Sirens - The Gripping Beast Part 13

He had her nearly to the door before she realized she didn't have anything on, and neither did he. "Erik, wait! We can't go out there like this!"

He didn't hesitate. "Do not concern yourself. n.o.body will look."

To her surprise, he was right. He must have forewarned the others that he was giving his crazy slave a bath. A bucket of water and a bar of soap waited.

"Oh, Erik, you really are a sweet man." She gave him a smile, slipped free, grabbed the soap and made use of it.

Minutes later they were rinsed clean and headed back for dry clothes. At least, she hoped she got clothes. She peeked at her bearded Norseman, searching for a clue as to his intentions.

He caught her look, and to her surprise, looked slightly apologetic. "The salt.w.a.ter stings, I know. But you will have fresh water to bathe in come morning."

She halted in surprise. "Fresh water? Really? Then we're almost where we're going?"

He caught her around the waist and pulled her along, guiding her back to the cargo hold and searching out another s.h.i.+rt for her to wear. "Really." He dropped the garment over her head and tugged it into place.

"And where are we going?" Lorelei asked, curious.

"Home."

"Home." She shot him an exasperated look, but he was already turning away to dress himself. "Could you be a little more informative? Where is home?"

"A farm on a fjord."

She ground her teeth in frustration. "Of course. A fjord. Where else would a Viking live? I should have known."

He gave her an even stare. "Home is where I say it is."

"Oh, not the master-slave bit again," she protested. "All right, all right," she added when he started towards her. "I said I'd be reasonable, and I meant it. I'll toe the line. You may find this hard to believe, but I have no desire to find myself on the wrong side of your law. I'll do my best to be obedient."

"You are right, I find this hard to believe," he grumbled, looking suspicious.

She gave him a winning smile. "Don't worry. I'll get the hang of it, for as long as I need to. It isn't like I have to play slave girl forever."

The suspicion in his face hardened into resolution and she got the distinct feeling that she'd said something wrong. "Uh, Erik?"

He didn't answer. He just kept coming towards her. Nervous, she backed away until he had her pinned against the wall. He lifted her and spread her legs to stand between them, holding her up with his body. "You are my property," he informed her. "Do you understand? This is no game. I could take you now, and you would have no choice but to submit."

"Really?" Deceptive innocence sweetened her voice. She could get free if she wanted to. He didn't know her weird workout was a form of self-defense. She thought about giving her little secret away and decided not to if she could avoid it. If it ever came to a real fight with him, she'd need the edge surprise would give her. She went with her instincts instead, trusting that she was right. He didn't want to hurt her, and he knew she was too sore to find s.e.x anything but painful just then.

"Okay, have it your way. I'll probably cry the whole time, and I won't be able to crawl, let alone walk afterwards, but you're bigger and stronger." She heaped guilt on his head and laid it on as thick as she dared. "You'll probably tear me, too. I'm too dry. I might bleed. It could take days or even weeks to heal, and you'd have to find someone else to screw, but you probably have enough slaves not to be too inconvenienced."

He muttered curses against her hair, then lifted her to eye level. "Woman, cease your mockery. You tempt me to prove my point. Your pain would be small compared to what you invite with your endless taunting."

"Erik, I said I'd behave. Either you believe me or you don't, but don't threaten me." She glared back at him, furious that he could be so callous after the tenderness he'd shown her. "If you're going to do it, then get it over with. But when you're finished, don't ever touch me again or I'll fight you with every ounce of strength in my body. And I'll hate you forever."

"Forever is a long time."

"Not as long as you might think. But if you insist on putting a limit on it, I'll hate you for a thousand years." As Lorelei spoke, the words came with a force that surprised her. She felt like she'd just given voice to an ancient curse. The words held the same power she used to sway a crowd during a concert to create the mood she desired, the nameless force that she shaped with her vocal cords and gave heightened structure to with musical composition.

Be careful what you wish for...

The dream warning came back to her in a rush and cold panic flooded her body. What if she catapulted back into the future right now? She would lose him forever. And as angry as he made her, as fiercely as they fought, she couldn't bear the thought of never seeing him again.

"I didn't mean it!" she yelled and threw her arms and legs around Erik, clinging to him with all her strength. "I take it back! Erik, don't let me go!"

He stared down at her, not knowing what to make of her. One moment she defied him and vowed her hatred, the next she clung to him as if she couldn't bear any separation.

Words continued to spill out of her as she clutched him tighter. "I don't know how the d.a.m.n things work. What if they send me back right now? Like that movie with Christopher Reeve. He goes back in time and meets the perfect woman and they fall in love, and then he puts his hand in his pocket and touches a coin. Bam, he's yanked back to his own time. And that's it, they lost each other forever! What if it happened like that to us?"

She made no sense. But she was truly distraught. Erik frowned and wondered how he could calm her fears when there was no reason to them.

