Fantasyland 01 Wildest Dreams (9 page)

And I also hope that you have found a witch
to assist you with not conceiving his child or can find the courage
to discuss this with The Drakkar who can don a sheath to stop this
from happening. This is my duty, one I will bear on my return. You
will simply need to find a way to stop the conception of a child
until I can offer this service to my country.

Or, perhaps, in a year’s time, our return to
our worlds can be reconsidered. It would truly break my heart to
leave my Lunwyn but if you were to wish to remain with The Drakkar
and any offspring you can provide who would serve my ice-bound
nation with fairness and decency, and be happy doing so, I would
make this sacrifice for the good of my people.

But we will communicate when that time
comes.

In the meantime, I wish you great adventures
with your adventurer, Seoafin. From the communications you sent me,
it seems you will fit The Drakkar well.

I do hope that is true.

Yours,

Sjofn

Okay, so she didn’t want to
totally
play me, but still, she played
me. I had been very forthcoming with her about why I wanted the
switch so clearly she’d been (kind of) matchmaking at the same time
looking out for herself. She had not been as forthcoming with me
including news about her upcoming nuptials
and
her Mom and Dad not being her biggest fans
and
the duty she had to her
country.

It would have been nice to have a
choice
and
know what I
was dealing with
prior
to having
to deal with it.

But I had to admit, reading about the
Raiders/Voyagers, the thought that that man was one of them was
intriguing. I had the sense from the books that their lifestyle was
romanticized more than a little bit (again, carefully selected by
Sjofn, no doubt in order to call to my own spirit for adventure,
something I’d shared with her). But their adventures on the seas,
their wide travels, the people they had to meet, the things they
saw… well, I
was
me, the
adventurer daughter of two adventurers.

I couldn’t say Sjofn was wrong about
that.

Still, she could have warned me including
the fact that she had told him about herself and that he clearly
had not reacted well to this news. Unless she had done it while
drunk off her ass and didn’t remember which seemed to be the
case.

Nevertheless, he was gone, I was here, I
was on my adventure and, as I always did, I was sucking all I could
get from it. I had my cozy little rustic-chic cabin. I could bake
an amazing pecan pie
with
a
fantastic, flaky crust
in
an
old-fashioned oven (and I bet none of my girlfriends at home could
pull off something like that and Claudia had proved she could cook
on anything, campfire, camp stove, underground hot stones,
anything
). I had
my own personal hot springs. I had a fat, purry cat to cuddle (that
I hoped Valentine could get home with me when I went back). And
when I was tired of my own company, I had four horses to choose to
ride and a town full of people to chat with.

I was totally set and having a fabulous
time.

And I couldn’t wait to tell Claudia, though
I told myself I wouldn’t rub her nose in it.

I expertly shuffled the cards, my eyes on
them, as I suggested, “How about I teach you boys poker?”

Although I suggested it, I didn’t know how I
was going to do it considering they didn’t have the same face
cards. They had diamonds but they had no hearts, clubs or spades,
instead they had stars, moons and daggers. But the deck started at
a dash or “naught” and also had ones, a ghost card and a sorceress
card so I figured we could make ones aces and naughts, ghosts and
sorceresses could be face cards.

As I was deciding this, I realized none of
the boys had said anything so I looked up.

It was then I belatedly felt the air in the
pub which was wired.

And it was then I belatedly noticed that
Ulysses, Frederick and Laurel were all looking in the direction of
the door.

And that was when I felt a weird, pulsing
and warm but very scary energy beating at my back.

Shit, Dad had always told me never sit with
your back to the door. And there I was, like Wild Bill Hickock
before he bought it, sitting with my stupid back to the door.

Slowly, I turned in my chair. Equally
slowly, my eyes drifted up the so dark brown it was nearly black
clothing, taking in the knife belt (with knives), leather band
across the wide chest, slanted cloak made of hides and angled sword
at the back of my now heavily bearded husband.

He was scowling at me.

I was fighting for breath.

Shit!

What did I do now?

I instantly realized my mistake of not,
perhaps, taking some time away from enjoying my parallel universe
adventure and, say, preparing for his return, considering the fact
he told me he would be returning. I realized this as my eyes
flicked beyond him and I saw about seven men, all smaller than him
(not by much) all dressed a lot like him, all sporting thick
beards, all having hair (of a variety of colors) that needed a cut,
all of them scary and all of their eyes were on me.

This must be some of his Raider
brethren.

Ho boy.

I pulled in a deep breath to fill my
lungs.

Then I smiled huge and called, “Hi honey! I
see you’re home.”

There was some movement around me but not
much as that weird, pulsing, warm, very scary energy filled the pub
until it was suffocating.

Then he growled at me across the expanse,
“Wife, arse over here.”

Hmm. Not sure I liked that.

Nope, I was wrong. I
was
sure I didn’t like that.

Nevertheless, he was twice the size of me
and he had seven men of much the same size behind him. I had
Frederick, Ulysses and Laurel. Sure, Ulysses was the blacksmith and
he had forearms the size of anvils (and likely the consistency,
though I hadn’t checked), but Frederick and Laurel were
lightweights compared to the Raider Party.

And I liked them, I knew they liked me, we’d
had some good times, but we weren’t exactly BFFs (yet) so I wasn’t
certain they’d wade in for me.

Not with these guys.

It was probably best that I got my arse over
there.

I nodded to Drakkar and turned, putting down
the cards.

“Thanks guys, see you all later,” I
muttered, grabbed my little, satin, drawstring bag off the table,
decided to let my winnings sit where they were and with some haste
I stood, snatched my cloak off the back of my chair and moved
quickly, trying to do it without appearing like I was moving
quickly, through the silent pub, taking every step with every eye
in the place on me.

