Page 69 of The Outlaw Viking

Selik waved her concerns aside. “’Tis of no importance now. As to the slave marts, even did I decide to sell her, who would buy a shrewish woman of such height, especially being so long in the tooth?”

Both Gyda and Tyra stared at him suspiciously now, probably understanding that he deliberately tried to provoke his hostage.

“On the other hand,” Selik continued, “Rain is a physician with rare healing skills. In truth, she saved Tykir’s leg after Brunanburh.” Rain jerked around to look at him in surprise at his rare praise.

“And everyone knows how the Wessex king values good healers,” Gyda concluded for him.

“Perhaps you would like a slave to wash your garments and dress your hair, Tyra,” Selik offered glibly. Rain put both hands to her head, digging her fingernails into Selik’s hand, forcing him to release her hair. Standing proudly, she bent toward Selik, chin to chin, and declared, “I would sooner stick needles in a part of your body you value highly, you bloody barbarian.”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk!” Selik clucked. “Spoken like a true pacifist! But not very slave-like language, I am afraid. I will have to devise some method of punishment.”

Rain thought then of his earlier comment about G-spots. As hard as she tried to think of something else, she couldn’t stop the revealing blush that heated her face.

“Do not be embarrassed, Rain. Gyda and Tyra understand the need for discipline amongst servants and slaves.”

“Argh!” Rain choked out, reaching for his throat with an urge to kill. “Do they understand the need for women to murder overbearing, insufferably arrogant men?”

With a laugh, Selik ducked and grabbed her by the waist, throwing her over his shoulders like a sack of potatoes. “Where do you have us sleeping this night, Gyda? I find I must speak to my slave in private about her wagging tongue.”

Tyra giggled once again. If Rain could have reached that far from her upside-down position, she would have tried to throttle her as well.

“Above stairs. Your usual room,” Gyda said with a laugh. “I will send up bathwater. You both look like you could use a good wash.”

“Make sure the tub is large enough, then” Selik said, slapping a large hand over Rain’s derrière to hold her squirming body in place, “for two.

“Ouch!” Selik exclaimed when she bit his lower back. He stumbled, almost falling on the wooden steps to the second floor.

When Selik took a nip at her exposed rear end, Rain gasped out, “Oh! You are an animal.” The tip of her shoe barely missed his genitals then, and Selik spread the fingers of one large hand around the inside of her left thigh, high up, with the middle finger pressed against one strategic spot.

“Move one tiny bit,” he declared with icy menace, “and I swear you will find a new meaning for the word humiliation.”

Rain decided not to struggle anymore.

When they got to the tiny room at the end of the hall, Selik threw her down onto the single pallet against the wall and immediately followed her. Laughing, he pinned her to the thin mattress with his body, his hands holding hers above her head, palm to palm, and his legs twined around both of hers, totally immobilizing her.

“Get up, you big lummox. I can barely breathe,” she spat out.

“Good. Mayhap your shrewish tongue will rest now.”

“You won’t get much ransom for me dead.”

“Yea, but I may finally have some blessed peace.”

“Hah! You haven’t been at peace for years, and you know it. That’s why I was sent here, you thickheaded fool.”

“So you say. I think that God—if such a being exists, and I doubt it mightily—wants to punish me for all my misdeeds. What better punishment! A true hell on earth—the plague of a shrewish, self-important, self-righteous, loose-tongued woman!”

“Is that all?” Rain snapped sarcastically, trying hard not to be offended by his derogatory comments. She tried to buck him off by thrusting her hips up sharply. It was a mistake. All she accomplished was a reshifting of their bodies so that part of him was more perfectly aligned with that part of her. And she felt him grow bigger against her.

Selik gritted his teeth, and Rain saw the glint of passion ignite in his silvery eyes before he lowered his long, dark lashes. And when she glanced sideways, she saw the sinewy muscles of his arms, which still held her hands captive, stiffen with tension.

Pleasure and dismay swept over Rain with Selik’s instant response. This chemistry had existed between them from the very beginning, requiring only a look or passing glance to ignite the embers of smoldering desire. If she were being perfectly truthful, she would have to admit that her attraction to him had begun long before their first meeting. For years, he’d haunted her dreams, calling to her across time.

“Selik, what do you want from me?”

“Loyalty. But you have shown today that you cannot be trusted. Your word turned to ashes when you betrayed your vow not to escape.”

“I told you why I—”