The Viking's Woman (22 page)

He threw back his head, letting out a harsh cry. Cords strained in his neck, his shoulders bunched and tautened. And then Rhiannon felt him climax inside her, and the magic within her was again released. Sunlight burst upon her and then faded to near darkness,
and she thought that she was passing out or that perhaps in truth she had died ….

He rolled from her body and drew her close. It was then that she felt the pain again, a soreness between her thighs. She swung around within his arms and pummeled him fiercely. To her further fury he laughed, capturing her wrists and pulling her close.

“Bastard!” she hissed.

“A pleased one,” he told her, his blue eyes mocking. “Your lovers’ tryst was interrupted, so it seems.”

“Then let me go now. Your honor has been satisfied. You’ve had your way—what more could you want?” she cried.

“What more? Oh, I want much, much more. I want everything, every little thing, that you were willing to give him.”

“I’ll never give you anything.”

He smiled. “Oh, I think that you will. Indeed, my love, I think that you will.”

“Never, I swear!” Rhiannon promised him vehemently. “All that you shall receive from me will be my ardent prayers for your swift demise!”

He laughed. “Because you hate me so deeply, madam? Or because you enjoy me?”

She swore softly and would have twisted away, but he caught her shoulders and pinned her with icy eyes. “Pray, then, for my demise. You had best do so. Yet if I do survive the coming battle, you had best then pray for your own soul. I will demand it as my due. I will demand everything, and I will have it—barbarically, if need be. I will always have what is mine.”

She freed herself at last from him, shrouded herself in the bedcovers, and turned her back on him.

“I see that you have already begun to pray that I fall in battle.”

She did not answer him. His hand fell upon her shoulder, and she shuddered, spinning around to meet him. He couldn’t mean to—to start it all over again. But he could. It was his wedding night.

Her body quickened and burned at the thought. Did she despise him merely for being what he was … or perhaps she did hate him even more deeply
for what he had drawn from her. For what he knew he had drawn from her.

She would give him no more, ever. Yet her eyes widened with alarm as he watched her because she had quickly learned a lesson this evening—he had the greater strength, and he did have the power to bend her will with his touch.

But he did not touch her again. “Go to sleep,” he told her quietly. A glow fell over his features, over the mysterious blue power of his eyes, over the proud and handsome lines of his face, over his neatly clipped mustache and beard, over his shoulders, reminding her of their breadth and of his strength. She shivered. He stared at her a moment longer, then suddenly he swept his own covering aside. Naked and at ease, he sought out his sword.

In rising panic Rhiannon watched him. She saw him pick up the blade and stare at it almost lovingly, then run his fingers along the sharpness of the blade. He turned back toward the bed and began to stride toward her.

Something bubbled within her, a horror of death, some sweet instinct for life. He had lied; he meant to slay her, after all.

She paled. And as he came closer a cry escaped her. “Nay, you cannot!”

He paused, arching a brow. Then he began to laugh, and the sound of it was deep and rich and amused.

“Lady, with your temper, ’tis possible that I shall beat you at some time. But slit your throat … nay. Not yet, anyway.”

He climbed back into the bed, laying the sword on
the floor by his side. “One never knows in foreign lands,” he murmured. Then he turned his back on her, pulling the covers over his shoulders.

Beside him, she lay in shock, so vastly relieved that she was perplexed. She wanted to jump from the bed and blow out the oil lamps, for she craved darkness to shield her body and her thoughts. She could not bring herself to leave the bed, and so she lay still and listened for his easy breathing. His back was to her, and she saw the bronze expanse of his shoulders and began to shiver.

She had been wed to this curious demon, this beast who mocked her very fear of him and now had turned from her. She wanted no part of him; she truly wanted him to fall. She was in love with Rowan.

No, she could never be in love with Rowan again. Not since this man had touched her. She might despise him, but still she shivered because of him, shivered and burned ….

She swallowed, for she could not bear to see that broad expanse of back and those bronzed shoulders. She eased up at last and moved toward the trunk at the foot of the bed, where the two lamps burned. She leaned down to blow out the flame, and then she paused, for her eyes had fallen upon his sword.

She could pick up the blade and pierce his heart. Then he could no longer hurt or humiliate her, could never again claim her as his wife.

Nay … She smiled ruefully, scornfully, at herself, for she could not do such a thing. She could not take a blade against a sleeping man, no matter how she despised him.

“Vixen!”

The sharp, snarled word came from him in a startling rush of fury. She had not heard him move, she had not heard him breathe! But suddenly he was out of bed and was before her, holding her to him. He was hot and potent and in a seething fury, and she gasped with new fear as he held her, her head wrenched back and her soft form crushed against his hard one again.

“You would think to slay me! Your arrows did not find their true mark, so you would slice open a man you have wed!”

“Against my will!” she cried in her own defense. It would do her no good to claim that she had found herself unable to perform the treacherous deed. She quaked, and yet she forced herself to hold her chin high.

He swept her cleanly off her feet, into his arms. She felt his nakedness keenly. He cast her back upon the bed, but this time his back was not to her. His arm remained around her, and he pulled her taut to his body. Taut so that his chest and hips and loins were flush with her back and buttocks and he could feel each subtle shift of her movement.

