Surrender My Love (20 page)

His eyes opened, unfocused. His hand lifted to the back of her head. And before she could even gasp, she was being drawn to him and kissed.

It was like nothing she had ever experienced or ever dreamed of experiencing, the wonder of it felt clear to her toes. Gone was her vexation. There was no room for it with so many new emotions clamoring for attention. His lips brushed back and forth across hers, nudging, pulling, pressing, then opening a pathway for his tongue to enter.

Moist heat, silken-smooth, and a new swirl of sensations. Erika forgot to breathe. She also forgot about bracing herself and caved in against his chest.

That was probably what brought him to full wakefulness, because suddenly he was thrusting her away from him, and rolling back, she rolled right off the bed.

He sat up to glare down at her where she sat stunned on the floor. “By Thor’s sacred hammer, what in the name of creation were you doing?”

“
Me?
” She scrambled to her feet, so indig
nant she could barely speak. “All I did was try to wake you. You were having a bad dream—actually, it was probably a good dream that you just did not like.”

He drew the back of his hand across his mouth to add further insult to injury. “I recall no dream.”

Erika didn’t answer until she had likewise wiped her mouth clean of the taste of him. Then, scathingly: “Too bad.”

“I warn you, wench—”

“Do not bother,” she snapped. “You are at fault here, not I. And the next time you force a kiss on me, be warned—I will use my teeth.”

Hot color flooded his face, he was so angry—and affronted. “You may be assured there will be no next time. I would rather kiss a pig’s ass.”

That turned Erika’s face the same shade as his. “You remark my sentiments exactly.”

He threw back his blanket to leave the bed. Erika was too furious to retreat this time. Her hands went to her hips. Her chin jutted forward. That he was wearing his braies, as he had been ever since he had begun his daily exercising earlier in the week, was a blessing, but she would not have backed down had it been otherwise.

“What occurs here?”

Erika was never to learn what might have happened. After she calmed down later, she was to be grateful for that. Just now, she and Selig both turned to find his mother standing in the open doorway. She looked none too pleased.

Selig lay back against his pillows again. “A small difference of opinion, Mother,” he said on a sigh.

“Small?” She snorted. “More like loud. But I am glad to see you are able to extend yourself.”

He turned onto his elbow. His hopeful look was almost comical. “My confinement is at an end, then?”

“I suppose it must be.” She did not sound too pleased about that either. “Though I will allow a good deal of your weight has returned. You even look normal.”

Selig grinned. “What has granted me this reprieve that you are less than happy about?”

“Word has come that the king arrives within the hour. Royce feels he will wish to speak with you about the attack on your party that lost him one of his bishops. So if you feel well enough to come down to the hall—”

“I was well enough for that last week.”

“It has not been quite a fortnight, Selig. If I had my way—”

“I know, Mother,” he interrupted again. He was still grinning. “And I will take an undue amount of time to dress so I do not wear myself out. Mayhap you should leave so I can begin. I am sure it will take the whole of the hour before Alfred arrives.”

Her look was skeptical, but she left just the same. And Selig practically flew across the chamber to his coffer.

Erika clucked her tongue. “You should be ashamed of yourself, lying to your mother.”

“Why?” he shot back, and he was
still
grinning, their own argument forgotten. “When she knows very well I will be downstairs within ten minutes. Contrary to what you think, ’tis almost impossible to fool that sweet lady.”

Chapter 24

S
ELIG HAD JUDGED
correctly the short time it would take for him to adorn himself, yet when he was finished, he looked as if it should have taken him hours. He was, without question, utterly magnificent. Tanned deerskin leggings were cross-gartered with black leather; the white, sleeveless tunic was cinched tight at his waist by a wide leather belt with a Norse, dragon’s head buckle.

His black, soft-skinned boots were trimmed with white fur, as was the short black mantle that was pinned to his shoulders with golden clasps. His matching arm rings coiled around thick biceps with, again, dragon’s heads on each end, these flashing with small ruby eyes. They fit snugly, proving solid flesh had returned to his thick arms as well as filled out his sunken belly.

