Page 14

Chapter 14

Lillian

N ot everything about being cursed on a deserted island in the middle of Lake Superior is bad.

Sure, it’s not the fate I’d personally choose for myself. But the squirrel is tasty.

The fire, cozy and warm.

And the company is…

Okay, the company is distractingly attractive. He’s put on some clothes since the last time our paths crossed underwater, but even the heavy furs tied around his body can’t stop the hotness from emanating from this guy. As he stokes the fire, his triceps bulge, tattoos shining with sweat. The gold in his hair and beard positively glisten in the flickering light, making his eyes sparkle everytime he looks at me.

The way he tears at his dinner, just digging in with his teeth as he rips the meat off the kebab? Fuck me. It’s animalistic. Primal.

But then, his touch is so gentle when he wraps my ankle that I can hardly feel it. I shiver more from the slight tickle of his fingers brushing the arch of my foot than I do from any actual discomfort, but he looks at me as though I’m some precious, fragile thing.

Me. Precious. Fragile.

No one, but especially no man, has ever looked at me like I’m someone who should be protected . I got so used to it that I started to wear my self-sufficiency like armor, until one day I never took it off.

And the further Tiffany and I drifted apart, the more independent I had to become. The heavier the armor became, until eventually, my personality was just as heavy as the rest of me.

But the way Erik looks at me? It doesn’t feel like the way men look at heavy, independent women. It feels like the way someone looks at someone they care for. Someone they love.

But that’s crazy. Right? I mean, “lust after” might be more accurate, given the situation. The guy’s been stranded out here for literally a thousand years. I bet any pair of boobs would make a man salivate after that long by himself.

Still, though. I’m not oblivious to his body’s response. And he’s yet to be a creep about it–he does his best to hide it, prioritizing my comfort always. I’m even teasing him at this point, leaving myself uncovered and letting my boobs hang free, crossing my legs so my kitty is on full display, and still.

He catches himself whenever his eyes stray below my chin, redirecting his gaze to my face, my ankle, checking on me. Interested in me. Listening to me, even when I ask him stupid questions about the shelter like, “Did you build this?”

Duh, Lillian. It’s not like the coyotes did it.

And it’s so fucking cute the way he’s trying to hide his boner. My God, this guy is harder than the Hope Diamond and he’s acting like if he just shifts his knees to the side I’m not gonna notice the Sears Tower pitching a tent in his loincloth.

I should just put him out of his misery.

But then I’d have to deal with the rejection when he pushes me away. Again. Despite the fact that I’m the only woman he’ll ever actually get a chance to sleep with. That I’m the only one that can break his curse.

He still would rather suffer for all eternity than sleep with me.

But then, why wrap my ankle? Why save me at all? Wouldn’t it have been easier to just let me die?

“I don’t get it.”

“Get it?” Erik swallows another bite of dinner, blinking at me. “Do you need something?”

“No, I’m just…trying to understand.”

“Understand what?”

“Why you would save me.”

He tilts his head at that, and studies me for a moment.

That’s another thing about Erik; he’s not impulsive. He thinks: a lot and deeply, before answering a question.

“I wish for you to know, Lillian, that I would never seek my fate for another human. To outlive one’s family, one’s children, one’s entire village and culture…it is immensely painful. I have been stripped of everything that made me a man except for the basest of survival instincts, and that is a pitiable creature to be.”

“What do you mean? We’re talking, aren’t we? You need more than instincts to be able to hold a conversation.”

“Ha,” he barks, and in that moment he does sound more animal than man, his voice hoarse and growling. It’s like the more cynical he is, the more his humanity is buried. “Hardly more than grunts and snarls. Nothing like your beautiful voice, or the delighted shouts of children I hear playing with their siblings along the shore. Nothing like Cruel Summer, or any of the other haunting melodies that tease me from your music boxes.”

“You were literally just humming that twenty minutes ago,” I argue. “How long has it been since you’ve tried to actually sing? I bet you have a lovely voice when it isn’t gravelly from not using it all millennium. Come on, what’s your favorite song?”

“Favorite?”

“The one you like best. Or one of the ones you like best, it doesn’t have to be a contest or anything.”

He concentrates for a moment, his gaze shifting to the fire as he thinks, taking another bite of meat and chewing before answering me.

“I do not know the words in your language,” he admits. “I have learned English by absorbing bits of thought and conversation from vacationers through Phorkys, and scavenged texts from abandoned campsites. The words of your people are shorter, livelier, and your songs are spirited. They are unlike the songs of my people.”

“Would you sing me one? From your life before…?”

I’m leaning forward now. It’s so hard to believe that this man, a literal Viking from who knows how long ago, taught himself English through eavesdropping on campers all these years. Taught himself to read.

Granted, I guess he had some supernatural help. Being able to read people’s thoughts and intentions like Phoryks can would be helpful when trying to learn how to communicate.

