The Viking's Captive(8)

She made it all of ten steps before a now familiar set of thick, iron-hard arms locked around her.

“Oh, no, you don’t.” Halvor’s mouth was by her ear. “I’m not in the habit of letting go of what I want.”

“You can’t have me, you brute.” She shoved at his forearms wrapped around her waist. When he picked her up, her back to his chest, she kicked and threw her head into his face. All she achieved was whacking the back of her head on his helmet, which he must have put back on. But even so, she did it again.

“Stop!” He grabbed her hair, fisting it and dragging her head into the crook of his neck. “Now.”

“Ouch!” she cried out. He’d pulled so hard, pain shot from the roots of her hair.

He yanked harder still. She stopped kicking him. Her eyes watered. She dragged in breath. All she could smell was him; his musky skin, his leathery clothing, the salty aroma of the sea he sailed upon.

“That’s it.” His hot breath washed over her cheek. “Stop. Keep still.” He paused. “There’s nothing to be gained in fighting me. You must accept your fate.”

“No,” she whimpered.

“Yes.” His helmet’s nose tip touched her face, against the corner of her right eye.

She squeezed her eyes shut.

“You’re mine now.” His voice was low and husky. “Your father gave you to me.”

“Not willingly.”

“In return for his life.”

“You’re an immoral brute.”

“Brute perhaps, immoral… no.” He slid his hand from her waist up to her breast and squeezed.

She gasped. No one had touched her there before. “Get off…”

To her surprise he did as she’d asked, running his hand up to her throat and resting over it with a mild pressure. “If I had no morals, I would let my fellow crew have you, right now, right here. A pretty little thing, feisty and in need of taking, would be a treat, get me in their good sights.”

“No, please.” She’d rather die, right here, right now than give her virginity to a bunch of barbarians.

Closing her eyes, she prayed for deliverance. Surely God had something else in her destiny.

“But I’m not the monster you think I am… or not quite.” He suddenly released her. But quick as a flash he wrapped his arm around her waist and spun.

“You’re a monster,” she managed as she half walked, was half dragged to the shoreline.

It was then she saw it. The snake’s head. Evil beady eyes and a forked tongue, it sat high and proud on the prow of the longboat looming down at her through the darkness.

A bolt of nausea gripped her. The snake’s head from her dreams. It was real. Now she was sure her dreams really meant something. She’d doubted in the past, because no one believed her. But this was so vivid, so real. There was nothing dreamlike about it. What she was seeing was more than imagination, fanciful thinking; it was a vision turned into reality.

The cold waves were inching toward her as Halvor steered her to the boat. There were already people on it, cowering in the sheltered sides beneath the curved prow.

A Viking with an extra-large horned helmet and a fur jacket shouted at them. Duna didn’t understand what he said.

He was answered with a shout from a man to Duna’s left.

Halvor’s friend laughed. “And the sooner the ale is drunk the better.”

“Aye.” Halvor chuckled. “And the sooner we are home the better. These unplanned raids are pushing the boat to tipping.”

“So leave me here.” Duna shoved at him, but it was like pushing on a stone wall, her effort had no reaction.

“We have room for a little one.”

Suddenly she was swung into the air again, but this time pressed up against Halvor’s chest. “I don’t want to come with you. Leave me here, so I can attend to my husband’s burial.”

Halvor paused. “You don’t have a husband.”

“I do.” She slammed her fist onto the side of his helmet. It hurt her hand. “Take me back to the village.”

“No.” He waded through the ebb and flow of the waves, toward the longboat from her nightmares. “If you had a husband you wouldn’t be living alone with your father. You’re lying to me, Celtic wench.”

“I’m not. Take me back to my home.”

“You will soon have a new home.” He shoved her forward and she lost the heat of his furred tunic and chest.

She found herself plonked, without ceremony, into the longboat. There were other people all around her, soon-to-be slaves; women and men.

“Sit. Stay.” Halvor jabbed his finger at her. “If you go overboard you’ll be going to whatever Valhalla you believe in.”

She glared at him, her face twisted into an unattractive grimace. She didn’t care. This man had taken her as if she were worth no more than a barrel of ale or a sack of grain. “I wish a dagger for your heart.”

He leaned over the side of the boat, which was being jostled by the waves now, and clasped his hand beneath her chin. “A dagger to my heart, eh? I guess we’ll see about that, wench.”





Chapter Four


Halvor stared into the defiant dark eyes that belonged to the girl who wished him dead. She was a feisty little Celt, there was no denying that. She’d wriggled and squirmed and thrown her feet and fists around as if she were some wild animal captured in a snare.