Viking: Legends of the North: A Limited Edition Boxed Set (4 page)

The woman continued to contemplate his fate aloud while, behind her, her daughter quietly inched her stool forward.

“The last thing I need,” the woman said, “is a third mouth to feed.”

A third. So she lived alone here with her daughter. His gaze went to the sword propped in the corner. Then whose was that? Maybe, he thought morosely, it had belonged to the
last
man she’d tied up in her cottage.

The little girl picked up the stool beneath her, toddled a few steps closer, and sat back down.

The woman sighed peevishly. “I should have tossed you back into the sea while I had the chance.”

The little girl stared intently at Brandr as she tiptoed forward again with the stool.

“It would probably be a kindness to kill you,” the woman muttered, “before someone with less mercy finds you here.”

The little girl took two more cautious steps forward and sat down an arm’s-length behind her mother, watching him fearlessly.

“And it’d be no less than you deser-“ She whirled and almost tripped over the little girl. “Kimbery!” She glanced back at him, blushing, then turned to confront her wayward daughter. “I told you to stay.”

“I did stay. See?” She pointed to the stool beneath her, blinking in all innocence.

The woman growled in frustration. Then a strange thing happened. The little girl flashed Brandr a conspiratorial grin, and, of their own accord, his lips curved slightly in answer. It was his first genuine smile in almost a year.

“Mama,” Kimbery said sweetly, “I don’t want my pottage. You can give it to my da.”

The woman spoke between clenched teeth. “Once and for all, Kimbery, he is
not—“

“Your mother’s right,” Brandr interjected. “I’m not your da. I’m a bad man, a
very
bad man, and you should stay away.”

Avril’s jaw dropped. Damn the Viking! He did speak her language, which meant he could understand her perfectly well. “You!” she spat in annoyance, at a loss for words. “You…stop speaking to my daughter.”

He did. But his compliance didn’t keep her from feeling suddenly threatened. She didn’t know why. After all, he was bound, injured, and at her mercy. Still, that he’d been able to deceive her troubled her greatly. And the fact he was warning Kimbery away didn’t fit with her assessment of him as a depraved killer. His manner—part devious, part disarming—was definitely unnerving. And she hated to be unnerved.

“Kimmie,” she said over her shoulder, “go to bed.”

“But I’m not sleepy.”

“Go to bed. Now.”

Kimbery stuck out her bottom lip, and then flounced off the stool and stomped off, whimpering under her breath.

Avril took a moment to compose herself, and then turned to him, crossing her arms over her chest. “I want some answers, and I want them—“

“Twenty.”

“What?”

“Twenty.” At her furrowed brow, he added, “You asked how many men were aboard my ship.”

She swallowed hard. The berserkers had had at least twice that number. Still, twenty was nineteen more men than she could handle at the moment.

“Where were you headed?”

He shrugged.

“You don’t know?” That she didn’t believe. The Northmen were notoriously good navigators.

“I didn’t care.”

His words chilled her. But she supposed she should have expected as much. Barbarians like him scoured the seas, wreaking havoc wherever they landed, unmindful of the devastation they left behind, the people they killed, the lives they destroyed.

“I’d wager you care now,” she said with grim threat. “You made a grave error, Viking, landing on my shore.”

The doubtful arch of his brow was admittedly subtle. But Avril recognized scorn when she saw it. Men had always questioned her strength, her judgment, and her skill with a blade. At one time, it had infuriated her. Five years ago, she might have succumbed to the impulse to draw her sword to show him just how capable she was.

But she’d learned to rein in her temper. The last time she’d drawn a blade impulsively, she’d wound up at the mercy of a berserker. She wouldn’t let it happen again. Besides, what satisfaction could be derived from turning a sword on a helpless captive?

He was staring at her again with his penetrating eyes. She didn’t think she’d ever seen eyes so blue—as blue as a summer sky, nay, a robin’s egg. Rattled, she turned aside to add another log to the fire.

