Tentatively she pulled away and slipped a hand into his, smiling as she led him closer to the fire. She beckoned him to sit, and removed his leather boots and woolen stockings, planting little kisses upon the hair-tuffed tips of his toes. Again she felt the intake of his breath, and chanced a glance at his face. His eyes were on her, blazing sky blue in the bronze and gold of his face.
She turned her attention to the Norwegian trousers he had worn, and he smiled a little at her perplexity, but forced himself not to help. Her fingers shook like dry leaves as she found the drawstring, but they smoothed without hesitation inside the fabric and over his hips. He caught his breath completely and drew her to him, spanning his fingers through her rain-soaked hair and cradling her to his chest.
“You are the gem of the isle, Irish,” he murmured with a husky softness that was a silken caress. He removed her mantle, wanting to strip away the clothes that restricted burning flesh from burning flesh.
But when the mantle was gone, she shook her head with a small, secretive smile and stood, her eyes the radiant green that was the vitality of life and Ireland itself, and she pulled the string on her robe herself, allowing it to fall to her feet. Daintily she removed one shoe and then the other, and then slowly, one at a time, the woolen stockings held up by fine lace garters.
Then she stood, just stood, but it was an offering he might have waited a lifetime to receive. Those eyes that were both tempest and peace, a storm at sea and the greenest fields, held his. Her black mane of lustrous hair curled over her shoulders and breasts, hugging her flesh in its ebony dampness. The crests of her breasts peeked out from those modest ebony tendrils, high and proud, inviting and giving, the color of spring roses. They rose and fell quickly, delineating her sleek rib cage and the hollow of her belly beneath. Then came the hips he knew could move with erotic rhythm, the ebony triangle hiding the core of her enticing womanhood, and the long, lean flanks wickedly inviting.
Swallowing and blinking, he stood to join her, pressing his naked flesh to hers. He rubbed his body against hers, and she emitted a little gasp as he teased her thighs unmercifully, growing against her with a glorious heat.
She placed her hands around his neck, feeling the ends of his hair. Her fingertips had seemed to find new awareness, and she allowed herself free rein, experimenting with the feel of the muscles in his shoulders, his back. He moaned as she ran her nails lightly down his spine, pressed more fervently against her, returning the exquisite torture as she lightly massaged her fingers over his strong hard buttocks, while she kissed his broad warrior’s chest, stopping the questing of her lips only long enough to rub her cheek against him, fascinated by the feel of his coarse and yet soft hair against the tenderness of her face.
She ran her hands down his flanks and savored the shapeliness of the bone beneath the flesh of his hips. But in another moment of perplexity, she feared to go further.
It had been a long time since he had been loved, and as the fever flared voraciously within him he knew that he had never been quite so loved. She was his, completely his, and in his arms, there was only the sweetness of her. She was a bit like a fragile and tender flower, brought to bloom by his finesse, and now she reached to him as she might to the sun. Her sensuality was an inherent part of her, and he was the receiver of all her endless passion. She wanted to please him and herself, and she answered his every silent cry, touching that which craved to be touched tentatively, then surely, exploringly, still charting new fields.
He drew her with him as he spread the tattered furs on the ground and lay her down beside him. He kissed her deeply, then buried his face into the perfumed fragrance of that blacker than the blackest night hair. It too touched him, teasing his flesh unbearably as he wound himself within it. He began to kiss her breasts, adoring them, suckling them, yet today she couldn’t be still. She kept her hands on him and arched against him, running her fingers over his lean belly as he grazed her nipples with gentle teeth and she moaned against him. Still she hesitated and he whispered words of encouragement.
“Touch me … Erin … touch me …”
She did so and almost jumped at the hot raging pulse, but as he groaned she grew bolder, caressing him with her fingertips, finding the movement that sent him into shuddering oblivion. He found her lips, and his hands moved over her body. Into her mouth he whispered, “Oh, wife … my sweet, sweet wife, go on. It doesn’t bite, you know.”
