“Preparing for bed.” He yawned again, then dropped the pants and stepped out of them. “I am surprised that Liv sleeps in a bed rail, or that she gave you one. ’Tis a waste of good cloth.”
“She’s afraid of nudity.”
“Oh. I should have realized that.”
Joy couldn’t seem to look away, and so she got an up-close and personal view of the big man . . . six foot four and wellmuscled . . . who stood before her, buck naked, except for two glittering etched silver bands on his upper arms.
What a fashion statement!
His erection stood out like a blinking neon sign warning her.
What a sexual statement!
When he caught her gawking at him, he said, “Do not be fearful. I am too tired to dip my wick tonight.”
Dip his what?
“And that?” She waved a hand toward the offending member.
He glanced downward and seemed surprised at his arousal. “I will either pleasure myself, or it will go limp on its own. Have I not said I would disdain bedsport tonight? I am a man of my word.”
“Hah! A hard-on has no conscience.”
His eyes went wide, and that was another thing. His midnight blue eyes were framed by black lashes so thick they would do Heidi Klum proud. With a dismissing gesture as if it was futile talking to her, he crawled back onto the bed, with a huge bed fur under them, fur side up, then drew another bed fur over the top, fur side down. Impossible as it was to conceive, he closed his eyes and was about to go to sleep.
“You can’t possibly think I’m going to lie here with a naked man . . . a naked man with a woody. Even you can’t be that much of a dunce.”
He opened one eye a fraction. “Keep squirming around, and my woodcock will not go away, and
you
will have to do something about it.”
“Not woodcock. Woody. Jeesh!”
He wiggled his butt as if to get comfortable. “Go on. Talk. Bore me to sleep.”
Joy should have been insulted, but she found herself charmed by the jerk.
“Talk,” he repeated, closing his eyes. “I am so tired. If I could sleep for an hour or two . . .” He yawned. “Just keep talking, and, for the gods’ sake, stop hugging the other side of the mattress afore you fall off.” With that, he reached over and yanked her to his side. There was still a good six inches between them, but Joy could scarcely breathe at his closeness. The heat thrown off by his body was searing. “I can feel the rise and fall of your body; even the rhythm of your heartbeat makes me drowsy.”
“You could get a cat.”
He chuckled. “Cats cannot speak, and I do not relish the prospect of claw wounds in my tender parts by morn.”
“What makes you think I wouldn’t claw you?”
“Blah, blah, blah.” There was amusement in his voice.
Nice to think he considered her a comedian! Not!
To hide her nervousness, she began to talk. “Tomorrow is the anniversary of my brother’s death. Matt died two years ago in combat. I don’t know why I’m telling you that. I don’t talk about Matt much, and usually only with my other two brothers.”
She breathed in and out several times to calm herself.
She thought he was already asleep, but he said softly, “Go on, dearling.”
Dearling? He called me dearling. What an odd, wonderful endearment! But why use it with regard to me? Oh, hell! I’m probably misreading his intentions, and, really, why should I care?
“I know how hard it is to lose a loved one,” he went on. “All in one day, the Sigurdssons took my mother, my father, two of his other wives, four concubines, three older brothers, two sisters, and dozens and dozens more of our people. Liv is one of the few survivors, and she is half-dead.”
Joy went stiff with horror. He spoke of that carnage with dispassion, but she knew that for the defense mechanism it was. She did the same sometimes. “I am so sorry.”
“Why should you be? You did not know them. Nor do you know me.”
“Oaf! Can’t even take a speck of sympathy without insulting me.” Even so, she began to ramble in a clumsy effort to give comfort, “After Matt’s death, I went kind of berserk. Oh, shit! I can’t believe I used the word
berserk
. Sorry. I’m not usually so insensitive. What I meant was that I behaved like a maniac, and after that I became a zombie. That’s why I joined the military. Seemed like the only thing that had meaning at the time. Probably one of the biggest mistakes of my life. I’m always making mistakes, though. Usually because my brothers egg me on, but I’m getting too old to fall for their challenges. They would laugh themselves silly if they could see me now. Lying in bed with a bare-naked ancient Viking warlord who’s probably some kind of throw-back to a primitive culture. It would be just my luck that we’re being filmed by National Geographic . . .or Candid Camera.”
He remained silent, and she thought he might be asleep. But giving him a sideways glance, she saw his chest was moving. “Are you laughing at me?”
“Why would I do that? ’Tis a commonplace occurrence for my thralls to call me a ‘bare-arsed ancient Viking warlord.’ ”
“You mentioned your father’s other wives? Are you people Mormons or something?”
“Well, yea, we Vikings are more man than most, but, nay, my father followed the old ways of
more danico
. Multiple wives.”
“And you believe in that practice, too?”
“Nay! I follow both the Christian and Norse religions. In fact, I have been baptized, for expediency when traveling in the Papist lands. But, truth to tell, I do not have even one wife. Nor do I want any, although my brothers and I will have to wed eventually to provide heirs.”
For some reason, that bothered her. “And concubines? Are they the same as thralls?”
“Nay. Concubines are free women. Thralls, when they share the bed furs, are mere love slaves.”
“That is so sexist and downright crude. Unfair!”
He shrugged. “ ’Tis our way.”
An uncomfortable thought occurred to her. “Do you have concubines?”
“Not at the present time.”
“Not at the present time,” she mimicked him. “Someone ought to castrate the whole bunch of you.”
