Page 5 of The Outlaw Viking

The rough ride bruised Rain’s bottom and chafed raw the inside of her widespread thighs within her linen slacks, but a part of her reveled in the odd comfort of being in the cradle of Selik’s arms. An aura of peace came over her, transmitted by the strength of Selik’s body, and her despair lessened under the indefinable feeling of rightness. Despite the horrendous cruelty she’d just seen him display, Rain sensed that this ferocious Viking held the key to her future and the reason for her journey back in time.

Rain tried to speak several times, but her voice came out garbled and breathless due to the jolting of the horse’s swift movement and her inability to turn and ask Selik her questions. She had a tough enough time holding on to the horse’s mane. Selik’s silence erected another barrier to conversation.

So Rain leaned back against the Viking’s massive chest, feeling his strong heartbeat, even through the flexible mail coils of his armor. Ripples of unexplainable pride coursed through her when she watched the corded muscles of his forearms flex as he moved the reins to direct the destrier through the seemingly impenetrable forest they were now traversing.

Selik finally stopped to rest their heaving mount. His huge body slid easily off the horse, which he drew to the edge of a secluded stream. Then he deftly removed his mail garment, under which he wore a sweat-soaked tunic. Dropping to his knees, he drank greedily of the clear water before dunking his face, then shaking his head like a shaggy dog. Then he sluiced water over his forearms up to the short-sleeved garment. Rain watched, fascinated, as muscles rippled enticingly across the back of his tightly fitted garment. Her pulse quickened when he stood and stretched his powerful body, then sank with easy grace to the ground. He leaned his head back against a wide tree trunk, closing his weary eyes.

Not once did he look at Rain or offer to help her from the horse, which grazed lazily at the water’s edge. She might as well be invisible. Rain dismounted clumsily with a soft curse and knelt. The ice-cold water she carried to her mouth in cupped hands tasted like nectar. She drank her fill, washed her face and hands, and dabbed some bloodstains off the collar of her blouse with a water-dampened scarf. Then she turned to Selik.

Despite his exhaustion, Selik radiated a magnetic vitality. Her feelings for him defied reason, but Rain understood perfectly her physical attraction. He was about thirty years old, her own age, but taller—at least six-foot-four. And muscular! Criminey, he looked as if he could bench-press a bus. His long, pale hair lay sweaty and lank down to his shoulder blades, but Rain knew it would be beautiful when clean.

Pain had carved harsh lines into his face. His nose appeared to have been broken at one time. Ugly scars and purpling bruises, old and new, marred his sun-bronzed face and arms and legs, wherever flesh was exposed, including a particularly gruesome, long-healed white line that zigzagged from his right eye to his chin. Exquisite wide bracelets encased his massive upper arms, barely visible beneath the sleeve of his tunic, bespeaking some wealth or status.

He raised a hand to rake his wet hair off his face, and Rain gasped as she noticed the word rage carved into one forearm. The raised white scars had to have been made with a sharp knife long ago. What did it mean?

Rain looked back to his face. His arresting good looks totally captivated her, even though she recognized that many modern women would consider him too rugged and muscle-bound—not hesthetically correct.

Selik must have sensed her perusal. He opened his eyes lazily, and Rain could have easily drowned in their changeable grayish-green depths. But no emotion emanated from their coldness, just a soulless lack of interest.

“Who the hell are you?”

Some welcome!

But at least Rain could understand his language. She’d been worried that she wouldn’t be able to communicate with these primitive people. Actually, Selik should be speaking some form of medieval English, Rain realized with a frown. Hell, he probably was, but God, or whoever the mastermind of this fiasco was, had given her some built-in translator. If it was a dream, the lack of a language barrier was understandable, Rain reasoned. If it was time travel, language was the least of her concerns.

She shook her head to clear it and answered his question about her name. “Rain. Rain Jordan.”

“Rain? What manner of name is that?” he scoffed disdainfully as he looked her over slowly, insultingly, from head to toe and back again. “Why not snow or sleet or mud?” Then he added scornfully, “Or tree?”

Tree! Hey, it was one thing for a little boy who didn’t know any better to insult her about her height, but a screwed-up, vicious Viking whose life she’d just saved? No way!

“You ungrateful bastard! I just saved your life.” She blinked to stem the tears in her eyes.

Selik rose and stretched his arms wide to remove the kinks of his long ride. “’Tis no favor you did me, wench,” he commented flatly. “’Twould be far better if I had died. This life holds naught for me.”

Rain glared at him angrily, uncaring now if he saw her humiliating tears. “How dare you value life so little? Do you know how many men you killed today?”

“Nay. Dost thou?” he asked in a bored tone of voice as he put his mail armor back on. “Didst thou keep a death tally?”

Rain felt blood rush to her face. “No, but I’ll bet it was hundreds. Don’t you feel any remorse for your butchery?”

“Nay. Why should I? They deserved all they got and more.”

“How can you say that, especially about the young boy with the banner you killed near the end?”

“I killed a boy?” Selik tilted his head questioningly, obviously trying to remember the incident. How could anyone kill another human being and not remember? Rain wondered sadly. Finally, Selik shook his head as if it didn’t matter. “Every Saxon is my enemy, man or boy. So the runic words say on the scorn pole erected I against King Athelstan long ago.” Then he looked at her suspiciously. “Are you perchance one of Athelstan’s camp followers?”

“Camp follower!” Rain’s cheeks burned with an unwelcome blush. “No, you jerk, I’m not a whore—or a Saxon.”

Rain realized then that Selik had mounted the horse and was preparing to depart. Without her!

“Wait! You can’t leave me here.”

Selik arched one eyebrow in a haughty, just-watch-me attitude, and started to turn the horse. “Can I not?”

“That’s my horse,” she fabricated quickly.

“Liar,” he countered with a maddening smile.