Malice Striker (12 page)

“Mayhap. We know not.”

“You do not think so. I can hear it in your voice.”

“You can tell truth from lies by a voice?” He tipped her chin and kissed her briefly.

“If I know the person.” She shrugged. “’Tis not a simple task with a stranger, and I am not always right.”

Why had he not shouted and roared his fury? Why did he treat her so gently?

“I have gained a wife who can smell the sun, one who cannot see, but can mount a horse and gallop for ells, and one who can tell truth from falsehood. A wife who disobeys her husband and master, one who foolishly endangers others, and one who behaves as a girl instead of a woman.”

A wife who was his dire weakness.

“Will you grant me the boon I asked?” she said.

“Boon?”

“That Lady Gráinne and the others not bear witness to my whipping?”

“None will witness your whipping.”

A wave of relief had her knees buckling, but she locked them out. “I thank you, sir.”

He gnashed his teeth so hard she heard the grinding.

“The mare?”

“Is tethered to my stallion. How did you mount her?”

Skatha considered inventing a plausible explanation. She had climbed onto the horse from a railing, stood on an upturned bucket, jumped from a tree branch. “She knelt for me.”

His hold on her shoulders firmed. “Do not play me false, wife.”

"I have played you false in two ways, Jarl.” She bent her head. “I understand and speak Norse.”

His fingers bit into her flesh. “Why pretend not to?”

She tried not to shudder at the thunder in his snapped question. “I am blind. I am small. I am female. I sought an advantage. ’Twas foolish and impulsive, and I humbly beg your forgiveness.”

Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes. She hung her head and listened. His breathing no longer rasped and his harsh grip on her gentled.

“Reckless, yes. Foolish, no. ’Tis always good strategy to let your enemy underestimate you. But I am your husband, Skatha, not your foe.”

He nudged her chin, and though the sun’s warm rays played over her face, she shivered. “And the other falsehood?”

“The mare
did
kneel for me. Mountain cats come to me. A black bear once saved me from falling off a cliff. Animals cleave to me. Lady Gráinne has oft had to defend me from accusations of sorcery.”

“Know you why I am angry?”

“I did not disobey your order. I did not go to the kitchens.” She lifted her chin away from his stroking thumb.

“You put yourself in harm’s way. How was I to know you, a blind woman, could command a horse? I expected to find your broken body ere I raced over my lands looking for you. I have every man under my command searching for you. And I find you here not only unhurt but annoyed with me and quarreling with your mare.” He grabbed her arms and shook her.

“You banned me from the kitchens even after I told you I have been in charge of the Abbey these last three summers. You treat me like a child because I cannot see, but I am a woman full grown.” She stamped her foot. “If Bita Veðr is to be my home, I must take charge of the kitchens and the meals. I must have our people’s respect.”

How she wished for sight at that moment. Did he understand her conundrum?

She yelped when he scooped her up and tossed her over his back. The impact of her stomach meeting his shoulder knocked her breathless and made her dizzy. Disoriented, she reached for a hold, anything, any solid form, and found…his rear.

Beneath her cupped palms the tight muscles bunched and slackened as he strode forward. The tactile carnality at her fingertips filled her senses. All fear and anxiety yielded to a curiosity so overwhelming, so exciting, she became too befuddled to think, to worry.

Fascinated by the high round mounds, she traced a delicious indentation on the side of his flanks and ran a forefinger down the crease between the two cheeks of his bottom. So enthralled was she, Skatha ne’er even noticed he’d halted until he slid her down the front of his body.

At that moment, she would’ve sold her Christian soul to be able to see, to look into his eyes and discover if he played her true or false. If ’twas only seduction for a-purpose, or if he had even the slightest care for her. She kept her head level, refusing to bare her throat by tilting her face to him, too uncert, too wary, too filled with hopeful want to chance rejection.

“Sváss fróðleikr, minn smár köttr,” he muttered before claiming her lips. Sweet magic, my small cat. He had said the words to her afore. A test, she knew, and she struggled to remain in control, but when he bit the tip of her tongue ’twas akin to a thunderbolt striking her head to toe.

Lifting on the tips of her slippered toes, she fisted her hands in his tunic and kissed him back, suckling his tongue, exploring the ridges of his even teeth, testing the softness of his lips.