“Come here, wench.” He tugged her closer and wrapped a thick swath of her hair around his fingers, which he closed into a fist, then raised it to his nose to smell with apparent pleasure. “Go to sleep. Mayhap if you snore like you were doing afore, that will put me to sleep, just as your blather does.”
And with that, he was out like a light.
And he expected her to sleep?
I don’t think so! Not with Mister Nude Hunk lying next to me.
But then, amazingly, she did.
When she awoke the next morning, alone, she realized that she’d slept like a baby. Fully refreshed and ready to start a new day. Time to employ some of her WEALS training, to remember all the rules of engagement when taken prisoner. Holy cow! She was a prisoner of war. Sort of. How about that? Hopefully, she would not share Matt’s fate. Somehow, she knew that she would not. On the other hand, maybe that was wishful thinking.
She lay still for a few moments, relishing the warmth of the furs on her back and front. It was a sparsely furnished room with only the massive bed, a chest at its foot, a table holding the now-extinguished candle, a pottery pitcher, and bowl of water, with wooden pegs on the wall for clothing. The hazy light coming from the arrow slit window did not enhance the room’s drabness. It appeared to be an overcast day outside.
She stretched, got out of bed, and walked across the room. It was then she got her first shock of the day.
The big, thick door was locked.
Chapter 8
She was better than Ambien . . .
Brandr felt wonderful.
He sat at a table in the great hall, eating a bowl of porridge with milk and honey drizzled over the top. Who could have guessed that he would have craved such plain fare after these long months of deprivation?
Dawn had barely covered the hills, and for the first time in what seemed like forever, he had slept through the night. His body abounding with renewed energy, he could not wait to begin a new workday. Mayhap even a new life.
And all because a bothersome thrall had slept beside him, unconsciously sharing her warmth and softness. He could not help but wonder how he would feel after sinking into her depths. And they would make love, eventually, of that there was no doubt.
Tork slipped into the seat beside him, carrying his own bowl of porridge. Apparently they shared the same tastes in food. Others stumbling groggily into the hall were reaching for horns of watered ale with cold meat or fish and manchet bread left over from last evening’s meal. “Well, well, well! You are looking like a self-satisfied rooster who has had his tail feathers stroked. She was that good, was she?”
“Who?”
“You know precisely who.”
“I would not know how she was.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“She was that bad, then?”
He elbowed his friend for his foolery. “We shared bed furs, and that is all.”
“Why?”
“She bored me to sleep with her incessant talking.”
“You could have stopped her prattle in the age-old way.”
“I was too tired.”
“A man is ne’er too tired for fucking.”
“Do you question my manhood?”
“I am not that much of an idiot. Besides, I understand your indifference. She is not much to look at.”
He recalled the wench’s appearance in the thin bed rail with her silky clean hair. “She is not so bad.”
“Mayhap I should give her a try.”
“Not if you value your life.”
Tork’s lips turned up with amusement.
Brandr had no idea where that possessiveness had come from, but he did not like what it implied, so he added, “Not ’til I have had my fill. Then you may have her.”
Tork nodded. “I wonder what the wench would say if she knew you intend to pass her on once you’ve had your fill of her.”
“She has already mentioned castrating me. With her teeth.”
Tork grinned. “But first she’d have to take your cock in her mouth.”
“I told her the selfsame thing.”
“It was strange last night . . . how she protested so strongly that she is not a thrall.”
“They all do, at first.”
“Well, yea, but this seemed different. So she now accepts her bondage?”
“Hah!”
“She does not accept, then?”
“We shall soon find out. I have locked her in my bedchamber, and she will not be permitted to leave ’til she dons a thrall gunna.”
“Uh-oh!” Tork said, then, “Why do you get to have all the fun?”
It was such a ludicrous statement, knowing how dour his life had been for ever so long. But, in truth, Brandr realized that he was enjoying himself . . . and all because of a witless thrall who thought she was a woman soldier.
Just then, there was a scream of outrage coming from above stairs,
“Igor, you rat!”
followed by pounding, no doubt on the bedchamber door. Then there was a crashing noise, followed by another and another. Probably the pottery pitcher and bowl and the soapstone candle holder.
Tork grinned. “Your thrall calls.”
Then the war games began . . .
Joy was fuming.
For the past hour—or two, who knew with no clock—she’d screamed, pounded on the door, thrown everything in sight, to no avail. Tugging a heavy chest over to the wall, she now stood and gazed out of the arrow slit window—an opening about two feet wide by three feet tall, with a shutter to keep out the cold—and saw mostly snow, and more snow. It must be twenty inches deep, at least, and it was still coming down. People in furs and tanned hide clothing bustled about some thatch-roofed outbuildings. Down by the fjord, the two big dragonships were being beached for the winter. They joined another ten or so of various sizes already on the shore.
How the hell am I going to get home?
Better yet, where am I?
Who are these people?
Are they terrorists . . . or working with terrorists?
They appeared to be Scandinavians, but since when had Norway or Denmark or Sweden been the hub of terrorism? In fact, Sweden was supposed to be a pacifist country, wasn’t it?
Hearing a key turn in the lock, she stepped off the chest and waited. Her hands fisted to keep from flying at the person dumb enough to enter with her in her present mood.
It was Brandr . . . or Igor, as she liked to call him. He didn’t smile at her, which would have been the last straw. Instead, and it was equally irritating, he was fully dressed in a dark blue wool tunic over suedelike pants tucked into knee-high leather boots. A writhing dragon brooch on one shoulder held together a short black cape lined with fox fur. The same impressive silver link belt he’d worn yesterday tucked in his tunic at the waist.