The Enchantment (27 page)

“There will be long nights ahead.” He glanced up at her. “Long quiet nights . . . with only you and me beside a hot, crackling fire. I know how to set you ablaze, too, Long-legs. I'll start with kisses . . . long, slow, patient kisses . . . on your lips . . . your ears . . . your throat . . .”

“Come near my throat at the risk of your own, Borgerson,” she threatened, outraged at his battle tactics and not a little aroused.

“A whole winter of long, sweet nights . . . lying side by side . . . and breast to breast, thigh to thigh. I'll feast on your skin and drink from your lips . . . rest in the valley of your breasts . . . wrap myself in the warmth of your thighs.” His voice grew thick and sultry as he described the sensual tortures he had in mind for her. “And I'll make magic for you . . . conjure lightning and thunder inside your very body. Then after the pleasure-storm passes, I'll spin rainbows through your senses. Think of it,
Honey-maker,
” he said with an irresistible grin.

This was a new and disturbing
flyting
—one in which her dire blood-threats were met with beguiling sensual promises. Alarming heat crept up her throat and into her cheeks as she found her ire softening, found herself sinking into his cunning word-snares. She lashed out in a near panic.

“Perhaps you do not know that bees and women have something in common besides
honey,
Woman-heart. We both have
stingers,
” she declared fiercely. “And I am itching to use mine.”

“Ummm . . .” He rubbed his chin and frowned. “I don't believe I've ever seen a woman's
stinger,
Long-legs.” Brightening, he waggled his brows at her. “I can see this will be a most instructive winter. Let me guess . . .” He scratched his temple thoughtfully. “I know that bees bear their stingers in their
tails
. . .”

“Oh, you—” She groaned, struggling about on her seat, wrenching one leg up and over the saddle before he could stop her. But instead of the successful dismount and flight she expected, she found herself falling, and without the use of her arms to steady and balance herself, smacked the ground with her side.
“Aghhh!”
The horse shied and lurched forward, and Jorund grabbed the reins to halt it, then raced back to her and lifted her to her feet. Jamming his shoulder into her midsection, he hoisted her and carried her back to her mount.

“What's it to be, Long-legs?” he demanded, seemingly undaunted by her growls and struggles. “Fight and you ride on your belly. Cease fighting and you can ride on your buttocks.” When her struggles slowed but did not cease, he added with a taunting pat: “Such handsome buttocks. It would be a shame to waste them.”

She had no choice, she realized through the resurgent roar of blood in her head. He had the advantage and further resistance would only tax her strength and weaken her ability to fight later, when conditions were more in her favor. She surrendered and stilled, and soon found herself planted back in the saddle and being secured to it by a rope tether looped through her wrist-bonds.

Chagrin doubled the angry heat under her skin and she jerked away from his grip, staring sullenly at the path ahead and refusing even to look at him.

Jorund's determined smile cooled a bit, but he would not be daunted by her angry withdrawal. He had expected her to be furious, had steeled himself to take her worst . . . and return only his seductive best. Sooner or later she would succumb to the pleasure he would make for her . . . and to her fate as a woman . . .
his
woman.

The night stretched on and the cold deepened. As the tension drained from her weary body, Aaren began to shiver. Jorund removed his fleece jerkin and draped it about her shoulders. When she shrugged it off, he grabbed her bound hands and held them with gentle force.

“Do not be foolish, Serricksdotter. It will be a long night. Take the warmth I offer.”

For one long moment their gazes met and something in his compelling words sent a frisson of anxiety through her heart. She jerked her hands and her eyes away, but not in time to forestall a painful crush of longing in her chest. After a while, she felt his warm fleece settling around her shoulders and she could not bring herself to reject it again, no matter how dangerous that warmth was to her warrior's heart.

THIRTEEN

T
HE
S
KY-
T
RAVELER
stood cold and bright above them the next day, when they reached the small mountain meadow where Jorund's
shieling
lay. The high country frosts and winds had already stripped the flat-leafed trees to spread a golden blanket over the ground. The short-grazed grasses in the meadow were brown, but all around were tall, stately spears of vivid green, the needle-leaf spruce and soft-limbed firs, which soared to pierce the sky-vault itself. The sound of water rushing over rocks filled the silence.

Jorund rolled his aching shoulders and dismounted to lead both horses up a slope toward a steep cliff that rose high above the great firs. At the base of that smooth rock face nestled a modest log structure with a hewn cedar roof. As they approached, Aaren could see another, smaller hut tucked into the rocks, farther away. But before she could examine it or the brisk stream that wound down the rocks between the two structures, Jorund stopped the horses and pulled her from her horse to set her on her feet.

