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Chapter

One

Grahame

N ever in his life had Grahame Shepherd witnessed someone fall completely apart. His friend and chieftain, Ridley, was on his knees in the dirt, his glazed stare fixed on the hacked-off length of blonde hair in his hand. The proof that his wife, Yrsa, had been taken against her will.

“Ridley,” Grahame said, trying to keep his tone even.

Ridley was a warrior, a leader. There was no reason for him to be crumbling.

They needed to go . Helplessness itched at Grahame’s spine.

He crumpled the piece of parchment in his hand.

The words inked on the page were found with Yrsa’s hair and accused Ridley of some “egregious debt” owed to Lady Adara Clayton of Guston.

Adara.

The name rattled around in Grahame’s mind, threatening to drive him mad. No. He wouldn’t allow it. His friends needed him. Resolute, Grahame shoved the name of the girl he once knew to a familiar compartment in the back of his mind.

“Ridley,” Grahame said, a demand.

Still, his friend sat in the dirt, dazed eyes fixed on the strands of yellow hair he clutched.

As if that would bring her back. Had it been only moments ago that they had been partaking in tug of war and drink?

The sun had gazed down at them with the love of a mother as the village prepared for a feast.

“How could they have taken her?” Branton challenged.

Grahame’s gaze ripped to his brother-in-law who scanned the huts bordering Hyrstow’s hall, in front of which Ridley knelt. He’d drawn his pregnant wife, Emma, to him, his large hand secured firmly about her waist.

Branton’s voice was strained as he continued. “Earlier, Merthe said she couldn’t find Yrsa. We need to go. Check on the children. There could be raiders. They could be infiltrating…”

“There aren’t.”

There was no reason for Grahame to think raiders would spare the village after Clayton had ordered it ransacked only weeks prior, but Grahame knew Adara.

Or, rather, he thought he did. The girl he’d known in his youth had been cunning.

There was no world in which she would try the same thing twice if the first time did not garner the desired result.

Which, apparently, was the capture of Yrsa.

When Branton speared him with a look full of disbelief, Grahame elaborated.

“She took Yrsa. It says so in the letter which also commands me to Clayton House. What debt is she referring to, Rid?” Grahame held up the parchment.

“Ridley?” Branton stepped forward and shook Ridley’s shoulder with a meaty hand. A tear streaked down Ridley’s cheek as his shoulder was pushed back and forth.

“I couldn’t keep her safe.” The words grated up Ridley’s throat.

The high sun was too warm on Grahame’s neck. He felt like he couldn’t take a full breath. The village couldn’t handle another blow. They needed to do something.

Footsteps on the dirt path behind them hinted at others gathering. Grahame’s hands went clammy.

“Mother?” Merthe, Emma’s daughter strode up, her mouth pulled downward. Only when Emma opened her arms to Merthe and wrapped her in a bone-crushing hug did Branton release his wife.

“Merthe, Yrsa has been taken. We don’t know much, but I need you to come with me and gather the children.”

“What?” Merthe asked, eyes wide. “Why?”

“I will go with you,” Branton said. “We’ll bring everyone to the hall this time. Put others on alert.”

Grahame rubbed at his jaw, recently shaved in anticipation of summer’s heat.

He understood Branton’s protective instincts when it came to his family; he’d lost his first wife, Grahame’s sister, Freda, the year prior, and just as his new marriage to Emma was forming, the village was raided while Branton was gone.

It was a miracle Emma and Yrsa had fought off some of the raiders and saved the children.

Grahame did not begrudge Branton for angling himself behind Emma as she turned to follow Merthe back to their hut, but he wished he was not the only one to think on how they were to get Yrsa back.

The Viking woman was like a sister to him.

“We have to do something, Rid,” Grahame infused a bit of steel into the name.

Urgency churned his gut. Grahame wasn’t a decision-maker.

He was the joker, the friend, the man there for a good time, though not a long one.

He most certainly did not know what action to take when his friend was staring at the ground like a simpleton.

“What’s gone on?” Thomas Thatcher came from their right, tension lining his shoulders.

Grahame ignored him. They didn’t have time for this.

