Chapter 12
“Wait right here, I’ll go and get Wolf,” Sigurd said, opening the door to allow a woman into the hut. He nodded toward Merewen as if he trusted her to look after the guest. Before she could ask him anything, the door closed again.
After a long, restorative sleep, she had woken up alone, and wondered for a moment if she had not dreamt the whole intimate scene.
Had Wolf really all but declared his feelings for her and then tended to her injuries as tenderly as a mother would?
Had he really lingered over the cleaning as sensually as a lover would?
Had he really called her ‘little one’—and had she accused him of being a big brute?
Yes…
It had all been too real. All too wonderful.
She forced herself to come back to the present and her mysterious guest.
“I’m sorry for intruding…” the girl started, nodding toward the pot of water and piece of cloth on the table, evidently thinking she had interrupted her wash.
Wolf had provided her with everything she needed for when she woke up and even replaced the ruined dress with a new one.
Without checking, Merewen knew it would smell as fresh as a meadow, nothing like the one he had found for her the day he had bought her.
“You are not intruding,” she answered, going crimson. That all seemed such a long time ago now…
Not quite knowing what to say, the two women looked at each other in mutual curiosity.
The girl was small and blond, with a delicate heart-shaped face, and lovely brown eyes.
At the moment she appeared ill at ease but it seemed to Merewen that in normal circumstances she would be more prone to smiling than scowling. What was making her so nervous?
“No need to ask you why you’re here,” the girl said in a low whisper.
With a pang of dismay, Merewen understood why the girl was so uncomfortable.
She thought herself in the presence of a fellow Saxon who had been purchased like an animal and used as a slave, and didn’t know how to act.
In her grimy, disheveled state, with her lip cut and her face bruised, Merewen knew she would be the very image of the oppressed, ill-treated female.
In other words, the exact opposite of what she was.
“I-I am not Wolf’s slave, rather his…” she stammered, not quite able to introduce herself as his wife, even to a stranger .
“Oh, you don’t need to tell me you are not his slave!” the girl answered as if the mere idea of Wolf owning a slave was too ridiculous to even entertain. “And whoever did that to you, you can be sure that he will make them pay for it. He… did the same for me.”
She lowered her eyes and wrung her hands. Merewen’s heart constricted when she finally understood the cause of the girl’s nervousness. She too had been attacked and was finding it hard to have people know it.
“But I thought…” She frowned. The woman looked and sounded distinctively Saxon. “I had assumed he only helped his kinsmen. You are a Saxon, are you not?”
“It makes no difference what I am. He helps whoever needs him. He walked in on one of the men from the village forcing himself on me. Although the man was someone he knew and perhaps even liked, he didn’t hesitate and beat him to a pulp for what he did to me.
” She shook her head as if to chase the dreadful memory away.
“I came here today to thank him again and tell him… that is… He’d asked me to inform him whether I had fallen with child so I came to tell him that thankfully no, I had not.
My courses have returned, you see, and… well, I—”
Merewen cut the girl’s embarrassed explanations short by taking her hand. “I understand,” she said, giving it a squeeze.
So Wolf had taken a Saxon’s defense against one of his people.
He had sided with an unknown woman rather than with a man who might have called himself his friend…
He had even bothered to enquire about her future when she knew how adverse men were to discussing women’s troubles.
This kind, thoughtful, protective man who wanted a family and a wife to cherish was married to her.
And as soon as he had made her his wife, she had left, making him think he scared her and she wouldn’t come back.
Something snapped inside of Merewen. She had fought the notion that Wolf was a man she wanted for so long that something had to give.
She broke down into a sob.
The girl instantly wrapped her arms around her. “It’s all right,” she soothed. “It’s over. You are safe now.”
She nodded, unable to talk. Yes, she was safe. And it was time she stopped hiding from what she felt, accepted the situation she was in and started to ask herself the right questions instead of living her life according to other people’s dictates and her own unrealistic expectations.
So what if Wolf had bought her and not met her in a meadow on a sunny spring day?
It did not change the fact that he wanted her.
