Page 44 of Kept By the Viking (Forgotten Sons #1)

Black lashes spread wide. “Are you flirting with me while you bleed?”

He brushed strands of hair off her cheek. “Is it working?”

Safira checked Astrid. The woman’s back was to them as she crumbled yarrow in her brew. Water rumbled in her pot, the fire crackled cheerily, and rain pattered overhead. With their voices low, they would not be heard.

She wetted her cloth and began to clean his arm. “How can you think of sex at a time like this?”

“Flirting is not sex.” His mouth grazed the shell of her ear. “But now that I know you want me…”

Safira’s chin dipped, a smile ghosting her mouth.

Head shaking, she applied the piney salve to his arm.

She wore a plain weave tunic bare of embroidery, a garment suited to a servant.

Her bearing hinted at high birth the same as the first day they’d met, but time had whittled away some of her sharpness.

“What kind of woman are you, beguiling me with your wiles?”

Her laugh was light as air. “I am wearing the ugliest mud-splattered clothes and my hair has not seen a comb all day.”

“The sight of you makes me weak.”

“There’s nothing weak about you,” she huffed. “I think you would charge into a fight for the sake of it.”

He grinned at her assessment. He was that warrior years ago.

Not anymore. He wouldn’t shirk the call to battle, but he wouldn’t go searching for a fight either.

He wanted to build his holding and have children.

To raise them with a worthy woman. There were better things, better people to live for. Like Safira.

Brows twitching, she wrapped a linen around his arm.

“You’re pretty when you focus,” he murmured.

She tried for sternness, a valiant effort, but her eyes brimmed with affection. “And you are a single-minded man,” she whisper-hissed. “Let me tend these wounds. We can speak of other things later.”

“ Other things . Is that what you call our time alone?”

Safira bent over his thigh, her fingers testing the gash. “Astrid, is the tincture ready? My Viking warrior needs something to occupy his mouth.”

My Viking warrior.

His heart rallied. She laid claim to him the same as he claimed her. The goodness of being with Safira warmed his skin better than a fire.

Astrid brought her bitter brew and he drank it. Famished, he devoured rabbit stew while both women cleaned him and worked on the cut. A knife had been sitting with the blade angled into the fire. Astrid picked it up and sprinkled water on the iron. Droplets danced on the metal.

“You know what I must do.” Her voice was solemn.

“Do it.” Rurik set down the bowl and gripped the table’s edge with both hands.

Steam floated off the knife. Astrid filled his vision. A nod from her and iron seared his skin. Sharp, white-hot pain. Molars grinding, air whistled past his teeth. A sickening sizzle and the acrid scent of burning flesh filled the eldhus .

Astrid removed the blade. “It is done.” Mouth pursing, she added, “I wouldn’t be too energetic tonight. The wound could reopen.”

Sweat beaded his skin. Worn out, he wiped his forehead, unable to jest with the older woman busy cleaning her knife.

Safira dabbed his thigh with the salve, and he jolted. The wound throbbed horribly.

“ Shhh ...” She soothed him. “I will take care of you.”

Inches from his face, her eyes glossed with unshed tears. She shared his pain. Each tear sowed tender seeds in his cracked-open heart. He wanted nothing more than to find his bed and lay with her.

Safira was bandaging his thigh when the door opened. The jarl entered, his face grave. He stood at the lintel, the torque gone but the silver penannular pin still gleamed on his shoulder.

“You are looking better than the man I saw an hour ago.”

“I am well.” Rurik squared his shoulders. “But you look like a man with something to say.”

The jarl ambled to the table, his arms crossing. “Ademar spoke to Vlad’s men. They were surprised that Sigurd attacked you.”

“Did you think they would say otherwise?”

Longsword acknowledged that with the barest nod. “In time, their actions will bear them out. I came to tell you I’m letting them go in the morning.”

“To leave?”

“To serve me.” The jarl’s voice was iron-clad.

Safira bent low to knot a bandage. Her mouth pressed a stubborn line.

“What about Vlad?” he asked quietly.

“He will also serve me.”

Safira bolted upright. “How could you let that man serve you?”

“Vlad honored my word,” Longsword said. “Sigurd did not, and he paid the price with his life.”

The jarl’s glower could split wood. He honed it on Safira, his bearing sending a message— Are you daft, questioning me?

