Malia Martin (3 page)

He did not move.

Aleene did not like to touch or be touched, but she knew she would have to guide her new husband. She put her hand tentatively around his arm. Fear blossomed anew and froze her limbs.

He was strong. She could feel the muscles beneath his tunic. They bunched when she touched him, as if he might swing at her. And then they relaxed, quickly, against her
fingers.

She pulled her hand away, unbalanced by the strange intimacy of the fleeting touch in the dark, scared by the hidden strength that touch revealed to her.

They stood still, the quiet in the room pulsing with its own life. She could feel her husband’s breath fan against her cheek. It smelled of dark ale and fennel. She had expected to endure the stench of rotting teeth and old food. This man surprised her.

She did not like to be surprised. Aleene stepped backward and clenched her hands at her side. “Lie down, Lord Cynewulf.” She jerked her head toward the bed. “Now.”

The man cocked his head to the side. She couldn’t see his expression, but felt that perhaps he looked confused. It would be a nice change from the blank, stupid look that never seemed to change. “I have named you, since you cannot tell us your name. You shall be Cynewulf, Lord Cynewulf of Seabreeze Castle.” She turned from him and moved further away. “A great honor. You have been blessed with luck this day, Lord Cynewulf.” She spoke to him without looking at him. She heard his feet move among the rushes again. “You are the lord of a rich castle, one of only a few in this land.”

Aleene went to the small, high window and looked out. The night was dark. Clouds covered the silver moon, keeping the landscape shrouded in shadows. “Kings juggle for control of this castle, Cynewulf.” She found comfort in speaking, a comfort she hadn’t felt in many years. “But they shall not have it.” She could hear the waves crashing against the cliffs. She sighed and laid her cheek against the rough wooden wall. Cool against her skin, it was a welcome reprieve from the stifling heat of the room. It felt so good to put distance between herself and the intruder in her life. Closing her eyes, Aleene willed herself to be strong. Walking away from him, speaking to him as if he understood, only delayed what she must do. She nearly laughed again as she considered the irony of her goal here tonight, an act she had once fought so often she would now have to initiate with another.

The ropes of her bed creaked in protest, and Aleene realized her husband must have finally done her bidding. She did not move. The pounding surf became a dull roar in her head. A bead of sweat trickled down her neck, and she pressed her tunic against herself to stop its descent. Her fingers rested against the swell of her breast, and she remembered. He would touch her there.

Aleene squeezed her eyes shut against the terrifying images that catapulted through her mind: darkness, heat, hands, groping, fear, crying. Her breathing came fast, making her feel dizzy.

Gripping the edge of the window, Aleene fought to banish the memories. She must do this. Better to bed this half-wit than a true, whole man. A man sired by Tosig. She shuddered, then stiffening her back and thrusting out her chin, Aleene pushed away from the wall.

S
he turned, her heart falling in on itself, her breathing labored. A break in the clouds must have come, for a streak of silvery moonlight suddenly lit a small path along the floor and across her bed. She saw gold.

She stopped, startled.

His hair was gold, a soft, wavy mass of sun-burnished gold. He sat at the edge of her bed, his face towards her, but still in shadow. Only his hair lay in the path of the fickle moon.

Aleene wrung her hands together and prayed. She prayed for the strength and courage to
do what she must do. She prayed for this man before her to stay docile. She prayed for the moon to go back behind a dark cloud.

A low sound came from the direction of her new husband. Aleene blinked. It was a grunt, like that of a pig. She froze.

Cynewulf stood, the moonlight revealing his rather formidable height and the horrifying breadth of his shoulders. She blinked again, sure that the light played tricks with her eyes. He hunched, then, and she knew she must have been mistaken.

Her fear did not abate, though, for he moved. A need to scream clawed at her throat. A panic-born thought brushed at her conscious.
Could she scream?
She remembered the filthy hand clamped across her mouth those first few awful times, and then the nights afterward when the hand was no longer needed. She never screamed. Who would listen? What if, now that she might need to, she found out that she couldn’t? What if she opened her mouth and nothing came out, no matter how hard she tried?

