“I will lift the curse if you pay for the three injuries done to me.”
I moved over to stand next to Alrik, partly to make sure she didn’t try to wallop him with her cane (I wouldn’t have put it past her—I’d always known she was a tough old lady, but now her history made her downright scary), but mostly because I felt better when I was near him, a fact I didn’t want to examine too closely.
“What is the form the repayment is to take?” Alrik asked suspiciously.
“First, the son of Sigurd will wed the daughter of Brynnhilde, to fulfill the promise made to me and broken. You will wed Brynna.”
“I agree,” he answered quickly.
“Hey! I’m standing right here!” I said, spreading a glare between Alrik and Momo Hildi. “And I don’t appreciate people thinking they can marry me off without my having any say in it.”
“Be quiet,” Momo snapped, and shot me such a venomous look, it stunned me into momentary silence. “This matter is beyond your feeble understanding! Second, you will return to me the ring that Sigurd gave Gudrun.”
Alrik pursed his lips for a moment, then nodded. “If it still exists, I will find it and return it.”
“Why don’t we just do the ring, and leave out this whole marriage business?” I suggested.
Paul shushed me as Momo lifted her chin to look from me to Alrik. “For the last payment, you must secure my pardon from Odin himself.”
“Odin!” I stared at Paul in surprise. “Odin is still around?”
He shrugged, his glance flickering over to Alrik. “You’re standing in the presence of the son of Sigurd and Brynnhilde herself. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to find all of Asgard in downtown Stockholm.”
“Not Stockholm,” Momo said. “Astrid Lindgrens Värld.”
“Astrid…the Pippi Longstocking amusement park?” I asked, astounded. What on earth was the father of all Nordic gods doing in an amusement park devoted to a children’s author?
Momo made an abbreviated movement that I assumed was a shrug, and addressed Alrik. “If you repay those three debts, I will remove the curse. Do you agree?”
Alrik’s gaze slid to me for a moment before he nodded to Momo Hildi. “Yes, I agree.”
“Yeah? Well, I don’t,” I said, giving my great-grandmother (or however many generations back she really was) a firm look. “I refuse to be held responsible for the fact that some man thirteen hundred years ago dumped you at the altar. It seems to me that you’ve had your revenge, and you need to just move on. All that hostility is bound to be doing a serious number on your psyche.”
“Do you honor your oaths?” Alrik asked quietly. “You swore to help us. Do you now refuse to do so when a solution is offered?”
I turned to tell him that this situation was not covered by the promise I made earlier. I even got so far as opening my mouth to say the words, but the pain in his eyes, the tightness in his face, and his closed, wary body language drowned out the sane part of my mind.
What was the worst thing that could happen if I agreed to go through a sham marriage with him? It wasn’t as if it would be a real marriage, after all. He was a ghost—as soon as we found Momo her ring, and got Odin’s pardon, he’d be toddling off to Valhalla to hang out with all the other ghosts, and I’d be on my own again, just as I was before I met him.
So then why did my heart plummet at that thought?
The other Vikings stood mute behind Alrik, their expressions just as easy to read. They were tired of their undeserved punishment. They wanted to move on, to receive their reward for the centuries of friendship and devotion to Alrik. They deserved it. So what if ensuring they made it to Valhalla demanded a little sacrifice on my part? I couldn’t abandon them now, when they needed me most.
“Brynna?” Alrik said, taking my hand. His thumb rubbed over the top of my knuckles. “Will you have me as husband?”
I bit my lip for a moment, then dragged my eyes up to his. “I said I’d do everything I could to help you, and I meant it. Yes, I’ll marry you.”
“The wedding will be in the morning,” Momo Hildi said, pushing between us as she hobbled toward the rickety screen door. “Agda will see to the preparations. My daughter will have the wedding that was stolen from me.”
“I am not your daughter,” I yelled after her as Aunt Agda, a couple of other elders, and a whole slew of cousins followed Momo into the house. “You’ve got probably thirty or so generations on me…Damn. She’s not even listening.”
