Edge of Temptation by Megan Crane
“I don’t want to know what that means.”
“He kept her naked. He was rough. He made her follow his every command and he beat her when she didn’t.”
Maud sniffed. “Like father, like son.”
Gunnar had only shaken his head, his fingers holding her chin where he wanted it and his gaze too calm. Much too calm.
“You don’t understand the insult of what you just said,” he’d said gently, and again she’d wished for true numbness. Because what she felt instead was shame that she’d displeased him. That she’d insulted him.
Her knees had ached with the need to kneel—Stop it, she’d snapped at herself. The man who wants to kill you shouldn’t have this power over you. But that didn’t make it go away, and she thought he knew it. His hard mouth had curved very slightly in one corner, though nothing touched the bleak thing in his gaze.
“You get wet at that idea, little nun. My mother wasn’t built like you.”
He’d shifted his hand, moving it so it wrapped around the collar and held her just as securely. And Maud’s curse was that she’d liked that, too. It didn’t make her feel threatened. It made her feel safe.
Worse, she’d understood in a flash of unwanted insight that on some level, she’d felt just as safe all day. She’d never dared show her anger in the convent. Hell, she hadn’t known she’d possessed any to show. The bishop wouldn’t have let her shoot her mouth off to him in any capacity, for any reason. He’d have slapped her across the face at the first hint of any temper. He’d policed the defiance he claimed he’d seen in her gaze the same way. If she’d dared say the things to him she’d said to Gunnar, Bishop Seph would have caned her bloody in front of the entire congregation. He’d have let the other priests join him and hurt her more. It would have been so vicious that even imagining it made her cringe a little.
A painless, if occasionally hair-raising, journey in a warm truck was a gift in comparison. She hadn’t been even slightly afraid that Gunnar would hurt her. Not physically.
She hadn’t really cared for that notion. All she’d wanted was to feel that sweet, cold numbness again, but it had disappeared somewhere in Gunnar’s grim and steady gaze.
“He kept her locked away from the clan so she stayed isolated and alone, and every now and again he got her pregnant.” His voice was something other than gruff then. Something quieter than harsh, but just as painful. “Not because he wanted sons, and certainly not because he wanted to give her a break while she grew big and nursed, but because she was compliant to her core and letting her do her duty as she’d been taught kept her docile.”
It hadn’t escaped Maud’s notice that the duty he was referring to was himself.
“Why didn’t anyone help her?” She hadn’t been able to keep herself from asking. “Or do raiders not do that?”
Once, when Maud had been small, no older than eight or nine, they’d driven their caravan past another vagabond family, this one with all their earthly goods packed on the back of a decrepit-looking mule. The mule had been stopped by the side of a field, two small children on its back and a sour-faced young woman standing near its head. And farther into the field, a tall man with his hair wrapped in dirty scarves beat on a woman much smaller than him as she lay in a crumpled heap before him. She’d been bleeding and wailing, pleading with the man to stop to no avail. Maud’s uncle Mikolaj had gone for his gun.
But her mother had refused to stop their caravan.
It does us no good to interfere in these things, she’d replied stoutly when her brother had shouted at her to stop the damned caravan so he could help. Who knows what goes on between a man and a woman? Who are we to judge?
Such compassion, Marie, Mikolaj had snarled at her. It could curdle milk.
It could be staged, her mother had replied, not backing down an inch. It could be for the benefit of younger one, to teach her to mind her place, and no one will welcome your intrusion. It could be a trap. Armed men might be waiting in the high grass, for just such a fool as you to race in and make yourself a target. And then the next person being slapped around in a field would be me. Or Maud. Is that what you want?
Maud had hidden her angry tears in the sleeve of her coat, and she’d vowed that when she was big enough she’d do as her uncle had intended and defend those who couldn’t defend themselves, no matter who might lurk in the high grasses. Because it was the right thing to do. A deep, personal conviction that had lasted exactly one week in the convent. She’d tried to interfere in another novice’s penance. Once.
For all she knew, raiders were even less compassionate than the nuns had taught her to be with their lashes.
“My father was the war chief of the brotherhood, the right hand of a feared and often cruel king. No one dared interfere with the things he did to the woman he kept or the children he’d got on her.” His gaze had been something like kind, and Maud had felt … broken. He kept breaking her. She didn’t know what would remain of her when it came time to sacrifice her. She’d be a handful of pieces, that was all. Ash and edges and nothing leftover. “She killed herself when my blood brother was four. They say she was pregnant again after managing to avoid it for a few years there, and who could blame her for wanting to escape that bastard?”
Maud had wanted to touch him so badly her fingers felt stiff and sore when she didn’t reach out and put them on him, anywhere. She didn’t think so small and pointless a touch could ease him in any way. But it might have eased her.
“How old were you?” she’d asked instead.
“I was eight,” Gunnar said quietly. So very quietly. “I thought it was a game when she piled heavy stones into her winter coat. I helped.”
Maud hadn’t been able to stop herself then. She’d lifted her bound hands and wrapped her fingers around his wrist, feeling the heat of his skin despite the rain that still fell all around them. Feeling him. And maybe it didn’t do a thing to comfort him, this hard and grim man who made her feel inside out with a mere glance. But it had comforted her to imagine it might.
