Page 11 of The Viking’s Captive

“Enough of this nonsense!” he said finally.

“I agree. Let me go.”

He nodded. He wanted her free so that her hands could roam his body, just as he intended his to do to her. “First, let us come to an understanding. I will not be leaving my keep, but you are welcome to stay as long as you want. No repercussions.” That was rather magnanimous of him, he concluded. But then, he wanted her in his bed furs that night. “Well?” His tied hands still gripped her neck. He would not let go till she gave her word.

She seemed to be gritting her teeth. He thought she murmured, “Toad.”

“What did you say?”

“Load … I said you are a heavy load on me.”

He smiled, sensing that his “load” was not all that burdensome to her.

“You make me breathless,” he informed her. Women liked to know that their charms heated the male blood.

“You suffocate me,” she said.

The woman really was lacking in charm, he decided, though she had other assets to make up for that deficit. And, really, he could teach her how to be charming. It was an art form he’d developed at an early age. And no doubt she was acting foul-tempered to hide the fact that she was as aroused as he, even if she was a virgin, which he could hardly credit at her advanced age.

“Give your word and you are free,” he told her.

Her only response was to arch her hips and rock from side to side.

His toes curled and blood rushed to all the important parts of his body. His pleasure at the brush of her sex against his was so intense that he felt like roaring and whimpering at the same time. “Your word, m’lady,” he nigh begged.

She indicated with a jerk of her head that he should come closer. Then, into his ear she whispered, “There is a game you Saxons play in your high courts. ‘Tis called chess, I believe. Are you familiar with it?”

He nodded, even as he frowned with puzzlement. His mind felt dull with arousal. “Yea, I know the game, but what has chess to do with us?”

“If you know the game, then you will understand this,” she announced with a hoot of glee. “Check and mate!”

Too late he realized that a sharp blade in her hand was pressed into his neck and was already drawing blood from the point imbedded in his skin just above the pumping vein. “Do not make a wrong move, Saxon, or you are dead.”

It appeared he was going to Norway, after all.

TWO DAYS LATER, SOMEWHERE ON THE NORTH SEAS

How about a little bondage, baby? …

On second thought, Adam decided, the wench wasn’t all that attractive.

In fact, after two and a half days of being tied to the mast pole of a rolling longship … up one wave, down one wave, up one wave, down one wave … well, to say that his stomach turned at the thought of Tyra was a vast understatement. To make matters worse, each evening just before dusk the warrior-woman hoisted him over her shoulder and carried him ashore for overnight camping. With his head going ka-thump, ka-thump against her backside, he was definitely un-enthralled with the outrageous wench … even if she did have a decidedly delicious backside.

Despite his best intentions—and his being unenthralled—he had to admire her expertise and that of her warriors, who appeared equally at ease at sea or on land. He was on one longship and Rashid was on another, each ship manned by sixty-five vikings. There were no rowing benches. Instead, thirty-two men sat on their sea chests working the thirty-two long oars. The other thirty-two spelled them when their arms grew tired, while a helmsman guided the rudder. The Vikings hung their decorated shields along the sides of the dragonships, both for display and to stop arrows in case of a sea battle. Square sails of red and white stripes fluttered high atop both ships from single masts and yardarms. A group of horses were corralled with ropes in the center of each boat, including Adam’s and Rashid’s.

In all, this Viking warrior-princess led her soldiers, even on the seas, with remarkable skill. As Rashid was fond of saying, “An army of sheep led by a lion would defeat an army of lions led by a sheep.” It was clear that Tyra was a lion … but then, her hard-muscled warriors hardly counted as sheep.

That fact had been demonstrated to Adam only this morn when a Viking pirate ship attacked them. Out of the mist, the grotesque dragon prow of the marauding ship had appeared, like a giant sea monster. Reinforcing that image had been the battle shrieks of the pirates, like howling creatures from Niflheim, the Norse afterworld. Tyra’s other ship had been too far ahead to be of assistance. Tossing grappling hooks attached to strong ropes onto Tyra’s ship, the pirates—three dozen in all—had managed to pull the two ships close enough to each other to jump aboard.

Tyra had led her men in the counter attack, slicing one man in the neck and heaving his lifeless body overboard, grabbing another smallish Viking pirate from behind around his neck and squeezing till he fell dead to the deck. Grunts and shouts and screams and muffled cries had filled the air, but mostly there had been just the metallic sounds of swords and axes hitting one another. The skirmish had lasted barely a half hour before the pirates disembarked Tyra’s ship, cut the grappling rope, and rowed off, leaving behind ten dead pirates and much blood. But it had been long enough for Adam to see that Tyra was indeed a Viking warrior, woman or not.

And much to his dismay, he’d heard Tyra ask Bjorn, a berserker who also happened to be a blacksmith, if he wanted her to drain the still-warm blood from one of the pirates into a bucket to take home. The blood of an enemy was used betimes to “quench,” or harden, white-hot swords during the pattern-welding process … though more times than not, water would suffice.

He had been fairly certain at the time that she had been serious, but mayhap she had been trying to shock him.

The bloodthirsty wench was about to walk by him now—and wasn’t that an amazing sight? Whenever she remembered to do so, the woman swaggered—shoulders back, stride aggressive. Adam had lots of time to study this phenomenon and he’d come to the conclusion that Tyra deliberately tried to take on male characteristics. Perchance she thought they would give her greater authority. She even scratched her groin on occasion, as men did, and she spit over the side of the ship.

Now she was about to swagger right by him, as if he were invisible, on her usual manly stroll from stem to stern to supervise the work of her sailors. He gritted his teeth with chagrin at her easy disregard of him, or his comforts. Luckily, his teeth were no longer chattering. Before taking him forcibly away from his home two days ago, the woman had given him an opportunity to change from his robe into braies, a wool tunic and heavy cloak, but, being exposed to the open air aboard ship, those garments had soon became soaked with sea water … until today when they’d seen their first warm sunlight. Now they were covered with residual sea salt. His situation was no different from that of every other person on the longboat. The Viking vessels rode low in the water, sloshing water in as a matter of course, and everyone was sodden most of the day. Baling water was a never-ending job.