She started to giggle but then her breath was swept away as he moved his hand between her thighs, teasing and probing until she cried out and sagged against him, whispering for mercy.
The storm that raged outside was nothing to compare with that which swept within her. She felt the ground, she felt his touch with each nerve of her body, and yet she floated on clouds. There were moments of blindness, and then there was brilliant light. She shuddered and quaked and needed, and the tightness within her belly coiled and coiled both painfully and excruciatingly sweetly. She wanted to draw it out forever, yet if she didn’t let the deliciousness explode soon, she would surely go mad.
She couldn’t stop touching him and tasting the salt of his flesh with her lips and tongue. Something within her snapped and she became wanton, rising above him, tossing her hair like feathers of torture about them both. Sensation became overwhelming, and she moved to appease it. She forgot all hesitation, and she loved him as her desires guided her, learning as she had wished every physical fraction of him.
She glanced at his eyes, blue demanding fire, and sobbed because he swept her beneath him, commanding that the moment had come. They both cried as he entered her, filling her with the vital life she craved. And she, in turn, held him, awed at the beauty of how perfectly she received him, vaguely wondering how she had ever doubted that she could not handle all that he could give. She would never again be able to live without it, could not bear to think that she would not feel him reaching, expanding, grazing her womb, her heart.
He took her to that brilliant sun-streaked plateau where all was the fundamental earthiness and the sweeping thunder of his ever-pulsing, rhythm, and then lifted her to the sky, burning, soaring, flying, straining, craving … exploding over the crest of the hill in a moment of ecstasy so intense and volatile that she shuddered in rocking spasm after spasm as she drifted down. She shouted his name, then whispered it, even as he called hers in return, then he drowned out both sounds with the tenderest of kisses.
She smiled lazily, feeling as if the sun itself had left its warmth within her body. But it wasn’t the sun, it was his seed, and she was loath to move, to risk chancing its loss.
He held her against him, waiting as the air cooled the slicked and glistening heat of their bodies. Smoothing back her damp hair, he wondered with a touch of awe how an experience such as this had come between them. But he had been a fool to have ever underestimated her. From the day at the stream when only chance had made him the victor, to the night he had realized he had been given a tempestuous and unique beauty, he had been a fool. She would never be cowed, but neither could she lie to herself. She had become his, but despite his seduction of her, the choice to come to him freely had been hers.…
And where he had been indifferent, he was now obsessed. He could not believe in love, but he was amazed at the ferocity of the feelings he bore her. He would protect her with his last breath of life, yet he also felt such a rage of possession that he feared he would slay her if he ever thought she harbored even images of another man.
He closed his eyes, feeling absurdly comfortable on the old raggedy furs and the stone simply because her soft flanks rested beside his, touching them. He moved his arm slightly until it rested beneath her breast, and the sound of the now monotonous rain filled his ears and lulled him to sleep.
While the Wolf slept, a village burned on the outskirts of Ulster. Friggid the Bowlegs did not stare at the flames. He looked southward and smiled. The Wolf held Dubhlain; he had the daughter of Aed Finnlaith, a girl rumored to be the isle’s most fair. But the Wo
lf had formed an alliance; he would come. He would die. Destiny would be met.…
Niall of Ulster rousted his men to prepare for battle. The newlywed Sigurd wondered irritably what had happened to the Lord of the Wolves as he set about preparing the warriors of Dubhlain to follow their liege into battle.
And in the moss-covered forest near Carlingford Lough, Mergwin stood in the rain looking like a lunatic with his wet beard and soaked robes flapping about him. He lifted his arms to the gray sky and whispered the ancient words of invocation. He called to the heavens, and he called to the earth. On a small stone altar, he slashed the throat of a young doe, watching her brown eyes glaze over, offering up life, offering up blood.
Mergwin did not think about the past or present. He fought the cobwebs of his mind to try to understand the coming evil. But he couldn’t see it, nor did he know when it would strike. He only knew that it had been born in the night, nurtured to fruition in the day.
