Annis knew what the Norseman was hoping to accomplish. If he could get her to see him as a person, a man who was part of a family with his own needs and goals, then she would naturally feel less inclined to see him meet his end. It was a clever move, though not particularly inventive. The problem was that she already saw him in such a manner. Her guilt had forced her to ever since he had first shown himself on the shores of Glannoventa. Perhaps it was that she was not particularly good at holding people prisoner, or perhaps it was that her prisoner was him—a man she was coming to know as endlessly fascinating. Either way, she was faltering in her bid to keep herself from feeling anything where he was concerned.
‘What is it that you want to know, precisely?’ A need she did not understand made her talk to him. All the while she knew that this path led to danger, but she could not stop herself.
‘You seem to have been with Wilfrid and his family a long time. Why did your parents send you away?’
It was an easy enough question to answer without allowing him to get too close to her. Rolling on to her back, she stared at the ceiling which was quite dark in the dim light. ‘I grew up in the east with my family. My father’s sister, Merewyn, lived with us. Because he was quite a bit older than she, my family took her in when their mother died. We were very close when I was quite young.’ In many ways, Merewyn had been a mother to her when her own mother had been busy with the other children and running the household. ‘One morning, a group of Danes visited our shores. It was a raiding party. They burned and looted, taking anything of value they could find. One of them took a liking to Merewyn, so he took her, too.’
‘Ah!’ He said it with such satisfaction and confidence that Annis was compelled to raise up on her elbows to look at him. ‘Now I understand why you despise me so much.’
‘I do not—’ She broke off abruptly. It would not do to allow him to understand her true feelings, that she was coming to admire him and hoped for a way out of this mess they were in without his bloodshed.
‘You do not…?’ He asked the question, but his eyes told her that he knew what she had meant to say. Everything had changed between them in the space of the past hour. She did not know how or why and could not name the many ways that it had, but it had.
‘I do not despise all Danes or Norse.’
He grinned. ‘I vow that I have not come here to pillage and take you home with me.’
The queer little flutter in her belly had no right to be there in response to the idea of being pillaged and taken home by him. It was a terrible thought, for to belong to him would make her little more than his property, but it made itself known regardless. ‘Of course you have not.’ She sniffed and laid back down to stare at the ceiling, her palm going to her belly to calm it.
‘What happened after that?’
‘My parents sent us all away, hoping to avoid disaster should the Danes return. I was sent to Wilfrid because he and my father had already been arranging a marriage with Wilfrid’s oldest son. We were betrothed with the promise that I would not wed Grim until I was older.’
‘What happened with the Danes?’ His expression had gone pensive, as if he were evaluating their actions. ‘They must have returned.’
‘The Danes returned in the spring, as expected. Jarl Eirik took over our home and my father was sent as a representative to the King. He had no choice in the matter.’
‘And what of Merewyn?’
Secretly pleased that he would concern himself with her, Annis smiled. ‘She happily married her Dane, Jarl Eirik, and they still live there, raising their children.’
‘It is becoming clearer now why Jarl Eirik would be so adamant about you marrying. You are his relation and his responsibility.’
She shrugged, not particularly interested in discussing that topic again. ‘Grim has been gone for several years now and I have managed to avoid Jarl Eirik’s decree that I marry. I imagine that I can hold him off for a while longer.’
‘Do you not want to marry again? Have children?’ The teasing in his voice had gone. This was spoken softly and without mocking.
A cold hollow opened up in her chest as it always did when she thought of Grim and her lost babe. There had been a time when she had thought of nothing more for her life than being a good wife to him and a good mother to their children. But that had changed. With Grim’s death and Wilfrid’s poor health, more of the responsibility of running not only the household, but the larger issues in Glannoventa, had fallen to her.
Two summers past, she had organised the early summer planting. Cedric had been preoccupied with a threat to their southern border and Wilfrid had only recently been seized by another attack. It had been a small thing to gather the men and convey to them a directive she had been forced to claim had come from Wilfrid himself, then to make certain the task was followed through to the end. Small as it was, it had filled her with a sense of pride and purpose. Ever since, she had been the one to receive villagers with Wilfrid in the hall every month. When his last attack had left him disfigured, it was she who continued to meet with them, conveying his wishes and resolving disputes, often without going to Wilfrid because she was capable all on her own.
Grim had been a kind and patient husband, but he would not have allowed her such freedom and autonomy had he lived. The truth was that Annis found she quite liked making her own decisions and shouldering the responsibility of her people. If she married, she was almost certain to lose that.
