“Open your mouth wider, Mirana.”
She did, with no hesitation. When his tongue touched her, feathery light, she eased and waited, no longer feeling as calm as she had just a few moments before, but knowing herself content to wait, to learn about him slowly, to let the warmth in her belly build and build. She would be what he wanted her to be and in opening to him, yielding completely to him, she knew she would be repaid tenfold. He was that kind of man.
Rorik smiled against her mouth. She felt it and opened her eyes. He drew back and said, “Feel my hand.”
He lifted her breast in his hand. Then the other. He weighed them, caressed her nipples until he felt her heartbeat quicken and quicken even more. With no more words he brought her up onto her knees facing him, and unfastened the rich silver brooches at her shoulders, removed her tunic, then lifted her gown over her head. She wore only a shift, soft and virgin white, and it too was quickly gone.
“Are you cold?”
She wasn’t cold but she was naked and he wasn’t. Still she sat before him quietly, knowing he was looking at her, but she didn’t move, just sat there, her palms open on her thighs, the moonlight spilling over her, making her white skin glisten. “No, but I would see you as naked as I am.”
He laughed, then rose swiftly and pulled off his clothes. Never, she thought, looking at him, had she seen a more beautiful man. His size didn’t frighten her or the thickness of his sex that was swelled with his need for her. It pleased her, this need of his, just as his strength gratified the deepest part of her.
“You will tell me what to do,” she said, and held out her arms to him.
“Nay,” he said, as he kissed her throat and her shoulders, “I will show you.”
She felt him against her hip. She knew a man’s lust drove him beyond his own best intentions, beyond thought, for she’d seen it in Einar and other men as well, and Rorik as well, although not this time. She wanted to touch his man’s flesh, but when her fingers found him, and she drew in her breath at the wonder of how he felt, he gently pushed them away. “No, sweeting. Not this time. No, don’t look uncertain. Your touch is miraculous and it moves me far too much. I am not content to wait for that pleasure, but I will.”
He parted her thighs and eased himself between them, then rose to his knees, parting her legs impossibly wide, and wider still, placing them over his own thighs. She didn’t pull back, either her mind or her body. She waited, relishing the pulsing warmth deep in her belly. He looked at her and there was hunger in his eyes and a knowledge that she knew he would give her and soon. When he still didn’t come into her, she lifted her hips. He smiled as he lowered his mouth to her.
When she screamed her release, Rorik breathed in deeply, the clean sea air and her scent filling his nostrils. He continued to stroke her with his tongue, widen her with his fingers, and delve deep, feeling her smallness and how she accommodated to him. When he thrust into her, sinking high and deep, and she again lifted her hips to bring him deeper, he felt the tremors in her body and closed his eyes, feeling the power in her, the need, and that need was for him. He kissed her mouth and knew she tasted herself on him and he reveled in that too because he heard the soft keening from deep in her throat, felt the gentle spasms squeeze him, draw on him, pull him deeper into her, holding him so tightly he knew he couldn’t bear it much longer. He heaved himself into her to his hilt and felt her soft flesh hold him tightly. When he felt his own release overtaking him, he eased his hand between them to find her.
He shouted his climax to the clean sky, his throat working madly, no thought in his mind to his men who probably heard his cries. All of it went upward, to the brilliant stars that studded the darkness, then he covered her mouth with his when she again came to pleasure.
“I pleased you,” he said, a man’s satisfaction deepening his voice, as he eased his weight off her. She tried to hold him, but he kissed her and pulled away. “I wish you to remain round and soft for me. If I continue to lie on you, you will become as flat as the blankets.”
She laughed, her breath warm and soft against his shoulder. “I much enjoyed that, my lord. Aye, you satisfied me enough.”
“Are you certain, Mirana? Do you swear you did not howl like a madwoman just to please me, that you did not feign your release with me, that you only pretended to enjoy my mouth on you?”
