Page 17 of Kept By the Viking (Forgotten Sons #1)

Chapter

Nine

S afira popped a blackberry in her mouth. She’d gathered the fruit in the forest, her contribution to the Forgotten Sons. Thorfinn and Erik finished the last of the dried fish and bread.

The food she’d traded for was gone.

But they had beer. Plenty of it.

The Sons guzzled Wandrille Abbey’s beer from drinking horns.

Thorvald kicked a small, empty cask and it rolled into a beached ship.

Rurik sat beside her, laughing with the others, doing a fine job ignoring her.

Since their conversation by the river, he’d given her his back.

This, his profile, was an improvement. On the other side of her, flaxen-haired Gunnar carved a notch in a birch shaft.

A work-rough hand tested the wood’s smooth grain before he slipped an arrowhead into place.

“More berries?” she asked, offering a handful to Gunnar.

He shook his head and sat forward for better light. White-blond strands skimmed a chiseled jaw. His trousers were cleaner and his vest unscarred. Nicks and scratches marked the Sons’ vests, yet the leather hugging Gunnar’s torso was smooth, save the wolf carved on the front.

She popped two more berries in her mouth. “You had one horn of beer. Do you want more?”

A finger pressing the shaft, Gunnar wrapped animal sinew around the base of the arrowhead. On his right thumb, he wore a wide bone ring with a hart etched on it.

“I have watch tonight.”

“That would be a no then.” She paused to watch him work. “I notice this about you and the others. Whoever has watch does not drink much wine or ale.”

“It is our way.” The fire showed a growing scowl as he twined the sinew around and around. “And I don’t like to get drunk. It makes a man foolish.”

“You are rare among men.”

He flashed a heart-stopping grin before focusing again on the arrow.

Eyes blue as an aquamarine stone and light blond hair cut at the middle of his neck, he would be the first among the Sons to capture a woman’s attention with his perfect features.

Lithe of form with broad shoulders nearly as wide as Rurik’s, Gunnar was the youngest and, if it were possible to believe, the most innocent.

Yet, he wore his handsomeness with a casual air as if his appeal was a nuisance.

She’d learned of these men in her three days riding with the Sons.

Gunnar was an expert with the bow and arrow.

Every night he whittled shafts from slender branches of ash and birch.

The iron arrowheads were unique. A sharp head with two thick, needle-like points at the bottom.

She eyed the bag of arrowheads spilling into the grass.

“Your arrowheads are different. Most I’ve seen are triangles.”

“You mean these?” He tapped the lower tips of the arrow in hand. “Jormungand’s fangs.”

“The snake of Ragnarok...the one to end the world.”

Cheer brightened his eyes. “You know our stories.”

She picked up an arrowhead and held it to the light. “A few.”

Her father and Savta had taught her: Know thy enemy .

She tested a fang on the arrowhead, drawing a drop of blood. “Ouch!” She dropped the iron and sucked her finger.

“You must have a care.” Rurik’s smooth voice intruded.

A thrill shot through her. This was maddening, her body humming from a scrap of his attention. Glossy-eyed with drink, the Viking stared at the finger in her mouth. She pulled it out and pinched the tip, forcing her gaze back to Gunnar.

“Why the two sharp points on that end?”

“Because it does damage going in like this—” Gunnar jabbed his arrow at the fire. Eyes hard slits, he yanked the arrow back. “And damage coming out.”

“Especially when the arrow goes through and sticks out the other side.” Rurik humored voice reeled her back to him. The man was not to be denied.

Truthfully, he was her lodestone. Every nerve ending inside her sparked to life...at the smell of his skin, an elbow brushing her arm, his shoulder glancing hers. Even the faint creak of his leather vest was music to her ears.

He raised his fist to the light and slanted his drinking horn as if it were a large arrowhead going into his arm brace.

“There is pain if the arrow goes through the limb. Pain if it sticks inside. Gunnar is very good at dealing pain to his enemies.”

She closed her cloak over her heart. Rurik laughed heartily and the flaxen-haired warrior finished wrapping his arrow with a prideful tilt of his chin.

“That’s why Gunnar has a pretty face.” Thorvald drained his horn. “Shooting arrows keeps him far from the fight.”

“I’ve saved your overgrown ass. More times than I can count.” Gunnar cut the sinew and smoothed pitch over it.

“Does that mean a reward is required, according to your second law?” she asked. “A life saved receives equal reward.”

Thorvald belched into his fist. “Battle doesn’t count. We always watch each other’s back in battle.”

