A/N:
In my last chapter I gave a nod to the French readers of this story and received a review for a Norwegian girl living in Paris. How cool was that? The world is a small place.
Thank you for all your reviews and comments. I appreciate them all very much!
I also want to thank Suki59 for all her great beta work.
The characters in this story belong to Charlaine Harris. I`m just covering them in blood and making them have fun with their swords.
I saw Eric before he saw me, the crowd having grown thick between us and him standing with his back turned in my direction. He looked glorious – pale, naked and covered in blood. The light from the dark blue evening sky, the stars and the moon, and the light from the bonfires were all making his blond hair look almost white. The part that wasn`t dark from the blood, that is.
I walked up behind him, enjoying the visual of his muscular back, his strong thighs and that spectacular butt of his. Eric was a vision and for once in my life I indulged myself in enjoying a handsome man.
So what if he betrayed me or ran away with my heart? We could be dead before winter and it wouldn`t mean a thing. I wanted to enjoy the here and now.
No, what I really wanted to enjoy was Eric`s body and I didn`t want to think about all the problems that body came with.
I let my hands glide over his waist and work their way up his chest while I pressed my body into his back.
To my surprise Eric pulled my hands away. “I`m sorry. I`m already spoken for.”
I looked at his back in surprise and then I started laughing a very un-feminine laughter. When Eric turned around I could see that he`d recognized my hands. His grin gave him away.
“Well, then. I`ll just walk off and find myself another handsome guy, then,” I said.
“Handsome, you say? I do think I`m the only one around. Ah well, I suppose I`ll have to submit to you then. Can`t have you walking around all alone on a night like this.”
Instead of keeping up the silly banter I pulled him down and gave him a kiss. Our blood-covered bodies sort of glided around on each other and I noticed that he was really happy to see me. As I was about seeing him – only I didn`t have any body parts sticking out and giving me away.
Eric`s hands slid under my butt and he lifted me up, his cock making a trail down my stomach to land between my thighs. I parted my legs, intending to take him then and there, all the people around us having disappeared from my mind.
“No,” Eric whispered and then he started carrying me into the forest. When it was evident I was too slippery for him to be able to hold onto me, he put me down and grabbed my hand instead. He pulled me away from the blot, away from everyone and soon we were out of the forest as well. We`d only walked through the outskirts of it and I recognized where he was taking me.
The lake.
I didn`t want to jump into a cold lake. I wanted Eric and I wanted him now.
I stopped and tried to make Eric stop too but his blood-covered hand slid out of mine. He stopped anyway and looked at me. Then he came back and stood in front of me. He bent down and I pursed my lips for the kiss I thought was coming but instead I found myself pulled up on his shoulder – my torso and arms down his back.
I gave his butt a smack. “What are you doing?”
“The first time we had sex, it was about death. I don`t want death on us this time as well.”
Just as I was about to yell at him, to tell him to put me down, I was thrown into the cold lake. My yell turned into a shriek and before I could get out of the lake, Eric was upon me, pulling me back.
He pulled me under the water and I felt his hands running over my body and through my hair. Not because he was caressing me but because he was washing the blood off me. I pushed away from him and came up gasping for air.
“You stupid bas…,” I shouted but Eric stopped me with a kiss.
His hands ran over my body again and this time he was caressing me, but before I could exchange my anger for lust, he was pulling me out of the lake again.
A cold night breeze hit my wet body and my teeth started chattering. I had goosebumps all over and Eric`s body felt cold as well when his arms came around me and I was hugged into his chest.
“Why did you do that, Eric?” I asked.
“I wanted to make sure you wouldn`t ….”
He didn`t say anything more and left me pondering what it was he wanted to make sure I wouldn`t do. His mouth on my neck left me pondering a whole lot of other things as well. And then I stopped pondering altogether. I wasn`t cold anymore.
Slowly we moved to the meadow where we`d enjoyed the sun when I`d been recovering from Amelia`s mushrooms and Eric laid me down. Another breeze tried to cool me down but it was unsuccessful.
Eric came down on top of me and kept kissing my neck. Then he moved down to my breast, his mouth sucking my nipple while his hands were touching anything they could. I wanted one of his big hands, with all those strong fingers, to find its way to a place between my legs where it was sorely wanted but instead Eric`s mouth moved down there.
