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chapter
one
A shriek rent the
air.
Brenna dropped the bucket of mussels and ran toward the sound.
She shouldn’t have let Moira wander away. If anything
happened to her younger sister, their father would never forgive
her.
She’d never forgive herself.
Fear made her wing-footed. When she rounded the
outcropping of dark basalt, she found Moira cautiously circling
a body on the sand. It was a man curled on his side, one
long arm draped over a wooden cask.
Brenna breathed out a sigh. God be praised, Moira was
unhurt.
“Is he dead, do ye think?” her sister asked.
“Seems to be.” Brenna used the butt of her walking stick
to push the man’s shoulder and roll him onto his back. He
flopped over as lifelessly as a beached porpoise. Dark
blood crusted at his hairline where he’d obviously taken a blow.
“Oh, he’s a fine strong lad. Look at the arms on him,
Brenna.”
The stranger was even more heavily muscled than the local smith,
and though he wasn’t stretched out to full length, Brenna could
see that if he were standing upright, he would be far taller
than any man in her father’s keep. His pale hair was a
tangled mess, but even dusted with brine and sand, the man’s
face reminded Brenna of the fierce warlike angels painted on the
scriptorium walls at Clonmacnoise Abbey – stern and forbidding,
but heart-stoppingly beautiful.
Brenna’s gaze fell on the runic symbols carved into the hilt of
the knife at the man’s waist. Her lip curled with
loathing. “One of the Normanni.”
“A Northman?” Moira leaned closer to him. “Mother
used to frighten us with stories of Northmen when we were
little, but even though they’ve raided near us, I’ve never seen
one in all me living life.” She cocked a questioning brow
at Brenna. “Do ye mean to tell me ye have?”
“Aye, though I wish I had not.” Brenna’s voice was flat
and she raised the pointed end of her staff toward the still
figure.
“Are all Northmen so fair, then?”
“No, not all,” Brenna said through clenched jaw.
“This one surely is. He’s so pretty. ‘Tis a pity
he’s dead.” Moira reached down to smooth a damp lock of
hair from the man’s cheek.
Suddenly his eyelids flew open and he grabbed Moira’s wrist.
She screamed and tried to pull away, but the stranger’s grip was
firm.
No, not this time, Brenna thought.
White-hot rage surged through her and a low growl erupted from
the back of her throat. The Osteman heathen dared
put his filthy hand on her sister. Almost in reflex, she
jabbed his thigh with her staff, burying the sharp point into
his flesh. Her stomach lurched at the way the shaft stuck,
embedded in the man’s heavy muscle. Brenna jerked backward
on it, but couldn’t pull it free for another stab.
The good nuns at Clonmacnoise had admonished her that anger, or
any other strong passion for that matter, was a sin. But
Brenna knew if she were able, she’d pound the man into raw meat
before the fury inside her was quelled.
Eyes wide with surprise, the stranger howled and released Moira.
“Run!” Brenna ordered. Her younger sister fled,
disappearing around the rocks, fleet-footed as a hind.
The man wrapped his long fingers around Brenna’s makeshift spear
and yanked it from his leg with a grunt and a spurt of blood.
Then he jerked the other end of the staff from her grasp.
Despite his injury, the man rose to his feet, blood spreading on
the dun-colored leggings and streaking toward his knee. He
tossed her stick into the gorse bushes. Then he turned to
face her, his handsome features marred by a black frown.
For one paralyzing moment, Brenna couldn’t breathe. The
lapping of the waves played over in her head like a
half-remembered song. A gull screamed and she was sharply
aware of the fishy reek of the sea. The Northman blocked
her way.
She feinted to throw him off balance, then turned and raced down
the beach in the opposite direction Moira had fled. She
heard the man’s footfalls pounding behind her and lengthened her
stride. He shouted something to her in an evil-sounding
language, and though his tone wasn’t threatening, she wouldn’t
be tricked by the likes of him.
Surely she could outrun a half-drowned man with a hole in his
leg. Surely she could –
She felt a blow to her lower back as the man lunged, wrapping
his arms around her waist. Brenna pitched headlong into
the gritty sand. They rolled together, over and over,
Brenna
scrambling to get away, the man grasping at her to keep her with
him. When they finally came to a stop, Brenna was pinned beneath
the big man’s body.
“Get off me, ye
Finn-Gall demon!” Brenna pummeled his chest with her fists
till the man caught up her hands and pressed them into the sand
above her head. She flailed her feet trying to kick him, but he
wrapped his long legs around hers, binding her fast.
