Page 5 of Hungry Like a Wolf (Vikings Rock #3)

S oon, Carmel was in the warmth of the Great House.

A big, round dwelling that appeared to have one large bedroom with a fire at the back and the rest used as a meeting place with a fire trough, flame baskets, and a banquet table.

Two large chairs sat the head, sealskins hung around drying, and the walls were adorned with wooden crosses, antlers, sprigs of pheasant feathers, and bundles of drying herbs.

Several barrels of ale were set in the corner.

“It’s warm in here,” Anna said. “Better for you.”

“Why are you being kind to me?” Carmel asked. “I’m a prisoner. I was fighting your people yesterday.”

“You are a fellow Christian and woman of Lothlend.” She nodded at the cross that hung from a hoop in Carmel’s ear—a gift from her father on her thirteenth summer.

“That is true.”

“And God says we must be merciful and find forgiveness in our hearts.” She touched the cross. “Don’t you agree?”

“Aye, I guess I do.” Carmel shuffled to the barrels and began to fill jugs with the frothy, sweet-smelling liquid. “The woman with the red hair who lit the pyre. Tell me about her.”

“She is the king’s sister. Her name is Astrid and she has been gone for weeks, only just returned with news of your father’s army approaching.”

Ah, so that is why Tillicoulty had been prepared for their attack. They’d been seen camping in the valley. It made sense to Carmel now.

“And the man, with the red hair, he is the queen’s brother, Hamish,” Anna went on. “He disappeared at the same time as Astrid. Bryce—that’s our friend—and I, we guessed he had gone to Astrid. Ever since she arrived he had this stupid soppy look in his eyes whenever she was around.”

“From what I’ve seen, she doesn’t exactly exude gentleness and forgiveness.”

“You’re right.” Anna set out a plate of ham then reached for bread and a knife. “She is a shield-maiden. Skilled and brave. She taught us to fight the best she could in the time we had before your army arrived.”

Carmel nodded, preferring not to remember the carnage that she’d been forced to join in with, even though she was not a warrior—the screams of agony as the spiked fence had been brought up on charging men.

The dirty ditch that had been a trap and left them with no hope as spears and swords were driven downward.

The heads on spikes beside the watchtower.

“How did you find out about King Haakon?” Anna asked.

“A wanderer.” Carmel shuffled to an ale barrel and began filling tankards with the cloudy liquid.

“He’d been to Tillicoulty?” Anna carved the bread.

“Spoken to the king himself. Or so he said.”

“Do you recall his name?”

Carmel shook her head and pointed to her eye. “He wore a patch here. He swore he had told the king nothing of import and instead came straight to us to tell us my father had been usurped.”

Anna huffed. “I am sure he was well rewarded for his loyalty to King Athol. Though wanderers care only for themselves, despite what yarns they spin.”

Carmel agreed; that had always been her experience.

A sudden bang and gush of leaf-strewn wind announced the arrival of the King Haakon, his men, and his brother. Behind Ravn was a gaggle of weary seafarers with wide curious eyes and bedraggled clothing and beards.

“These men are hungry!” Haakon shouted. “Ensure the feast is plentiful and the ale flows as though Aegir himself were partying with us.” He took a seat on the big chair, his wife sitting next to him.

Even though she had not been queen long, Kenna had a regal tilt to her chin and her eyes sparkled with intelligence.

She was studying the king’s brother Ravn with intense curiosity.

When a small barn owl flew from the rafters and sat on a perch close to her shoulder, she took no notice, such was her interest.

“You have finally taken a wife,” Ravn said, holding up a horn of wine as though toasting Kenna.

“She is the only woman for me,” said Haakon, his eyes growing soft. “The gods mapped out our destiny many years ago and I should thank you for sending me to her.”

“Thank me?” Ravn sat on a bench, legs wide, one elbow on a table just behind him and looking very much as though he were settling in for a long conversation.

“ Ja .” Haakon narrowed his eyes. “If you had not become consumed in your quest for power, brother. If you had not tried to kill me with a dagger through my heart, I would never have traveled west that day. I would never have washed up on these shores and stared up into the face of a goddess.”

Ravn shifted his weight and took a drink.

“My very own living Valkyrie.” Haakon took Kenna’s hand and kissed her knuckles. “More beautiful than I could ever have dreamed of.”

