Chapter 23
At the village they were greeted by an explosion of joy.
Ylva fell into Cwenthryth’s extended arms at the same time as Steinar drew his son into a manly hug.
Looking deeply moved, Wolf shook Oslac’s hand while Torsten kissed his eldest daughter, who had escaped from her mother’s arms as soon as she had seen him dismount.
Merewen was thanking Caedmon. Sven, Haakon, Eirik and Moon were seeing to the horses, their wives doing their best to contain the children’s excitement.
It was just like a big family reunion, full of happiness and warmth, just what Ylva needed.
“Thank you, Ylva.” Cwenthryth was sobbing into her neck, overwhelmed by emotion. “You saved our son.”
“Please. It was the least I could do to atone for the fact that I once tried to kill him.”
After a while, everything quietened down. Ylva looked around for Ulf and saw him talking to his grandfather, who was looking on with pride. Before she could go to him, Steinar planted himself in front of her.
She braced herself for the inevitable confrontation but to her shock, the stern man placed a hand above his heart.
“I will never forget what you did and I don’t know how to thank you.” The gruffness in his voice, for once, was down to emotion. “When you have your own son, perhaps you will appreciate the enormity of what you did today.”
“I already do.” She understood all too well, as she had saved the man she loved. It seemed just as significant.
An arm snaked around her waist and Ulf drew her to his side, right where she belonged.
“I think I’m ready to go home.”
Yes, he would be, after his ordeal.
“Thorfinn and Knut have already been sent to fill a tub with water in your hut,” Steinar informed them. “And food has been put on the table. Ylva, see to it that my son is fed, cleaned and made comfortable. I think no one will do that better than you will.”
The arm around her waist tightened. “Indeed.”
The blacksmith’s two sons were just emptying the last pot of warm water into an enormous wooden tub when Ylva followed Ulf into the hut a moment later.
She was grateful to them for having spared her a strenuous job.
She had barely slept the night before and her belly was starting to restrain her movements.
“Thanks, my friends.” Ulf suddenly looked exhausted himself.
“No problem. You just take care. And Ylva, it’s nice to meet you.”
After one last nod, they left. Ylva spent a long moment bathing Ulf, tending to his various cuts and scrapes, crying all the while. She knew the baby was making her more emotional than usual but this was ludicrous. Every time she discovered a new bruise, a tear fell down her cheeks.
“I’m all right,” Ulf, kept repeating, wiping them away. “I’m all right. I’m here.”
When the water was cold he finally agreed to leave the tub.
“Lie with me, my love,” he mumbled, stretching his long limbs on the pallet. “I need you by my side, even if, unfortunately, I’m in no state to—”
He fell asleep before he could finish the sentence. He had only eaten a piece of bread, but she knew at the moment he needed rest more than food.
Moved by his sudden vulnerability, she sat next to him and watched him a long moment, stroking his hair, his chest, his arms, everywhere she could reach. All the while, she whispered words of love.
The baby kicked, and she placed Ulf’s hand over the place where she had felt the nudge. Was it a foot, an elbow, a knee? It was impossible to tell. But it was her son, letting her know he was here.
“It’s all right, Einar, your father’s here,” she murmured to her little boy. “Feel him, he’s back. He loves you, he loves me, and he’s never leaving us again. Everything is going to be all right.”
It was already mid-morning when Ulf finally came to find her outside the hut. Rather than getting fully dressed, he had simply put on his braies and thrown a cloak over his shoulders. His clean hair looked deliciously mussed. He had never looked better.
“Have you been here long?” he asked, taking her into his arms.
“Not really. I had a long sleep myself. I just saw Oslac, who asked after you.”
Her brother, understanding that she and Ulf needed the hut back, had gone to sleep in Caedmon’s hay loft.
“I hope you told him I’m fine.” He made a grimace. “I’m sorry I fell asleep on you like that yesterday but I needed that sleep.”
Yes. Getting beaten probably did that to you. She was glad she would never find out, now that she had found a safe place to live. Carefully, she placed a hand over his bruised cheek and her eyes started to water—again.
“I hate to see you like this.”
He covered her hand with his. “It’s all right, I’m fine. Truly.”
“You look like a mighty Norse warrior.”
He let out a booming laugh she had never heard before but loved. “You say that like you don’t know if it’s a good thing or not.”