All she had
left were words, and she spewed out the most hateful curses she’d
ever heard. She invoked every plague imaginable to rain down on the
stranger’s golden head and offered his immortal soul to Beelzebub
with all the venom she could muster.
The man didn’t
blink an eyelash, his impossibly blue eyes going darker by the
moment. His face hovered over hers, his expression unreadable. He
let her rant until she was utterly spent and gasping.
“That’s the
best string of insults I’ve ever heard,” he said calmly. The
corners of his mouth turned up in a wry smile despite the furrow
between his dark brows.
Brenna felt the
blood rush from her face.
“Ye understand
me?”
“Let me see.
You seem to think I’m something called a succubus from the
Netherworld and you invited the Prince of Darkness, whoever he is,
to feast on my liver. Ja, girl, I think I understand you.”
Brenna felt his
belly quiver as if he suppressed a laugh. In spite of the way his
brows knit together, he seemed genuinely amused, Devil take him.
“How is it ye
speak our tongue?”
The smile faded
and the man’s frown deepened. “I … don’t know.”
He continued to
study her face as if the answer might be found there. Though his
body felt heavy on hers, he lay perfectly still, making no
threatening movements.
That wouldn’t
last long, Brenna suspected. If she could
keep the man talking, distract him a bit, maybe she’d be able to get
away. Surely Moira had arrived back at the keep by now. Da and the
men would be grabbing their bows and sprinting toward the beach to
her rescue. She drew a shaky breath, taking heart at the thought
that the fighting men of Erin might pop over the hillock at any
moment. “Where will ye be coming from?”
A grimace
creased the Northman’s face, and his eyes flitted back and forth in
their reddened sockets. He’d spent quite some time in the sea,
Brenna realized.
“I don’t
know.” His voice was a hoarse whisper.
“Don’t know? Many’s the man who’s lost his way and doesn’t know where he is, but
sure and ye are the first I’ve seen who couldn’t say where he’d
been.”
The warm
stickiness of the man’s blood seeped through the fabric of her
tunic. Maybe blood loss accounted for the panic flickering across
the man’s features. She must have jabbed him deeper than she
thought.
“How did ye
find yourself in the sea?” she asked.”
His eyes rolled
again, as though searching for the answer. His grip loosened, but
she still couldn’t escape. At least he hadn’t tried to slobber on
her or ruck up her skirt. Though his body pressed hers into the
sand, he showed little interest in her. He seemed to be more
confused than anything else.
“Ye don’t know
much, do ye?” She arched a brow at him. “Maybe ye’ll be telling me
your name, then?"
“My name,” he
repeated woodenly.
“Aye, ‘tis not
a hard thing, surely.” She managed to slide her hands out of his
grasp, but he didn’t seem to notice. “All God’s creatures have
names. Even Northmen, I’d wager.”
The man pressed
his hands against her cheeks, holding her head immobile, and stared
into Brenna’s eyes. His chest heaved and she silently cursed
herself for baiting him.
Then to her
surprise, he rolled off her and sat up. She crabbed backward,
scuttling away from him, and scrambled to her feet.
Brenna had every
intention of dashing over the small rise of sand and into the hills,
but the Northman was behaving so strangely, taking no notice of her
at all. And besides, if she stayed to keep an eye on him, Da would
be proud she hadn’t let him get away. It wasn’t much, but if she
showed a bit of courage now, maybe Da would begin to forgive her for
her cowardice at Clonmacnoise.
It was worth
the risk.
Brenna watched
in morbid fascination as the Northman sat holding his head, rocking
forth and back, making small groans in time with the movement. His
moans grew louder until finally he threw his head back in
frustration and roared wordlessly to the sky.
The
bone-chilling sound sent Brenna’s heart to her toes.
Saints
above, a madman! She froze like a hare in the thicket who knows
a fox is sniffing nearby.
***
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"Sisters Brenna and Moira, ninth-century Irish
princesses, find a Northman washed up on the shore.
Suffering from amnesia he accepts the name of Keefe
Murphy and is allowed to live.
Saving Moira from a Viking raiding party reveals his
true name, Jorand, and the fact that he can achieve
the berserker rage. He is rewarded with Brenna's
hand in a one-year handfast marriage, but Brenna has
secrets, and the priest will not give her the
information she needs until she recovers a stolen
manuscript.
Groe
renders the clash between the Norse and the Irish
with fascinating historical detail, creating a vivid
backdrop for a dramatic love story."
~
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ISBN-13:978-0-8439-5789-1
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