down his neck where some cruel child had struck him. “What is she talking about?”
Instead of an answer, she got one lifted sable eyebrow.
Argh. What was up with him? He could help her out a little here. She faced her aunt again. “I’m afraid I’m confused. Why is he tied up? What did he do?”
Ragnild was frowning. “I have explained that. He belongs to no woman here, yet he dared to walk boldly among us. Such behavior cannot be allowed.”
Rinda stepped forward. She was grinning that naughty grin of hers. “You have to claim him.” She tipped her head to the side and looked Eric up and down. “Hmm.” She licked her split lip. “Perhaps I shall claim him—that is, cousin, should you reject him first.”
“What is this? Claim him? How do I do that?”
“You say, ‘I will claim this man.”’
“Okay. And then?”
“Then we untie him. You take him to your tent—Grid and I shall be pleased to have you borrow ours.”
“Okay. I take him to my tent…”
“And then—” Rinda’s grin widened “—you have your way with him.”
“My way?”
Rinda laughed. “You do take my meaning. I see it in your eyes.”
Brit sighed. “And after I have my way with him?”
“Then you may keep him for as many as seven nights, though I suppose, in your case, it would only be the one night, as tomorrow you are leaving us. If you are pleased with his performance, it is the custom that you let him go.” Rinda’s grin got wider. “If he doesn’t please you, you can offer him to another of us. Or simply kill him for being useless as a lover.”
Bizarre. “And what if I don’t claim him?”
“Well then, if no one else wants him, we’ll kill him right now.”
“You’re not serious.”
No one said anything. Ragnild looked determined. Rinda continued to look way too amused. The bloodthirsty children watched with wide, eager eyes. And Eric simply waited, his angular face a patient mask. As if it made no difference to him whether she took him or the warrior women stabbed him in the heart.
Finally Ragnild asked somberly, “Cousin to my only daughter, will you claim this man?”
The choices were severely limited. “Okay, all right. I claim this man.”
Chapter Eight
“What are you, nuts?” Brit demanded. “I really think they might have killed you.” They were alone in the tent Grid and Rinda had given them for their supposed night of sexual delights.
Eric stood over the low central fire, warming his hands. Firelight glinted off his clubbed-back hair, bringing out bronze gleams in the ash-brown strands. “No harm is done, for you have saved me.”
Was he smiling? Brit swore, a very bad swear word. “You have blood on your neck.”
“And you have a new bruise on your cheek.”
Lightly she touched the swollen spot where Grid’s knuckles had struck. “I spoke when not spoken to.”
“A good thing you don’t receive a blow every time you do that.”
“Chuckle, chuckle.”
He took a handkerchief from the pocket of his shearling coat and wiped until only a faint smear remained. “Better?” He stuck the cloth back in his pocket.
“Not particularly. How can you stand there and grin? That was stupid, what you did. Those women out there take their beliefs seriously.”
“I had complete faith in you.”
“What if I wasn’t here, what if I hadn’t come back to the camp, for some reason? What if I had refused to claim you?”
“But you were here. You did come back… and you have claimed me.” That haunting deep-set gaze was on her.
She felt her skin grow warmer, felt the hungry shiver sliding through her. “Stop that.”
“Stop what?”
“You know what. That… look. You give me that look and I get all…” She let the sentence die unfinished, since she was getting herself deeper in trouble with every word.
He showed no mercy. “You get ‘all’ what?”
“Just… don’t, okay?”
“Don’t…?”
She flung out both hands. “Don’t give me the bedroom eyes. Don’t get… ideas.”
“Bedroom eyes? You Americans. Such amusing figures of speech.” He took something from another pocket, then shrugged out of the coat and tossed it on the pallet that lay against the side of the tent, to his left. His leather shirt was the same one he’d been wearing that morning. It had lacings at the neck. She could see a slice of firm, smooth chest.
And a few links of silver chain, shining. “I see you found your medallion.”
“Would you like it back now?”
“Uh. No, I would not.”
He circled the fire and came toward her. She debated: shrink back or stand proud?
As usual, before she made a choice, there he was. Right in front of her, mesmerizing eyes and broad shoulders filling the world. “Give me your hand.”
“I said I don’t want the medallion.”
“I have something else of yours.”
She should probably take issue with the word else. Then again, better not to belabor a point made far too many times already. She settled for a sneering curl to her lip and a surly, “What?”
He simply waited.
“Oh, all right.” Grudgingly she held out her hand.
He cradled her palm, his hand warm and firm around the back of hers.
The problem was, she did like it. When he touched her. She gloried in the shivery feelings he aroused, though she kept trying to tell herself she shouldn’t, that her obvious response to him only egged him on when it was absolutely paramount that she keep him at a distance.
Carefully, so as not to spill them, he laid a pile of peanut M&Ms in her cupped hand.
She looked down at them and back up at him. He was smiling again. And so was she—now. It was just too rich. “Pretty good, huh?”
“You are a woman
