Page 2 of Hungry Like a Wolf (Vikings Rock #3)

C armel frowned at the Viking carefully stacking logs onto the fire in the center of his small, round dwelling.

He was tall and his limbs rangy. His hair was long and wavy and tucked behind his ears.

His angular face was streaked with the black kohl he’d swiped thickly beneath his eyes and he wore a necklace with a steel pendant shaped into what appeared to be a hammer.

“Do not fear. You will not be cold.” He twitched his eyebrows and grinned. “I like to keep a fire burning, even here in Lothlend, where the earth is not so frozen as it is in my northern lands.”

She didn’t answer, just glared down at the chain between her ankles. He’d fastened the metal cuffs to her lower legs and a short length of chain between them meant she could only take half a step with each pace. Walking was awkward. Running impossible.

Which of course was his intention.

He wanted her to stay at his side… as his slave.

“I would rather freeze to death,” she said, wrinkling her nose, “than have to see out the winter here with a heathen like you.”

He chuckled. “I would not let you go to your heaven, Princess, because then who would wash my clothes, cook my food, and rub my back when it aches from chopping wood?”

“Exactly. I am a princess. You should treat me with respect and let me go home to my people.”

“Oh, no, no, no.” He shook his head. “I will not let you go. And do not think you can escape, either.” With a stick, he poked at the glowing embers around the new logs.

“You are staying here as my thrall.” He pressed his free hand to his chest. “As my slave, you should be honored. I am Orm, the brother of the king.”

“Ha, he is not a true king.” Disgust twisted her mouth. “He is a Norseman who has no right to be here, no right to this land, no right to a crown or the attention of God.”

“That is what you believe.” Orm pointed at her with the stick he’d been poking the fire with. “But not what everyone else in Tillicoulty believes.”

“If they consider themselves to be God-fearing Christians, then they would denounce him.”

“Ah, but King Haakon is a Christian. He was baptized, you know.”

Carmel was quiet for a moment, then, “I don’t believe you.” She folded her arms. “He wouldn’t forsake his own gods.”

“I speak the truth. His wife, Queen Kenna, insisted on it before they were wed. The priest Olaf performed the ceremony himself. I was a witness to the event.”

Her scowl deepened. “That one act does not make him Christian. He must follow Jesus and have God in his heart. He must learn the scriptures of the Holy Bible and renounce all sins, act only with love and compassion.”

“The way your father did when he collected taxes from these people, who already had so little?”

“The taxes were just and due.” She bristled. Somewhere deep inside, she knew there was some truth to Orm’s words.

“‘Just’?” Orm laughed. “‘Due’?”

His cackle grated on her. It was high-pitched and somewhat manic.

“Aye, they were just taxes for hunting and fishing on my father’s land.”

“It was not your father’s land.” His mirth stopped abruptly and he leaned forward, his dark eyes flashing.

“It was and still is the land of the people who farm it, who know and respect it, whose ancestors have lived here since the great world serpent, Jormungandr, took his tail into his mouth and created the Earth. Your father had no claim to it and no right to charge tax.” He shrugged. “And now he will never collect again.”

A pang of grief twisted Carmel’s heart. Her father had been power-hungry, it was true, but nowhere near as brutally ambitious as the heathen Vikings, and no matter any of his faults, he had still been her father and she’d known he’d loved her, as she’d loved him.

“You are a monster.” She pursed her lips and looked away from him, staring pointedly at the small cot in the corner in which she’d spent the night before.

“ Ja , that is right.” He cupped her chin and turned her to face him. “I am a monster, the monster from all of your worst nightmares, and now you are mine. You belong to the monster. Princess Carmel is now Thrall Carmel, my slave.”

“You think you are so powerful,” she said, glaring at him, “but never forget power wields enemies.”

“That is right! You are right!” He released her chin, roughly pushing at her face. “And we will be ready for them, for did you not see our victory? Did you not witness how your father fared when he declared war upon us?” He made a slashing motion over his throat and his eyes flashed.

“Holy Mother of Jesus.” She crossed herself. “You know no mercy. Your wickedness is every bit as heinous as your reputation said it would be.”

“You had better believe it.” He laughed and stood, pouring ale from a casket.

“I wish to go to church.” She pushed to standing. “I know you have one in Tillicoulty. I have seen it.”

“It is not mine.”

