Page 108 of The Bewitched Viking

“Have you told him?”

“Of course not! Never would I embarrass him or myself so.”

“Embarrass?” Adam frowned with confusion. “He loves you. You love him. You are going to Britain alone. He is going to the Baltic alone. What is wrong with this picture?”

“Tykir does not love me. Oh, I concede that he has formed a fondness for me. Mayhap that’s the best any woman could hope for with him…but he does not love me. That I would know.”

“Just as he would know, without the telling, that you love him?”

“I don’t want to discuss this any longer with you, Adam. It’s over. Painful as it is, I have resigned myself to the fate God has given me.”

He shrugged hopelessly, then tried a different tack. “Come with me, then.”

Her mouth dropped open in surprise. “With you? To the Arab lands? Why?”

“My lady, how you insult me!”

“Hah! Your conceit is much too great for you to take offense at my refusal of your overblown charms.”

“Was it my charms you thought I was offering?”

She blushed.

“Nay, I just thought you might like to come along as a fellow adventurer. A friend. Think of all the exiting new places and people you would meet. Think about—”

“What? Do my ears play me false?” Tykir asked in a voice reeking with consternation. “What are you up to, Adam, that you would invite the Lady Alinor to accompany you?” Then he turned to Alinor. “And you, what a fickle lady you have become, that you would go from my bed to Adam’s with nary a second thought.”

She and Adam both gasped at Tykir’s misunderstanding of the situation…and at the vehemence of his wounded pride.

“If you are going anywhere with any man afore returning to your homeland, you may as well come with me to the Baltic,” Tykir said and stomped off.

She and Adam exchanged a stunned look at Tykir’s uncalled-for reaction, followed by the less-than-complimentary offer. Not that she was about to refuse. No matter how ungracious the invitation, Alinor was not so lackwitted as to fail to realize she’d been given a reprieve. A temporary reprieve, but a reprieve just the same.

Adam smiled widely and bragged, “I am so good!”

She smiled back and gave her thanks where thanks were due. Certainly not to Adam. Thank you, God.

Alinor was once again alone, momentarily.

Bolthor was on one of Tykir’s ships, helping him rearrange the goods in the six longships he would be taking to the Baltic. These last-minute changes were necessary to accommodate the special Saracen horse, Fierce One, that Anlaf had gifted to Tykir, previously, along with some mares the king wanted him to sell in Hedeby on his way back.

The air was cool, but the sun was warm on her face as she leaned against a narrow tree near the docks. Tykir gave a silent signal to her that they would be a little bit longer and soon was gone from sight on one of the far boats.

Suddenly, she was grabbed from behind. Alinor squirmed and tried to see who it was, but she was being held firmly with one hand clamped over her mouth and another wrapped round her waist from behind. Lifting her off the ground, the person proceeded to edge backwards toward the forest and a number of outbuildings. Her eyes darted this way and that, but no one seemed to be looking her way. She squirmed and flailed, to no avail.

Was it a jest someone was playing on her?

Nay. The only person she could think of who would do that would be Adam, who was gone, or Rurik, who was working alongside Tykir and Bolthor.

Was it King Anlaf’s way of getting back at her? Nay. Alinor knew that Anlaf would enact his revenge in public, not in a clandestine manner.

Her questions were soon answered when she was dragged into an empty woodshed where Egbert and Hebert stood with a half-dozen ruthless-looking men of various nationalities. Mercenaries, she would wager. A few looked to be Vikings, and a sorry lot they were, hard-eyed and scruffy in attire, though Norsemen just the same; probably Viking outlaws.

“Are you two mad?” She pulled out of the grasp of her captor and, storming at Egbert and Hebert, stood in front of some large object lying on the far side of the woodshed. “To come into Norse country…surely you have lost your senses!”

“You ungrateful bitch!” Egbert’s face turned purple with rage, and he raised his hand to strike her across the face…a familiar ploy of his.

“Nay, Egbert,” Hebert cautioned, putting up a hand to halt his brother’s arm. “We can have no visible marks on Alinor if our plan is to work.”