Enthralled: Viking Lore, Book 1 (10 page)

Her pale eyes flared at
him. “Very well, I will. Why do you insist on making things difficult when it
comes to the girl? She’s an utlending.” She lowered her voice and leaned in, though
everyone around them was too drunk to pay them any mind. “You know I would
support you if you ever get your head out of your ass and challenge the Jarl,
but the girl is distracting—”

“Enough!” Eirik roared.

Alaric took a step
between Eirik and his twin sister. “Easy, both of you,” he said quietly.

“I am going home,”
Eirik said, willing himself to speak levelly. “And I am taking Laurel with me.
She needs protection—perhaps more than I realized.” He let his words sink in as
he gazed coldly at Madrena.

He took Laurel by the
arm and stomped out of the longhouse, the sounds of merriment fading behind
him.

“I thought Madrena was
your friend,” Laurel huffed as she hurried behind him. “What was that all
about?”

Eirik sighed and slowed
his pace somewhat. In truth, Madrena was right. Laurel was an outsider,
ignorant of his people’s ways. He didn’t have to defend his protection of
Laurel to Madrena or anyone else. But he couldn’t simply expect Laurel to live
with him in Dalgaard as an utlending thrall. Even if he was successful in
convincing his uncle to reconsider his ruling, she couldn’t remain an utlending
forever.

“She…she is worried
about you.”

“I doubt that,” Laurel
said. “I seem to bother her.”

He almost smiled at her
perceptiveness. “She doesn’t like that you know so little of life here.”

Laurel stiffened under
his hand, which was still wrapped around her elbow. “I didn’t ask to come
here,” she said coldly.

“Nei, but you are here
now, and it is time you learned something of our ways,” Eirik said, an idea forming
in his mind.

“And what if I don’t
want to learn? What if I don’t want to have any part in your heathen ways?”

He was beginning to
learn that underneath her meek, small exterior, Laurel was actually quite
stubborn, even hot-headed at times. Eirik halted suddenly and turned to her. He
couldn’t simply command her to learn more about life in the Northlands. “It…it
might make things easier for your time here,” he said softly. She didn’t need
to know that her time in the village might end with the coming of fall.

“My time here?” Though
her voice was hard, her eyes shimmered in the blue light of midsummer’s false
night. “You mean as your slave?”

A flicker of doubt had
him looking closer at her in the twilight. Did she sense that he wasn’t telling
her everything? Nei, she couldn’t know that Eirik hoped that in teaching her
some of their customs and language, he might be able to convince his uncle that
she should stay on with them.

She held his gaze for a
moment before her shoulders slumped slightly. “I know how to work hard. I know
how to serve. But I do not know how to be a slave, and I doubt I will ever
understand your ways,” she whispered.

Gently, he lifted her
chin so that his eyes met hers. “At least try. You may even find that your
spirit will serve you well here.”

As he watched her, he
saw a glimmer of something he’d never seen in her eyes before. It was hope.

Eirik pointed to the
stack of wood next to the fire pit.

“
Brandr
,” she
said.

“Good.” He brought his
fingers to his sleeve and gave it a tug.

“
Ermr
.”

He pointed to the small
wooden table in the corner of his cottage.

She froze, fumbling for
the word. “
Baru
?”

“Nei,
borð
,” he
replied.

He stood and stretched
his back, clearly restless in the dim, confined space of his cottage. They’d
spen
t
most of the last sennight inside the
little hut. He’d apparently made it his mission to teach her his entire
language as quickly as possible. If only her brain would cooperate. There were
so many different words and unfamiliar combinations of sounds.

She imagined based on
his tanned skin and honed physique that he normally spent most of his time
working outdoors. She, too, was used to putting her body to work, but that
didn’t fully explain her restlessness in the small space.

The night of the celebration,
they’d arrived back at his cottage and she realized that there was nowhere to
sleep—nowhere, that was, except his large bed. He must have read the panic on
her face, for he took a few of the furs from on top of the bed and threw them
on the floor in the far corner. She had the enormous, down-filled bed to
herself, yet she’d been restless that night and every night since.

The bed smelled of
him—of wood smoke, pine, fresh air, and his warm skin. Then of course she had
remembered what they’d done earlier on the bed—that slow, simmering kiss, their
bodies pressed together, his hot tongue entering her…

Each night, she
listened to him breathing and grew itchy and embarrassed at the intimacy of
sharing such a small space with a man. If Abbess Hilda could see her now, she’d
have a fit.

“I’ve been pushing you
too hard,” Eirik muttered, interrupting her thoughts.

“Nay, keep going,” she
said. “I just need to concentrate.”