She said nothing.

“What use is one god? I have many.” He pinched the small hammer that sat just below his throat. “And one day, I will sup with them in Valhalla and regale them with my stories. Stories of adventure and travel, victory and pleasure…and of a thrall princess I claimed as my own.”

“It is a truth, as I see it, that you cannot claim a woman as a wife, which is why you are so pleased to have claimed me despite my unwillingness. I am a woman who has no choice but to be at your side because you have made me all but lame.” She lifted her right foot, jangling the chain.

“Never forget, I am not here by choice. That should make you uncomfortable at best, terrified at worst. Each night when you close your eyes and your guard is down, there is no knowing what I will do. I almost killed one of yours, remember, with a spear to the head.”

He scowled at her, two deep lines on his forehead, as he drank deep. “ Almost , for you are no warrior.” He spat on the floor.

“I am going to pray.” Carmel shriveled her nose then took small steps across the dwelling to the doorway. It was slow progress. Each time the chain became taut, she nearly toppled over.

“All Father, give me strength,” he muttered, tossing his empty mug to one side.

“Oh!” The next thing she knew, she was in the air, folded in half over his shoulder again with his hand slapped against her ass. “Put me down.”

“I cannot stand and watch your ridiculous shuffle all the way to the church.” He headed out into the open and stood tall as he strode past a pigpen, his feet sinking into a muddy patch of earth. “I will carry you there.”

“I would… rather walk.” Each step he took seized the air from her lungs. “Even if it… takes me… all day.”

“You do not get to decide.”

Her hair fell forward and shame washed over her as she heard voices—familiar voices that spoke with her Lothlend accent, not the strange gruffness of the Vikings. Surely, someone would help her? She was their princess. For years, they had bowed down to her family.

But as they neared the church, she heard nothing but chuckles of amusement at her predicament and one gruff comment about her having a nice ass. Hope was futile—at least the hope that the people of Tillicoulty would help her.

Hell, right now, her father’s head and those of his men’s were up on stakes at the entrance to the fortified village as a warning to others.

These people had changed.

And it was all because of their new Norse leader, Haakon.

“I said, put me down .” She kicked her feet and gripped Orm’s belt.

Suddenly, she was being upended and the soles of her boots hit the ground. For a moment, she was dizzy and closed her eyes, the stone slab beneath her swaying.

“You are here,” he said, pointing at the tiny church.

It had a small steeple with likely one miniscule bell to call for prayers, a single cross-shaped window, and an oak door that had a split in it along with rusting iron hinges.

She brushed down her gown then tightened the belt at her waist, which fastened her thick, woolen cape securely to her body.

“I suppose if your people hadn’t had to pay taxes, it would be a better temple, ja ?”

“It is not a cathedral, that is true. But why would they need one?” A pang of guilt hit her. It really was in a bedraggled state for a holy building.

He shrugged and ran his hand through his hair. It instantly fell messily around his face again. His jawline was smooth and strong and his nose dead straight.

“How come you speak my language?” she asked suddenly.

“Joseph.”

“Who is Joseph? And not the one from the Bible—I know who he is.”

“I only know one Joseph.” Orm shrugged again.

“A thrall my father took from a monastery during one of his first sailings west. He has been with our family for many years.” He drew a circle like a halo over the top of his head.

“His hair grew back and he learned our ways, even became a fighter when he had to be.”

“He went… Your father took him to your lands?” Was this true?

“ Ja , he captured him the way I have captured you. Which meant that Joseph was no longer a free man. He had to go where my father, King of Drangar, wanted him to go. And that was to serve our family for the rest of his days.”

Her mouth fell open. Was that to be her fate? Serving this wicked, excitable, unpredictable Viking until she was an old lady? And if so, would he bundle her onto a boat and take her across the seas to lands unknown?

She kissed the cross at her neck and stepped away from him, toward the church door. If ever there was a time she needed her prayers to be heard, it was now. She would kneel before whatever meager altar there was and pray for her father’s soul and for her own future.

“Hey, Orm.” A deep voice to her right.

“ Ja ?” her capturer answered.

“We are preparing Egil’s pyre at the beach. Come and help us.”

Carmel hurried toward the church as best she could, her heart thumping. Would he stop her going to pray? It was the only thing she could do right now to soothe her soul.

“Princess,” he called at her back.