“Is that hair?” someone said.

“Ridley,” Grahame said. He squeezed Ridley’s shoulder.

Footsteps neared, kicking up dust in the path. Others crowded.

Grahame gritted his teeth against the panic blooming behind his breastbone. Dropping to a crouch, he clasped the back of Ridley’s neck, tight enough to hurt, and pulled him close.

“Ridley,” he hissed. His friend’s golden eyes darted to him, the only indication he’d heard. “We may be able to catch them. We must move swiftly.”

“I didn’t protect her. She…”

“She would have fought, Rid.”

When Ridley merely nodded, brash, untethered anger slipped against the careful restraint Grahame kept on it. A decision had to be made. He leaned forward to hiss in his friend’s ear.

“Whatever this is, this sorrow or guilt, bury it. They could have Yrsa tied, dragging behind a horse, or worse, stabbed and bleeding out in a cage for all we know.”

The images he painted must have been enough because Ridley shoved upward with a roar that echoed among the huts. Pure, unadulterated murder shone in his eyes. Grahame blew out a thankful breath as he braced a hand on his knee to rise.

“Thomas,” Ridley commanded, stalking toward the other man, “Yrsa’s been taken. Gather whomever you can, any weapons, horses. We go after her. Now .”

Relief poured through Grahame. He would follow Ridley to the end of the earth to find Yrsa.

Lady Wolf, as he affectionately started calling her when she joined their lives, had become family.

Amid others telling him he needed to settle down, Yrsa was a grounding point in his life.

She never bothered him about his lack of wife or luck that he would inherit his father’s wealthy sheep farm.

Grahame ran inside the men’s hall to the heavy war chest that stood against the far timbered wall. He cracked the ornately carved lid, hefting it upward. Grahame’s hands met with the handle of a short sword, an ax, and a mace. He dragged out all three.

He tripped as he stood, the weapons in his arms jostling.

“Goddamnit!” he snarled.

Adara had done this. The knobby-kneed girl he’d met one dreary morning while tending to his father’s sheep.

The same girl who had come back day after day, watching, then pestering him with her idle chatter.

She’d been pale and haunted, her eyes too big for her head, nose too round.

She’d delighted in his speech—different from her noble dialect—and his ability to call the lambs to him.

As she ran her hands over the little beasts, her laugh made the sky sparkle.

Now, as a woman, a lady of a warring territory, she’d taken one of the few people in his life he truly cared for.

Grahame dumped the weapons at the feet of the men assembled.

Ridley, Thomas, Awolf Tanner, Aeon Smith whose wife was slain in the last raid, Sam Sawyer, Murhed Butcher and others stood in a circle near the hall’s door.

Some were glassy-eyed with drink from the day’s festivities, others were demanding answers or offering to stay behind to protect the village.

Ridley doled out orders while Grahame disappeared inside the hall once again.

If he kept moving, they could get to Yrsa in time.

If he kept moving, they would bring her back and the only harm done to her would be a haircut. If he kept moving…

“Let’s go!” Ridley shouted from outside.

Arms laden with more weapons, he returned to the group, passing the steel to awaiting hands. Horses had been gathered, their direction settled upon. At last, Grahame reached for the remaining weapon on the ground.

Ridley barely looked at him, but offered over his shoulder, “Can you pull that thing?”

Grahame bit back the thread of annoyance that shot through him as he picked up the bow. He may not have been known for his prowess on the battlefield but he deserved some credit. He’d done the required combat training Ridley put the men through, albeit not well.

“Yes.”

“Good.”

His chief threw himself upon his horse, galloping away as fast as it would carry him. Grahame clambered up on the awaiting mare that had been brought ‘round. He wasn’t sure if he could aim well but would do his damnedest to try.

In the short bursts of time he’d known Adara Clayton, she’d wreaked havoc on his life.

At fourteen, they’d spent a summer together.

His heart had been torn asunder when she’d been taken home.

He didn’t know for sure if she was behind the most recent raid or if it was an order given by her sickly husband.

Either way, she would have known of it. The final straw, she’d captured Yrsa.

He was through with her antics. Revenge was a red haze that swallowed him whole.