The Bastard (34 page)

“They do not deny what they are. They have all committed atrocities that marked the pages of time in blood.”

Unable to refute it, Lacy licked across suddenly dry lips. “Okay, fine, they’re jerks, every last one of them, but they aren’t
evil
evil. They did what they thought they had to do in a time that maybe I don’t understand. Even you said that history was wrong a lot of times. Maybe they were bad but they weren’t… I can’t call them evil, not like you mean.”

Something warm and glowing filled Sela’s gaze. She rose, took Lacy’s cheeks in her palms and placed a light kiss on her forehead.

“Thank you for seeing with your heart and not your eyes. They are my warriors, and I love them all.”

“You beat him.”

“He disobeyed and placed this team at risk. It seems cruel but it is what they understand. These men are not from your time, Lacy. They learned a different set of values, a different way of atonement.”

Still holding her face, Sela looked deep into Lacy’s eyes.

“Hear this. Though I love them all, I have not loved with any of my warriors. What you saw was not sexual pleasure. It was healing and actually quite painful for us both.”

Lacy tugged away. “Swear it?”

“On my vow as a servant to the Creator. The pain you felt as I gave you a single Breath of Life to heal your wounds was nothing. You have never died, never killed or maimed. My men, when I heal them, relive every death on their conscience. They relive their own passing in violent and vivid color. The human body processes pleasure in much the same way as pain, but there is nothing joyous in healing.”

Her heart sang. Erik hadn’t cheated. Realizing what Sela said, Lacy cringed. Erik had to relive how many deaths? How could he withstand such agony?

Sela traced her cheek, reading the horror Lacy knew must be on her face. “Vike loves you. It gives him the strength, the will to fight and endure. I don’t think it is one-sided.”

“No.” Her lips trembled. “I walked away. I hurt him. I saw it in his eyes.”

“Although it often carries great pain, hurts can be healed if you are strong enough.”

Chapter Eighteen

The melody of the ocean played against the hull of the
Sunstone
, salt wafting thick on the breeze that stirred his hair, but Vike was oblivious to it. Although the Fisher 30 had a motor, he preferred wind power, using the stars as a guide as he had so long ago. The lack of engine noises allowed the ocean to sing a song that had always soothed him. Tonight, the song was oddly eerie and only underscored that he was alone.

The
Sunstone
was his private Valhalla, his escape from everything. Though over fifteen years old, it was in excellent shape. It was the closest he could find to his own longboats and not stick out like a wolf in a sheep herd. The keel was sleek and low, though it boasted no dragon’s head on the prow. Superstitions of sea monsters and water demons were things he’d left in the past.

No sea chests lined the deck. Instead, modern padded benches invited him to sit, to rest, to soak in the ocean’s grace. Heartache prevented that but he was lured by the sea, drawn to her. Only Gen had ever been invited on board and only once. He’d puked over the side and swore to stick to firmer ground.

God, he missed Gen.

Shoving the loss away, his eyes dropped automatically to the radar screen, watching a green blip moving southward. The cargo liner was close enough he should probably turn on his lights and rev up the engine in case it barreled toward him, but frankly he couldn’t muster the energy. Today’s marine officials got their nuts in a knot whenever he tried to dock under sail alone so he had to keep the motor working, but didn’t have to use it out here on the wide stretch of endless black. He knew how to use the wind and the water to save his ass.

Too bad he never could figure out how to save his heart.

Abandoning the wheelhouse, he leaned both hands on the railing and gazed into the inky waters. His ring banged against the metal railing and he squeezed, driving the gold into his skin. He’d dug the gold ring from below deck. Other than his weapons, it was the only remnant of his former life he had. The money he’d carried he’d exchanged, invested and banked over the years until a small purse of coins had increased into a modern day fortune, supplemented in the early years with some spoils of Holy War.

His clothing had long since dry-rotted and he’d shaved the beard sometime in the 12
^th
century. It had grown back numerous times but never to the length it was when he was Awoken. His hair had gone from long to short and back again, depending on the era. His vocabulary grew and changed, morphing with the times. But this circle of gold hadn’t changed at all.

