Ravished by a Viking Read online

  Two

  The uneven scrape that caught the ice boat’s skimmers was Dagr’s only clue they’d reached the edge of the rugged half-moon beach below the mining camp. In the last hour of the journey, a swift wind had kicked up blinding snow. He’d navigated using the onboard instruments rather than the sun’s position or the looming snow-covered mountain range that on a clear day could be seen for hundreds of leagues.

  Dagr gritted his teeth. His back ached from the unnatural position he’d had to assume, standing in the steering harness with the warrior-woman plastered to his back.

  Still, the discomfort had been worth it to hear Birget’s soft gasps when the serpents caught the sound of the skiff racing across the ice and circled beneath the boat’s small hull.

  Her arms had tightened like iron bands around his neck and her thighs had climbed to cling to his waist. When he’d finally shaken off the beasts with a series of jagged tacks, she’d lowered her legs instantly and kept a respectable distance ever since—if cloaking his backside against the elements wasn’t intimate enough.

  From the first moment he’d seen her, Dagr had admired her grit. He’d swept her with an assessing glance when he’d realized who she was and had tightened against an unexpected attraction. She was promised to Eirik, and he had no desire to take a Bearshirt woman for his own wife. He already supported two females in his household—self-sufficient women who understood their place and didn’t require too much of his attention. The heat stirring in his loins would be remedied quite nicely once he returned to Tora and Astrid’s warm embraces.

  As clan-lord, his days were full. Adding another woman to his household would provide an unnecessary distraction.

  Eirik, the stupid bastard, had assumed his bride would be broad and mannish, and had complained she’d have a mustache thicker than he could grow because he’d heard she was Valkyrja. While a couple of the female guards did indeed have shoulders a miner would envy, Sigmund’s two daughters were handsome women, tall and slender with long blond hair and eyes the same color as the leafy greens Tora coaxed from the gardens flourishing beneath the permafrost.

  Eirik, if he ever returned, would have no complaints concerning the appearance of his mate. Although, knowing his brother, the woman’s stubborn belief that she was a warrior’s equal would cause them conflict. Neither Eirik nor Dagr would stand for any member of the fairer sex putting herself at risk. No woman of the Ulfhednar clan had ever raised a sword to defend herself. There had never been a need.

  He pushed aside thoughts of his brother. In the first hours after Eirik’s abduction, Dagr had driven himself mad thinking of the torture his brother must be enduring while he’d made the solitary trip to the Berserkir keep. Having company, even this surly woman, did much to keep his mind focused on the here and now.

  The skiff bumped to a halt on the shore. Harald, the camp overseer, strode through the swirling snow to pull the prow forward, catching the rope Dagr sailed his way and tying it to an iron spike stuck into the frozen ground for just that purpose.

  When Harald’s hand closed around Dagr’s wrist to help him from the boat, there was worry in his eyes.

  Dagr knew well the man’s emotion—one he currently shared. “You could not have known, Harald. Have no fears that I’m here for reprisal. I only want to hear firsthand what you know and to see what you’ve uncovered.”

  Harald’s gaze slid away. “I am ashamed that such a breach occurred beneath my nose, milord.”

  “The breach wasn’t one you could have prevented. Did you question the other Outlanders in your service about the woman?”

  Harald nodded. “None knew the girl. She arrived with the last supply shipment and kept to herself. Yet she was eager enough when she learned Eirik would be in need of ‘comfort.’ ”

  Frustrated, Dagr blew out a deep breath. “Let’s continue our conversation inside in warmth.”

  Harald’s eyebrows rose. No doubt, he wondered at Dagr’s admission of the foul weather until his gaze drifted beyond his clan-lord’s shoulder.

  Dagr turned toward Birget and jerked his head. “Sigmund’s daughter,” he said, keeping his introduction purposely short and rude.

  “Your brother’s betrothed?” Harald asked, his eyes rounding in surprise.

  “My hostage.” Dagr suppressed a smile at the stubborn tilt of the woman’s chin. “I would see her safe from the elements.”

  “I’m not cold,” Birget bit out through stifflips.

