The Captive - By Joanne Rock Page 0,34

ruins yet again.

Thankfully, Gwendolyn must not have heard any noise.

He vowed to depart this place with her at sunrise. They had not been as isolated here as he’d hoped and he would not risk endangering her. He hated even leaving her side to seek out the source of the sound that had woken him. What if someone dared to approach the lodging with her inside while Wulf was not there to protect her?

The possibility made him even more tense.

Silently, he opened the front door and slipped out into the night. Dawn still lurked an hour or two out of reach. All traces of the fire he’d made earlier had been hidden. No embers smoldered. No hint of smoke remained. The few coals inside the cottage must have burned out, as well, the night air clean with the scent of new spring greens.

“Wulf.”

The voice called to him from a scant stone’s throw away. It did not belong to Erik.

“Show yourself.” Wulf tightened his grip on the hilt of his blade. but did not raise the weapon. Any advantage he might gain would be negated if the polished steel reflected in the moonlight and gave away his position.

Who would seek him here? Gwendolyn’s men? Or had his crew sent someone besides Erik to speak with him?

“Nay, you cursed bastard.” The low voice took on a decidedly ugly note. “I will not be tricked into facing a bloodthirsty, murdering wretch.”

The accent was clearer now. Whoever spoke was a Dane, and a bitter one at that. Erik must have been seen returning—one of Harold’s men had retraced his path. Wulf eased away from the tree where he’d stood and crept silently along the forest floor in the direction of the speaker. Wulf could not be surrounded by any great number of warriors if this man did not wish to confront him.

“Who wants to know my whereabouts?” He took satisfaction from a scurrying noise nearby.

Clearly, the man was serious about not wanting to face him.

“Harold.” The words sounded farther away. The sneaking coward retreated to the east. “He demands your blood for Hedra’s life.”

Anger stirred along with regret.

“I have paid the wergild many times over for her.” He sent home half his earnings from raiding, financing Harold’s kingdom and then some thanks to his prowess with a sword and his fearsome reputation. “Is his sister’s life worth so much that he will sacrifice his own to my blade?”

He shouted the last to the woods as his quarry ran off to the hills. Toward the settlement where his men quartered alongside his enemies.

Harold could not win against him. Harold’s kingdom would be without a ruler and, as the sole survivor of the two highest ranking royal houses, Wulf would have no choice but to return home. It was a fate he wanted no part of. As a younger son, he’d been raised to fight and raid, and it was what he did best. Curse Harold’s pride for demanding this course of action.

Curse his own pride for besting Harold at the raid on Alchere’s keep.

It had been ill-advised to drag Gwendolyn into the middle of an old feud. But he had not realized at the time how quickly she would become important to him.

Turning toward the cabin, he was surprised to see Gwendolyn in his path. Face drained of color, she stared at him with the same fearful expression he’d spied on the countenances of hapless Saxon villagers when his longship pulled onto their shores.

“You took a woman’s life?” Her voice was low, but he heard the slight tremor nevertheless.

Guilt warred with indignation.

“I have taken more lives than I care to recount.” He realized that his grip still throttled his sword hilt and he forced his hand to relax. “Our people have been at war many times.”

“That was no Saxon man.” Her voice gained strength. Steadiness. “I recognize enough of your strange tongue to know he did not speak of a Saxon woman.”

Wulf moved closer to her, remembering the night they had shared. Would she ever look upon him with the same warmth in her gaze as she had then?

With any other woman, it might not have mattered. But this was Gwendolyn, the woman the Norns had put in his path when he had not expected it. Her opinion mattered.

“He spoke of my brother’s widow,” Wulf explained, tension threading tight along his chest to speak of it after so many moons of trying to forget. “There are some who would say I am responsible for her death.”

“What