“I think I’ve been
asking you to concentrate a little too much,” he said, pacing the short
distance from the door to the makeshift kitchen.

“At least it is
something to focus on,” she replied quietly, folding her hands. She hadn’t
allowed herself to dwell on her fate as Eirik’s thrall. Learning his language
so quickly had been a welcome distraction. Besides, she could either accept her
new life or resist it, but either way she was stuck in this Northland village.
Learning all she could might benefit her in the future—whatever it held.

Eirik paused in his
pacing, his large body poised for action. “I know what we need. We need to get
outdoors. We need a
svima
.” He eyed her, waiting.

She sifted through the
hundreds of words she’d learned in the last sennight. “
Svima
…” A sense
of dread crept through her as the memory flitted back. “
Svima
…swim? You want
to go swimming? Nay, Eirik, I can’t!”

“Easy, Laurel. I want
to teach you. You need to learn sometime
,
and
I’m an excellent—”

“Nay!” Her voice rose
frantically, but she didn’t care. “I can’t!”

He knelt before her so
that their eyes were level. “Yes, you can.”

“Is this an order,
then? Do I have no choice in the matter as your thrall?” She was desperately
grasping at straws now, she knew. He’d never treated her like a slave or forced
her to do aught in the fortnight since she’d been taken from the Abbey. Yet she
felt cornered and terrified. She would never willingly enter water other than
to bathe.

He leaned back on his
heels, watching her closely. “You mentioned on the Drakkar that the nuns at the
Abbey punished you with water. What did you mean?”

She took a deep breath,
trying to slow her pounding heart. She didn’t speak for a long moment, but he
simply waited, his bright eyes pinning her.

“They used to—to tie me
to a chair and lower me under water,” she finally replied, her voice quavering.
“I never knew how long they’d keep me under, or how many times they’d dunk me.”

His brows lowered. “Why
would they do such a thing to you?”

“For little things,
like being late to prayer or not cleaning the refectory or outhouses well
enough.” She felt her lip be
ginni
ng to tremble
and she lowered her eyes. “But sometimes it was simply to remind me of my
parents’ sin.”

“What sin could your
parents have committed that would warrant such treatment?”

“As I told you before,
I was born out of wedlock,” she replied simply. At his confused look, she went
on. “My parents weren’t married when I was born. The Abbess and the nuns told
me
I
was their punishment.”

He shook his head
slowly. “The monks from Lindisfarne I spoke with tried to explain your
Christian concept of sin, but it makes little sense. Children are a blessing,
and their parents’ dishonor does not determine their fate. A man or woman’s own
actions are what determine if a place in Valhalla awaits.”

She raised her head,
tentatively ey
ei
ng him. “Is Valhalla your
version of heaven?”

He rubbed the golden
stubble along his jawline. “It is similar, based on what the monks told me.
Valhalla is a great hall in the kingdom of Asgard. It is where Odin, the
Allfather God, resides, along with some of the other gods. When a warrior dies
an honorable death, the warrior maidens called the Valkyries swoop down and
transport him to Valhalla, where warriors feast and drink and fight happily for
all eternity.”

“That sounds terribly
sinful,” she said, though she had to acknowledge a flicker of curiosity within
herself.

“Sin is a strange
weapon you Christians use against yourselves,” he replied. “For Vikings, there
is no such thing as sin. There is either honor, or dishonor.”

She lowered her head
again, unsure of what to make of his words. He was a heathen, and his people’s
ways were strange, yet she couldn’t deny that he was an honorable man.

She sighed and let her
gaze fall to her lap. “’Tis a very nice idea that one’s actions alone can
determine one’s place in the afterlife,” she said. “But even then I may be
beyond saving. The nuns always said I was too proud, too willful. Even when I’d
do as I was told, they said my eyes gave me away.”

He chuckled, which
brought her head snapping up.

“They were right,” he
said, his eyes soft. “Not that you deserved their ill treatment. But the more I
come to know your eyes, the more they reveal your spirit to me. You don’t look
it, but I think you have a warrior’s heart, Laurel.”

Her skin flushed under
his words and his gaze.

“Now I understand why
you are afraid of water,” he said, breaking the spell. “But I don’t know why
you refuse to learn to swim.”

She opened her mouth to
protest, suddenly feeling a surge of anger. But before she could respond, he
went on.

“You have two choices,
of course. You can either continue to be afraid as you always have, or you can
face your fear and overcome it. It sounds like the perfect opportunity to prove
your honor to the gods. Who knows, perhaps your god will be watching too.”

Her eyes widened at his
audacious words, but then the most unexpected thing happened. He winked at her,
the normally hard lines of his face transforming into a lively grin. She
couldn’t help but feel the corners of her own mouth tug up. How could this man
have so much power over her and yet exert it only to draw a smile from her?

