Page 51 of Alien Viking's Plunder

“Are you engaged?”

“No. You?”

He shook his head. “Neither engaged nor married. My clan keeps nagging me to secure heirs to the earldom, but I’ve resisted.”

“Why?”

“I see we’re back to you asking questions again. All right. Because getting married is… special. My clan wants me to marry a princess or a duchess from another realm on Gardr. To strengthen ties between us and them. But I don’t like any of the princesses. They’re not special. They think they are, of course. Because they happened to be born to some king or duke or earl. But where is the connection?” He stared into the embers of the fire. “If there’s no connection, there can’t be a marriage. I need more than that. I need my One. Maybe even my Karest. But it’s very unlikely I’ll find her. Now you can answer the same question.”

“Why I’m not married”? Josie replied. “Because I’ve been onUnitymy whole adult life. People come and go so fast that it’s not possible to even check if thereisa connection.”

He leaned back to drink and took her in over the rim of the ladle. She was back in the same dark, figure-hugging clothes that looked utilitarian, but still smelled faintly of the stale air in that alien station. Her own scent overpowered it, thankfully. It was a remarkable scent, heady and mysterious. If somehow she got away from him, he would keep seeking it for the rest of his life.

Her face was clear, with a small nose and cheeks that would go pink whenever she had some strong emotion. Or if she’d been in the cold, like now. Her movements were fast, but not nervous. Her voice was bright, still with a bit of a rasp to it which he found heart-achingly attractive.

As was the rest of her. Sweet Valhalla, his crotch was in a constant state of high alert whenever she was close by. That shape, those moves, the scent… it was all too overwhelming. And now that he’d seen all of her, and tasted her and witnessed her climax, he needed more.

“You named the fenr, but you still haven’t named your spear,” he observed, crossing his legs. “It needs a name to be a weapon in full. May I see it?”

Josie handed him the stick he had cut from arognsapling, knowing it would become hard, yet flexible once the sap inside had hardened. Now it was the way he had anticipated.

“This is not ideal,” he told her and pushed his thumb against the point that he had sharpened and hardened in the fire. It was still hard, but dull. “Would you like me to change it to a harder point?”

Josie shrugged. “If you can. I don’t use the point much, except against skrymtir.”

He showed her the piece of flint he had picked up. “The old hunters who built this hut sharpened their stone spears right outside it. I dug down and found hundreds of flakes like this under the snow. Take it.”

Josie took the flake and turned it over in her hand. “It’s sharp. But it’s so thin. Won’t it break?”

“It will break if you hit it against a stone,” Bragr agreed. “But not if you thrust it into a skrymt or a vette. I’ll fasten it to the end of the spear, and you will become much more dangerous.”

Josie handed the stone back. “I never thought I would be dangerous.”

He laughed. “You were extremely dangerous to my warriors. To their pride, anyway. And on Gardr, there’s a word for those who are not dangerous.”

“Thrall?” Josie suggested.

He gave her a glance. “We haven’t kept slaves for a long time. Don’t let Siv’s teasing on the ship annoy you. She’s easily made jealous, and you made the mistake of making eye contact with Sigurdr. No, the word I had in mind was ‘dead’.”

“So you don’t intend to keep me as a slave? Or the other girls?”

“That would be silly,” Bragr said, fastening the flint blade to the spear with a long piece of sinew from the keigr he had hunted down. “And if that were the case, I certainly wouldn’t be arming you. Did you think of a name?”

“A name for a spear… does your sword have a name?”

“Brisingr,” he told her. “An old name for a new sword. I forged it myself right after I got my Marks. But Brisingr is a better blade.”

“What does it mean?”

“It means ‘fireblade’. It’s also connected to the goddess Freyja. Do you know about her?”

“Not really,” Josie said. “I don’t think anyone worships the old Viking gods anymore.”

“Pity,” he said. “From the way your people didn’t defend their station, I think they would need a warrior goddess.”

Josie sighed as if exasperated. “Nobody expected to be attacked by Vikings, Bragr! We had no weapons because those are far too dangerous to keep on a station. But let me tell you this: if we’d been allowed to use the kinds of weapons we have on Earth itself, not one of your warriors would have returned to their home. Including you.”

“Ah,” he said. “These are ranged weapons of which you speak, yes?”

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