Such a delectable morsel needed to be tasted. What pleasure she would receive while he worked those narrow hips. And that perfectly formed backside had already brushed against his manhood on more than one occasion. He closed his eyes, visualizing how perfect she must look naked.
“Denne jenta har den strammeste rumpa jeg noensinne har følt!”
“What perverted things are you saying now?”
His lips curved into a roguish grin. “Not insults,
min lille dukke
, merely observations any hot-blooded man would make.”
Lifting a slender hand, she deflected his answer. “Horse manure. And those other words I recognize well enough—
min lille dukke
—I hear you speak them often.”
“A term of endearment. It’s irrelevant.”
Might she offer a smile now? He hoped she would. Instead, her eyes narrowed, confirming her annoyance. “Remind me sometime in the future to tease you with words
you
cannot understand.”
“Aye,” he said. “As long as it’s not spoken in French, Spanish, Greek, Latin, Gaelic, English, or Norse—all of which I am quite fluent.”
She rolled her eyes. “Most men flex their muscles to attract the attention of the opposite sex, are you suggesting you showcase your linguistic skills to do so?”
“My tongue is skilled at many things, if you care to find out.”
“Vagrant—to think you would speak so shamelessly in front of me. I didn’t grow up in a convent. I know what men mean when they say such things.” She tossed her head, her words trailing off.
“I shall say something more appropriate for your pretty ears.
Ma petite poupee . . . meum pupa . . .
or
mi munequita
, they all mean the same—what I see before me.”
She crossed her arms and pursed her lips much too attractively for comfort. He admired her self-control; most women would have thrown something at him. Noelle simply shut her mouth whenever she was particularly irritated.
“Damned to spend an eternity with a mindless churl.”
“Careful,” he warned, grabbing at her. “Remember, there are consequences for everything you say.”
“I meant no—”
“I know what you intended.”
Her fingers fumbled nervously with the long gold chain around her neck, twisting the cross pendant. “I’m your captive—this I must accept. Will you keep me from speaking freely as well?”
He’d suspend all hostilities if she’d only offer him a blasted smile. Willful girl. “If you disrespect me or my captains, I will deal with you no differently than anyone else under my care. I cannot allow insults to be overheard by my men.”
“Does it undermine your authority or force you to confront the malice so deeply rooted in your soul?” she asked poignantly.
To hell with self-restraint! He wanted to tie her hands to the bedposts and fill that virginal hollow between her legs.
I have plenty of authority,
he thought. And he’d love to give her a firsthand demonstration.
Chapter 6
Sea of Reckonings
A steady wind filled the sail of Randvior’s flag ship
, Odin’s Eye,
as the last ribbons of sunshine colored the eventide sky.
Noelle wrapped her arms around the polished mast as she stared forlornly at her homeland fading away, swallowed by clouds and waves. Her heart was broken. Randvior
seemed conveniently occupied at the moment, so she focused her attention on his other two ships following behind. Any distraction would serve her purpose right now—keeping her mind off the people left behind. Especially Margaret.
A strong northerly cut across the deck and quickly reminded her of the season. Shivering, she knew it would only get colder where they were headed. To the wretched northlands, a place where men worshipped carved stones and sacrificed innocents to their gods.
After she’d woken up in Randvior’s cabin, he’d given her an opportunity to witness such an act before their departure. She’d accompanied him to shore and watched breathlessly as his men constructed an altar from flat stones on the beach. They’d sacrificed a suckling pig from her father’s barn as recompense for Odin’s favor. Randvior’s personal entreaties were sacrilegious, and she should have turned away. Even though he spoke in a foreign tongue, the power behind his words had captivated her.
She couldn’t keep her eyes off the soldier who slit the animal’s throat. A second man laid its bloody carcass across the altar. Meanwhile a light rain had started to fall. But it made no difference to her; she had never seen a pagan ritual before, only heard stories told amongst the men in the hall when they were drunk. Deciphering between truth and exaggeration was impossible until she had witnessed it herself.
