The Captive - By Joanne Rock Page 0,41

cove.

There, tucked tight against the shoreline, sat a longship filled with men. Wulf’s men. The vessel was as fierce-looking as she recalled. The dragon’s head at the bow appeared as ready for battle as the crew that filled the dark, low-slung craft. Erik stood at the helm, his wide-legged stance the posture of a man in charge. As they approached, all the men rose as one. They each beat a fist hard to their chests before they sat down again. All except Erik, who glowered at them both.

“The Saxons will come back for her,” Wulf’s cousin warned, glaring particularly at her.

Clearly, she was not atop his list of favorite people. She swallowed a small lump of fear, knowing Wulf’s followers would not feel the same affection that he did for her.

“I will never give her to this Godric of Fanleigh.” Wulf tossed his satchel to Erik. The arrow still pierced the bag and the cousin eyed it warily. “I will leave her at our encampment when I confront Haaraldson.”

She recalled his plan to set her aside. To leave her among a foreign people while he settled his own accounts. But then, what had she expected? Of course she couldn’t remain with him. He was a warrior and a raider. A leader of men with enemies everywhere. As a Dane and a Saxon, they did not fit together. And yet…she had not been ready to cast aside the tenderness they’d shared so soon.

“You will agree to the battle he’s long sought?” Erik wrenched the arrow from the satchel and tossed it in the shallow stream.

“It is time.” Wulf waded into the water with her in his arms. “His pursuit has become tiresome and robs me of ever taking a moment’s rest.”

His crystalline-blue eyes peered down into hers. How long would they have together before he left, she wondered? And what would happen to her once he’d gone? With no protector, would she be at the mercy of his men? Surely not. But she could see no place for herself in the world of the Danes.

There was tenderness in his eyes, or did she just imagine it? Nay. He felt a connection to her that went beyond the pleasurable swell of his muscles melding against her. Today, facing Godric’s men, Wulf and Gwendolyn had become more than pleasure-sharers.

They had cared for each other enough to try and save one another. Neither wanted to watch the other die. It was a bond she’d never shared with anyone.

As he set her down in the longship, their moment of connection was broken and she came face-to-face with his cousin. Erik’s lips flattened against his teeth in a disproving grimace.

“You have claimed her then? The Saxon is your concubine.”

At first, Gwendolyn thought they spoke of someone else. She even looked around curiously for some other female she must have missed seeing. Intellectually, she supposed she must have known this was what she’d become by sleeping with Wulf. But in her heart, she abhorred the practice that had once sent dozens of whorish strangers into her household to make her marriage even more humiliating. At very least, it increased the risk of dreadful diseases.

Yet, she had become the concubine now. No longer a wife with legal rights, but a dispensable plaything for a man’s pleasure. The hard stare of every man on the ship confirmed the status she’d never wanted.

Separated from the family wealth that King Alfred held in trust for her son, she was no longer a valued heiress. She’d sunk to the most ignoble of places in Wulf’s life, a subservient female who slaked a man’s most basic needs.

Would Wulf deny the accusation? Could he protect her now with words as he had done earlier with swords and axe?

As he climbed aboard the ship himself, his dark hair slick with water from a quick swim, he stared hard at the men in his command. His eyes contained the stern warning of a captain and they all understood what he said was law here.

That boded well for protecting her, she knew.

“Aye.” With one word, he condemned her to an impossible role. “She is my woman and mine alone.”

IF SHE COULD HAVE SLAYED HIM with her dark gaze, she would have.

Wulf had known it from the moment his claim had fallen from his lips. He knew it still applied now as they pulled into his men’s encampment many leagues west of Gwendolyn’s keep. The trip had been swift. The waves easy and the oars strong.

Now, as night