Page 81 of Viking Warriors: Vol. 1-3

I cannot!That intimacy is for lovers—not for what exists between us. I’m no more than a body for your pleasure, and for the perverse revenge you think to take.

I twisted away, but he threaded his fingers through my hair. I was helpless again, my throat exposed.

His mouth was insistent, kissing my neck and my jaw, then returning to my lips.

He had shifted, bringing his arousal to my core.

I’d known this moment would come, yet I struggled—only to have him capture my wrists and drag them above my head, palm on palm.

In the next moment, he entered me, gaining possession in a single stroke. I cried out, though more in shock than pain. My own traitorous arousal had helped him.

He held himself inside me, the soft hair of his chest pressing to my breasts, his breath soft on my cheek. I’d thought to have taken him all, but he pressed forward again, and I realised he was not yet at the hilt.

I bit my lip to keep from moaning. He was so deep.

Easing back, he paused before his second thrust. It came more easily, as did the next, and the next.

He lowered his mouth to my nipple, pulling the point into his wet warmth. Once there, he did not release it, consuming and demanding, drawing harder, sending a searing flame to my womb.

As he bucked and shuddered, his features contorted.

With the last throbs of his pleasure, he grew still, and the look upon his face was wretched. I saw there an echo of all I felt—despair and pain, and a chasm of terrible loneliness.

Eirik was dead, and I was slave to this man’s bed—as I had been to Gunnolf’s. I knew this path and the soulless, aching emptiness that would come.

10

Elswyth

August 4th, 960AD

The next morning, it was not Ragerta who brought me food. The woman who swept aside the curtain was no thrall.

“Stand up. Let me see you.” I recognised her voice—one I’d heard many times since I’d been brought to Eldberg’s chamber. In some manner, she was mistress here, though not his wife, I knew.

The room smelled of coupling—thick with sweat and the scent of sex. Scowling, she pursed her lips, and the lines it brought to her mouth made apparent her age. Her hair, worn in a thick braid, was a similar hue to my own, only slightly lighter at her temples. She bore the expression of one who’d seen too much of life’s bitterness. It was etched in her face. Perhaps mine was the same, or would soon come to be so.

I rose from the bed, drawing my hair over my breasts and clasping my hands to cover my sex. That part of me was sore, for Eldberg had taken me twice more through the night.

She made no bones of surveying my nakedness, then my face, staring long and hard at each feature, as if there was some puzzle she wished to decipher. She met my eyes, and something flashed in her own.

“I’ve no wish to be here,” I said quietly. “And I do not remain willingly.”

The woman waved her hand in dismissal. “Were it up to me, you’d be thrown from the cliff and that would be the end of you.”

Her mouth tightened again, and she frowned. “As it’s not my decision, you’ll make yourself useful. Not just in here—” she glanced briefly at the bed. “But in other ways.”

My heart gave a sudden leap. I was to escape this confinement? To do so would be the first step toward my finding a way to leave this place.

“You can weave, I suppose? You know how to prepare meat, how to make bread and porridge?”

“Yes—all those things.” I nodded.

“Then get dressed, and we’ll find you work.” From a sack at her side, she tossed a bundle of fabric. “It’s too fine for a thrall, but he insists you wear it.”

It was my own soft undershift and gown—sewn for my wedding day. Holding them to my chest, I felt a stark pang.

To have me wear the gown as I served in his household was a cruel joke. Yet, I was glad—for it was my own, and wearing it would keep to mind all that I’d lost. It would give me strength to make my escape and have my revenge upon the man who’d inflicted so much suffering.