It was thick and bulky with a raised claw gripping a sun. The design left impressive cuts on anything he struck. He’d worn this piece almost daily the last ten or so years of his life. He slid the ring off and on his finger, the weight uncomfortable after all these centuries but the fit still right.

Irony crawled across his scalp. He hadn’t changed that much at all, had he? He was still as weak-willed and brittle-spined as ever when it came to a woman he loved.

Was Lacy dead yet? Had Sela killed her to keep their secrets? He’d been stupid enough to hope she could accept them, accept him for who he was, but she couldn’t. Not that he blamed her. It was too much for any mortal to understand unless they had died and been Awoken. But the fear on her face before those elevator doors had slid shut had torn something inside him, something that left him hollow. He hadn’t been strong enough to stay, to watch Sela dust her. The minute he’d woken from his healing sleep, he’d Leaped straight to the
Sunstone
.

The hair along his neck stood and he closed his eyes. He wasn’t alone any longer. His throat tightened, the salty air trapped in his lungs. Although he knew logically he could hide nothing from her, Sela had never come here before. The
Sunstone
was his haven.

Gritting his teeth, he prepared for the announcement Lacy was soul-sleeping.

“Whoa. That was really freaky and cool at the same time.”

Jerking around, he gaped in astonishment. Lacy stood with her hands stretched out as if finding her balance. Wind played with Sela’s long peachy-colored hair. She sent him a jaunty wink and Leaped out.

Lacy jumped. “Geez, don’t say good-bye or give a girl some warning or anything.”

“Lacy, what are you doing here?”

“Fighting the urge to throw up. Give me a minute.” Wiping her hands down her face, she gingerly lowered to a bench. “How can you do that all the time? It was like a roller coaster with no safety bar. My stomach’s all twitchy.”

“It gets easier.” He shook his head. What was he saying? Sela had just Leaped in with Lacy? What sense did that make?
Oh, fuck Loki, no.
Did Sela expect him to dust her? Was this more punishment? “Why did Sela bring you here?”

“Because you left your damned phone in your apartment.” Her voice carried a scold but it was light, almost teasing. “We need to talk.”

He was brain numb and simply nodded.

“I’ve been talking to the guys, trying to understand.” Determination wedged her jaw forward. “I need to hear your story, from you. Will you tell me?”

Sure, he’d love to flay the skin off his entire body and dive into the salty-ocean. Her rejection couldn’t possibly hurt that much. He fixed his eyes starboard, to the invisible horizon. “Why? You’ve already made up your mind.”

That delicate jaw jutted forward even harder. “I hate to burst your ego bubble, but I’ve never heard of Eric Bloodaxe before all this.”

“You don’t watch the History Channel much, do you? Vikings are all rage this season according to Hulu.”

“What? No, look, I’m a blank slate, Erik. Talk to me.”

A blank slate? He only wished that were true. Even if she didn’t realize it, her perceptions had been shaped by her time. The modern world’s opinion of his countrymen was skewed to say the least. The ring he still wore caught in his hair as he raked both hands through it.

“Your schooling tells you what? That all Vikings were thieves, invading villages and slaughtering everyone, raping the women and then carrying the valuables back to our homes?” His scowl actually hurt, pulling his muscles tight against the bone. “Yeah, I invaded, conquered and gloried in the spoils, but I never raped anyone. Quite frankly, I didn’t have to. To spare their gold, most women were eager to spread their legs.”

“So I was just another piece of ass?”

She was a piece of his heart, of his soul. “I never planned on fucking you.”

“But you did.” The sadness in her whisper forced him to turn away, unable to bear the hurt he’d put there.

“I told you I wasn’t good. You fell for a hero, not me. You had no idea who I am. I’m a Viking. Vikings to you are nothing but a bunch of big hairy men wearing horned hats demolishing quiet little Christian cities like animals in heat. You laugh at names like Skullsplitter and Forkbeard. We’re cartoon characters to you.”

“Wow, reality check. I didn’t realize you thought I was that shallow.”

His head snapped around, his gaze narrowing hard but she didn’t flinch. That look was one that had made grown men whimper in fear. But not Lacy, not his
valkyrja
. She merely stared, wide-eyed and letting her hurt sear down to his bones.