“It is an honor to meet you, Queen Kenna,” Ravn said.

“You tried to kill my husband. I never thought I would meet you.” She held his eye contact and bit on her bottom lip. “I’m not sure how I feel about you on our lands, in our home.”

“But I didn’t kill him,” Ravn said. “I could have, but I was merciful.”

“Only because Father intervened.” Orm took a mug of ale from Carmel and used it to point at Ravn. “You had murder in your eyes. You wanted the spill of blood.”

“I believed it was the gods’ will,” Ravn said. “Now I understand that it was not.”

“How?” Astrid sat on Hamish’s lap and looped an arm around his neck. “How do you know that now?”

“Ah.” Ravn tapped the side of his nose. “You, dear sister, helped me with that.”

She frowned. “I wasn’t even there.”

“But you had been. On that last day in Uppsalla, you read my runestones, remember?”

She tilted her head. “Go on.”

“And you threw Laguz for me.”

She didn’t reply.

Ravn leaned forward and tugged at one of the beads plaited into his beard.

He had the exact same profile as his brother.

Heavy brow; long, strong nose; and neck thick with muscle.

But there was something wilder about him.

Maybe it was because he was, in theory, amongst enemies, family enemies, but still, it certainly sounded like the last time the siblings had been together, tensions had been running high.

“The water rune,” Ravn went on, “showing me a reflection of myself. I liked what I saw because I saw a king, a man of great power, a husband, and a father to a son who would become my heir.”

“Why did the meaning of Laguz change for you?” Hamish asked. “It sounds to me it was reversed.”

“What do you know of runestones, Christian?” one of Ravn’s men snapped as he squared his shoulders.

Hamish shrugged and held the man’s gaze. “I have learned.”

“Laguz prompted you to look into the darkness of your unconscious,” Astrid nodded. “Deep into the shadows.”

“I saw darkness.” Ravn looked around at the rapt faces.

For a moment, his attention landed on Carmel, his piercing, glacier-blue eyes drilling into her before moving back to Haakon.

“What I’d failed to see was that my twin brother and I had become as opposite as day and night, as different as summer and winter.

He was the light and I was the darkness. ”

Haakon frowned and leaned forward, forearms on his thighs, hands dangling.

“And I didn’t like that. The gods didn’t like it,” Ravn continued. “And I paid for it, not just with the loss of Father, but Siggy and our unborn child were also taken.”

Haakon frowned. “I am sorry to hear that.”

Ravn’s jaw tensed. It was clearly a loss that pained him.

For a moment, Carmel almost felt sorry for him. Then she remembered her own losses and how much she hated the Vikings and their murderous, heathen customs.

“I had lost my way, lost control of my destiny.” Ravn popped a chunk of ham into his mouth and chewed. “And I wanted to reset, rebalance. I wanted to find my family.”

Orm let out a sudden huge roar of laughter and clutched his belly.

Carmel shrank back into the shadows, standing slightly behind Anna.

“You wanted to find your family? How? You didn’t even know where we were,” Orm said.

“I am here, aren’t I?” Ravn didn’t seem remotely perturbed by Orm’s wild laughter.

“But how?” Kenna asked, holding out her arm for the owl to hop onto. She fed it a morsel of ham.

“It is the will of the gods,” Ravn said. “It is the true path of my destiny.” He stood and held out his mug. “And I am returned to it after veering off course for some time. Toast with me.”

Anna nudged Carmel. “Fill his horn for him.”

Quickly, Carmel lifted the earthenware jug and shuffled toward the towering Viking king. His fur cape was matted and his hair salt-sprinkled. He had ink below his right eye in the shape of a small star.

He frowned at her. “Why do you walk that way?”

Her jaw tensed and her heart thudded. The last thing she wanted was to be the center of attention in a room full of foes.

“Woman,” he snapped. “Why do you walk like that?”

She raised the muddy hem of her gown to show him the chain and ankle cuffs.

“You are a thrall?” He studied her closely, seeming to notice the cross hanging from her right ear.

“She is my thrall!” Orm leaped up and bounced toward her before circling with flamboyant hand gestures as though she were quite the prize. “I captured her in battle. She is a princess. My princess thrall. How lucky am I?”

“A princess?” Ravn said, peering even closer at her. “You are a princess?”