Rurik’s voice broke through the silence that had fallen as she pondered his question. ‘You were right. I do not know what it is like to lose a wife and a child.’ He had obviously mistaken her silence for anger, but she was too shocked to correct him. ‘I do not know why I keep reminding you of their loss.’
It was an apology of sorts. The only type she was likely to get from him, but it was no less surprising for its abruptness. She swallowed, only to find that her tongue felt thick in her mouth and her throat had closed. Instead of responding to him directly, she finally said, ‘Why have you not married yet? You must be of age.’ He was probably around the same age Jarl Eirik had been when he had wed Merewyn, making her think that his culture was similar to hers when it came to marriage.
‘I saw no great need to rush into marriage after watching what happened with my parents, and Sigurd and his wife.’
‘Perhaps you could learn from their mistakes. Do not seduce another woman after you have wed and you can avoid their difficulties.’
He laughed. ‘Wise advice.’
She smiled. ‘I am certain Sigurd’s true wife was angry with him.’
Rurik laughed, a dry yet rich sound that made her want to make him do it again. ‘She was, and angry with my brother and me for existing.’
Her smile fled as she thought of him alone and facing her wrath. ‘What happened to you after your mother died?’
A moment of silence passed during which she dared not look at him, then he said, ‘Hilda despised our presence, but there was nothing she could do. Our father welcomed us into his home and we did our best to stay out of her way.’
She tried to imagine how it must have been to be a child whose very existence was seen as an affront to the woman in charge of his care. She could hardly do it. Her parents had been often busy and rarely tender, but Annis had always felt that she belonged with them. That she belonged in her family. She also tried to imagine what it would be like to have her husband bring home his bastard children and put them under her care. She could not. Sigurd must have been a fool.
‘Did you…?’ She thought perhaps she should not ask, but then there seemed to be no rules tonight. ‘Did you feel as if you did not belong?’
He grew silent, so much so that she could not hear his breath for a time. When she glanced at him, it was to see him staring up at the ceiling the same as her. ‘Yes,’ he finally said.
She wondered then if that was the true reason he had come all this way seeking to avenge the death of a father he had not been particularly close with. Perhaps he was hoping that it would make him belong at last. Why did that thought make her so sad when she hardly knew him at all?
A prickling heat spread over her skin and with it came clarity. She knew why the image that had come to her at dinner had sent a flutter of longing through her belly. It was not so much that belonging to him excited her, it was the idea of him belonging to her that did it. She admired him. Like her, he had harboured a deep need for vengeance to restore his family honour. He had nurtured that need for years and travelled far to see it accomplished.
Also like her, that need had been fuelled by so much more than the wish to restore honour. When the layers of that need were peeled back, the heart of it was so much more. The heart of her need had been an inability to accept the losses. Perhaps his was a hope to find his place.
No matter what it was, she could not help but admire the strength it had taken him to consider the fact that there was something more driving him forward. It was silly to give the imagining any credence. He would not belong to her and she would never belong to him. But it made her feel better to know why the thought had provoked her.
Rolling away from him on to her side, she closed her eyes and tried to find sleep.
‘You never answered my question.’ His voice had her opening her eyes. She need not ask which question he meant. She knew.
‘I do not intend to wed if I can help it. My freedom is too important to me.’ Hoping that would suffice, both for him and herself, she closed her eyes again.
* * *
Rurik awoke to the feel of a woman’s soft curves pressed against him. It had been a long time since he had awakened to such a simple pleasure, so he took a moment to enjoy her. The sweet scent of her filled his nose, wildflowers and the salt of her mingled together. He gritted his teeth, both enjoying and bracing himself for the sensation that moved through him when she shifted and pushed back, her lush bottom shoving gently against his hip. The blood thickened in his veins and his thoughts turned carnal. They seemed especially powerful because Annis was the woman in bed with him.
The attraction he felt for Annis was one that he could not deny any longer, not that he had been very good at denying it from the first. She was beautiful and strong and talking to her last night had only whetted his appetite for more of her. She was perceptive in a way that would have been unnerving if he thought he had anything to fear from her. True, he was currently chained to a bed and her prisoner, but she had obviously found it distasteful to keep him chained in that cage and saving him from Cedric’s rightful caution was the reason they were here. In this bed. Together.
He had to open his eyes because the imagery that thought provoked was too tempting. He could not lie with her and there was no sense indulging the dream. She still lay on her side, facing away from him, but at some point in the night she had covered them both with a thick blanket that they now shared. It was the only thing saving his rather obvious erection from making itself known to anyone who might walk into the room.
