Page 72 of Viking Warriors: Vol. 1-3
Elswyth was fastening the brooches at her shoulders, elegant fingers working the pin. That dress! So very like Bretta’s had been on the day they’d wedded.
Something about her made him uneasy. Was this Loki’s trick? Some would believe it was the work of the gods. Their humour could be crueler than any man’s.
Sweyn must have seen the likeness. It was why he’d taken her, surely. The same silken hair, falling thick over her shoulders, the same upward tilt of her eyes, the same indented curve to her upper lip. More than that, the way she moved her hands and tilted her head.
She was an echo of the wife lost to him. Coming upon her in the watch house, seeing her in that half-light, just for a moment, he’d thought it was Bretta found again, not dead at all.
The reality of it had brought a hammer blow—as if he’d not suffered enough of those. Not his wife, but that of his enemy, delivered into his hands.
Ah, yes. Odin had presented him with the opportunity for a different sort of revenge. The possibilities were almost overwhelming.
She knew it, too.
His enemy’s most prized possession at his mercy, becoming his willing thrall. He could destroy her in a single night if he wished or in a single hour. But there were sweeter paths to the end he sought.
If Svolvaen’s jarl looked down from Valhalla at this scene, what would he see? His beloved flogged and raped?
Nay.
There was a better way.
Piece by piece, he would reduce her, until she submitted to him as she never had to her husband. Fearing the worst treatment, she’d be grateful for what she received, and he would offer not just the torment of anticipated pain, but pleasure, too.
She was standing in the wedding dress donned for his enemy, waiting for him, Eldberg, to command her. Given time, he would make her yearn and plead. He would make her beg for him. He would make her betray what she thought she believed.
This would be his true vengeance.
* * *
The air was thick with the smell of roasting boar; a feast for the returning men—in reward for a mission well-accomplished. Eldberg let them see his prize, leading her by the rope Sweyn had tied around her neck, though he left her hands free.
She walked steadily behind him, her footing sure and her head high, though she cast down her eyes. A hush had fallen amidst the revelry, as they watched their jarl compel his acquisition to the far end of the longhouse. Sweyn watched closest of all.
The partition was but a curtain. She would be aware of that, knowing that those on the other side would be able to hear all that passed between them. Would she know also that his men would be imagining what he was doing to her?
A new woman was always of interest. A new thrall always a possibility, and a temptation. He would make it clear that she was his— that, for the time being, he forbade any to touch her. But she would not know it. Let her fear and feel his mercy at the same time.
Out of sight, the noise from the feasting continued—laughter and lewd comments beyond the divide that separated his chamber from the rest of the hall.
Eldberg meant to begin immediately. How she spent her first hours would set the tone for what was to come.
He might let her spend the night upon the floor, her ankles and wrists bound, the noose tight around her neck, attached to a hook on the wall. The thought of seeing her like that sent a jolt to his groin, but there were other ways to make her suffer—not like a dog beaten and chained.
When he requested that she remove her clothing, it was without argument. Eldberg took a bolt of jade silk from his trunk. It was among the finery he’d traded on his last trip to Hedeby. Silk he’d bought as a gift for Bretta, that she’d never had the chance to sew into a gown—kept in Sigrid’s chamber.
He gestured to Elswyth that she might lay her clothing over the trunk. He’d remove it later, so that she’d know she had nothing with which to cover herself. That privilege would have to be earned.
She brought her arms about her breasts, as if to comfort herself, but did nothing to cover between her legs. He made a point of looking at that part of her as he tore the silk into strips. The fibres gave way easily, ripping along the weft—his destruction of something that had been beautiful.
He motioned with his head again for her to lay upon the bed, to stretch out her arms and legs, to expose herself to him, so that nothing was hidden.
His palm met hers briefly as he tied his first knot. Her hands, small and graceful, clenched into fists. She watched wide-eyed, disbelieving then resigned as he tied her with the silk—each wrist, each ankle—then cast her gaze to the rafters.
How pale she was. Her hair clung damp to her skin—tendrils over each breast. Her nipples, large discs of pink, made his mouth dry. If he took the rosebuds between his teeth, tongued and suckled, would she moan in the same way as Bretta had done? Would she push forward, needing him to take her softness deeper into his mouth, needing him to take possession of her?
No. He knew the answer to that.
As his captive, she could do nothing to prevent him from taking her body, but she could withhold her mind. For his revenge to be complete, he wanted that, too.
