by Sandra Hill
Rain bristled. “Me? Belong to him? Hardly!”
“Now, mistress, do not be fightin’ yer fate. The master captured you in battle, and ye be part of the spoils, so to speak. Methinks he even named you hostage, did he not?”
“He did not capture me. In fact, I saved him. And let’s get one thing straight—I am no one’s prisoner. Nor do I need the protection of some blasted, bloodthirsty Viking.”
“If you say so,” Ubbi said doubtfully, “but the master takes his duties seriously. Leastways, he tries his best ter protect those men and wimmen under his shield, ’specially since Astrid…” Ubbi’s words trailed off and he glanced guiltily toward Selik across the campsite as if he realized belatedly how much he’d disclosed.
“Astrid? Who’s Astrid?”
Ubbi groaned. “I beg you, m’lady, do not mention her name to my lord. Please, if ye value yer life.”
Rain frowned in confusion. “Tell me who she is, and I promise not to say a word to Selik.” When he balked, she added, “On the other hand, if you don’t want to tell me, I can always ask Selik.”
Ubbi’s face blanched with horror.
Rain’s curiosity got the best of her then, and she demanded in a steely voice, “Who is Astrid?”
“His wife,” Ubbi answered grimly, then darted away before she could ask any more questions.
His wife! Rain’s heart skipped a beat, and her shoulders slumped. His wife! Why had she not considered the possibility that Selik was married? And why should it matter to her? She was just a visitor to this primitive period in history, a time traveler who would surely return to the future once her mission was accomplished, whatever it might be.
No, it didn’t matter to her whether Selik was married or not, Rain told herself resolutely, refusing to listen to her aching heart, which told another story. His wife!
Selik walked up to her then, but she forgot her hurt and anger when she noticed his full battle regalia. Alarm rippled through her as she pressed a widespread palm to her chest to still her fast-beating heart.
He didn’t wear chain mail, as he had the day before, but he did wear thick leather protective gear. The short-sleeved, open-sided, leather garment protected him from neck to midthigh and was worn over a heavy wool knee-length tunic and tight black leggings. A wide, linked silver belt with a huge center clasp accented his deliciously narrow waist, drawing her eyes to his slim hips. The metal belt must weigh at least ten pounds, she realized, and be worth a fortune. Matching silver armlets outlined the muscles of his upper arms.
He had plaited his long hair into a single braid which hung down his back, like her own darker blond one. He held a conical leather helmet in his hands and shifted impatiently from foot to foot as Ubbi led the saddled Fury toward him.
He was everything violent and dark that the logical, pacifist side of her brain hated in a man. And he was everything sinfully seductive and soulfully magnetic that the hormone-humming, completely illogical side of her brain yearned to have, if only for this interlude in time.
Without thinking, she leaned toward him, yearning to touch his sun-warmed skin, until she noticed the edges of his lips turned up in a knowing grin. She jerked back abruptly.
“Have you changed your mind so soon? Do you now want to…make sex?”
“No, I do not.” In a New York minute, sweetheart.
“Really? You were looking at me like a winter-starved cat suddenly given a bowl of cream.”
“You overestimate yourself.” Lapping? Now that presents some interesting possibilities.
“Mayhap we can discuss this later when I—”
His words were cut off as a handful of his men rode up on horseback and waited for his orders.
“Take care of Tykir and the other injured men whilst I am gone.” The silky seduction had disappeared from his voice, replaced with cold command.
She agreed, glancing toward the only “hospital” tent remaining. Then Selik’s words sank in, and her eyes shot anxiously back to him. “You’re leaving us?”
He nodded. “We must needs hide the mountain trail better. And bring back food if we can find a living animal unwise enough to still linger near this camp. Otherwise, we will all shrink to skin and bones from hunger.”
His cool eyes swept her body, as if judging her skin and bones, weighing her critically from head to toe and back again, with exaggerated emphasis on her size.
She thought she saw a flicker of appreciation in his eyes, and she blushed. Good Lord! Thirty years old and he has me as flustered as a fifteen-year-old virgin.