He cried to the land and the sky to help him, to the trees and the foliage and the earth to bear witness for him. He offered his sacrifice of blood, and gave his herbs to the wind and his doe to the earth. He prayed to the powers that swept the world.
He prayed for Erin.
Olaf leaned on an elbow, and he watched her as he spoke while his finger swept little lines over her ribs and lean belly. “The gods have always been fated to die, you see. From the very beginning.”
She had told him that Rig had entertained her with a tale of the beginning of the gods, had said there was an end, but had not explained it.
“Surt will lead the forces from Muspell, as has always been planned. The great battle will take place on the field Vigrid. The beginning of the end will be signaled by the coming of three terrible winters. A great earthquake will shake the mountains, the sun will be eaten by one wolf, and the moon by another. Fenrir, the wickedest of fire-breathing wolves, will swallow up Odin. But then Odin’s son, Vidarr, will slay Fenrir. Thor, who is always fighting the Midgard serpent, will finally slay him, but step back nine paces himself and die from the venom. Surt will kill Frey.” He paused to smile at her a moment. “Frey is really our fertility god.”
“I know.” She laughed indignantly. “Rig told me.”
“Anyway, then Surt shall set the entire world on fire.”
“And the earth and everything will end?” Erin asked with a frown. It seemed now, in the back of her mind at least, that Rig had had a reason to cut his tale short, for her to hear it elsewhere.
“Yes, and no,” Olaf told her, smiling again, then turning his idle gaze to the spot on her midriff his absent fingers traveled. “The fire will destroy everything, but in time the world will grow green and fresh again. The sun will leave a daughter to bring light and heat back to the world, and sons of Odin and Thor will dwell in a place called Idavoll and they will repopulate the world. And Baldr, most loved of the gods who was killed by his brother Hod, will leave the world of the dead and come to Idavoll—along with the brother who killed him. They will, at long last, live in eternal peace.”
Olaf saw that she smiled very secretively and sweetly.
“What is that for?” he murmured, tracing her lips.
“Oh … nothing, my lord,” she murmured. That was what Rig thought she must learn herself, that fighting would destroy, but in its wake one might find peace. She would never see that perfect peace between Viking and Irish. Mergwin had long ago warned that that would not come in her lifetime, nor that of her children, but she could find her own private peace. She would have moments such as this to sustain her when the world went awry.
A bright ray of afternoon sun found its way into the cave and Erin glanced toward the entrance. “The rain has stopped,” she said quietly.
It was he who smiled then. “I know,” he said, mischief shading his grin. “It stopped a long time ago.”
Their eyes met, and they laughed together. Then Olaf regretfully placed a last kiss on her belly and stood, reaching down to assist her. “We must go back, before Sigurd sends the guards out.”
Erin nodded. Their clothing had dried by the fire and they donned it silently, helping one another adjust mantles and brooches with mute agreement.
At the entrance to the cave, he paused and kissed her briefly on the lips, staring searchingly into her eyes for a minute.
Then he swatted her horse on the flank to move it around, hoisted her up, and mounted his own.
As they began the ride back, Erin watched him surreptitiously. She thought what a beautiful man he was, and she thought with a little pain that he was still a stranger. Riding tall with his mantle flowing in the breeze, he was once more the Wolf of Norway, his mind, his heart, closed to her. She could never quite seem to pierce his armor.
He turned to her as they approached the city, and the ice fire was back in his eyes, raging high and blue. “Come!” he shouted. “Something has happened in our absence!”
Startled, Erin gripped her reins as her horse broke into a gallop behind Olaf’s stallion. Her hair whipped across her eyes and she was half blinded, but from the crest of a hill, she saw that behind the wall the courtyard was filling with men holding swords, picks, axes, and shields. Men prepared for war.
Why, Erin wondered later, as she looked from her chamber window to the courtyard below as her husband, cousin, and brothers prepared for war, did her fate in life seem to be to watch those she loved leave?
