on it. The second piece disappeared nearly as fast, and she cooked more portions, knowing that Styr was as hungry as she was. To pace herself, she poured each of them a cup of mead, and the sweet, honeyed taste was delicious. Even though she knew it was unwise to drink it quickly, she couldn’t stop herself.
‘Slow down,’ Styr ordered. ‘Or you’ll make yourself sick.’
She did, concentrating on the drink instead. It made her head feel lighter, and a pleasant airiness seemed to surround her. ‘Did you get enough to eat?’
He nodded, leaning back beside the fire. ‘If you salt the remaining fish, we can preserve it for a few days.’
She nodded her agreement and went to cut the remaining fish into pieces the size of her hand, salting them heavily and covering them. As she worked, a dizziness made her unsteady on her feet. The room seemed to be a faraway place, but she took another sip of mead.
When she had finished preserving the fish, she washed her hands and walked unsteadily towards the fire.
‘How many cups of mead have you had?’ Styr asked, frowning.
‘Two. Perhaps three,’ she answered.
‘You shouldn’t have anything else to drink,’ he said, taking the cup from her. ‘You’ve already had too much.’
A lazy smile curved over her. ‘It tasted so good.’ When he drank the rest of her mead, her gaze settled upon his mouth. My, but he did have a wonderful mouth. So firm and fierce. It was a shame that a man like this was already wed. It would be interesting to kiss him.
‘Are you as wicked as the other Lochlan nach?’ she asked, warming her hands before the fire. ‘Do you pillage the homes of people, taking their women?’
His gaze turned enigmatic. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think you could…if you wanted to.’ Her head was still buzzing, but she found herself saying whatever words came to her mind. A startled laugh broke free. ‘But this time, I took you.’
He looked irritated at her reminder, but she added, ‘You weren’t nearly as bad a man as I thought you were.’
‘Don’t.’ He cut her off, reaching out to grasp her chin. Though his gesture was meant to be threatening, it didn’t hurt. ‘Don’t try to pretend I’m harmless.’ His hand moved back to grasp her nape, and a thousand tremors poured through her skin. There was power in his touch, a ruthlessness that held her spellbound.
Her traitorous mind suddenly imagined more than a kiss. She envisioned his bare skin and what it would be like to run her fingers over him. With his hand still tangled in her hair, she reached out and rested her hands against his chest.
Styr didn’t move. He knew Caragh wasn’t thinking clearly, that her actions were dictated by the mead. But when she rested her head against his chest, a part of him wanted to hold her. He wanted to feel a woman’s arms around him, to inhale the delicate scent of her skin.
His heartbeat pounded beneath her fingertips, his treacherous body responding to her nearness.
Gently, he extricated her and stepped back. ‘Did you get enough to eat?’
A soft smile transformed her face. ‘For the first time in months. Yes, I did.’ She busied herself with clearing away their wooden dishes. But although Caragh washed and put them away, she did not clean every part of the dwelling or straighten the furnishings. Instead, she sat by the fire, smiling at him. It occurred to him that never had Elena stopped to relax after a meal. She spent her time cleaning, straightening, and scouring their home.
Caragh drew up her knees by the fire, her face golden in the light. All the while, his mind replayed the image of her hands touching him, her face pressed against his heart. The hunger for affection roared through him, and he cursed the instincts he couldn’t control.
It had been so very long since Elena had reached out to him. Time and again, he’d tried to tempt her, even to hold her, only to be pushed away. Her resentment at being childless festered like an open wound, one that wouldn’t heal.
Sometimes, he wished they could start over. That there was a way to be friends again, with no tension between them. The last time that had happened, they had been hardly more than adolescents. Once they’d been betrothed, Elena had grown more serious, putting all her concentration on becoming a good wife. And she’d refused to accept their failure to have children.
When she’d finished putting away the food, Caragh asked, ‘What would you like to do now?’
Her voice held energy, a restlessness that conjured up memories of bare skin, and what it was to touch a willing woman, burying himself deep inside her yielding flesh. He felt himself harden, and he cursed himself for drinking too much mead.
Odin’s blood, but he needed to stay away from this woman. He had no doubt that the goddess Freya had set him upon this path, to test his willpower. But no matter how this woman tempted him, he refused to betray Elena.
‘We should get some sleep before our journey on the morrow,’ Styr told her, tossing another peat brick on the fire. He moved to the furthest side of the room, intending to block her from his mind.
‘I can’t sleep,’ Caragh protested. ‘It’s still so early.’ Without asking his consent, she went to a trunk on the far side of the room and returned with a board. ‘Don’t go to bed so soon,’ she pleaded. ‘We could play a game.’
‘I don’t play.’ He’d gambled before with dice, but it wasn’t a pastime he’d engaged in very often.
Caragh moved towards his pallet, giving him no means of escape. She set the wooden board on the ground between them, and he recognised it as a variant of duodecim scripta, a game he’d known from his homeland. ‘Where did you get that?’
‘My brother won it off a traveller from Burgundy.’
The board consisted of two opposing rows of black triangles with game pieces made of bone. The dice were carved from antlers, and she gave him his pieces, explaining the rules which were similar to those he already knew.
‘You must move the pieces to your home ground and afterwards, you can begin removing them. Whichever of us removes all the pieces first will win.’
He took a sip of his mead, watching as she set out her own pieces. A long lock of dark hair hung over one shoulder, and her cheeks were flushed from the drink. Her blue eyes held merriment and a trace of wickedness as she said, ‘Are you prepared to lose, Lochlan nach?’
His sense of competition sharpened, and he took the dice from her, his hands brushing against her warm fingers. ‘And what if you lose?’
‘Then I’ll have to pay a forfeit. Just as you will.’ When she leaned on one arm, the neckline of her gown slipped down one shoulder, revealing bare skin. Styr dropped the dice rapidly, wrenching his gaze away as he moved the first game piece.
‘And what could you possibly offer me?’ His instincts heightened, wondering what she would say.
‘Your