With my hands in his hair, my fingers making circles on his scalp, Eric kissed and sucked and used his tongue to make all kinds of small and large wonders.
Eric had a tongue of magic, a tongue that could go flat and lick me like a cat but a tongue that also could harden up and put pressure exactly the places I needed it.
An internal humming, like the one during the blot, started and it turned into a cacophony of sounds. No, not sounds. Feelings. Emotions. I inhaled deeply through my nose and suddenly it was like something burst inside me. I went rigid and then little tremors ran through my body.
I may have yelled something or at least groaned out my pleasure but I couldn`t be sure. All I knew was that I`d visited a very special place and that Eric looked cute between my thighs, sporting a large grin.
I was a very recently pleased woman but looking at Eric I knew I wanted more. I pulled at him to lie on top of me but instead he got up on his knees and sat back on his heels. He pulled me up to straddle him, my legs barely on the ground behind him.
He kissed me deeply while sliding into me and our kiss turned into a duet of moaning. Eric`s big hands were on my back and they dragged my body down as he slammed into me.
I found that my legs would be more use behind his back and I drove myself into Eric making the triple forces of his hips, my legs and his hands a tremendous one.
We were hard and fast and frantic and I couldn`t get enough of him.
Just as I was about to come again Eric shifted and my back was on the ground with him grinding himself into me. It pushed me over the top and I felt like I was weightless for a moment.
Then Eric made some noises of his own and with a shudder he landed on top of me.
Thoroughly spent, we lay there panting, Eric on top of me, me enjoying the weight of him. I didn`t want him to move and he seemed to share the sentiment because he stayed there on top of me, inside me, for a very long time.
When he finally pulled away to lie next to me, I moved with him, my head coming to rest on his chest.
We didn’t speak. What could we say? Anything we could say, even claiming this was the best sex we`d ever had – it was the best sex I`d ever had, at least – would just sound silly and ridiculous.
After a while the early birds started chirping and I realized I`d dozed off. Eric was asleep under me and I relaxed and soon I dozed off again, using him as my pillow and bed.
The sun was warm when I woke up again, this time lying on my side in the grass. I could feel Eric`s hand draped over my waist and both my arms were between us, my hands on his chest.
I opened my eyes only to meet his very blue ones.
“Good morning,” he said with a smile.
“Good morning.” My voice was a little hoarse.
“We need to start packing.”
I groaned. I wanted to stay there in the sun. Be close to Eric and possibly have sex with him again.
“We can`t be in that much of a hurry. Sam isn`t leaving until tomorrow.” Sam had been very specific. He didn`t want a ship full of hungover people who would throw up all the way home.
“Sam isn`t joining us. You`re leaving with me. We`re in a hurry, actually. If it hadn`t been for theblot we would have left already.”
“Why the hurry? I thought you said your queen was only preparing for war? Would a day change anything?”
Eric looked at me and I could tell there was something more. Something he wasn`t saying.
“Queen Sophie-Anne does not trust me.”
“What? Why?”
“Several reasons. My family connection to Felipe. That I lost her so many warriors when my boat went down .…”
“And?” I asked, waiting for what was really on his mind.
“And that I didn`t bring you home with me.”
“She doesn`t trust you because I stayed in my village to nurse my brother?” I asked. I couldn`t believe my own ears.
“That was why you stayed in your village?” Eric raised his eyebrow and I wanted to slap him. Of course, I`d stayed in my village because of Jason. He`d just lost his hand. He could have died.
I probably would have slapped Eric if my arms hadn`t been stuck between our two bodies. I pinched his nipples instead.
“Ah,” Eric groaned and I wasn`t sure if he was mocking me or not. “Do that again!”
Then he kissed me. It was a deep kiss, a hot kiss, but I still pulled back.
“You can`t say something like that and then just kiss me, Eric,” I said.
“I can`t?” And then he kissed me again.
Anger seemed to serve as an aphrodisiac for him and I had to struggle to pull back once more.
“Eric!”
He looked at me and then he took a deep breath. “You have to come back with me because my queen will punish me if you don`t,” he said.
“And?” I asked.
“And because you want to come with me,” he grinned. He knew what I wanted him to say.
“And?”
“Because you love me.”
I kicked his leg but hurt my toe in the process. “And?” I groaned in pain.
His grin turned into a warm smile. “And because I want you to come with me.”
I kissed him.
