister, perhaps.”

Hagar, the chieftain of the neighboring jarldom, had promised a girl so fair roses blushed in dismay. A woman as slender as a reed, as graceful as a soaring falcon, with hair as dark as midnight, skin as pale as snow.

This harridan’s tall angular frame and blonde hair were the exact opposite of what he’d been promised, and her ruddy complexion was berry brown from exposure to the sun and weather.

“Is it a trick to save his treasure for a higher bidder for the beauty’s hand? This one’s more
skjaldmær
—shieldmaiden—than bride.”

“I don’t know, but this…” Torvald said, pointing toward the sturdy figure dressed in a man’s breeches and
kyrtill
wasn’t an acceptable trade. “This will never do.” No matter that she appeared strong and would likely birth warriors full-grown. She’d never stand up to the scrutiny a future queen would face.

Taking a deep breath, he indicated to Lothar to watch the door and strode toward the woman who’d raised a full horn of mead and drank it like water. He tapped her shoulder.

Her gaze swung toward him, a scowl digging a crease between her cold blue eyes.

“Are you Solveig, Hagar’s daughter?”

She set down her empty horn with a thump. “And who is asking?”

“Torvald Haroldson. I have come for you.”

Solvi felt an
unwanted prickle of attraction as she eyed the big man’s stony face. She’d noticed him the moment he’d entered the taproom. Who wouldn’t? Standing as tall as her opponent, he was leagues more handsome. With the sides of his head shaved, and brown hair worn in braids down his back, tattoos ringing his wrists, he was an imposing sight. “I don’t know you.”

“Your father sent me.”

“Again, we’ve never met, and I know all my father’s underlings.”

His green gaze narrowed. “I am not his man. Do you not know my name?”

She squinted up at him, noting the irritation clear in his expression. “Torvald, huh? Wasn’t that the name of the poor sod my father sought to give my sister to?”

“Poor sod…?” A frown dug a line between his dark brows.

A crooked smirk stretched her mouth. “I take it you haven’t met Runa.”

His mouth twisted into to a frown. “I was sent to retrieve
you
.”

Strangely, she liked annoying him, liked the way his body stiffened the longer she argued. She guessed there were few who would risk his anger. “Father knows I’m sailing with Halvar. He doesn’t expect me to attend the wedding. In fact, he told me he’d prefer I didn’t.” She leaned close. “He thinks my behavior and appearance will reflect poorly on his house and name.”

His mouth straightened into a firm line. “’Tis two days’ travel. Best gather your things. We’ll leave at dawn.”

She grinned. “I sail at dawn.”

“You would refuse your father’s command?”

“I have doubts he issued the order. He was quite adamant I make myself scarce.”

“Well, he’s changed his mind.”

The red-headed brute drinking beside her gave a growl. “Solvi, do you want me to toss them out the door?”

The way her friend’s body tensed, he was likely to start another fight. And already, she ached from the pounding she’d given him. “No need, Halvar,” she said, patting his arm. “I’ll see them away. I’ll meet you on the docks in the morning.”

Halvar snorted and gave the interloper a deadly glare before his gaze fell on Solvi.

Solvi grimaced because she noted a hint of lust in her friend’s hot stare. She’d started the brawl to convince him she was as strong as any man and to make sure his interest would be dampened. What man wanted someone built as sturdily and manly as she was? Now the thought of months spent escaping his attentions in the cramped confines of a long boat didn’t seem the fine adventure she’d imagined. But one problem at a time…

She led Torvald from the taproom and into the chill air outside. “Give my regards to my father and my sister when you see them,” she said, glancing backward. But he’d moved beside her, snaked an arm around her, trapping her arms against her sides. “What are you—?”

A sack settled over her head and his arm slipped away, but before she could drag the burlap off her head, she was upended, her stomach hitting one of those strong shoulders she’d admired.