But all of that evaporates from my head the second Erik’s beautiful baritone voice floats from his lips.

“Tat m?lti mín móeir, at mér skyldi kaupa

Fley ok fagrar árar

Fara á brott mee víkingum, fara á brott mee víkingum

Standa upp í stafni, styra dyrum knerri

Halda svá til hafnar

Hoggva mann ok annan, hoggva mann ok annan.”

His singing hits me like a freight train. The melody is dark and keening; the language is unlike anything I’ve ever heard. Rolling r’s and glottal stops, both deep and lilting in an ancient and powerful way. My heart stops in my chest as I feel the strength of Erik’s voice slowly increase, the low notes vibrating my very ribs.

By the time he finishes, there are tears in my eyes. I wipe them away before he notices, his gaze still a thousand yards away as the fire flickers in his pupils. The last note drifts up and away with the smoke before I speak.

“That was beautiful,” I breathe. “And so… sad.”

A moment passes, long enough that I think he might not have heard me. But when he finally responds, I have to strain to hear him. “There was a time it was inspiring to me. A story of a great adventure, something to aspire to. But now… yes. I would say it is very sad.”

His vision clears after a moment, and he claps his hands. The noise jolts the still air in the shelter, and I jump, pulling the furs around my waist up to cover my chest.

I feel exposed all of the sudden, and the flirty, teasing attitude I started this conversation with seems naive and inappropriate all of the sudden.

“Now it is your turn, Lillian. Sing a song for me.”

“Uh, yeah right,” I snort, shaking my head at his insistent grin. “I didn’t start this with plans to sign up for a sing-along.”

“Do you know other songs like Cruel Summer?”

“You know T Swift has a whole discography, right?”

“I do not know what those words mean.”

I sigh, his boyish expression painfully adorable. “I mean, the singer who wrote that song. She has literally hundreds of others.”

He gasps. “Do you know them? Have they played on the music boxes? Could you sing them for me?”

I can’t help it. Shaking my head and holding back a laugh, I do the most ridiculous and unimaginable thing I could possibly do in this moment.

I sing Shake it Off for my Viking hero at the top of my lungs.

I sleep like a baby, cozy and warm in the bed of furs in Erik’s makeshift shelter, while he huddles in a fur of his own on the other side. I wake a little after sunrise, and he’s already cooking some fish on a metal grate over the fire. I wonder for a second where he got it from, before shaking the thought out of my head. I reach for the water skin and take a sip before greeting him, attempting to ignore the pressure in my bladder until I know I can walk somewhere to relieve myself.

“Good morning!”

He nods and tilts his head towards my feet. “How is your ankle?”

I test it, wiggling it a little in its splint. Despite it being made of cleaned branches, fur, and sinew, it’s surprisingly strong.

“A little stiff, but not screaming at me like it was last night. I might want to soak it in the lake for a bit today to help with the swelling.”

He stiffens, but nods. “Perhaps that would be good for it.”

There is a long pause while neither of us meet the other’s gaze.

“Erik, I–”

“Lillian, it would be–”

We both stop abruptly as we talk over each other, and I look away at the same time he does. I reach one of the furs up to my chin to cover myself.

He nods to me. “You first.”

“Thank you for all of this!” I blurt out. “I don’t think I really said it yesterday, but you totally saved my life back there with the coyote. I would be dead meat if it wasn’t for you. Even now, it’s gonna take me, like, ten minutes to get to a good spot to go to the bathroom with my leg like this but you’re still here and taking care of me and I—I don’t even know what to say. I thought I was good at camping. That maybe I could handle myself. But I was so, so wrong. You know what you’re doing out here, and I’m…totally out of my element.”

I’m out of breath by the time my rant ends. He is so patient throughout the whole thing, taking in my words with an open and serious expression. After a moment, he swallows.

“I do not mind taking care of you,” he says quietly. “I am… I have been alone for a very long time. You are a lovely distraction.”

His gray eyes meet mine as he says that last bit, and I can feel the blush rise to my cheeks.

“Lovely,” I mutter, shaking my head. “I don’t think I’ve ever been called that before.”

“Then you have not known many honest people.”

It’s almost a good thing when my bladder interrupts my thoughts to let me know I really can’t ignore it any longer, because I can’t even begin to respond to his compliments. “I gotta pee,” I mumble, and crawl– crawl– out of the shelter to avoid having Erik help me walk to a pee tree.

It isn’t glamorous, but I get the job done. Then take a quick dip in the nearby surf to rinse off the couple of days’ stank from roughin’ it. I couldn’t really smell how ripe my armpits were in the lean-to, with all the roasting wildlife and woodsmoke smell filling the air, but let’s just say a quick whiff in the great outdoors was enough to let me know why Erik wasn’t keen to snuggle up last night.

As I wash my face, a wavy reflection blinks back at me in the lake surface. A frizzy halo of blonde circles my head, and my features look blobby and unbecoming in the waves.

