The Bastard (35 page)

A harsh exhale ripped from him, the memory of all that venom surging in his blood. “I hated politics then and still do. My education was all how to kill, how to fight, how to win in battle. Those things don’t create harmony. I walked away from the throne twice, but had to return and claim a crown I didn’t want.”

The air was cool but she shivered as it if were arctic. She burrowed her hands in her sweatshirt sleeves. “If you hated it, why come back?”

“Political reasons but mostly my wife.” Her face snapped up but he kept his gaze level. “She liked being queen.”

“You were married?” Palming her forehead, she sighed. “Of course you were. You told me that. I thought you were divorced.”

“No. I married Gunnhild when she was fifteen. I was almost thirty-four.”

He’d braced for her loathing, but she simply stared at the rippling waves. “I guess in your time she was considered a woman, right?”

“Yes. We had eight children together that survived infancy. History calls her the Mother of Kings. They just don’t broadcast who fathered those children very loud.”

“You had eight children?”

A spark enlivened her eyes and he cringed, knowing he was going to extinguish that light. “No, I had seventeen.”

“Seventeen?” Lacy gasped.

“There was no birth control, Lacy. Sex led to children and I never denied myself sex. The more sons a man had, the more masculine he was. I was sixty-nine when I died and had fathered fifteen sons and two daughters. I had three kids with women before I married, four with my consort, Alfhilda, and one with a house slave. I had nine with Hildy, but one was stillborn. I outlived five.”

“I can’t imagine losing a child.” Her sympathy accompanied a look that melted his bones. They froze solid when her eyes tapered. “You cheated on your wife?”

“By your definition, I suppose. There were no vows of faithfulness given at my wedding except by Gunnhild. None were expected from me, as a man. I could have taken a second wife if I wanted. No, I never hid my women from Hildy, and she raised four of their children as her own. It’s just how life worked.”

Lacy picked at some invisible spot on her sleeve. “Did you love any of them? The women?”

“Alfhilda was a good woman. I cared for her and took care of her until she died. But I loved my wife with every drop of my blood. It got me killed.”

He turned the ring on his finger, remembering his joy when Hildy had given it to him. The urge to throw the damn thing in the ocean hit and he fisted his hands to prevent it.

“What do you mean? Your wife killed you?”

“Her hand wasn’t on the sword but it was behind it.”

Hildy’s disloyalty sliced deep, even after so many centuries, and he stood, staring into the night’s sea. She’d never minded his seeking other women, but she would not tolerate his ignoring her. Some called her a witch, a sorceress. They’d laugh together at rumors of her shifting to animal form or casting spells beneath the moon.

There was no magic in her curses, only the vicious will of a Viking woman well suited as the Bride of Bloodaxe. She had liked to dabble in herbs and tonics, had poisoned at least one of his brothers and a few of his court. Whether the herbs she laced in his mead had helped bend his will to hers, he couldn’t say.

A small part of him wanted to claim that she was a witch to absolve him of all guilt, but deep inside, he knew different. There had been no potions when she’d whisper into his ear while making love or stroking his hair. The only drug she used on him was his love for her. Her tears and her kisses were more lethal to him than any herb ever grown. His violent nature combined with her treachery was a deadly combination.

“She didn’t love you.”

Lacy’s declaration made him smile in wry amusement. She had, she’d loved him. But she loved their children even more, and power the most. He might have lived out his life in hen-pecked peace had he bowed to her wishes, but he hadn’t.

“Our son Rögnvald was killed in battle by a man I’d considered a friend for years, and she wanted revenge. I loved my son, but he was like me, a hothead who never thought before he acted. He died for it. Maybe I was getting old, I don’t know. I imprisoned Egil, our son’s killer. Other Vikings stepped forward in his name and pleaded for his life, vowed to avenge him. In his own defense, Egil wrote an epic tale of our long friendship.”

A playful wind pulled at his hair as he turned, leaned his back on the railing and shrugged. Pain shot through his Mark, a reminder how powerful the bond was between warriors and how painful a woman’s betrayal could be.

“I couldn’t forgive him. He’d killed my son. But I spared his life, banishing him instead. Hildy swore that night I’d regret that mercy. It took her a few years, but she made good on the threat. The last words I heard as my blood poured out were from my enemy telling me how she’d handed me over as payment for letting Egil live.”