He shuffled across the floor, away from her. Aleene gripped her hands together as her entire body trembled. He grunted again, and she nearly ran. As he leaned over, she could see his outline, faint and shadowy now that he had moved away from that treacherous moonbeam. He straightened again and heaved upwards. Breathing in sharply, Aleene drew her hand to her throat. His arms came down and with it the tunic that he had worn.

He was undressing.

Aleene backed away, terrified now that he had taken the lead. Would he rape her? Did he know how? When she felt her trunk pressing against the backs of her knees, she stopped her retreat.

He moved again, and she opened her mouth, ready to attempt the scream she wasn’t sure she could accomplish. He shuffled along the floor, then sat down on the bed with another grunt. The silence that descended over the room seemed deafening. After a moment of stillness, she relaxed slightly.

He turned his back to her and put his head on the pillow, curling into a fetal position. Aleene stood motionless. A secret, intimate part of her felt terribly violated as this man lay upon her bed, his body against her bedclothes, his hair against her pillow.

Another part of her, deep, deep down, felt a slight frission of connection with this man. He seemed so alone, the moonlight now gilding the muscled planes of his back. He was alone in his silence, alone in the dull wit of his mind. Aleene knew how it felt to be alone. To feel as if her body was a huge prison, and her soul a small, useless creature inhabiting a tiny corner.

The man on the bed made another sound, this time a snorting, snuffling sound. He slept. Just like that he had fallen asleep. Aleene frowned. How dare he fall asleep! She had stood, pressed up against her trunk, scared, while the man she married went to sleep.

Resolve straightened her spine and determination filled her chest with a deep, cleansing breath. She must get herself with child, now, before Aethregard came back from his audience with the king and tried to annul this hasty marriage. Quickly, before fear could stop her, Aleene pulled her soft blue kirtle over her head, and dropped it over the chest on the floor.

For a moment she hesitated, everything within her fought this. She curled her fingers around the cloth of her tunic, needing to remove the clothing, but unable to. Her breathing quickened, making her feel faint. She smelled the tangy scent of her own fear. Gritting her teeth, Aleene finally jerked the tunic over her head, rushing so she would not
have time to balk.

When she finally stood naked in the dark room, terror wrenched through her. Squeezing her eyes shut, she chased it away, locking it back in that dark place inside of her.

She went to the bed, quickly, her arms brushing against her breasts and awakening new panic. Standing near the bed, she stared at her husband’s back for a long quiet moment. His side rose and fell with the slow intake and gentle exhale of his breath. He was well made, this husband of hers.

She frowned, this stupid poacher had the breadth of shoulder and muscles of one who swung a heavy sword in battle. The thought brought new fear, but Aleene pushed it away, knowing that she only tried to delay the inevitable with silly wanderings. He was no soldier, but a simpleton. Obviously, he had been taking care of himself for many years, chopping wood and fending off men who would hurt him.

Berthilde’s words ran through her mind. This man must touch her breast. Disgust roiled through Aleene with a power that nearly brought her to her knees, but she wiped her mind free of any thought except her goal. Freedom.

Seabreeze would be hers, completely. She would have no man hurting her, humiliating her. Aleene stared down at her new husband, a man unable to hurt her in any way. But she must get with his babe, and make the marriage unbreakable first before she could banish Aethregard forever from her sight and her mind.

Aleene reached down and took the man’s hand. It was large, strong. Hard calluses scraped against her own soft skin. What had this man done to obtain such work-hardened hands? She shook her head, dislodging the thought. She did not care about the man. She only cared what he could do for her.

With a violent shudder, Aleene turned her husband’s hand toward her, spreading the long fingers wide and fitting the palm over the mound of her breast. Closing her eyes, she let go of his hand.

