Page 36 of Her Viking Warrior (Forgotten Sons #2)

Chapter

Twenty-One

T he cult house door swung open. Brisk gusts blew into the unlit outbuilding created for Jarl Egil’s private worship.

Ilsa was curled up on the floor, trying to avoid chill winds.

Footsteps were pattering in the humble room.

Her sleepy eyes cracked open at fire’s flash.

A dark figure set a torch to soapstone lamps on small shelves jutting from the walls.

Nine flames bathed her with light, the hallowed Viking number.

Black boots were inches from her nose.

“Ilsa. Sit up.” Bjorn’s voice was achingly gentle.

She grumbled and coiled into a tighter ball. Why does his nearness hurt?

Through slitted eyes, she spied him dropping to one knee beside her. He dunked the torch in a bucket of water. The flame hissed and pungent smoke stung her nostrils.

She rubbed her nose. “Leave me alone.”

“I can’t.”

An iron band could be clamping around her heart. Guilt clawed her. It came with the accusing voice in her head, You dragged him into this mess.

They were living in the dust of the past—his and hers.

“You can’t avoid me, lady.”

“What makes you address me as Ilsa one moment, and lady the next?”

It was an odd question to ask, and the last thing she should care about. A male grunt followed, and his friendly voice was her reward.

“I don’t know why, but only a woman would notice something like that.”

“Is that an insult?”

“No. It is the highest praise.”

Eyes shut, she smiled into the soft fur trimming her mantle. She was miserable, yet smiling. How was such a thing possible?

It was Bjorn. His presence bolstered her, though she should be angry at him. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t muster even a grain of ire at him. There’d been so much of it, and holding onto it was tiresome.

Bjorn wrapped a white bear pelt around her, cosseting her like a nursemaid. “Your mantle isn’t enough to chase away the cold.”

Chains clanked. The manacles banding her ankles were hard on bone and sinew.

Her legs were stiff and her shoulder sore from sleeping on the hard-packed earthen floor.

When she opened her eyes fully, her breath puffed tiny clouds.

Bjorn was crouching beside her, the ends of his blond hair resting on black fur cresting his shoulders.

Concern lit his eyes. He concentrated on tucking the pelt in one place, smoothing it in another.

“I’m long past needing a nursemaid,” she said evenly.

“Would you accept the care of a friend?”

A thread of guilt was sewn into his words.

Wetness pricked her eyes. The hunting, the hiding, the secrets.

It all wearied her. She’d looked after everyone and loved many—her father, mother, and Frida most of all.

She’d grown up in the half-light of their imperfections and their goodness.

Her mother had considered Valda a friend, and like the jarl’s wife, she’d reveled in the rich fruit of better times—until her wealth was stolen in the raids.

Hadn’t Ilsa done the same?

She’d stood arrogantly with her mother, arrayed in fine furs and wools, polished beads sparkling from her ears.

Their impressive fifty-man ship had slid into the modest Kvivik harbor, Halfdan’s home in the Faroes.

She was the prize to lure the talented ivory hunter to join her father.

What Halfdan lacked in wealth and ships, he more than made up for in handsomeness and cunning at sea—and cruelty at home.

Now she wore chains instead of pretty glass beads.

She touched Bjorn’s fingers. “I am glad you came.”

His face pinched.

“I don’t deserve your kindness.”

“You don’t,” she said, lightly brushing hair away from her eyes. “But here we are. Just the two of us. An outlaw in chains and the hrisungr who put them on her.”

“Don’t.” His voice grated like a tortured man.

“Don’t what? Find humor in my darkest hour? I’ve nothing better to do.”

She was dancing on the edge of madness and exhaustion. Years she’d fought a reasoned battle against an awful husband. She’d tried to make the best of her path…until she couldn’t. Killing Halfdan had been a bold decision. A necessary one.

Curled up on the cult house floor, truth was painfully clear. Ending one man’s life wasn’t the cause of her trouble—saving the lives of eighteen women was.

She pushed up, a fearful thought gripping her. “Are your men hunting my friends? If they are, leave. Go,” she said in arctic tones.

A weary “No one is hunting women” came out of Bjorn.

“You didn’t tell anyone about our cave?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Bjorn scrubbed a hand across his mouth. He was staring at the floor as if answers were inscribed in the dirt.