“She didn’t love you,” Lacy repeated with granite in her tone.

“Yeah, Lace, she did. And I loved her. For every man I’ve killed, every drop of blood I’ve spilled, I had absolutely no strength to fight her. She used my weakness to get everything she wanted, including revenge…on me.”

Lacy stood, her fists balled. “No. Love doesn’t do that. It doesn’t hurt people.”

She was so young. Long life, too long by many standards, had shown him what her innocent heart could never grasp. “Yes, it does. It’s the deadliest weapon out there.”

The word ‘weapon’ pulled her gaze to his arm, his tattoo half-covered by his shirt sleeve. The wind was brisk but something colder festered in his chest when she looked up. She lunged in front of him. “Bring one of those out.”

“What?”

“Myth showed me. Your tattoos become real, right? Show me one.”

For no reason other than she asked, he palmed his biceps, thinking of his axe. It solidified in his grasp. A swallow bobbed her slender throat as she studied it, fingers shaking as they rose to stroke the satin-smooth handle. She trailed her fingertip along the blade head.

“Kill me.”

Heart booming in her chest, Lacy refused to blink. Erik’s face went stony, but she would not back down from this. He might kill her but she didn’t think so. He’d risked everything to save her. But she had to know for sure. And the only way to do that was to face him, head on. “What are you waiting for?”

He swung the axe wide, not in preparation for a blow, but to wrench it from her hands. “I took a hell of a whipping to save your life. I’m not going to kill you.”

A blast of heat surged from her belly as she stepped closer until the tips of her breasts brushed his chest. “Do it. Swing that axe and put me to sleep. That’s what you call it, right? Soul-sleep? Life doesn’t end because my body isn’t here. A box of dust is a lot easier to protect than a real woman. Do it, Erik. Kill me.”

It took three ungraceful sidesteps for him to slide away from her on the cramped deck. The axe vanished from his hand as he scowled. “Sela forbade it.”

Her laughed skipped off the choppy water like a stone on a still pond. “Oh please. Sela does what’s best for her mission. I’m not stupid. She’ll kill me herself if she has to and won’t waste a second thinking about it. So just get it over with. I’d rather you do it than her.”

He grunted, a wordless burst of hot air that said nothing. He turned his back, stomping the few feet into an open cabin with a console and steering wheel. A fast glance at the illuminated screen furrowed his brows deeper and the glossed wood wheel spun with his vicious yank. The boat turned. It wasn’t a jerky move, simply the water licking at the sides shifted and the sails arched in a new direction with a gentle flap. The mild side dip of the hull barely challenged her balance.

The moon drifted in the sky, moving from one fixed spot to another, the stars trailing in its wake. Lacy knew nothing about boats or sailing, but even her untrained eye could see he was in complete control of the vessel. Stiff-spined, he stood gripping the wheel with huge fisted hands and refused to face her. It didn’t mean she couldn’t read him. Every line in his body was taut and rigid.

“Everything I saw that night was real. There was a man with you who melted to dust. Those men who attacked me had snake tongues. You were swinging that axe. And you held a knife to my throat. Why’d you stop, Erik? Why didn’t you just kill me?”

His fist pounded on the console. “God damn it, Lace. You’re Scion, you know that now. Scionim.”

“So? Better a dead Scion than one in Samael’s hands. What stopped you?”

Chest heaving, he twisted around and glared. Anger reddened his cheeks. “You thanked me.”

“Words.” She crossed the wooden deck until she could see every single lash that circled his eyes. “Just words.”

“You touched me.”

The admission was a whisper. She stroked over his cheek, giving him the same caress she had that night. His eyes closed in surrender as he turned his mouth to her palm.

“I’d forgotten how soft a gentle woman’s touch was. Not during sex, but like that, like this, in tenderness. I couldn’t kill you then and I can’t now.” His chin firmed in her palm. “Love doesn’t make me strong, it makes me weak. As much power as Hildy had over me, you have the same. You could ask me to jump off a cliff and I’d do it, just to make you happy.”

She brushed his mouth with a feather-light kiss. “I’d never ask you to jump.”