He stood, taking her
hands in his and drawing her up. “I have just the place in mind for our first
lesson.”

“Just a little
farther,” Eirik urged as he guided Laurel by the hand along the overgrown path.
Though a quick dunk in the fjord or the stream behind his cottage normally
sufficed, he sometimes took the long walk to this secluded lake tucked between
the steeply sloped mountains rising all around.

They crossed out of the
tree line and into the small open meadow that bordered the south side of the
lake. They were close now.

He quickened his pace.
The balmy summer air and high sun weren’t the reason he was so eager to reach
the lake, though. Nei, the weather had little to do with it.

She’d taken so quickly
to his language. Every day she picked up new words. She was even able to piece
together some of what
he and
Alaric had
discussed when his friend paid a visit to retrieve his bathing tub. Though he
didn’t want to shove his people’s customs down her throat, over the past
sennight she had also asked him more questions about their views and habits. To
now have the chance to teach her something as important as swimming—Eirik felt
a surge of pride at the thought.

But he had to admit
that it was more than admiration of her sharpness and willingness to learn that
had him dragging her to this secluded lake. She was more terrified of water
than aught else, yet she trusted him to try to teach her how to swim. She was
brave in facing her fears. And she was coming to know that he would never harm
her. For some reason, the realization of her growing trust in him over the last
sennight made his chest pinch strangely.

He caught sight of the
glimmering lake across the grass- and flower-filled meadow, and something else,
something far lower than his chest, pinched as well.

He hadn’t kissed Laurel
again since the night after the council meeting. He’d tried to rein in his
unruly lust for her, tried to control his body despite being in such close
proximity to her day and night. All he’d gotten for his efforts were sleepless
nights on some furs in the corner of his cottage, an aching cock, and of course
his own cursed sense of honor left intact.

Mayhap it was a mistake
to take her out here alone, where they would be undressing and swimming
together. Then again, his body was wound tight enough that the ever-quieter
voice in his head about the wrongness of his attraction to Laurel seemed far
less urgent.

He halted at the
water’s edge and immediately unbuckled his belt from around his tunic.

“What are you doing?”
Laurel gaped.

“Getting ready for a
swim. What does it look like?”

Her wide-eyed stare in
response doused the heated, fervent need to undress and enter the water with
her. Of course, while he was growing more and more eager to reach the lake,
she’d likely been sinking deeper into her fears. He silently cursed himself and
his lust-filled body. Why did he feel like such a fumbling, untried boy when it
came to her?

“We can take this
slow,” he said, stilling himself. Her dark eyes darted first to the smooth,
clear lake, then over his body. By Thor, if he was reading her right, she was
nearly as hesitant at the idea of seeing his body as she was at getting into
the lake.

It didn’t take the gift
of Sight to know that Laurel was innocent. Her reaction to their kiss had told
him that. Yet could she truly be so completely ignorant about the ways of the
world to be uncomfortable just at the sight of his body? She had been raised
with both nuns and monks, yet if the monks from Lindisfarne were to be
believed, these Christians intentionally denied themselves any knowledge—or
pleasures—of the body.

He casually pulled his
leather boots off, followed by his tunic. Ignoring her, he went to the water’s
edge and crouched, running his fingers through the cool water. He’d let her get
used to seeing him like this.

“Fear is your worst
enemy when it comes to swimming,” he said, still facing the lake. “If the water
feels you struggling against it, it will fight you in return.”

Everyone in Dalgaard,
and likely everyone in all the Northlands, knew how to swim. Water was simply
too central to their way of life to avoid it. Whether it was fishing, sailing
to other lands, or just bathing in a lake or fjord, all people had need of the
ability to swim. He’d never had to teach anyone before, yet he’d learned as a
very young boy from his father.

She tentatively stepped
next to him at the waterline. “If I didn’t struggle, I’d simply drown. That
doesn’t seem like a good alternative.”

He glanced up at her.
Her face was tight with anxiety as she stared at the water in front of them. At
least she was distracted from his semi-nakedness. Even still, he’d better keep
his pants on while they were in the water.

He stood and began
wading into the lake.

“You’re going in…like
that?” She was eyeing his pants with a look of worry. “Won’t they pull you
under?”

He looked down.
Thankfully, he was wearing his double-lined linen pants and not his heavier
wool or leather ones for cooler weather. “I’ll be fine. Unless you’d rather I
remove them?”

Her face flushed bright
red.
Good
, he thought.
I’m distracting her
. Then an idea so
audacious, so brazen, popped into his mind that he almost discarded it out of
hand. Whether it was more for her benefit or his, though, he began forming a
plan.