Page 61 of To Tame a Viking Warlord

"I should not have left you without speaking my thoughts clearly," she said. "I was angry. I wanted you to know how it feels to have a decision taken away."

"I know it now."

"The stone did not save you today." She turned his face towards her. "I did. With it."

"Aye. You did."

"I will not carry it alone," she said. "But I will carry it, Torstein. It is mine to carry."

He took her hand, the one with the rose ring on it, and pressed his lips to her knuckles.

"Then I carry it with you," he said.

She leaned into him. He wrapped her in his cloak and his arms, and for a long time neither of them spoke.

"Morag said I would have to endure what comes before," he murmured into her hair.

"And have you?"

"I rode two days not knowing if I would find you alive." His arms tightened. "I think that was enough enduring for any man."

Samira laughed softly against his chest. Then she kissed him, and he kissed her back, and the hidden fire burned low beneath them until morning.

That night they made love in the privacy of the bothy, as quietly as they could. But it was still wild and passionate. They had survived their first earth-shattering fight and this was the wild make-up coupling that came after it.

Samira rode Torstein hard. She straddled him, her palms flat against his chest, and took his hardened length with abandon, and it was the most exquisite feeling. There was nothing between them but skin and an ocean's worth of love. Torstein was strong beneath her. He held her tenderly, his hands gripping her sides as he controlled the momentum, all the while surging up into her with powerful thrusts that buried him deep again and again. Each time he gazed up at her, he looked at her as though she were the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. One hand gripped her side for purchase while the other caressed every part of her skin, his thumb stroking her dark brown areolas, putting enough pressure on her nipple to make her bite her lip and keep from crying out. Every time Torstein lay with Samira it was with awe and wonder, as if he had struck gold. She felt sensual, attractive, and loved, and she bloomed under his heated gaze.

He groaned loudly when she tightened above him and gently caressed him deep. She would never get tired of staring into his deep blue eyes.

Torstein was in Valhalla. Surely he must be, for the Valkyrie riding him so hard was a precious beauty. He groaned and cursed and thrust deep, feeling every part of himself come alive. Being with his wife was unimaginable pleasure, and he had never known the like before. But what bound them was something deep and pure, blessed by the gods. Surely it was.

Torstein felt the urge to protect her, to possess her, and to lay down his life for her, all in equal measure. His one regret was that they had been apart at all. That she had suffered alone, without him. That he had not found her years earlier. He would not squander that gift again.

Losing control, he hauled her onto her side and then hovered above her. He needed to take his woman hard, and he needed to dominate her completely. So he did. He gazed down at her and saw the same passion and pleasure and wonder returned to him in equal measure. His eyes caressed every part of her, and not a single part of her was anything but beautiful to him. He stroked her belly as he thrust within her, knowing that soon his offspring would be nurtured and protected there. She would bear his children, and he would protect her with his life. The thought of breeding and nesting had him impossibly hard. Her moans of pleasure were music to his ears, for he knew his vixen enjoyed him as much as he enjoyed her. The euphoria and possessiveness were overwhelming, so that when he finally came, it was with a muffled roar against her neck. Samira's release broke right alongside his, and she bit his shoulder to smother her scream, and Torstein did not mind one bit.

***

Chapter 24

Saddell Abbey, Kintyre

Saddell Abbey sat in a green hollow above the shore of Kintyre, with the hills of Arran gray across the water. Two days after the glen, Torstein and Samira rode through its gate side by side.

Abbess Murdina met them in the cloister.

"You are later than I hoped," she said. "And earlier than I feared. Come inside."

In her solar, with the door shut and Sister Eithne standing guard beyond it, they told her all of it. Fez. The storm. Thurso and Orkney. Thorfinn's chamber, and the stone that woke on his shelf. Loch Awe, and the blood. The glen.

Murdina listened without interrupting. When they had finished, she looked at Samira for a long time.

"Your mother never wielded it alone," she said. "None of the keepers did. Did no one tell you?"

Samira shook her head.

"The stone draws on whoever holds it. Alone, it drinks from the keeper, and it will drink until there is nothing left." Murdina folded her hands. "But with another hand over hers, one she trusts entirely, it takes nothing at all. That is why the keepers, the guardians, were never meant to walk alone. It was never a cage, child. It was a safeguard."

Torstein had gone very still. "Show me," he said.