“This is completely unnecessary,” she said, kicking her legs, her toes connecting with an iron thigh, but an arm clamped around the backs of hers. Trapped, she wriggled, knowing she was wasting breath and energy in vain, because he had her. “I’m telling you, he doesn’t want me at your wedding.”

“Not my wedding, Solveig,” he said, his voice coming through the fabric muffled and pitched low. “
Our
wedding.”

“What…?” Her mind reeled. “You’re mistaken. He’d never—”

“He sent me to fetch my bride. Said you were unaware of the arrangement. I thought it odd until I realized he’d switched daughters.”

“Well, see?” she said, stopping her squirming. Relief rushed through her body. “He’s tricked you. You can break the arrangement. Call foul.”

“Except that I need your father’s backing. The arrangement stands.”

“But he tricked you. He’d give you his backing just to save face.”

“Maybe so, but I promised to wed his daughter.
I
don’t break my word. Ever.”

Footsteps hurried toward them. “I have the horses saddled,” came another gruff voice, likely his bruised and bloodied companion.

“Good. We should leave before that red-headed troll looks outside and sees we’ve stolen his sweetheart.”

“We aren’t sweethearts,” Solvi grumbled. “We’re just friends.”

“Men don’t befriend women.”

She wriggled again, anger making it impossible to hold still. And she itched like crazy from the rough burlap. Never in her life had she been treated like this. Thor’s balls, she’d never been bested by a man.

That thought hammered through her mind at the same time a slithering heat curled inside her belly. She’d never been bested. But here she was, slung over a man’s shoulder. One who wasn’t breathing hard from the effort. One who’d tossed her around like she was a waif. The thought tantalized.

Torvald slid her off his shoulder and into another man’s arms. She kicked out, the toe of her boot thudding against soft tissue. From the quick exhalation and the gagging that followed, she’d hit him squarely where he deserved it—whoever
he
was.

Again, she was thrown over a hard curved surface—from the smell, a horse.

“Lothar, you’re in no condition to sit a horse for hours,” Torvald said, his voice harsh. “Rest. Follow us to Hahn’s tomorrow.”

“If you’re sure…” Lothar’s voice came, sounding strained.

She snickered, glad of the burlap because she knew men were sensitive to laughter regarding their dangling parts. A slap landed against her bottom.

“Sorry, I meant to nudge the horse,” Torvald murmured.

And then the horse bolted forward, jerking her against it. Without hands to reach for a mane or sturdy thigh, she flopped with each rolling gallop. Torvald turned the horse with a nudge of his thigh, heading to higher ground, away from the docks, away from the small village that hugged the edge of the waterway leading to the ocean. Up and up they went, the horse’s smooth gallop becoming choppier as it strained against the incline.

“I’m going to be sick,” she cried out.

It wasn’t until they leveled off that he halted the horse and lifted her, dropping her to the ground where she landed on her bottom. She wrestled with the bag until she freed herself, and then glared. From the ground, peering up at him sitting atop his tall horse, he appeared almost frighteningly large. Moonlight highlighted bladelike cheeks and the bumpy ridge of his nose. In shadow, his gaze gleamed like dark hollows, seeming sinister now. Perhaps he’d taken her father’s betrayal to heart and intended to retaliate with violence.

Did he know he was better off without Runa? If her sister had thought to pass off the child growing inside her belly as Torvald’s, one glance at his hard, implacable features must have frightened her enough she’d confided in their father. Why else would her father have offered her to Torvald? Solvi had bolted from her father’s fortress at her sister’s confession, knowing she’d never keep the secret safe. Her disgust at her sister’s behavior wasn’t something she’d have kept hidden.

She pushed back her wild hair. “I’m not the bride you bargained for. You can tell him I sailed. That I was gone before you arrived at the dock.”

“I don’t break my word. Neither do I lie.”

His tone was so deadly even, it made her gulp. “You won’t let me go, will you?”

“You are promised—already my bride by right, to do with as I see fit. If the wedding is what you fear, we will forgo it. A ceremony is not required. What is required is that we lay together.”