He broke away from her and began unlacing the front of her cyrtel.

The loss of his warmth made her aware of a brisk ice-tipped wind at her back. The tang of the ocean filled her nostrils. He had brought her to the sea? Confused, wary, aroused, she knew not which way to turn, how to react, what he expected of her.

“Nay, wife. Crease not your brow.” His thumbs smoothed her forehead. The rough callouses skipped sparks o’er her flesh. “What concerns you?”

“I know not where we are.”

He hauled her tight to him and kissed the top of her head. “We are on the south side of the fjord. The village and the great hall are a crow’s flight to the north. The sea is behind you and a few paces away are a series of shallow, hot pools.”

She frowned and pushed away from him. “Hot pools?”

“Aye. Bita Veðr sports a bounty of such.” He tugged on her laces. “Come, let me play maid for you.”

Heat dusted her throat and face. “The sun still rules the sky, does it not?”

Did he mean to disrobe her in full daylight? Join them together without walls to hide their bedsport?

“Aye.” He slipped the gown from her shoulders.

Cool air met breasts covered only by the thin chemise she wore. “I would ask another boon of you, my lord.”

“Ask and I will grant your wish.”

“I would have the whipping first. I could not bear it if you whipped me after…” She could not say the words.

“There will be no whipping, Skatha. Think you I could caress you so, and then mar your flesh? Nay, berserker I may be, but I am not so cruel. You are chilled. Raise your arms.” She obeyed his command.

He drew the chemise over her head. “Can you swim, wife?”

“Aye. Lawri and I love playing in the waves.” She squeaked when he swept her up and balancing her in his embrace, skimmed her slippers, stockings, and garters off before she knew what he was about.

“The pool is shallow at this end. I am going to lower you into it so you can warm your icy toes and fingers.”

She clung to his tunic. “Are you not joining me?”

“Aye, but I thought to shed my garments first.” He chucked her chin. “Ready?”

Holding her breath, Skatha nodded, but did not release her hold on his clothing even after her toes flexed into soft sand. “Oh. ’Tis warm, nay, hot.”

“Can you stand?”

“Aye.” A familiar aroma teased her nostrils, but the identity of the aroma eluded her.

“Mayhap you could loosen your grip on my tunic?”

Her face flamed, and she opened her fingers immediately. He touched his lips to hers. “I will be but a moment.”

Skatha circled her arms in the water as a beatific smile captured her mouth. Heaven. Bliss. She swam a small circle and then a wider one and another. All the while hot water cocooned her from neck to her now toasty toes.

A splash to the left alerted her of Brökk’s presence in the pool. Moments later strong arms embraced her from behind. “You are grinning from ear to ear, wife. Like you my surprise?”

“Aye, aye, and aye. I have never heard of such a pool. Why ’tis must surely be one of God’s miracles. And ’tis fresh too. Not salty. Yet you say we are close to the sea. How comes this about?”

He nuzzled her neck. “None know for cert. Some skalds’ tales say they are part of the creation of the world when the fire realm of
Muspell
met the frost realm of
Niflheim
afore the thaw produced the giant frost ogre,
Ymir
. Ne’er Muspell nor Niflheim could declare victory, so both ruled through the hot pools.”

Sumbarten had fostered many visitors during the nine summers she called the abbey home: monarchs, peasants, tradesmen, and the poets the Norse called skalds. Many a time Skatha had sat in a hidden alcove near the abbey’s hall listening to the skalds weaving their magikal stories of
Asgard
, the world of the gods,
Yggdrasil
, the tree that grew from heaven to hell, and
Bifröst
, the rainbow bridge that joined the two. But ne’er had she heard tell of these new worlds.

“Believe you this?”

He turned her to face him, sat on the pool’s sandy bottom, and arranged her legs so she straddled his erect sex. Distracted by the burning desire to touch the engorged, throbbing shaft between her legs, she kneaded his shoulders.

She shuddered when his mouth latched onto her nipple and his tongue licked fire over the tip. He drew hard, his teeth grazing the aching bud, and she clutched him to her when he gently bit down. She moaned his name o’er and o’er.

He switched to the other breast.

