Viking Bride Read Free Page B

empty without him. He looked down at her, nodded
gravely, then pulled his breeches back into place. A minute later
and he was gone, the door to the long house swinging behind
him.
    Eliza sat up and realized his seed was still
within her. She rose, feeling the sticky wetness shift within her.
She cleaned herself as best she could with the blanket they had
lain on, then pulled her dress from the end of the bed.
    Before she made it to the end of the
longhouse, the door opened. The raven haired witch entered,
approached. “Stop.”
    “Stop what?”
    The woman pressed a hand to Eliza’s stomach.
“Did you take his seed?”
    “Y-yes.” She trembled at the touch.
    “Good. You will bear him a son. It is
foretold.”
    “I’ll bear him a son?”
    “In time, yes. Today was a beginning.”
    “A beginning of what?”
    “Of your trial, girl. Kelnar will lay with
you every day until you are quickened. Pray it does not take
long.”
    Eliza stared at the other woman, open
mouthed. Pray it doesn’t take long? Gods, may it take a lifetime
if it’s like it was today.
    “I see he went gently with you.” She stepped
closer, her mouth nearly touching Eliza’s ear. “It will not always
be so. Do not fail to please him, and do not entertain thoughts of
laying with aught else.”
    “I would never.”
    “You do not know the temptations of our men.
Remember what I say, girl. You are the chief’s now. Obey him in all
things, but especially in matters of the—“ she squeezed Eliza
between the legs.
    Eliza blinked.
    “Go. Rest.” Smoke swirled around her,
different shapes than before. Fish and bears and nymphs.
    “Who are, really? You don’t have the blonde
hair of the women I saw outside.”
    “I am Kelnar’s advisor, I told you this.”
    Eliza moved closer, sensing the evasiveness
in the woman’s voice. “You’re some kind of witch. I understand
that. But how do you know about my father.”
    The other woman looked away. A small squeak
escaped her and her shoulders shook. She turned back to Eliza, eyes
glistening. “I was taken by the Kelnar’s father seventeen years
ago. Eliza, I’m your mother.”
    Eliza stumbled back, thumped into a post and
slid to the ground. Her mouth hung open. My mother is
alive.

Chapter Four
Witches
    A low noise rumbled outside the longhouse.
Eliza shifted in the carved chair and looked at her mother, the
village witch. “Is that thunder?”
    “Too constant,” her mother said. She rose and
stood by the fire, listening, her ear cocked toward the smoke hole
in the ceiling. “Those are voices. Come.” She picked her way around
a pillar and went to the door. Eliza followed, her broaches
jingling as she moved.
    “Kill the witch!”
    “Kill the girl.”
    “Burn them out.”
    They stopped at the door. “They sound angry,”
Eliza said.
    Her mother nodded, then pushed open the heavy
wooden door. Eliza peered over her shoulder. A crowd of Viking men
stood clustered outside, swords and axes in their hands. They were
a young bunch, only one with a real man’s beard.
    Her mother said something in the Viking
language. Half threat, half question.
    The bearded one screamed something at them in
the Viking language. The only word Eliza recognized was Karna , something she’d heard Kelnar call her mother.
    “He’s calling me a witch and a traitor,” her
mother said. She responded to the crowd in the Viking language, and
the man’s face darkened further.
    “What did you say?”
    “I called him a motherless son of a goat
fucker and told him not to trouble his chief’s women.”
    An axe flashed through the hair, slammed into
the wooden doorframe, the handle quivering. The crowd rushed
forward.
    Karna yanked Eliza backward and slammed the
door. The bar thudded into place. “Come. Follow me.” She sounded
calm and determined, utterly unflappable.
    They hurried down the length of the
longhouse. Eliza had to gather her long dress to avoid singeing it
as they passed the fire in the middle of the