I wasn’t certain what would happen once I
got my arse to him because one could say I didn’t know my husband
like, at all, but I would never have been prepared for what
did
happen.

The minute I was within reach, he reached.
Then, with a small, surprised cry, I found myself, ass in the air,
over his shoulder. Then I found myself out of the pub and into the
cold night. Then I found my ass on my horse and my arms
automatically came up quickly to catch the cloak I had lost and he
had caught and was now throwing at me.

Then he growled two words, “Arse. Home.”

“But –” I started but didn’t finish.

He lifted a large hand and slapped my gray
on the rump, barking, “
Yah!
”
and my gray took off at a full gallop.

I didn’t even have the reins in my hand!

What a fucking
dick!

I quickly hooked my leg around the saddle,
leaned forward, holding onto the gray around her neck so I wouldn’t
fall off, I grabbed the reins then sat back and, as best I could
with purse and reins, I flung the fur lined cloak around my
shoulders.

Then I rode home and I did this fast. This
was because I was pissed way
the fuck
off and I knew if I didn’t go in that direction, I’d go
back to the pub and probably do something that would get me
murdered by a giant Viking-type, parallel universe
Raider.

So I went home, straight to the stables
where I unsaddled and stalled the gray, stomped to the house,
stoked up the banked fires, dropped logs on them, lit candles and
lamps, climbed up and built a fire in the loft and then I went down
the ladder and paced.

What I did not do was calm down.

My
husband
and I had to get a few things straight.

First was that he didn’t do anything that
threatened to break my neck, such as set a horse to full gallop
when I was not seated properly and didn’t have hold of the
reins.

Second was that he had to stop throwing me
on or in some type of transport when I didn’t have anything to
shield me from the freezing, arctic, fucking air.

Third was that he was going to hear how I
felt about him humiliating me in front of people who were becoming
my friends.

I knew there was probably a fourth through
about a five hundredth but I was fucking well going to start with
those.

I seethed and ranted in my brain while I
paced for a long time. Then I realized I’d been pacing for a long
time. Then I realized I’d been drinking ale, had a fabulous
shepherd’s pie at the pub and I was getting tired. Then I realized
this was happening because it was way late and I’d been home for
what felt like hours and he wasn’t home.

Then I decided, fuck him.

I was going to bed.

So I went to the trunks, grabbed a
nightgown, went to the bathroom type room, changed, came out, flung
my clothes on a trunk, blew out the candles and lanterns, threw
more logs on the fires and climbed up the ladder where Penelope was
already curled and asleep.

I threw more logs on that fire too, slid the
curtain shut then I climbed under the sheet, quilt and fluffy wool
blanket and was out like a light within minutes.

* * * * *

My eyes drifted open as something light and
lovely glided from the back of my knee up the skin of the back of
my thigh.

I came to a sleepy, confused, definitely
hazy semi-focus in the firelight, my eyes taking in a muscled, so
dark brown it was nearly black, wool breeches covered knee and
thigh resting on the bed.

I blinked.

“Waste,” I heard a low, male rumble and the
finger kept going, pushing up my nightgown, drifting over my hip
and then down toward my ass. “Waste,” it repeated.

The words registered, the touch registered
and the direction it was heading registered.

Holy moly!

I shot up to sitting in bed, one hand in the
bed, the covers tumbling off me, the finger moved from me and
Penelope scrambled away on a bee-line to the rope of the pulley,
deserting me as she used her claws on the rope to crawl down.

Oh shit. My husband was sitting on the bed
facing me. I was half lounging in it. As usual, I’d kicked the
covers off one leg and was straddling them; the ones that covered
my torso were now at a bunch at my waist.

But I didn’t notice this. I was staring in
his eyes which were staring at me.

Then his big hand lifted and I sat
stock-still as it moved toward me, cupped my jaw gently, then it
slid down to the side of my neck. There, it curled around to the
back, his fingers tangled in my hair and kept moving downward.

“Uh –” I started but didn’t continue mainly
because I was speechless with fear.

“Soft,” he muttered, his eyes on my neck,
his fingers twisting in my hair. “Softer than I expected. As soft
as it is beautiful. A miracle,” he kept muttering, his mind
somewhere else at the same time it was on me.

My mind was totally on him and he wasn’t
completely in my space but he wasn’t far enough away that I
couldn’t smell the whisky.

Shit. Drunk guys probably didn’t care if you
were a lesbian.

No, I knew by the look in his heated
green-brown eyes they most definitely did not care.

Shit!

“Frey,” I whispered and when I did, his gaze
snapped instantly to mine.

“Say that again,” he ordered.

I didn’t say it again. I asked what I
thought was a very pertinent question.

“Uh, are you inebriated?”

At my words, his hand twisted and fisted in
my hair. It didn’t hurt, a slight pull at my scalp, but he was a
very big man with his very big fist in my hair so he had my
attention.

“Say that again,” he repeated.

“Um… Frey,” I whispered.

Suddenly, he used my hair to pull me to
him as he leaned close to me and when he had me an inch away, he
growled, “
Gods,
that you’d
say that,
just like that
,
when you were full of me.”

At his words, I felt a little tingle in
happy place.

Uh, what was
that?

I put a hand to the massive wall of his
(very hard, I noted on encountering it) chest, and put on gentle
pressure, starting to suggest, “Maybe we should –”

“Tonight, we pretend,” he muttered, cutting
me off.

Ho boy!

“I think –”

Before I could finish telling him what I
thought, he let me go. Then he twisted, bent his torso and tugged
his boots off. Then before I knew it, off went his sweater and I
was treated to a view of a highly tanned, supremely muscled,
obviously powerful back. I was still blinking as that vision burned
into my brain (and I had to admit, it was pleasantly) when, still
seated in the bed with me, off went his breeches.