Moonlight caught the glistening sheen across her eyes, like stardust on the black waters. Something inside him softened. Not tears. He could fight any sword, any firearm, any weapon she chose, but never tears.

She shifted on the bench, facing the water and inhaling slowly. The tears never fell. For a soft-skinned sweetheart, she had a backbone of steel and a pride of iron. The warrior in him couldn’t help but admire her strength. The man simply fell deeper in impossible love.

No matter what Sela had said, what permission she had given, he could never ask Lacy to stay with him. It would steal what short future she had as a mortal. It was better for her if he spilled all his ugly truths out and let her shy from him, turn away in horror. She’d be alive and go on to find some other man to live her normal human life with. He already hated that nameless, faceless bastard who would claim her.

He lowered to the bench across from her, elbows braced on his knees, face trained on the deck. “What do you want to hear, Lace? That I didn’t kill my brothers? I can lie if you want.”

“I want to hear the truth, no matter how ugly.”

She didn’t know ugly. He didn’t want her to learn it. He wanted yesterday back, when she looked at him as if he were her knight in shining armor, her hero. Someone else might claim her, but he couldn’t watch her fall out of love with the image she’d created, that he’d helped create in her mind. That was beyond his strength.

“I love you.”

He flinched at her words. She loved a man who didn’t exist.

“Please, Erik, tell me.”

There were two choices. He could lie and be that man again for one more night or he could tell her the truth and kill anything she felt. So was he a selfish bastard or did he owe her the unvarnished truth?

“I was born in the year 885, a son of King Harald the Fairhair. He liked to use a band of Berserkers as the first wave in battle, the
Úlfhéðnar
, Odin’s special warriors. There was no drugged wine or hallucinogenic mushrooms or anything like that. They were just fearless and bloodthirsty.”

“Ulfhedin? Your name?”

“Berserker, singular. I’ve used a lot of names over the centuries.” He sighed. “My father sent me to live with them as a child, to learn their ways. And I did, maybe too well. I was known as
Eiríkr blóðøx,
Eric Bloodaxe, because… I didn’t have twenty brothers. I had sixteen. I killed eleven of them.”

“Why?”

A shrug spiraled pain through his Mark. “Power, land, jealousy. Does it really matter?”

“They were your brothers.”

“In blood maybe, but not in the way you think of family.”

Her love for Annie swelled in his mind and jealousy nibbled along his bones. Had he ever been loved that much by someone he shared blood with? He doubted it. Her fingers wrapped around his wrist. He looked up and caught her eyes. There was no condemnation, only confusion and yearning. That expression dug the words from his throat.

“The first was an accident. I mean, we were fighting, both drawing blood and angry. He tried to kill me and I fought back. But when my sword sank into his chest, time slowed. There was all this blood, the same blood that was inside me.”

A buried memory, one so tinged with time it was faded and soft, rose from the depths of his chest. Björn had gripped his shoulder. Their eyes met and locked. Bloody lips moved, a soundless whisper that imprinted deep inside Vike. He’d whispered
Brother
.

“I think I regretted it for a minute. I wanted him back. But we were at war over titles and land and inheritance. To mourn, even for a moment, would have opened my back to the rest of my brothers who wanted my throne. I couldn’t let that happen.”

“It was a different time,” she murmured, pulling him from memory.

“Yeah, it was. If I’d hesitated even once because we were family in name, I’d have been gutted like a deer by any of them. I was the favored son, but I didn’t know most of them well. I’d been sent away at seven to begin my training. By the time I was twelve, I’d been sent to sea to make my name. I didn’t return until I was in my early twenties.”

“Twelve?” The wind nearly covered her surprised gasp. “You were sent to sea alone at twelve?”

“I wasn’t alone. I had charge of five longships and over fifty men. I bloodied my sword within a week of sailing and earned the right to be called a man.”

Her tongue flicked out. “You were a king?”

“I sucked as a king.” He snorted. “I was a warrior, a Viking with Berserker training, taught from childhood that there was no mercy to be given. Then my father fucking named me as High King over my brothers. They hated me when he was still alive and when he died, it just painted a bull’s eye on my back.”