Redeeming Her Viking Warrior

‘No, but I still should have been there.’ He scowled. ‘If you’re trying to make excuses for me, then I don’t want to hear them.’

‘I’m not making excuses, I’m just trying to understand. What happened to the woman afterwards?’

‘I’ve no idea where she went, but I hope I never s

et eyes on her again. By the time I realised she must have been working for the assassins, she was long gone. Then all I could do was watch Brandt clutch his dead wife in his arms and think that I could have prevented it. He looked broken, like a man in torment.’

‘If you’d tried to prevent it, then you might have been killed, too.’

‘At least that would have been honourable.’

‘Is that what your brothers said?’

‘No.’ He clenched his jaw. ‘But I wish they had. I wish they’d all been furious with me. I wish Brandt had pummelled my head into the dirt. It might have made me feel a little better, but it was as though they never expected any better from me...’ He passed a hand over his face. ‘I failed my family because I was an attention-seeking, irresponsible fool, the joker who was always driven by his lust instead of his head, but those days are over. I’m not that man any more. I want to be a better man, a man of worth, someone whose reflection I can bear to look at. That means making amends for what I did and earning my brothers’ forgiveness. I can’t bring back Ingrid or my father or Gilla, but I can help to get justice for them.’

‘What about the assassin you said you killed in Strathclyde? Wasn’t that making amends?’

‘Not enough. Sandulf found him, I only finished him off. That’s why I need to find out the truth behind those pendants. Until I do that, I can’t think of myself or of mating. I’m trapped in that day and I can’t move on.’ He hung his head. ‘I don’t know how else to explain it.’

‘You don’t have to. I told you, I know how it feels to lose those you care about.’

‘So you did.’ He reached a hand out before he could stop himself, grasping her chin between his thumb and forefinger. How could he ever have thought her features were expressionless and impassive? At that moment, her eyes were brimming with emotions—pain, sorrow, sympathy, understanding. Their swirling depths seemed to draw him in...

‘Tomorrow,’ she murmured, her skin flushing beneath his fingertips before she pulled away finally. ‘Tomorrow, if the rain clears, I’ll show you.’

Chapter Thirteen

Amazingly, he hadn’t asked where they were going. Even more amazingly, he’d barely spoken at all since she’d roused him at dawn with a shake of his good arm and a bowl of porridge, before handing over a pack of supplies and leading the way east. At this time of year they needed to start early if they were going to reach their destination and return again in daylight.

The previous night’s storm had cleared the air, leaving blue sky and a smattering of wispy clouds in its wake for their journey through the forest and up into the hills. They made good time, stopping after a couple of hours to eat some of the dried meat the villagers had given her. Danr nodded his thanks though he still didn’t speak. It was unnerving. A few days ago, she would have been glad of his silence, but now it felt wrong—too unlike him. Was it because of what had happened between them? She’d been trying and failing all morning not to remember the hard feel of his body—such a contrast to the soft touch of his hands—hoping they could just put it behind them and pretend that nothing had happened, but to her dismay there was a new atmosphere of tension between them, one which made silence even worse. She missed her old talkative companion—and when had she started to think of him as a companion?

‘We need to go along that ridge and then down the mountainside,’ she announced finally, pointing towards a jagged stretch of rock between two towering peaks looming above them. ‘It would be quicker to go through the valley, but we’re more likely to bump into Gaels there. They’re used to seeing me, but they’re still suspicious of Norsemen.’

‘The ridge it is, then.’

She nodded and looked quickly away. On a bright day like this, his eyes seemed to match the blue sky behind him. It was strange, but they looked different now—brighter, in some way, than when she’d first found him. Which made sense since he’d been bleeding to death at the time, but they seemed deeper somehow, too. More soulful and intelligent than she’d first given them, or him, credit for.

‘Here.’ She passed him a skin filled with water. ‘If we keep up this pace, we’ll reach our destination before noon.’

‘Good.’

They carried on, climbing up on to the ridge and then walking along in single file, high enough up to see the eastern coast of the island, beyond which lay the sea and beyond that, the coast of Alba itself. The terrain underfoot was less stable than she remembered, however, uneven and covered in scree.

‘Maybe we should consider the valley after all,’ Danr called out after a few minutes, pointing ahead to where the ridge tapered so narrowly that one misstep could lead to a potentially deadly fall. ‘I don’t like the look of that, especially after so much rain.’

‘I’ve walked this way lots of times. We’ll go slowly.’

Although, perhaps he had a point, she thought as several stones slid out from beneath her leather shoes and skittered away down the steep slope of the mountain. The thought of walking in uncomfortable silence for any longer than was necessary made her want to continue, but perhaps the rain had made it more dangerous. Even Tove and Halvar seemed reluctant to follow them. And if the ridge was so unstable here, then there could be other places ahead that were even worse. Places where it would be too narrow to turn around and go back...

‘You’re right. We should go—’ She was midway through agreeing when the path started to crumble, sending her toppling sideways. Quickly, she flung her weight in the other direction, but it was too late. Her arms were flailing and the very ground beneath her feet was falling away, knocking her legs out from under her and sending her plummeting down the mountainside.

A hand shot out and grabbed her wrist—and not just any hand, she noticed, but a right hand, specifically the one attached to Danr’s injured arm. His grasp was firm and unyielding, though it must have been excruciating to hold so much weight. Still, he was doing it, refusing to let go as her body swayed out at a precarious angle above the sheer drop below... Her gaze locked on to his, holding on to that for dear life, too.

‘Don’t let go,’ he muttered between gritted teeth, somewhat unnecessarily, since she had no intention of doing so. At that moment, he was the only thing standing between her and at least a dozen broken bones, if not worse.

‘I’m going to lift you back up.’ He braced his feet and stretched his other arm out, steadily and cautiously, to grasp her waist. ‘Don’t move your feet yet, just lean against me.’

She did as he told her, holding her breath as he levered her gently into his arms.