Odin's Shadow (Sons Of Odin Book 1) (9th Century Viking Romance) (27 page)

"Ainnileas?" There was a hint of panic in Ingrid's voice. She couldn't understand the Irish words, but anyone other than a simpleton could tell that something of great importance was happening.

"Do not trust this girl," Grainne warned Ainnileas, with an abrupt gesture in Ingrid's direction. "She carries the blood of the devil in her veins—her beauty masks a soul as black as night."

Ainnileas stood frozen as he gaped at the woman. Ingrid was clearly frustrated at her inability to follow the conversation. She made an exasperated noise and ran toward the house, no doubt to tattle to the slave’s master.

As Selia moaned in her brother’s arms, Grainne grabbed him with a face so fierce, he took a step backward. "Listen to me carefully, we don't have much time. You are both in danger. Alrik Ragnarson is the wickedest man who has ever walked the earth!"

Ainnileas snapped, "I don't care about Alrik. Tell me why you think you're our mother."

"I know my own children! I have seen your faces in my mind every day for the past sixteen years. I thought Deirdre was dead, but I hoped beyond hope you had survived, Cassan."

"What happened, then?" he asked with suspicion. "Why did you leave us?"

Grainne paused to catch her breath. "The devil raided our village and burned it to the ground. He murdered your father. He raped me!"

Ainnileas sank to the ground with Selia in his arms, and she cried out, wracked with another violent wave of pain. "You're wrong," she gasped, as the pain passed. "It wasn't Alrik!"

"I would not mistake the man who attacked me and tried to kill my child." Grainne's voice was bitter. "He hit you with the hilt of his sword. He would have run you through if his brother hadn't stopped him."

Selia screamed again, but the agony she felt was not the physical pain of her belly, but from the knowledge that this thrall-her mother-somehow spoke the truth. Alrik, the man she loved more than life itself, the man she had been willing to give up everything for, had destroyed her birth family and had nearly murdered her by caving in her skull with his sword.

And then he had married her.

Everything,
everything
had been built on a lie. Not even death could feel worse than this.

Alrik followed his daughter through the woods, with Olaf, Hrefna, and Ketill hurrying behind him. Ingrid was a foolish girl and prone to exaggeration, and this jaunt into the forest was surely a waste of his time. If Selia and Ingrid didn't hate each other so, he would be more suspicious of some sort of feminine ploy they were in on together, something to distract him from his anger. If this was simply his wife’s dramatic way of getting his attention, she would regret it.

He heard a scream from up ahead, a sound so agonized it couldn't possibly be false. He pushed past Ingrid and broke into a run.

He burst into a small clearing and saw Selia lying in her brother's arms, with Ketill's thrall hovering over them both. As Ainnileas' gaze met his, the boy leapt to his feet, flipping Selia from his lap in the process. He rushed toward Alrik with his dagger drawn. Ainnileas snarled something unintelligible in Irish, ending with '
bastard
.’ Alrik had heard that word often enough from his wife to know what it meant.

It was a clumsy attack, and he blocked Ainnileas' arm as he lunged. He took hold of the boy's wrist, spinning him around to hold the knife to his own throat, then squeezed the thin bones until Ainnileas cried out in pain. The wrist under Alrik's hand felt as fragile as Selia's, and it took every ounce of self-control he had not to snap it. The little whelp needed to be taught a lesson in respect.

"Stop!" Ingrid shouted, grabbing her father's arm. The thrall jumped up as well but was restrained by Ketill.

"Take this boy, Olaf," Alrik barked. He shoved him over to Olaf, who had to sit on Ainnileas to control him.

Hrefna knelt next to Selia’s body, writhing on the leaves. His wife rambled brokenly in Irish, and as her eyes rolled up to meet Alrik’s her screams intensified. Hrefna gripped her tightly to keep her from crawling away.

Alrik also began to kneel, but the thrall broke free from her master and leapt in front of Alrik as though to block him from his wife. He shoved the woman toward Ketill, and she stumbled and landed at his feet.

"Restrain your thrall, Ketill," Alrik warned, "or I'll do it for you."

The woman laughed hoarsely, an odd sound that caused all eyes to turn to her. "You don't even remember who I am, do you, Alrik Ragnarson?" she choked out. "I have wished you dead every day of my life for the past sixteen years, but you forgot who I was the moment you were through with my body."