The table creaked under Rurik. It hurt to move, and it hurt to stay still. This battle of wills was what happened to the man who cast his lot with two proud, highborn people. He’d let the jarl have his say as long as the chieftain respected Safira’s right to hers.

“Today’s fight was about a show of skill and the ability to take orders, no matter the circumstances,” the jarl explained. “Both men have lived by their word as law. Now they must live under mine.”

“The holmgang was never about stolen beer,” Safira said with disgust.

Longsword’s shrug was unrepentant. “Rurik was prepared to fight to the death.”

“You and your brother, you play with people’s lives.” Color was high on her cheeks.

“A man in my position must be sure of the warriors who serve him. The enmity between Vlad and Rurik is unfortunate, but their renown speaks for itself. And I want the best.” Longsword’s voice was steely before his gaze sought Rurik.

“You were in the southern forest. You know I need good fighting men.”

“But Vlad?” He winced at pain lancing his ribs.

“You both come with well-deserved reputations and equally skilled warriors following you. You both served an overlord in a similar arrangement once. There is no reason to believe it can’t be done again.”

“In a vaster kingdom than this.” Rurik slid off the table and loosened the ties at the side of his vest. “What about the land?”

“It’s yours.”

“Because he won.” Safira was fierce at his side. “And because you know he is the better man. You’ve known it all along.”

Rurik basked in her passionate defense. She was a beautiful black-haired warrior woman. A fighter in the truest sense.

“I have no regrets,” Longsword said. “Rurik showed his mettle and will be richly rewarded.”

Astrid’s disapproving snort was followed by a bucket plunked hard on a table. The jarl frowned at his matselja who stood tall and defiant, if mute, before her chieftain. Her eyes blazed with disapproval. The jarl’s glance at her was cursory.

“It would seem you have a great many supporting you,” he said to Rurik.

“Among them, Abbott Ebbo. Ademar explained your history with Vlad. The abbott was impressed with your restraint in not killing your father.” A wry smile cracked Longsword’s grimness.

“Because of your conduct today, you’ve won a new and powerful ally. ”

Rurik was rueful, scraping back wet hair. “I walk away from revenge in a Viking kingdom, and I’m rewarded.”

“One of the strange truths I live with every day,” the jarl said.

Land comes by blood and force.

Did it?

Rurik shook his head. That was wisdom to contemplate another day. Safira’s footsteps shushed on the earthen floor beside him. She tossed a handful of sand across the table and kept her counsel. Very unlike her, this unbidden cleaning and her sudden quiet.

Longsword watched her, displeasure writ plainly on his face until he addressed Rurik. “You are a revered warrior and now second only to Ademar. The lodgings I offered on your arrival are still yours.”

“I found another woman in my bed.”

The jarl laughed. “And that is a problem?”

Cloth in hand, Safira’s vigorous swipes sent sand flying across the table.

She polished the wood, her spine stiff. When the time was right, he’d tell her Longsword wasn’t an odious swine.

Callous, to be sure and used to making alliances and maneuvering people for his own ends.

No woman had touched his heart, and by the calculated moves he took with those around him, none would.

Rurik grabbed Safira’s hand and linked his fingers with hers. “I will sleep on your drakkar ship with Safira.”

“Sleep wherever you want,” the jarl groused. “As long as my orders are obeyed.”

Astrid banged wooden platters and gave them her back. Skirts swishing. Clanking jars set right. She burst with opinion that she dared not voice with others in the room.

Longsword’s stare traced the woman who had cared for him in childhood.

“Will I have no peace in my own home? Women thwart me at every turn. The Breton Queen. A Paris maid. And a cranky Lady Brynhild—” the jarl’s gaze shot to Rurik “—who came to Rouen expecting to meet her future husband and now refuses to pay her tribute because I failed to deliver one as promised.”

“A leader’s troubles,” Rurik said. “Someday may you find a worthy woman to stand at your side.”

“Better yet, may you be worthy to stand at hers.” Safira’s Norse shot like an arrow true at the jarl and Rurik.

Grim-faced, Longsword opened the door. Mist blew past the lintel like wisps of wool. He stepped outside and turned to face all within.

“The holding is yours, Rurik. You won Abbot Ebbo’s respect and the confidence of Rouen’s people. But these lands will bear Viking seed. Make no mistake—you must marry a Viking woman.”