“I think your arm is broken,” she mumbled. Why she’d told him that, she didn’t know. After all, it didn’t matter. She wasn’t about to fix it for him.

“It’s a wonder my head isn’t broken,” he said with a humorless smirk.

She blushed at the reminder of her unchivalrous blow and picked up the poker again, eager to change the subject. “How is it you know my language?”

“I learned it from a Pict slave.”

She clenched her teeth. A slave? She jabbed at the glowing coals, but refused to rise to the bait. Maybe she should turn
him
into a slave.

As if he’d read her mind, he asked, “What do you intend to do with me?”

She’d been asking herself that same question all morning. For the moment, she’d hold him hostage. If any of his men turned up alive, she might be able to bargain for her safety with his life. But she wasn’t sure there were survivors. Even if there were, there was no telling whether he was of any value to them. The Northmen didn’t seem to have the same regard for life as her people did.

“I haven’t decided yet,” she said.

“If you’re going to kill me,” he growled, “get it over with.”

She frowned. Kill him? In cold blood? Obviously, he knew nothing about chivalry. She straightened with pride, planting the poker between her feet like a blade. “I can’t do that. Unlike you, my sense of honor prevents me from slaying unarmed men.”

He lifted a brow in mockery. “Give me a blade then,” he suggested.

Avril gave him a sardonic smirk. She wasn’t so foolhardy as to think she could easily triumph over a gargantuan Northman. But she didn’t appreciate his insulting attitude. “I may be honorable, but I’m not soft in the head.”

He half-smiled. “You look soft to me.”

Her composure slipped, but only for an instant. “I assure you, you wouldn’t be the first man I sent limping from the field of battle.”

His eyes narrowed suggestively. “And you wouldn’t be the first woman I laid out flat on her back.”

Brandr regretted his words as soon as he spoke them. He’d forgotten she’d been the victim of rape.

She winced as if he’d struck her, and then recovered so quickly he thought he’d imagined her hurt. “No doubt,” she coldly replied.

For some absurd reason, he suddenly wanted to defend himself. He wanted to tell her that he wasn’t a berserker. He’d never killed a man without just cause. And he’d never forced himself upon a woman. True, he’d bedded more than his share of eager wenches in his youth, but only at their invitation. And once he’d taken a wife…

Then he gave his head a mental shake. What was he thinking? It didn’t matter what the woman thought of him. They were foes. She probably intended to kill him anyway. If she’d been exposed to berserkers from the North—the kind that violated women, murdered priests, and slaughtered children—she had every cause to want him dead.

And yet there were qualities about her—her independence, her intelligence, her patience with her daughter, the way she talked about honor—that told him she might not kill him needlessly. She might listen to reason.

That was why he’d volunteered the truth about his men and his ship. His fate rested in her hands at the moment. If he gave her cause for mistrust, she wouldn’t hesitate to slay him. He’d do the same in her position.

But if he endeared himself to her, if he made her look at him, not as a Viking, but as a man, she’d have a harder time killing him...and maybe he’d buy himself time to overpower her and escape.

“You know, I’m not really the savage you think I am,” he confided.

She ignored him, setting aside the poker and going into the kitchen.

“I had a family,” he called after her, “a daughter like yours.” He silently cursed as his voice caught on the words.

She froze for a moment, and then cleared her empty shell bowl from the table.

He added, “I, too, would have protected her from men like me.”

She paused again, then sighed and picked up the little girl’s half-eaten pottage. “It’s cold,” she grumbled, approaching to give him the bowl, “but it’ll fill your belly.”

Pain seared his cracked forearm as he lifted the bowl with his bound hands to tip the contents into his mouth. But it was better than starving to death. He finished the pottage in three gulps, and then lowered his hands to rest them limply on his lap, letting the bowl slip through his fingers and onto the floor.

The woman returned to her fire-tending. Her face glowed golden as she gazed into the flames, and her hair shone with reflected firelight. “You said you
had
a daughter.” She asked casually, “What happened to her?”

