Chapter 7 Maeve’s Hands, Leif’s Fire
The first wave struck Leif from the side and tore him out of her grasp.
“Leif!”
His boots vanished between black stones. Maeve lunged, caught the back of his soaked tunic, and nearly followed him into the white churn. Salt blinded her. The reef groaned beneath them as though the sea meant to grind every living thing into splinters.
Leif’s hand closed around her wrist.
“Do not pull,” he shouted. “Find the sand!”
She felt blindly with one foot. A hollow opened beneath her heel. Then her toes struck firm ground. She braced herself, bent low, and hauled with all the strength left in her shoulders. Leif came free of the rocks, coughing seawater, his weight dragging them both toward the shore.
They reached the cove on their knees.
Maeve crawled until the waves could no longer seize her ankles. Leif collapsed beside her, one arm flung across the shingle. Behind them, the broken hull leaned against the reef, its ribs jutting from the surf. A torn length of sail snapped overhead, each crack swallowed by the gale.
“Can you stand?” she asked.
He pushed himself up. “I have stood in worse places.”
“That was not my question.”
His amber eyes found hers through wet ash-brown hair. The notch through his left eyebrow was dark with blood, though the cut looked shallow. “Then help me stand.”
The answer irritated her enough to obey.
Together they staggered toward the far end of the cove, where a shelf of rock curved beneath an overhang.
It offered little shelter, but it broke the wind.
Maeve found splinters of the ship scattered above the tide line and dragged them beneath the stone while Leif stripped a length of rope from the wreck.
“Leave that,” she said. “You can barely close your hand.”
“I can close it well enough.”
He tried. His fingers curled halfway and stopped.
Maeve seized his wrist. His skin was cold as river stones. “You cannot.”
His gaze dropped to her hand around him. “You have become commanding.”
“I have been commanding since the men who should have guarded our provisions tied a Norse reef knot beneath a false seal.”
The words landed between them with the weight of all she had withheld. Leif’s mouth tightened, but he did not pull away.
“Then command me properly,” he said. “Tell me what you need.”
The admission unsettled her more than anger would have. She released him and crouched beside the driftwood.
“Dry cloth. Anything not soaked through. And the small knife.”
He gave her the knife. His hand shook as he did.
Maeve cut away the stiff leather ties at his wrists and peeled off his gloves. The skin beneath was wax-pale, the fingers swollen and rigid. She rubbed them between her palms, slowly at first, then harder when he hissed.
“Does it hurt?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Pain means the flesh is waking.”
“You find comfort in strange omens.”
“I find comfort in facts.”
She wrapped his hands in a strip torn from the lining of her cloak.
The wool smelled of brine and smoke. With the last dry shavings, she coaxed a flame from a coal trapped in a broken box.
Wind clawed at it. Leif crouched around the spark, using his body as a shield while Maeve fed it slivers of wood.
When the fire caught, it gave more smoke than heat.
“Your cloak,” he said.
She looked up. “What of it?”
“Put it over your shoulders.”
“You need the warmth.”
“I need you able to move when the tide rises.”
“I am not giving you my cloak so you can play the captain.”
His mouth twitched despite the cold. “You married a captain. You knew the risk.”
“For a season. Not for a lifetime.”
“Then I shall spend the season being difficult.”
She should have laughed. Instead, she tore the cloak in two.
Leif stared at her.
“One half for you,” she said. “One for me. If you complain, I will use the knife again.”
He accepted the wool without argument. Their shoulders touched beneath the makeshift covering as they crouched close to the fire. Heat crept back into her fingers. Leif’s hands remained in her lap, and she continued rubbing them until the stiffness eased.
Beyond the cove, the storm dragged the sea over the reef. No voices answered their calls. No lantern moved along the coast. The rest of the ship’s company had vanished into darkness, and Maeve dared not ask how many had survived.
Leif watched the water. “The hull will not hold until morning.”
“Then we will not sleep in it.”
“I did not say we would.”
“You were thinking it.”
“I was thinking we should search it once the tide turns.”
“For what?”
“Food. Flint. A spare cloak.”
“Answers.”
His eyes shifted to her. “You believe the wreck can tell us who cut the rigging?”
“I believe ropes do not sever themselves.”
“And if we find proof?”
“Then we know whom to fear.”
“You already fear everyone.”
Maeve’s fingers tightened around his. “I fear being made a fool more than I fear a blade.”
The fire snapped. Leif’s expression changed, the sharpness leaving it.
“You think I made a fool of you.”
“You demanded my oath before witnesses, then discovered the witnesses had been forged. You suspected my kin. You suspected me. You were not wrong.”
“I was not right enough.”
The words were quiet. She looked at him fully.
His face was drawn with cold, his lips pale, yet his attention remained fixed on her as though the storm had narrowed the world to the space beneath the rock.
“Why did you pull me from the reef?” he asked.
“Because you were there.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the only one I have.”
He leaned closer, not touching her beyond their joined hands. “If I ask you to tell me when you are afraid, will you?”
Maeve looked toward the black water. “You would use it against me.”
“I might have, before.”
“And now?”