The sacraments Noelle observed were paramount to her salvation. But she never dismissed the faiths of others. Better to remain silent than risk God’s wrath. Besides, these men voiced no concerns over her faith. And their commander hadn’t exercised intolerance. After all, it wasn’t her soul he craved.
Randvior courteously ushered Noelle around deck and introduced her to many of his soldiers. Aud Magnusson seemed to be his best warrior.
“I have three daughters of my own,” Aud announced proudly. “One near your age, perhaps you might become friends someday.”
Randvior patted him on the back. “Ask my friend who runs his household.”
Noelle believed three daughters would run any man ragged. “I needn’t ask,” Noelle turned her attention to the imposing figure. “Judging by the look on your face, your daughters are in full control.” Even though he was a barbarian, Noelle couldn’t help but like him.
Aud laughed appreciatively. “Aye,” he agreed. “And we’ll see in a few weeks, once you’re settled in the Trondelag, who runs my master’s house.”
The men exchanged mirthful grins. Noelle curtsied, for lack of a better response, and walked on with Randvior.
“Now that we are under way, you may ask me whatever you wish.”
Noelle rubbed irritably at her nose. She’d had plenty of questions when they were still in Durham. How dare he show her around his ship as if she were an old acquaintance he was escorting home? Now he was all smiles and acted as if nothing had happened. Ophelia and her father’s men were dead and nothing could alter the ugliness of that reality.
“You’ve given me hardly any time to recover from this atrocity. And now you expect me to parade around this ship with you and exchange niceties with the murdering heathens who attacked my home and stole me away as chattel? And beyond this . . .” Her body trembled. “. . . now you want me to ask questions?” His casualness enraged her. “You make little of what happened in Durham.”
Randvior gripped her by both shoulders and nodded.
His unspoken acceptance left her mind a jumbled mass of confusing thoughts and left her heart full of contradictory emotions.
Though one question did come to mind.
“Why me?”
Randvior had promised clarity. And she deserved the truth in measured doses. They walked to his cabin, very much in need of privacy to continue the conversation. He opened the door and they went inside. He sat down on a chair next to the narrow bed, folded his hands behind his neck, and stretched his long legs out.
“I’d never considered targeting your homeland. If I yearned for a lucrative raid, my ships would aim closer to Ireland. A week ago, I was in the Orkneys preparing to return home. Father Odin sent me an incredible vision—showed me his banquet table in Valhalla. A rare thing for a mortal to behold while he still lives.”
Noelle sat on the bed and for the moment appeared enthralled by his tale.
“His fierce maiden warriors, the azure-eyed Valkyries, who serve and choose the men who sit at his table, offered me wine from his chalice. No man can refuse this honor. I drank, but much to my dismay, I realized the table wasn’t decorated for celebration. It was prepared for a funeral feast. Not to honor warriors slain in battle, but those wretched souls condemned to Hel. I dropped the sacred cup and ran. Once I escaped, I mysteriously appeared on the lands surrounding my home. Funeral pyres burned in every direction, columns of black smoke rose above the earth, very near my own hall.” He dropped his hands from behind his neck and leaned forward.
“I hastened for miles through ice and snow to reach my steading. Before I crossed the border,
disir
, women who decide men’s fates, were waiting. I greatly mistrust these spirits and attempted to elude them. But they followed me and called out to me.
Why do you run from your destiny? There are two possible ends for you, and we have revealed both. You have drunk from Odin’s cup, an honor bestowed on few mortals.
Yet you remain only half a man. Sail to Durham on the eventide and discover the troth the gods have chosen for you. If you reject this gift, your wyrd will be altered—given over to forces beyond Odin’s control.”
“Tell me what wyrd
is
?”
Her skepticism was evident.
“Fate.”
The hairs on the back of his neck stood up at the retelling of his tale, yet disbelief still remained on Noelle’s face. She resembled the wraith in his dream. Randvior studied her features more closely. Unable to resist the urge to touch her, he moved to the bed and pulled her onto his lap as he sat down again.