When she swayed, weak-kneed, he caught her against him and the contact with his warm, hard frame sent a shiver of alarm through her. She stiffened and pulled away, and he scowled.

“We're away from the village, Serricksdotter. Here there are no prying eyes or ears . . . no one to brandish your pride for. You can cease playing the warrior.”

Aaren drew on her deepest reserves, sensing that whatever ground she surrendered to him now—even from fatigue—would be forever forfeit. “I am not
playing
the warrior, Borgerson,” she said tersely. “I
am
a warrior.”

After a long moment, he seized her shoulders and thrust her toward the small summer lodge. Swinging the low door open, he pushed her inside. When she straightened, she found that her head brushed the bottom of the roof beams, but the interior was considerably larger than it had seemed outside. By the light coming through the door, she could make out a wall formed by the cliff face, along the far side, and saw that a vertical channel had been hewn in the stone, leading upward to a smoke hole that admitted additional light. At the foot of that wall, a low, flat ledge ran the length of the lodge and in the middle of the ledge was a hollowed, blackened spot, directly beneath the channel—apparently a hearth. From the two side walls hung sleeping shelves and there was a rough cedar storage box built against the wall near the door.

“Over here.” He pushed her toward the stone wall. “Sit.” When she didn't comply, he seized her shoulders and forced her onto the ledge beside the hearth. She jerked her shoulders defiantly as she landed and she saw that his eyes narrowed and a muscle in his jaw flexed. He uncoiled the rope from her arms and shoulders, using it to tether her still-tied hands to an iron ring imbedded in the stone beside the hearth. Then he stood over her with his hands on his hips, considering the ring, her bound hands, and the hostile look on her face.

“Still the warrior, Long-legs?”

“Yea, always a warrior, Woman-heart,” she answered, testing her stiff arms and bracing for whatever the glint in his eye promised.

“Very well. Then I will treat you like a warrior.” He abruptly dropped to his knees beside her and seized her legs, banding and dragging them against his side as he worked the lacings of her buskins. With her hands tied to the ring, she could only writhe and kick, uttering dire threats. But with a few deft movements he had ripped the laces from her sandal-boots and had her footgear wrenched from her wriggling feet. Next, he seized her leggings, unwrapped them, and tossed them onto the floor. Then, to her horror, he shifted and pulled on her legs so that she was stretched out along the stone shelf, lying with her hands bound by ropes above her head and her knees caught hard in his grip.

“No! Curse you, Borgerson! If Odin doesn't have your blood for this—I will!” she snapped, bucking and heaving with all her might as he attacked the ties of her breeches. He had her pinned on her back and was apparently bent on stripping her buttocks as well as her legs!

Curling his fingers over the waist of her breeches, he pulled and succeeded in baring one hip. Then he leaned his body across her knees, trapping her legs with his ribs, and used both hands to peel her breeches down her thighs. He paused and grinned when they reached her knees, letting his eyes roam her sleek, naked thighs and applying force with his body to roll her over so that he could scrutinize her bare buttocks. As she choked on her outrage, his grin broadened and he sought her gaze.

“No stinger,” he pronounced solemnly.

“Ohhh! Wretch!” she exploded, arching violently—which only allowed him better access. In one coolly executed movement, he shoved to his feet and ripped her breeches from her, dangling them before her with a triumphant smile. She rolled onto her side and scrambled back on the cold, abrasive rock, pulling herself upright and dragging her legs beneath her, trying to shield herself with the meager tail of her tunic. “Give me back my clothes and boots, curse you!”

“You want to be treated like a warrior, Serricksdotter,” he said with satisfaction. “Well, one of the perils of being a warrior—of which you spoke so knowledgeably—is being held captive in your enemy's camp. And one of the hazards of being a prisoner is being stripped to keep you from escaping, especially in cold weather.” He bent to gather up her sandal-boots and leggings, wrapping them together with her breeches into a ball, which he stuffed under his arm. Then he ran a hot, appraising eye over her bare feet and up her long, naked legs.

“I need not tell you that without boots and breeches you would not last long in these cold forests. I have things to do—tend the horses, gather wood, find meat. These”—he held up her clothing—“will assure that you are here when I return.” He turned away, then back, with a most reasonable and accommodating tone. “Anytime you wish to be treated like a woman, instead of a warrior, I will gladly return your clothes and boots, Long-legs.” He waited a moment for that to register and when he saw her face redden and her chest swell, he ducked outside.

“This is just like you, Woman-heart!” she shouted. “Low and cowardly . . . and despicable . . . and cruel . . .” The door slammed shut on her tirade and she heard the scrape of something being lodged against the door, trapping her in the chilled, darkened lodge.

