The Enchantment (44 page)

And in their kiss mingled the sweet taste of love and the bitterness of tears.

NINETEEN

A
AREN AWAKENED
early the next morning with Jorund's head on her shoulder and her arms around him. For a long time, she lay perfectly still, holding him, watching him. It was a particularly womanly pleasure, watching over the sleep of another . . . tenderly guarding him from wakefulness and thus from all the harms that lurked in wakeful hours. In dreams all was safe . . . all was possible . . . wealth beyond measure, joy without end, and pleasure without limit . . . even peace in the hearts of men.

In those quiet moments, she understood that it was her destiny to be at his side, guarding his dreams . . . including the one of making a better lifeway for his people. She had always thought of her strength in warrior's terms: as a god-gift ordained for fighting. Now she saw, as Jorund apparently had, that her strength had other dimensions: It would continue to shape her life and the lives of those around her. Including Jorund's.

When she could not lie still a moment longer, she gently rolled Jorund onto his side and slid from the furs, gasping silently at the impact of the cold air on her naked body. She sorted through the pile of silk and linen on the floor and held up her new garments, trying to recall how the
ells
of fabric wrapped and pinned.

“Don't bother putting it on again,” came Jorund's sleep-weighted voice from behind her. Her heart skipped at the sight of him leaning on one elbow, looking irresistibly tousled and newly wakened . . . his eyes filled with morning hunger. “Come back to the furs, Long-legs.” He dragged a ravenous look down her naked side. “Come feed the he-wolf in me.”

The raw desire in his words raked her like silky claws, setting her most intimate nerves vibrating, bringing her unexpectedly to the taut edge of arousal. Yesterday and again last night, he had been a generous and tender lover . . . the Breath-stealer, the Slow-hand, the Gentle-rider. But this morning, sated with gentler pleasures, he was hungry for more volatile ones . . . the kind to satisfy the Stallion-back, the Blade-wielder, the He-wolf. This morning he didn't ask, he demanded. She clasped the silk to her bare body and leveled a defiant look on him.

“And if I don't?”

“It is not wise to ignore a hungry wolf.”

“Is it not?”

“Have you not heard it said . . . hungry wolves take big bites?” He sat up slowly, bracing on a thickly muscled arm. An aura of latent but explosive power saturated every line of his body, each nuance of his movement.

Big bites.
The words sent a frisson of excitement through her, setting the tips of her breasts drawing tight. He liked being wolf-bit. Would she? And just what would it take to make him use his fangs on her?

She wetted her lips and turned, giving him her back and peering at him over her shoulder. He loved the sight and the feel of her buttocks, her long legs, and the curve of her back, she knew. Now she displayed them for him, spreading her legs, swaying her hips slowly from side to side, then stooping as if to pick up something that had fallen . . . and rising, ever so slowly so that her thighs and calves flexed, her buttocks tightened, and her spine curved.

She felt more than heard his movement as he sprang. A rush of exquisite heat engulfed her just before his arms did, and she came to exultant life as his great arms lashed around her. He hoisted her off her feet and dragged her—writhing and squirming—to the pallet, toppling with her into the still-warm marten, fox, and sable. With lightning quickness, he pinned her on her back, and his naked body bore down on hers with elemental force.

Only her legs were free and she unleashed their sleek, sensuous power as he focused his weight against her belly. She raised them on either side of his hips and lifted him with her body, again and again, rolling, trying to dislodge him. Her thrusts grew wilder and more provocative, a seething parody of mating that challenged him to counter with his fierce male strength, to tame and take her if he could.

“Where is this he-wolf . . . who takes such big bites?” she growled softly, flexing her shoulders, grinding her breasts against him. She could feel the beast straining in him, watched it clawing at the backs of his eyes, roaring to be free. And she sunk her nails into his wide, hard back. “I want him. Set him free.”

With a terrible groan, he gripped her tightly . . . then drove his flesh-blade into her hot, receptive sheath with one stroke. She lay still, breathless, trembling with shock waves of pleasure. Heat billowed in her lungs, in her heart, in her head. Then she sought his mouth hungrily, kissing, sucking, raking his lips with her teeth . . . coaxing him.

He responded in kind and soon his kisses and licks gave way to voluptuous suckling and delicious rakes with his teeth. She arched and shuddered and he paused, staring at her with eyes like white-hot brands.

“Are my bites too big?” It came out on a growl and it took a moment for it to right in her mind. Her ravenous he-wolf was asking if she wished to be consumed a bit more gently. There was something delicious in the irony of it, but she had no time to explore that sweet paradox in him, only to enjoy it and to cling to the pleasurable fury in him that was driving her to the limits of her own passions. She had breath for only one word.

“Nej.”

He laughed raggedly and plunged into her kisses and into her woman's body, plying his pleasure-blade with devastating skill and power to overcome her exquisitely sensual resistance . . . winning her cooperation bit by bit. Then at last they moved together, straining, writhing, melding their bodies the way they had already joined their souls. And when her senses were finally stuffed full in that wild feast of pleasure and she erupted in his arms, her response ignited an explosion in him that rocked him to the very bottom of his soul.

It was some time before they parted and lay side by side, bodies moist and glowing, spent. She began to laugh and he turned to her with a light frown.

“What is it?”