“Be here when I come back,” he ordered in a low, husky voice.
“And where would I go?” she snapped testily, as annoyed with herself as with him for rising so quickly to his seductive bait. “You will come back, won’t you?”
“Are you missing me already, wench?”
Save him, a voice inside her said once again.
Rain couldn’t say for sure if it was her own inner voice speaking or some supernatural being. But she didn’t like it.
“Why did you jump?” Selik asked softly as he stepped closer, so close she could smell the leather of his armored vest and his own distinctive masculine scent. His warm breath caressed her face as he leaned even closer and whispered, “Could it be I make you nervous?”
“No. I think God just talked to me,” she whispered in awe, “and it surprised me.”
“I heard naught.” His eyes shot upward to the sky before lowering to regard her skeptically. “Does God talk to you often?”
She shook her head. “No, he never did until I came here to…”
“…to save me,” he finished for her, shaking his head ruefully. An almost imperceptible flicker of hope sparked in his eyes, then died. “Why do you persist in this foolish story of yours? I no longer believe in God, and He certainly holds me in disfavor.”
“You’re a Christian?” she asked in surprise.
“Nay. Oh, I was at one time. Leastways, Archbishop Hrothweard baptized me in the Roman church in Jorvik, like many Norsemen who practice Christianity with one hand and the old religions with the other. But I believe in naught anymore, not even myself. In fact, I am a nithing.”
“A nithing?” Rain shuddered at the utter self-contempt in his flat voice.
Selik shrugged. “A most offensive person. ’Tis the supreme insult for any man, Viking or Saxon. A person beyond redemption.”
Rain shook her head forcefully. “Now that is where you are wrong, Selik. I’m not exactly certain why God sent me here, but I do know one thing for sure. God believes you are redeemable.”
For just a second, Rain saw hope flash in his silvery eyes, but the light died out almost immediately to its usual dull gray bleakness. And Rain knew she had her work cut out for her.
“I do not believe in eternity,” he said, running the knuckles of his right hand along the edge of her jawline in a light caress, “but I do still cherish the odd moment of pleasure. Now that I see your merit as a healer, mayhap I will keep you at my side for a bit longer. And perchance we will share one of those moments. Or two. In truth, it has been a long time since I have felt such…urges.”
A sweet thrill rushed through Rain at Selik’s arrogant words. Anticipation. Imagination. Fantasy. All warred with her usual self-control, and logic won out. “No way am I going to be your momentary pleasure, babe.” Especially with a wife in the background. “Best you curb your urges.”
Selik just laughed, then had the effrontery to pat her on the rump in a just-you-wait-and-see fashion.
Indignant at his familiarity, she tried to slap his vulgar hand away, but he was already beyond her reach. Taking the reins Ubbi handed him, Selik put his left foot in the stirrup and leapt into the saddle with the grace of an athlete.
“Here is Wrath,” Ubbi said, handing him an awesome sword, the same one Selik had wielded on the battlefield. “I sharpened it for you.”
“Wrath! You name your stupid sword? Criminey! That would be like me naming my scalpel.
Actually, I kind of like that idea,” she rambled on, trying to understand her turbulent emotions. “Healer would be nice, don’t you think?”
Selik ignored her completely. “Thank you, Ubbi, for honing the blade. You are my right hand.”
Ubbi beamed as if Selik had handed him the world with those few words of praise, and Rain began to think there might still be a softer side to this fierce Viking.
“Keep my bed furs warm for me, wench,” he called down to Rain then, jarring her from any complimentary thoughts she had been harboring toward him. Then he caught her eye and winked wickedly.
Rain said a very vulgar word, one she never used in her own time, but which somehow seemed appropriate now. Apparently, it was an Anglo-Saxon term that had descended through the centuries because Selik’s eyes widened in surprise and perfect understanding, and Ubbi exclaimed in shock, “My lady!”
Selik chuckled while he donned his leather helmet. “I will remember that sentiment, Sweetling,”
Sweetling!