  Indeed, likely she wasn’t, even if her breaths fogged the brisk air. Besides the black, deep-space skin-suit and uniform trousers, she wore a long, fur-lined woolen cloak that covered her from her head to just below her knees.

  “A Wolfskin sees to every woman’s comfort.” Her darkening glare amused him, but he didn’t let her see it. He stepped toward her. She extended a gloved hand for him to help her down, but he reached inside her cloak and grasped her waist, ignoring her gasp as he set her on the ground beside him.

  Then, without another word, he turned his back and followed Harald to the entrance of the long tunnel cut into the hill that led to the mining camp compound.

  “Have you made progress since your last transmission?” Dagr asked, tugging off his gloves.

  Harald’s gaze shot to the girl as he held open the thick metal door and stood aside while Dagr and Birget entered.

  “Our little Valkyrie will be Ulfhednar soon enough,” Dagr assured him. “She will never be returned to her father. Besides, our artifact’s existence will benefit both our peoples.”

  “But it will most benefit the ones who control it,” Harald grumbled, “which makes it a valuable prize, milord.”

  “Relax, Harald,” Dagr said, clapping the stout man’s shoulder. “She’ll never get the chance to betray us.” He fought the urge to glance behind him to gauge her reaction. He didn’t know why he enjoyed baiting her so much. Perhaps it was only an urge for revenge because she’d dared to raise a sword against him.

  “Where to first, milord?” Harald asked.

  “Since I would make Skuldelev before nightfall, straight to the site.”

  Birget had accompanied her father on visits to their own mines, but the contrast between her people’s modern facilities and this crude camp couldn’t have been more surprising. The wolves’ mines were the most productive, their ore the best quality, and yet their miners lived in ancient structures, bereft of even basic amenities.

  Still, the men they passed heading from the mine appeared healthy and well fed, and all shouted out happy greetings.

  The trio bypassed the entrance to the miner’s barracks and climbed down steps cut into the mine’s rock walls toward a large, brightly lit cavern. With a quick glance, she surveyed the area. Played-out veins of ore radiated warmth and light. Shirtless men operated rock-movers, the large mouths of the motorized beasts emptying into carts along a metal track. Here the technology was much the same as in her father’s mines. Apparently, they didn’t stint the workers what they needed to accomplish their tasks.

  “It’s down this tunnel,” Harald said, leading the way past armed guards at the entrance of a long passage whose sides were waist-high rock but solid ice above. Artificial lights were strung along the ceiling. If ore had been exposed here, the roof would have melted, filling the tunnel.

  The passage led into a dark ice cavern. Ice shavings were piled against one side. Even though she thought it seemed an odd place to dig, her attention was caught by a structure sitting on the exposed bedrock. The face of a tall pointed arc was still trapped in ice, but the center had been cleared.

  Men worked with mallets and chisels, carefully shaving away the ice to reveal more of the structure’s mysteries.

  Something about the shape, about the carvings surrounding the sides of the hollowed-out object, stirred a memory.

  “She’s a beauty,” Harald said, his gaze clinging to the object. “Cyrus has already deciphered most of the markings. They are instructions.”

  Dagr’s intent star
e skimmed the symbols on the arch, then rested on the base, which stretched three arm spans wide. “Does he know if it still works?”

  “He found a hidden recess in the base, with a level drawn to indicate how much ground ore is needed to power her—and a control panel. We’ve done some preliminary tests, but he’s days away from learning all its secrets.”

  Dagr tensed and turned. “Harald, we haven’t days. And I need him to discover only one secret. I will cross tomorrow.”

  Harald’s shaggy eyebrows shot up. “I’ll tell him. He’ll not sleep tonight.”

  “Tell him that he must also train another in its use, because he’s accompanying our contingent.”

  The overseer gave Dagr a curt nod and headed toward a corner of the cavern where a large table sat, covered in scrolls. An Outlander, his close-cropped hair, lean, muscular build, and olive-tinted skin setting him apart from the burly, long-haired Vikings, straightened as Dagr gave him a nod.