It flopped back to his side.

Aleene’s eyes flew open. She stared down at the listless form of her husband. The fear and terror that lingered just beyond her control slithered away. Grabbing the man’s hand again, Aleene pressed it hard against her.

He did not move, did not grunt, did not snort, nothing. She rubbed his palm back and forth across her nipple. It hardened, puckering against the male hand in her grasp. She breathed in sharply at the unsettling jolt of feeling that snaked its way from her breast to her belly.

Biting her lip, she let go of Cynewulf’s hand, and pushed her chest forward. Again, his traitorous limb dropped uselessly to the bed. Aleene let out a frustrated sigh as she stood naked beside her husband.

Anger now replaced any trace of fear. “Cynewulf!” She used her most commanding voice.

Lord Cynewulf did not stir.

“By the gods, man, you would sleep through your own death!” Obviously he agreed, for he did not move. Aleene made a disgusted sound and stalked around the bed, crossing through the ever-shining moonbeam and climbing onto the bed next to her slumbering lord.

“Perhaps this shall be better. I do not think you must be awake, anyway,” Aleene muttered as she knelt in front of Cynewulf and sat back on her heels. “I must only get
your member hard.” She grimaced.

And then she must put it inside of her, which meant she must touch it. With a long-suffering sigh, Aleene closed her eyes and reached out. Her hand encountered the hard ridges of a well-muscled stomach. With a startled cry, she jerked her hand back and peeked between her lashes. The man had not moved. Well, she
had
prayed for God to make him docile.

Squeezing her eyes shut again, Aleene reached out, this time a bit lower. Her hand encountered a wiry brush of hair. Her belly quivered strangely. Curling her outstretched fingers into a fist, she said another quick prayer for courage and slowly reached out. Again, the wiry hair tickled her fingertips. Aleene forced herself to bury her fingers deeper until she felt heated flesh. She let her hand rest there for a moment and opened her eyes. The dim light revealed a trail of hair that swirled from Cynewulf’s navel, beneath her fingers, and down. Her hand drifted and encountered hard silk. Aleene jumped, her eyes squinting in the darkness. And she saw it, huge and hard, laying stiff against his belly.

With a shocked cry, she pulled her hand away and covered her mouth. It was damaged! Once she had peeked between her lashes as Tosig left her, and seen his shriveled member hanging between his thighs. It had not stuck up toward his nose.

Aleene knit her brows in thought. Perhaps, though, it did when he had slept? She had no idea, but could only hope that this man she had taken to husband was not disfigured. He must give her an heir.

Berthilde had said it would be hard. She hadn’t said which way it must point. Taking heart at this thought, Aleene dredged up her flagging courage and touched her husband’s manhood once more. It was hot against her fingers, hot and smooth. She curled her hand around it. And hard, yes, definitely, hard.

In relief she relaxed her shoulders, realizing only then that she had hunched them around her ears. Leaning backward slightly, Aleene peered through the murky light at what she now held. It was overwhelmingly strange. So soft, like the underside of a baby’s bottom, yet so hard. She stroked it and it moved, lurching against her grasp.

Cynewulf made a noise, a strangled sound. Aleene snatched her hand back, watching him steadily, waiting. Still, he didn’t move. Aleene watched his eyes closely, but they didn’t even flutter.

Sitting back again, she crossed her arms over her breasts and felt her nipples, puckered and sensitive against the inside of her arms. Aleene shuddered. A dark, yawning hole seemed to open up low in her stomach. Her fingernails bit harshly into her arms. Closing her eyes, she thought she could feel the beat of her heart in the very core of her being. Her throat went dry, her skin wet, her breathing harsh in the quiet. Fear was only partly responsible for such peculiar symptoms, though. She knew, for she knew fear intimately. There was something else making her feel as if the air she took into her lungs was not enough to sustain her life. Aleene stared down at her husband.