Page 43 of Kept By the Viking (Forgotten Sons #1)

Chapter

Twenty-Five

S weat poured down his cheeks. Rain cleansed him, calming the brute within. Across the field, Safira’s face paled in a mask of shock and horror.

She’d seen him fight and was sickened by it.

Feet in a wide stance, he held his ground. This battle with Vlad and the fight with Sigurd was tame, a mere glimpse of who he was—a beast of war bred to kill.

Sword arcing slowly, he watched her watching him.

His iron blade passed in front of his eyes, blocking his vision of Safira for a split-second.

She was beautiful and fierce, black hair blowing in the wind, gold eyes as bright and hot as the flames lighting the field.

She fed his heart, and she fed his body.

But he would never change. She had to see this.

From the corner of Rurik’s eye, Vlad charged at him. His father raised his sword. Rurik expected this, knew it was coming. He side-stepped Vlad and tripped him again. The warrior went sprawling in grass and mud.

Rurik stood over him, his sword jabbing Vlad’s neck. “You are, if anything, predictable.”

“Grab him!” the jarl shouted, pointing at Vlad.

Four housekarls raced into the ring with spears and shields. The jarl and Ademar followed. Vlad’s breaths riffled the grass around his mouth. “Should’ve cut off your hand the first time.” He coughed. “Your mother?—”

Rurik planted his booted foot on Vlad’s sword hand. “You are not fit to speak of her.”

He jammed his heel in harder. There was a satisfying crunch of bone.

Vlad moaned, his visible eye squeezing shut.

Rurik’s sword hand shook with the urge to kill. The need hummed in his bones, but footfalls pounded the field. Safira bumped into him. Her hand closed over his.

“Don’t do it. Think of the land. Your land.”

The jarl’s orders. This was a new mantle to wear, considering the consequences of his actions when he thirsted for vengeance.

“Rurik...” Safira’s accented-voice cut through the haze.

Land comes by blood and force. It was the Viking way.

More bodies jostled him. Housekarls flanked Vlad, their spears pointing at him on the ground. Rurik’s feet rooted in place. Battle’s fog consumed him.

Slowly, his tunneled vision expanded. Curious people crowded around him and the two fallen Vikings.

The drenched Forgotten Sons stood shoulder to shoulder among the onlookers.

Abbott Ebbo knelt beside Sigurd’s dead body, rain sluicing the holy man’s bald pate.

Gudrun’s pale eyes shined oddly within the shadows of her hood.

Her chilling stare honed on Rurik sending a shudder down his back.

Without a word, the tall seeress turned north and left the field with her sister, wind battering both women’s skirts.

Longsword broke through the wall of people. “Soren, lock Vlad’s men in the empty store room. Take Vlad to the healer. If she says he must stay with her, have two men watch him at all times.”

Stepping back, Rurik let the housekarls heft Vlad off the ground. The older man’s bloodied, swollen hand dropped his sword.

Safira surprised them all and picked it up. “I will take this to the jarl’s hall.”

She wrapped both hands around the hilt and gouged the tip into the earth.

The weapon was unwieldy, nearly half her height.

A gust knocked back her hood, bringing a whisper light as smoke.

It teased Rurik. Here and gone. He couldn’t make out the words, nor could he stop staring.

The Paris maid was a lode stone. Jet-black hair tangling in the wind. Amber eyes like polished gold.

Longsword waved off the gathered remnant. “Go home. All of you.”

Bit by bit, Rouen’s people bustled off to seek their warmth.

Rurik would do the same. Battle’s flat taste flooded his tongue, but he tamped down the war beast within.

The fight was over when the jarl’s men carried Vlad off into the darkness—at least he wanted to believe that.

The Forgotten Sons helped Ademar take Vlad’s men away.

The field was almost empty save the nine tall torches.

None would touch them until morning. They were a tribute to the gods.

Longsword faced Rurik. “Let’s get you inside where Astrid can tend your wounds.”

“I will take care of him.” Safira stepped forward.

The jarl’s rain-slicked mouth pinched with displeasure. Lady Brynhild stood beside him, her cool green eyes flashing within her fur-trimmed hood.

“It’s not fitting,” Longsword argued.

“But it will be done.” Safira’s lilting accent was firm.

Did Lady Brynhild expect to succor him? It was a wifely thing to do, but she wasn’t his wife. Not yet. The highborn lady gave the jarl a scathing glance and stormed off, her embroidered hems dragging in mud.

Hands clamped behind his back, the jarl sighed and watched her go. “I suspect I’ll get an earful tonight.”

“Not your best day, Longsword.” Rurik shook off his broken shield.