She stared around the cabin in the dimness, then at the door, feeling angry and confused and oddly bereft that he'd stripped her and then just left her there. Chiding herself for her divided feelings, she seized her hotter emotions and used them to purge the others while she huddled close to the iron ring and drew her knees up, banding them with her arms. If he thought a little cold and nakedness would humble her . . . he was badly mistaken!

I
T WAS JUST
past dark when Jorund returned. With only the heat of her burning pride for warmth, Aaren had steadily grown more chilled and miserable. Her muscles were drawn into hard knots, she seemed to have lost most of the feeling in her lower half, and her teeth chattered uncontrollably. During the long wait, she had seized each bit of discomfort to bolster her anger against Jorund, constructing flaming word-spears to hurl at him the moment he returned. But when the door opened, she jerked her head up from her knees and her burning arsenal of denouncements was drenched by a wave of relief. His arms were full of wood and provisions, and he seemed big and warm; the mere sight of him made her go limp inside. He paused inside the door, calling her name, but she couldn't seem to answer; the muscles in her throat suddenly seemed as frozen as the rest of her.

“Aaren? Come now . . . don't be so stubborn . . .” He stopped dead—staring at her balled, quaking form—and dumped everything in his arms onto the floor. In two strides he was beside her, kneeling on one knee by the stone ledge, feeling her chilled face and arms, running his hands down her lower legs to her icy feet.

“You're half frozen,” he said grimly.

“I'm f-f-fine, B-Borgerson,” she croaked, trying to jerk away from his hands, and failing.

He scowled and ripped his fleece jerkin from his shoulders and wrapped it around her legs. Without another word, he hurried across the lodge to rummage in the cedar box for oil and a wick to fill the hanging lamp . . . then carried the wood and tinder back to the stone hearth beside her and began to build a fire.

After the first shock of his return, she tried desperately to resurrect her ire and to pretend that her legs weren't cramping and her bare bottom wasn't numb and that she didn't feel small and wretched and humiliated. But all her efforts were increasingly undercut by the warmth that lingered in his garment and the fledgling heat of the fire he was nursing to flame, both of which only seemed to make her quake more. She clamped her teeth together, praying that she wouldn't make a complete fool of herself.

When the fire was well caught and crackling, he freed her from the iron ring and began to lift her onto the floor by the hearth. She insisted on moving on her own, but stumbled and slid to her knees before the fire. As his warm hands untied the knots and gently massaged her bruised wrists and cold hands, she searched for a bit of protest inside her and found none. He worked his hands up her arms, then along her shoulders, rubbing warmth back into them with smooth, circular motions. And as his touch restored warmth and feeling to her icy frame, it also worked a broadening charm on her senses. Her shivering slowed to small, lingering tremors that had less and less to do with cold.

“I did not intend to leave you alone so long. I would have been back earlier,” he said, sliding his hands up the sides of her neck, “but I had to unload, then repair the pole shed for the horses. And it took a while to set a snare and take a rabbit . . .”

The golden glow of the fire set warm lights in his eyes as he caressed his way down her shoulders and sides, until he reached her hips. His hands paused, holding her, as he sought her eyes. “I did not mean to hurt you.” He shifted back onto his knees and pulled her feet onto his lap, holding them for a moment before massaging her toes, the arches of her feet, then her ankles. “Just like a woman.” He grinned. “Women always have cold feet.”

Her very senses began to melt beneath his warm ministrations. He raised a quizzical brow to her and his handsome lips moved. It took a moment for her to right the sounds in her head.

“And do you know why?” he had asked.

“W-why what?” she mumbled, losing her flow of thought in the shimmering pools of his eyes.

“Why women always have cold feet,” he prompted.

She blinked, then shook her head, bewildered by the question, since she hadn't been minding his words.

“It's because all the warmth in a woman goes to her heart,” he said quietly. His hands stilled, splayed on her bare thighs and pouring heat into them, as his tone wrapped around her senses like a blanket. “You have a warm heart, too, Long-legs. I've seen it in your eyes. I've felt it beating next to mine.” He slid one hand up her thigh, then lifted it to her chest as he sought her wide, wondering eyes. When she did not move, he pressed his hand over her heart and slid his fingers downward, between the stiff edge of her breastplate and the yielding softness of her breast.

“Such stout armor”—his whisper caressed her—“must protect something very soft.”

She wrapped a hand around his wrist, but in truth, she was not sure whether it was meant as a rejection or a claiming. It was only when his hand moved to deepen that possession that she came out of her trance and used her grip to thrust him away. That movement broke the spell and brought her vulnerable position crashing back to her.

She scrambled back shakily and summoned a glare. “Keep your hands to yourself, Borgerson,” she said hoarsely. “I've warned you.”

He studied the spark in her eyes and the burst of color under her cheekbones and smiled, seeming perversely pleased by her revived spirits.