“She walked off the edge of the fishing pier. She grew up around mines. She’d never learned how to swim.” Gunnar had gazed down at her hands wrapped around his wrist, but he hadn’t dislodged them. Maud had cautioned herself against imagining that meant anything. “And my father refused to give her a funeral pyre, because she was nothing but a captive. She didn’t deserve a proper raider funeral. I can’t be certain, but I think he tossed her into the forest and let the creatures take her bones.”
“I hope she haunts him,” Maud had whispered, though she didn’t believe in ghosts.
Gunnar’s mouth had moved into that curve, too harsh to be a smile.
“Some say she does. They say my blood brother’s coup was as bloody as it was because he blamed the former king for our mother’s death as much as our father. The king was the only one who could have intervened. And didn’t.”
She swallowed. “Then your blood brother sounds like a hero.”
He’d stood there a moment, the rain washing over both of them, nothing but that hood and his fierce gaze in the dark.
“There are no heroes, little nun. Only men and battle and the prices we all pay for the things we do. Wulf could have killed our father, but he didn’t. I wanted to kill him, but Wulf wouldn’t allow it. He claimed the man did not deserve to die by the hands of the sons who had survived him. He ordered our father left diminished, but alive.” His dark eyes had gleamed. “The man he made his own war chief, Tyr, crippled him. I like to think he lives with the memories of my mother to this day in that broken body, but I doubt it. My father was never a man of reflection.”
“But I don’t—”
Gunnar’s fist had tightened on the chain again, forcing her chin up and her hands to fall from his wrist whether she liked it or not.
“No,” he’d growled, “I don’t treat you like a fucking captive.”
And then he’d stalked toward the Lodge, and the chain connected to the collar she wore meant she’d
The heat was the first thing that struck her when Gunnar threw open the doors and led her inside. The instant embrace of warmth in an entry hall made almost entirely of glass windows. It was so extraordinary she hardly minded the sudden assault of the bright lights, blinking her way through them as Gunnar kept moving, striding through the lobby and beyond, into an even larger hall filled with raiders.
Filled. With raiders.
All of whom stopped dead and fell silent at his appearance.
Maud’s heart careened around inside her chest, and several things occurred to her, one on top of the other and all too late to do her any good.
One, that she hadn’t really considered what all the lights and buildings had meant as they’d driven in. That there would be so many huge, intimidating, scowling men, all built like tanks and about as approachable. Warrior braids everywhere she looked and women who wore very few clothes but looked equally dangerous in their own ways, given how comfortable they all looked in the presence of men that should have made them tremble and seek cover.
Two, that had she thought about the fact that there would be more raiders than the two she’d already met, she might have kept her own clothes on. They wouldn’t have helped her any, she understood, but it was amazing how vulnerable a girl felt with one less layer of fabric between her and a hall filled with certain death and an entire raider army.
And three, that she’d never seen a collection of men so frankly terrifying, and yet it was clear what she and Gunnar had walked into was … dinner. As if they really were a brotherhood, when she’d begun to think that was just a word Gunnar and Riordan had thrown around that was stripped of any real meaning.
Her breath threatened to tip over into something far more terrified, but she fought it back. She’d walked—naked and chained—into a raider dinner hour, and there was no point panicking about that now. It was done. She tried to smile instead, and that soothed her.
As did the fact she was wearing a collar and connected by that long chain to Gunnar, little as she wanted to admit that to herself. Had she wanted to feel like a captive or had she wanted to feel like his captive?
Maud didn’t know. But she stood there beside him as he tossed back his hood and she stole glances all around the cavernous room. The raiders sat at long tables, laden with platters of game set between enormous candelabras burning bright, giant glass pitchers of unidentifiable liquids, and earthenware bowls piled here with greens, there with rice, and others steaming with soups. There was an enormous fireplace behind her and high on the wall, a huge crest that looked exactly like the tattoo on Gunnar’s chest. And on Riordan’s. And on everyone else’s, she realized, as she let her eyes travel over the assembled raider warriors, none of whom seemed overly interested in shirts. Her gaze caught on Riordan, the only other person she knew here, and then she looked past him to the man who lounged there on the other side of the high table.
And she froze.
He was blond where Gunnar was dark, and cut lean and lethal, like a wicked blade. He wore a single thick braid tossed over one shoulder and he leaned back in his heavy chair as if he was on the verge of sliding off it and into a boneless nap right there on the floor. But his eyes were a sharp, bright blue she knew very well, and power hummed all around him as if he was his own generator. It filled the air, the hall, the whole of the Lodge.
It pressed into her like a hand. A fist. As if he gripped her from across the hall, and it was not a particularly friendly grip at that.
She didn’t need anyone to tell her that that man was Wulf, Gunnar’s blood brother and the raider king. Her mouth went dry and she couldn’t tell if it was fear or sheer feminine appreciation of that much power and masculine beauty in one single, sculpted male. The way a wise woman appreciated the deadly sea during the winter storms, and then stayed the hell away from it.