It landed in the dirt where two men, who the chieftain had hoped would work together, had nearly killed each other, and an upstart woman of Paris stood her ground, muddling the leader’s plans for an easy marital alliance.

The jarl’s nod was curt. “I will see you in my hall.” With long, sure strides, he exited the field, his red cape fluttering in his wake.

Rurik stepped gingerly onward. Battle’s excitement waned, replaced by screaming aches and pains. Safira came alongside him and slipped her arm around his waist.

“I know you don’t need me to hold you up, but it would please me greatly if you pretended this once that you do.”

His laugh was rusty. “I need you, Safira.”

“I tried to tell you that the first time we met. I…” her light voice faltered “…I am good for you.”

She was a sight, wet hair stuck to her neck, rain streaming down smooth cheeks as she dragged Vlad’s sword alongside her.

They were mismatched in every way. All wrong for each other.

Yet, so very right. He fed off her presence.

Nor was it lost on him that Safira walked at his side through the empty battleground.

Just the two of them.

He transferred his sword to his left hand and rested his right arm across her shoulders. “Does this mean I’m not bad? For a Viking?”

Her features tensed. His gentle tease must’ve struck a tender nerve. Or was it Lady Brynhild’s presence? Learning the lay of a woman’s mind baffled him. He cosseted Safira’s shoulder and kissed the crown of her soaked head.

“We look like a pair of beat-up warriors. You, dragging a sword, and me with mine.”

Mirth glinted in her eyes. “Speak for yourself, Viking. You are the only one who looks like he had a bad day.”

He laughed and clutched his ribs. Vlad had kicked him in that exact spot.

An ugly welt was forming by the throbbing feel.

Despite the wounds, he would sleep well now that this business was done.

Facing his father had dredged up putrid emotions.

Keeping them under control and not killing the man had taken all his might.

Safira knew this. He sensed it and was grateful for her quiet presence.

The ragged twosome walked through Rouen where not a single body stirred. Doors were closed and shutters latched. Turning up the road, they headed to Longsword’s hall. Two torches burned beside his wide front door guarded by two soaked housekarls.

Astrid popped out from a smaller building beside the hall. “Rurik. Safira. Come to the eldhus . I have bandages ready.”

Rurik stalled. “I know you claimed the right to tend me, but you lack supplies and?—”

“Oh, Viking.” She laughed. “As long as it is me who tends you, I do not care where you are healed.”

“I’m relieved to hear it.”

The eldhus blazed with warmth. Five soapstone lamps hung from the ceiling.

Water-stained buckets were stacked along a wall of weathered wood.

Thralls scurried around bearing rounds of cheese, bowls of stew, and fresh bread.

One gawking woman set a water bucket and bandages on a bench by a long work table.

Astrid shooed the women. “Go. All of you, and stay in the hall. Pour lots of ale. That will keep them satisfied.” She shut the door behind the last thrall and motioned to the pine table. “Take a seat or lay across it, if you prefer.”

Rurik sat on the table top and removed his helmet, blood and sweat dripping over one eye. He examined the helmet. Firelight twisted over new dents in the iron. He’d need a new one.

But he was alive and the land was his.

Safira set aside Vlad’s sword and put a knee on the bench. Her quick hands finished the tear in his trousers around his thigh. When the last thread gave, she dragged the cloth down his shin. Soil and blood smeared an angled cut in his thigh no longer than a man’s finger, but the wound was deep.

“Have you any yarrow?” Safira smiled at Rurik while speaking to Astrid. “If not, as it happens, I know a tender-hearted Viking who traded for some.”

Astrid set an earthen pot of pine-scented salve beside Rurik. “What fool would trade for yarrow? It grows everywhere,” she said, checking his thigh wound.

Safira caressed his jaw. “Only one with the kindest heart.”

“I have plenty of yarrow,” Astrid said, all business. “I will make a tincture.” She went to her cooking fire and plucked dried leaves from herbs hanging on the wall. “Do you think he bleeds inside?”

Safira was gentle with him, her manner as soft as melted wax. “No, but I won’t risk it.” She dabbed a nick in his hairline. “All it will cost him is a hot, bitter drink.”

Rurik breathed her peppery scent. “If I knew a few cuts would get this much attention, I would’ve bled sooner.”

“You do not need to hurt to ask for softness from me,” she whispered.

His gaze dipped to pretty cleavage right under his nose. Light-skinned, womanly curves pressed together, creating an enticing shadowed line. He could stay in bed for days and worship the hills and valleys that formed Safira.

“I like your softness.”

She replied in a tart-tongued hush, “Softness is more than sex, Viking.”

“Not with you,” he teased.