The Enchantment (28 page)

“Yes, you did. Now what was it you promised me?” A wicked glint came into his eyes as he leaned toward her on one arm. “Oh, yes. Something about my throat . . .” He tugged at the ties at the top of his tunic and lay his corded neck and the top of his shoulder bare . . . offering her the sleek, bronzed skin of his throat and his visibly throbbing pulse.

“It's yours, She-wolf,” he said huskily. “Anytime you want it.”

The temptation to seize him and bury her mouth in that seductive curve hit her like a rogue sea wave, staggering her. She panicked and hit him back with her palms, sending him rolling onto his rear. “Stay away from me, Woman-heart!” she demanded.

He sat for a moment in his graceful sprawl before a knowing grin spread over his face, then he rolled to his feet and began to unpack the provisions, placing them on shelves above the great cedar box built into the wall.

Aaren pushed stiffly to her feet, tugging her tunic down over her hips and eyeing the door. Even if she made it outside and managed to find the horses, it was dark and she still had no boots, no breeches, and no idea where they were or how to get back to the village. She was trapped here. Captive in her enemy's camp. Prisoner to a man who wouldn't fight . . . but had just managed to storm and conquer both her body and her senses.

She sank down onto the stone ledge near the fire, shaken by his demonstration of power over her. Her obligations to her sisters' welfare, to their enchantment, and to her own warrior's honor were sacred to her. But all he had to do was look at her with those soft blue eyes, extend his hand to her, spin a few silken words . . . and she forgot both her honor and her enchantment. She held her cold, stiff hands out to the fire. For all his gentleness, Jorund Borgerson was the most dangerous man she knew.

“Here you are, Serricksdotter.” She raised her gaze to find him presenting her with the carcass of a skinned hare and an iron rod on which to spit it. “A prime, fat one. I caught it . . . you can cook it.”

“In a sow's eye, Borgerson,” she declared, huddling back on her seat. “I'll not work over the hearth like a
woman
for you.” He studied her angry pose, then shrugged and proceeded to prepare their meal himself.

A
FTER EATING, HE
reached into the storage chest for a great bundle of furs, which he unrolled with a flourish. She eyed that warm, inviting stack—some so lush and silvery that they looked blue in the firelight—and felt the rise of temptation in her loins once more. To counter it, she expelled a harsh breath and glowered at him.

“Only one set of furs, Long-legs. But it is plenty big enough for two,” he said, raising an eyebrow suggestively.

“Share your furs like a woman? Like one of your
many
women?” she announced with exaggerated disdain. “I'd rather freeze.”

His eyes narrowed briefly, but then he snuffed the wick in the hanging bowl lamp. He dragged the pallet in front of the door and crawled into his furs alone, propping his arms behind his head. As the fire settled into red-glowing coals and the light lowered, his breathing slowed to a steady rhythm and she guessed he was quickly asleep.

Sliding back up onto the ledge by the fire, she tucked her knees under her chin and snuggled her toes as close to the coals as she could. She dropped her head against the cool stone at her shoulder, fighting the emotion rising in her chest and crowding into her throat. His words echoed in her ears:
such stout armor must protect something very soft.
She understood now, he had not been speaking of her body alone. He had sensed her struggle to both contain and shield her softer self behind that inner wall inside her. And he had devised the perfect strategy for breaching it . . . letting his tenderness call to hers, rousing her gentler feelings against her, using them to storm the fortifications of her heart from inside as well as out.

A pricking began in the corners of her eyes and she squeezed them shut. But as she wrestled with her stubborn feelings, the tears surged and began to slide down her cheeks.

She was at war with herself. One moment she snapped in anger, the next she sighed with longing; one minute she was vengeful, the next she was sick with regret. With one breath she blew hot; the next, cold—it was like chills and fevers in her very soul.

She swiped at her tears and settled her gaze on him, feeling a deep, painful stirring within her. For the first time in her memory she was truly afraid. What would happen to her at this man's hands? Each time he touched her, or stroked her with his words, she could feel her warrior's heart fraying a bit more at the edges, unraveling inside her. What would she be if it came completely undone? What good was a warrior with a heart that had come unstrung?

T
HE CRACKLE OF
flame brought Jorund wide awake the next morning and he started up . . . to find Aaren perched on the edge of the hearth with his fleece jerkin over her knees, feeding small twigs and bark to a fragile flame. He smiled and dropped back on his elbows, relishing the sight of her and studying the care with which she nurtured that developing heat. When the first small log was securely caught, she glanced up and found him watching her. Their gazes locked and she tensed, coming visibly to the edge of her nerves again.

“That was helpful of you . . . starting the morning fire,” he said, stretching his long legs and arms, then arching his back.

“I was cold,” she responded, tearing her eyes from the display he was making of his muscular male frame.

“Then perhaps if you grow hungry enough, you'll tend a cook-pot, as well,” he teased. She was not amused.

“I want my clothes,” she declared flatly. “You have no right to keep me here like this.”

“I have every right, Serricksdotter,” he countered, sitting up. “According to your code, my might gives me the right. Unless you are strong enough to defeat me, I have the right to do whatever I want with you.” His mouth took on a wry cant. “Is that not the way of the warrior?”