“I think she’s speaking more metaphorically than literally,” Paul said, giving me a sympathetic pat on the arm before he, too, went into the house.
I was left alone on the porch, just me and four inanely grinning ghosts, and one so-sexy-it-hurt Viking stroking my fingers, giving me the most intense look I’d ever received from a man.
“I will make you a good husband,” he said in all seriousness.
I thought about telling him it didn’t matter, but all I did was shake my head and go into the house to try to bribe that little rat Rolf into handing over my cigs.
Six hours later, I was ready for the madhouse.
“Look, I told you guys space was at a premium. I told you there was no room in the house, and that I was sleeping out on the porch.” I shook out the sleeping bag I’d been using at night on a rickety wicker divan at one end of the porch. “So I don’t want to hear one word of complaint about the fact that you have to sleep in the gazebo. You’ve got blankets and pillows; that’s the best I can do.”
“I am not complaining about sleeping out of doors,” Alrik said, picking up the sleeping bag I had just spread out. “I object to the fact that you wish to sleep elsewhere. We are betrothed. You will sleep next to me.”
“Setting aside the fact that being engaged doesn’t mean I can’t sleep by myself, I don’t want to sleep in the gazebo. There are rodents out there.”
Alrik puffed out his chest. “I will protect you. You will sleep next to me.”
“Look, I—”
“You will sleep next to me!” He bent and scooped me up and over his shoulder.
“Hey! This is the twenty-first century, in case you were dozing the last few hundred years. You can’t just pick women up and haul them off like you’re a caveman or something. Set me down.”
Alrik walked down the steps to the lawn, pausing to ask, “You will sleep with me?”
I muttered a few choice words to myself. Not because I found myself hanging upside down on his back (I had to admit I didn’t really mind that, what with the wonderful view of his behind in the tight-fitting wool pants), but because deep down, I was more than a little interested in him physically, and figured a marriage—even a brief one—might give me the opportunity to taste a little forbidden fruit in a way that not even the stodgiest of family members could find questionable.
But admitting to myself that I had the hots for a Viking ghost, even one who felt as warm and real as Alrik, was no easy thing.
“How come I can feel you?” I asked, temporarily sidetracked by a thought. “Ghosts are supposed to be wispy and insubstantial, and untouchable. Aren’t they?”
He set me down. I weaved a moment at the loss of all the blood to my head, grateful when Alrik steadied me with his hands on my hips. “We are not that sort of ghosts. We were cursed to this state, so we are just as substantial as you are. Are you worried I cannot do my duty by you?”
“You ought to bottle that roguish twinkle,” I said, pointing at him. “You could make a fortune on it, Mr. Innuendo. And no, I wasn’t impugning your manhood. I just wondered why you could disappear at will, and yet seem just as tangible as a living, breathing person.”
“I breathe,” he said, placing my hand to his chest. His heart beat a strong, steady rhythm beneath my palm. “I live. In a fashion.”
“So you do,” I said, getting a little breathless at the combination of a moonlit night, Alrik’s closeness, and the warmth of his body beneath my hand. “Look, I know you’re going along with this whole bizarre marriage thing
just so the curse will be lifted, but—”
“That is not the only reason,” he interrupted, his hands sliding around to my butt.
My breath caught even tighter in my throat as I was pulled up against his body, all the hard lines of it making me very aware of the basic, fundamental differences between the male and female bodies.
“It’s…uh…it’s not?” Somehow my arms ended up around him, my hips wiggling against his in a shameless plea that left me simultaneously shocked and thrilled.
“No. I want to possess you.”
It’s funny how something like that sounds incredibly corny when spoken by someone who isn’t a virile, earthy Viking. But coupled with the burning desire in Alrik’s eyes, it didn’t sound the least bit hokey. Quite the contrary, in fact.
“We just met,” I said, grabbing his head and kissing the breath right out of his mouth. He was just as hot and sweet as I remembered, with that intriguing masculine taste that made me wild for more of him.