No longer could she resist the lure of his manhood. She dropped one hand to his stomach, traced a path lower, found his navel, and learned the shape of that sweet hollow before moving on to the ultimate treasure.

She purred when her fingers encountered a bulbous head and sketched the crown with care. At the apex she felt a slit, the length of a third of her thumb, and traced the opening.

He broke away from her and rested his forehead on hers, his breathing ragged. “
Köttrynja
. Know you what you do to me?”

“Nay. ’Tis pleasing?”

“Beyond Valhalla. Ride me.” He gripped her waist and lifted her high.

At first she did not understand, and then she did. Skatha firmed both hands around his pulsating cock, stroked the length up and down to gain his measure, and guided him to her aching sex. He drove upward, and she mewled as ecstasy took her to that magikal place she loved.

She rooted for his mouth and sighed into him when his tongue dueled with hers. His taste was all she needed, hot and spicy, sweet and salty, dangerous and thrilling. Skatha tangled her fingers in his wet hair, massaging his neck, his scalp, nibbling on his lips, inhaling his leather and forest smell, but ne’er could she get enough of him.

He hammered her sheath, the pummeling rode the edge of pain, the pleasure so acute she spasmed again. Her convulsions took her to a point where she saw blinding white light beneath her shuttered lids. He bent her back over his arm, his mouth closed over her breast, and he suckled hard, his teeth nibbling back and forth over her smoldering nipple. She came apart once more. The exquisite contractions nigh too much to bear, she collapsed onto his chest.

The warmth of his seed filling her spurred another explosion, another burst of painful light. She closed her eyes to block the strange flashes, and when he drew her head to his chest she melted into him.

She felt a peace ne’er known afore, akin to a safe harbor in the midst of a violent storm. ’Twas an interlude of tranquil bliss. The heated water lapped their joined bodies, seagulls cried overhead, and the invigorating gusts died to an occasional gentle draft. Brökk combed her tangled wet curls, separating the knots with a care so tender, she nigh wept.

For so long she had yearned to have the freedom of touch, but had been too proud to ask even Elspeth, the most affectionate of her friends, permission to learn her features with her fingers. The overpowering need to know her husband annihilated pride, fear, and hesitation, so she raised her head and kissed his breastbone. “I would ask another boon, my lord.”

“Brökk, Skatha. I am sheathed deep in your sweet puss. Joined thus we are one, and not bound by roles of jarl and wife. Speak to me.”

“I know not your form and would beg permission to learn you.” She tensed, not knowing what to expect.

He flexed within her and she gasped. “Permission not needed. When we are alone, we will both speak and act freely. No matter what is spoken or done, ’twill be no penalty, no repercussions. But know well, wife, I am jarl here, and any who break the laws of either the Thing or Bita Veðr will suffer the consequences.”

Skatha had already begun her journey of exploration. Her husband’s words scattered in the gentle wind as she traced the line of his jaw and toyed with the short, crisp hairs coating his chiseled chin.

* * *

Brökk glanced back at the glowing, golden ball hanging low over the horizon, repressed a sigh, and then turned his gaze forward. He studied his wife, who was seated comfortably on the bare back of the chestnut mare. Deny she might any goddess powers, but what ordinary woman could command a horse to kneel for her to mount? He shook his head, still astounded by what he had seen moments afore. ’Twas no wonder she galloped unafraid. The mare seemed to anticipate her slightest command and took care to pick out an even path.

He sighed. The bond forged in the hot pools would soon be tested. For she had disobeyed not her husband, but the jarl. She would pay the price for her defiance, and for that reason only he had allowed her to ride on her own. The mare’s obvious devotion to Skatha was not in question, but if a snake bit the horse and she bucked, his wife could be fatally injured. Too many similar scenarios peppered his mind for him to do aught but follow closely on the mare’s hooves and anticipate disaster.

The aroma of burnt wood swelled on an evening zephyr. He drew alongside Skatha to find her wrinkling her nose. “’Tis all gone, the cottage?”

“Aye. Not even the wall frames stand.”

“Are Lady Gráinne and my friends to use pallets in the hall this eve?”

“Nay. They will use Dráddør’s lodge.” He liked not having the women hostages so far away, but Raki and a troop of trusted warriors would stand guard this eve.