“Now I know what it costs to have you silent beside me.”
The honesty struck deeper than she wished. She had spent days measuring him as a Norse raider, a dangerous husband purchased by necessity. Yet his hands rested in hers with complete trust, and he had placed his body between hers and the wind without being asked.
She lifted his fingers to her mouth and breathed warmth over them.
His breath caught.
“This is treatment,” she said.
“I did not accuse you otherwise.”
“Do not.”
“Would you stop me if I did?”
The question held no demand. Only an opening.
Maeve met his gaze. “Yes.”
He nodded once. “Then I would stop.”
That simple obedience loosened something in her chest. She turned his hand and pressed her lips to his knuckles. His skin tasted of salt. When she lowered it, his thumb brushed the inside of her wrist.
“Maeve.”
Her name sounded different in his voice now - not an argument, not a title, but a question.
She should have moved away. Instead she said, “What?”
“May I kiss you?”
The storm raged beyond the shelter. The fire burned low. Every sensible thought told her that warmth mattered more than wanting.
Still, she answered, “Yes.”
He kissed her carefully, as though she were another thing rescued from the sea. His mouth was cold at first, then warming beneath hers. Maeve caught the front of his tunic and drew him nearer, deepening the kiss until the hard line of his body pressed against hers.
Leif’s hand rose to her cheek. He paused there.
“Still yes?” he murmured.
“Yes.”
His thumb traced the curve beneath her eye. She felt the restraint in him, the effort it cost not to take more than she offered. That restraint made her want to offer more. She slid her fingers into his wet hair and kissed him again, fierce enough to make him groan.
For one breath, the wreck, the forged oath, the blood feud, and the men hunting their weakness disappeared.
Then a stone shifted beyond the fire.
Maeve broke away.
Leif was already reaching for the knife.
They listened.
The sound came again from the mouth of the cove: a soft scrape, followed by another. Not the tide. Not the wind.
Leif pressed one finger to his lips. Maeve nodded and extinguished the fire with a handful of wet sand.
Darkness closed over them.
He moved first, silent despite his stiffened hands. Maeve followed, keeping low beneath the rock shelf. At the edge of the cove, the snow had thinned where the wind had scoured it clean.
There they saw them.
Footprints.
Fresh ones led from the beach toward the narrow path above the cove. The heel marks were sharp. Whoever had made them had passed after the storm began.
Leif crouched beside the trail. He touched one print, then held up two fingers.
Two people.
Maeve’s mouth went dry. “Survivors?”
He shook his head and pointed.
The prints faced the wreck, not the shore.
Someone had come looking.
They retreated to the shelter. Leif gathered the remaining driftwood and placed it near the fire pit, then dragged a broken spar across the entrance. Maeve took the knife and crawled toward the wreck’s shadow, searching for anything they could use as a weapon.
Her fingers found a length of iron pin buried in sand.
When she returned, Leif had arranged the torn sail to make the shelter appear empty from the path. He had also tucked the last of the dry wood beneath Maeve’s cloak.
“You kept it from me,” she whispered.
“You were searching.”
“You should have told me.”
“I am telling you now.”
She wanted to rebuke him. Instead, she saw the truth of it: he had not ordered her aside, nor tried to protect her by making her helpless. He had worked with what she gave him.
Maeve placed the iron in his stronger hand. “If they come, you take the first one.”
“And you?”
“I take the second.”
His eyes warmed despite the cold. “There is my commanding wife.”
“Temporary wife.”
“For tonight, that distinction will not save us.”
“No,” she said. “But it may save you from becoming arrogant.”
They waited until the sky paled.
The wind weakened. Ice crusted the edges of the cove, and Maeve’s muscles ached from holding still. Leif’s shoulder rested against hers. At some point, his head had lowered until his temple touched her hair.
“Maeve,” he whispered.
“I am awake.”
“I know.”
She turned toward him. His face was close, his amber eyes clear now, though exhaustion shadowed them.
“Your hands?” she asked.
“Alive.”
“Let me see.”
He extended them. The fingers were reddened but moved.
She exhaled, unaware until then that she had been holding her breath.
Leif caught her hand before she could withdraw. “You saved them.”
“We saved them.”
He studied her, then bent and pressed his mouth to the crescent birthmark below her left collarbone, visible where her torn dress had slipped beneath the cloak.
The kiss was gentle enough to hurt.
Maeve closed her eyes. “That was not treatment.”
“No.”
“Nor was it a request.”
His lips hovered over her skin. “No.”
She touched his jaw. “Ask.”
His gaze lifted to hers. “May I kiss you there?”
“Yes.”
He did, slowly, while his hand settled at her waist. Warmth spread through her despite the dawn chill. She leaned into him, letting her fingers trace the notch in his eyebrow, the roughness of his beard, the man beneath the raider’s name.
Then a gull cried above the beach.
Maeve opened her eyes.
Beyond Leif’s shoulder, where the morning light silvered the shingle, a dark figure stood beside the wreck.
A second figure emerged behind it.
Leif rose without releasing her hand.
The strangers had seen the smoke.
And now they were walking toward the cove.