Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 59320 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 297(@200wpm)___ 237(@250wpm)___ 198(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59320 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 297(@200wpm)___ 237(@250wpm)___ 198(@300wpm)
“What are you doing?” Erik asked, stepping forward automatically.
Rolf paid him no attention and began to slide his hands up her legs. Erik reached forward and pulled back at his arm.
“She’s mine,” Erik said.
Rolf raised his brows but removed his hands. “I’m sorry, what? She’s yours?”
Erik pressed his lips together in a thin white slash and nodded.
Rolf stood up and kicked the dead girl away with his boot. “Virginal Erik has chosen a bride?”
“Not a bride,” Erik said in a tight voice. Erik was definitely not a virgin, but he didn’t appreciate Rolf’s often patronizing tone when it came to his love life.
“Ah, a whore, then.” Rolf wiped his hands on his shirt and looked back at the girl Erik had knocked out. “No doubt a very fine whore.”
“Yes. A whore. It’s only fair I get my own. The rest of the men have theirs.”
“Those are but serving wenches.”
“But they serve more than just beer.”
Rolf laughed to himself, dark eyes twinkling. “That they do, old friend. Well, I suppose there is no harm in keeping her around—for now. But I don’t like feeling left out; you know that. You can take the girl, but when I get bored, I’ll take her from you. We can share for a bit, I suppose, but when she’s mine, she’s mine. And I can…dispose…of her anyway I please.”
“Of course. You are Rolf the Walker, our leader.”
“And you are Erik the Axe. Speaking of, I watched the way you took the head off that young peasant out there. Nice to see you still have some of the old ways in you.”
He patted Erik hard on the back and looked up to the smoke in the sky. “Come on, now. Get the whore if it won’t slow you down. We have an estate to conquer.”
Rolf ran out to the lane and hollered over the roaring flames at the rest of the fleet, the warrior cry to end all warrior cries.
Erik turned his attention back to the knocked-out girl in front of him. He felt like he was making a huge mistake, that he should just leave her there, but then she might not wake up before the fire spread, and she would be consumed too. Oh, why didn’t she run when he told her to? He knew his French was a bit rusty, but he had learned enough the last time he had been in France.
She had been afraid, and it was that fear that spoke to some hidden place that remained dark and unexplored inside him. Not only that, but there was a hint of defiance in her emerald eyes, a fire that drew him to her. What he assumed was her whole family had just been killed, her peasant life disappearing by the second, yet there was something in her that compelled her to keep fighting. That was why she didn’t run.
And that was why Erik was curious to possess her. Even in an unconscious state, her smooth skin sun-browned by working in the fields, shapely figure that hinted at fertility and health compared to most starving serfs, and long hair the color of roasted chicory, the girl oozed a sensuality Erik couldn’t ignore.
He would have her, and if he was strong enough, he’d one day set her free.
He slid the sword into his belt, then knelt and lifted her up into his arms like a ragdoll before joining the stampede of snarling Viking warriors heading up the hill.
Chapter 5
Cherine
Idreamt I was a young child, standing outside in the snow drifts, shivering as my mother’s cries filled the still night air. She was holed up in her room with the local herbwitch and Madame Fornier, and I was outside with my father and brothers, all of us pacing nervously through the snow. Giselle was the only one allowed inside while my mother gave birth to Odette. I didn’t understand why I had to stand out there in the cold—I wasn’t a boy like the rest of them—but my mother insisted, sputtering something about being impure.
At four years old, I didn’t understand what "impure" meant or why it mattered, so I kept quiet, leaning against my father’s stiff arm while we waited silently for what felt like hours.
Finally, when dawn was close to breaking and my fingers felt like they were frozen, Madame Fornier called us in.
The warmth of the fire felt like heaven after being ousted into the cold. All of us scuttled inside, soaking up the heat, relieved by its embrace.
“You may see her now,” Madame Fornier said, her grin eerie in the dim light. She opened the door to the bedroom, and little me was the first to step in.
The first thing I noticed was the blood. There was shiny, wet blood everywhere. It bathed the hay bed, stained the walls, and stuck to my tiny boots like red mud. The second thing I noticed was my mother, sitting in the middle of this blood bath, cradling something small and still in her arms.