The thrall was obviously mad. Ketill gave the woman a stern shake. He whispered something in her ear but it only made her laugh harder.

Alrik leveled his gaze onto Ketill's. "Keep her away from my wife." Seeing that Ketill had a firm grip on the thrall, he knelt on the ground next to Hrefna. His aunt’s face looked grim as she pressed on Selia's belly.

"Is she losing the child?" he asked.

Hrefna bit her lip and wouldn't look at him. "We need to get her to the house so I can examine her."

His aunt had reacted with a surprising fury when Ingrid had described Selia's agonized screaming in the woods. “If your wife bleeds out the babe, you have no one to blame but yourself after what you have put Selia through today,” she had vowed.

Now he could see it for himself. His child was dying. The blood that seeped from Selia's body and soaked into the ground was the life force of his son.

Alrik swallowed as he looked down at his wife where she thrashed and sobbed on the ground. The sight of her in so much pain made his chest tighten uncomfortably. He reached out to touch her face but she smacked his hand away, screeching in Irish.

He moved to lift her, but a piercing scream shot from Selia's lips, no longer a cry of pain, but of rage. She fought him like a madwoman, punching and clawing, even trying to bite him.

"What's the matter with you?" he demanded as he struggled with her, trying to hold her still without hurting her further.

She laughed then, the same crazed-sounding laugh that he had heard from the thrall. "How—how could you
marry
me—”

"She knows what you did," the woman said with satisfaction in her voice.

He felt the blood drain from his face as his gaze traveled slowly over the thrall. His mind's eye saw a younger version of the woman in a small Irish cottage, her pretty face dazed as he threw her across a narrow room.

No.

How could this be happening—how could Selia's mother be here, now? Alrik only knew her as Ketill's thrall, and until this moment hadn't realized his wife's mother was still alive, much less living over the next ridge.

But someone had realized it.

Ulfrik
.

That traitorous bastard had something to do with this. He had sworn he wouldn't reveal Alrik's secret, but that hadn't stopped him from finding another, more devious route to achieve his goal. His brother wanted Selia; Alrik had seen it in his eyes at the market in Dubhlinn. Only once, then he had masked it from then on. It amused Alrik to allow his brother to spend time with her on the ship, knowing the torment he must be feeling to be so near to something that could never be his.

How could he have known Ulfrik would turn on him?

Alrik turned back to his wife. The expression of loathing on her face was like a knife in his gut. His hands shook like a desperate little boy's as he held on to her. "You are still my wife. You were given to me—"

"No!" she cut him off. "I am
not
your wife—I divorce you!"

He leapt to his feet, pulling Selia up with him. He leaned close to her face, shaking her once for good measure. "You know you can't divorce me. You're
mine."

"You tried to kill me . . ."

"I love you!" Alrik's voice cracked over the words. Desperate
and
weak. "I need you, Selia."

Her face appeared crazed as she screamed at him in Irish. Without warning, she pulled the dagger from Alrik's belt, drawing it down sharply toward his abdomen. He shifted his body just in time and the tip of the dagger sank into his forearm.

Hrefna cried out as a line of blood oozed from the gash in his sleeve.

Alrik roared, ripping the dagger from his flesh. Selia had tried to kill him. He had let his guard down, allowed himself to care for her, allowed himself to
love
her.

And this was what he got for it. Repulsion.

Humiliation.

As the familiar darkness flooded his consciousness, it was all he could do to keep from going under, to let it take him. He fought it, harder than he ever had, even as his hands wrapped around his wife’s neck. It would be so easy. One quick snap and it would all be over.

The ring.

He could feel the rapid beat of Selia's pulse under his hands, like a frightened animal. The blood from his wound flowed over his fingers and onto Selia's skin, standing out in stark contrast against her white throat. As though he had slit it.

It would be
so easy . . .

Alrik could hear a commotion of people yelling at him, but their voices sounded very far away. Why wasn't Selia struggling? It wasn't like her to go to her death without a fight. This was wrong, all wrong. He blinked and forced his hands to relax their hold.

The darkness screamed at him, furious at being deprived of the kill.