Tears welled behind her lids, but she held them in check. She was the queen of Dubhlain, and when they rode with the coming of dawn, it would be her duty to hold the stirrup cup to Olaf, and send the men off with cheers and the confidence of victory.
She hadn’t spoken to him since they had ridden back. In the courtyard the horses, sensing the excitement in the air, pawed and pranced about. Standard-bearers, servants, smithies, and warriors rushed, and Olaf had been completely absorbed in the preparations. Erin was sure he forgot her existence entirely. She couldn’t even get much information from Gregory, Leith, or Brice, and Niall she didn’t see at all. He spent his time closeted with Olaf.
Preparations continued late into the night. Finally, exhausted from the previous night and from physical weariness and painful anxiety, Erin climbed the stairs to their chamber. She stripped away her clothing and climbed between the linen sheets, pulling the top sheet and furs close around her shivering body.
It didn’t seem fair. She had waited so long for peace, and now, just when tranquility had finally begun to settle in her soul, it was being torn away.
She lay awake a long time, then her lids closed heavily over her eyes and she slept.
She didn’t wake when he came beside her, but in her sleep she edged closer to his body as he held her, curving to him instinctively like a small kitten. He didn’t find much sleep, but he did discover a certain serenity in being beside her.
When she opened her eyes, he was looking at her, and for a moment, a very brief moment that flickered past so quickly it might not have existed, she thought she saw a tenderness in his eyes, a glimpse of the inner man she had never thought to know. Then the moment passed.
He reached out to touch her hair, fanning the ebony locks across her pillow. “I wonder,” he said softly, “if you still cherish hopes of my coming in mortal contact with a Danish battle-axe.”
She opened her mouth, and the words that almost slipped out were “I love you.” But she caught them. She stared at him silently because she could not give that of herself, not when she had so little of him.
“Fear not,” he told her harshly. “I have no intention of dying to please you.”
She wanted to tell him she didn’t want his death; surely he knew it, he saw all too clearly the power he wielded over her. But it didn’t matter as he swept her angrily into his arms. They clung in an abandon that flamed fiercely with passionate desperation, both forgetting his vow of tenderness.
She chattered at Brice and Leith, saying inane little things that their mother might have said, reminding them to sleep in
shelter, to watch prolonged wearing of wet clothing, to eat properly. To Niall she said nothing. She kissed him and accepted his bear hug, silently holding her tears.
“It won’t be so bad, Princess,” Gregory whispered to her as she stepped back from Niall, “because we will know that you are here safe, and there is no scurvy Dane who can best the powers of Niall of Ulster, Aed Finnlaith, and the Wolf of Norway.”
Erin tried to smile. “I wish I were going with you, Gregory. It is always hardest to wait.”
Gregory smiled. “Your days of glory are past, cousin, and thank God. If something had ever happened to you, it would have been my fault. And Erin, your brothers know. Leith guessed. He told me the night you were married, and he told Niall and Brice. They’ve never said anything. I think they are very proud of you, but frightened too. If things would have continued, they would have found a way to stop you. So as it stands, we created a legend.”
Erin felt tears spring to her eyes. They had known—Leith, Brice, and Niall—and they had kept her secret. It made it so much harder to watch them ride away.
Gregory kissed her on the cheek. “Please don’t cry, Erin. We ride with a formidable force. We cannot lose with Olaf, and we will meet with your father’s troops inland. We will be home very soon.”
“I’m not going to cry, Gregory,” she murmured, kissing his cheek. But her face was damp. She brushed away her tears impatiently with her fingers.
The high, keening wail of a battle horn sounded. Erin saw that Olaf was already astride his horse, waiting. She brought the silver chalice to him. He raised it high and drank while the men shouted of victory and their mounts reared excitedly.
Olaf leaned down in his saddle and returned the cup. He touched her cheek, his ice eyes flaming with brooding blue fire. “Take care, Irish,” he said softly.
She caught his hand. Lowering her head, she kissed his palm. She did not look up again, lest he see the liquid swimming in her eyes. She stepped back as the river of men and horses began to clang and thunder out of the city.