Page 53 of The Bewitched Viking

Well, not measly.

Concentrate, Alinor. Forget the kisses. Forget his nude body. Start remembering that he’s your enemy.

“You’re imagining me naked,” Tykir teased with a little playful tap to her chin.

“Me? Me?” she sputtered.

“Do not worry, though. I like it.”

“You are the expert on naked looks, not me,” she asserted.

He just grinned, and gave her a quick once-over assessment that clearly did not involve any clothing.

“To answer your question—”

“Which question?” He was fingering the edges of her hair and sniffing. The man did have a fondness for the rose-scented hair cream Eadyth had given her.

She slapped his hand away. “The question of how to handle ‘the situation.’”

“Oh, that question.”

“I have decided to do nothing.”

“What?” Tykir looked magnificent in a rust-colored wool cloak lined with red fox fur, despite a sennight’s worth of whiskers shadowing his face. None of them had been able to bathe or change their salt-crusted clothing these past eight days, but Tykir had managed to braid the one side of his damp hair and don the thunderbolt earring and amber pendant in preparation for being received in the king’s court.

Alinor, on the other hand, suspected that she looked like a dirty-faced, speckled hen, even in the luxurious sable mantle of Tykir’s that she still wore.

“I will do nothing,” she repeated. “I am not a witch. ’Tis no fault of mine that Anlaf suffers…an affliction. ’Tis no fault of mine that I have been subjected to kidnapping and tortures, and forced to endure indignities be-fitting a mere thrall. ’Tis no—”

“Tortures?” Tykir’s right brow raised. “Name one.”

“Kissing. Having two hundred men staring at my posterior all the time. Eating gammelost.”

He grinned at her, and, Blessed Lord, he was nigh irresistible when he grinned. “Torture by kissing?” he scoffed.

“Yea,” she insisted, raising her chin defiantly in the face of his laughter. “Therefore, it is your fault that I am here. So I leave it to you to solve the problem.”

“Me? Me?” He thought a moment, then narrowed his eyes at her. “We are back to the guardian angel theory, aren’t we?”

She shrugged. “It makes no less sense that you have a set of hidden wings than me having a hidden tail.”

“I refuse to be your guardian angel,” he said, then realized how ridiculous that sounded. “I mean, I refuse to be responsible for your well-being after today. I will present you to King Anlaf. I will make him promise to treat you with the respect due your high station. I will ask him to return you to your home once you have straightened his staff. But I will not be your protector after today.”

“Aaarrgh! Have you heard one word I’ve said the past few sennights? I…can’t…straighten…a…a…a…cock. There! I’ve said the word. Are you happy now?”

He smiled.

Yea, he was happy.

The troll!

“Never fear, witchling. You will think of something.”

The man had a moat between his ears.

“If all else fails, you could try kissing Anlaf. Believe me, you have a talent in that arena. Yea, that might be the perfect solution. Kisses to cure a curse. I know your kisses straightened me out.”

She gave him a look of utter disbelief at his callousness and swung her arm in a wide circle before clouting him in his grinning mouth.