Surrender My Love (17 page)

His staring at her nakedness now was done just to shame her, not because he was actually curious about what she looked like. He didn’t do it for his pleasure, or even in anticipation of having her. His sister had said that was something she wouldn’t have to fear. He had told her nearly the same thing. Normal emotions didn’t apply to this. Just her shame, her discomfort, her helplessness.

Erika got angry.

Fear had been controlling her, fear of what the sight of her nakedness could do to a man, and what that man would then want. But she
had forgotten that Selig was no ordinary man. He was her enemy, and that particular fear didn’t apply to him. He wasn’t even capable of coupling just now, if for some reason he should desire it, and even if he was, he wouldn’t act on that desire. Coupling would mean he wanted her, and he would never give her something like that to throw up in his face afterward.

The anger came, and with it, an abrupt change in her demeanor as well as her thinking. He wanted to shame her? How could he, when she had wanted this bath more than he wanted her to have it, when his presence presented no actual danger to her, when she had it within her power to make him regret toying with her this time? He wanted to watch? She would give him something to watch. Perhaps she had no power as a lady, but she still had her power as a woman.

Erika had never in her life deliberately tried to entice a man, but some things were instinctive. She turned around to face him. She reached for the soap and spread it on her hands instead of the washcloth. Slowly, with ancient challenge in the sky-blue eyes she locked to his, she rubbed her hands over her breasts, smoothed them over her belly and hips, down the side of her legs to her knees, then, even slower, up the inside of her thighs. He followed those hands with his own bright grey eyes, and she knew the very second that he forgot who she was, and was just watching a woman at her bath.

“Will you wash my back, Viking?”

“Vixen,” he hissed.

She wanted to laugh, but didn’t. She had never imagined she could salvage her pride this way.

And then, somehow, he turned the tables on her.

It was the way his expression suddenly became sensual. The way his lips softened and curved just so. The way his eyes gleamed more silver than gray as they caressed the intimate parts of her. He was a man who knew how to make love with his eyes, and he was giving her a demonstration of that skill.

Uncertainty returned with a vengeance, making Erika distinctly uncomfortable again. It had been unbelievably stupid of her to provoke this reaction in him. After all, the conclusions she had drawn were not writ in blood. Lust could destroy the strongest resolve.

He still wasn’t capable of doing anything about it just now, but that and only that kept her from running, screaming, from the room. She looked away from him instead, and finished her bath with all speed. But she knew he hadn’t closed his own eyes.

He watched, and she trembled. She also began to feel something else, something unexpected and not unpleasant that hummed in her core. Was lust contagious? Odin help her if it was, because he could see to his with any one of a dozen women in the hall below, but who would see to hers? Nay, fanciful was what she was. She wouldn’t know lust if it bit her. And for him to stir it with just a look? Impossible.
Her stomach had merely reacted to such swift changes in emotions, no more than that.

He said no other words to her, and she didn’t look his way again. But she had learned a lesson. She was no good at his game.

Chapter 20

“Y
OU WILL FIND
a comb in the coffer next to you,” Selig said.

The offer was so unexpected, and so generous, Erika distrusted it, coming from him. That she had been trying to work the tangles from her hair with her fingers for the past half hour was beside the point. Selig wouldn’t give her something she might be grateful for. So why had he?

She opened the coffer warily, expecting some sort of trap to spring, knives to drop from the ceiling, the floor to open and swallow her, rodents to leap out of the trunk itself. Nothing happened. It was an ordinary trunk. And the comb was there, next to an oval looking glass, both set atop a deep pile of male clothes.

The looking glass she simply couldn’t resist using, but staring into it brought bemusement. She didn’t look as awful as she had expected. In fact, freshly scrubbed, she showed not a sign of hardship on her face. No more than a slight tinge of yellow was on her cheek where she had been struck, telling her she had bruised, but not
badly. The swelling was also gone from that area. Her sky-blue eyes were bright, surprise reflected in them. Even the sun had treated her kindly, merely darkening the golden tan she had already begun acquiring since summer had come to the land.