Both Jason and Tara chose to come with me and Eric. I was delighted to see both of them on board the ship. I was frightened too what with Tara never having been in a battle before and Jason having to fight with only one hand.
But they both had something to avenge and I was certainly not going to stand in their way. Sam had been sad to see us leave but it seemed as if he`d also expected it. He was needed back home. There was still some mending to do and he would have to figure out a way to replace the animals Victor had killed and the ones sacrificed in the blot. Sam also had to help the people of Calvin`s village and make sure they were able to defend themselves if they had to.
None of us spoke very much but I noticed how Jason and Tara sometimes touched each other when they thought I wasn`t looking. Had they spent the night of the blot together? I`d been fine with them doing it last night but now I wasn`t so sure. Tara didn`t need to have her heart broken now.
Then I saw something I hadn`t seen in Jason in a long time. If ever. He seemed to care about Tara. Maybe they weren`t lovers. Maybe they were two people sharing a destiny?
I certainly hoped so.
The day was uneventful and when the sun was descending into the ocean I saw Nordby. It was an easy sail into the harbor of Nordby and soon Eric`s longboat lay still and we all jumped onto the beach.
A small group of men met us on the beach. Andre Beardless was one of them. He came forward and nodded at me. Then he looked at Eric.
“I see you finally managed to get your wife to join us? You seem to keep losing her.”
I was about to tell Andre Beardless a few truths about Eric not being my lord and master when I noticed Claude walking towards us with Quinn running next to him.
Instead of listening to Eric`s response to Andre, I started walking towards Claude and little Quinn. Claude gave me a big hug and soon Jason came from behind and joined us.
I enjoyed our little family group hug but pulled back when I saw how Tara stood and looked at us, a bit forlorn. I gave her a nod with my head and she came forward. Claude grabbed Quinn and pulled him up and soon we were in sort of an extended family hug. I liked that even more.
Only Eric was missing from the hug.
A/N:
It seems some of you would have taken Eric, blood and all. I must admit that I would too. But Eric seemed to want to clean up and who could deny him a nice swim in the lake? I hope you enjoyed this chapter.
Loke
I know I`ve written about Loke before but I`ve been to see The Avengers – and so have several of the readers of this story.
Now, I thought The Avengers was an entertaining movie and though I didn`t particularly how Thor was played, I was thoroughly entertained.
But I couldn`t get into the movie until I told myself that the Loke (or Loki, as he`s called in the movie), was the cartoon-Loke and not the one from our mythology. Apparently that has been nagging several of you too so I thought I`d write a bit more about this trickster of the Nordic mythology.
In the Nordic mythology you just can`t think in the terms of good and evil. Odin and Thor have done some pretty despicable things and Loke is not the evil man he`s later been portrayed as. He`s done some evil things, sure, but usually just to trick people. He`s often had to pay great costs for his tricks and the stories about him often end up with him being tortured or – as it happened once – having his mouth sown up. A horrible punishment for a guy who loves to talk.
One time a jotun, one of the giants, demanded the sun, the moon and Frøya as payment for building a fence around Åsgård, the home of the gods. There was a time limit to the fence building and Loke transformed himself into a mare to distract the stallion that carried the materials for the jotun. The jotun was delayed and couldn`t demand any payment.
The strange part of this story was how Loke later gave birth to the child of himself (as a mare) and the jotun`s stallion – the child was Odin`s eight-legged horse Sleipner. Loke isn`t just a proud mother of an animal but has also fathered the Fenris wolf and the Midgård snake.
But, according to the mythology, at Ragnarokk, when the world goes under, Loke will be evil and will break down order and bring chaos back. Loke loves chaos.
Thor`s Hammer
When Christianity came and Christians started wearing their crosses it became more and more common for the believers in the old gods to wear a Thor`s hammer as a symbol of their faith.
Thor`s hammer was one of several treasures made for the gods by the dwarfs, the master craftsmen of the Norse world. The other treasures were, among others, Odin`s spear Gungne, which always hit its target, his ring Draupnir, which dripped with little rings, Frøy`s pig with golden hair and also the amazing ship Skiblander which could sail on both land and water and be put in a small bag when you didn`t need it.
But the hammer was always considered the best treasure. When thrown it would always hit its target and always come back to Thor`s hand.
Thor`s hammer was called Mjølner, which some historians have traced back to the Russian word molnija, which means lightning. Thor was the god of thunder (and thus lightning).