“Because I couldn’t. I—I got this all wrong.”

Tortured notes lingered in his voice. She hugged her knees, curious.

“This ought to be good.”

Companionable silence bloomed. Winter wind stormed beyond the cult house walls, but inside seeds of friendship blossomed. Trust for the exiled son was growing. Bjorn was once again the friend who sought her to unburden his heart, the same as he did as a boy.

He was on the ground with her, an arm draping his knee. “Do you know why I came to Vellefold?”

“Because I hunted you down and brought you here.”

His grin cracked the gloom. They both knew no force on earth could make him return to Vellefold.

“I came back because I wanted justice for the wrong done to me.”

“Justice. Revenge…” She shrugged, her chains clinking lightly. “Sometimes they look the same.”

“They aren’t.” He was rueful and quiet. “I planned to save Vellefold and reject the people…the same as what they’d done to me.” He stared at the far wall. “I would sail away, leaving the settlement vulnerable.”

“And never come back. Like a final insult.”

“It was my plan,” he said faintly.

“Because then, what Egil built would die a slow death.”

“Yes.” Bjorn averted his eyes, fidgeting with the black fur on his shoulders.

What was she to do with his confession? They both wore unseen scars given to them by Vellefold. She had done what she’d thought best; Bjorn had the right to do the same.

“You’ve spoken to him,” she said gently, kindly. Her whole heart yearned for him, to see him healed and free.

“I have, but talking to Egil didn’t change me.” He speared her with ice-floe eyes. “It was you.”

Her breath was scarce. His attention consumed her. She was bound in chains, a criminal awaiting her fate, yet she was featherlight. And happy.

Was it possible Bjorn’s It was you filled her heart more than another three words women typically craved?

“Seeing you in the feast hall tonight…” His words trailed off. “You chose to right the wrongs done to others at a great and terrible cost to yourself.” He was nodding slowly, gently awed. “That is true justice.”

She was abashed. “I wanted to save Vellefold and to change it.”

“Now you’re rubbing salt in the wound.” His grin slid sideways.

She reached for him. “It is fair, what you want for yourself.”

Bjorn took great interest in her bound, bandaged hands. Between rowing hard for Rouen and much fighting on the practice field, her hands bore the brunt of her labor.

“You are like Tyr,” he said softly.

A slip of silence and… “Forgive me, Bjorn. I don’t understand.”

He was tender, taking her hands in his and turning them over, palms up.

“The scars on your hands. They are signs of sacrifice for your people. It is the same as Tyr saving others from the great wolf, Fenrir.”

She knew the tale. Tyr lost a hand in his battle; she had both of hers. Yet, Bjorn winced as though he bore the loss. She rested a shoulder on the room’s single center post when a thunk drew their attention higher.

They sat at the base of a one-eyed Odin carved in ash wood. Near the top, Jarl Egil’s green-gold torque glowed around Odin’s wooden neck. A smith had crafted the torque from gold knit with copper, the rare metal unearthed near the Aegean Sea. In it, a green stone winked, a trick of the light.

“Well, isn’t that a surprise,” she said. “It’s still here.”

Bjorn stood and pulled the torque off the idol’s neck. The neck ring was a thick as his thumbs, narrowing at the unmet ends.

He hefted its weight. “I forgot how heavy it is.”

Solid gold gleamed in his hands. Bjorn turned it over, inspecting the craftsmanship. Norway’s jarls could say what they want, but the hrisungr was the right man to wear the torque.

“He did that for you. Offered his torque to Odin because he wanted you to come back.” She tucked her knees tighter to her chest. “Jarl Egil would be pleased to see it in your hands.”

“Aegir would be displeased.” Token words.

She tipped her head to see him better. Bjorn was revealing himself, layer by layer, and she didn’t want to miss a single part of him

“He gets his offerings every summer. But you don’t care about the sea giant…or any of our gods, do you?”

“I don’t.” His gaze flicked to the carved Odin. “I am practical about my worship.” He went down on bended knee, the torque hanging casually from his fingers. “What about you? You’re the one chained to Odin.”

“Oh, everyone knows Odin has a roving eye. Maybe he prefers his women tied up?”

Bjorn laughed, the rumble echoing in the empty room. “You think Odin wants a taste of something different?”

