A Shield Maiden’s Warrior (Of Scots and Vikings #2)

Chapter One

-ASTRID-

Largs, Scotland

“I’m never going to see her again, am I?” I whispered more to myself than to Declan, struggling with my emotions.

My sister, Freya’s, boat had just vanished into the night after I helped save her husband, Soren Dahl. He should have died in a nearby battle between the Norse and Scots, but I had nursed him back to health despite him being considered the enemy in these parts.

“I cannot see it any other way,” I went on, fighting a wave of sadness. “Freya's lost to me now.”

We would still have our mystical seer connection, but it wouldn't be the same with an ocean between us.

“Mayhap you willnae see her again,” Declan conceded, never one to decorate difficult situations with optimism.

Especially not this one, given his father and chieftain, Lachlann, had secretly harbored Soren while I tended to him, whether Declan liked it or not.

Which he most certainly had not, making it plain on more than one occasion.

“Come, lass,” he said, keeping his voice whisper-soft lest someone overhear us. Very few people were about at this hour but still. “We shouldnae linger out here. ‘Tis far too dangerous at this time of night.”

Although he didn’t voice it, I suspected he was tempted to say that it was far too dangerous for me, in particular, given I was Norwegian in what was increasingly becoming enemy territory for the Norse.

Chieftain of an influential tribe, my father, Bj?rn Helvig, had sent me here the previous year not only to help keep the peace among the Norse who had long called Scotland home, but also to make an advantageous marital match with an influential Scotsman, and I had. Declan’s father.

Since then, tensions between the Norse and the Scottish had escalated.

After an unsuccessful attempt to purchase the Isle of Skye from Norway, the Scots attacked.

In retribution, King Hákon tried to invade this very shore in what the locals were now calling the Battle of Largs, only to be driven off.

Now things were more unstable than ever.

“You could have gone with Freya,” Declan muttered after we quietly put distance between us and the shore and made our way through the dark woodland behind his father’s castle.

A cold, gusty wind made the trees creak overhead, and newly fallen leaves crunched softly beneath our feet.

“You should have gone,” he ground out, sounding more frustrated than ever.

“Yet I could not go,” I reminded, doing my best to keep emotion from my voice. “And I have told you and your father that on more than one occasion. My place is here. My fate is here.”

While Declan had mentioned several times now how dangerous it was becoming for my countrymen and me, this was the first time he’d said I should have left with such passion and conviction.

And it hurt for all the wrong reasons.

Reasons I had tried my best not to feel since meeting the obstinate Scotsman a few months ago, given his hatred of the Norse, but I couldn’t seem to help being drawn to him.

“Aye, I’m bloody familiar with your fate,” he groused as we kept to the shadows and snuck in the backside of Mackay Castle so no one would see us. He lit a wall torch, illuminating the narrow stone hallway, and scowled at me. “Married to my father, no less.”

Overly aware of how close we were in the limited space, I did my best to ignore the way he always managed to take my breath away, despite his oftentimes foul attitude.

Declan Mackay, “The Ruthless”, was notorious among my people for being a fierce warrior, single-handedly driving most of us Norse from his shores, but I saw another side of him.

A softer side hidden beneath the pain in his eyes.

A soul that ached for the suffering of his people.

Undoubtedly intimidating to most with his tall, broad-shouldered, muscular build, Declan had never frightened me, even though he should, all things considered.

He wore his usual attire, including a léine with a green and blue plaid wrapped over his shoulder, heavy boots, and a well-sharpened sword sheathed at his side, along with several daggers strapped here and there.

Although humor rarely, if ever, lit his gaze, he was handsome enough to turn most women’s heads with his thick auburn-tinted dark brown hair, chiseled features, and deep-set, emerald-green eyes.

Yet, as far as I could tell, he seemed oblivious to their flirtatious glances.

Mindless to anything but his own never-ending rage. Anger that churned deep within him.

“And I am grateful for your father’s proposal,” I forced past my lips in response to Declan's moody reminder I would be marrying Lachlann. Something I’d agreed to because I had no choice. It was my fate. Otherwise, staying here would have been impossible. “’Twas most kind of him.”