Moments before, he had been intent on carrying out his duty to teach her a lesson. The seriousness of her situation seemed to elude her. She treated her position as his slave as if it were a jest, something she could abide by or discard as it suited her. If it were only the two of them, she could do as she pleased. But at home, she would bear the full penalty of the law and her defiance of it would be no laughing matter. And now he wanted only to comfort her and take away her fear.

But he had a duty, his mind protested. Was he to turn his back on his duty for her? His father was jarl. He had a duty to abide by the law and to see that all those under his responsibility did so as well. Better she suffer some discomfort now than the agony of real punishment that her insolence and refusal to acknowledge her enslaved state invited. He would spare her that.

He remembered her voice, low and shaking with anger. "I will hate you for a thousand years."

He had never before failed his duty. But he could not help the feeling, in spite of all logical reason, that he was failing her. He had thought to have her and fulfill his duty too. But as the days wore on and she failed to accept her role, his duty and his desire fought a war within him. If duty lay one way and his heart another, how was he to choose and keep his honor?

One thing was certain. He lacked the will to let her go, even if he could be certain her freedom would not mean her demise.

He sighed and wrapped his arms around her, cradling her close. "You need have no fear of losing me."

She was shaking in his embrace. "How do you know? You don't have any better idea of how I got here than I do. One minute I'm getting ready to go on stage and the next I'm in front of you and you're buying me at sword point. If we don't know how that happened, how do we know it won't just happen again? The dream said be careful what I wish for, that I have the key. What if I got so mad that I wished I'd never met you and it happened?"

She ended her outburst in tears and huddled into his chest, crying as if her world was ending. It tore at his heart. Her fear was real even if the reason for it escaped him.

"You will not lose me." He held her firmly between himself and the wall, his arms holding her tightly, his body bracing hers, only the fabric of the s.h.i.+rt she wore separating them.

"It could happen," she insisted. She twisted in his arms, yanking the s.h.i.+rt up to press her bare skin against his. With her legs locked around his waist, his hard shaft rode between her spread thighs, grazing her moist womanly cleft. "I want you inside me. Right now. Hard." She clawed at him and fought to align them better, to force his flesh into hers.

"You said you were too sore. You would find no pleasure in it," he rasped back.

"I don't care!" She fought to move in his embrace, to get closer.

"You will care later." He struggled for control, for the strength to resist her, but she was positioned too perfectly and her slick woman's flesh was already enclosing the head of him. It took only a slight s.h.i.+ft of angle as he tilted his pelvis to enter her partway. He heard her breath catch and knew that in spite of her demands, she was too unready to take him like this.

He slid one hand between them and found the swollen bud nestled in her woman's flesh with his finger. He stroked the sensitized nub until he felt the tight channel that clenched at him growing wetter, prepared for his entry. He thrust deep and slid all the way inside and then stopped, feeling her clutching at him from without and within. It undid him. He withdrew his hand and slid it over her hip and cupped her bare, rounded b.u.t.tocks with both hands. Then he withdrew partway, only to thrust back into her again and again with a force that she should have protested. Comforting her in the only way she would allow. Proving that he was there, that she was his, making her forget her fear of losing him in the endless mating of their flesh.

Afterwards he carried her back to the bed of furs they shared, still buried deep inside her, making her moan with pleasure at every step. He lowered her down until her back rested against the fur and his body covered hers. His weight drove him further into her and she sighed.

He knew he should withdraw from her. Yet he had no will to leave her body and allow her to recover. He wanted to remain inside her for as long as it gave her comfort. He understood his little slave more and more, understood that she needed the proof of his possession and that words alone would not have reached her. He only hoped she would not suffer much discomfort later.

Erik waited until the tremors had left her body and her breath had settled into a calmer pattern. Then he withdrew from her and stood, looking down at her. Her eyes met his. She looked confused and a little shocked. He wanted to gather her up in his arms and comfort her. He wanted more to put some distance between them and the growing tension in his world that she was the cause of. In silence, he bound her hands and hobbled her feet once more. Then he left her without a word, not trusting himself to speak.

When he pa.s.sed Harold, he muttered, "See to her." He could not do so himself, but with his brother for company she would lack for nothing and would not be alone with any fear that still haunted her.

When Harold appeared, Lorelei would have liked to disappear, preferably into a large, deep hole in the ground. The large, loose s.h.i.+rt Erik had dressed her in before they both lost their minds covered her decently, but it was obvious what they'd been doing. Going at it as violently as they argued.

He didn't give her a chance to be embarra.s.sed, though. Simply helped her up and led her out to look at the water. When he offered her something to eat, she took it without looking and ate it without comment. She wasn't hungry. It tasted like sawdust. But she knew she needed to eat, so she went through the motions.

He gave her some mysterious liquid and she drank it thirstily. It burned all the way down, but not unpleasantly. They sat together for some time in silence, drinking and looking out at the sea. After a while, Lorelei suggested, "Sing me one of your songs."