Selia hit him weakly. "Do it," she sobbed. His eyes flickered toward her ring. She tugged it from her finger, then threw it at him. "
Do it!"

Alrik stared down into her beautiful face; a face that would never look at him with love again. She hated him enough to die to be free of him. She hated him enough to provoke him to kill her.

Hrefna had been right-he had no one to blame but himself.

He had created this nightmare, but he wouldn't let the darkness make him kill the only woman he had ever loved. The darkness wouldn’t win this time. He took a step away and Selia sank to her knees, sobbing.

Alrik walked into the forest and didn't look back.

Chapter 34

Deirdre floated, hazy and weightless. Where was Mamai? Why didn’t she come?

The woman carried her. Sometimes it was dark, and Deirdre would focus on the small twinkling lights in the black sky. Then she would drift away again to the space that had no pain.

Sometimes when she closed her eyes she was pursued by a bad man who carried a large knife, like the one Dadai had taken out of the chest. The bad man who had hurt Mamai when he burst through the door and spilled the porridge.

His angry eyes scared her.

But even scarier than the bad man were the birds. Deidre hated the ugly black birds. Once when she opened her eyes she saw a little boy lying very still on the ground, with a black bird pecking at his face.

Her brother screamed. Deidre tried to call out to him, to tell him to close his eyes so the bird could not get at them, but the words would not come.

The woman hushed them. They moved past the boy and the bird flew away, flapping its wings close enough to Deirdre's head that she could feel the motion and smell the odor coming from its sharp beak. She screamed for Mamai.

Nothing came out but crying.

Selia lay in the bed she had shared with Alrik, staring at the wall, fighting off the aftereffects of yet another bad dream. She had given up trying to understand why they came to her, if they truly were memories of a nightmarish childhood.

She could still smell her husband’s scent on the sheets where his blond head had lain on the pillow next to her just three nights ago. He had slept with his arm around her that night, his hand thrown over her belly as if protecting the child that grew inside. Her eyes burned with tears at the memory, but none fell. There were no tears left in her to shed.

Alrik was gone. He had walked into the woods that horrible day, and no one knew where he was. Hrefna was worried about him. She must be wondering if her nephew was all right, wandering alone, so soon after his own brush with death. But she didn't voice her concerns, and Selia didn't allow herself to ask about him. Alrik wasn't her responsibility any longer.

Ainnileas and Grainne would come in to sit with her occasionally. Ainnileas always looked pale and serious. He had broken off his association with Ingrid but refused to speak of it any further. He was hurting, a deep, jagged wound that Selia was intimately familiar with, but she had no words of comfort for her brother now. There was no room inside her for anything other than her own misery.

Grainne would sit by the bed, silent and still, staring at her. It seemed as though she wanted to say something but couldn't bring herself to do so. It was unnerving.

Selia still found it unbelievable her mother was alive. For so long she had believed the unnamed woman buried in the woods behind their house in Ireland was her dead mother. Grainne said the woman was a neighbor who had run to warn them the Finngalls were raiding the village. Her name had been Ionait. With her husband murdered, Deirdre lifeless from the blow from Alrik’s sword hilt, and she herself in the clutches of Alrik, Grainne had begged Ionait to take the children and run away. She had thought Deirdre dead, but couldn’t bear to leave the tiny body to the ravens. And that was the last she had seen of her children.

Did her mother hate her? Selia had married the man who had destroyed Grainne's life. She had carried his child. But worse, she had loved him, and maybe to her mother that was most unforgivable.

At Hrefna's bidding, Olaf had bought the slave from Ketill and freed her. Ketill was unhappy with this, as Grainne had been his favorite thrall, but Hrefna was insistent. The man seemed to know better than to argue with her.

According to Ainnileas, the plan was for him, Selia, and Grainne to move to Ulfrik's empty house as soon as Selia was well enough to travel. They would go home to Ireland when Ainnileas' ship returned. Ulfrik would stay with Ketill until his own houseguests were gone.

There was a hesitant knock on the door, then Hrefna's head appeared. "Selia, are you awake?"

She didn't have the energy to laugh. She was nearly always awake now, regardless of the time of day or night. Whenever she closed her eyes she would find herself back in the woods, the agony of the memory so intense it took her breath away. Blood and pain had heralded Alrik Ragnarson into her life as well as out of it.