She bristled. “So I am to believe that a warmongering prince succumbed to the demands of spirits he doesn’t trust, then sailed for distant shores? If my father’s army were present they would have overpowered you and sent you back to Norway in burning ships.”
He arched a brow, completely unprepared for how to deal with such an undisciplined, feminine tongue. A few unsavory methods crossed his mind, perhaps a gag and a firm throttling to her backside to start.
“I didn’t realize Norsemen relied on mystics to determine their futures.”
He nodded agreement and loosened his grip. “My people pay homage to countless deities, and seek the council of many when mapping out the course of their lives. Our stargazers are the most famous in the civilized world and have successfully predicted the futures of kings and military leaders—earning them many enemies. I know these ancient practices violate the tenets of
your
religion, but we were mandated by our gods to use our skills to help shape the future. Your church unfairly condemns pagans, levies false charges, and executes them.”
The
disir
had
revealed his fate. They referred to him as
half a man,
and those prolific words beset him the most
.
A woman, spirit or otherwise, could say nothing more degrading. Randvior had interpreted them correctly, in his opinion, therefore safeguarding his virility from further scrutiny. The gods wanted him to take a wife.
A woman can fill the empty spaces in a man’s soul like mortar between stones.
He went where Odin commanded and found the girl. With his blood heating exquisitely, while she squirmed innocently in his lap, he nudged her off to keep himself from losing control.
He stood. She was too beautiful for her own good.
And his. The only way to win her affection would be to woo her.
“That’s it?” she complained. “Your silly story ends there? You fill my head with ridiculous notions of gods and spirits—prophetic visions, fire, and mayhem and end it without resolution?”
Keeping a straight face, he let her rant continue.
“My senses tell me you’re full of—”
Randvior laughed warningly. “Sometimes a story ends where it must. This isn’t girlish make-believe, but an honest recounting of what carried me here.”
Most women would have swooned upon hearing how the gods favored him. Not this one. Noelle Sinclair simply rejected him.
Days passed and Randvior spent his afternoons walking and talking with Noelle on deck.
Today, he formally introduced her to Odin and a myriad of deities he worshipped. He also prepared her for the reaction his people might have once they found out she was English. It seemed hatred thrived on both sides of the sea.
Men most fear what they do not understand.
“Decades of derision lay between our countries. The first Norse ships landed in Lindisfarne over two hundred years ago. My ancestors swept the region, pillaging, and enslaving with such unprecedented success that no one seemed capable of stopping them. Their bloodthirstiness struck fear in the hearts of men. Norsemen have been demonized ever since.”
The
only
thing Noelle surmised his people feared was the expansion of what they considered an illegitimate faith, which had already cost thousands of people their lives across the continent.
“Last year,” Randvior continued, “a Christian convert named Olaf Haraldsson, returned to my country to claim the crown. He publicly professed his new faith and proclaimed the indisputable right to unite the country under the Pope’s banner. Most jarls
rejected his idea.”
“Why?”
“My kinsmen are fiercely devoted to Odin. We would never abandon centuries of tradition because belief in a new god was carried across the sea by a zealot long absent from his homeland,” he said. “There is always increased risk when a man’s ambition is driven by religious fervor.”
Noelle didn’t know what to say. People should freely choose what god they want to worship, and if Christ’s blood united nations, well, she would secretly celebrate it.
“Your religion will sweep the world and your god’s holy soldiers will kill anyone who gets in the way. Tension is building across Western Europe as I speak, and I believe your Pope will eventually set his eyes on the Holy Land,” he said.
“Do you forbid me to practice my faith?”
“No,” he answered curtly.
“But any open display of your vulgar traditions might draw unwanted attention, and may even prevent you from being accepted by the women. Women you will need on your side one day.”
“What traditions do you speak of?”
“Cannibalism,” he said plainly. “Eating the flesh and drinking the blood of your White Christ.”
Noelle looked at him incredulously. Had she heard him correctly? “You are greatly mistaken. We do not actually eat his flesh or drink his blood. Holy Communion is a sacrament, a symbolic gesture mandated by our Lord. Surely you don’t believe otherwise?”