She hit his arm and felt the deep muscles flex beneath her palm. She looked away from him, her lashes hiding her eyes. She whispered, her voice meek and submissive. “Ah, ’tis the truth, Rorik. I didn’t wish to disappoint you. I wanted you to feel proud of yourself and your prowess. I pretended and prayed it would be sufficient. Did I succeed?”
He laughed against her mouth, forcing her face upward to him. “I will never let you go. Never.” And he kissed her again. When he entered her but moments later, she was surprised to feel the building warmth in her belly. She had felt so languid, so without any desire to move, but she welcomed him and his man’s sex deep inside her, and moaned in his mouth even as he pressed himself against her belly. This time, it was she who found him and touched him, drawing him deeper into her, caressing him until he moaned and heaved over her.
“There is no other man like you,” she said against his throat, licking his flesh, then lightly kissing him, then licking him again and again, tasting him, taking all of him into her body and her mind.
32
THEY WERE SO close to home, so very close, not more than a day away. Mirana stared at the gathering storm clouds, shivering from the sudden chill wind as she watched them roil overhead, gathering thicker and thicker, knitting the sky into blackness. The sun had been shining brightly just that morning, not more than two hours before, sparkling off the water in its brightness, the air warm, filled with the tangy sea salt and the scent of the dozen herring the men had caught.
She shivered again, drawing her cloak more closely around her. It was a queen’s cloak and she hated it. She fingered the soft royal blue wool, and wished she could throw it over the side of the longboat. It was the only piece of clothing she had brought with her. Hormuze had wanted to give her much more, for, he’d said, the clothes had been made for her, and Sira was too large, after all, but Mirana hadn’t wanted to wear any reminders of her time at Clontarf. She didn’t want to be reminded of her few hours as the queen of Ireland, a position she prayed Sira would enjoy. She wondered how Sira had reacted when she’d awakened and seen Hormuze and her dark brown hair. Would she believe she looked coarse? That memory made her smile, but just for a moment.
The cloak, despite its black memories, felt quite warm. She would give it to Entti, she thought, once they’d returned home. To Hawkfell Island. She looked toward Rorik, who was speaking to each of his men, then shouting to Hafter, who was captaining the other longboat. He’d told her he’d brought the flat-bottomed longboats because he’d known he would need them to navigate on the shallow river Liffey. The warships were steeper, curving up higher on the sides, and sat deeper in the water. The warships would have fared much better in the storm that was surely coming.
All the men were readying the longboats and themselves for the storm, their movements efficient, no time wasted in talk.
She saw that Rorik was now frowning. He knew the storm would be bad. She wondered if he would take them ashore for the duration of it even as she remembered her own adventure with Entti when the storm had burst upon them. It seemed a lifetime ago. She said her question aloud to Gunleik.
“Nay,” Gunleik said, shaking his head, even as he spat upon his finger and held it up into the wind. “This area is more dangerous than the storm. There are rocks just below the surface and dangerous currents. We cannot land here. We must ride out the storm just beyond the breakers. Rorik is pulling us closer right now, but he must take it slowly. It is a pity that we are here when the storm will strike, but the gods willed it so.”
“I do not approve the gods’ will in this case,” Mirana said tartly. “I know of no evil we’ve committed.”
br /> Indeed, Mirana doubted the gods would waste their time on such a consideration as the exact location of two longboats, but she didn’t remark upon it. She looked toward the other longboat, just to their stern, not ten feet away. Einar was still bound, doubtless still lying on the planking. She wondered, briefly, if he were frightened. With the storm, he might drown with the water flooding into the longboat, and he must realize that. She rather hoped he would. She knew and now accepted that Rorik would take Einar back to Norway, to his father, who would call together a meeting of the thing, and that would bring together all the Thanes and lesser nobles, even King Harald, and Einar would be judged. She knew too that Rorik would demand that he fight Einar to the death. And thus it would end. She wanted that ending more than anything.
