Page 64 of Viking Unchained

More was to come. And soon.

The pig meets the shrew . . .

Thorfinn was so consumed with fury that he walked for two hours afore he realized he was in the neighborhood of Madrene and Ian MacLean, who also lived on the beach in San Diego. His ill humor would do best without company, but he needed someone to drive him back to Torolf’s apartment in Coronado.

“Greetings!” he grumbled to Madrene when she answered his knock on the door.

“Thorfinn!” a surprised Madrene greeted him.

He pushed her aside and stomped into her house.

“Well, look what the cat drug in. Not that our sweet Samantha would put her teeth to your tough skin.

What are you doing here?” This was not an unusual “welcome” from Madrene, who had shrewishness down to an art form. Everyone said so.

Just for emphasis, the fat cat in question sidled up to him, hissed, then waddled away. Off to deposit a large amount of hair on the furniture, no doubt, or piss on the carpet.

Madrene just grinned at him and led the way into the solar. Leastways, he thought she meant for him to follow.

She wore very short braies that exposed her long legs and a tight shert that outlined her voluptuous breasts. In truth, her bosom was the first thing people, especially men, noticed about Madrene. The second was her waspish nature, which almost, but not quite, wiped out the allure of her udders.

“Welcome to you, too, cousin,” he drawled, hoping to embarrass her over her rudeness. Every good Viking knew that hospitality was important . . . every good Viking, except Madrene, apparently.

“Hello to you, my dearling cousin.”

“Your sarcasm is not appealing, Madrene.”

“Dost think I care, you loathsome lout? How did you get here?”

“I want you to drive me to Torolf’s keep. I walked from the home of Lydia Denton. Dost know her?”

She nodded, a look of shock on her face, whether at the fact he knew Lydia or that he had walked was unclear.

“That’s more than five miles,” said her husband, Ian, a Navy SEAL commander, walking toward him and into the solar, where he and Madrene stood. Ian had come through an open doorway in the hallway, which must lead to the lower level, where music could be heard. “What’re you doing with Lydia Denton?”

“She’s his love slave,” Madrene answered for him with a smirk.

Ian’s head jerked toward his wife. So did Thorfinn’s.

She added, “But he was her love slave first.” Then more smirking.

“It appears my love slave has a flapping tongue,” Thorfinn observed. He sank down onto a low sofa and clicked on the television set. It seemed everyone in America had one of these picture boxes, just as Torolf did. Immediately, music blared forth, and young people were dancing or flailing their arms and legs about.

“Shhhh!” Madrene shushed him, running over and turning the television off. “My children are napping.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you are a harridan?”

“Has anyone ever told you that you are lackwitted?” she shot back.

Only then did he notice that Ian was shert less and barefooted, just now buttoning his den-ham braies. And Madrene, well, there were whisker burns on her cheek and neck, and her nipples . . . surely, they were not always so distended. In that moment he realized he had interrupted them in bedsport.

He waved a hand dismissively at them both. “Resume your bedplay. I will wait here ’til you are finished.”

Ian laughed. “You think we’re going to engage in sex while you sit down here twiddling your thumbs?”

“And why not? ’Tis not as if I will be standing over you, watching. Lest you make a lot of noise, I might not be imagining exactly what you are doing.” He flashed Madrene a deliberately lascivious glance. “Are you noise-some in the bed furs, Madrene?”

“Male chauvinist pig!”