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CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Andor’s mouth demanded, claimed, and yet brushed hers with the softest touches. His arms enveloped her, crushing her to him, pressing her breasts against his hard chest, her nipples hardening and aching sweetly.
She heard a moan born somewhere deep within her rise up. He echoed it and kissed her faster, hungrier. Desire sizzled through her veins and melted her body. Her head spun and her body floated.
More, deeper, these clothes are so restrictive.
Suddenly he broke the kiss, looking towards the woods.
“Did you hear that?” he asked.
“What?” she mumbled, her lips swollen and warm.
“They are coming for us.”
Sobering, she glanced at the woods. Lights moved between the trees, and people hollered. There were so many of them, like sparks from a bonfire, and all her arousal evaporated, fear chilling her.
“We must go,” he said. “Take a sword and sheath from the man there. I’ll see if I can find the priest’s sword.” He gestured halfway down the hillside, where the silhouette of a man lay.
Without waiting for her response, he hurried down the hill. “Wait, Andor!” she called after him, but he didn’t look back.
All right, Cathy, be strong. Why did this journey have to involve looting dead people?
But, thankfully, she didn’t have to do anything too grisly this time, because the sword lay next to the rider in the grass. She found the sheath around the man’s waist and unbuckled it, strapping it around her own hips. Then she took the sword in both hands. They sank from the weight, but she lifted the blade up, her muscles singing.
The voices got louder. She put the sword in the sheath and ran to the horse they’d escaped on, grabbing its reins. She had no idea how to deal with a horse, and she was a little afraid of it, not sure what to expect. Even though she had ridden the same animal with Andor just now, she didn’t know how to talk to it or make it do what she wanted.
It gazed patiently at her, its large dark eyes fringed with long eyelashes. She clicked her tongue as she’d heard other riders do. “Come on, sweetheart,” she said while pulling the reins. And, surprisingly, the horse obeyed. “Good girl.”
Cathy brought it to the crest of the hill and glanced down. Andor was already on the way up.
Behind him, people with torches ran up the hill.
His eyes fell on the sheathed sword, and he nodded in approval. Then he scooped her up in his giant arms and set her on the horse, mounting behind her. “Let us go.”
They flew, Andor’s strong torso against Cathy’s back, and the muscles of the horse bunching under her. She looked back as they were about to descend the hill and finally realized what the white lines through the green grass were—an enormous drawing resembling those made by prehistoric people on cave walls. A giant horse.
* * *
They rode the whole night, and when the horse began tiring, they turned off the road into the woods and continued until they found a stream. Andor let the beast drink and graze while he set about making a fire. Dawn began to break, chasing away the darkness of the night, coloring the trees in dark silver.
When the fire crackled, he sat down and looked at Cathy from behind the flames. It was better there was something between them. The kiss they’d shared had left him aching and tormented. She sat cross-legged and stretched her hands to the fire, rubbing them together then breathing warm air on them. He wished he could be the one to warm her.
“Andor—” she said.
“If you say thank you for saving your life, I will bend you over my knee,” he said.
She laughed a little. “Thank you for saving my life.”
He groaned and smiled, shaking his head. If he touched her now, he would not be able to resist continuing what they had started, right here, in these icy woods. “You are lucky you have a sword now. Maybe Völundr the smith did help us. We have a horse. We have weapons. We stand a better chance of reaching Jorvik.”
Cathy glanced down at the sheathed sword on her waist. “Is it hard? Sword-fighting?”
Andor’s stomach growled. He still had the grilled hare legs from yesterday, he just needed to warm them up on the fire and they would do nicely for breakfast. He pierced them with a long stick and put them over the fire.
“Sword-fighting is a skill. Like your yoga. It is hard in the beginning and gets easier with practice. Why?”
She bit her lower lip. “Can you teach me?”