Hard arms crushed around her, hauling her up as his kiss assaulted her mouth. It was an assault, a rough, crude outpouring of emotion without finesse or refinement. Her heart sang tasting his tongue, his muscles quivering under hand, feeling his love in its raw, exposed state. His past didn’t matter. No matter what sins he’d committed or what God he prayed to, his heart belonged to her.

He wasn’t evil. He was a man of a different time, raised with a different view of life, one of violence and death. But he’d lived a thousand years, learned and grown, accepted his lot and fought to improve it. She couldn’t find any condemnation in her heart, only love for him.

She pulled away, her fingers digging into his shoulders. “I love you. I don’t doubt you loved your wife, but what she did, what she felt for you, wasn’t this. Love doesn’t hurt, ever.”

“I’ve hurt you. I’ve drugged you, kidnapped you, tied you to my bed like a slave. I’ve lied to you.”

“You did all those things to keep me safe. You didn’t kill me and you didn’t let anyone else do it, either. Real love doesn’t take advantage. It doesn’t coerce and manipulate or threaten. I can’t make you trust me, but I will never hurt you, Erik. I’d rather end up dust than do that.”

“Damn, Lace. I can’t be with you. I don’t age. Unless some Leech gets me, in a hundred years, I’ll still look the same. I can’t watch you die, not even of old age.”

Uncertainty loosened her grip and he let her slide down his body until her feet touched the wood deck. But he didn’t let go and neither did she. “So we work around it somehow. Maybe we can grab ten or fifteen years before I get all wrinkled and disgusting to you.”

His head jerked back. “You will never be disgusting to me. I was an old man once, remember? But you can’t tell me in twenty years you won’t look at me and start hating the fact that one day you’ll die and I won’t. You deserve a man who can grow old beside you, give you those babies you want and be there for them as they grow up.”

“You’re just going to walk away from this? Let me go and never regret it?”

“I have no choice and I love you too much to steal your life.”

Her lip quivered. Tucking it under her teeth, she fisted her hands in his shirt. “When?”

“Your Immunity’s building. In fourteen days, you’ll no longer be in danger from Samael. I’ll take you to Annie’s, kiss you goodbye and walk away.”

“Then I have fourteen days.”

Fourteen days. Two weeks. He was the one solid thing in her life recently, the one thing she could cling to when the loss and destruction threatened to overwhelm her. How could he just walk away? How could she let him go? She’d loved him, hated him, worried for him, feared him, only to come back around to something that never left. She loved him.

It didn’t seem fair. She’d finally found her hero knight in tarnished armor and yet she couldn’t keep him. Loss tripped along her heart but she shoved it aside, refusing to let what little time they had be stained with sorrow.

Sea salt spiced his skin and it tingled her tongue as she licked along his neck. Sharper, bolder, the flavor drowned out the taste of the tears she swallowed. Rough, unseen whiskers burned her lips. His mouth was firm, his tongue soft as it slicked between her lips. He wrapped his arms around her and she sighed into his kiss, sure she’d never find a more perfect place.

He tipped her head back, his tongue rolling over hers until they both grew breathless. The firm muscles of his stomach clenched when she slid her hands under his shirt. She loved the feel of him, so hard, so warm. Smooth skin flowed under her palms as she encircled his waist, slipping her fingers into the back of his jeans. A hard ridge formed, pressing into her stomach, and she rocked against it.

Without breaking from her lips, Erik thrust one hand behind him to the instrument console, flipped or turned some switch, she wasn’t sure. All she knew or cared about was he grabbed hold of her ass and lifted her. Just a few steps away, an open doorway led below deck. The few stairs weren’t real stairs, more like an angled ladder, but his feet never faltered.

The ceiling was low, too low for his six-two height. He couldn’t stand up fully so he kept his head bent, his tongue trailing along her neck. With silent whispers and unspoken promises, they shed their clothes and sank onto the narrow bunk. The ocean rocked them with a gentle lullaby, but sleep came nowhere near the darkened cabin.

“I wish I’d met you in my first life.”

Love shone brightly from his eyes as they followed his fingers, stroking her skin as if she were exotic satin. His gaze soaked in every inch of her body, as if he were trying to memorize every freckle and curve. One large finger traced along her collarbone, delved into the hollow at her throat then skimmed up to touch her lips.

She turned her cheek into his palm. “I love you.”