She smiled and ran her hand up his chest and across his mouth. “‘Are my bites too big,' you said.” Her eyes were liquid and warm, shimmering with love. “That is some soft-hearted beast in you, Borgerson . . . to be so concerned about the comfort of his victim.”

He looked a little shocked. “I . . . I said that?”

“You did.” She pushed up onto her elbow and leaned over him, giving his love-bruised lips a brush with hers. Then she settled her chin on her palm, letting her love rise into her gaze. “You must not be afraid to use your strength with me, Jorund. Why do you think the Norns sent you such a strong wife? You needed someone to match your strength . . . or perhaps someone to free it.”

Jorund stilled, feeling her words washing through him, releasing a warm tide of insight. Freeing his strength. It was true. For these last three years, an essential part of his nature had been imprisoned and denied . . . the raw physical strength and the intensity that were interwoven with the very maleness of him . . . It was as though he had gradually built a shell around his stronger impulses, fearing them . . . forbidding them.

With each touch, each look, each fiery exchange between them, Aaren's strength had called to his, awakened it, sustained it . . . even as he had called to the woman-softness in her, roused and nourished it. Each time he saw the love in her eyes, each time he felt the power of her marvelous body moving against his, each time she pushed his control to its limit and beyond . . . he had reclaimed a bit of himself.

Despite the exhaustion in his body, he suddenly felt like running and jumping and even flying . . . anything that could express the joy he felt at his returning life. He rolled from the furs and scooped her up into his arms and swung her around and around in an exuberant demonstration of raw power.

“Jorund!” she cried breathlessly, her eyes sparkling as she was caught up in the release of his pleasure.

“I don't know why the Norns gifted me with you, my beautiful she-wolf,” he said with a laugh. “But I will be forever grateful that they did.”

W
ORD CAME, LATE
that morning, that Jarl Gunnar had collected the silver for his son's ransom and the news spread through the hall with the speed and impact of a bolt of lightning. Borger roared up and down the hall, shouting orders that reverberated mercilessly in heads still mead-sick from the night's revelry.

“Couldn't have come at a better time!” he bellowed. Lumbering to the planking tables nearest the high seat, he snatched up a sleeping head by its thick brown hair. “Hrolf?” He cocked his head to peer at the face, then grunted disappointment and dropped it back onto the table to seize the one beside it. “Hrolf?” Another miss, and he dropped it, too. “Where in Hel's sway is Hrolf? Hrolf!”

“Here, Jarl!” Hrolf came hurrying in from the cook-hearth with his mouth and hands full of warm flatbread.

“I will need a dozen men to take to the exchange . . . Garth, Erik, you and your son . . . Get some buckets of water and roust these deep-gulpers. Then see to the horses and provisions.” As Hrolf went about rousing the men, Borger strolled back through the hall and stood looking down at Leif Gunnarson.

“The old goat collected the silver I demanded. It seems you will go back to your people, after all.” When Leif's eyes narrowed, but he made no other response, Borger laughed and stroked his beard. “You're a better whelp than your old woman of a father deserves, Gunnar's son. And to think: but for a coin to buy your mother's favor . . . you might have been mine.”

Leif jerked forward furiously and Borger lurched back a step, then laughed raucously and strolled out the doors.

“You will pay for the pain you have caused, old man . . . I swear it,” Leif gritted out, sinking back onto his ragged pallet, his eyes flinty. “Your blood will redden my blade 'ere long.”

Most of the villagers and all of Borger's head-sore
hird
gathered outside the long hall that afternoon as Borger's ransom force assembled. The warriors' iron-banded helmets, finely honed spear tips, and iron shield bosses glinted darkly in the sun, and their horses pranced as if eager to be gone.

Leif Gunnarson was brought outside and Brun Cinderhand struck the irons from his hands and feet. Leif straightened to his full height for the first time in weeks and turned a look of utter loathing on Brun, then on Borger. As his hands were retied with rope, he looked up to find Marta standing at the edge of the crowd, her face pale and her eyes pained. He watched her as they led him to a horse and forced him up on it. Then he turned his head and sat arrow-straight in the saddle, his face grim.

Garth, who was among the warriors selected for the mission to collect the ransom, sought out Miri, standing by Marta at the front of the crowd. Before the whole assembly of warriors and villagers, he removed his helm.

“I have not yet spoken to the jarl, little Miri. There has been no time,” he announced boldly. Then he pulled her straight into his arms and placed a lush, possessive kiss on her upturned mouth.

A murmur of shock spread through the crowd. All other warriors who had entertained thoughts of bidding for Miri's future had their hopes dashed utterly when Borger merely threw back his head and laughed at Garth's coltish heat. Garth's bold action had just won the jarl's tacit approval, as he had hoped it would, and his grin at Miri afterward said it was only a matter of time before they would sleep in each other's arms.

Borger mounted his great Norman-bred stallion, accepted his helm from his bondsman, and bellowed for Bedria, the Brewer. When she hurried forward, he gave her orders, his voice booming with confidence.

“Hurry your best mead and ale along, Bee-woman. Make them ready three days hence, for my return and a great celebration of my new riches!” Cheers and shouted luck-wishes filled the commons as he gave his mount the spur and led his men and their captive out of the village, along the lake path.

Jorund and Aaren stood by, watching as Borger and his men departed, then turned to each other with warm, speaking looks.