What if he had not wooed her before asking to marry her?
It did not mean he would not be a good husband to her, attentive and thoughtful.
What if she harbored unholy, carnal feelings toward him?
It did not make her appreciate his other qualities less, or unworthy of his respect.
She would never find another man who appealed to her more, who accepted her with her faults so easily, who could make her happier than she had ever hoped to be.
Merewen mentally kicked herself in the backside. Yes. It was high time she stopped dreaming of a perfect life and started living the one she had instead.
Moments later, she watched as the girl threw herself into Wolf’s arms. He rubbed her back gently, the gesture comforting, almost paternal, as he told her his relief that she would not have to give birth to her aggressor’s child.
Wishing to give them some privacy, she exited the hut quietly, taking the new dress with her. She would go to the river and bathe, a thorough cleansing to clear her mind and rid her body from the last traces of the man’s smell.
Once she had rubbed her skin until it hurt, Merewen sat on a log and thought hard.
“I’m cold. I’m frightened.”
Swallowing her pride and doubts, Merewen crept to Wolf’s pallet on the other side of the hut.
She had woken up in the middle of the night, and after all the rest she’d had in the last two days, had found it impossible to go back to sleep.
For a while she had lain there, shivering and reliving the nightmare she had endured at the man’s hands.
And so she had gone to the one man who could make her feel warm and safe.
Her husband.
In the darkness she could not make out his reaction but before she had time to wonder what he would make of her plea, an arm wrapped around her waist and he drew her to his side.
“Come here, then. You’ll be warm with me, and safe.”
She nestled against his body and gave a sigh of contentment.
“Are you never cold?” she marveled, feeling his chest warm under a simple tunic.
A low chuckle answered her question. “Of course, I am, but not when there isn’t even enough ice to freeze the mud in puddles.”
“I suppose it gets colder in Iceland,” she mused.
“Far colder,” he agreed in a hoarse voice.
It did not take Merewen long to wonder whether she had made the right decision by going to Wolf’s pallet.
True, she wasn't cold or afraid anymore, but she was getting increasingly, unbearably aroused in his arms. Her imagination started to run in all sorts of licentious directions.
She wanted him, and she had concluded earlier that it was time she accepted that fact and consummated their marriage, even if it meant risking revealing her true nature to him. Could she do it now?
Only a few days ago she had told him she was afraid of being bedded and would rather wait until they knew each other better. What would he make of her sudden change of heart?
She was already in his arms, pressed hard against him. Could she start to stroke him? Mayhap if she did he would understand what she wanted without her actually having to speak the shameful words?
No.
She guessed that Wolf would never touch her while she was recovering from an attack and, as he still thought she was afraid of being taken, he would never make the first move.
It would be down to her to initiate their lovemaking.
But before she did that she would have to clarify a few things.
Tell him that she wasn’t afraid, even if she was a virgin, assure him that she had not been raped and make him understand she didn’t want him just for his body, even if she did harbor shameful, lustful desires.
She balled her hands into fists to resist temptation and willed herself to be calm. He was probably half asleep already. Making love would have to wait.
Wolf wondered how long he would be able to resist until he rolled Merewen under him and positioned himself between her thighs to beg for her agreement to finally make love to her.
Every muscle in his body was taut as a bow string and his manhood was so hard he knew it would never soften of its own accord.
Either he did what he ached to do, plunge inside Merewen’s softness, or he would have to bring about his own release once she was safely asleep.
He knew which one he preferred to do and only the knowledge that her back was raw gave him the strength to stay still.
He stared at the ceiling, doing his best to convince himself that waiting was the most sensible course of action.
Merewen had come to him in search of warmth and comfort, nothing more.
She didn’t want or need him to start acting like a lust-filled beast. She had been brutally assaulted only two days ago.
Sigurd had told him the man had not had time to actually possess her but he could not be sure it was the case, and even if it had not, she had been frightened enough to swoon.
Right now lovemaking was probably the furthest thing from her mind.
There was nothing for it, he would have to wait.
Little by little, he felt her body relax against him, while his remained as hard as wood.