Death Blow by Jianne Carlo Page B

clinked.
    Nyssa heaved a long sigh and rolled, glimpsing the cream canvas of the roof of a tent as she turned to face Konáll. To the right of the Viking a fat tallow candle, a jug and a clay pot, sat on a table made from a wooden plank and two tree trunks. For a moment, his shadow blurred his actions, but then she saw he was disrobing. She sucked in a breath and crushed the woolen fabric between her fingers. “Are you addled, again Konáll? What do you do?”
    Their gazes met. He winked. “’Tis not the custom with the Scots to disrobe afore slumber?”
    “Aye. Nay.” Confused, fighting the urge to openly gape at him and memorize every detail of his chiseled stomach, she studied the rushes lining the sandy floor. The healer in her cataloged the herbs threaded through them, rosemary and broom.
    The lopsided smirk he wore spoke of bedevilment. “’Tis not as if you have not seen all of me afore.”
    Nyssa squeezed her eyes shut when he untied the ropes holding his hose in place. She dug her nails into her palms and chewed her cheeks. But Satan himself had ahold of her. Slanting him a shuttered peek, she held her breath at his bronzed beauty. Not a single scar marred his perfect torso. She frowned, recalling the myriad cuts across his belly and groin and his blood dripping onto the moss when the Picts had pushed him into the cave. Had her eyes deceived her? She raked him from head to bare feet.
    Broad shoulders melded into a bronzed, sinewy, chiseled chest. Layers of muscles defined each rib bone and led to a flat belly and narrow waist. A sprinkling of gold hair dusted the middle of his pectorals and tapered to the top of his hose.
    Choking back a gasp when he slid the woolen breeches down his thighs, Nyssa’s eyes widened when his pecker, thick, reddened, veins bulging, sprang free of the fabric. When he twisted to set his folded tunic and hose on the ground, the metal ring threaded through the flesh below his sac glittered in the flickering candlelight.
    She stopped breathing as images flooded her mind. What day was it? Thrimilici? “Do I live, Viking? Or be there some magik afoot?”
    He turned to face her, forehead lined, eyes narrowed. “You remember naught?”
    “’Tis a muddle. I remember the Picts, the cave—what do you do?” She scooted to the edge of the pallet when he lay down next to her and slipped under the blanket.
    “I am weary and ’tis time for slumber.” He flicked her nose.
    Before she could protest he had her in his embrace. If she had one single burst of energy left, Nyssa would have fought him, but her limbs refused the command to slide away from the warmth of his body. The sweet intimacy of her cheek on his chest and the mesmerizing sight of his brown, flat nipple chased all thoughts from her head. She stared at the fat bud and an ache started between her thighs. She felt no bile, nay, her mouth fair watered with the hunger to taste his smooth flesh.
    “Are you well, Nyssa?” He massaged her shoulder, and her bunched muscles yielded to the insistent pressure of his calloused thumb.
    Well? Aside from the strange tension at her core and a peculiar giddiness, all her fingers and toes worked. She flexed them to be cert. And she felt no pain. Her stomach growled. A violent cramp hit her. Nyssa bent in half and choked back a moan.
    Konáll helped her to sit up and cupped her cheek. His palm radiated both warmth and comfort. Their eyes met. “You have slept for the entire day and Mús told me you had not eaten before the two of you found me. I did force some of Skatha’s magik potion down your throat while you slept, but you should eat now.”
    She blinked. “Skatha? Magik potion?”
    Nyssa covered her ears when Konáll bellowed for a bowl of soup. When the tent flap opened she ducked her head and pulled the blanket over her eyes and listened. Konáll spoke to another in Norse, his words so rushed she could not translate. Shuffled footsteps, then a gust of icy air flitted over her