“Does that matter?” he asked a few minutes later, having allowed me to thoroughly explore his mouth.
“Yes. I have a rule—no jumping into bed the first day I meet someone.
“I desire you. You desire me. What is the problem?”
“It’s just that you don’t really want me, you just want a body. I mean, I’m a girl, and you haven’t had girls for centuries,” I moaned when one of his hands slid around my front, under my shirt, the heat of his palm warming the breast he cupped. “I don’t blame you. If I was in the same position, I’d probably be just as…er…anxious as you are. I mean, shoot, all that time without a little lovin’…whew!”
“What makes you think that?”
I shoved his tongue out of my mouth and leaned back so I could focus on his face. “Are you saying you have had intimate relationships with women since you were cursed?”
A little line appeared between his brows. “Yes. Many women like to sail, you know.”
“Oh. I didn’t think about that. Have all of you…er…”
“Yes. Except Bardi. He is married, and much in love with his wife.”
“But she’s dead by now,” I said slowly, trying to sort through my hopelessly tangled emotions. I sensed a rising feeling of jealousy about the idea of Alrik and other women, but told myself firmly that what happened before I met him was not important. Still, the thought that once he was in Valhalla he’d be free to play the field, bothered me. Immensely.
“We don’t bring that up,” he answered, searching my eyes. “You are jealous?”
“No. Well, I am actually prone to that with men in my life, but not about your getting it on before we met. I mean, I don’t want to see pictures or hear who did what to whom, but I’m not going to throw a hissy about the fact that you’ve evidently spent the last thousand plus years sailing around looking for nooky.”
One side of his mouth quirked. “I must remember to watch more American television. Some of the words you use are not familiar to me.”
“I’m not jealous about your past. It’s just that…oh, never mind. It’s not worth talking about.”
He watched me closely for a moment, then nodded and pulled me back into another mind-stopping, burning kiss that came close to singeing my clothes right off my body. “You are wrong. It is not just a female body I crave—I want you.”
“You don’t know me,” I protested, deftly ignoring the hypocrisy of my statement.
“I know that you’re courageous, honorable, and adapt well to difficult circumstances. I know that you are not intimidated easily, use reason, but are not so stubborn that you won’t entertain new ideas, and that your curiosity is great about things which you do not understand. I know that you will never bore me.”
My eyes widened as I read the truth in his face. He truly meant what he said. He wanted me. But…why?
“If you’re going to swive the lady Brynna, you could at least take her to a sheltered area,” Bardi said as he strolled past with a couple of six packs of beer.
“We’re not swiving, assuming that means what I think it means,” I called after him. Grim emerged from the bushes, doing up the laces to the front of his wool pants, giving us a curious look as he followed his cousin.
“We’re not?” Alrik asked, frowning.
“No. At least…no, we’re not. Remember the rule about no sex on the first day? That means no.”
“I would find a sheltered area for us, if you wished,” he offered.
“Thanks, but no thanks. I’m willing to sleep in the gazebo if you promise to de-rat it first, because that divan on the veranda is awfully uncomfortable. But there will be no sex.”
He bit my lower lip and pulled my hips against his body, grinding me against him. “Your body does not say no.”
“Of course it doesn’t. I’m a normal, healthy woman, and you’re a normal, healthy man. Well…minus the normal part. Just standing near you makes me go all girly inside, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to give in to the almost overwhelming urge to jump your bones. I have to have some standards.”
His lips pursed slightly. I gave in to temptation, and licked them. “You are so different from the other women I’ve had. They were quick out of their clothing. But you—you speak of desire, but deny yourself. I do not understand these standards. My bones wish for your jumping. We are betrothed, so it is fitting that we enjoy each other.”
Reluctantly, I pried myself off him and with shaking knees, retrieved my sleeping bag, pillow, and a canvas book bag containing snacks, paperback books, my MP3 player, and assorted other things I might want during the night.
“Are you the kind of man who doesn’t understand how to take no for an answer?” I asked as I walked past him, heading to the gazebo at the far end of the lawn.