  “You will cross?” she said, and her gaze shot to the alien structure. Could it be? It was. Her jaw dropped as she swung back to the clan-lord.

  Dagr gave her a sideways glance. His stare sharpened, blue eyes studying her expression. “Yes, the Bifrost. Or at least half of the bridge our ancestors were tricked into crossing.”

  Her heart beat faster. How could Dagr remain so calm? He’d found proof of the legend. That alone was news worth touting far and wide. “You’re sure that’s what this is? It wasn’t just a story?”

  “It is the end of the bridge. And it is fully functional.”

  “Can it return our people to Midgard?”

  “Do you even think it still exists?” he asked, one eyebrow rising. “We could cross into empty space or to an uninhabitable world without the means to return. No, I have another purpose in mind.”

  His expression grew shuttered, telling her that was all he would say for now, and she gritted her teeth. How could she get word to her father? The mine overseer was right. Whoever possessed access to the artifact controlled the fate of all New Iceland. “What will you use it for?”

  He shook his head, his gaze flicking to the structure. “You have no need to know. We leave for Skuldelev now.”

  Undeterred by his abrupt refusal to answer her question, she tried again. “But you’re returning here tomorrow. Why bother to leave at all?”

  He turned with hands braced on hips. His smile was grim and thin-lipped. “I must give you into your keepers’ hands. Otherwise, I wouldn’t. Your presence is an inconvenience.”

  She was an inconvenience? Birget gritted her teeth. “But you needn’t escort me. Send me along with one of your men. Or better yet, let me stay. I won’t get in the way.”

  “I have promised to keep you safe so long as your father holds to his end of the bargain. I will deliver you to my household guard myself.”

  She opened her mouth to argue.

  But he shook his head. “Harald,” he said, holding her mutinous stare. “Cyrus has until morning.”

  “Yes, milord. All will be ready.”

  The journey to Skuldelev passed in silence. Strapped into the back seat of a small, two-man snow-eater, she watched the endless drifts of white, stirred only by the shifting winds and blowing toward the frozen sea that bordered the lowlands they crossed. In the distance, the jagged peaks of the Keel Mountains sawed into the face of Sunni, the sun goddess, stretching the shadows of night to cloak the mountains and the city fortress of Skuldelev at its base.

  Birget straightened to peer over Dagr’s shoulder at the city few Bearshirts had ever willingly entered. Where her own fortress stood as evidence of strength and precision, the keep rising several stories high, Skuldelev stretched like a lazy dragon resting across the top of the foothills. The fortress wall hugged the contours, turrets spiking like ridges on the beast’s back. Even the great, gated entrance gave the appearance of a dragon’s large, crenellated head with its mouth gaping.

  A shiver rippled down her spine. The day’s happenings had passed in a whirlwind, and only now did it strike her that this might be her home for the rest of her life—this foreign, craggy, monstrous castle where men as rugged and unforgiving of weakness as their clan-lord lived.

  Birget had no fear of death. She did, however, fear showing weakness. Not once in her life had she quivered at the sight of a man, but Dagr made her knees weak. The cause wasn’t one she wished to explore. From his reputation, she knew him to be cruel, relentless, and merciless—qualities she normally admired. But she also knew he loved his brother, honored his promises, and cared for the welfare of his people. That she was the enemy’s daughter meant little to him other than the fact that she served as a valuable pawn.

  No, she didn’t really fear for her life, but she felt as though the ground beneath her feet had somehow shifted. She no longer knew her place in the harsh world he delivered her to.

  Dagr turned the wheel of the vehicle and it cut through gravel and ice, coming to a halt in a wide-open lot where more of the tracked vehicles were parked. “This will be your new home, Princess,” he said, not bothering to look over his shoulder to see if she followed him out of the vehicle’s door.

  They climbed the snow-packed trail to the iron gate, which creaked slowly upward. More Ulf hednar warriors rushed forward, forming a phalanx around their leader as he traipsed through the compound toward the keep.

  Ignored, Birget trudged behind them, her misgivings turning into irritation. Were they all this rude? She was a princess, which held certain rights. Never had she been so demeaned.