Sometimes she wanted to strike her husband for his endless honor. She would have preferred sticking a knife in Einar’s ribs. Rorik had said calmly, though Mirana had heard the banked rage in his voice, “I should prefer to kill him slowly, with my bare hands, but I should also like to see the man who killed so many of our family and our people stand before us and be judged. I will kill him, Mirana, but in a fight that will be fair.”
“You speak of justice, Rorik, but it is a cold thing, many times a thing apart from men and women. It perhaps satisfies the mind, but never the soul. Thus, my lord, I believe you are really doing this for your father and mother, aren’t you?”
He was surprised, his eyes narrowing on her face. “How can you know me so well?”
“I pray that I will come to know you in every way a woman can know a man. Can I not now know some of what is in your mind, in your heart even now? Aye, I believe you want to help your parents forget their hatred. You want them to look forward, to recognize and cherish what they still have, what they will have in the future. You want them to face their enemy and see that Einar is only a man, a cruel man, a man who deserves death for what he did, and he will get it.”
“Aye,” he said only, and kissed her.
“I would go with you to this meeting of all the Thanes,” she said, but he hadn’t replied, merely kissed her again, and walked to the stern of the longboat to speak to Kron.
She raised her face now to the roiling black clouds overhead. A raindrop hit her forehead. She heard one of the men shout. It was beginning. She huddled in her cloak.
She heard Rorik’s voice over the loud slamming waves against the sides of the longboats, calm and steady, and knew all the men responded to him and were calmed by him. But would it be enough?
All of them were soaked. She had spent the past hours scooping water out of the bottom of the longboat in a leather water pouch, little enough to do when all the men were nearly beyond exhaustion, their minds closed against the growing pain in their bodies. Gunleik had been seized with violent back spasms that morning and had soon run out his strength, and thus wasn’t at the oars. He, like Mirana, was trying to scoop water out of the longboat before it swamped.
She felt her stomach rise in her throat when the longboat slammed down into a deep trough, burrowing deep and deeper still, sloughing through it, making it seem as if they would touch the bottom of the sea itself, yet staying intact, a miracle, Mirana thought, and briefly closed her eyes in prayer.
Again and again, the longboats were hurled to the bowels of the sea only to be thrown nearly straight up to catch the peaks of yet another wave, a wave many times as tall as an oak tree.
The sky was dark, but it couldn’t yet be night. She heard a strangled yell, men’s shouts and curses, and knew one of the men had fallen overboard.
She saw Rorik through a blur of rain hunkered over the side of the longboat, searching for his man, but there was nothing but the frigid water, frothing wildly, drawing back only to surge forward. It was then they had no choice. They needed another man at the oars. They released Einar and set him in the lost warrior’s place. He was strong, she’d give him that, and he bent to the job, pulling and drawing with all his strength. She saw that Hafter had tied him loosely to the oar. Then she saw him no more for the other longboat was lost in a bank of fog and heavy rain.
Time passed. She continued to bail out the water from the bottom of the boat, her movements steady and rhythmic. Still the water covered her feet, and she wondered how much longer the longboats could hold together.
Through her thoughts and her fear, she heard Rorik’s voice, never changing, always encouraging, steady, so very steady. She focused on his voice and continued her movements, filling up the water skin, lifting it, then dumping it over the side, only to have a wave of frigid water strike her hand and her face. It seemed for naught, but she had to do something.
Suddenly, it was over. From one moment to the next, the force of the winds died, the slashing rain became a sullen drizzle, and the longboats ceased their endless dipping and dragging.
It was over.
The late afternoon sun came through the quickly dispersing clouds. She heard the men shouting, cries of Odin All-Father and Thor and Frey on their lips.
She merely smiled, knowing that all but one of them had survived the storm. She saw Rorik as he spoke to each of the men, then heard him shout to Hafter in the other longboat, which was rapidly drawing close to theirs once again.
