Viking Love Beyond Time (Time Travel Romance) (52 page)

             
Alodie had gone pale.  “You - you are my husband?  All this time
you
were Herger?”

             
He smiled.  “I was eventually awakened by someone saying your name - you saved me my love!  However, I was weak, weak unto death - I needed to build up my strength.  This I did, I ran miles every day, lifted weights, rowed, and all the time you were in my eyes and my mind.

             
I considered myself fit by the middle of November -
Blot Monath
  - a year  after I should have come for you.  I wanted to get a ship together immediately and cross the
North Sea
but my men were reluctant to brave the winter storms and my mother begged me to wait until spring.

             
I agreed, but I was frantic with impatience to see you, then Guthrum summoned me for the assault on Chippenham - I rejoiced.  I could get my men to agree to put to sea in winter for war.  We crossed quickly and the first thing I did after meeting Guthrum was to sail round, with a small force, to Bredond.  There I met your good Godgyth once again, and also two other young people, a beautiful little lady with dark curly hair and sapphire blue eyes and a great strapping lad with green eyes who immediately recognised his sire and tried to divest him of his dagger, however, on promising him that it would be his one day he reluctantly released it and tried to pull my hair, whereupon the good Godgyth almost knocked down the door in her anxiety and I had to replace my helmet so as not to alert her to the fact that the little ones were not her kith and kin after all.

             
On discovering they were unharmed and playing happily she informed me that you were at Chippenham with the queen and were to marry one Edric of Lamporth” Herger poured himself a goblet of wine and took a sip, his eyes raking her body.  Alodie felt herself redden imagining the view he must have.  She opened her mouth to speak but the Viking held up his hand for silence.  “I then marched with my already tired force to Chippenham, covering forty miles in just over ten hours, my men were cursing me somewhat but the thought of what Guthrum could be doing to you spurred me on.

             
On my arrival at Chippenham I discovered your destination from someone who had decided to stay behind......”

             
Alodie gasped “the bishop!  What did you do to him?  He was a man of God, he could not withstand torture”

             
Herger laughed.  “Peace Alodie, that good man told me nothing and no one was tortured - I am not the barbarian you seem to think!   Suffice it to say that I discovered your destination,  and stopping only to allow my poor men to re-victual and relieve themselves, I marched another forty miles only to discover that you were marooned on an island - so near to me and yet so far away!”  Alodie was impressed - these Vikings must have the constitutions of a herd of oxen.

             
He took another drink and ran his tongue across his lips.  “I have been spying on Athelney all day, only to come home to discover you already here, bathed, cosy, and waiting for me in the bedroom like a good wife should!”

             
Alodie squirmed.  “You had no right to bind me like this, untie me this instant!”

             
Herger’s eyes swept her from head to toe, then went back to her face, his emerald orbs staring into her sapphire blue ones then, without looking away, he walked over to her and tipped his wine goblet.  The ruby liquid trickled from the lip of the goblet into the hollow at the base of her throat, filled it and dripped down between her breasts, into her navel and then fanned out over the soft flat plane of her stomach and lost itself in the golden hairs of her mound.  “You are my woman Alodie” he said quietly “you were born to be my woman and you will always be my woman”

             
Alodie watched, fascinated, as he removed his over
britches
and then his braeis, the bulge of his manhood almost threatening to burst from the loincloth he wore underneath.

             
Wordlessly, he climbed onto the bed and straddled her, then began to softly kiss her eyes, her nose, her lips.  Alodie sighed and opened her lips beneath his, his tongue forced a burning path into her mouth, plundering its sweetness.  She sucked gently on his tongue, then moaned as he withdrew it from her mouth and began to lap the wine from her body, his tongue detouring as it reached the valley between her breasts.

             
Gently his tongue circled first her left nipple then her right, teasing them both into turgid peaks of desire.  Taking her breasts in both hands he pushed them together and licked both nipples, his tongue darting from one to the other.  Lifting his head he looked at her, her golden hair lying fanned out like captured sunshine on the pillow.  Burying his face in it he breathed deeply, it smelled, as he knew it would, of lemon and honeysuckle.

             
Alodie’s mind was in turmoil, this was what she had dreamed of - when Edric made love to her she had imagined it was Rorik, no Herger now.  The discovery that she had been married to the man she had loved all this time, unknowing, had stunned her.  Her head was spinning.

             
Irrational thoughts raced helter skelter through her mind.  She knew she should be fighting Herger tooth and nail but was realistic enough to know that she was as helpless as a baby when it came to this man, not only physically but mentally.  She was putty in his hands, he had lit passion’s flame in her and only he could quench it.

             
“I love you my Valkyrie” he said quietly.  “I will always love you”

             
Alodie sighed, a sibilant breath.  She felt she ought to say something, tell him she loved him too but her heart felt too full, her senses were in too much of a spin for her to speak, this had all happened too fast.

             
His tongue continued its voyage of exploration, following the path the wine had taken.  Alodie moaned as his dark curly head moved further down her body.  His tongue found her navel, circling it in an ever increasing spiral until he reached the soft hair of her mound.  He teased the tip of his tongue down the warm wetness of her slit, finding her small hard nub of desire.  Lifting his head and smiling at her he spread her soft warm folds with his fingers and lowering it again took a long, slow taste.  She arched her body, pushing herself further against him, he looked up once again and smiled that devastating smile of his.  “You have no idea how I have missed you
elskin min,
how I have dreamed of this, hour after hour, night after night” with that he lowered his head again.