And she could feel his body against her tender flesh. Pulsing, vibrant, alive …

“Go to sleep!” he snapped. “Move again and I shall promise to flay you with twenty strokes this very night, and then prove to you upon a later occasion that I can force myself to be very barbaric—and excruciatingly savage.”

Tears stung her eyes but she did not move. She lay barely breathing, hating the intimate feel of him against her.

She did not sleep. She spent the next hours wide awake. She did not turn, twist, or shift—indeed, she barely blinked. When at last her eyes closed and sleep claimed her, she was entirely unaware that she eased against him for his great warmth.

Or that he, too, had lain awake, in truth far longer than she.

He had not mocked just her but himself.

For she was beautiful. Her naked flesh was truly exquisite. Her breasts rose voluptuously, firm and full, and they were crowned by tempting, rosy peaks that hardened evocatively to his touch. Her back was grace incarnate, her hips flared both delicately and lushly, and her waist could be spanned by his fingers. A rage against her burned within him. Despite his anger, he had taken care with her. He had nurtured the fires in her eyes and in her spirit, and he had known that she had obtained a sweet pleasure in the act, but nevertheless she behaved as if he had beaten her. She still fought him, still defied him.

She was still dreaming of another man.

Life was made of hard facts, he thought. She must accept that. She was his wife.

Another rage burned deep inside him too. He spoke in jest to shame her; yet he spoke the truth. They were enemies, keen and bitter, and she would fight and despise him at every turn. It was a brutal and ironic thing, for when he made love to her, he remembered love, the tenderness, the sweet laughter, the need.

This passion was no such emotion but a desire so strong that he did fight some savage beast within him, a wolf that yearned to howl and claim this woman. He
did not want tenderness; he wanted to take her and cast her from him and keep that memory of love clean within him.

He gritted his teeth. She did not seem to recognize his Irish blood. She saw only the savage. Then be damned, he determined. He would quench the fever within him and be all that she saw.

He closed his eyes. He felt the rich fullness of her breast, and a fire pulsed inside of him again. He tightened his jaw. He had told her to sleep, but he could not allow her to do so.

His lips touched hers. His hands moved over her breast and he knew that he would take the vision of her beauty into battle with him and through the empty nights to come. He pressed his lips against her flesh and tasted the sweet salt of their first union. She moved, not really awakening. Her body writhed and arched instinctively to his caress.

Then he claimed her lips again, wedging his body between her thighs. Her eyes flew open with startled alarm just as he thrust into her with the hardness of his sex. It was too late for protests. A strangled sound escaped her, and she slammed her hands against his chest, but then her fingers curled over his shoulders, her nails raking his muscled flesh.

His lips left hers and he stared down at her. Her eyes were closed and her breath came raggedly through her barely parted lips. She might deny him. She might deny herself. But she was blessed with beauty and sensuality, and if she was not allowed to waylay him, she would learn the truth of it.

“You are mine,” he whispered to her softly. “My wife. Remember it. Never forget it.”

Then he moved within her.

His passion unleashed, he swept her into his great tide. Perhaps there was something of savagery in his demand, for he rode her at a fever pitch, and when he reached his climax, it seemed that the anger and tension spewed from him with the seed of his body. She was his, and she would know it now.

He felt her shudder, felt her release. He lay against her in the night until she cried out with outrage, trying to shove his weight from her.

He set her free, and she curled away from him. After a long time he saw the heaving of her shoulders cease. She slept again.

In sleep she was all innocence. Dark lashes swept over her cheeks, and her hair was an elegant tangle of flame covering her body like some finely spun cloth. She was very young. Seeing her so, he braced himself. He tried to remember how she had cast her clothing aside for her lover, intending to cuckold him. He remembered only the flow of her back and the beautiful flare of her hips, and he thought again how curiously she appeared as pure as winter’s first snow, and as vulnerable and sweet.

He lay back and closed his eyes, and he reminded himself that he had to meet that very lover at dawn, and that he had gravely determined that he did not want to slay the lad. He would need his wits about him. Then the company would leave and they would ride to face Gunthrum at Rochester. He needed to be awake and ever aware, and his sword arm needed to be rested.

And still sleep eluded him.

*  *  *

The cock’s first crow came at last, and the sky was lit with crimson.

It was time for him to meet with Rowan.

Eric rose and dressed quickly, belting on his scabbard and sliding Vengeance within it.

He paused, staring at Rhiannon. With morning’s light she looked ever more innocent, ever more beautiful. Deadly beautiful, he thought, feeling his anger with her inflame him again. She might well have cost the poor fool lad his life, for they had to fight, and swordplay could always be deadly.

Rollo waited at the door of the wedding bower. He led the giant white stallion and carried Eric’s faceplate and armor. They did not speak; there were no ribald jokes exchanged. Eric donned his mail and set the helmet and visor upon his head, adjusting it. He mounted Alexander.

“Is the king ready?”

“The king and the lad, Rowan, along with a number of the Englishmen, await us on the field.”

Eric nodded.

“What will you do?”

“Slay him if I must.”