It had been almost a year, but the wound still felt new and raw. “She died,” he said flatly. Just speaking the words aloud hurt.

The air grew still. For a long while, she didn’t speak.

Finally she asked, “How?”

He swallowed down the knot of pain in his throat. He didn’t want to talk about it. He didn’t know this woman. She was his enemy. Why should he tell her anything? And yet something compelled him to speak. Maybe it was the soft encouragement in her voice. Maybe it was the dewy compassion in her eyes. Maybe it was the fact that he had nothing more to lose. “Plague.”

Her forehead creased, and she propped the poker against the hearth. “And her mother?”

His cruel mind conjured up Inga’s precious face. “Dead,” he told her woodenly. “My daughter. My wife. My son. All dead.”

He heard the woman’s soft gasp, but she had no words of comfort for him. There weren’t any. There was nothing anyone could say to bring back his family.

After a bit, she murmured, “But you survived.”

“Oh, aye.” Bitter regret twisted his mouth as he sneered, “I was lucky. I was at sea.”

The woman’s brow furrowed. She leaned forward almost imperceptibly. For a curious instant, as she looked at him with liquid brown eyes full of empathy, he imagined she meant to touch his hand in solace.

But he’d never be sure, because at that moment, the little girl peered around the doorway. “Mama,” she sang out cheerfully, “I’m finished sleeping.”

“Kimbery!” the woman cried, coloring and rising briskly.

Avril felt the way she had when her father had caught her kissing the stable boy. Which was ridiculous. After all, she’d done nothing to be ashamed of. But a strange guilt lingered in the air. She’d almost reached out to comfort the Northman. And she didn’t know why.

Flustered, she scooped up the empty bowl and turned to face Kimbery.

“I’m all better now, Mama,” the wee lass said, using her sweetest, most cunning voice.

Avril sighed and shook her head, then carried the bowl into the kitchen.

Kimbery’s wiles left Avril with a dilemma. Avril needed to search the beach to see if any more Northmen had made landfall. But it was too risky taking Kimbery with her. If there were shipwreck survivors, she didn’t want to put her daughter in harm’s way. And if there weren’t, she didn’t need her little girl seeing a dozen half-eaten corpses washing up on her shore.

She needed Kimbery to stay in the cottage. But she didn’t trust the wee lass with the man she kept insisting was her da. He might very well talk her into setting him free.

She had a choice then. She could either tie up her daughter, or she could drug the Northman.

The decision took an instant.

“You must be thirsty,” she called to him.

She needn’t have worried he’d taste the opium powder she put in his mead. He gulped it down eagerly and wanted more. While she kept Kimbery occupied churning sheep’s milk into butter, he began to get drowsy. By the time his suspicions were aroused, it was too late.

“What’d y’ put…in th’ drink?” he asked, slurring the words.

“Nothing poisonous,” she told him. “Don’t fret. You’ll just sleep for a while.”

With his last bit of strength, he growled at her in impotent anger, and then he slumped against the beam.

“G’night, Da,” Kimbery called merrily as she plunged the dasher up and down in the wooden churn.

Avril swirled her cloak over her shoulders. “Kimmie, I’m going down to the beach. I need you to stay here and keep churning.”

She nodded.

“Stay away from the man. I’ll be back soon.”

“Shh,” she whispered. “Da’s sleeping. Don’t wake him up.”

Avril glanced at the softly snoring Viking, who looked far less threatening in slumber. His scowl was gone. His muscles were lax. His mouth fell open like Kimbery’s when she was sleeping. With his broad shoulders, his strong jaw, and his breathtaking eyes, he was truly one of the most attractive men she’d ever seen. Indeed, she could almost imagine him, not as a treacherous Northman, but as a little girl’s father. Almost.

On her way to the beach, Avril grabbed the sharpened spade from the garden. It would serve to either bury the dead or defend her from the living.