When she did manage to drift off to sleep, it was fitful. Sometimes she dreamed Alrik chased her, but his eyes were missing and he ran blindly, holding out his hand to search for her. He loved her. He needed her. When she stopped to help him, however, he would laugh and pull out his sword as he stared down at her with wide, empty eye sockets. He had tricked her once again.

It was better to just stay awake.

Selia didn't answer, but Hrefna entered carrying a tray of food. By the smell of it, it was blood pudding again. She gagged. Hrefna had forced her to eat large quantities of certain foods that she insisted would build her strength back. Blood pudding was the most frequent offender.

The bleeding had been incomplete; no tissue expelled. Hrefna continued to insist if the remains of the child didn't come out on their own, they must be removed to ensure they didn't rot inside her. The only way to accomplish this was for Selia to imbibe herbs rumored to act as an expulsive, which she flatly refused to do. If she died, so be it. What did it matter now, anyway?

She sat up as Hrefna adjusted the pillows behind her. She placed the tray upon Selia's lap, then made herself comfortable in the chair next to the bed.

Selia shuddered, staring down at the foul concoction in the bowl. "I feel fine, Hrefna. I do not need this."

"You're as pale as death, child. Eat it."

Selia stirred the congealed substance. "If I eat it, can I leave? Ainnileas said Ulfrik's house is ready for us."

It was true; Olaf had taken several thralls to the house to oversee cleaning and repairs, and to stock it with supplies. Ainnileas and Grainne were simply waiting for Selia to be well enough to travel. However, she knew if it were up to Hrefna, she would be imprisoned here on forced bed rest even longer.

Hrefna hesitated. "I wish you would reconsider. Just give it some time."

Selia pinned her with a long look, causing Hrefna to avert her gaze. They’d had this conversation already, and Hrefna had made her position clear that she wanted Selia to stay. She insisted Alrik loved her, and she him; although the current situation might seem hopeless, the marriage was not beyond redemption.

Even if Selia wanted to stay, she knew she could not. She had unwittingly plunged a knife into her mother's heart by marrying Alrik. Staying with him now, knowing what he had done, would be inexcusable.

How could Hrefna not understand how necessary it was to leave a man who had single-handedly destroyed her family? The woman could talk endlessly about Alrik's flawed nature, but some acts could simply never be forgiven.

And so they were at an impasse. Although Hrefna claimed to love her like a daughter, she clearly loved Alrik more. This only added to Selia's raw feeling of betrayal.

Now she turned to Hrefna and stressed, "I want to leave today." Alrik could come home at any time, and she had to avoid seeing him again at all costs.

With a resigned sigh, Hrefna nodded and left the room, closing the door softly behind her.

Ulfrik's house was modest, consisting of one long, narrow room with sleeping benches on two sides and a hearth in the middle, holes cut in the ceiling to let out the smoke. Ragnarr had been raised in this house, as well as Alrik and Ulfrik for several years. To Selia, it seemed to carry a melancholy air, as if the walls retained the sorrows of its previous occupants.

One corner of the room was curtained off for bathing, the only modicum of privacy afforded by the small dwelling. Although she had been raised in a house not much bigger than this one, the close quarters were difficult to adjust to after the luxury of Alrik's longhouse.

She pined for solitude, a place to be alone with her thoughts without the watchful eyes of her mother and brother upon her. It was as though they both secretly suspected she was still in love with Alrik, and were looking for the evidence in her behavior.

How could she explain to them? If she felt like crying, or if she had no appetite, it wasn't because she still loved Alrik but rather due to everything she had lost. So she copied Ulfrik's example and kept her face impassive even as her insides churned with emotion.

It didn't help to see the kinship between Ainnileas and Grainne grow stronger by the day. Although their mother’s smile was sad when she regarded her son, she seemed almost unable to look away, or to keep her hands from him. She was always touching his face or his arm. According to Grainne, Ainnileas—or ‘Cassan,’ as she called him—bore a striking resemblance to their father. Only Ainnileas' curly hair set him apart from Faolan.

“I met your father when we were little more than babes,” Grainne said with a sad smile. “He was the most beautiful boy, with the smile of an angel. My father was a blacksmith, and Faolan would come to have him sharpen something or other. He asked for my hand when we were fourteen, but my father refused.”