She saw Einar hunched over an oar, his head down.
“We will land,” Rorik called out.
Gunleik, bowed forward from the pain in his back, looked up and nodded.
“Aye,” he said to Mirana. “It is safe now. There are no treacherous shoals or half-buried rocks hereabouts to tear us apart. The storm pushed us farther east, beyond them. Thank the gods and your husband, we’ve survived.”
“Aye,” she said. “My husband is the best of men. As for you, Gunleik, I will try to find a spirl plant, ’twill help the spasms. It normally grows close to shore.”
He patted her hand. “We’re alive,” he said. “What is a miserable little back pain?”
Both longboats headed toward the stretch of beach only some one hundred yards distant. It had trees growing close to the shore, and this worried Rorik, for trees meant cover for possible enemies, but he knew there was little choice. The men were exhausted, he felt himself as if he would fall over any moment, his muscles cramped from the hours at the oars, but the longboats had to be inspected for damage. He scanned the shore for any kind of movement. He saw nothing.
Suddenly, with no warning, Einar leapt from the longboat, the rope that had bound him loosely to the oar he was rowing now dangling from his wrist. He hit the water and disappeared from view.
Rorik turned to Mirana. “Can he swim?”
“Like an otter,” she said, and jumped up to lean over the side.
As Rorik pulled off his boots and checked his knife at his wide leather belt, he shouted, “Hafter, keep watch! All of you, hold steady. We must wait until he shows himself!” Rorik held close to the side, preparing himself to jump.
Finally, Einar came to the surface a good twenty yards from the longboat, close to shore, far too close to shore. “After him,” Rorik shouted, and the men bent to their oars.
The longboats were flat-bottomed and could slide through the most shallow water, but Rorik knew that once Einar broke the surf, he would disappear into those trees and he would never find him. He would slip away. Even though Einar had no weapon, even though if he did escape he would very probably be killed by animals or men, Rorik couldn’t accept it and he knew he would never be able to accept it. Einar would always be there, alive, always alive, even if it were only in his mind. If he didn’t see him die, he would be immortal. He had to catch him. He had to see him die.
He cursed his damned promise of justice. He should have killed the bastard, strangled him at Clontarf until the cord had cut through to the back of his neck. But he hadn’t, no, he’d wanted to be a hero to his parents, to show them that he, their brave son, had succeeded, had brought back Einar as one would the lowliest slave.
He would fail, he smelled it, felt it in the deepest part of him.
He watched Einar slough through the waves, no exhaustion showing in his arms as they sliced through the water smoothly and evenly, with great power.
He couldn’t wait. He was stronger. He was the better swimmer, he had to be. Ah, but he was exhausted, his arms so tired, the muscles so knotted, occasionally seized with cramps, he wondered if he could lift them, much less set them to churning through the water. If only they’d set Einar to the oars at the beginning of the storm, if only . . . but he’d taken his place there for less than an hour. His strength had barely been tapped.
Rorik made up his mind in that instant. Even as drained as he was, he knew he could outswim the longboat, for the waves were high and the currents pulling strangely. He had to. There was no choice. He had to catch Einar.
He dove overboard. The last thing he heard before his head went underwater was Mirana’s shout. He knew that Gunleik and Hafter would keep her safe, no matter the outcome.
“By all the gods, no!”
But Gunleik was too late. Mirana dove over the side, wearing only her shift. All attention had been on Einar and Rorik. He yelled and yelled, but she was gone from sight for several moments. When she surfaced, he was astounded that she was so very close to her husband and Einar.
He’d never before seen a woman swim as quickly and efficiently as she. Gunleik knew she could swim, her father had taught her, but he’d never imagined anything like this.
She was gaining on the men. To his further astonishment, he saw her swing away from them and make for shore at an angle. She beat the men by at least twenty yards. She struggled through the surf and onto the hard black sand. She didn’t pause to rest, but ran to the nearest tree and began searching frantically.