The Captive Read Free Page B

overlord thought he conducted negotiations with them.
    And just like her worst fear, she would be part of the war spoils. A captive to the most fearsome man she’d ever seen.
     
    W ULF G EIRSSON HAD HARDLY thought anything could tempt him on the raid of a Wessex stronghold held byone of King Alfred’s strongest knights. He didn’t need more riches, after all. As the most successful Viking raider to sail on the coast of Britain, he had more wealth than he’d ever dreamed. He hadn’t even organized the attack on this keep today, but when his small band of men had spied the troop of Danes congregating on a nearby shore to plot the battle the night before, he hadn’t been able to resist the opportunity to thieve the raid from under their noses. He’d planned to simply flaunt his skill before his enemies and make off with the biggest prizes simply because he could, not because the riches tempted him.
    But, enjoying the feel of the woman in his arms, he realized he could not have been more wrong. He’d been tempted when he’d least expected it.
    The sweetly scented captive fighting tooth and nail against his hold was an unexpected boon. When he’d spied the audacious Saxon beauty climbing up to look out over the castle walls in the hour before battle, he’d been struck first by her dark, exotic look. Brown locks flowed in a glossy stream down her back, dark eyes lit with glints of gold as she narrowed them in the sunlight. Assessing the enemy?
    He did not know what she’d sought on the ramparts when all the other women were surely locked safely in the castle’s innermost sanctum. This maid alone had not hidden in the face of a Norse raid, and that snagged his attention more thoroughly than any surface beauty. When was the last time he’d found a female so brazen? Maids who cowered throughout a raid held no appeal. He did not brutalize women.
    But fire and spirit in a female? This intrigued him. He’d made up his mind he wanted her—that he would take her—even before she’d nearly fallen off the parapet.The fact that he had surely saved her pretty neck only made him more certain he’d been destined to have her.
    Now, he sprinted away from the keep with the woman in his arms, ready to meet his men and depart before Alchere learned they’d been there. Before the other Danes who led the invading party discovered his men had taken their spoils while they wasted time with talk down on the beach.
    “Only a little farther,” he assured the woman, feeling her shaking against him. Of course, she would be frightened now, no matter how bold she’d appeared earlier. “Our boats are hidden nearby, just through these trees.”
    He could have set her on her feet, but he suspected she would not move quickly enough for his liking. He did, however, remove his hand from her mouth so that he could balance her weight more evenly in his arms.
    “A curse upon you!” she screamed immediately, nearly deafening him as he reached the longship already packed with three quarters of his men. “You rank and craven boar! Reeking devil’s spawn!”
    “By Thor’s beard, Wulf, can you not gag her?”
    Wulf’s cousin, Erik, waited in the bow of the boat, his gaze darting in the direction of the other invaders on the shore close to Alchere’s keep.
    “A lone, shrieking woman will hardly draw notice during a Norse raid.” In his experience, there were generally a handful of females in every town who screeched from the moment the longships were spotted until the last boat had taken its leave.
    Wading through the shallows to the ship, Wulf debated handing her over to Erik while he boarded. There was no choice, really. If not for Wulf’s iron grip on her,the writhing maid would have flung herself into the sea or cracked her skull on the side of the ship in the attempt, so settling her on the deck without someone restraining her was not an option. Still, the thought of Erik’s hands on the captive sent a surge of possessiveness through