He spread his hands. “All the same. Better to check. We’re dealing with a Viking after all.”
Sigrid tilted her chin as she studied him, obviously trying to decide how to react, since killing him for his insolence wasn’t an option. Her expression settled into the same one she’d worn the night before when she’d decided to dismantle Father Benedict’s self-esteem. “Elric, is it? Go on, then,” she purred, inviting him to his own doom.
Elric wouldn’t buckle and sob so easily, though.
He roughly patted up the sides of her legs and torso, then down her arms, crowding her space more than he needed to, but she didn’t give an inch nor react in any way. She knew this gameas well as I did. He wanted a reaction, and he wasn’t getting it from her either.
That’s my girl.
When he found no weapons, I assumed we were finished, but Sigrid’s honeyed voice stopped me in my tracks. “I’d hardly call that a search, Captain. Maybe on a man. But I could have all manner of things up these skirts you wouldn’t have felt. A blade. A garrote. A vial of poison perhaps?” On the last word, her eyes flared with amusement.
The guards shifted uncomfortably, and their eyes flicked between Sigrid and Elric. With hardly a thought, she’d opened her mouth and undone any progress I’d made with them.
“She’s joking,” I said rapidly. “The Viking sense of humor takes some getting used to.” I shot her a look, hoping she’d leave it at that.
Elric cleared his throat roughly. “Some of us have no interest in getting used to Viking anything. Least of all the Viking who killed so many of our brothers on Ocracoke.”
The last part earned him nods from the men who now refused to meet my eyes again. Stories of Sigrid’s slaughter the night of the attack had been told and embellished until she sounded like a bloodthirsty monster instead of a protective sister who’d just lost her youngest brother in the cowardly attack.
This wasn’t the moment to try to change their minds about it, though, if such a thing was even possible.
“All the same. She’s a Saxon princess now, and you will treat her as such.”
Sigrid edged closer to Elric, her eyes alight with a challenge as she lifted her skirts to her knees, giving him easy access to search her.
“Sigrid,stop this…” I bit out, knowing even as I said it that it would only make things worse.
Elric smiled, now having double the reason to do exactly what she wanted him to. He was posturing in front of his men, willing to break the rules of propriety to call her bluff…but he would also have the satisfaction of crossing me in the process.
He squatted in front of her, glaring as he slid his gloved hands up the outside of her legs, then dropped them to do the same up the inside. He went more slowly, flicking his eyes to me when he reached her inner thighs.
I wanted to knock his teeth out with a swift kick to the face, but getting me to start a fight with my own guards had probably been her plan from the start. I clenched my fists, resisting the overwhelming urge to intervene.
She confirmed my suspicions when she looked over at me and pouted like she was disappointed I hadn’t snapped.
But her tiny shrug told me she wasn’t finished yet.
“Sigrid, don’t.”
In a move so quick that no one had time to react, Sigrid wrapped her legs around Elric’s neck and took him to the ground, choking him with her muscular thighs. The other guards rushed towards us, but I stood between them and Sigrid. “One move, and she’ll snap his neck. If she wanted to kill him, he’d already be dead. Let her make her point.”
Their glares were silent accusations. In their eyes, I’d just picked a side…and it wasn’t with them.
Elric thrashed and tried to punch at her to get her off, but she pinned his arms to the ground with her forearms. He twisted like a fish dropped on a boat deck, but she only tightened her thighs, making his face turn an angry shade of red. “Your brothers didn’t die well. None of the Saxon cowards I killed that night did. They pissed themselves and begged for mercy.” She lowered her face even closer to his. “I need no weapon to make you do the same. Iama fucking weapon.”
In the shocked aftermath of her words, Arnulf’s face was the only one I focused on, and it was painted with betrayal.
Sigrid released Elric and rolled to her feet gracefully, squaring her shoulders and assessing the guards before us as Elric choked to catch his breath on the floor. One of my greatest enemies had just become hers, and all hope I’d had of the common soldiers embracing her had vanished the second she’d called their fallen comrades cowards.
I snatched her by the arm and whisked us towards the Great Hall, and she allowed herself to be led away from the brawl that was about to erupt.
As soon as we were out of earshot, I rounded on her. “For fuck’s sake, Sigrid! This doesn’t have to be as hard as you’re making it.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “He insulted you. That can’t go unanswered.”
I raked a hand through my hair. “Crushing him wasn’t the only solution.”
She shrugged. “It’s the most effective.”
