than her heart went from one beat to the next, she was no longer overwhelmed by her fear. He was real. No longer just the monster sent to tear her world apart. Maybe he would listen.
‘You don’t have to take me. You can leave me here. I haven’t been trained in any skill, so I won’t be of any use to you.’ The words tumbled out before she could get a grasp on them to make them into something compelling. She tried to keep her voice steady as she reasoned with him, but it still trembled near the end. And when his gaze left her face to flick downwards over her body, she knew without a doubt the skill for which he was assessing her. Another pang of terror shot through her, but she forced herself to stay calm and focused her gaze straight ahead. It landed on his hair where she studied the contrast of a single sun-bleached strand against the dark wheat of the rest of it, still damp from the morning’s mist.
‘You would choose to stay with your family when they would give you away?’
He looked to the bruise she knew had formed along her cheekbone. His voice was low, not mocking as she might have imagined it, and the words were his first spoken solely for her ears. The rough texture of it awakened something inside her, and she had no idea what it was. Only that its sound seeped in through her skin and warmed her in the pit of her stomach, claiming some part that hadn’t been given, leaving her startled and disturbed.
She closed her eyes to force it out, but that only made Blythe’s words sound louder in her head. Take her! They hadn’t been forgotten in her fight with the Northman. They still echoed in her mind. What would it mean to stay with her family? Could she stay, knowing that she was expendable to them? Today’s blow wasn’t the first from Blythe. It wouldn’t be the last. But how could she go...willingly? How could she leave Alfred and everything she had ever known and loved? She wouldn’t. She couldn’t submit to being owned by him. Couldn’t resign herself to a fate where she was nothing. Whatever it meant to stay, it would be preferable to the uncertainty of belonging to him.
‘I would stay with my family rather than go with a Dane.’ This time, she made sure her voice was strong.
He was silent as he looked her over, his gaze touching every feature of her face, lingering on the bruise. Merewyn shifted so her hair partially covered it, hating that he could see it. His eyes settled on hers again. She would have sworn he saw deep inside her to that place he had awakened. It didn’t seem fair that he could see so much of her when his face was stoic and closed.
‘If you stay, you will be given away again. To a Dane, to a Saxon. You won’t know until it’s happened.’ He sounded so certain. She hated him for that above all other things.
The words created a fissure in the, until now, pristine tapestry of her mind. Madness lazed in that tiny abyss. She resisted the pull in that direction and tried to shut out his words, to convince herself that he was lying, but there was a profound and underlying truth to them that she couldn’t deny. If someone had told her yesterday that Blythe would utter those hated words, she wouldn’t have believed it. But they had been said. Was it a stretch of the imagination to think she might offer her again?
Nay! Alfred wouldn’t allow it.
But Alfred wasn’t here, came the answer in her mind. She jerked her wrists to try to break free and when that didn’t work she kicked him in his booted shin. It was a fruitless attempt, but she struck out at him as much to deny his words as to get away from him.
His grip tightened and he twisted her around so that her crossed wrists were held tight against her belly and his arms held her within their prison. His chest pressed solidly against her back, holding her front pinned to the forge. The rough stones pressed into her cheek. It was useless to struggle; he completely engulfed her with his size.
‘Deny what you will, but you know I speak the truth.’ The words were harsh against her ear, rustling the hair at her temple. ‘I won’t harm you. That’s something you can’t trust from your family.’
Merewyn bit her lip to stifle the sob that begged to come out. He wasn’t right, damn him! He wasn’t. One last futile push back against him caused him to squeeze her tight and made his hips push her forward so she was flush against the stones, held immobile by his body. Her mind rushed to find a way out of it, to figure out some way to make him leave so her life could go back to the way it was before her walk on the beach that morning. But it wouldn’t be the same, even if he left her. Those horrible words would always be there, eating her alive.
Blythe hated her. It would happen again. Merewyn knew that he would take her with or without her cooperation. If she could somehow buy some time, maybe she could figure out a way to get away from him before anything horrible happened. But even as she contemplated the possibility, she recognised that there was a strange sense of security in the prison of his arms. He was so stoic and candid that she couldn’t help but believe his promise of safety.
‘Do you vow it? Can you promise I won’t be harmed?’ Even if he was a barbarian, she wanted to hear him say it.
* * *
Eirik could feel her heart fluttering beneath her ribs like the wings of a small bird locked in a cage. It beat beneath the wrist he held over her chest, and he would have sworn he felt it through the chain mail that covered his own. She was so small and fragile pressed against him. He could feel the delicacy of her bones beneath her flesh, and the softness of her body evoked indescribable visions of comfort and a need to protect her.
He’d known the rush of fear and anticipation when facing down an enemy. He’d known the triumph of vanquishing that enemy. But he’d never known anything like what he was feeling now. The triumph was there. It rushed through him, a roaring in his ears. But the fear was there, too. It wasn’t anything like the fear of a battleaxe splitting open his skull. It wasn’t like the fear of ordering a command that would result in the death of the men he led. It was the unknown fear of what she would do to him and why he wanted to have her. He wanted her in ways he couldn’t even begin to comprehend, ways that went beyond the physical comfort she could offer him.
He’d been shocked and furious when he discovered her face marred by the bruise. His first thought was that Gunnar had put it there when he’d retrieved her in the cellar, but it was already a purple stain marring the ivory of her skin. Too dark to have been placed there moments ago. And although Gunnar was fierce in battle, he’d never known his brother to physically harm a woman. The lady at the manor had done it. There was no doubt in his mind. There was no denying the fierce need he felt to protect her from her own family.
Eirik’s hands reflexively gripped the fabric of her gown as they sought the heat emanating from beneath, before he pushed away from her. He fought for the control that had been struggling to slip from his grasp the moment his gaze had found her on the beach. The need to touch her, to possess her, to make her know that she belonged to him, was strong. But it was enough now that she was his. There would be time later. Now he needed to focus on getting the men back on the boats before more Saxons arrived. They sailed for home today. Once there, he would decide the future of his pretty slave.
‘You won’t be harmed in my care. From this day forward, you are mine.’
Merewyn tried to make her mind cooperate and think of some way out of her captivity. It wouldn’t accept what had happened, even though she sat in the back of the boat, her gown sodden with seawater and her hands bound before her. There was nothing she could do short of throwing herself over the side. Froth formed as the oars churned the blue-grey water, each stroke taking her farther into the unknown, but a watery grave held no appeal.