The king shifted in his seat, his hard gaze locked to Gunnar’s from all the way down the length of the hall.
“Welcome home, brother,” he said, sounding as lazy and casual as he looked. Yet Maud still felt it like a blow. She didn’t know why Gunnar didn’t seem to react. “Did you bring the clan a gift after such a long absence from your duties? Wrapped in iron chains, no less?”
She felt Gunnar move beside her then, though she thought all he really did was square his shoulders as if he thought there might be a fight. She couldn’t imagine that would be a good idea. Not with so many stone-faced warriors facing them, all of them very clearly prepared to defend their king. Against Gunnar, and no matter that she’d thought Gunnar was one of them.
Gunnar’s dead mate plotted to have the king killed, Riordan had said back in the cabin. Maybe Gunnar knew more about that than he’s saying.
Did they truly believe Gunnar was a traitor?
Maud knew better than to ask. Or to call any more attention to herself than she already was. She’d never been more grateful for her convent training than she was in that moment. It permitted her to stand there calmly, surrounded by blades and ferocious men, and actually feel something close enough to serene. After all, this was certainly not the first time she’d been naked before an unfriendly congregation. These people were simply more armed and lethal than the priests and the nuns. No matter. It was all about breathing and concentrating on small things. The surprising warmth of the stones beneath her feet. The gracefully high ceilings in this hall filled with so many rough, hard men with war in their eyes.
It was astonishing, the things a person could survive, and calmly, if they ignored the bigger picture and focused on very, very small things instead. It had gotten Maud through many a confessional and public shaming, to say nothing of a caning or two.
“This woman is Maud. I claim her as mine,” Gunnar said in his low, harsh way from beside her. Maud might not have paid much attention to that strange choice of words, but it rippled over the crowd as if he’d made a serious proclamation. The raiders reacted to it, one after the next—all except the king, who was still. Too still for a man who still appeared to lounge there like a lazy cat. “Let no hand touch her without my blessing. I’ll cut it the fuck off.”
Maud found herself studying the king as Gunnar’s words hung there in the air of the hall. The man with Gunnar’s bright blue eyes, that looked less smoky and much sharper thanks to his blond hair and beard. His gaze met hers, moved over her, then returned to Gunnar. It couldn’t have taken more than a second, and yet she had no doubt that he’d seen everything. From the raw marks on her neck to the mud on her bare feet to the way she shivered under his regard.
She’d met a number of powerful men in her life. Bishop Seph was the acting head of the church, for all intents and purposes, and he was an intimidating man. Those mercenaries had been scary enough that Maud had been happy she was only a novice and not expected to service them during their visit, as the nuns had been required to do. She’d thought Gunnar was a tree the first time she’d seen him.
But none of them was even remotely as … big as Wulf, and she didn’t mean his size. This was a room of large men and he wasn’t the largest. Yet none of them were as deadly or as terrifying as he was. She didn’t have the slightest bit of doubt.
She heard Riordan say something, but it was swept up in the murmuring from the other raiders and the steady weight of the king’s hard gaze.
Gunnar’s fist tightened on her chain. Too hard, but Maud kept herself from reacting. “I’ll be below,” he muttered.
“Am I to wait on you at your convenience, then?” Wulf’s voice was so idle, so conversational, that there was no way Maud should have been able to hear it from across the hall. And yet she did. Everyone did, she realized in an instant, as the tension in the room suddenly became so heavy it made it hard to breathe. The king pulled one of his blades from his harness and toyed with it. There was nothing inherently threatening about it. He didn’t brandish it or wave it about. But he didn’t have to. She didn’t know a single thing about him and
No one seemed to move. Or breathe. Gunnar and his blood brother—the king of everyone here—eyed each other from opposite ends of the hall while every other person in the great hall held their breath.
Violence clawed at the air.
Maud couldn’t bear it.
She shifted her weight, knowing it would make the chain clank against her collar. She hoped it would get Gunnar’s attention and when it did, he scowled at her—but it broke the tension.
And she was so relieved it was a physical sensation. It flooded through her and made her eyes tear up.
She didn’t dare speak, not here. Not now. But she wanted him to know that if she was going to die the way he kept telling her she would, she’d prefer it not be here. Not now. Not at the hands of all these terrifying men and their lethal, deadly king.
She wanted it to be him. Gunnar and a full moon and hell, maybe that would be worth bleeding for. But not this.
She had the sense that Gunnar was somewhere far away, that it took him a long time to come back, to read the way she looked at him. But she knew when it was him again, cranky and grim and hers.
Her killer, perhaps. But still hers.
The collar and the chain made her feel safe, because he was at the other end of it. She wanted to be what made him safe. She wanted to comfort him and protect him, however she was able, just a naked nun standing before a hostile crowd of raiders. She wanted to be for him what he was for her, and this wasn’t the time to analyze the right or wrong of that. She couldn’t say a word. She didn’t dare. But this man had read every thought she’d had so far, and far more complicated than this. She willed him to do it again. Now, when it mattered. When she had to believe it could save them both.
He didn’t nod. His hard mouth allowed for no hint of a curve. Only his blue eyes gleamed, a dark sort of promise.