Page 34 of Alien Viking's Passion

Aretha was bent double with mirth. “You should have seen your face!”

He tried to say something, then gave up. He supported himself on the boulder while laughing helplessly.

“And your face,” he finally replied, chortling and wiping tears from his face. “But then, I always enjoy looking at it.”

He came over and took her hips between his hands, lifting her down from the boulder. Then he lifted her back up and kissed her on her mouth. “Salty.”

She put one arm around his neck, because it was the only thing to do. “I bet you are, too.”

He turned his head, offering her his cheek. “Perhaps you should make sure.”

She gave him a long kiss on the cheek, enjoying the feel of his beard on her chin. God, what a man this was! She had loved seeing him give in to laughter, letting go of his cold exterior and showing that he had a real sense of humor and that he didn’t take himself too seriously.

It was as if he had become complete. And that made him irresistible without trying.

“Not salty there,” she said, her voice going hoarse. “Let me try somewhere else.”

He turned his head the other way. “Like this?”

Again she gave him a soft, lingering kiss. “It’s a little salty, maybe.”

“Try in the middle,” he suggested and looked straight over her head.

She put her fingertips on the sides of his face and kissed him on the mouth. His lips were just as soft as she remembered, warm and smooth. He tasted of fresh berries. Again the beard tickled her, and it added a dimension to the experience that she had never dreamed of. But now, she didn’t want to be without it.

“You’re not salty anywhere,” she creakily concluded. “And you claim to be from a seafaring land?”

“Too long have I been away from the spray of the sea,” he lamented. “The sorrow is hard to live with. But you make me forget it. Now I think we have earned some rest after our highly successful labors to sendKvadto the bottom of the lake. Shall we see if the hut is still standing?” He set her down, took her hand, and led her fast through the woods.

She was tingling like crazy, more than ready for what she hoped would follow. She’d watched the fairy tale prince work all day, chopping down trees and building the boat. He would be sensory overload for any girl, and Aretha had spent her adult life on theUnity, with only other space rats for company. But it wasn’t only her — even experienced Viking shieldmaidens that looked like fitness models thought Craxon was especially attractive.

“Still standing,” he said when they reached their ridiculously misshapen not-teepee. “And still beautiful.” He peered up at the cloudless sky. “I think it may rain. We should go inside.”

“I think so too,” Aretha said as she crawled in and sat down on the heap of grass, now much drier than the previous night. The hut might look terrible from the outside, but the layers of leaves were dense enough that no sunlight went through them.

Craxon sat down next to her. “I will not run away again. The first time, I was afraid I was falling in love with you. And that is not the thing to do for a prince of Ragnhildros.”

Aretha put a hand on his massive thigh. “I know things are different for royals than for others, even on Earth. But I was sad when you avoided me in the days after.”

He put his hand on hers and squeezed. “That was just as sad for me.”

She didn’t need to hear anymore. She didn’t want his apologies; she wanted him inside her.

Sitting up straight, she unashamedly put a hand on his upper arm and traced the frosty, white pattern. “It’s beautiful. I know it hurt to get them.”

“You have been in the Ice Caves where we get our Marks burned into us. It’s not just the skin — it goes through the whole body, and it feels like you’re burning, from your spine and all the way through you. I wouldn’t even call it pain. I’ve had pain from being sliced with a blade and pierced by a spear. But the Ice Caves — that was not pain. That was something else. That wasmore, as different from pain as a vettir is different from a smallspurv.I remember being truly surprised at how bad it was. It doesn’t last long, you know. Only a heartbeat or two. But it feels like years, and it ages you like decades. And when it’s done, you hear the echo of your own helpless scream from the depths of the Caves and you smell your own flesh afire. Yes, it hurt.”

“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” Aretha said and let her finger trace the marks downwards. “I was there when Josie got her Marks. It was horrific. But it made you a warrior and it made this. I’m not sorry you have them.”

“That’s the way I feel,” Craxon agreed and put his fingertips on the side of her neck. “Even knowing how it happened, I would not be without the experience. But I would do anything to not have to go through it again.”

She traced the marks down his front, past his hard washboard stomach, until they dived into his pants and her finger wasstopped by the leather. “I feel that way about some things, too.”

“They say some of the alien females have nets in their heads,” he said softly, stroking a hank of hair behind her ear. “Is that what you mean?”

It wasn’t, but the neural net qualified, too. “The neural lace helps me be like other people,” she explained. “It helps me live, and it helps me think. If I didn’t get it when I was a baby, I would never have been able to do anything other than sit in a chair and wonder at the things around me.”

“Then I’m glad,” he said, leaning in to kiss her. “You were clearly made for more than that.”

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