Solvi swallowed then coughed. Her cough wasn’t convincing, but she didn’t want him to know that she’d conceded she really had no choices here. She wasn’t going to win an argument, but she might delay his intentions long enough to escape. “I think I may have broken a rib. In the brawl. Hanging on a horse didn’t help.”

“We don’t have far to go. We’ll stop at one of my holdings. And then I’ll take a look at those ribs.”

Maybe she should have opted for a fracture somewhere less embarrassing.

He held out a hand and crooked his foot. “Ride with me. Or walk. Your choice.”

Since she preferred saving her energy for battle, she accepted his hand and stepped onto his foot, settling against his large frame, her legs spread over his warhorse. Something she’d not considered risky until she was there, trapped between the front of his hard saddle and the equally stiff appendage pressed against her backside.

His arms bracketed her body as he held up the reins. His right thigh tightened, pressing into the horse’s side and nudging the back of her leg. As intensely intimate and awkward as the moment was, Solvi couldn’t help the smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. Well, she’d wanted an adventure.

With their bodies
pressed together by the saddle’s high pommel in front and the cantle at the rear, there was no hiding his reaction even through the thick wool of his breeches and Solvi’s
kyrtill.
Torvald’s cock was full and hard, and after an adjustment to ease it upward for comfort, it nudged beneath the rising hem of her overtunic to ride the soft division of her buttocks.

And she was aware, he knew, because she sat rigidly in front of him, barely breathing.

He cleared his throat. “The house we’re going to isn’t far.”

“Then you have river access. Have you ever sailed?”

“Twice. In my youth. Before my brother’s death.”

“Second son?”

Second choice. And his dreams dashed, but he wasn’t going to complain. “Yes.”

“Where did you go?”

“Rusland. Ireland. I had plans to go farther west.”

“I would like to see those places.”

By the way her voice softened, he knew she spoke from her heart. “Well, you won’t,” he said brusquely. “We are both land bound for the foreseeable future.” Likely for the remainder of their lives, given the ambitions of his family.

They rode in silence for another hour, her sighing and shifting. His erection waned as his body relaxed. Moonlight shone from a cloudless sky, reflecting off patches of snow in rough rock outcroppings. Enough light he knew where he was, knew when they drew near Hahn’s longhouse.

Shouts rang out in the still air. The doors to the lodge were flung open. “You have her?” came Hahn’s voice.

With servants arriving with lit torches, Torvald handed down Solvi to Hahn, who set her on the ground, and then blinked as he eyed her up and down. “She’s a beauty, Torvald. If she proves too much for you to handle…”

Torvald slid to the soft turf and delivered a fierce glower, which caused Hahn’s mouth to twitch with merriment.

Hahn raised his hands. “I only meant it as a compliment to your fair bride.”

“I’m not his bride. He was tricked,” Solvi said, her hands fisting on her hips.

To forestall another brawl, Torvald latched his fingers around her wrist and pulled her toward the open doors. “We’ll take your bedcloset, Hahn.”

“The covers are already turned down,” Hahn called after him, and then laughed.

Once inside, Solvi shook off his grip and stood, rubbing her wrist.

“Is it your wrist bothering you now, rather than your ribs?”

Her glare was blistering, and Torvald realized with a start that he enjoyed teasing the woman. She was as prickly as a hedgehog. But egging her into anger wouldn’t aid him in achieving his goal. “Hahn’s wife, Inga, will lead you to the bedcloset,” he said, giving the brunette hovering at his elbow a nod. “See that she has water to bathe and clean clothing.”

Inga nodded and pasted on a smile before turning to Solvi. “If you will follow me, milady.”

Solvi didn’t move for a long moment, her glare locked with his steady stare, but perhaps she read his resolve. He was offering her a choice—comply or be forced. He was almost disappointed when she shrugged and followed Inga down the long central corridor to a doorway that led to another corridor and Hahn’s private quarters.