He fell into step beside me, taking the sleeping bag and pillow from me, his face thoughtful. “Women have said no to me before. Not very often, but it has happened. Once, for certain. Possibly twice.”
I sighed, wondering what on earth I was getting myself into. I recognized the signs—I had a tendency to fall in love at first sight, and it was pretty evident that Alrik really revved my engine. That could only mean trouble, given the fact that he emitted some sort of superattraction hormones that evidently every living female for the last thirteen centuries had enjoyed. “Great. Just what I need in my life: a studmuffin extraordinaire.”
“Studmuffin?” He looked like he didn’t know whether to be offended or pleased by the word.
“It’s an American term. It means…well, it means someone like you.”
“Ah. Virile. You do not think I will honor my oath to you?” he asked, whipping around in front of me.
I sighed as I moved around him, following a bend in the yard to the lower section, where a small apple orchard was situated next to the gazebo. “No, I didn’t mean that at all…what on earth are they doing?”
Ahead of us, a fire burned bright orange and yellow, the figures of Alrik’s men moving around it visible even from where we stood.
“Cooking supper, I suppose.”
I peered into the night, my eyes widening as a large shape—it could only be Bardi—arranged a spitted animal across the bulk of the fire. “Oh dear God, no! If they’ve killed any of my Aunt Agda’s pets…argh!”
“It’s only a pair of rabbits Grim caught in the woods,” Alrik said.
“Ew. Poor bunnies.”
“Better they should be killed quickly by Grim than taken by a fox,” he answered as we continued to walk toward the gazebo.
“True, but I could have gotten you some food from the house. I didn’t…uh…I wasn’t quite sure if you guys actually ate or not.”
“Of course we eat! We eat fish when we cannot barter for meat, but fresh rabbit is a treat.”
I made Alrik go into the gazebo first, to make sure there were no rats.
“I told you I’d protect you,” he said with a manly roll of his eyes.
I set my bag down next to his small trunk, eyeing the shadows s
uspiciously. “Yeah, well, let’s just make sure the rats know that. Stay here—I have to go back to the house. I’ll be right back.”
I ran back to the house before he could question me. It took ten minutes to sweet-talk my Aunt Agda, but by the time I returned, my arms laden with potato salad, bean salad, cold fried chicken, a sweet form of cornbread Aunt Pia made, a hunk of ham, and a huge container of green salad, Alrik was pacing before the fire.
“Your family betrothed you to me. I do not like for them to now keep you from me,” he said as I arrived, panting slightly from my burden. “You are my betrothed. If you go somewhere, I must be allowed to do so as well.”
I blinked at him in surprise, realizing what he must have thought. “Oh, no, Alrik—it’s not that the family wouldn’t allow you in the house. I just figured I’d get you guys something a little more nutritious than charred dead bunny. Can you, uh…thanks, Grim.”
The men, who had been sitting around the fire guzzling beer, were happy to unload me. Jon made little cooing sounds of happiness as he uncovered the leftovers and showed them off. The oohs and ahs that followed the revelation of each dish were most gratifying.
“And last but not least…” I pulled out a wad of paper towels, a handful of plastic forks, and a small stack of paper plates from where I’d stuffed them under my shirt. “Bon appétit, guys.”
Alrik stood beside me as the men dived into the food without waiting for their dead rabbits to finish cooking. I gave him a little shove, smiling as I said, “Go on, I’m sure you’re just as hungry as they are.”
“You are not hungry?” he asked, his eyes on the plate of fried chicken. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down a couple of times.
“No, I’m more tired than anything else. I’m just going to get some sleep. Er…I don’t need to remind you that I said no, right?”
He gave me a thin-lipped look. “I remember your ridiculous rules.”
“Okay. Just wanted to make sure we’re on the same wavelength. I don’t mind sharing the gazebo with you, but I’ll sleep on this side, and you can have the other.”
I fell asleep watching his silhouette as he sat with the men around the fire, my eyelids growing heavy as I pondered the odd twist my life had taken.