He was happy to oblige, and Lorelei leaned back and listened to the rhythmic chant. After a while, she recognized what he was singing.

About a thousand years later, the story would be retold by Wagner in music, Tolkien in literature. Harold was singing part of the Ring Cycle.

Loki had stolen the ring of Rhinegold from the dwarf Andarvi, and now Odin must recover it from the lair of a dragon to save nine worlds from disaster.

She listened with rapt attention, closing her eyes to hear better. As a musician, she'd learned to listen with total concentration, blocking out all distractions in order to isolate and a.n.a.lyze the parts of a composition. As a result, she could remember and play anything after she'd heard it once. Now she listened intently to the old Nordic myth, and wondered that she could hear it told by an actual Norseman. It wasn't every day a student of mythology got a chance like that.

Harold sang of the power of the ring and she s.h.i.+vered.

The design in Erik's armbands were made with gold.

Her eyes flew open and she considered the wild possibility for a moment.

It was just a story. Her dream was just a stupid dream. She had an overactive imagination, that was all. Erik's armbands were real, while the one Loki stole was not. There couldn't be any connection whatsoever between them. And even if there was, she couldn't control the armbands. She didn't have the power.

Lorelei pushed the subject to the back of her mind and concentrated on the saga. Now Harold was singing of the Volsungs, the guardian wolves of Valhalla. She forced herself to pay attention. She might not get a chance like this again.

All in all, her Viking vacation was proving quite an opportunity.

Her relations.h.i.+p with Erik might be a hopeless tangle, but n.o.body had done anything to hurt her. Harold was doing his best to be a friend to her, and considering the Nordic theme of family loyalty and honor that cropped up repeatedly in their myths, that was no small thing.

She ought to be more appreciative.

But she was too emotionally drained, or maybe too drunk, to feel much of anything just then.

Harold got to the part about the marriage of Siggier of Hafvang to the Volsung Signy, and stopped.

She looked up expectantly.

"No more tonight," he saidwith a smile. "My throat grows too dry."

"Oh." She smiled back at him and pa.s.sed the booze. They drank in silence for a while longer. Then Lorelei roused herself to ask a question that had been bothering her. "Harold, I have to know something. You guys don't have sonar or radar or anything like that. I don't think you even have compa.s.ses yet. So how do you know where you are?"

The big man frowned at her. "I do not understand your meaning."

"I mean, how do you know where you are in relation to land? How do you keep from getting lost at sea?"

"Oh, that." Harold waved a dismissive hand and drank again. "Many things. The color of the water, for one."

She sat bolt upright and stared at him, amazed. "You're kidding."

"No. The polar current is green, and can be easily seen."

"You're kidding," Lorelei said again.

"You grow drunk," Haroldsaid. "Have some more."

"Thank you, I will." She took another drink and noted that after a while it stopped burning and she just felt warm all over. "What else do you use?"

"A sunstone, with a dial and pointer."

She frowned at Harold. "A sunstone? What's that?"

"A rock."

"A rock," she repeated numbly. "For navigation?"

"It changes color, also," Harold explained.

She took another drink to brace herself. "It changes color. A rock. And the water changes color." She started to laugh. "I'm trapped in the ancient past with a band of Vikings who navigate the open sea by colors. Colors!" she howled, slapping her thigh.

Harold missed the joke, but joined in anyway. "Yes, we are fine navigators," he boasted, laughing.

She laughed harder, until she was too weak to move. Not that it mattered. They were all going to die. They were navigating by trying to see currents in the ocean with the naked eye and holding rocks up to the sun to watch them change color.

She could almost believe there was a Loki, and that he was responsible for her little adventure.

Still smiling at the absurdity of it all, she fell asleep.

The next morning, she regretted the previous night. Not only the drinking, since she had a whopping headache and no coffee or aspirin to chase away her hangover. But she regretted laughing at what she'd considered ludicrously primitive navigation methods. She had to eat her words.

They weren't going to die, wreck the s.h.i.+p or get lost at sea.

They were beaching the longboat at the fjord Erik had mentioned.

She blinked and rubbed her eyes to be sure she wasn't imagining things, but she could still see green fields and lush, primeval forests. Green, everywhere. She might have been in Oz, arriving at the Emerald City.

"We're not in Kansas anymore," Lorelei murmured.

She stood, and rubbed her arms in the morning chill. If this was summer, what was winter like? She surveyed the view moodily. At least it was scenic. There was a crowd of people waiting for them, and depression settled over her. She looked exactly like she could be expected to look, considering recent events, and it didn't make for a stunning first impression. She looked pathetic.

She looked down at herself. She was naked except for Erik's overly large s.h.i.+rt. Her hair was in tangles. She was tied hand and foot.

She looked like a fas.h.i.+on victim. No, it was worse than that.

She looked like a slave.

Chapter Eleven.