Shifting his hips to ease the pressure in the confines of his trousers, he disturbed her and she rolled on to her back, spilling flame-coloured hair across the bed. Whether she had released it from the intricate plaits or whether it had come loose during the night, he did not know. He only knew that it was the most fascinating colour and he itched to have it wrapped around his hands so he could feel the silk of it.
Forcing his thoughts from her and how strangely good it felt to wake up next to her, Rurik thought of what had passed between them the night before. No matter how he tried to go over the entire conversation, he kept going back to the end, when she had asked him if he had felt he had not belonged. Her startling perception had given him pause. That feeling of not belonging was one that even he had not allowed himself to dwell upon. It seemed odd that the one place he had lived his entire life, surrounded by people who had known him since birth, would not feel like home. So instead of facing that, he had found ways to simply not face it. Women were one distraction of many. He had thrown himself into training, learning to best his brothers and the older warriors from a young age. He had focused on guiding other warriors, becoming someone that his father had trusted to send out to speak on Sigurd’s behalf.
Now he realised that he had done those things not because he held a deep devotion to his people, but because he had always been looking for that moment when he might finally belong. If he became the best warrior, the trusted advisor, the one to find his father’s murderer, then it might all somehow come together.
The thought settled in his stomach like a coal, glowing and hot. His plan might not work. What if he found the men responsible and still did not belong? Not the way Brandt belonged, the oldest of the brothers. He should have come into his own and replaced Sigurd as King, but had been denied by Harald because of the taint the unavenged murders had brought to their family. The familiar anger came back to Rurik, easing the uncertainty and idea that he did not belong.
Anger was manageable. Anger was something he could hold on to and use against the world. It beat the vulnerability of doubt, so he held on to it tighter. He held on to that anger and allowed it to fuel his determination. He would find the killers and afterwards perhaps they could all find a way to help restore Brandt to his rightful place. Nothing mattered but that.
Annis shifted, one leg stretching out on the bed as she slowly started to come awake. Her foot peeked out from beneath the blanket and then a trim ankle, followed by a shapely calf, firm with muscle. Desire flooded him, warring with the anger for control. They threatened to mingle and become something he did not understand. But then she made a soft sound in the back of her throat. A sound that meant she was waking up. A sound that fascinated him. He wanted to hear it again, wanted to hear all her sounds.
Her eyelashes fluttered and she opened her eyes. To his amazement, a smile gently lit her face as she set her gaze on him. That smile softened him, taking his anger and engulfing it in the soothing embrace of hope and warmth until it was little more than an afterthought. A slow burn beneath the surface of his skin that could be attended to later.
He might have started to respond. His mouth might have turned upwards in a smile, but he could not be certain. Before he could even think, she remembered who he was and where they were and sat up with a sheepish expression on her face, pulling her leg back beneath the blanket.
‘Do not worry.’ He smirked at her. ‘I kept my hands to myself.’ He rattled the chain against the wood of the headboard for extra effect, wincing at the pain that shot through his deadened arms. It worked and she did a very bad job of hiding a grin while huffing out a breath as she swung her legs over the side of the bed.
‘Good morning, Rurik.’
His greedy eyes took in the vivid length of her hair and the soft curve of her hip as she leaned down to put her shoes on. As strange as it seemed, he was sorry to see their night end. Gaining her feet, she started to walk towards the door, but his voice halted her.
‘You will not leave me here like this all day, will you?’
She glanced at him, her eyes dropped in a hint of shyness before she gathered her reserves and met his gaze full on. She was as fascinated by him as he was by her. That subtle move proved it. His breath caught in his throat when she took a few steps towards him. It was a depraved thought, but he wanted her to peel back the blanket and crawl into the bed with him. Perhaps a few hours would be enough to slake this wild desire he felt for her. He was almost willing to give it a try, even if she was supposed to be his enemy.
‘I will send Alder to release your restraints. You can have the freedom of this chamber, but you will not be allowed outside it.’
‘And when will you grant me another audience with Wilfrid?’
She took in a wary breath and chewed the inside of her bottom lip as if she was thinking of the best way to deny him.
‘I will have the names of the assassins before I leave here,’ he warned.
‘I do not know. Last night was straining for him. I imagine rest will be best for him today,’ she said, but there was a hesitance in her tone that put him on guard.
‘Tonight, then.’ It was more demand than request.
‘I will let you know after I have seen him today. It will not do to overexert him.’ She turned swiftly as if she did not wish to discuss it any longer. He watched her leave and for the first time he wondered if there was something she was not telling him.