His grin was heart-stopping. He reminded her of brave seafaring raiders.

“It’s got to be better than tussling with a giantess. There’s all that difference in…size,” she said mockingly delicate. “I would hope that I’m more desirable than a giantess.”

Ice-floe eyes glimmered intimately.

“By far, lady. You are by far,” he said in a tender voice.

Bjorn intrigued her. Rugged, gentle with trimmed whiskers shading his jaw.

Their gold framed his lips, which had kissed her passionately hours ago.

Years as a warrior for hire made him battle-hard and slow to trust. If Bjorn lingered in Vellefold, she’d tell him that she preferred the disir, and that she honored them at disblot before Jul —if she lived long enough to see the season.

Between the two of them, Bjorn had taken leaps of faith.

He’d kept the cave a secret.

He knew about the thralls, yet he wasn’t hunting them.

He taught her battle skills so that she could be a worthy leader in Vellefold.

And she had lied about Halfdan.

Yet, here he was. The dragon she’d snared was tending to her.

“No giantess has hair this beautiful.” His fingers skimmed her flaxen locks. “Like silk,” he murmured.

“Not bad for a woman of the north.”

Flames shined like bronze in the black of his eyes.

Bjorn touched her face, tracing the contours.

Womanly wisdom told her, if she slid her hands along his thigh, she’d find hardness at the crux of his legs.

Earlier, she’d been bold as a harlot. Touching him.

Tempting him. Drunk with an unexplainable whim to bend him to her will.

This was different.

Within her was an unexplainable ache. A need to soothe, to comfort.

Lust didn’t create this yearning inside her.

Deep emotions did. Burning bright, taking over her heart.

Her lips parted but no words came. How could they?

How did a woman say I love you to a man who would leave? Never mind that he put her in chains.

Emotions were searing her. A galloping heart, the nervous spring in her belly, and she, a confident woman, was turning into a puddle.

She loved Bjorn. Her heart was bursting with tenderness for him.

“Bjorn…” she whispered.

He was studying her face, memorizing her eyebrows, her forehead, scowling at the cheek her mother had struck where a bruise must’ve marked her.

Heat bounced between them.

Embers tripped over her skin.

Her back hit the post. His hand was traveling to her knee. If Bjorn had something to tell her, he was saying it with his hands. Wonder and fascination lit his face.

Her mouth was the morsel this Viking dragon would devour.

“Have you come to steal a kiss?” she said a little breathless.

Bjorn dipped closer. Mere grains of sand could fit the space between his mouth and hers.

“Do you want a man like me to kiss you?”

She brushed her lips to his. “I want you.”

Bjorn slipped a reverent hand into her hair. “And I want you.”

His kiss was long, slow, sensual. A floating on water kind of kiss, like soaking in blissful sunshine. The past was erased and the future glowed with hope.

Light burst in the small, cold room. Walls crashed and her heart soared the longer they kissed. She fumbled with Bjorn’s mantle, wanting to whisper I love you . Desire drenched her. Bound hands made this difficult. There was more receiving of his attention, than giving back.

She surrendered to him.

Bjorn hadn’t come to steal a kiss. He’d come to take her heart, and she’d gladly give it to him. Body, spirit, fame, and luck…and whatever else the gods deemed worthy. She’d lay it all at Bjorn’s feet.

The wandering warrior was in her blood.

For a brute of a man, he could be achingly seductive.

Whiskers tickled her chin as his soft lips curved perfectly with hers.

Cold air pricked her thighs. Her hem was drooping, sliding. She hissed, arching. Bjorn’s hands were rubbing her legs. Rough calloused fingers were exploring hidden skin.

A happy whimper trilled in her throat.

Her hips rocked slowly. Bjorn’s hand skimmed, light on her inner thigh. His gentle caress defied reason. A man that strong, touching so lightly, so?—

“What is this?” Bjorn broke the kiss, his demand loud and angry.

Air heaved from his lungs. He glowered at her pale-as-the-moon inner thigh exposed to him. An unnatural line seamed her leg from the knee upward.

Her scar.

She scrambled to hide it with her skirts and the pelt as if thick fur would make him forget the sight of it. Miserable, she turned her head and rested her temple on the post. She didn’t want the flood of good feelings to wash away. But there was no getting them back.

Halfdan. Even as a dead man, he ruins everything.