“Well… That’s precisely because I don’t know. You do look magnificent, but I hate knowing that you’ve been hurt.”
“I was hurt. But then you saved me, remember?”
“Yes.”
That had been the proudest moment of her life. Ironic, because the day she had tried to stab him for real had been the worst, most shameful.
Ylva stared to shiver, and no wonder. The morning was unusually cold for the season.
“You’re cold,” Ulf said. “Come here.”
He lifted the heavy cloak he was wearing and wrapped her inside, keeping her tight against his bare chest. The warmth, the comfort, were like nothing else she had ever experienced. This man and what she felt for him were like nothing she had ever experienced, and she relished every moment of it.
“Let’s go back inside,” Ulf murmured after a while. “There is something I need to do.”
Intrigued, Ylva followed him through the door then waited to find out what this mysterious thing was. Everything within her melted when she understood that what he thought he had to do was fall to his knees at her feet—and ask for her hand in marriage.
“Ylva, my beautiful, brave she-wolf, I didn’t lie when I said that you were my destiny. I truly believe it, now more than ever. So, will you stay here with me? Be my wife? Give me little cubs to love and cherish?”
She didn’t even take a heartbeat to think about it. There was only one answer to that question.
“Yes,” she said, smiling through her tears. “I will stay with you. I will marry you. I will give you three more little cubs after our son.”
He stood back up, looking both happy and confused. “Wait. Do you know something I don’t?”
“No.” She laughed. How could she? “Only, I had a dream the night before you were captured. In that dream I saw three blond children and a baby with my hair color.”
The smile Ulf threw her was radiant. “That sounds perfect. We’ll have to wait and see, won’t we?
In the meantime…” The cloak was sent to the floor in a flourish.
Then he stilled, as if seized by doubt, and glanced at his chest, which was mottled with bruises.
“That is, if you don’t think me too frightful to—”
She stopped him with a fierce kiss. “You could not be frightful if you tried. But I worry you might be in pain.” Slowly, she brushed a finger over his injured face.
“Pain or no, I have to have you. Now.”
Another heated kiss followed this declaration.
All Ylva’s doubts melted and soon, they found themselves on the pallet, panting with need.
Out of consideration for her swelling stomach, Ulf had placed her on top of him.
She was straddling him, his hands were at her hips, holding her over the hardness pressing against her molten core.
She let out a long breath.
Ulf could not believe the contrast between this morning and the previous one, when he’d lain on the cold, stone floor of the cell in town, aching and filled with despair.
He had thought he would die and never see this beautiful woman again.
And she was sitting on top of him, offering herself to his gaze and his touch.
He had a sudden vision of how Ylva would look naked, riding him, with her beautiful breasts bouncing, her hair loose over her shoulders and her head thrown back in ecstasy—and he couldn’t wait to make it come true.
“Will you ride me, my love?” he rasped. The heat of her over his rock-hard shaft was sweet torture. “I’m bursting with need.”
He cursed himself when she grew still. Of course, though she’d had a lover in her bed, though the two of them had already shared pleasure, though she was with child, she was still untouched. He would just have to forget his needs and take this slowly.
“Forgive me. This was the wrong thing to say.”
“No, I too am bursting. Only…”
He waited, while she found the best way to explain what was bothering her.
“You were right that first night. I am scared,” she finally admitted, her gaze averted.
“Not of you, as I said, but of…being taken. All my life I tried to avoid it. Every time a man entered the house, I feared Mildred or her father would ask me to service him. I quickly learned to dread anything associated with men. Then Judith was attacked. She told me how much it had hurt. I know, deep down, that it was so painful for her because she didn’t want Walstan and he was rough with her, but I-I can’t help how I feel. ”
He cradled her cheek in the palm of his hand. “Of course. I understand.”
She had gone through something highly traumatic and he wished he could erase the memory from her mind.
“But I do want you. I’m burning.”
Yes, so he could feel, even through his braies.
Ulf stroked her cheek slowly. “I can give you pleasure in many ways, as you know.” Forget his own bursting body, he would find his release, one way or the other.
He was more concerned about Ylva right now, and making sure he did nothing she didn’t want. “You know we don’t actually have to—”
“We do.” She stopped him with a hand on his chest. “Because I love you and I want you. Because we are going to get married and have a family. Because I want to share pleasure with you. Because I trust you.”