Viking: Legends of the North: A Limited Edition Boxed Set Read Free Page B

the man who owned the weapon was.
    “Mama,” the little girl said, picking up her clamshell bowl, “my da wants some, too.”
    “He’s not your da, Kimmie, and he’s not even…” She ended on a gasp as she glanced his way.
    It was too late to feign sleep.
    She rose suddenly, knocking over her stool. “Awake.”
    “He’s hungry, Mama.”
    Brandr swallowed, and his throat clicked. He didn’t feel like eating, but he was as parched as winter tundra.
    The little girl started toward him with her bowl, but her mother hauled her back.
    “Listen to me,” she said sternly. “He is not your da. He’s a bad man, a very bad man. Promise me you won’t go near him.”
    “But—“
    “Promise me, Kimbery.”
    Kimbery sighed unhappily and put her bowl back on the table. “I promise.”
    A very bad man. Brandr supposed he was that. After all, a good man would never have deserted his wife and children to go a-Viking.
    Avril righted her overturned stool. Then she picked up Kimbery and sat her atop it. “You stay here.”
    She straightened and took a steadying breath. The Northman looked much more menacing now that he was awake. She’d already decided he was astonishingly handsome, but his fierce frown made him look dangerous as well. She glanced at the hound collar and leash, hoping they’d hold. She’d managed to keep their great wolfhound, Finn, at heel on that leash until he’d died last year. But the man probably outweighed the hound three times over. And she’d seen, once she removed his cloak, that he was all muscle and bone. She shivered at the thought of all that male strength.
    Still, if her father had taught her one thing, it was never to show fear to the enemy. So she raised her chin and confronted him with a stern scowl. “You. Can you understand me?”
    He glowered at her through the strands of his hair, but didn’t reply.
    “Your ship.” She pounded one fist into her palm, then exploded her fingers outward to indicate a crash. “How many men were on board?”
    He continued to glare at her.
    She counted on her fingers. “How many?”
    He could understand her. She knew he could. Hell, even Kimbery could understand what she was asking. But he stubbornly refused to answer.
    She narrowed her eyes at him. “Damned Viking,” she sneered, biting out a word he’d surely recognize.
    His lip curled slowly into a grim smile.
    An uneasy tremor slithered up her spine, but she refused to let him frighten her. The man was chained to the wall, after all. She had the upper hand. He was at her mercy. She was in control. She’d been trained for command, and she knew how to wield it. If only he wouldn’t stare at her with those piercing blue eyes.
    She picked up the fireplace poker. It felt good in her grip, like a weapon. “I know your kind,” she told him, smacking the poker against her palm in threat. “You’re not the first Viking I’ve met.”
    His gaze slipped to Kimbery, as if he understood her perfectly and had divined her entire sordid history. Avril’s nostrils flared, and her cheeks grew hot. She leaned forward out of Kimbery’s hearing to snarl under her breath. “That’s right. After slaughtering half my people—men, women, and children—one of your kind took me by force and left me with a babe.” She licked her lip, inventing a more satisfactory end to the story. “When I was through with him, he was unable to breed again.”
    A long silence followed as he stared at her, his face expressionless. She decided he must not be able to understand her after all.
    She backed away, turning to jab at the coals on the hearth. “How unlucky for you, Viking,” she said with a self-satisfied smirk. “You come to invade my land and end up shipwrecked on my beach. Maybe that will teach you savages to stay where you belong.”
    Brandr creased his brow. Where he belonged. He didn’t belong anywhere. He had no home, not anymore. The place he’d once called home was full of painful memories, and he had