EINAR CARESSED THE soft cheek, smiled as the warm open mouth turned to him, and leaned down to kiss it. His tongue smoothed over the lips, then slipped inside. He heard the gentle sigh, took it into his own mouth, and tasted the sweet honeyed almonds they’d shared an hour before.

He drew back, patted the smooth cheek, then lay on his back, his head cradled on his arms.

“You please me,” he said.

“Aye, there’s truth in that, my lord. But you are too tired to bring me much pleasure tonight.”

Perhaps in a week, perhaps even as long as a month from now, Einar would slap that smooth cheek, or wield his whip on the flawless back, rage overflowing at such impertinence, but not now, not after only three days. The impertinence, the moments of insolence, aye, it was pleasing to him now. It whetted his passion and his interest.

He said slowly, “I have brought you to pleasure two times, more than you deserve. Cease your plaints. I am thinking of my sister, Mirana. I must have her back.”

“I hear she is but your half-sister.”

“Ah, is that jealousy that stings your agile tongue?”

“She is not golden as am I, so I have been told. Her hair is black as sin—”

“Aye, like mine. And her eyes are also like mine—as green as Erin’s hills after a spring rain. Her flesh is as white as goat’s milk, unlike yours, which is shaded with a rather ugly olive tinge.”

“Aye, but the gold of my hair and that olive tinge is unique, quite out of the ordinary, so you said yourself when you bought me from that fat French merchant in Dublin. You have said that you could drown in my golden eyes, a gold like rich sweet mead, you said. You have endlessly admired my black lashes, so thick you’ve said more times than I can remember, more lush than any of your women’s.”

Einar merely smiled. He enjoyed the show of jealousy, the preening vanity, the edge of viciousness to gain his attention, but Mirana—ah, where had the Viking taken her? He must find her quickly or he would surely find himself in grave difficulties. He thought of King Sitric, but didn’t worry overly about him. No, it was Hormuze who made his blood slow, made his stomach curdle and cramp. Hormuze was an old man, tottering in his years, but he was still a man to fear and Einar recognized it deep inside himself. The old man’s black eyes held passion and determination, not the dimming and clouding of old age. He had no desire, ever, to face Hormuze and have to admit that he’d failed. Well, he wouldn’t have to admit anything. He would find her in time.

Rorik Haraldsson was the bastard’s name, at least that was the name he’d told Mirana. Einar had forgotten, truth be told, about that day well over two years ago, a long time, after all. He’d done much in two years, too much to remember Rorik Haraldsson, a man he’d never even seen, a man whose farmstead in the Vestfold he’d visited and reduced to ashes and death.

But the Viking had found him. And Gunleik, the damned old fool, had been tricked. The Viking should be dead; they could have and should have butchered him easily, but they hadn’t. Mirana had even seen to his wound. He’d been pampered as a sultan in Miklagard. All that talk about keeping him for Einar’s pleasure he discounted. On the other hand, Gunleik never lied to him. But still . . . He wished Mirana had been here so he could have beaten the truth out of her. Had she admired the Viking and that was the reason she’d allowed him to live? Nay, Gunleik and his men were cowards. The Viking had frightened them, made them believe he was beyond them, and thus to be respected and held in awe.

The Viking had kidnapped his sister—nay, his half-sister. He grinned, but sobered almost immediately. He had men out searching for any word of her, of this Viking Rorik Haraldsson. It could take a long time, a very long time, more time than he had. He thought of Hormuze again, and felt bile rise in his throat.

He felt long fingers stroke over his belly, downward, to tangle in the thick hair at his groin. When the fingers closed around him, he sucked in his breath, his fears momentarily forgotten. He knew what was coming and all his senses focused on the mouth that was now on his belly, wet and soft, nipping at his flesh, moving ever downward.

His pleasure, when it took him, arched his back off the bed and made him scream. He forgot Mirana in those long incredible moments. He thought only of that warm skilled mouth and knew that it would take perhaps even more than a month for him to be bored with his new slave.

“By all the gods,” he managed to say after his heart calmed, “you are a beautiful animal.”

“Aye, more beautiful than your black-haired half-sister with her flesh whiter than a virgin’s teeth.”

Einar didn’t even consider a slap or a whipping. He merely smiled as he stroked his hand down a slender thigh.

It was nearly an hour later. Einar was sitting in his massive oak chair, his hands curved around its ornately carved chair posts. He accepted a plate of food from a slave.

As he chewed on the leg of mutton, tougher than it should be, he thought again of Mirana. She wouldn’t have allowed any meal to be served unless it was perfect. He’d remarked too that the turnips mixed with sweet onions and peas weren’t seasoned properly. He frowned. Nothing was quite as it should be without her here. Damn Mirana for not simply killing the Viking. He had to get her back, by all the gods, his own life depended on getting her back. He wanted to see her again, to hear her voice as she gave o

rders to the slaves, a calm voice, many times gentle, but also sharp if need be.

He looked up to see Gunleik chewing on his own mutton, his face down, silent as a stone. He’d aged ten years in the days she’d been gone, and rightfully so, since it was his fault that she was taken in the first place. Einar handed his wooden plate to a waiting slave, a girl not older than eleven, a sharp-featured child he didn’t like. He called out, “Gunleik, I have decided you will find Mirana. You will take three men and you will leave on the morrow. Two of these men will be Emund and Ingolf—my men—and thus I will be certain they will tell me the truth of things when you return. Aye, you will leave and you will find her. I have no need of you here. You have proved your worthlessness as the fortress commander.”

Gunleik looked up, trying to prevent the look of joy that washed away the drawn pallor of his face, but Einar saw it. “Ah, so you would go after her, would you? You lost her and now you will find her. Kill the Viking, I care not, or bring him back to me. I wish to punish you again, but now, even though it pleases you, I don’t wish to see your face until you’ve succeeded. Now, get out of my sight before I have you whipped anyway.”

Gunleik obeyed quickly, though it was difficult for him still to walk upright, his stride steady. The long deep welts on his back still burned and pulled, making him lock his jaw to keep his pain to himself. He’d deserved the beating. Had he been Einar, he would have done the same thing. The only difference was, he wouldn’t have enjoyed wielding the whip with such ferocious ecstasy.

“I do not like that old man, Einar. I am glad that you will send him away. He looks at me with contempt.”

“I have not asked that you like him. I punished him and now he will leave and find my sister. He will go because I believe him to have the best brain of all my men. Aye, he will find her, if she still lives.” His hand clenched into a fist. “I must have my sister back here or I will lose more than I can afford to lose, mayhap even my life.”

“No one would dare!”

“You think not?”

Tags: Catherine Coulter Viking Era Historical
Source: readsnovelonline.net