“The second law is about sacrifice. Blood shed to save another.” Bjorn hitched up his knee, his voice mildly slurred.

The men launched a debate about what was the best weapon in a fight.

They all wore the same bone-handled knives with a curved tip, small axes tied to their thighs, and they carried battle-worn shields painted with red and black swirls.

From there, the men differed. Rurik favored his sword named Fenrir, Gunnar his arrows, and Bjorn his hulking hammer named Peace-maker.

Thorfinn and Thorvald both wielded long-handled, bearded war axes that always gleamed as if freshly sharpened.

Those beastly weapons were named Geri and Freki after Odin’s wolves.

Erik wore two swords across his back. Curiously, his weapons had no name, but his care for them was meticulous.

Hunched over the steel, he scraped blade and whetstone, his dark eyes shiny from too much beer.

“Then there’s Erik with two swords.” Thorvald dipped his horn in the second cask, muttering, “Show off.”

“Leif wore two swords.” This from Gunnar, wrapping another arrow.

Leif. The seventh Son. His name cast a pall on the men. Staring at the fire, Rurik set his horn to mouth yet he didn’t take a drop.

“Look what that got him. A ride to Valhalla.” Thorvald rose, mumbling about a trip to the bushes.

Bjorn flung his beer in the grass behind him.

Thorfinn set aside his drink, his lids half over his eyes.

Valhalla was glory to Vikings, yet she was surrounded by long faces.

Bjorn pushed off the ground, and tucking his hudfat under one arm, announced he would sleep by the river.

Beside her, Rurik’s profile could be etched in stone.

He exuded strength, the solid foundation on which these men began.

Peering at him, she would almost think him unaffected.

But no. The harsh line of his mouth was different curved downward, his only show of emotion.

“Who is this Leif?” she asked.

Rurik drank from his horn, and the men answered solemnly one after another.

“The seventh Forgotten Son. The finest warrior, skilled at fighting with two swords at once like Erik” came from Gunnar.

“A man of quick-wit and a loyal friend.” From Thorfinn.

“Our skald,” Bjorn said, tarrying outside the campfire’s glow. “You would have liked him. He was a charmer of women.”

That drew limp smiles from the men.

“A fine carver of wood,” Erik added, his voice a churlish growl.

All eyes went to Rurik staring at moths dancing around the campfire.

His fingertips pinched white on the horn. “He was my younger brother. Ambushed in Byzantium, his dead body tossed in a river.” A long draught of beer and “It happened at winter’s end.”

The dip of Rurik’s Adam’s apple betrayed his steady voice. She hugged her legs close to her body. His agony was hers. It radiated off him like a fire burst, singeing her. She set a hand in the grass beside him. It was the closest she dared to get.

From the men, Thorvald was the first to break the leaden silence. “We lost Leif and most of our coin that day. He’d gone to collect payment from a vizier we’d guarded for a year.”

Gunnar set down his arrow with care. “He had no one to watch his back.”

She checked Rurik’s stony profile. Was it possible to breathe in his heartache?

Her chest hurt and her eyes stung just watching him.

This was Rurik in deep pain. Tense as drawn cord.

Dangerous if he snapped. He was not a wolf to howl and rage.

The cool warrior absorbed the grief. The same way he’d absorbed blows for his men when they were boys in Birka.

His mouth twisted. Faintly cruel, as if he sneered at his gods... Do your worst .

An image haunted her. Rurik as a little boy walking through ice and snow with rags on his feet. Words he’d spoken by the river mere hours ago echoed in her head.

Tell me, have you ever been hungry? Ever wrapped your feet in rags so that someone you loved could wear scraps of leather for shoes instead of you?

Her skin flushed hot and cold. She imagined the Viking’s harsh past, the child huddled in clothes that barely kept him warm, rags on his feet while his younger brother wore bits of leather sewn together. The unruly boy would have rejected pity. Only the strong survived. It had become his creed.

But, Rurik’s thin, youthful arm would’ve wrapped around Leif to keep him warm.

No wonder Rurik stole softness when he could. Gentleness was gold. His head turned and storm-blue eyes speared her with a message.

Now you know .

She felt... Numb. Inadequate. Far beneath Rurik’s breadth and depth.

Loss flickered on his face. She could almost believe the emotion didn’t exist in him, except she’d seen it. He let her see it. Pain that deep could only come from an equal measure of love, love he’d poured out for his brother. Rurik had been one child going without for another.

Hurt bloomed in her chest. Rurik wants me to see him .

Warrior. Viking. Friend. Brother.

What else did he hide behind the harsh mask he wore each day?