She looked, actually, quite lovely, making her doubt what she was seeing. It had to be the candlelight, glowing throughout the room since a servant had come to light the many tapers at the first signs of approaching dusk. Candlelight could be deceiving…

“You thought to see something different?”

The blasted man
could
read minds. “Nay, I—”

“Give me time, wench,” he interrupted. There was distinct laughter in his tone. “I will put the suffering there you expect.”

“Bastard,” she hissed beneath her breath.

She began yanking the comb through her hair. The tears that sprang forth from her stinging scalp forced her to ease up and use the comb properly.

They had both already eaten. The food given her had not been what one might expect for a prisoner, but instead, of surprisingly rich variety and quite tasty. The inside of her mouth was still sore, though had healed enough that she no longer had to be careful in her chewing. But she would have enjoyed the meal better if she didn’t have to listen and watch the love-play going on across the room.

The girl, Edith, who had come with the food,
did more touching and caressing of Selig than feeding him, and spent a full hour at it. Shameless slut, and he enjoyed every moment of it, exuding more charm and sexual appeal than Erika had ever been witness to. It was obvious they were well “acquainted,” and just as obvious they would be again as soon as Selig’s strength returned.

The hour was, in fact, grown quite late now, yet no one had come to extinguish the lights or retie her. The water had been emptied from the tub. Lady Brenna had come again, to assure herself that Selig was taking the potions the healer had made for him. Lady Kristen had merely poked her head around the door, to inquire if he needed anything. The most disquieting visit, however, had come from Selig’s father and brothers.

The three men dominated the room with their height and brawn, and each had gazed quietly at Erika at different times during their visit, though none addressed her or even asked Selig about her. Kristen had probably told them all there was to know, her version at least. Erika sensed varying degrees of curiosity from them, distaste, perplexity, and anger, but surprisingly, no actual hate. Likely they just hid it better than Selig did.

The younger brothers, Eric and Thorall, were neither one as handsome as Selig, which didn’t say they weren’t very handsome men. They were each a score in years, Eric mayhap a few years more than that, and they both took after
their father as Kristen did, with tawny golden manes, eyes a distinct shade of aqua, and his extreme height.

Erika tried to ignore their presence, but it was next to impossible, especially when what was most interesting was Selig’s behavior. To see him with them was to see a different man, one who laughed and teased and bore teasing in return with more laughter. This, on top of the sensual charm he had displayed earlier with the pretty Edith, led her to revise her opinion of him somewhat.

There were certainly more facets to his character than she had thought, though this did not relieve her mind in any way. Rather, it was disconcerting to find that a man who appeared to have such an easy nature could also harbor such a deeply rooted streak of cruelty.

She finished with her hair. Selig had watched her work with it. Most times through the evening, when she had glanced his way, he had been looking elsewhere, deep in his thoughts. Not since she had begun with her hair. And his eyes were still on her, without expression, telling her nothing of what was running through his mind.

His steady gaze was making her edgy. She wanted to sleep. The hour was late enough for it. And a blanket had been left for her earlier, when her own clothes had been taken away. Those she wore now were of the coarsest variety, but no more than she had expected.

She also expected to be retied, and wondered why no one had come to do so. Not
for a moment did she think she would be left free for the night. And she wondered why no one had come to put out the lights. Should she offer to do it? Nay, she would offer nothing, would do nothing she wasn’t forced to do. She wasn’t here to be helpful and wouldn’t be, not if she could do otherwise.

The question came from her edginess, her tiredness, anything to break the nerve-racking silence. “The coffer is yours?”

“Aye.”

“You live here, then?”

“I have my own hall a short ways west from here. ’Tis newly built, though, and certainly not as comfortable as Wyndhurst. This is my chamber, however, whenever I stay with my sister.”

“How long do you intend to stay here?”

His expression turned wry. “I doubt me I will have much say in my leaving. Kristen feels the few slaves I have will not take care of me properly. Unfortunately, my mother is like to agree with her.”

