Chapter Thirty-One
“A boat, mistress! Just rounding the mouth of the inlet.”
Hulda narrowed her eyes against the light of the morning. Another glorious day it was, with pale blue skies and a sea as still as a mirror glass.
A boat approached, ja. A very small one. Only one man aboard, and her breath caught in her throat at the flash of auburn in his hair. She knew him even without seeing him clearly.
“I think it is yon chief,” Garik said. “The one with whom you went to speak.”
Of course it was. She had told him he might row out to see her here, though she had not believed he would.
He had come to her. Just as she had returned to him.
She climbed up on the rail beside Freya’s prow, the better to see. He rowed strongly, the lithe grace of his body visible in its movements. She had seen a great deal of him yesterday, when he wore naught but his rough kilt. Sinew and smooth muscle and…
Everything a woman could desire.
This man. This man.
He came alone, armed with courage. She stood and watched, barely breathing. It felt as if the whole world moved. As if she stood upon the rim of a wheel that shifted.
The craft was made of wood covered in hide. When he drew near enough, he shipped the oars.
“Mistress Hulda,” he called up to her, “come aboard. I ha’ somewhat to show ye.”
Before Hulda could move, Helje seized her arm. “You had best not go alone.”
“There is room in that boat for but two.”
“He might kill you.”
“I am well armed.” She met his gaze. “Do you doubt I can take care of myself?”
He shook his head but exchanged looks with his brother, Garik, who also began to speak.
Hulda forestalled him. “I will go.”
Faeir Odin himself could not keep her from that boat.
Quarrie brought the small craft alongside her larger one and watched as she swung down to join him. There was barely room for two after all, and she sat with her legs gathered under her, facing him.
He glanced at the faces hanging over Freya’s side. “They worry for ye. There is no need.”
“I know.”
He would not harm her. He would as soon harm himself.
A buzzing set up in her blood as he rowed away. A feeling of pure rightness.
“Where are we bound?”
“I wish, as I say, to show ye somewhat.”
She contented herself with watching him as he rowed. He wore a kilt and a simple tunic open at the throat to reveal a hint of tanned skin and reddish hair. Dampened hide boots. His hair streamed loose over his shoulders and down his back, and his eyes gleamed hazel green.
The best thing ever she had seen.
She wanted to talk to him. Demand words in return. An account of his life. She longed for every detail, but at the same time she wanted to remain silent lest she break the spell of his presence, the sun upon them, the drops of water from his oars and the expression in his eyes.
What did it mean, that expression?
He rowed strongly around the shoulder of the island and toward the rocky shore, not back to his settlement, nei, but headed for a point farther north. No buildings there, just great outcroppings of rock and the sea running fast up onto them.
Not until they neared the place did she see there was a very narrow inlet that led between the rocks to a shallow vik, or bay. She could not hide her astonishment.
“I did not know this was here.”
“It is difficult to spy from the sea. Do ye think your boat could sail in through here?”
Hulda shot a sharp look at him. “Well, she has a very shallow draught. But it is narrow,” she observed as he took them in. A rough, wild place it was, all stone grown over to gorse.
“This is your land?”
“It is. I thought…” He paused, and their eyes met.
“You would give this over to me? To us.”
“I must tell ye, my people are against any sort o’ alliance.”
But he was not. Else why bring her here?
He shipped the oars and they glided up onto the shingle. Hulda leaped out without waiting for an invitation and stood facing the sea, trying to think despite the emotions streaming through her.
He wanted her here. To be sure, he did. Was it not meant that she should stand here beside him? That she should exist in his company at liberty to touch him. Be with him.
“It is a fine place of concealment,” she said, even though she no longer thought about the small bay or her intentions. Only of the chance to stand beside him this way, to exist in his company.
An impulse stronger than any she had ever known.
“Will it work for your purposes?”
Hulda pretended to measure the little inlet with her eyes.
It would allow her to stay near him. “Ja.” She drew her gaze from the water and looked at him.
Here in the flesh after all her memories of him, all her imaginings.
The sunlight turned his skin golden. His eyes held hesitancy, and a gleam of what might be daring.
