Page 16 of Shared By the Vikings

Chapter Five

“Here.” Tali held outhis hand.

Ingrid hesitated for a second then took it. As she unfolded her spine complained.

Both Tali and Gunnvar allowed their gazes to roam her body.

Quickly, she yanked her hand from Tali’s and pressed her palm over the juncture of her thighs. She wrapped the other forearm over her breasts. “Where is Raud?”

“We haven’t seen him,” Gunnvar said. “Not since the longboat split in half when it hit rocks.”

“Split in half?”

“Ja, the storm was furious, the sea boiling as if Aegir wished to swallow us all.” Gunnvar reached for a long, sun-dried fur blanket at his feet and held it wide. “Here.”

“Thank you.” She turned and he wrapped it around her shoulders. It was a still a little damp but soft and covered her nakedness. She freed one arm and clutched it at her sternum.

‘I see a bubbling, broiling ocean. Aegir is unhappy, Aegir wishes to rise up, then swallow, sink back down, sink back down into the ocean... be warned.’

The seer’s words came back to her. She gulped down a sob as she studied the horizon. Had Raud been drowned in the storm? His skull cracked against the rocks the way the hull of the longboat had been? And if so, was it all her fault? She’d been warned that the sea would try to swallow her, and it seemed it had only to spit her out onto this beach. Raud and other members of her crew had not been so fortunate.

Tightening the fur in her fist, she stepped up to the ebbing waves. Now they were mellow and seductive, the voice of each merely a whisper. It was hard to believe how their mood could turn, how they could raise and smash a boat, upend it and destroy it—take lives as easily as a bird took to the wing.

Her heart filled with pain and swelled so much in her chest she was sure it would burst out. Raud couldn’t be dead. He was too big and strong and vibrant and full of life. Besides they had plans together. Long-term plans that included marriage, a family, sex... lots of sex.

Her head hurt but the wound on her soul was the greatest injury. She’d loved Raud all of her twenty-one summers. Being without him would be like missing an arm or a leg.

“The gash on your head isn’t deep,” Tali said, coming to her side.

She didn’t much care if it was. In fact it would have been better if it had eaten into her brain, killed her, then she wouldn’t have to suffer this way.

“I’ll search this bay,” Gunnvar said. “There’s debris, haps it’s from the boat and will be of use.”

“I’ll start a fire,” Tali said. “The day is warm but when night falls the ground will be a cold bed.”

The two Vikings stepped away.

Tears rolled down Ingrid’s cheeks and dripped from her chin. She didn’t sob, didn’t collapse with grief. That wasn’t her way, she was strong, or so she was telling herself.

A life without Raud!

Erik had said he’d punish her for her deceit, but there was naught he could do to her that would hurt as much as this moment. This moment of realizing she’d lost her love, was stranded in a foreign land, and had angered not just her father and the Jarl but the gods too.

“You, woman, collect firewood,” Erik called gruffly. “Now.”

She pulled in a deep breath and tore her attention from the horizon. Behind her was a dense forest laden with shadows. To her right a sharp cliff edge that toppled down into barrel-shaped rocks that peeked from the tide. Swifts pushed through the warm air, their wings hardly beating as they mounted the currents above.

She swiped her cheeks to rid them of the wet sorrow, then stomped over the sand, her feet sinking deep.

Perhaps the gods hadn’t been as wicked as she’d first thought. Maybe Raud was alive and further up the coastline.

A pile of material tangled with weed caught her attention. She stooped and pulled it upward. Dark green tendrils clung to the sandy clump of leather and knotted around one strip was a woolen strip.

“My clothes?” She frowned at it. How on earth had Aegir managed to strip her bare? Was it part of the gods plan to expose her truth, give up her secret?

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