Etched on the solid gold disk around his neck were three wolves progressing in size, each with rubies for eyes. The gold chain that held it was much thicker than Erika’s chains, and probably twice as heavy.

His black hair, thickened and shining from a recent washing—she had had to endure yet another of his baths just that morn, though she had kept her eyes on the wall as usual—floated over his shoulders with his movements. The contrast with the white tunic was stunning.

Erika could not help staring, and forgot her resolve to avoid conversations not forced on her. “Do the wolves bear some significance to your family?” she asked him.

He didn’t even glance at her as he slid a ring on his finger. Another snug fit attesting to his recovery, at least in strength.

“Nay. I merely had two as pets when I was a child,” he replied.

She didn’t find that so strange. She had brought a wolf cub home herself when she was eight years. Her father had forbidden her to keep it.

“Then why three on the medallion?”

“The third replaced the other two after old age took them.”

“The third still lives, then?”

“Aye,” he said, and came to stand in front of her. “Now unwrap your chain, wench.”

She guessed his intent and objected. “You need not chain me to the wall just because you will not be here. Lock the door instead.”

He smiled, that blindingly beautiful smile that warned she wouldn’t like his answer. “Since when do you think the choice is yours, wench?”

This was because of the argument they had had, and that damned kiss. She knew it was.

“Nay, you are wrong.” He was back to reading minds—or expressions. “You come below with me.”

It was the last thing she had expected to hear from him. “To the hall?”

“Aye.”

A small bit of freedom, however temporary. It was a reward, so she ought to distrust it. She was too delighted to be suspicious.

She unwrapped her “necklace” and handed the end to him. He didn’t take it, reached for the other end at her neck instead. The weight was gone in a second, without any exertion on his part.

“So your strength has returned completely.” Her remark came out almost breathlessly.

“Not quite, but enough,” he replied, his pleasure so very obvious.

And in the next instant, the chain was attached again to her neck ring. She understood then that he had only been testing his ability to open and close the locking link himself so that Ivarr would no longer have to come each day to do it.

Her disappointment was palpable, making her barely notice that his hand slid down the chain, knocking hers off in the process, until he reached the end, which he wrapped around his fist. He left the room then, pulling her along behind him.

She didn’t bother to protest, at least not until they had reached the stairs. When he started down them, still with her chain in his hand, she drew back, stretching it taut between them.

“You can release the chain now. I—”

He turned, lifting a brow at her. “Did I not warn you to get used to this?”

She frowned. “I do not understand.”

“You thought you would have the same pain I was given, Erika No Heart?” The smile again—the warning. “Nay, I could not do that to a woman, even you. There are other ways, such as the pain of humiliation and shame.” He yanked, and she stumbled down the steps, nearly into him. “Do not lag behind again.”

Not torture, but torture nonetheless. So now she knew her fate, what he had intended all along. No normal revenge. Nothing so simple as that for her. Just shame and degradation at every turn, until her pride became a meaningless thing. She would rather have had the physical pain, but the choice was not offered to her. He had made up his mind—Nay, she would not be defeated by this. He could force humiliation on her, but she wasn’t going to hand over her pride to him. She would retain it, somehow.

He continued down the stairs. Though she loathed doing it, she stayed so close to him that there could be no question in anyone’s mind but that she followed him willingly, making it appear ridiculous, his holding of her “leash.”

Color still flooded her cheeks, uncontrollably, as soon as they became visible to the hall. But her head remained high. And she did not avoid eye contact with anyone, including his family, who awaited him at a grouping of tables near a mammoth keg of ale.

Lady Brenna looked on in disapproval. Kristen was even more tight-lipped, actually outraged. Lord Royce was amused. And Selig’s father showed no expression at all. He rarely did when he looked at her.