“Do you offer it to me? Over the objections of your people?”
He appeared to think on that, though he must have considered it all the night long before rowing out to her.
To her.
“Aye, but there will need to be a sworn agreement. Between ye and me. That none o’ your men will cause harm to me or mine.”
“I will not harm you, Quarrie MacMurtray.” She faced him fully now, the sea and all it carried at her back. She was a tall woman; only four fingers or so separated them in height. It allowed her to gaze straight into his eyes.
“Or mine.”
“Or yours.” Was there anything to which she would not agree in order to remain near him? But ja, her young crew—her friends—relied upon her.
She tossed her head. “There will have to be promises between us.” Promises as there had been in some past she could not quite recall.
“Promises,” he repeated.
“Sacred ones,” she told him.
His eyebrows lifted. “Can that be, when I doubt very much we believe in the same gods?”
“I meant sacred to you and me.” Hulda pressed a hand to her heart. “I will trust in you, Quarrie MacMurtray.”
He drew a breath that expanded his chest. A new light appeared in his eyes. “And I in ye.”
“I will not betray you—that is my promise. If you afford me and my crew room here upon your land, I will be your watch hundr and raise nei weapons against you or yours.”
“And I will no’ betray ye, and will keep my own fro’ raising a blade to ye and yours.”
“Ja, so. It is a promise given. Shall we then seal it?”
Any such agreement in the worlds either of them knew would be affirmed with a gripping of hands, palm to palm or more likely forearm to forearm, weaponless.
Instead, Hulda stepped into his arms.
As natural as breathing the action was, and as impossible to prevent as the waves striding to the shore. She had wanted this since the last time she’d touched him. The last time she’d kissed him. She felt awakened by the desire, more alive than she had ever been.
Their mouths met, both open and reaching. His essence, his being, flooded upon her even his lips molded to hers with an inexpressible hunger, and the taste of him poured into her.
She had wanted this, precisely this, all her life.
He made a sound in his throat—desire, perhaps it was, or claiming. Because ja, he claimed all of her in that kiss, from the damp skin inside her boots to the thinnest strand of hair on the top of her head.
She wound her arms around his neck and pressed her body to his. He felt good, hard, right, and somehow familiar. His hair, wild and tangled, twined between her fingers. She coaxed and wooed his tongue with hers, and drew it into her mouth.
Never had she kissed a man so or dreamed she might, a message that she wanted him inside her. But no one could see them here save the gulls and the sun and the gods, whatever of the last may look upon them.
“Hulda, lass,” he marveled when at last their lips parted and they breathed raggedly.
Was she a lass? Of late, since Jute’s death, she had not felt like one. But she was his lass, ja. She was his.
From the distance of a mere breath, she gazed into his eyes.
A true hazel, for they carried flecks of gold also, and brown.
Thick brown lashes. Freckles beneath the tan of his skin.
She liked the strength of his nose, and the reddish hair on his jaw, and the way his brows lifted over those steady eyes.
Perfect, was her man.
“It is a promise,” she told him. “Given and sworn.”
“Let us swear it again.”
He dove for her lips. This time he wooed her, his tongue caressing hers in a manner that made her knees go weak. No matter that, for he drew her to him with such strength, her feet left the shingle.
She wanted to remain thus forever. Tasting him. Feeling him.
How long that kiss lasted, she never later knew. An eternity, mayhap. Not long enough.
When her feet again met the ground, she had to clutch hold of him for strength, for orientation. A smile gleamed in his eyes.
“Now,” she breathed unsteadily, “that is a promise.”
“Not to be broken,” he agreed. “Yet we maun discuss the details.”
Were there details? Was there anything in all the world besides standing here with him? Feeling the warmth of him. This inestimable sense of belonging.
He let go of her. But before she could protest, he grasped both her hands. One after the other, he lifted them and dropped kisses into her palms. Planted a kiss at either side of her mouth and on both cheeks in turn. Blessed her with another kiss on her brow.
So beautiful was it, she wanted to weep.
“Stay here, Hulda Elvarsdottir, where I might be near to ye, whatever comes.”
“I will stay with you, Quarrie MacMurtray.”
Always.