Rain watched sullenly as Selik rode off, laughing, with his men. Despite her annoyance and the fact that the wretched, teasing warrior had a wife, the sound of his touching endearment, “Sweetling,” echoed for a long time in her lonely heart.
For the rest of the day, Rain worked closely with Tykir and the dozen other wounded soldiers left behind. Work details had buried dozens of dead men before the armies had left that morning. They’d carried their wounded with them on sledges and crude slings. It soon became obvious why the Scots and Norsemen had failed to take these last of their disabled warriors with them. None had any hope of survival.
Nevertheless, Rain worked desperately to ease their passing, finally turning to her acupuncture needles as a last resort when the Darvon and aspirin ran out. Three of them died before nightfall. A fourth would not make it to morning.
Darkness had already fallen when Rain left the tent, knowing Tykir would sleep through the night. She had placed several acupuncture needles in strategic places on his body to relieve the pain, and as a precaution had ordered one of Selik’s remaining soldiers to tie Tykir securely to the table so he would not jar them accidentally in his sleep.
When she dropped wearily to the ground near the cooking fire, Ubbi handed her a bowl of the stew that remained from the morning and a hunk of dry brown bread. They tasted wonderful to Rain, and she had to restrain herself from licking the wooden bowl.
“Do you want more?”
She shook her head. “No, save the rest for Selik and his men when they return.” She suddenly realized how long they had been gone and looked worriedly around the campsite. Two other small fires burned brightly where men lay about on sleeping furs, and some soldiers stood guard at strategic spots in the distance. But no Selik.
“Shouldn’t Selik be back by now?”
Ubbi shrugged.
What would she do if Selik didn’t return? Rain wondered, realizing that, despite his vulgar, violent nature, Selik was her anchor in this bungee jump through time. Without him, she would surely plunge to—what? Death? Limbo? Reincarnation? Of all the choices, not once did Rain consider the possibility that she would return to the future. Somehow, she sensed that she had been sent back in time for a purpose.
To save him.
Rain groaned aloud at the inner voice in her head, still unsure whether it was her own subconscious speaking or something else. Oh, Lord!
I hear you.
Rain jerked upright and her eyes darted around the fire where Ubbi still worked busily, banking the coals and cleaning up the utensils.
“I don’t think you’re funny, Ubbi. Not one bit.”
“Huh?”
“Oh, don’t give me that innocent look. I know you were pretending to be God, speaking in that deep voice.”
“God?” Ubbi said with a gasp. “What did I—uh, God—say to you?”
She stood angrily and glared at him as he gawked at her across the fire, open-mouthed and incredulous. Obviously, he hadn’t said a blasted word.
“I must have been mistaken,” she muttered as she stomped away from the fire, then turned abruptly and came back. “Where am I supposed to sleep tonight?”
He shrugged. “In my lord’s tent, of course.”
“Humph! He’d better not get any ideas. In fact, if you see him before I do, tell him to spread his sleeping furs out here by the fire. I have no intention of sharing his bed again.”
“But why?” Ubbi asked, apparently stunned that any woman would consider it less than an honor to share Selik’s bed.
“I never sleep with married men.”
Ubbi tilted his head to the side as if trying to understand her foreign words. “Married men? But who…Mistress, methinks you misunderstood me words afore.”
“Oh, I understood all right, but don’t you worry about it. This is my problem, and you can be sure I will straighten it out.”
“But you want me ter tell me master to sleep out here on the ground?” he asked with utter amazement, then scoffed, “He would flatten me with his shield fer such a suggestion.”
“I’ll talk to him about it in the morning,” she assured him, “but in the meantime, just tell him”—she waved her hand in the air, searching for the right words—“oh, just say he snores too much and I don’t want to be disturbed.”
She turned once again, smiling, despite herself, at the small choking sound Ubbi made behind her as she walked to the tent.