As for the rest of the people in the hall who stopped what they were doing to follow their progress, Erika had to console herself that, being so close to Selig’s magnificence, she would be all but invisible herself, especially in the drab servant’s clothes she had been given to wear. The dun-gray chainse was inches too short, revealing clearly the shackles at her ankles. It was also much too tight for her ample breasts, though that tightness was hidden by the brown outer gown that was much too loose, and belted with a strip of rope.

He led her directly to that leisure area where his family waited. All were sitting except Garrick, who, with one foot set upon the end of a bench, stood with his elbows braced against his thigh. Selig, as casually as if he had been there earlier and was now returning—alone—sat on the bench opposite them. Given no specific instruction, Erika remained standing stiffly at his back.

Kristen stood up as he sat down, probably because the glare she was giving him was much more effective from a superior height. “This is intolerable, Selig,” she began.

“No inquiry after my health, sister?”

She actually seemed to swallow whatever she had been about to add, to say instead, gritting out every word, “Is your pain gone?”

“Mostly.”

Her hands slammed against the table as she leaned forward. “Then I repeat, this is intolerable, and do not ask me
what
, you brainless jackdaw, for you know very well. Do you mean to draw her to the king’s notice?”

That got her an unconcerned shrug. “’Tis not unusual to see a slave enchained.”

Erika flinched at that and turned aside so she might not hear more. But whatever Selig added was in Celtic, which Kristen also switched to. Since Erika understood none of it, she ignored them for the moment.

“A male slave, mayhap not,” Kristen was agreeing. “But the last female chained here was myself. And even should Alfred not notice her, what is to stop her from requesting aid of him? And do not think he would not listen to a Dane. He would
especially
listen to a Dane.”

Royce eagerly joined the argument at that point. Because Kristen had not quite forgiven him for the spanking she had received, and because he had been given more cold shoulders than his passionate nature could tolerate comfortably, it behooved him to take her side in this. That her reasoning was valid was less important.

“She is right,” he told his brother-in-law. “Alfred could well ask you to release the lady. And ’tis not wise to refuse a king without excellent reason.”

“My reason would be sound,” Selig insisted.

“As unfair as it might seem, kings do not consider revenge reasonable.”

“Particularly when the peace of their realms could be threatened by it,” Kristen added.

“And they do not like losing able-bodied men to personal wars,” Royce added still more, “when they need those men for their own.”

The argument continued apace. Brenna saw no need to join it. Neither did Garrick, so he took the opportunity to move to Erika’s side.

“So he has made a pet slave of you?”

The word “pet” was even more galling than “slave” to Erika, for that was exactly what Selig was doing, treating her like an animal, a
pet
for his amusement, a creature not violent or dangerous, but one too dumb to be allowed out without the guidance of a leash.

It was the first time Selig’s father had spoken to her, though he had visited Selig in his chamber quite often. She wondered now if he was as bad as the son, to point out her humiliating position. His expression told her nothing, was still unreadable.

“He thinks he has enslaved me.”

Her answer caused Garrick to laugh softly. “Those were my wife’s sentiments exactly. She would never admit I owned her either.”

Erika was incredulous. Both mother
and
daughter at one time enslaved by the men they had married? It was no wonder the idea had come to Selig so readily. He was merely following family tradition.

The thought was a chilling one, but at least she would not end up like his mother and sister, wed to her captor. There was as much
chance of that happening as there was of her gaining her freedom within the hour. None.

“But soon it was she who owned me, heart and soul.” Garrick was still reminiscing. “Do you know how it was done, wench?”

“I care not—”

“With an indomitable will and pride that would not bend. She was fire in a land of ice, with a warrior’s heart—and a warrior’s skill. She captured my admiration first, then my heart. Will your pride bend?”

She really wished he had kept his silence where she was concerned. “Nay,” she said stiffly. “But for myself, not to impress him.”

“Your anger is understandable.”

“Anger is but a small part of what I feel toward your son,” she informed him.

His gaze turned thoughtful. “’Tis regrettable, his treatment of you—and unusual.”