The mention of his “slaves” ended the brief conversation for Erika and brought her temper rising. She shook out her blanket, wrapped herself tightly in it, and lay down to face the wall.

But what she had started, he meant to finish. “Mayhap you know how to care for an invalid?”

“You are not an invalid,” she gritted out. “There is naught wrong with you that food and rest will not fix right quickly.”

“Were that the case, my pain would be gone,” he replied. “It is not.”

Erika squeezed her eyes shut tight against the guilt those words brought back. She had ordered an injured
and
innocent man lashed. She had added pain to considerable pain. He deserved his full wergild price. He deserved an apology, which she had yet to offer. He deserved her understanding for what he was putting her through—Nay. She had only to recall how much pleasure he got in humiliating her to decide all he would get from her was the wergild.

He said no more. Neither did she. A short while later she had started to doze off, despite the discomfort of her hard bed, when she heard the chains rattle.

She opened her eyes and turned to see Ivarr coming across the room toward her. Alarm struck her first, and she sat up, then realized he must be there to tie her. He had done so on more than one night before. She relaxed, only to hear the chains again.

The alarm was back, worse. Her eyes flew to his hands and widened. He held chains, all right, replete with shackles, a great many of them.

Selig spoke before Ivarr bent to her. “Are they to my specifications?”

“Exactly. The smith got two others to help him and has worked all day. He only just finished.”

“Did you test them?”

“Aye,” Ivarr replied. “The links held firm, despite their thinness.”

“Good. Then bring her here.”

Ivarr lifted a brow, since Selig had risen as he said it. “You had better not let Lady Brenna see you sitting up like that. The word is out, she is not letting you out of bed for a fortnight.”

Selig ignored the warning completely. “Bring her, Ivarr. I want to put those shackles on myself.”

Ivarr shrugged his compliance. Erika drew back as he reached for her, but she had nowhere to cringe to. Without strain, he was able to yank her up and drag her toward the bed, even with her holding back with every ounce of strength she possessed.

She didn’t actually fight him, though the urge was powerfully strong to do so. She knew how pointless that would be. They would have her chained anyway, and also be pleased to know how much she loathed the idea. So she didn’t fight, and only Ivarr could feel her resistance.

To Selig she showed an indifferent expression. He wasn’t going to know how frightened she was. Chains were so permanent, so unbreakable, freedom so completely at the whim of one’s captor. Ropes offered a slim chance at escape. Chains offered none.

She knew now why the candles still burned, why Selig had not tried to sleep. He had been waiting for this, likely savoring the thought
of it, and now was going to thoroughly enjoy putting the chains on her himself.

Sweet Freya, she didn’t want to be chained. Selig the Blessed was not offering a choice.

She was shoved in front of him, practically between his spread knees. It was too close. He was naked sitting there on the bed, with only a corner of his blanket drawn over his lap. But when she tried to step back, it was to encounter Ivarr directly behind her.

The chains were tossed on the bed beside Selig, where Erika was able to get a closer look at them, and in fact jumped at the chance to look elsewhere than at the man. She had understood from Ivarr’s words that they were not normal chains, were made special to Selig’s specifications, but she was surprised now to see how unusual they were.

The metal links were not just thin, as Ivarr had mentioned, but were also quite small, like none she had ever seen before, at least not for this purpose. Silver and gold chained girdles had links this small. These looked, frankly, useless, too flimsy to hold anything. Hope rose, only to drop in the same instant. Ivarr had tested them. If he couldn’t break the links, she certainly couldn’t.

The shackles attached to the chains were of a normal size, but again she found the unexpected. The wide iron bands were covered in sleeves of stitched leather, with narrow slits for the attachment rings. Her skin would be protected from the iron. Why Selig should have a care for her skin, she couldn’t begin to guess.

“Give me your right hand.”

She hesitated for only a second. If she could help it, she wasn’t going to show him how much she hated this. Let him think it made no difference to her, what form of restraint he used. But it was difficult to keep from cringing when that first shackle clicked on.