A soldier told her about a small spring-fed pond at the far end of the clearing, about a quarter-mile away. She rummaged in Selik’s chest until she found a clean tunic of worn green wool, some soap, and linen cloths that would do for towels. A half hour later, despite the chilly air and water, she sat soaking ecstatically in the knee-high water, having soaped and rinsed her hair and body several times and washed her underwear, slacks and blouse. After she dried, she put a few dabs of Passion from a small sample bottle in her carrybag behind her ears and at the base of her throat. It was amazing what a good perfume could do for a woman’s self-esteem. And it was a link with the future she somehow needed right now.
When she got back to Selik’s tent, he still hadn’t returned. She bit her bottom lip worriedly as she laid her wet clothes across his wooden chest. She fussed around the small tent, picking up articles, stacking others, hoping her outlaw Viking would return.
Finally, she yawned widely and decided it was foolish to wait any longer. She removed Selik’s warm tunic and folded it carefully near the bed furs, donning her wispy bra and briefs, which had already dried. Sliding sensuously between the furs, she fell fast asleep within seconds.
As she had the night before, she slept deeply. No primitive warriors waged violent battles in her dreams, but her sleep soon turned troubled just the same.
Like a Michael Jackson video in which the faces blended creatively from one identity to another, the hero of Rain’s dreams alternately had the faces of Daniel Day-Lewis, Kevin Costner, and Selik. Mostly, Selik’s image kept recurring, but it was a Selik she had yet to see.
No scars or broken nose marred the purity of his facial features. Gone were the lines that pain and rage had etched mercilessly at the corners of his sensuously full mouth and silver-flecked eyes. This was the godly handsome Viking her mother had described before the tragedies of his life had transformed him.
In her dream, the Daniel/Kevin/Selik man knelt on the dirt floor at the side of the fur pallet, wearing nothing more than a primitive loin cloth. He leaned over her, whispering soft words, and she was strangely unable to move, her arms immobilized at her sides. In slow motion, he bent and his long blond hair, like a veil of gossamer cobwebs, brushed across her bare arm. She shivered with the electric shock of just that barest of caresses.
“So beautiful,” he whispered as the calloused fingers of his strong hands skimmed over her arms, from the wrists to the shoulders.
All the faces and bodies blended together in that instant and became one—her outlaw Viking.
Rain made a small
purring sound, which drew a warm smile of approval from her lover. She did feel beautiful then, probably for the first time in her life. Not too tall or big-boned or unfeminine. Just perfect. She could see appreciation, and so much more, in Selik’s smoldering eyes when they locked with hers for one breathless heartbeat. The earth tilted for her then and seemed to stand still.
His fingertips brushed the delicate edge of her collarbone, ever so gently, then moved up to trace the outline of her parted lips. She yearned to lean up and kiss the firm, sensual lips of the ethereal, constantly shifting being above her, but she could not move. Only feel.
He drew his hand away slightly and Rain whimpered, “Please. Don’t leave me.”
His gray eyes filled with tenderness, and in a voice that seemed to come from far off, he whispered softly, “Never. ’Til the end of time, my love.”
The skin of her dream lover shone with pale gold undertones in the shimmering candlelight. Muscles rippled across his powerful shoulders and chest as he moved his hands to explore her taut body. And, oh, dear Lord, blood rushed to every spot he touched with feathery strokes, igniting small fires of longing in their wake.
His hands slid from her face, down her neck, through the valley between her breasts in the lacy, flesh-colored bra, searing a path down to her abdomen. The open palms of his big hand caressed the flat planes of her belly, drawing invisible circular patterns of spiraling pleasure.
Then he backtracked upward, ever so slowly, and lightly touched her hardening nipples, bringing them to crested peaks of such intense pleasure that she cried aloud.
“Shhh, Sweetling. Slowly. Slowly.”
But Rain was beyond rational thought, beyond putting a brake on her racing arousal, beyond everything she had ever experienced or thought possible in feminine response. With a few whispery caresses, this man—this dream Viking, this outlaw warrior—had reduced her to a writhing, whimpering mass of flesh desperate for their joining.
She looked down and saw his erection through the loin cloth. And his eagerness for her excited Rain even more. She ached to touch him, but her arms remained locked at her sides in her dream state.