Sandra Hill - [Vikings I 02] by The Outlaw Viking Page A

a grin, and he winked wickedly at her.
    The teasing brute! She turned her back on him huffily.
    “Rain?”
    “What?”
    “What is an orgy-asm?”
    Rain felt her face turn hot with embarrassment, and she refused to answer him. Besides, he probably already knew and just wanted to continue baiting her.
    Selik stood and put out the torch, then lay back down, pulling the furs over them both.
    “Go to sleep, sweetling.”
    Sweetling! Rain’s heart hummed at the quaint endearment. He probably meant Sleetling. Oh, well .
    Already half asleep, she said, softly, “Selik?”
    “Hmmm?”
    “I’m glad God sent me to save you.”
    She thought she heard him swear and say something like, “Your god must have a strange sense of humor,” but she was too tired to ask him to repeat the words.
     
    Rain awakened late the next morning, totally rested—and alone. She stretched lazily under thewarm furs, wondering where Selik was.
    Suddenly she realized she’d slept soundly through the night. No dreams. No nightmares. She smiled.
    Well, what did she expect, she told herself ruefully. She was living inside her nightmare.
    Tykir . The memory hit Rain with a jolt, and she jumped up, frantic to check on her patient. Using a small bowl of water, she splashed her face and rinsed her mouth. Without a mirror, she could only smooth the loose tendrils of hair that had escaped her braid.
    Her half brother lay where she’d left him the night before, guarded by a young soldier who answered her questions about the patient’s progress through the night. Rain breathed a sigh of relief when she found Tykir’s skin cool to the touch. No fever, thank God. His pulse was shallow, but regular—to be expected after the traumatic surgery—and his heartbeat was strong.
    While she unwrapped his bandages, Tykir awakened groggily. “Am I alive? Or dead? Be you a handmaiden to the gods?”
    Rain laughed softly. “You are very much alive, young man, and I hope to keep you that way. And though Selik has referred to me as a guardian angel, I’m a mere mortal, just like you.”
    Tykir tried to smile through lips white-edged with pain.
    “Here,” Rain said, pulling out her bottle of Darvon. “I only have six of these left, so we’ll have to spread them out. It will help with the pain.”
    “Nay, I need no magic pellets for pain.”
    “Take it,” Rain ordered sternly and shoved the pill in his mouth. Then she held his head up slightly to drink some water from a wooden goblet.
    “Are you a sorceress? I remember you prodding in my wound yestereve and feeling no pain.”
    “No, I’m a physician. A surgeon,” Rain answered as she examined his leg for infection, then replaced the bandages with clean linen.
    “Truly? Ne’er have I heard of a woman doing such. And the needles? Surely, they were tools of sorcery.”
    “No, even in ancient times, acupuncture was a legitimate science practiced by medical men. I must admit, it’s not my specialty, but I felt I had no choice in your case.”
    Tykir frowned, “Didst you claim yestereve to be my sister, or was I dreaming?”
    Rain put the final touches on her bandages, then turned to smile at the handsome youth. “I’m your half sister, Thoraine Jordan. They call me Rain for short.”
    Tykir tilted his head in confusion. “How can that be?”
    “We share the same father,” she explained, crossing her fingers at the half-lie. “My mother was Ruby Jordan. Do you remember her?”
    Rain couldn’t believe that, after thirty years of disbelieving her mother’s time-travel stories, she now accepted them so readily. Well, what other explanation could there be? It was either time-travel or a damned vivid dream.
    “Nay! ’Tis impossible.” Tykir grew agitated and tried to sit up, but she and the guard managed to get him to lie back down. “’Tis cruel of you to missay the truth,” Tykir accused her weakly.
    “Oh, Tykir, I wouldn’t lie about something like that.”
    Tears misted her half brother’s eyes.