Page 31 of Alien Viking's Passion

“Caught together on an island cold,”Craxon said after a while of thinking,

“Adoring warrior and maiden bold

Found an iglsnutr rare

Its luck might let them leave it there.”

Aretha clapped her hands together several times in what was clearly admiration. “And you said you couldn’t make rhymes! I think you can get rid of that skald of yours. I doubt he could matchthat. But what does ‘adoring’ mean?”

He frowned. Had he really used that word about himself? It had slipped out and just felt natural. But it couldn’t be true.

“Oh, it’s a word that can mean many things,” he said, fastening another vine. “It just fit the kvad.”

She sent him a short glance, and it seemed to him that there was some hurt in her eyes.

“Oh.” She kept working.

Holy Zhor, she couldn’t be in love with him, could she?

He only knew that he wasn’t in love with her. He couldn’t be. Kofraks would devastate his principality.

No, of course he wasn’t in love with Aretha. It was a passing fancy only. Certainly he longed to jump over the shortship, take her in his arms, and pull her to him, to bury his nose in her hair and draw in the scent of her, to feel her soft warmness against his skin, to taste the sweetness of her lips, to run his hands down her sides, enjoying the roundness and the luxurious fullness of her hips, to slide one hand inside her dress and cup the impossible smoothness there…

He swallowed in a dry throat, feeling his crotch brought to a raging fullness.

Of course that wasn’t love. It was only… lust!

Of course. Being in love was a completely different thing. This was only lust. It wasn’t as if he wanted to keep her with him at all times, to look into her eyes anytime he wanted, to hear her voice speak his name, to have her gently polish his horns with a fine cloth, to feel one of her tiny fingers trace his warrior’s markings and ask what it meant, to tell him all about her life in every detail, to see the place she grew up, to see her swell with his offspring and to stroke his finger along her full belly, to always protect her against any danger, to listen to her tell him of her day while her head was in his lap and he could stroke her strange, horn-less head with his fingertips, sensing the fineness of her hair…

He shook himself out of the reverie.

No, no. It was laughable. It wasn’tlove. Of course he wanted those things, like any man would. But as the prince of theproudest land on Gardr, he couldn’t allow himself that luxury. His was a life of cold duty and steely hardness, not of female touch and affection and togetherness, of sweet caresses, of stolen glances and little smiles sent to the other through a crowded room…

“The Royal Chaperone confused me,” he grunted to himself. “Her old crone feebleness made her think there was any danger at all. And the silly, over-excited soothsayer! Of course elderly women would take the healthy lust of a young warrior to be something much deeper.” Well, they weren’t there now. They couldn’t see this quite innocent lust and with their words turn it into that great danger.

“Did you say something?” Aretha asked, poking her head over the edge of the shortship.

“Your kind words made me think I carry the gifts of a skald in me, and so I am trying to make another kvad,” he told her. “Now I want all my kvads to rhyme, but it doesn’t work.”

“It’s a hard language to rhyme in,” she said and worked on.

He smiled, relieved at his realization. The chaperone wasn’t there. The soothsayer was far away, and would not try to spy on him with her sorceress gifts. Certainly Kofraks was deep in the ocean somewhere. There was no one nearby who could see them.

He grinned with defiance. Kofraks would never know.

He finished his side of the shortship, tightening vines and filling the open cracks between planks with thick moss that he packed in as hard as he could.

Aretha did the same on her side, and then the small ship was finished.

They stood looking at it. The rough planks clashed badly with the beautiful paint, its artful red and blue and yellow swirls losing their elegance.

Feeling more at ease, Craxon couldn’t resist putting his arm around Aretha’s narrow shoulders. “It’s not the most graceful of vessels.”

“It’s an ugly thing,” she agreed. “But I bet it will float.”

“It will.” Suddenly he wasn’t that eager to leave the island. When they got to the other side, all they had to do was walk for probably less than a day to reach the jarlagard. And then… well, Tyra the Royal Chaperone and Signe the Soothsayer were there, his ship would be close to finished, and then he would set sail for home.

Without Aretha.

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