For a moment, she held his gaze, but then she quickly filled his mug and took a step backward. Being a slave was mortifying. Being a crazed Norseman’s slave was more degrading and shameful than she could ever have believed possible.

She’d never felt further from being a princess in her life.

Her shoulder bumped into Anna’s and she tucked behind her, using her new friend as a shield. It was all she had.

“Do not look at her like that,” Orm said, holding up his pinkie finger. “As if you want to put your little cock inside her. She is my slave to do with what I wish.”

Ravn frowned. “My cock is none of your business and it is not little.”

“But she is.” Orm pointed. “She is mine.”

Oh, God. That was what he was planning? Fucking her? Forcing himself upon her? The thought was hideous and her stomach churned. It would have been better to have died in battle than live like this.

Ravn’s eyes narrowed and he turned back to Haakon and sipped his ale. “I saw the pyre. We have stopped in three coves on our journey here. My plan was to search until I found my kin. But the pyre led me straight to you.”

“Perthro,” Astrid said suddenly. “That was one of the runestones that spoke that day. It signifies the mystery of the unknown and unknowable.”

“ Ja .” Ravn pointed at her. “And now I know. The funeral pyre gave me knowledge. It was fate that we sailed past on this day and saw it.”

Haakon stood and placed his hands on his hips. He studied his brother. “It does seem as if it is Almighty God’s will.”

“‘Almighty God’s will’?” Ravn repeated with a scoff.

“ Ja .” Haakon looked at two older men, villagers. “I am Christian now. These men can confirm it.”

“You have denounced the gods!” Ravn jumped to his feet. “You are a traitor, brother, a traitor to Odin.”

“Do you wish to fight again?” Haakon gripped the hilt of his sword. “I allowed you onto my land because you said you had come in peace.”

“Before I knew you were Christian!”

Queen Kenna stood at her husband’s side.

The owl on her shoulder flapped its wings and let out a squawk.

“My husband is a man of great depth,” she said.

“He is learning the Christian way, though it is hard for his heart to let go of the gods who have walked with him since the day he was born. Gods who are ruled by the greatest God.” She touched her cross.

“All the gods have been with him in battles and in storms, which is why he breathes this day and his heart beats. I understand that he pays his respects to them all.”

Ravn flexed his fingers then drew them into a fist. “Father will be looking down on you with shame.”

“Father had ambition for travel and learning and that is what I have done. I am walking in the footsteps he had hoped to tread himself.” Haakon looked upward. “He will be smiling down on me, the gods at his side.”

“This is how he is now.” Astrid flung her arm toward Haakon and rolled her eyes. “It is easier to go along with it than fight his new, crazed ways.”

“You have not forsaken the All Father, Astrid? Tell me you have not.” Ravn spun to her.

“No! The gods and goddesses have not deserted me and I will not desert them.”

Ravn looked at Orm.

Orm laughed and circled his finger beside his head as though spinning thoughts. He gave no answer.

Ravn sat with a sigh and reached for a slice of buttered bread. “What is the land like here?”

“It is good and fertile, not as frozen as the north, and there are crops we haven’t seen.” Haakon leaned forward, clearly warming to the new topic of conversation. “And taste good.”

“Crops that grow all year,” a huge Norseman added, his sudden input in a gruff voice making Carmel stare at him.

The man was huge and he had discarded his tunic, as though hot, and his wide, broad chest was splattered with ink in a variety of complex roped designs that twisted and turned over his muscles and down to his belly.

“Who is that?” Carmel whispered to Anna.

“Gunner. He is one of them.”

She had guessed that. He was unmistakably Viking.

“We are willing to teach you our farming ways, brother Ravn,” Queen Kenna said.

“My father, a village elder, is a generous man with knowledge.” She pointed to a stooped man with a graying beard and a tasseled hood pulled up over his head.

He was spooning broth into his mouth and appeared very relaxed—much more than anyone in her village would have been if Vikings had walked in and taken over.

These people were weak to be so easily invaded and to then be so accommodating.

If she’d been feeling generous, she’d have thought they had an alternate plan and were playing a long game, but she didn’t think that was the case.

The Vikings were marrying their women and ruling their lands.

The Tillicoulty people may as well have set an arrowed sign on the beach welcoming them in.

And Haakon being Christian now. That was ridiculous. It was clear his faith was still in the heathen gods, and his brother… Huh, he thought of nothing else.