Page 84 of Lord of Fire and Ice

Surely that couldn’t be right.

But Katla had no more time to puzzle over the mystery. Her senses were so crowded by Brandr’s fierce strokes, she couldn’t think. She could only feel.

She didn’t need gentleness. She needed him hard and demanding. It was a reminder she was still alive and her body was still hers, and only her husband had a right to it.

He exercised his rights with such mastery, filling her, pushing so deep, she’d never feel empty again. She strained back against him to engulf him even more deeply.

Then he reached around and cupped her mound, stroking her aching place while he took and took and took.

She unraveled under him, her legs going rubbery. He lowered her to her knees on the curved hull, never breaking their connection, while her insides rioted around his hard shaft. When she stopped convulsing, he pushed into her once more, a long, slow thrust. She felt him pulse inside her, his seed spurting hot and deep.

Her breath came in short gasps. When he finished, she seemed to melt, go boneless. He rose and gathered her in his arms. Then he carried her to the waiting hudfat and tucked her in.

“If you were any sweeter, I’d die of wanting you,” he whispered before he kissed her cheek. Then he opened his trunk and pulled out a fresh pair of trousers and tunic.

“Aren’t you going to sleep too?”

He cast a glance at the sun creeping higher in the sky. “No, if we sail now, we’ll reach Jondal by tonight, and after last night, I’d rather take my ease in my own bed. A man sleeps better behind a stout door, knowing his friends are nearby.”

Katla started to rise from the makeshift pallet. “Then I’ll stay up too.”

“No, rest you now,” Brandr said as he adjusted a bit of one of the cloaks to serve as shade for the sleeping baby. “I don’t know much about bairns, but I do know when they sleep, you should too.”

Katla lay back down, closing her eyes and listening to Brandr slip the mooring line and haul up the anchor stone. She was aware of the moment of quickening when the coracle’s sail billowed with wind and the craft lifted in the water, surging on the waves.

Her senses were pricked to hear his voice in her mind again, but the deep timbre never came. Obviously she couldn’t hear him think whenever she wished. And just as obviously, he wasn’t sending his thoughts to her consciously.

Why could she hear him only sometimes? And more importantly, why did he never hear her?

***

Brandr ran a hand over his face, trying to wipe off the tiredness. He glanced at Katla’s still form, wishing he could lie down beside her and follow her into the land of walking shadows.

But it was more important to get her and the babe she’d somehow acquired to safety.

Of course, if his brother, Arn, had lost control of his chieftains, Jondal would be in turmoil. His service in the Imperial Palace had taught him that infighting between rival factions could be fiercer than single combat with a total stranger.

The jarlhof in Jondal would offer no safe haven if the Iron Crown didn’t rest steadily on his brother’s brow.

Chapter 29

“Time to wake, princess,” Brandr called. “Unless you want to greet the folk of Jondal naked as a new-hatched chick.”

Katla pried open her eyes. She’d roused every couple hours as they traveled through the day, to feed and change the baby. She’d moved the child close so she could remain in the hudfat while she tended her. Fortunately, Linnea was an undemanding babe who didn’t fret and let the coracle’s motion lull her into deep sleep once her needs were met.

Brandr had ripped up an old tunic to use for the babe’s fresh swaddling, and he’d strung the skin filled with goat’s milk over the gunwale so the cold water of the fjord kept it from going sour. Each time little Linnea dropped off, Brandr ordered Katla back to sleep as well.

For once, she didn’t feel the need to argue with him.

As tired as Katla was after her interrupted sleep, she knew Brandr was even more exhausted. Dark smudges showed under his eyes, but excitement sparked in them despite his fatigue.

“You’re nearly home,” Katla said as she dressed inside the capacious sleeping sack.

“We’re nearly home,” he corrected.

The coracle sliced smoothly through the untroubled water. The mountains rose steeply on all sides, and the setting sun threw half the narrow fjord into deep shadow and gilded the other with its dying light. A male tern swooped past the boat and scolded them as they glided by a small rocky beach.

“There’s the female,” Katla said, pointing toward the slight movement that drew her eye. The drab bird blended into its surroundings as it hunkered on the shallow indentation that probably held a couple eggs. “She’s on the nest.”