“Why?” Ainnileas asked.

“He was the son of a traveling bard. My father wanted more for me. So I was betrothed to another man from the village and we were set to marry. But Faolan came to me early one day as I was milking, and we left together.”

Grainne's gaze lit on Selia, and she studied her for several moments before she spoke. "He loved you both more than you will ever know, but he had a special bond with you, Deirdre. You were so small when you were born, and no one but Faolan expected you to live. He would hold you on his chest and sing to you, for hours."

Her mother’s eyes were hard, almost accusing, as though she held Selia responsible for Faolan's death.

Selia looked away. How was she expected to respond to this? Should she apologize for the way her husband had murdered the only man Grainne had ever loved?

But Ainnileas diverted the conversation to something less painful, and the woman once again brought her attention to her adored and blameless son. Her Cassan.

The name set Selia's teeth on edge. Why didn't Ainnileas put his foot down and tell her that wasn't his name any longer? But he humored his mother, which only served to highlight Selia’s selfishness in refusing to answer to the name Deirdre. Yet refuse she did.

Hadn't she been required to give up enough already, without having to give up her name as well? Couldn't she choose one thing for herself instead of everyone assuming they knew what was best for her?

The worst times were when Ainnileas left the house to go fishing or to check the snares for game. That left her alone without Ainnileas as a buffer between Selia and their mother. And there was nothing she could talk to her mother about without the conversation involving Alrik in some way. It lay between them like a festering wound, growing uglier by the day. At those times she would leave the house with an excuse of gathering firewood or filling up the water bucket, just to get away from her mother’s accusing eyes.

Selia sat with Ainnileas and Grainne during meals. She pushed the food around on her platter and pretended to eat as well. She didn't trust Grainne not to put something in her food, and she had lost weight. Her gown was loose and the skin of her hands seemed to be stretched over the bones.

Twice, Ainnileas had actually grabbed her by the hair, attempting to shove food down her throat. In an effort to avoid another force feeding, Selia had begun to take a bite or two at each meal for appearances’ sake but only pretended to eat the rest. She suspected her mother knew about this, although Grainne would only watch, saying nothing.

After supper every night, Selia often wandered outside, picking up a few sticks of firewood to make it seem as though she performed some useful function. Sometimes she would find a patch of berries and gorge herself on them until she felt sick. Sometimes she stood at the top of the cliff and stared out at the sea churning white and angry below. The wind whipped at her gown and her hair, and if she closed her eyes she almost felt as though she were flying. Flying far away.

But inevitably Ainnileas would see her and would come out to scold her. What if her foot slipped? What if she got too close to the edge and the earth gave way under her?

She would allow him to steer her back into the house, and retire to bed, feigning exhaustion. Even though Selia still suffered from a terrible insomnia, the semi-privacy of her bench was preferable to the uncomfortable silences the three lapsed into whenever she was present for the conversation.

When they thought she was asleep, Ainnileas and Grainne would talk well into the night, laughing occasionally as their mother told stories of things the twins had done when they were babes. Selia had been a precocious child, bossy and talkative, while Ainnileas had been more of a follower, trailing after his sister with his thumb in his mouth, content to do her bidding.

Sometimes Grainne would cry and Ainnileas would comfort her. Once, after several cups of ale, Grainne sobbed that Faolan had done something unforgivable the night the twins were born. The fact that Deirdre-Selia-still lived was proof of his sin. When Ainnileas tried to question her, Grainne refused to answer, saying what was done could not be undone.

Selia lay awake for quite some time, pondering this. What could her father have done? And how could her survival have had anything to do with it?

From eavesdropping on the conversations between her mother and brother, she gathered quite a bit of information. After Grainne's rape and abduction from Ireland, she had been about to be sold to a slave trader in Bjorgvin along with several dozen others. Ketill Brunason, however, had taken a liking to her. He paid Alrik well for her, and brought her home to be a nursemaid to his three young sons.

Ketill's wife had died of a fever after giving birth to Bolli. The farmstead was a poor one. Although he was not unkind to Grainne, her life there was hard. The man owned very few thralls, so raising the children was only one of Grainne’s many responsibilities. And although she grew to care for the three boys, she could not forget about the children she had lost.