But the water takes some of the weight off my foot, making it easier to move around. If only for the time I’m in the water.

Lillian…

My shoulders tense as I hear my name, almost like a whisper on the breeze. It isn’t Erik; it’s a lighter, more feminine voice. I swear I’ve heard it before, but I can’t place it.

Our conversation from last night replays in my brain and Erik’s words come back, making me shiver.

That is how it begins.

As fast as I can with my injury, I hightail it back to the shelter. Along the way, I pick up a few extra twigs to toss on the fire to distract myself from the unsettling mix of fear and arousal swirling in my gut, trying to filter out the emotions that don’t feel wholly my own.

“Here,” I say, tossing them onto the blaze when I let myself in. The wet sticks hiss on the embers, and Erik makes a face. “Oh fuck, I’m sorry, I didn’t think they’d be wet!”

But of course they were. They were on the beach. Where the water is.

Great job, Lil.

“It is alright. We will let the fire burn down a bit for now, until sunset. Please eat, there is plenty.”

He points to a few charred whole fish on a plate. An actual plate .

Wait–what?

I take the offered breakfast, along with a metal fork that sits beside it. “Where did you get these?”

“Vacationers leave them sometimes. I have quite the collection now, at my cabin by the lagoon. I hiked there for supplies this morning when I caught breakfast.”

I sit cross-legged (or, half cross-legged, as my injured foot sticks out a little at a weird angle) and hold the plate in my lap. As I do, Erik reaches back and grabs some fabric.

“And these I gathered from your cabin.”

“My clothes!” I practically throw the plate aside as I reach for the soft, modern clothing, more grateful for this teensy convenience than I’ve ever been for anything in my life. “Oh my gosh, thank you so much! How did you find these?”

“They were drying on the railing. I thought you might like some protection from the sun.” He gestures to my chest and shoulders, before quickly correcting himself. “People often leave clothing. I only had some furs in this shelter, but I also retrieved some modern short pants for myself.”

As he says this, I realize that he is, in fact, wearing something other than the kilt-like getup he pulled on the night before. He’s now in a pair of neon orange swim trunks that contrast blindingly with his sun-kissed skin. I’m amazed it wasn’t the first thing I saw when I woke up this morning.

The V of his hips disappear into the waistband, framing his gorgeous abs that flex as he bends and twists to gather up all the supplies he brought back while I was sleeping in.

Of course. The grill. The plates, the silverware… all of them are totally the standard Walmart-issue camping supplies the average midwestern American family would bring on their summer lake vacation. He even has a couple of those plastic-y reusable grocery bags that someone must have left behind at the end of the summer.

He walks over with one of the bags next, dropping it by my lap as I pull on the loose sundress I use as a swimsuit cover-up. Unfortunately, I didn’t leave a bra hanging to dry on the porch of our cabin, because I can already feel the sweat beading in my underboob.

Ah, well.

“I brought you something to entertain you while you recover.”

I smooth the fabric down my thighs and look over at the bag he’s holding out to me. It’s filled to the top with books .

But not just any books. These are–

“ The Highlander’s Pirate Bride!” I can hardly believe my eyes as I pull out the well-worn paperback at the top of the pile. “My God, I used to have this book! I brought it to the cabin years ago to reread on vacation…”

My mouth hangs open as I put two and two together. “You didn’t. ”

Erik blushes. “I told you that I learned your language from books that summer visitors left behind. I find more every year. That is one of my favorites.”

He smiles as I dig through the bag, pulling out book after book, although no more that I recognize as my own.

It’s a whole library of old Harlequin romances, some dating back as far as the 60’s, with cheesy titles like Crimes of the Vicar and Vivian’s Secret.

I want to read them right now.

“Erik, this is amazing! You,” I look up at him, at a loss for words. Taking in the mix of old and new, of hunter-gatherer know-how combined with his present-day resourcefulness. “You’re incredible.”

A shadow passes behind his eyes. He looks away, the smile fading from his lips as if I’d just insulted him. “No, Lillian. I just didn’t want to leave you with nothing to do.”

My heart sinks. “You’re leaving?”

“I will be back with dinner. But I need to gather more supplies. And it is best if I stay away. The monster is quieter on land, but his voice still rings in my head. Now that you are safe, it is best if I do not put you in more danger.”

“Erik, you’re not–”

“Enjoy the books. I will be back with dinner in the evening.” He hovers for a second at the doorway, his hand twitching at his side, before he nods once and turns to leave. “Goodbye.”

Stunned, I watch him go. It’s only when my stomach growls that I’m reminded I have breakfast waiting for me.

Breakfast, and a fuckton of paperbacks.

“Well at least these hunks won’t leave me with blueballs,” I mutter, stuffing a forkfull of fish into my mouth and cracking the spine on Vivian’s Secret.