“The way of the warrior is to honor a worthy opponent, to respect him,” she answered, her voice strained. “To respect
her.
” Tiny flames at the backs of her eyes flared. “You dishonor me, Borgerson . . . whether you think me a warrior or a woman.”

“And just how have I dishonored you, Serricksdotter?” he demanded, shoving to his feet and towering over her. His features lost their just-wakened softness. “Do I dishonor you with my teasing words . . . with the way I fondle and adore your body . . . with the way I hold my temper when you swagger and boast and goad me with your warrior nonsense? Do I dishonor you with my desire to hold you, or with the pleasure I stir in your loins, or with the joy I take in simply watching you move?” He stalked closer, his eyes hot and his tone fraying with frustration.

“Why is it honorable of me to fight you with a blade and possibly kill you . . . but dishonorable of me to try to love you with my body?”

He stared down into her face, sorting through the jumble of emotions he glimpsed in her and willing her to understand the destructiveness of her warrior illusions. But as the pull of wanting deepened within him, he watched her confusion being replaced by pained determination.

“Why can you not see that in mocking my warriorhood and my enchantment . . . you mock my honor, my very heart?” she said with a tremor in her voice. “And as long as you refuse to defend your honor and respect mine, I cannot prize being joined to you. There would be no honor and thus no pleasure in our mating . . . not as long as I am a
she-wolf
and you are a
woman-heart.
”

The muscles in his face worked visibly, then he drew a deep, irritable breath and wheeled to retrieve her garments and boots from the storage box. He tossed them at her feet, lifted the bar at the door, and strode out into the frigid morning air.

She sagged to a seat by the fire, staring after him, feeling drained and shamed by her own impulses, and confused. She had lied just now, she realized . . . or at least part of her had. Part of her didn't want to mate with a man who had no pride or honor, but part of her desperately wanted the tenderness and passion he stirred in her. Honor and dishonor, fighting and loving . . . wretched Odin must be delirious over the success of his revenge.

Pushing those plaguing thoughts to the back of her mind, she dressed hurriedly, then slipped out the door. Before she had taken two steps, his hand clamped on her arm.

“Where do you think you are going?”

“Women and warriors alike have morning needs, Borgerson.”

He looked a bit chastened, then nodded and led her to the shelter of the trees. When she was finished, he took her by the arm and led her across the stream and up the slope to the other hut. It was a bathing hut, built over a rock spring that trickled slowly from the side of the cliff on its way to join the larger stream. There was a wide wooden bench, a small oven for heating rocks, and a clear pool hollowed out of natural stone. He allowed her to wash, as he had done, then escorted her back to the lodge. When they were safely inside, he released her arm, but did not move away at once. She felt his gaze on her and stiffened.

“Let me go,” she said calmly. “Let me return to my sisters . . . to the village.”

“I cannot.” He searched the tension in her face. “There is much to settle between us. And I have sworn that neither of us will return until it is done.”

“It can be quickly settled,” she insisted. “Just pick up a blade and prepare to fight.”

“Do you not see that what we must settle requires far more than just the spilling of blood?”

His words sent a slither of anxiety through her. She couldn't listen to such talk.

“You—you're just afraid to raise a blade against me,” she charged, scrambling to find a footing in outraged pride. But the minute her barb struck, she wished to recall it. He blanched and his jaw clamped and the muscles worked tautly beneath his skin.

“Yes, I am afraid!” he declared fiercely. “Afraid of hurting you.” Her heart hovered and quivered strangely in her breast, as if uncertain how fast to beat. He was afraid
for
her? That was the one thing she hadn't expected to hear.

“I don't want to hurt you, Aaren.” His features tightened and his eyes grew strangely luminous. Suddenly she could read them the way she always felt he read her own. She glimpsed the need, the wanting, and the pain within him. And she saw there was more . . . so much more that she did not understand in the depths of his matchless eyes. It took her breath. He was summoning forth the woman in her; tenderness seeking tenderness, need calling to need. For a brief moment, her confusion, her own woman's longings, were visible in her face.

“Fight me, Jorund,” she whispered, entreating him with all her heart. And he answered from the depths of his.

“I am fighting you.”

His penetrating gaze drove his meaning into her very bones. He was indeed fighting her . . . with kindness and pleasure, gentleness and promise . . . all the things a woman's heart must desire and a warrior's heart must scorn. And the success of his chosen arms—his
weapons of the heart
—was evident in her growing desire for him and in her waning desire to fight him. Panic collected in her stomach as she felt another of her heartstrings unraveling. She lurched back, her look of longing turning visibly to contempt.

He watched the change of her expression and felt the woman he had touched so fleetingly sliding out of his grasp. The pain of her withdrawal was so sharp that it set off a defensive explosion in him . . . full, gut-roiling, limb-quaking fury. With his last bit of reason, he realized he had to get out of there, away from her, before he did exactly what she wanted . . . what he dreaded with all his being. He snatched up his fleece jerkin and slammed out into the frigid sunshine.

But the contempt he had seen in her face had not been for him; it had been for her own weakening.

She stared at the door, still seeing his swollen shoulders and the pained anger in his face. It was a long moment before she realized that she was seeing the meadow, as well, and the trees around it. The door was open—he had forgotten to bolt her inside!