  The keep’s great metal doors slowly opened, and they stepped inside. Birget stared at the rough-hewn stone that served as the flooring, at the equally unpolished rock walls. No carpets warmed the floor, but rich tapestries hung on the walls to tell the glorious, bloody past of the clan.

  At the far side of the hall, the largest of the tapestries told the ancient tale of the ancestors’ journey to this cold world. The Bifrost, which she’d only just discovered was real, was featured at the center, a blinding rainbow leading from the grass- and lichen-covered fjords of Midgard to the perpetually snow-covered plains of New Iceland. The small figures of the original settlers were shown as they stepped off the bridge, and the many animals they’d brought along to populate their new world spilled from their wooden cages.

  Those first settlers had believed they’d been dropped into Niflheim, the cold realm of Hel, goddess of the Underworld. But it hadn’t taken long for them to realize they’d been tricked into serving as slaves to an alien culture in an inhospitable world they were uniquely suited to survive.

  “Are you coming?” Dagr asked, his voice tinged with impatience.

  Birget shook back her hair and lifted her chin, aiming her glance upward to meet his cold gaze. “Are you talking to me? Because I thought you’d forgotten my existence.”

  His lips twitched, but he extended his arm, urging her to precede him into the great hall to the right of the entryway.

  She blinked as she entered. In the foyer, all comfort had been scrubbed clean, but here warmth and pale, sunny colors filled the room, and she instantly understood the reason. This was the women’s realm.

  Female servants bustled, rubbing beeswax into oak tables, and scouring the smooth stone floor with woolen mops while children played with wool-hair dolls in a far corner. Food was carried in on large platters, and bread trenchers set on long planked tables. The smell of roasted meat and onions permeated the air and her stomach growled. Heat spilled from grates set in the floor, chasing away the chill and allowing the women to wear single-layer, long-sleeved gowns cut from thin twill, much as the servant women in her own home wore.

  Dagr led her to a dais at the end of the hall where the lord’s table rested. Two women waited at the top of the stairs with their hands folded in front of them, smiles wreathing their faces at his approach.

  When he leapt up the steps, Dagr held out his arms and they rushed forward, pausing to curtsy, before lifting their faces to receive a kiss
on their smiling mouths.

  “We feared you’d be delayed,” the taller one said. A long golden braid was wound into a coronet atop her head. Her sleeveless overgown was made of fine red wool; the pale, long-sleeved shift underneath was thin enough to show all her feminine parts, had it not been for the gold belt that kept the overgown in place. A thick gold band, almost like a thrall’s cuff, encircled one wrist and was engraved with the shape of a running wolf.

  Birget stiffened. So she was one of Dagr’s concubines. Birget gave the woman’s features a more thorough inspection but was unimpressed by her round cheeks and bright blue eyes. She wasn’t a beauty, only a healthy, sturdy woman like so many of their breed.

  The other woman was shorter, her figure more rounded. Her hair was a nondescript brown, which she wore down with a gold circlet to keep it off her face. Her clothing was brown and gold, the undergown made of a more conservative fabric than the first concubine’s. This one was older than Dagr, and Birget wondered what he saw in her. She was past childbearing age, or should have been. But her soft smile as she greeted Dagr held a hint of what must attract him. Happiness glowed in her pink cheeks.

  Uncomfortable, and again ignored, Birget shifted restlessly beside him.

  His gaze dropped to his side. “These are Astrid and Tora. You will reside with them in my quarters until I return.”

  The blonde’s eyes widened. “But she’s Valkyrja, Dagr. Are you certain she shouldn’t be housed in the barracks?”

  Birget snorted. At least the woman realized the threat she posed.

  Dagr rested a hand on the fair-haired woman’s shoulder. “Astrid, she’s my brother’s betrothed. She belongs in my care.”

  Astrid lifted a brow and gave Birget another sweeping glance. “I’ll find clothing more suitable for a woman in our king’s household.”

  Birget bristled, recognizing the subtle challenge the other woman had thrown down. “I prefer what I’m wearing.”

  One fine blond brow arched. “But it will soon reek if you don’t change.”