“Kind of him?” Declan exclaimed, his scowl deepening. “If anything, it might verra well be his ruin, given who you are and you bloody well know it.” He shook his head sharply. “He’s too kind by half and ‘twill be the death of him. The death of us all.”

Tired of his endless rhetoric about this, I couldn’t help but grind out, “Then you should have made sure I got on that boat tonight, Declan.” Though I tried to promote peace on these shores, I was still a warrior, even if only at heart these days, so I wasn’t about to cower at the fresh anger churning in his turbulent gaze.

Instead, I stood up taller and narrowed my eyes.

“Yet you didn’t, and whilst you say ‘tis for the sake of seeing through your father’s wishes, I cannot help but wonder if you don’t have an ulterior motive. ”

He narrowed his eyes in return, his voice guttural with what most would think a mocking warning, but I knew better. “And what would that be, Astrid Helvig, fierce shield-maiden of the north? She who was born of great ancestral seers who see all, even from the distant shores of Norway?”

Though he had stepped closer, I held my ground. I had to. Held it as I always did when we did this dance of heated words together. His pupils flared in the flickering torchlight as he dared me to say something that would allow him to close the distance between us, despite how wrong it would be.

Even though he couldn’t even admit it to himself, given that he considered me his enemy, there was no denying the simmering attraction between us. No ignoring the underlying passion in his cutting tone or the way he tried to hold my gaze, yet his gaze inevitably drifted to my lips.

Struggling to breathe at the desire burning in their verdant depths, I watched him fight an internal battle he must overcome because I would never be his, nor should he want me to be.

Yet he wasn't alone. I fought it, too.

Every moment around him was a struggle. An endless need. A non-stop desperation to be closer to him. To banter with our ever-heated words that made my blood rush with secret, forbidden desire.

Finding my tongue, I made myself respond with what made sense. With what might break the spell we seemed to cast over each other, speaking to Declan’s ulterior motives for wanting me to remain no matter how much he might pretend otherwise.

“Despite my soon becoming your father’s wife, it could be that you intend to use me to garner favor with your King Alexander somehow,” I pointed out, no fool when it came to how easily I could become a pawn in the strife between our countries.

“I’m the daughter of a powerful chieftain who’s in my king’s favor.

Once your father marries me, I become beholden to him and Scotland before all others, even as I strive to build bridges whilst you strive to knock them down. ”

“Or,” he countered darkly, his deep voice lowering even more as he shifted closer, “others might accuse us Mackays of being traitors by allowing a Norsewoman to marry into such an esteemed Scottish clan. Traitors because we didnae tell our king we had your brother by marriage, Soren, under our verra roof when there was a bounty on his head. Traitors because we allowed him to sail away safely when he might have provided King Alexander with priceless information about King Hákon and his plans for Scotland.”

Where most women in their right minds would be frightened by now, I was not, any more than I had been countless other times when Declan and I sparred like this.

Not only because I had faith in my abilities to fight him off, if need be, but because I knew I was the only woman he had ever done this with… done this to.

And I knew why.

Somehow, some way, Declan was part of my fate. One foreseen by the gods when I was only a child. Even as I thought it, the stone my sister Tove had given me at the Russian border in our youth warmed against my chest where it hung tucked beneath my dress.

“Then tell your father not to marry me,” I dared Declan, shaking my head. “Whether he does or not, I will never share what your clan did for my sister, Freya, and her husband, Soren. Not when Lachlann and your clan have only ever shown me kindness.”

While wishing I could say Declan had too, that would be a stretch. Though not cruel, he certainly had never been hospitable, making me wonder sometimes at the unacknowledged attraction between us. The push and pull that only ever seemed to reel us closer, even as we tried to push one another away.

“Father saw Soren sheltered and released for saving his life,” Declan reminded.

“Not me.” He shifted so close that I could feel the enticing heat of his imposing body.

Catch his masculine scent of pine and spice.

Searching my eyes as if trying to understand what was happening between us, what I was doing to him, his voice gentled in a way it never had with me before. “I did it for you, Astrid.”