             
Alodie was beyond herself, beyond any sensation except knowing Herger, beyond anything except the wanting, the needing of his hard, lean, magnificent body against hers, wanting to feel his thick, hard manhood, pulsing and throbbing inside her.  “Herger” she moaned “
now,
please........”

             
He looked up at her and nodded, she was ready.  He began to untie the thong which fastened his loincloth but the knot hindered him.  With a curse he leaned over to where his
britches
had been carelessly thrown and took his long bladed knife.  The candlelight shone on it, striking silver sparks from the metal.  Taking the knot he sawed at the tough leather thong until it gave way.  Ripping the loincloth from his body he threw it to the floor, revealing himself in all his muscular, naked, splendour.  Then smiling he leaned over and severed Alodie’s bonds.  “Do not run away from me little Valkyrie” he whispered, and kneeling down between her legs once more he began to lick her into a fever of passion.

             
She bucked and squirmed then grabbing his hair with both hands lifted his head.  “Rorik - Herger” she gasped.  “I cannot stand it any longer, take me now, please!”

             
He looked up at her, smiling wickedly, then plunged deep into her body.  As he moved strongly and rhythmically inside her Alodie began to move with him, wrapping her legs around his back as she did so.

             
Herger marvelled as he made love to her, they were made for each other, her depth exactly matching his length.  He had tumbled women he had to hold back from, who could not take his whole length, women who could not take his width and on a few occasions women who were too big even for him, but Alodie was just right, she fitted him like a glove.

             
All too soon she felt her innards begin to throb as she was hit by a mind shattering orgasm.  Moaning she wrapped her arms around him as best she could and drew him to her.  She felt his thrusts become more violent as he too reached his release.  At length he slowed and lay spent on top of her as he drew his breath in long gulps of air.

             
There was silence for a moment, Herger raised himself on his elbow and looked down at her then kissed her nose.  “Being in a coma seems to have done you good, my lord, you have improved even on your performance of eighteen months ago” she said archly.

             
He grinned boyishly and kissed her lips.  “I swear to you my lady that it is not through practising, you were the last woman I bedded.  I tried with one or two of the more toothsome thralls at home during the time of my recovery but a certain lady with golden hair, blue eyes and the scent of honeysuckle about her always seemed to insinuate herself into my thoughts and I could not bring myself to touch them”   he rolled onto his back and taking a strand of hair began to kiss it.  “Talking of bedding, my love, how was it with Luke?” he asked, suddenly.  “I understand you had to marry him but I spent my nights in torture thinking of what he would be doing to you, and more importantly whether you wanted him to”

             
Alodie sighed.  “Terrible, since you ask, but toward the end he grew so fat and full of hatred for me that he cold not manage to do anything.  He tried to kill us last October, me, the babes, Godgyth and Swein”

             
Alodie felt Herger’s body  stiffen beside her.  “So you said earlier, how did you stop him?”

             
“It was not me who did stop him.  He had me up against a wall trying to strangle me, he said he did not want to kill me immediately as he wanted me to be conscious when he killed Tom and Nerissa, that was when Swein knifed him in the back”

             
The Norseman chuckled.  “Guthrum’s Swein?  Ten year old Swein?”

             
Alodie nodded “That’s right, he saved our lives”

             
Laughing, Herger put his arm round her shoulders and squeezed her.  “How did you explain it to your servants?”

             
“We had no need to.  The hall was empty, we bundled the body up the stairs and hid it under the bed.  We told the servants that Luke had gone hunting then that night we pushed the body out of the window into a hay cart which I had ordered brought round and took him into the woods, there we threw him into the river.  When he was discovered a week later, everyone assumed he had been set upon by outlaws.   He was buried immediately.”

             
Herger pulled her closer to him and hissed the top of her head “‘Twas a shame he died” he said quietly.

             
Alodie looked up at him and raised herself up on one arm.  “I agree, I hate violence of any kind and the man was obviously sick in the head, but I am pleasantly surprised that you take such a civilised view”

             
Herger smiled.  “No, my dove, you misunderstand.  I would like to have dealt with him, believe me I could think of a death far more painful than a swift knife to the back.”

             
Alodie felt a cold shiver run up her spine at the sheer power of his words.  This man, the man she consummately loved, was as capable of killing someone as she was of swatting a fly.  She lay back down with a sigh.  “I might have guessed, you’re still as bloodthirsty as ever”

             
Herger looked puzzled.  “Alodie, that man was going to kill you, your - our children, his aunt and a young boy for whom I suspect you have a fondness, do not, please, tell me you feel sorrow at his death.”

             
Alodie ran her hands through her hair.  “For the last few months of his life Luke made my life a total misery, he - well never mind what he did, I hated him and I am glad he is gone but I wish he had not died.”

             
“You speak in riddles, my love”

             
She ran her fingers absently through the thick dark hairs on his chest “Where I come from Herger, killing someone, murder, is practically unheard of”

             
“Even to save your own skin?”

             
Alodie smiled.  “Even that, if you slay someone for attempting to kill you you are adjudged almost as guilty as them - all life is sacred”

             
Herger wrinkled his brows then ran his forefinger lightly, deliciously, down the length of Alodie’s body, marvelling at the texture of her skin.  “‘Tis a ridiculous
nithing
policy then my love, what are you supposed to do - allow someone to kill you?”