The Viking's Woman by Heather Graham Page B

at her with wide, frightened eyes.
    “What is it? Why are you still so afraid?”
    She shook her head. “I—I am not. Not now. I am here with you. I am safe.”
    But she didn’t know if she was safe or not, or if she could ever be safe again. She could not forget the Viking. She could not forget the fires of his body, or the ice of his eyes, or the husky timbre of his voice when had spoken to her in warning.
    Pray, lady … that we do not meet again
.
    And she would not meet him again, ever. She would stay with Alswitha and the children, and Alfred would ride forth with his mercenary army andmeet the Danes at Rochester. She would never, never see him again.
    Her teeth began to chatter. She was praying—just as he had suggested. She prayed, too, that Alfred would not know just how involved she had been in the fight.
    Alswitha, concerned, patted Rhiannon’s shoulders. “Come. You must sleep. There is someone else here who loves you, you know.”
    “Rowan!” Rhiannon cried suddenly, leaping up. She had nearly forgotten him—her very love!—in the trembling aftermath of all that had happened.
    “Aye, Rowan. Except that I am sure that he rode with the king and most probably will not return until tomorrow. So you must eat now, and then you have a night’s lost sleep to regain. You would not have him see you in such distress, would you?”
    “Nay, nay, I would not!” she agreed quickly. She could not let Rowan know of anything that had happened. He was not in love with Wessex, he was in love with her, and surely he might want to avenge her honor against the Norseman in the so-called Irish prince’s party who had so abused her.
    But when Rhiannon was at last put to bed in a long linen gown between clean sheets and covered by a warm woolen blanket, she did not dream of Rowan as she had assumed she would. Nay, she did not see the man she loved in her dreams, the young Saxon with laughing green eyes and tawny hair.
    She saw instead a towering Viking with golden hair, and golden beard, broad shoulders as hard as steel, and eyes as hard and wintry cold as a glacier that cut into her heart.
    She heard his laughter, remembered the strength of his touch, and felt the sudden, startling burning deep within her when his hands had roamed so freely and intimately upon her flesh—against her breast, upon her thigh. So tauntingly gentle in contrast to the fury of his eyes, the violence of the fight.
    She heard his whispered words, haunting her dreams, over and over.
Pray, lady … that we do not meet again
.
    The memories would not leave her, and she lay awake for long hours, trembling. She had felt that strange shiver of apprehension when she had first seen him. And then she felt his eyes upon her, felt his touch. She had thought that he might fall in battle.
    He had not fallen. He lived, she was certain.
    And they would meet again.
    No …
    Yet she felt sure of it. He had come with the storm and the savage waves in the sea. He was destined to rock her life with tempests.

3

    His sleep had been uneasy. Scattered dreams danced through his mind, and snatches of the past came before him. He saw the curious mosques of the Arab traders, and the grand palaces of the black-skinned Moors. He saw a sea on the day when Odin had thundered and sworn and cast men to death with heady abandon. He remembered traveling down the Seine to Paris, and even farther back in time he could remember the schoolroom in his father’s fine stone castle in Dubhlain. Leith was ever the scholar and ever the peacemaker, and Leith was their father’s heir. Leith had known their Irish history like a born seneschal, and Eric, often in jealousy, would leap atop a study table, wave an imaginary sword, and swear that he would conquer the world.
    Then his mother’s voice would come to reprimand him—soft, strong, and melodic. And his dreams of conquest would subside as she gathered her brood around her: Leith, Eric, Bryan, Bryce, Conan, and Conar; and the girls,